AN: As per usual, more shout outs!
This one's for Oreo Anarchy – she made the awesome, awesome, AWESOME cover art for this story and You're the Salvation, and I've been gushing over them ever since haha! It's just such a cool feeling to know that people are as into this story as much as I am! And besides her artistic talent, you should definitely go check out her story, "There's Still Hope". It's very well-written and has an older, more interesting cast this time around, so go check it out! Do it nooooowwwww!
And this is for Aqua Destiny's Embrace! I personally want to thank you for two very awesome OCs, even though most of us want to tear Joshua apart at this point XD She's got a ton of fics on her profile, and her most popular one is likely "Bad Things Will Always Happen", which I think left off with the group split up but heading towards Wellington – correct me if I'm wrong :3 But yeah, she's quite good at handling the OCs, so definitely give that story a whirl!
Jane's POV
"…oh shit," I remark sorrowfully as I gaze at the scene. It's definitely not looking too good over there, but it's still the right thing for her to do, isn't it? "Lilly, check it out. Should we… you know, intervene?"
Sitting over by a fallen log is Clementine and a very saddened Ellie, no doubt having just been told about her deceased parent. God, that must feel like shit at her tender age… I can't even imagine what she must be going through right now. Does she feel the same way that I did when I had lost Jaime so long ago? No, I doubt that it's the same kind of loss. Even though it was an incredibly difficult pill for me to swallow, and it took me quite a long time to even consider letting people in again, at least I actually knew that Jaime was dead. To have it just told to you like that without any real rhyme or reason would be terribly traumatic.
Putting her hands in her pockets and sighing as she leans up against the front door of the pickup truck, Lilly shrugs her shoulders as we stand and wait out in the middle of nowhere. It's been a day since James relayed the emergency message to us from the rest of our group; a day of being on the road and trying to get to wherever they are right now. James said Ranger's Grove, but their communication has gone quiet ever since he talked to them. From what Kelly was describing, however, it sounds as though they weren't yet in any immediate danger, so take that for what you will.
"It'd probably be a good idea for Clem to handle this one on her own," Lilly suggests, reluctantly so. For some reason it almost feels as though we're abandoning Clem to deal with this fragile issue herself, even though they're only like thirty feet away from us.
"You're probably right," I concur after some consideration, "she'd probably try to shoo us away if we started walking anyways. But we've gotta get back on the road soon," I remind her, feeling torn about the whole situation. We don't want to be stuck out here once nightfall hits.
Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), Ellie seems ready to wrap this up; swatting Clem's hand away as she sprints over to the truck and buries herself underneath a tarp in the back cab of the vehicle. You can hear the whimpers and sobs of the kid as the tarp shakes every time she breathes.
Concernedly glancing over to my partner, I point to Ellie and then to Clementine; silently asking which one of the two she'd want to try talking to. And of course, going for the more familiar person, Lilly rubs a hand through her hair as she slowly walks over to the depressed fifteen year old, who's looking as though she's the worst person in existence. It had to be done, Clem – better now than way later down the road when she starts asking even more questions.
But this is gonna be the tough part – sure, maybe I was able to talk to Clem with few problems when she was eleven, but Ellie is hardly the same case. The girl's eight years old and has just found out about losing her mom. How am I supposed to handle something like this?
Figuring that it's now or never, I lower the tailgate as I climb into the hatchback with a heavy heart. This should be fun…
"Ellie?" I call out, trying to be as nice as I can without just barfing out rainbows. In case you haven't noticed, comforting people isn't my strongest suit. "Do you, uh… want to talk? Because I can't exactly leave you back here when we drive away. You'd probably go flying out onto the road."
When she just tugs the tarp closer to her body and practically barricades herself in the corner, I bite my lip and sit next to her. Unbeknownst to anyone else, I used to do a similar thing at her age whenever I felt like shit. I'd sprint up to my bedroom, put a chair in front of the door and hide under my covers – somehow Jaime was always able to sneak in somehow and climb into the bed with me, but I never asked her how she was able to do that.
Usually it was whenever I got grounded – which was a lot, now that I think about it – but occasionally it was just that I… I felt pretty lonely back then. Growing up, I didn't have a whole lot of friends, probably 'cause I was a little shithead to people sometimes, but it still hurt. Getting called a boy when I had my hair cut short, getting called a freak because I didn't like to play the same games that the other kids wanted to do…
Sigh… I suppose none of that really matters now though, does it? The bullies are gone for good, and here I am – trying to comfort some kid that I never would've had the dead never risen.
"…so, I'm guessing that Clem told you…?"
"M-mommy…" she snivels, only crying harder after she says this. Damn, she's taking this really hard.
Bringing my knees up to my chest as Clem and Lilly start walking back towards us, I slowly and carefully lift the tarp off of her red hair, thankfully having no interference this time. Whether it's just that Ellie's too tired to fight back I'm not too sure, but the usual spark in her eyes is totally gone right now.
"I know this can't be easy for you," I try to console, feeling really awkward doing so as I look down at her small frame, "but… you can get through this, Ellie. You… you're a tough, little devil, and this is something you're going to get past. You're one of us now, remember? And we need you to stick around to make this all work out. Just… come into the truck with us? Please?"
With Clementine looking down steadily and Lilly sitting in the driver's seat and turning on the ignition, Ellie tearfully looks up at me as I pull off a sympathetic half-smile. That's really the best I can offer; that any of us really can. None of us have ever been parents before, let alone being any good at this kind of grievance counselling.
She's never going to fully recover from this sort of heartbreak, as nobody ever truly does – it rips out a piece of your soul and replaces it with a tendril of darkness. However, the pain does dull over time, and eventually you just learn to live with it even though you're constantly reminded of that one piece you're missing. It's how we can cope and overcome this misery that really tests our limits.
Hmph… look at me, eh? Acting like some sort of philosophical mastermind over here! Now why can't that translate out into actual verbal words for me? That'd probably make things a thousand times easier…
Sniffling a few times more, Ellie sadly nods in acceptance as Clementine picks her up from the side of the truck and places her back on the ground; opening the door for her as the eight year old (or is it nine, now? I can't remember) kid steps inside.
"Jane…" Clem murmurs to me, looking rather broken up about it herself, "…thank you."
"Don't mention it," I pat her on the shoulder, letting out a shaky breath as I climb out myself and slam the hatch shut. "This was the right choice, you'll see. You did the best you could with a shitty situation. Nobody can ask for more than that."
Sinking into her seat as she tiredly rubs her eyes, deep down I wonder what it is exactly that Clem's actually going through as well. She and Ellie are practically glued to the hip these days, and she always seems to get anxious whenever somebody tries to separate the two of them. Secretly I worry that this might further divide the two girls, but we'll just have to wait and find out. Hopefully it won't, but sometimes these things happen. Right now, Ellie probably just needs her space.
"Let's just find this stupid place," I sigh as I roll out my shoulders a little bit.
The truck is basically silent as Lilly backs it up back onto the road, with none of us realizing that we've made a wrong turn going down the highway.
Tap… tap…. Tap-tap… tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-splash!
With no access to any kind of weather channel or any kind of forecast, neither Lilly nor I would've guessed that practically a monsoon would be starting to pour down onto us. At least we're nice and dry in the truck, but the constant pitter-patter of water droplets smacking against the windshield not only makes it harder for Lilly to see the road in front of her, but it's disturbing Ellie in the back seat.
Not Clementine though, apparently. Somehow it's actually soothing for her, since the girl has practically dozed off for the last two hours or so of the trip up here. I guess it'd be pretty easy for her to sleep through anything now, having to do so in some of the worst conditions imaginable. With no immediate danger at hand, she could probably sleep through anything at all.
Flicking the headlights on for her, I fiddle around with the various dials near the dashboard as Lilly silently keeps her foot on the gas pedal. We've had to slow down considerably due to the inclement weather, but we should still be making good time.
I just wonder if the rest of them have holed out alright, or if they're even still alive at all.
"You're sure we're going the right way?" Lilly questions, her eyes narrowed as the wipers constantly swish back and forth. Why she's asking me this now of all times is actually pretty ridiculous if you think about it, considering how far we've travelled.
So, in typical fashion, I give her one of my infamous snarky responses that I haven't really needed to use since… since before we got together, actually.
"Have a little faith, Lils," I sigh, rolling down the window and getting one of the windshield wipers un-stuck. "We're definitely on the right track. Watch, soon afterwards you'll be able to kick back and relax on a nice, sandy beach… I definitely could go for something like that."
"Then maybe we should've just kept going to California back then – you'd have the whole Pacific Ocean to look at," Lilly mentions, though I sincerely doubt that a state with a population as large as that would have too many beach-bums left who weren't already dead. I'd imagine that LA was one of the first places to fall.
It's weird sometimes, you know – not knowing what's going on in the rest of the world. Back then you'd almost always hear some story on the news about a war-torn country, some big epidemic that would get loads of people sick, some so-called "terrorist plot" that would almost always just be a false alarm. But aside from the awful, messed-up stuff that happened to people back then, it kind of pales in comparison to all of this. Bad things happen out here on a daily basis nowadays.
It's kind of funny, now that I think about it. How scared we all were; how we would all head out for the day and lock our doors tightly shut at night, always thinking in the back of your mind that somebody was going to try and break into your house with a gun.
What the fuck were we all thinking back then, huh? We should've… we should've cherished the days more, and not have been so caught up in our own fears and worries about the future that we were scared of even going outside. That shit's for today, not back when people were still the dominant force in the world.
"…so what do you think, Jane?"
"Huh? What?" I stumble like a fool, probably looking like a confused puppy when they turn their heads to the side.
Visibly annoyed that I wasn't paying attention to her, Lilly rolls her eyes and ignores me as I poke and prod. Oh sure, now who's being the childish one!
"Come on, don't be like that! Lilly!" I chastise, now having this insatiable desire to know what it is that she was talking about before. Funny how that works out, isn't it?
"Don't bother me when I'm trying to drive," she brushes off coolly, but starting to lose her temper as I start incessantly poking her in the shoulder. Clementine watches the exchange with a sliver of amusement as she looks between the two of us. "Damn it, Jane! I'm trying not to crash us into a tree right now! It's not as if you're ever paying attention anyways!"
I'm about to make a retort and question why she's being so moody today, seeing's how I'm usually off in la-la-land all the time anyways, but I widen my eyes as a man with a cumbersome backpack on his shoulders waves his arms around in a panic; urging us to stop as he comes out into the middle of the road like an idiot.
Seeing's how we're not really slowing down, he tries to dodge but ends up getting clipped by the side of the truck and falling onto his back into the mud. Pumping the brakes at least five times, Lilly nearly has a heart attack as we just barely manage to stop before hitting a tree. Nobody moves for a moment as the thunder cracks in the distance and a lightning strike comes soon after.
Turning my body halfway in my seat, I cup a hand over my eyes as I try peering out the window; just barely managing to spot him haphazardly sprawled in the dirt. Did we kill him?
…well, whatever the case may be, somebody's gotta go check on the guy, and it looks like that somebody is going to be me.
Before I can unlock the door, however, Lilly snatches my wrist and tries to pin me down.
Opening my mouth to speak, Lilly beats me to the punch as she sternly shakes her head. "Don't even think about going out there," she reprimands; her grip firm as she tightly wraps her bony fingers around my wrist. Damn it, how is she so fucking strong?! "Jane, just leave it! We can't go out trying to help every single person we come across, and that might've just been a walker for all we know! I'm sorry, but that's the truth."
"Are you fucking kidding?! Lilly, we ran him over! With a truck!"
"He was prancing around like a maniac! It was his own damn fault in the first place, and it was too dark to see anyways!" she defends herself, trying to get me to see things from her point of view. And yeah sure, I get why she'd be concerned, but we can't just leave a stranger out in the middle of the woods to die without even checking to make sure if he's alive or not.
Managing to break free, I open the door and step out into the rain before she can try to pin me again.
"I can make my own decisions here," I tell her with a small, disappointed frown. "You're not in charge of my life."
Shutting the door closed without another word, I don't bother shielding my head from the intense rain as it soaks me to the skin. In fact, I relish just being able to stand out here and expose myself to all this free water that I'm able to collect; opening my mouth for a moment and brushing my hair back as it retains a spikier look.
…don't you dare say that I've gained back a butch haircut, or I'll knife you right in the jugular, understand?
"Unnggghhh…. Holy shit that hurts… Owww…" the guy whines, proving that he's not in fact dead as I get a better look at him. He's an African-American man with cornrows going down to his shoulders (how he found the time to do that I have no idea), has a small scar on his cheek and has an old pair of sunglasses that have been knocked to the side from the impact of the truck. The guy's pretty muscular, but god damn is he short! Give it a couple of years and I think even clementine will have caught up to him. "You know… as much as appreciate the staring from a pretty girl like you… would you mind just helping me up?"
Folding my arms together, I raise an eyebrow in questioning as I refuse to grasp onto his outstretched hand. Nope, not happening just yet – not until I know for sure that he's not a threat.
Seeing how I'm refusing to cooperate, the man tsks as he shakes his head in disbelief. "Geez, you sure know how to play hard to get, don't you?" he jokes with a lame attempt to try and swoon me – clearly the guy's a hopeless romantic, and I can pretty much tell right off the bat how many actually intelligent girls would've chosen to go out with him.
I'll give you a hint: it's the number that comes before one.
"Who are you? What are you doing out here?" I ask him the usual questions, probing him for answers as Lilly and Clem slowly walk up behind me with their guns at their sides. Our little red-headed friend sits in the back seat of the truck, half-dozing off as I see her head bob up and down.
Eyeing their guns with a wary look on his face, the man gulps before trying to calmly explain himself – unfortunately not misplacing all the joking bullshit that just seems to come naturally to him. "My name's Marcus," he tells us, not really having any reason to lie right now, "Marcus Thompson – and you want a bio? Hmm… well, I like sunsets, long walks on the beach, a beer in my hand and a woman to share it all with. But sadly, there don't seem to be a lot of beaches… or alcohol, for that matter."
"I'm getting tempted to just shoot this guy right now," Lilly acknowledges, probably not meaning it but causing enough of a reaction out of this punk to get him to stop fooling around.
Sliding backwards on his butt through the mud a little bit, Marcus raises a hand in defense as he chuckles nervously. "Alright, alright, you're serious. I get it. For real, this time," he promises, getting on my nerves with his personality after just five minutes of meeting him. "I'm a mercenary; a gun for hire. I was supposed to be on my way to being a police officer when all of this happened," he reveals as I force Lilly to put her gun back down against the side of her leg. "And you three… or four, I suppose… owe me after – oww, okay that hurts…"
Not impressed by his actions or this guy's cocky demeanor, Lilly moves past me as she goes to verbally annihilate the guy. Lilly's temper is rising through the roof today, and unfortunately I think that it might have something to do with me. The water soaks through her jacket and turns her hair into a used mop as she tries wringing it out to the side. Clem doesn't seem like she's having a great time out here either, if the annoyed scowl on her face is any indication.
"Nothing's broken on you… probably just a shit-load of bruises," she states in a cruel fashion. Looking over to me with a wry grin, the air feels a little cooler at how indifferent she seems today about another person's suffering. Perhaps it's just her way of keeping herself and the rest of us safe, since it does seem pretty suspicious for Marcus to be out here by himself. "I think the most that we owe this dick is a bullet in his gut – just for the attitude alone. We don't have the time to spend on this, Jane. We need to keep going on to Ranger's Grove as soon as possible."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up! Ranger's Grove? You folks might want to get your bearings then," Marcus remarks, pointing in the complete opposite direction as I visibly pale, "because that shit box is that-a-way."
Huffing out a sigh, I lightly kick the ground in annoyance as I realize that Lilly was right about it the whole time. Great, now we're even more lost than we were before, and as usual we're completely on our own. None of us have heard from anybody at all for a day or so at least, which either means that everyone's dead, they're all caught, or they all seem to think that this is just some big joke to them and that nothing will come out of this. In this instance only, I'd like to think that that's the case.
Stubbornly refusing to admit that Lilly was right about the directions thing the entire time, I wipe some of the rain out of my eyes as I motion for the three of us to head back to the truck. If this guy's gonna be an ass about it, then there's nothing stopping me from trying to take off; no conscience around to bug me about this being morally wrong.
When have my morals ever been good to me anyways? Clementine kept the both of us from stealing from Arvo, and yet she still got shot in the shoulder. If there's a god or some other powerful deity up there actually watching over us up there, then he's one spiteful douchebag for allowing that kind of shit to happen.
"Hey, wait a minute! You can't leave me out here! You crashed into me!" he calls out after us, to which Lilly scoffs and rolls her eyes.
"Didn't your parents ever tell you to look both ways when crossing the street?" she questions coyly as I let out a small snigger. "You're fine, asshole. Your legs are clean – get up and walk."
Trying to do so in obvious amounts of pain, Marcus limps sorely as he tries one last time for us to give him a lift. That's more than likely what he was trying to do in the first place. "Alright, how's about this? I'll forget all about this hit and run," he suggests, although that's really not a huge selling point, "and I'll even work for you. I told you – I'm a gun for hire! You give me some food, ammunition and safe passage to Hunter's Retreat, and we can call it even! Just don't leave me out here!"
As soon as he mentions Hunter's Retreat, the three of us stop briefly in our tracks and look at each other; thinking over the possibilities. If that's where he's heading, then this might be a good opportunity for us after all. Ranger's Grove isn't too far from that place, if I can recall correctly after having read the map in the glove compartment.
"We're all exhausted – might as well keep going to this place. Maybe whoever lives there will be able to help us out," Clem suggests, noting that the three of us make decisions together now. Opening the truck door to ask Ellie if she thinks this is a good plan, she remains discouraged after she continues to keep her head down and stay quiet. Coming back out to us, she sighs in regret as Lilly starts helping Marcus back on his feet. "Why do I get the feeling that I totally screwed this up somehow?"
Not really knowing how to comfort her, I pat her shoulder as per my signature grief counselling mechanism as I look down at her reassuringly.
"You didn't – she just needs a little time. It's not something that'll just happen overnight, Clem. We just need to give her a little breathing room," I suggest, knowing the feeling that people get when they'd prefer to be alone for a little while.
That's the one thing about being out on my own that I particularly enjoyed – there was never anybody around to bug you or batter you with constant questions over whether you were feeling alright or not. It was just you, a can of beans, and the open road. You could have as much alone time as you could ever possibly want, although you'd definitely have to watch out when you started talking to yourself to pass the time – then it'd probably be a good idea to sit back and re-evaluate your life some more.
Lowering the back hatch of the truck as Marcus is roughly placed inside, Lilly shakes the rain off of herself as she smacks her forehead lightly; forgetting that she's had a hood that could've kept her at least a little bit dry this whole time. "I still say we should double back and go the way we came," she inputs as we step into the truck, but frowning when she glances at Marcus through the back window, "but thanks to this asshole, that's not exactly an option right now. Let's just get out of this rain and find this Hunter's Retreat place."
"What the fuck, lady?! It's pissin' rain out here!" Marcus complains, tapping on the window and glaring when he sees that the M 14 he was carrying is now safely in my lap. I've gotta say, this is a pretty nice piece of hardware that he's been lugging around.
The emotion crossing Lilly's face says it all – we don't give a rat's ass right now. The sooner we get to this place, the sooner we can find help or at least drop this nutjob off. I mean, sure he may have been on his way to being a cop at one point or another, but a mercenary? The fuck? Who in their right mind would spend their days going around the countryside looking for work during a time like this?
And it's not even good, honest work either – he's a hitman! They used to lock up guys like him back in the day! Hell, he'd probably be doing most of the arresting when it came to people like him!
"Pick up that tarp that's underneath your ass! It should be enough to keep you warm and dry… assuming it doesn't fly away in the wind!" she hollers out to him over the roar of the storm that's still raging outside. She's been getting a lot edgier and icier with people recently, as far as I've noticed. It could just be from running into Joshua again, which could potentially be bringing up some shitty memories, but come on. There's a limit. "And that reminds me – we're keeping the gun with us until we get to where we're headed towards. Call it a bit of insurance so that you don't try shooting us from back there. What else are you packing?"
"Gah! Nothing, just… just fucking drive!" he demands, leaning his head back against the cool metal casing as he tries to maneuver the tarp onto his head. "What the hell have I gotten myself into…"
Spray painted arrows pointing us down the road have been placed on the bark of some of the tall coniferous trees as the smell of pine wafts through the truck. There's nothing really pleasant about that aroma anymore after having travelled so many nights with the two dodo birds who I've taken to calling my travelling companions, but who needs an air freshener anymore when you can just use what nature intended? It's pretty much a win-win scenario – we get a nice-smelling vehicle, and the forest life gets some visitors, I guess.
You know the old proverb – if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around to hear it, does it… yeah, you get the idea.
"You can be a real mean bitch, you know that?" I comment with a smug look on my face. Letting her fingers relax against the cool leather of the steering wheel, Lilly breathes out in content as we get closer and closer to our short-term goal.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"…this can't be right…" I insist, pulling the map out of my back pocket as I unfold it and scrutinize over the details; twirling it left, right and upside down to try and get a clear sense of where we actually are.
But this doesn't even make any sense! How can this place be a safe zone for anybody at all? Are you trying to tell me that an abandoned metro tunnel is where people have decided to stick with? The gate's still got a thick, metal padlock on it, for god's sake! How could anyone possibly be living around here?
At least the rain's finally stopped, thank goodness. The ground's all muddy and squishy as my boots make these disgusting swish sounds every time I move around. Puddles (more like miniature lakes) have been left over from the storm along with fallen leaves and tree branches that had gotten blown off in the wind. The sun's already starting to shine through the dark clouds that are moving away from us, and if you look closely enough, there's a small, pretty rainbow shooting out over the horizon. Maybe if we follow it to the end it'll lead us to the rest of our guys, or at least a leprechaun with a big pot of gold. That'd be nice, too.
The distant colours certainly don't match any of our moods today, as Lilly comes within a few feet of the sign and tries to make sense of the weathered chicken scratch plastered on the billboard. A big, red "X" has once again been spray painted telling us where to go, but it looks as though whoever did it was in a bit of a rush. Quite a hasty paint job on their part.
"Try not to take it too personally – we do this with pretty much everyone," I hear Clementine explaining things to Marcus behind me; the closest thing to an apology that he's ever likely to get. My ears perk up a bit at the sound of her voice, but my mind's rather occupied at the moment with this riddle that stands before us. One way or another, I suppose we're going to have to try and find our way inside this place… into the dark, stinky, murky metro tunnel… Ugh, just thinking about it makes me want to vomit.
Resorting to spitting on the rain-soaked grass to my left, I try solving this mystery as Marcus snorts in slight amusement.
"So lemme get this straight," he pauses, groaning as he carefully edges his way off the truck, "you run people over with a truck and just expect them all to like you?"
"…ok, that part was new, but you get the idea. Don't trust strangers and all that."
"Clem? I could use some help over here with this gate! Bring Ellie along too, would ya?" Lilly hollers without even looking over her shoulder. It doesn't take the mind of a genius to figure out what she's doing – trying to get those two as far away from Marcus as possible. Honestly, I think she might need to cut the kid a break on this one. So far he seems like a pretty stand-up kind of dude, and hasn't really caused any problems for us yet.
Time will tell if that sentiment holds true, but for now I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Got your nail file handy?" Lilly asks me, cringing when I shake my head and explain that I accidentally left it on a dresser back at the station. Giving a sour look, she tells Clem to turn around as she starts rooting through her backpack; once again coming up a little short as she finds nothing but a pack of toothpicks. Those would break far too easily. "Well this could be a bit of a conundrum," she remarks, zipping the bag back up before trying to shake the gate a little bit. "We might need to do this the old fashioned way, otherwise we're getting back on the road. Those walkers we passed might end up being here soon. Anyone got a light?"
Surprising everyone, Ellie of all people anxiously digs through her pocket until she fishes out the same butterfly lighter that Clementine used to own. By the sour look on the Firefly leader's face, I'd say that she took it by less than legitimate means.
"You're turning into a regular, old kleptomaniac, kid," Lilly comments, though the young girl probably thinks that's some kind of compliment. Trust me, Ellie – it's definitely not. Taking the lighter out of her outstretched fingers, Lilly flicks it on a few times until the spark ignites the small flame. "Let's see… looks like nobody's home…" she remarks as we all hear a couple of gunshots from behind us.
Turns out Marcus is already well on his way to getting rid of some of the walkers that have been following us.
"Dead incoming! You'd better get us in there quickly!" he firmly states in between bullet shells. The guy's got his hands full, so I offer to help out by pulling out my knife and ending yet another undead life as the blade is implanted in the back of its skull. Black ooze sprouts onto my arm like rotten juice as I pull out the weapon and proceed to the next one.
I'm not as concerned about the dead right now as I am about Marcus, though – so much for not having any guns on him!
"I thought you said you were unarmed!" I yell out, backing up a bit as the few walkers become a couple dozen. Sometimes it's best to know when to cut your losses and run, so I lower my knife and hurriedly start sprinting back towards my crew.
"I lied!"
"Yeah, no shit! Lilly, get us in there NOW!"
Hearing the urgency in my voice, Lilly swings Marcus' gun off of her shoulders and tells Ellie to back up. Like a crack of dynamite, she fires a couple of bullets at the lock and makes it totally irreparable, but at least we've got a way into the dark, smelly depths below.
Hey, anything's better than up here with these guys!
Just barely making it down the steps and falling to his knees in a puddle of dirty sewage water, Marcus coughs as Clem and Ellie help him back to his feet. I slam the gate shut just as the walkers congregate into a huge mash-up of zombified monsters with widened, greying eyes, rotten flesh and jaws of steel. It's like looking at a bunch of piranhas when you hang a fresh slab of meat over the river they're swimming in – total fucking chaos.
Knifing a few more of them as Lilly shoots two or three in the head, we have no other choice but to keep going into the dark tunnels to meet whatever it is that we might encounter down here. Is it just going to be more dead bodies, or are these all a bunch of mole people who haven't seen the light of day in five years or more?
"No going back now," Lilly remarks dully, flicking the lighter on again as she provides our only light source down below. It's a real shame about leaving the truck behind, but hopefully we'll be able to retrieve it again once we're finished with all of this business. Lilly's still got the key if we ever do manage to make it back. "Keep your guard up, everyone. Never know what you're going to find in places like this. Marcus can lead the way," she adds as she narrows her eyes, making sure to keep a steady eye on him this time, even though he helped save us all back there.
Groaning slightly as I realize that we're going to have to wade through some more of the water, I make sure that Ellie can still stand as we trek onwards. This reminds me a lot of New Orleans, and that time we almost got nabbed on a whole bunch of different opportunities.
Hopefully that shit won't happen again.
Oh. My. God. I don't know how to explain how… how messed up things are down here right now. It's almost incomprehensible.
It didn't take us very long to find people down here, but I sort of wish that we hadn't at all. The depraved conditions of Hunter's Retreat are basically astronomical in scope, with people beating the shit out of each other over the tiniest scraps of medicine, others just lazily on their backs lying on flattened cardboard boxes, and others sitting up against the wall with no regard for the sewer rats that occasionally dart past them; eyes red-rimmed and glossy from only god knows what substances they've been taking.
As we carefully march forwards, with Marcus in particular looking pretty surprised at the conditions, the various inhabitants stare at us in a creepy fashion. Their glances aren't filled with suspicion, but more like hope and despair. The living conditions down here actually makes sleeping unprotected underneath a tree seem a lot more tempting.
"How could it have gone downhill so fast?" Lilly asks rhetorically, looking a bit saddened that these people are living in such squalor. "I know times are tough and all… but this…"
"We have to help them," Clementine says with a determined look on her face; her cap lowered a little bit as it covers the top of her eyes. "I'm not gonna stand by and watch as people soil themselves like this. We're going to get these people back on their feet again – give them a fighting chance."
Worried that she might be taking on more than she can handle, seeing's how we've only just arrived at this place, I step in and voice my opinion as I glance over at one man in shock. It doesn't take long for me to realize what that white, powdery substance is that he's got lined up in a row; lowering his head as he snorts the cocaine up through his nostrils. Where the hell would he have even found something like that?
Rolling his eyes back for a brief second as his nose already starts to bleed, the man shakes his head in a drug-induced state as he smiles with rotting, darkened teeth towards me. "Want a hit?" he offers as I choose to keep my head down.
"These people might be too late for saving," I whisper as we head up an immovable escalator that now just serves as a flight of stairs. "Clem, I know your intentions are good and all, and I can't say that I'm not proud by what you've been doing…" I remark, watching as she quickly flinches at that. Or did I just imagine it? "But these people… sometimes you can't save everyone. Sometimes you've gotta just roll with the punches and move on. These people are too far gone, I mean… just take a look around you!"
Once we get to the second level and can oversee pretty much the entire camp, we get a much better picture overall of what's going on around here. Old garbage cans being used as fire pits, men, women and children practically begging us for some kind of nourishment to end their suffering, little kids wandering around trying to sell us old candy packs for any sort of fresh water that we've been able to collect… this place is a disaster zone. I'm almost certain that this metro is nothing more than a disease-ridden, poverty-driven, cesspool of filth and despair, and that might be putting it kindly. If this is supposed to be a community, then it has to be one of the worst that I've seen in a long time.
How none of these people have died yet is what really shocks me. I guess the human race is a lot more durable and persistent than I had given us credit for.
Unscrewing the lid of her water canteen, Clementine bends down on one knee as she smiles at a young boy and offers him some of the liquid. Once more of the children start to see this unfold, she deeply sighs with a frown as she steps back and simply lets them all have it. Clem's had her fill for the day, and by the desperate look in these kids' eyes, it definitely seems like they'll be needing it more than she will right now.
"Thank you, hat lady!" one of the girls beams up at her, and I can't help but want to retract my former statement as my heart gets tied in a knot. This is absolutely ridiculous – these kids have had to grow up in the worst kind of conditions imaginable. If the apocalypse had never happened, most of them would probably be in school right now somewhere; Ellie and Clem as well. It's kind of a cruel twist of fate to realize that none of them will likely ever get that chance to have a normal life as Lilly, Marcus and I once had.
"We have to try at least! That's what we're supposed to be doing, anyhow," she points out as Ellie sadly talks to some of the other kids who look to be around her age. "Look, maybe we can work out some sort of deal back home. Where's their leader? I think we need to give them a piece of our minds after seeing all of – "
"You don't need to look too far, honey."
Stepping out of the shadows comes a greasy-looking man with a calm, yet slightly intimidating voice. He's got a red shirt on underneath a dark blue jacket, dark brown hair that's been parted at the side, and a goatee to match. He may seem like a friendly enough guy, but something about him seems to throw me off.
Clem and Lilly both seem to get that impression as well.
"Who are you?" Clementine questions with a slight tone of hostility to her voice. The man, however, either doesn't seem to notice this, or is just playing it off as nothing at all.
He's got snake written all over him.
"The name's David, ladies. It's uh… it's a pleasure to make your acquaintances," he smiles, holding out a hand which Clementine, with a lot of reluctance, shakes with a disturbed expression. "I'm the leader of this community, if you'd like to believe. And you three look a little lost – why don't we go on over to someplace that's a little more quiet?"
With a lot of hesitation, the four of us (minus Marcus, who's gone off to sit in a nearby chair) agree to David's request as we start heading over to some of the worn-out couches that are situated away from the main group.
Upon noticing the little girl among us, David smiles and bends down to Ellie's level as he looks her straight in the eye.
"And who might you be, little lady?" he questions, to which Ellie tiredly looks up to greet him. She tries to put on a brave face even though we all know she doesn't like talking to strangers, but quietly introduces herself regardless.
"E-Ellie…"
"Well, it's very nice to meet you there, Ellie. I hope none of our group members were scaring you," he pats her shoulder lightly; rubbing his hand along the poncho as Clementine contorts her face in anger. Once again, this goes over David's head. "Now come on – you must be tired after moving around so much outside. I'm sure that we'll all soon be getting along very, very well…"
AN: If you don't know who this guy is, look him up in the Last of Us – you may end up cursing his name once you find out :/
Thanks for reading, as per usual guys! Please leave a review and tell me what you guys think! They're always welcome, and I'll see you guys next time :D