So, I may have gotten a little excited and written this the very night I uploaded the last chapter, but hey, tiny version of Clementine, what's not to like, right?
Enjoy!
It had been days of non-stop walking, with barely any rest, Luke's legs were beginning to grow weak, his eyes were heavy and his back was aching from the water and metal cans in his backpack. He knew he couldn't stand another night, and as the sun was finally beginning to set, Luke knew he needed to act fast.
He was keeping to the edge of a stream he had come across, so he couldn't be surprised from one side. He knew he had to part from it to find some kind of shelter eventually, but the slight sense of security distracted him from the persistent thought of Reggie, and his friends. Whilst they didn't have time to respond, Luke couldn't help but think of their horrified faces as he put down a man who, for all he knew, could have been healed.
Luke paused as he heard a loud clap of thunder above him. It wasn't long before steady drops of rain began to fall on him. The storm gradually got worse as the sun dropped lower and lower.
Luke sighed, his eyes beginning to close, gently. He kept walking as long as he could, finally being caught awake again as he slipped down in the mud, getting his clothes covered in the wet dirt on the forest floor. He groaned, helping himself up off the floor. As he looked forwards, he noticed a faint glow poking through a gap in the thick leaves and bushes.
He approached it slowly, moving the leaves out of the way gently as he moved closer and closer until he heard a loud snap. Luke flinched, his heart beginning to race as he looked down, seeing a twig, broken in two beneath his feet as a gasp was heard from the direction he was sneaking towards.
Luke sighed, standing up tall and approaching the glow, with his hands raised. "Hey, I'm in the forest, alright? Now I'm going to step out…I…I've got my arms raised, I don't want to hurt anyone, okay?" He said.
Several seconds of silence passed before someone spoke. "Alright, get out here, no sudden movements." A woman said sternly from beyond the leaves. Luke pushed through the last set of leaves to see a small campfire with a small rodent skewered above it; there was a tent to the side of the camp, and a large log to use as a seat.
Standing by the campfire was a woman, she looked at Luke with wide but, weary brown eyes as she held a large handgun up, in the man's direction. The woman had a dark skin tone and deep brown hair tied back into a ponytail. She wore a slightly torn yellow and white jacket with a large hood around the back of her neck.
"Hey…uh…I'm Luke." He said, awkwardly.
"That's great. Now I want you to turn around. And then walk away, you hear?" She ordered.
"Look, I don't want to hurt you alright? That ain't why I'm here. I've been walking for days without any sleep, maybe we could come to some kind of deal." Luke said, tiredly attempting to reason.
The woman looked down to her feet before looking back at Luke. "No. Sorry. You'll have to find someone else." She said, keeping her gun raised.
"Please, just hear me out, alright?" Luke asked.
The woman sighed, before staring at Luke with a look of understanding on her face. "Alright, but first I want you to take any guns you got on you and kick 'em over here. The machete too." She said. Luke hesitantly did as ordered, slowly taking out the handgun and machete and passing them over to the woman. "You travel light, huh? Alright, talk."
Luke silently looked at the woman, dropping his bag in front of him and kicking it over to her.
She looked up at Luke and crouched down to the bag, keeping the pistol pointed at him. She unzipped the bag and peeked inside. Her face immediately lit up, followed by a look of shock and confusion. "W-what? Where did you get all this?!" The woman asked.
"That's a very long story…y'know, one I'd be happy to share with you," Luke said, slowly lowering his arms. "Preferably without a gun pointed at me."
The woman looked in the bag and sighed before flipping the safety of her gun on and fitting it into her jacket pocket. "Half." She said.
"H-half?!" Luke exclaimed. "For one night of shelter?!"
"You'll need more than one night, we both know that. Besides, it's not just me." The woman explained.
"If you take half that'll still be a week at least if you ration it out correctly. Who else could possibly need that much?" Luke argued.
"Exactly, so why can't you settle with half? You got someone else I don't know about?" She interrogated.
"No. No, I'm out here looking for my friends, and I'll need that for when I find them." Luke said.
"Well, you either take all this and find them, most likely collapse and die before you do. Or I take half and you get a much better chance at finding them. Your choice." The woman said, stubbornly.
"This group of mine is seven…six…six people. Not two." Luke said.
"Then you can take it all and get out of here, you know the deal. But if you're going to do so, I'd suggest you do, before I change my mind about putting the gun away, do we have a deal?!" The woman snarled as loud as she could without attracting the lurkers.
Before Luke could respond he heard a few noises coming from the tent, before the door was slowly pushed open. "C-Cwisda…?"
A timid and high-pitched voice mumbled. Luke lost his breath at the sight before him, standing at the entrance of tent was an incredibly small toddler, only just keeping balance on her own two feet as she stared back at Luke with huge and surprised eyes. The baby had a slightly paler skin tone than the woman, she wore a blue plaid shirt with an oversized denim jacket over a dirty white and pink dress, as well as a pair of black and white sneakers on her feet.
"Hey Fluffy, did you have a nice nap?" She said, nonchalantly.
The girl wasn't tricked by the woman's sudden calmness. "Why were you yewwing…? Who's he?" The girl asked in a groggy voice, her speech impaired as she had her thumb in her mouth whilst she spoke.
The woman sighed, picking the small girl up with ease and holding her by her side. "Sweetie, this is Luke…he…might be staying with us for a little bit." She said. "Luke, this is Clementine. I'm Christa."
The girl smiled at the man, waving shyly. Luke couldn't help but smile at the girl, waving back at her.
Luke sighed, looking at the bag of food. "Alright, yeah. Yeah, I'm staying. You can have half the food. You need it." Luke said, taking a seat on the log in front of the fire.
"Glad we could come to a deal." The woman said, setting Clementine down by her side and taking a can out the bag and taking the strange rodent off the fire.
Whilst Christa set up the can of soup by the fire, Luke was distracted as he felt a tugging on his sleeve from next to him. "H-hi…" Clementine said, bashfully.
"Oh…uh…hey, kid," Luke said, turning his attention to the small girl.
"Your name is L-uke, right?" Clem said, separating the 'L' from the rest of his name.
"Yeah, that's me but…uh…" Luke chuckled, unsure what to say.
"I've been teaching her how to talk. We're trying to work on pronouncing 'L's." Christa said. "It's not going well."
"Oh right. So, you're Clementine?" Luke said. "It's an uh…it's a nice name."
"Thank you," Clementine said, only just managing to hoist herself up on the log, sitting happily next to Luke.
"Teachin' her manners, huh?" Luke asked.
"I don't need a lecture on how to raise a kid," Christa said, still fiddling with the camp fire.
"Nah, I think it's good. Too many assh- uh…rude people nowadays." Luke said. "You're tough, I'll give you that, being a mom in a zombie apocalypse can't be easy."
What Luke said led to an awkward silence around the campfire. Christa closed her eyes, pouring the soup out onto an old dish she had suspended over the fire.
"Oh…uh…I'm…I'm sorry," Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck.
"Whatever. Look, you'll be here a couple days, at most, so let's keep our pasts to ourselves, huh?" Christa said.
"Sure…" Luke sighed. "So-
"Wait Sshsshssh…" Christa whispered, holding her hand up, listening closely to her surroundings.
Luke did the same, hearing loud laughing and talking from the nearby forest…