Episode Two: Cry For Help

Chapter Seven: By Your Side

Previously on The Walking Dead: After Clementine and the group finally made it to Savannah, they found their path blocked by a herd of walkers. But a mystery savior rang a nearby bell tower, drawing the walkers away and clearing the path. After arriving at The Marsh House, Lilly led Clementine, Christa, Omid, Johnny and Alex through the hotel, where they soon encountered the reanimated corpse of Paul, an old friend of Alex's. Up on the roof, Molly and Todd are struggling to deal with Ryan, who has been bitten and is fading fast. Are the two prepared to do what they need to before Clem and her friends arrive? If not, it could mean tragic consequences for the group!

The walker's head burst in a bloody explosion of crimson, spraying waves of red across the old grey walls and staining the carpet indefinitely. For a good few seconds, the headless walker remained stood upright, balancing on both feet. It eventually fell backwards, landing with a thump that made Clementine jump and finally open her eyes. She was breathing heavily as she checked the walker was lying still before lowering her pistol. The gun was still smoking from the shot and Clementine's ears were still ringing. She didn't hear Lilly's question, so when she put a hand on Clem's shoulder, the girl jumped.

"It's okay," Lilly reassured Clementine. "You did good," She told her, smiling.

"Yeah, you did," Christa agreed, and Omid nodded in agreement too. Though the two still weren't completely for the idea of Clementine carrying around her own firearm, she had proved that she was capable of using it, and Lee would have been happy about that.

As the rest of the group carried on through the hallway, Johnny remained by Alex's side, who was knelt beside his dead friend. Alex looked ready to heave, but he didn't even flinch as he took Paul's cold, dead, bloody hand and held it in his own, which worried Johnny.

"He was the nicest guy, Johnny," Alex said about his late friend. "He never hurt anybody. He deserved better than this," Alex explained, tears welling in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Alex," was all Johnny could think to say, clichéd as it was. "I'm sure they would have buried him if they'd gotten the chance but…"

"…Walkers?"

"Yeah… Horrible." Johnny had tried to comfort his friend, but he had only made Alex worry about the safety of Todd and the others. Had they made it to the roof okay? Had the walkers gotten to them first? Johnny tried to quell those thoughts as he lifted his friend by the arm back on his feet. Before the two carried on, Alex put a hand against Johnny's chest.

"Don't ever let that happen to me, man." Alex looked ready to cry now. He didn't want to even think about it, but he had to let Johnny know this. "I mean… I ever got myself bitten? Please, just end it. Just shoot me. Don't let me live like that…" Alex could barely finish his sentence as he began to cry. Johnny held him tight in his arms, shushing him.
"Jesus, Alex. Don't say that. Don't even think that, man." He stared at the dead walker over Alex's shoulder. "I'll never let anything like that happen to you. Not ever."

Omid and Christa were starting to fall behind Lilly and Clementine as they made their way down the hallway to the stairwell at the end of the hall. The Marsh House was like a maze, sending its visitors in zigzags until they were well and truly lost. They were just lucky that this maze was mostly walker-free. Mostly. Christa watched as Clementine pointed her gun in different directions playfully, pretending to shoot it around corners, from behind desert trolleys and through the heads of already dead walkers; the mere sight of which alarmed Omid. The walkers may have been dead, but the meaning of the word "dead" had been loosened in recent months.

"You okay with that?" Omid asked, noticing Christa was watching Lilly and Clem together.

"Of course," Christa claimed. "She needs to learn how to defend herself." But she hadn't convinced either of them. Not Omid or herself. He could tell she was still worried about Clem, but it didn't bother him. After all, so was he.

"I'm talking about Clem spending so much time with Lilly," Omid explained. "I mean, how much do we really know about her?" Nothing, Omid thought, making himself panic.

"Not that much," Christa admitted. "But she can certainly handle herself. We need someone like her, and so does Clem. So try not to scare her off," Christa joked.

"Hey!" Omid eventually learned to laugh at the joke, but he still went on. "I don't know, it's just- I thought I was her favourite."

"Oh, so you're jealous…" Christa said, finally understanding Omid's problem.

"No, it's not that," Omid excused himself. "It's just that Lee trusted us to take care of Clementine, not her."

"Well, maybe she can teach Clementine things we can't. Who knows? Maybe she reminds her of Lee."

"Maybe," Omid considered the idea as he watched Lilly and Clem in the distance. Pointing towards something excitedly, he realised Clementine had found the door to the stairwell that would hopefully lead them to the roof. He was about to run and catch up to them when he saw something gleam in the corner of his eye. To his right stood a desert trolley. The trolley was almost entirely empty besides a bucket of ice on top, inside of which, stashed away was an unopened, cold bottle of bourbon. Through the ginger glass, Omid could feel the liquid staring back at him. He looked back and forth. Noticing Christa had gone moved one, Omid grabbed the cool bottle from the bucket, pulled off the bottle's top and took a quick swig of the whiskey, wiping his mouth afterwards as the liquid burned away at his insides like dragon's breath.

"Omid, look at this!" The voice form behind him made Omid gasp, and he stashed the bottle away beneath his jacket as he turned to see Johnny, looking mighty pleased with himself. In his hands, Johnny held a pair of dusty crutches. He blew the dust from the crutches; they were in surprisingly good condition. "I don't know what Donald will be more happy about," Johnny said. "This pair of crutches I just found, or that bottle of bourbon you just hid away in your jacket." Johnny winked at Omid before testing out the crutches, hopping to the end of the hallway.

Clementine found herself leading the group up the final set of stairs, Lilly beside her with her rifle ready. The Marsh House only seemed to get colder as they climbed, but they'd managed to steer clear of walkers through most of their journey to the roof. Now, a large metal door stood before Clementine, above it hung a beaming green light with the word: EXIT shining in bold white writing. Clementine put out her hand to push the door open, but Lilly's voice stopped her in her tracks. "Stop," Lilly said with a whisper. She moved passed Clementine, pressing an ear against the metal door. Omid, Christa, Johnny an Alex had now caught up to Lilly and Clem, the eager couple who had marched ahead to find the roof.

"Hear any walkers?" Omid asked, still whispering.

"No," Lilly said. "I hear voices. So unless the walkers have learned to speak English, I think we've found your friends," she declared, looking at Clementine.

Lilly pushed the metal door wide open. The rusty old door creaked as it revealed the rooftop and its inhabitants. Clementine saw Molly first, her thumb was on the walkie-talkie and she was about to speak into it when she saw Clementine in the doorway. "MOLLY!" Clementine shouted. The two looked at each other in disbelief, and Clementine eventually ran to Molly, wrapping her arms around her waist when she got to her. "Hey there, kiddo," Molly chuckled as she embraced Clem. The others piled out of the doorway and explored the rooftop. Alex soon spotted Todd and Ryan and dragged Johnny with him to meet his friends.

Alex first spotted Todd knelt beside another familiar looking boy who sat back against a pipe poking out of the roof. He grabbed Johnny's hand and dragged him to the boys. As he got closer, he recognised Ryan, though the boy had turned a ghastly shade of pale, and blood was seeping from his mouth. "Oh. My. God," Todd said, recognising Johnny and Alex. "I can't believe it's you!" He stood up to give Alex a brotherly hug and gave Johnny a friendly nod.

"No more than I can believe it," Alex told him as he finally let him go. Todd could tell something was bothering him. "Man, what the hell happened here?"

Todd didn't know where to begin. "We came looking for supplies – food, water, anything – but we had a run in with some walkers," He looked down, trying to figure out how to word the worst news best. "We lost Paul," he eventually forced himself to say. "And Ryan was bitten." Todd watched Alex put a hand over his mouth when he saw the state of Ryan.

"Fuck. Man, I'm sorry," Alex said quietly, things were only getting worse. "How long…?" Todd knew what he was trying to say, but he didn't even want to think about it. A part of him thought maybe with the right care, Ryan wouldn't turn. But it was inevitable. And Todd knew it.

"I don't know," Todd admitted. "I just don't know…"

"You have no idea how good it is to see you guys again," Molly said as she shook the hands of Omid and Christa. "Things really went to hell here in Savannah after you guys left. This city belongs to the walkers now." Molly sighed as she looked across the city, where swarms of undead plagued the streets. "So, I'm assuming the whole boat plan didn't exactly work out?" Molly asked the two of them almost sarcastically.

"You could say that," Christa replied with regret. "Vernon and his people stole our boat and left us to die when the city was overtaken by the walkers."

"The cancer survivors?" Molly sounded flabbergasted. Christa was still trying to get her head around how exactly that had happened. "You serious?"

"Yeah..." Christa held Omid's hand. "Things only got worse after that. Lee was bitten, and we lost Kenny and Ben." She looked at the cracks in the ground beneath her as Molly took it all in.

"Shit…" Molly was stunned. She had so many questions, and yet she didn't know where to begin. "Lee? Is he… Y'know?" Molly made a gesture when she saw that Clementine wasn't looking, slashing her hand against her neck to ask if Lee hadn't made it out alive.

"Yeah… He's gone," Christa confirmed. She hadn't realised how much the group had lost until she'd had to list everyone that had been killed in Savannah.

Molly thought back to her first run-in with Lee, Kenny and Clementine. She had almost left the three of them for dead. Going back for them may have been the best decision she'd made since this nightmare began. She went through Christa's story in her head. How Lee had been bitten, and how that hadn't stopped him from rescuing Clementine. How Kenny had died protecting the group, though none of the group had actually seen his body. Molly was about to ask if there was any chance the old man might have made it out of Savannah alive when another woman approached her, with Clementine by her side. For a moment, Molly thought the woman might have been Clementine's mother, but Christa then introduced the woman called Lilly.

"Hey, good to meet-" Molly was about introduce herself when she saw past Lilly's shoulder, and chocked up at the sight of half a dozen walkers emerging from the darkness beyond the open doorway. "Shit…" Molly whispered to herself. "CLOSE THAT DOOR!" She cried out to the entire group, giving Lilly a chance to make some good first impressions.

Lilly was on the door like lightning, slamming it shut in the face of the first walker and earning a loud CRUNCH sound as a result of the metal smashing the walker's jaw. Lilly pressed her back against the door, keeping the horde of zombies at bay. "You better find a way of this roof quick!" She announced to no one in particular.

"Follow me! Everyone, follow me!" Molly shouted to the group. Everyone was on their feet now. Omid pulled Clementine close to him and Christa, and Johnny joined them. Molly counted the heads before her, and realised they were missing some people.

"Alex!" Johnny cried out. He spotted him knelt down beside Todd in front of Ryan, who still sat back against the pipe. He saw Todd put an arm around Alex, who was crying now. Then it finally registered with Johnny: Ryan was no longer moving. Johnny watched as Alex closed Ryan's eyes for him, and tried to wipe his own tears away. It began to rain. Another storm was on its way to The Marsh House.

The others circled in around Ryan. Molly began to tear up, but stayed strong for Clementine, who held her hand tight. Lilly remained by the door. The walker's weren't giving up anytime soon, still wrestling with the weight of the metal door and slamming themselves against it in a furious rampage. The group bowed their heads, though few of them had even spoken to Ryan nor even known he had been bitten. Alex kept his hand on his cheek, wiping away the raindrops. "He's gone," Alex finally croaked. That was when Johnny's heart raced as a realisation suddenly sank in him.

"ALEX!" Johnny screamed in time for Alex to turn to him. He and Johnny met eyes one last time before the monster that once was Ryan Cross leapt forward to sink his teeth in Alex's neck. Alex squealed as Ryan's sharp molars, now dripping red with Alex's blood, bit deep into his throat. When Ryan pulled away, he tore a long string of flesh from Alex's open neck and continued to chew on it as the group watched in awe. The shot that followed took Johnny by surprise. The bullet zipped through Ryan's skull, making a CLANG noise as it hit the pipe behind him. The zombie slumped to the group, lifeless. But Alex still lay in Ryan's lap, his neck bleeding out from the violent, brutal bite. Johnny turned to see, to his surprise, Omid with his pistol still raised, breathing heavily. Like everyone, he was struggling to comprehend what had happened in the last sixty seconds. Johnny got on his knees before Alex, holding his head so that he could look at Alex again. He was already going pale, blood dripping from his open mouth.

"Remember what I said, Johnny," Alex whispered. "Please, don't let me become one of them. Don't… let me… h- hurt anyone…" He managed between deep breaths.

Johnny understood immediately. He took his pistol from his trousers and pressed the muzzle against Alex's forehead. "I love you, Alex," he let his boyfriend know before squeezing the trigger. The shot was deafening. It took Johnny's breath away. When he opened his eyes, Johnny threw the gun out of his hands and held Alex close to him. His stiff, lifeless body felt cold against his, but Johnny blamed the rain. "It'll be okay," he whispered in Alex's ear, as though he could still hear him.

"We have to go," Molly told the group with regret. They followed her across the rooftop, leaving Johnny and Alex huddled in the rain as the storm slowly began to pass.

Next time on The Walking Dead: After losing Alex and being trapped on the roof by walkers, Clementine and the group must find another means of escape whilst avoiding the walkers and staying alive before Coach and the others leave in the RV! But when Tom suggests they leave the others behind, will Coach step up and refuse to abandon his friends? And how will Johnny cope with the loss of Alex? Find out, as group members clash and fates are decided in the final chapter of Episode Two of The Walking Dead.

The final chapter in Episode Two is uploaded and ready to be published! So, if you want to see it this week, leave some reviews, and it'll be up before you know it! PLUS, Part Two of Tales of Crawford is also ready to be published. So... REVIEWS! REVIEWS! REVIEWS! ;)

-George