Disclaimer: I do not own The Walking Dead. All rights reserved to their respective owners.
Clementine's vision started out blurry as she opened her eyes, and her ears couldn't register much of anything that wasn't mumbling and muffled arguments. However, her ears and eyes finally adjusted back into reality. There were several people standing over her. An older man was to her left, next to him was a young man with hat and a hunting rifle aimed at her, and next to him was a pregnant woman with a stocky man behind her.
Clementine looked to the rifle being aimed at her and she couldn't help but to become tense. It wasn't a very favorable predicament for her. She tried to scoot back as the pregnant woman hissed. "Can someone tell me what the f*** is going on?"
"Calm down, Rebecca." The older man said. He sounded familiar. It was the same man that was arguing with a man named Nick before she passed out.
"Calm down? How the f*** do I calm down when you're dragging people here, and this dumbass is shooting anything he sees." The woman, Rebecca, hissed and she gave the man with the hat a glare.
"Hey, she got too close to the cabin. I was only trying to protect us." The man with the hat exclaimed. He also sounded familiar. Plus, the gun gave away his identity rather quickly. His name was Nick.
"That still wasn't smart to just shoot after her. Take aim with that thing and fire when you get a good shot. Don't just go into the f****** woods like an idiot." Rebecca hissed. Clementine was still moving back from the rifle until she heard the woman say, "Move the gun." Next thing Clementine heard was a gunshot hitting near her. She was startled by the shot, but she breathed a sigh of relief to see that the shot didn't hit her.
She looked up to see Nick giving her a glare with his gun aimed at her head. "Don't move, f*****!" Nick spat.
"Give me that damn thing before you kill her!" Pete spat and he wrestled the gun out of Nick's hands.
"Uncle Pete! What the f***?" Nick exclaimed.
Clementine turned her head to the cabin when she heard the door slam open. "Whoa, whoa, what the f***?" A young man exclaimed. Clementine's eyes narrowed into a glare; she recognized the man's voice. That was the man that choked her.
"You idiot! That is the second time today that you fired before you actually used some f****** common sense!" Rebecca exclaimed. "Every lurker for five miles probably heard that!" Clementine turned back to the group that was in front of her and she stood up.
"Hey! She surprised me! It's not my fault!" Nick exclaimed.
"Everyone just calm down for a minute." The stocky man said.
"Hey kid, you alright?" The man who choked her asked.
Clementine sent a glare to him and she said in a cold tone of voice. "You choked me till I passed out."
The man's eyes widened and he looked to her with an apologetic stare. "I'm sorry, but I saw that you had a gun out, and I didn't know if you were going to shoot my friends. And if I tried to sneak up on you, I'm pretty sure you would have shot me." The man that had choked said.
"That gun was for my protection. I wouldn't have brought it out if one of you hadn't shot at me." Clementine said.
"F*** you." Nick spat.
"Nick, you have done enough." Pete said. "Go inside."
"You're not the boss of me!" Nick spat. "I do whatever I want now."
"Yeah, I guess acting like a complete asshole is really honoring Mariam's memory, huh boy?" Pete snapped. Nick shuttered from the mention of the name and he looked down with a frown. Pete sent an apologetic stare and he said, "Son, I'm-"
"Don't." Nick said with a hurt tone in his voice. "Don't f****** talk to me." He walked away while most members of the group watched him leave with remorseful stares.
However, Clementine had no idea what was going on. She didn't know who this Mariam woman was except that she must have died recently and she had a strong connection with Nick. She turned her head to see another man approach the group from the porch of the cabin. He appeared to be middle-aged like the stocky man of the group, but he was in better shape.
"So, is this who I have to check on?" The man asked.
"Yeah… yeah, I… found her in the woods." The man that had choked her said.
The middle-aged man approached her, but Clementine started to back away. She reached for her knife, but it was gone. She then reached back and noticed that her backpack was gone too. "Don't worry. Carlos is a doctor. He's just going to check on you." The man said.
Clementine relaxed a bit by the new information, but she still didn't know where her stuff was. "Where's my backpack and knife at?" Clementine asked.
"I took that stuff inside. It would be safer if you weren't armed." The man said.
"Safer for whom?" Clementine asked.
"That doesn't matter. We're not out to hurt you, but we need to keep our safety as top priority." Carlos said. "Now, please… come here." Clementine gave the man a distrusting glare, but she walked forward anyway. The doctor checked her face for scratches and bites along with checking her temperature with the back of his hand. "Hmm… there's a bit of a fever." Carlos said.
"She's bit?" Rebecca exclaimed.
Carlos hummed and said, "I don't know." He kept his gaze on Clementine and he said, "Were you bit recently? I have to check the wound."
"Yeah. I got bit by dog." Clementine said.
"And we're supposed to believe that bullshit." Rebecca hissed.
"Rebecca…" Pete said.
"I'll look at the wound, and determine if it's a dog bite or something else." Carlos said to Rebecca. He turned back to Clementine and said, "Show me where you were bit."
Clementine was hesitant to do so. She looked to the group and said, "All I want is my stuff back and then I'll go. You'll never see me again."
"I'm afraid we can't do that kid. Until we know what your intentions are, you'll have to stay with us. You might be working with someone that doesn't really like us." The man explained.
"And what if you're wrong? What if I'm just trying to survive?" Clementine asked.
No one responded except for the doctor who cleared his voice. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, you aren't giving us enough information to tell us anything." Carlos said. "Now, show me where you got bit."
Clementine sighed and she pulled up the sleeve of her sweatshirt. These people were not cooperative. They weren't bandits, but they were far from being the nicest group of people that she has met. She finished pulling up the sleeve to reveal the bandages. Carlos undid the bandages and looked at the stitched up wound.
"Who did your stitching?" Carlos asked.
"I did." Clementine said without hesitation. Carlos looked to her with a questioning stare.
"Like hell you did." Rebecca said.
"Hmm… the stitching is crude, but it should hold." Carlos said. He looked over Clementine's arm for a few more seconds as Clementine got more and more fidgety. She didn't like being eyed up by this group.
Finally, Carlos finished his examination and rewrapped the wound with the bandages. He got up and approached the group.
"Well, was it a lurker bit?" The man asked.
Carlos shook his head and said, "She's telling the truth. It's a dog bite. However, I don't think we can trust her."
"Obviously." Rebecca said.
"So what do you suggest?" Pete asked.
"We keep her in the shed until we know what her intentions are." Carlos said.
"That might be for the best." The man said.
"Of course it is." Rebecca said. "Luke, do not think that you owe that little shit anything."
"Well, you heard them." Pete said. "I don't like this plan any more than you do, but we don't know anything about you. Perhaps, you can tell us something so that we don't have to put you in the shed?"
Clementine sighed as she saw the group stare at her. They all wanted information from her, but they weren't willing to tell her anything about them. She looked back to Pete and said, "My name is Clementine, and that's all I'm willing to tell you."
"That isn't enough." Carlos said. "Take her to the shed. Someone will come out here to talk to her later on tonight." He went up the stairs and headed for the door while Pete and Luke escorted her to the shed.
"This is just a waste of time." Rebecca muttered.
After Rebecca's remark, it was silent among the three as they walked closer to the shed. "Listen, I'm sorry that this happened, but we're just trying to look out for ourselves. I mean you can understand that, right?" Luke said.
Clementine didn't answer. She was angry at him for dragging her into this mess. She didn't care about his people, all she cared about was moving on with her supplies and hoping that she would never see Luke, Pete, or anyone else from the group. "We're here." Pete said. Clementine entered the shed, but she turned to the two men when she heard Pete. "We can go into the cabin if you can just tell us a bit more about yourself."
Clementine looked back to Pete and said, "I can't. There's… too many bad memories."
"Well, then, I'm sorry." Pete said. He and Luke closed the door to the shed. Clementine looked around the shed and sighed. The day wasn't going according to plan. She went from investigating a large cabin to see if it was occupied to being locked up into a shed by the cabin's inhabitants.
Clementine had been searching for an opening or a way out for the last several minutes. She was hoping that she could find a way to escape. She didn't want to be locked up like a prisoner for the whole night. She checked behind a tacklebox and her eyes widened in surprise. There was a corroded section of wood behind it with a wooden plank nailed in front of it. If it wasn't for the plank, she could escape the shed. She needed to find something to remove the plank. She got up and continued her search, but this time, she was trying to find a hammer.
It didn't take long for Clementine to eye the handle of a hammer, but it was out of reach for her. She wasn't tall enough to reach it. Clementine looked for an object that she could use to reach the hammer, but again, a plan formed rather quickly when she noticed a homemade fold-up workbench. She went to it and lifted it up. Once it was locked in place, she climbed on top of it, and she reached out for the hammer. She was so close. The tips of her fingers were touching the handle of the hammer.
Suddenly, she heard something crack. Before she knew it, the shelf with the hammer fell apart from the wall and sent her crashing down. She grunted and whined in pain from the landing and she stood up. She noticed that the shelf was on the ground next to her. She lifted it up and found the hammer underneath. She grabbed the hammer and returned to the wooden plank that blocked off the corroded wood.
Clementine used the hammer's spike to remove the wooden plank. After a few seconds, she pried the plank off with the hammer, and it fell to the ground. She got up and kicked the corroded wood away. Finally, there was an opening that was big enough for her to use to escape. She lowered herself to the ground and crawled out through the opening.
Clementine crawled outside of the shed, and to her surprise, it was nighttime. She didn't think that she was in the shed that long. Of course with winter approaching, the days were getting shorter. She looked to the cabin and she started to head toward it. Her approach wasn't as cautious as last time. She knew that there were people inside which meant that she didn't need to be looking around to see if there were any, especially when it was dark outside.
Clementine knew that she had to find another way inside. It would be suicide to use the front door. She looked around the cabin and soon found a wooden board that was covering the lattice. It was a quick and inefficient patch-up job. Clementine had to pull the board forward first before she could use her hammer. Once she pulled the board forward, she used the hammer's spike again and removed the two nails. She grabbed the board and pushed it away to reveal a hole in the lattice. She headed inside the hole and noticed that she was underneath the house. Clementine crept through the bottom of the house. She had to find a way inside and get her backpack, gun, and knife back.
"House meeting in five minutes." Someone said from within the house. It sounded like Carlos.
"That's… that's great." Another person complained. It sounded like the middle-aged stocky man from outside.
"It won't take long. There's a few things we need to discuss." Carlos replied.
"Fine." The stocky man said.
Clementine noticed a trap door and went toward it. She pulled out a pocket knife that she kept in one of her shoes and placed it between the mechanism and the lock. The pocket knife was in her shoe in the case of an emergency. After she struggled for a couple of seconds, she finally broke the lock but the blade of her knife broke off too. "Shoot." Clementine muttered. She looked to the handle with half of a blade and saw that it was useless. It had helped her in many situations. She would have to find a new one. She threw her old, broken knife aside and pushed the trap door open. At least she was inside the cabin now.
Clementine climbed into the small room which held the trap door and placed an ear against the door. She couldn't hear much of anything from the other side except the mumbling and muffled arguments of the group. However, it sounded as though that they weren't in the room that she was trying to get to. Clementine opened the door and she looked around before she turned to the stairs. She crouched down and made her approach to the stairs while weaving around the furniture within the room. The only light that she had to help her navigate was candlelight. She started to climb up the steps while being careful to not make much noise. The last thing she wanted was for the group to hear her and discover that she was inside the cabin. She had no idea where her backpack and gun were, but she would have to find out.
Clementine reached the top of the stairs and went to one of the rooms. She opened the door and was immediately frightened to see a teenage girl on the bed. The two made eye contact and were frightened by each other's presence. Clementine's cover had been blown.
…To be continued.
A/N: Hahahaha…. Man between DMW and this story, I'm leaving a lot of cliffhangers. It reminds me of the good old days where I did cliffhangers in my other stories.
Btw, don't think that Sarah and Clementine are going to get along… they might get along, but keep in mind that we're dealing with a colder Clementine.