A/N: Okay had a bit of a crisis as reviews weren't showing up, but there back now and I'm ready to continue this story. Nearly at 200 reviews, if I actually get to 200 reviews it will make my day indeed. (I'm a review whore, but I love the fact that most of you guys are giving me long, detailed reviews rather than just the token "bubblegum" reviews, I can't thank you all enough!)

apathy- Thanks for your words, the irony behind last chapter was so Luke and Jane could see that having sex at the wrong time lead to grave consequences. I can imagine Carver's actions with Tavia were down to two reasons A) To relive the stress of being leader and B) To provide him with his "next generation" that he spoke so dearly of. But it also shows his growing insanity and desperate struggle for power. Hence this creates a poor leader. I will expand on this as the chapters go on.

Martial Arts Master- Yep Eurgh indeed. and you can PM me a long review, hell I'm always up for discussing these topics.

NN009- Now a psycho who can't keep it in his pants.

devilshomie- I agree with you on the shock factor on episodes 3 and 4, while episode 3 had some badass moments however. Episode 4's shocks and deaths didn't rouse any reaction in me at all. Other than make me feel down and not really care about what came next. However I'm glad you like Jane in this story (she was a challenge to write, as I didn't want to make her too cold, but not too out of character)

obsessed naruhina fangirl- Thanks your review and I agree with the points you made, and I can imagine Clementine signing the "That's So Raven" song "It's the future I can see..."

Anyway discussion time. If you could choose one Cannon character to return who would it be? (other than Christa as she would be an obvious choice or the cancer survivors who I reckon are dead at this point) You can choose from Molly, Lilly, Justin, Nate, Leland etc... and any others I missed out.

AquaDestinysEmbrace- Thank you and still loving your story. as for the badly shaven man I decided not to give him a name as of yet. As it shows how even the faceless, nameless guards are starting to rise against Carver.

Rebloxic- Thanks and about Arvo. He feels like a Russian Ben to me. I hated his guts until we saw that he wanted to stop the shoot-out when they had a baby. All in all an interesting character and I hope he isn't instantly killed off at the start of episode 5. But then again Telltale wasted Nick and Sarah, so they'll probably waste Arvo too...

BlackGalaxyStars- Thanks! I enjoy writing the Nick/Sarah scenes and I'm glad you enjoy them.

and finally K. Lynn Perks thank you for your reviews and continued support!

"You got your things?"

"Yeah, you keep asking me that, I can handle myself"

"I'm just checking Sarah"

Nick and Sarah continued to slowly walk along the small footpath that cut through the dense vegetation and large pine trees that littered the rural north Carolinian forest. By gazing at a rusted car park licence, Nick had concluded that they were indeed in North Carolina and not Tennessee where Howard's Hardware was located.

"Were a state away!" Sarah exclaimed in a panic when Nick told her the news.

"The hardware store's right by the state border. Trust me, were miles away at most" he reassured her. As Sarah calmed down slightly, for a second thinking they would have to walk thousands of miles, just because they were now in a different state. However the illusion of states soon faded, there were no real borders anymore. Everywhere they went, the dead roamed the land.

"You know we've been all around? When we got to the ski lodge we were in Virginia" Nick informed Sarah who felt like her eyes had been opened for the first time.

"Really? How far did we walk?" She asked as Nick shook his head "I have no idea... I wasn't really..." he paused as memories of Pete's death came flooding back, with a sigh he continued "I wasn't really paying attention, but I remember that map Luke had, showing that were heading towards the Blue ridge mountains in Virginia, which is just north of us" He said as he hopped over a small log, he helped Sarah over the moss covered thing, as they continued onwards.

"I never knew we travelled that far. That's crazy" Sarah told him as she looked ahead into the dense shrubs of green and yellowing vegetation.

Nick grunted in reply as Sarah threw the next question at him.

"So... if were in North Carolina now... How do we know which way were going?" she asked of him.

"It's easy, we follow the river back upstream, I can tell the general direction back. We're just staying in the woods for now to avoid being out in the open. You... understand that?" he asked of her, as she nodded, but as she did, her head slowly stopped shaking as she glared up at Nick.

"What do you mean by, Do You understand that?" she inquired placing an emphasises on the word "You" as Nick's eyes rested on anywhere other than her as he awkwardly muttered... "Well... you know..." he began unable to find the words.

"I know what?" she asked again, growing annoyed. She thought Nick had increased respect for her, but for now he clearly had an issue.

"Well... Look Sarah" he began his voice straight as he blurted out the harsh truth "For a girl that doesn't even know which state she's in, when the rest of the group do. Look... Carlos sheltered you too much and it's made you a little... unaware of things around you, and... delicate" he finished lamely, as Sarah's face crumpled in rage.

"Are you saying I'm just some dumb kid? After everything we've been through, even though I've learnt to shoot walkers!?" she whined at him, as he felt his temper flare.

"I'm not saying that! I'm saying, regardless of what you've done, you still need protecting Sarah!" He snapped.

"I didn't ask my dad not to tell me anything!" She shouted in rage.

"Well I didn't see you doing anything about it!" He snapped back, only when Sarah flinched and froze on the spot, did Nick realise that he had gone too far. He turned back and felt his anger leave his system almost instantly, as a familiar feeling of guilt entered his system.

"I... didn't mean that" he told her weakly after a minute or two of silence.

"I... I wanted Clementine to t-teach me to shoot... but y-you're right, I should have..." Sarah began as she began to tear up as Nick bent down (on his good knee)

"No, don't say that Sarah. I was just being a big, angry, Idiot like always. Okay? Sarah?" he begged of her to respond,hoping his words hadn't caused to much damage. In all truth his shoulder and (despite Sarah doing a great job patching it up) his knee, were still aching, this constant pain, added to the freezing gales that funnelled through the brown stems of the pine trees...this led to him being very grumpy that day.

Yet his outburst at Sarah was still uncalled for. Yet Sarah could see, by the longing look of regret in his deep blue iris', that he truly regretted what he said.

"It's okay, I know it's tough out here. It makes people act different" she told him as he smiled and stood back up.

"Thanks, for understanding. But I still shouldn't have said that too you. I know you're trying your best" he reassured her as they continued to move through the woods, as Sarah trailed after the tall man. She had a dozen more questions she wanted to ask him, but feared he could snap if she kept on probing him and decided to leave him to his thoughts for a little while, so he could calm down.

They travelled on in silence, Sarah carrying the heavy bag of meds in her right hand, as she felt the increasingly dense vegetation brush across her trousers. Eventually the footpath became a swarm of nettles. Usually Sarah would have screamed in fear for her father,in fear of being stung by these nettles. However she was still in a daze about the horrors she had come across. Henceforth she trampled on the plants without really thinking about it. At the end of the day, plants were plants.

They weren't walkers, or bandits.

As they proceeded onwards Sarah couldn't help but think about Nick's words. As much as he regretted them, she knew now (with a final certainty) that she had been too sheltered. She knew her dad never told her anything, but she didn't know the world was this bad, filled with death and horrors around every corner as she slowly but surely fought through every horror thrown her way.

It wasn't easy, she still cried a lot.

But she was advancing.

In front of her Nick was thinking about the lack of weapons they had. He had left his rifle back at the trailer park and between them, he and Sarah had two empty guns. He still had his glass shard (which was slowly cracking). Their food and canteen's were running low and they had used the last of their meds on his knee. Although they had a bag full of meds, Nick and Sarah agreed not to touch them (unless the situation was urgent) as they needed these meds to get back into the hardware store.

If Carver abided by his promise.

Nick sighed, before he saw an opening in the nearby trees, curious he jogged forward slightly as his eyes rested upon a wrecked camp site.

"Reckon there's anybody around?" Sarah asked coming up next to him, as she squinted at the torn red tent in caution. Expecting some maniac to come crashing out of it. After three uneventful seconds she concluded that this wasn't going to happen.

"No, seems pretty empty to me. Let's have a look around and see what we can find" Nick said, as he proceeded towards the lone vehicle on the site. Peering inside the dusty blue thing, his hands fumbled inside a cardboard box, containing nothing but toys. He picked up one of a green woman and twirled it in his fingers.

"Hey Sarah, there's a load of toys here!" Nick shouted to her, as the teenager approached, Nick handed her the action figure of the green woman, as she seemingly gazed at in boredom.

"I'm not that young Nick and this is missing an arm" she said dropping it back into the box, with a disappointed clutter.

"Well, I'll see if I can find a book then" Nick told her, as Sarah's face lit up. He knew she liked to read.

As he explored the depths of the small vehicle, that was slowly being buried in vegetation. Sarah nervously crept into the torn red tent, the whole thing was bare, no sleeping bags, no toys, nothing... just torn strands of crimson fabric still standing on crudely crushed and bent metal poles. Hardly a tent at all.

"The tent's empty!" She shouted to inform Nick, who simply instructed back "Try looking somewhere else!"

Sarah took a quick look in a bin in the middle of the camp but found nothing. She wondered over to a small tree, to find the corpse of a man tied to it. A clear indent in his head. No doubt this man had turned and somebody had dealt with him. Rather than scream, Sarah could only stare at the corpse, the smell was horrible but she found herself able to cope with the sight of dead bodies. She was willing herself to keep looking at it, to prove to herself she was tough. That she could handle it. That she would not flinch as the flies that buzzed around his body.

As Sarah did that, Nick pulled out of the small vehicle. His quest at finding something was unsuccessful, he turned to face the ground to find a few specks of dried blood on the floor. Slightly curious he followed the blood trail and peered over a small branch.

And he saw it.

"Hey Sarah, come over here!" he exclaimed, as the teenager tore her gaze from the man's body and slowly walked towards Nick.

"There's just some dead guy back at there, no supplies" she informed him, yet Nick didn't seem to hear her.

"You know how Clementine said she was bitten by a dog?" Nick asked, his eyes trained directly ahead of him.

Sarah nodded.

"Well I think I just found it"

Sarah followed his gaze, to find the carcass of a skinny dog, that lay impaled on some tent spikes. Her eyes followed the trail of blood leading to the spot and there was no doubt that somebody had been attacked by this dog and it only added up that this one person could indeed be Clementine.

"That was cute dog" was all Sarah could say. Nick took note of the "was", because now it was decomposing lump, with a black swarm of flies feasting on his flesh. Covering his nose Nick moved towards the dog.

"What are you doing?" Sarah asked in confusion.

"I want evidence that we were here, think of it as a souvenir" he stated as he reached forward and slowly but surely removed the dog's collar from it's rotting neck. Holding the damp collar up, Sarah nearly retched at the smell.

"Eurgh, Gross" she whimpered.

"It was called Sam apparently, we'll show this to Clem when we get back. See if it's the same dog" Nick commented, wiping the grime from the collar on his trousers, he pocketed it to Sarah's horror. Nick gazed at Sarah to see her shooting him this wide eyed look.

"What?" he finally asked with a light smile.

"You're... going to take that with you? Really?" she inquired.

"Yeah"

Sarah continued to gaze at him in a mild horror, before she finally uttered "You're weird"

"I know" he replied lightly.

They couldn't help but smile at each other after this, as Sarah also muttered "I guess were both weird"

However (as always when things got too light) a rugged shout in the distance ruined this happy moment, people were approaching and they were approaching fast.

"Shit! Get down!" he hissed, dragging himself and Sarah into a bush, ignoring the twigs that scratched at his face. He and Sarah lay flat on their bellies just as they emerged from the treeline.

"POMOGITE!" A man screamed in fear as he was thrown to the floor roughly, he barely had any time to get back up before more figures emerged from the woods.

A lot more figures, Nick watched open mouthed as 30 to 40 odd people surrounded the man on the floor. Nick watched as other people were thrown to the floor next to him, all whimpering words in fear and judging by their accents...

"Their part of the Russian group!" Sarah whispered.

Through the legs of the others, Nick counted exactly five of the Russians whimpering on the floor, in the face of this larger, more intimidating group. Who formed a cult like circle around the five terrified souls, Nick knew there were more of the Russian group then this, so whoever these people were. It looked like they had been "caught".

Nick could only see the backs of these masses, but one stepped forward, allowing Nick and Sarah a quick glimpse of his face. Nick had to use his hand to cover Sarah's horrified gasp.

As a walker spoke.

"Do you accept that God has filled the world with dead in order to punish us for our sins?" the walker asked of the terrified Russians.

"My vas ne ponimayu!" My vas ne ponimayu!" a woman sobbed at them.

"There is the problem of the language barrier sir" another walker said from beside him.

"Alas, I doubt they would accept the faith anyway"

Nick had to blink. He had to pinch himself, he had was tempted to cut himself. To see if the pain was real. To see if this was real. Walkers were speaking. Walkers were speaking. "Walkers were speaking" no matter how many times he tried to repeat that in his head, it didn't familiarise with him. Walkers were moving corpses, who grunted and moaned and wondered aimlessly. They didn't suddenly start talking and start forming crazy religious cults... Nick tried peering at them closer to gain an answer...

"We have to kill those who don't accept the faith sir" another walker said. Nick watched the walkers mouth and discovered it was a light peachy shade that contrasted with the decomposing black of his face. In fact the walkers eyes that had just spoken were green and not the usually soulless white that walkers possessed. They all stood straight and rigid, that was not a walker's posture. In fact the closer he looked, the more horrified he became.

"Their not walkers Sarah" he whispered to the terrified girl, removing his palm from her mouth, she tried to control her fast breathing as she barely managed to ask through her growing panic...

"Then what are they?"

Nick gulped. Saying this wasn't going to make it any easier on her. But he would rather she see the truth. Than see the illusion that walkers were indeed talking.

"Their people. People who are wearing body bags of walkers" his statement sounded strange to say. But now he could clearly see where the crudely cut holes in the skin, that had been craved out with jagged knives.

"Then... these people are wearing walker skins?"

Nick nodded, almost wishing it was just walkers now that were speaking. When Sarah managed to gasp to as of "Why?" they were doing this, he could only come up with one logical answer.

"I think... it's like Jane's walker guts idea. But these guys have taken it to the next level" he uttered.

Sarah was hyperventilating once again, as she clung to him. Nick had to hold onto her tight and cover her mouth again, trying hard to be as silent as possible. They were well hidden under these piles of thick leaves, but Nick was wary that even if he breathed too loud, this "herd" would be upon him.

"They probably think we're crazy. Like the last people we dealt with" A female walker... well "Wannabe Walker" as Nick nicknamed them said.

"They weren't the only ones" Nick thought to himself.

"Then let's finish this and head back to camp" the man with the deep voice concluded, despite the fact they were wearing walkers skins. They must have stored guns somewhere, as a dozen of them trained their guns on the 5 Russians and before Nick could even brace himself, they opened fire.

The Russians died screaming, one woman tried to get up and run, but she was torn to pieces in a mere second. droplets of her blood found their way onto Nick's face. Nick jolted slightly when they were shot and Sarah may as well have been digging into his guts, as her nails were digging that far into his skin, never the less she managed to remain quiet.

The Russians lay dead on the ground.

"Full of holes" Uncle Pete's words came back to haunt Nick. As his mind suddenly flashed back to the scene at the river, he always assumed that was Carver's group that had shot all those people. But seeing this... he now knew the real culprits.

Why had they feared Carver so much? Carver was a single man with 40 people at his disposable. A psychopath yes, but one who had a well defended store.

These people were 40 psychopaths were who dressing as walkers and murdering anyone who refused to join them. From what they had said about "getting back to camp" it seemed like they were many more of them. William Carver suddenly went from the biggest fish in the pond. To a plankton in the ocean.

"Let's get going, business is done here. They would have refused our path anyway" the man with the deep voice said as the group of cultists followed after him, as they silently dispersed into the dark woods. Nick didn't get up from his hiding spot, wary that more of them were watching. But finally when he was certain every single was still and nothing was watching, he and Sarah slowly got to their (shaky) feet.

"Do you reckon they'll come back?" Sarah asked, her lip quivering.

"Maybe, we better get moving" Nick told her, wiping the woman's blood from his face, trying hard not to look down at the bodies at his feet he proceeded to walk in the opposite direction that the cult had come from.

"I thought the bandits were scary and crazy... but those people..." Sarah began, checking over her shoulder as she followed Nick, her meds still locked in her palm, Nick was amazed she had managed to sneak them into the bush as well, but these meds were their lifeline as of now. Considering they were low on weapons.

Then again with that group... weapons would be useless anyhow.

"They are absolutely mother-fucking crazy, if we see them again, don't look back Sarah. Even if I get caught, just keep running" he chillingly instructed her. Although it was hard, she managed to nod as the woods grew more dark and dense around them.

Nick was busy thinking about all the threats in the death trap of this forest. They had the russians who were typical bandit group, along with trailer park bandits. However these 2 bandit groups were now (most likely) being hunted down by this larger, crazier cult of people. In a nutshell the woods were not a safe place at all.

When he got back to the hardware store, he would convince the others that maybe escaping from the place again, wasn't a good idea.

It was only then did he realize that he knew these woods, he had walked here several times. He gasped as Sarah looked up.

"What now?" she asked.

"I know where we are, were by the cabin" Nick told her, as this brought a mixed response from her, it would bring back good and bad memories to return to the cabin. Yet she hoped it was intact, during the rush to leave the cabin last time, she had left a lot of things behind.

"Then let's get there, at least we'd have somewhere to sleep tonight" she mused, as she eagerly followed Nick towards a place she could consider home.

They carried on, as evening descended. Looking for the beacon that was the cabin, they needed a place of shelter.

In this cold world.

The herd took an awfully long time to disperse from around the hardware store, so much so by the time the last walker had vanished back into the tree-line it was already late into the evening.

"Consider yourself lucky" Carver spat at them through the shutter, as he told them that they would have the rest of the day off. The pen gave a collective sigh of relief at this news. The work had been exhausting and add that to the close call today, the pen dwellers simply lay back and tried to earn a few extra hours of sleep.

Clementine wasn't.

Stephanie had managed to smuggle a few markers and pieces of paper into the pen, namely for Clementine to draw on. But Eddie and Wyatt had started drawing hideous self portraits of themselves to pass the time. However Clementine managed to retain a few blank pages and was finishing her sketch when Bonnie walked over.

"Aw... that's adorable sweetie" she told Clementine as she finished the drawing.

"Do you reckon he'll like it?" She asked of Bonnie, looking up to where Luke was lying, (gazing absently) to the bunk above him.

"He'll love it, and Jane's got that the other thing. I think this will really help him" She, (along with Bonnie, Jane and Stephanie) had managed to prepare a pleasant surprise for Luke. In the scarp-heap Stephanie had managed to smuggle something else other than paper and markers too the group.

However before Clementine could go over to the group, a hiss from the shutter stopped her, as she turned to face it "Hey... little girl... go get Vince" the young man Russell hissed to her. Instantly she ran over to where Vince was sitting by Kenny around the fire.

"Vince" she said pointing at the shutter. Vince's eyes narrowed before he spotted Russell. He quickly jogged over to the shutter as Kenny followed him. Everyone else was sitting around the fire, awaiting the news. Russell turned away and headed back into the store, as Vince and Kenny returned to their seats.

"Well?" Sarita asked.

"He says some of the guards will distract Carver. He'll come and bust us out of the pen and we'll run to armoury and grab our weapons! and bam! It's an uprising!" Kenny told them all, with a excited glee behind his words.

"Tonight?" Rebecca asked, her jaw dropping.

"Yep, tonight" Vince confirmed.

"This is too risky, Carver's guards will gun us down" Rebecca informed them.

"We either go out with a blaze of glory, or sit here dying like dogs and I think I know what I'd prefer" Kenny said, as the rest of the group nodded in agreement. Clementine knew this would be dangerous and she expected that at least somebody would die. But there was the chance this rebellion would succeed, although Carver still had a dozen heavily armed guards. The guards distracting Carver would die without a shadow of a doubt.

And then... it would be an open gunfight.

She didn't like this. She didn't know if tonight was the night.

She had a bad feeling about this.