Three Orphan Pilgrimage (The Alternative to the Final Season)

by J. Gray Dingler

A story about three kids on a post-apocalyptic road trip, and the sequel to Young and Young at Heart. Their reprieve from a world torn apart by the dead coming to a close, a ten-year-old girl and her best friend set out on a journey to find a place to call home for not only themselves but also for the baby boy that they promised to take care of. [Art:Albaharu. Some M-Rated Content]

70. Spoils

"You ready for this partner?" asked Patty.

"I… I think so," said Clementine as she tightened her grip.

"All right then, here we go." Clem felt her stomach drop as she was pushed forward, the bike picking up speed beneath her.

"Okay, don't let go until—"

"I already did!" Briefly glancing over her shoulder, Clem saw she was swiftly pulling away from a now distant Patty. "Pedal!"

The bike wobbled as Clem looked ahead and she was afraid it was going to fall over any second, but she managed to steady herself long enough to start pedaling, and then it happened.

"I'm… I'm actually doing it," realized Clem as the cold wind blew past her face. "I'm riding a bike!" She pedaled harder and the bike moved faster with her. Seeing the cracked asphalt rushing by beneath her tires, Clem suddenly felt like she was flying, and she wanted to fly faster. She pedaled as hard as she could and everything began to disappear into a blur as she tore across the parking lot. In no time, the many shops and superstores that made up the shopping center were gone and Clem was zooming past a broken chain-link gate and onto the road.

She veered left suddenly, feeling the weight of the turn as she weaved her bike around the stacks of bodies lying in the road, then quickly turned back to the center of the street. Clem smiled as she raced down the open road, moving faster than she had ever moved before on her own power. The bike felt like it was an extension of herself, and with a quick twist of her wrists she took off down a smaller road bordering the main road.

After blowing past a gas station, Clem stopped pedaling for a moment and examined her surroundings. A pond flew past her on the left while a dead forest to her right almost seemed to follow her as she coasted by on momentum. Looking ahead, Clem saw the hospital quickly coming up to meet her. At least Devlin told her it was a hospital, even though it didn't really look like one. It was a large one-story building whose walls snaked out at odd angles; it reminded her more of a school.

Putting her feet down and skidding to a sudden stop, Clem took a moment to catch her breath. She had been here about two weeks ago when the group had cleared out the surrounding areas of walkers. Clem remembered the trip to the hospital had taken several minutes of walking, whereas the bike had brought her in a fraction of the time and effort. She briefly looked downward to admire her shiny new red mount, then took off racing back towards the shopping center. It wasn't long before she was rolling up to the curb bordering the Sam's Club, where Patty was still waiting.

"I was starting to think I wasn't going to see you again," said the woman with a grin as she stood up.

"I was having too much fun," said Clem as she slowed to a stop. "I didn't want to stop."

"I know the feeling. First time I rode a bike I just took off down the road, nearly got myself killed when I rode through an intersection."

"I just didn't want to stop," admitted Clem as she stepped off the seat. "Thanks so much for teaching me how to ride it."

"It was no problem, you're a fast learner. Took me like a month to get up the nerve to ditch the training wheels; you did it in just a few days."

"Do you want to ride together?" asked Clem. "There were more bikes left at the Target. We could get you one."

"Maybe another time. I was gonna see if I could finish up with the Brave's tune-up before lunch."

"How is it?" asked a concerned Clem as she looked over at the weathered RV parked next to the curb. "Did you ever find out what's wrong with it?"

"Well, I guess the good news is I haven't found anything wrong with it that I haven't been able to fix yet, and it starts most of the time now."

"But not every time?"

Patty shrugged. "I think the cold might be part of the reason; diesel engines tend to be stubborn when it gets cold. I guess we'll find out soon since it's… what's today?"

"Um… February fourteenth. I remember because I asked Sarah what the date was a week ago, and it was the seventh, and I was counting the days until Valentine's Day, which is today."

"I couldn't think of a more romantic place to spend it," joked Patty as she looked out at the empty parking lot and vacated storefronts. "Anyways, it'll start getting warmer soon which hopefully means it won't be so stubborn to start. Other than not knowing how to fix the damn shower, I think the Brave is all right."

"What if it's something else though?" asked Clem. "What if it gets warmer and it still doesn't want to start every time? Then what?"

"I don't know what to tell you then," said Patty with a sigh. "Moving parts wear out, all that heating up and cooling down causes metal to crack and break, and getting caught in a flood doesn't help either; eventually, things just break."

Clem found herself disturbed by what Patty was telling her, mostly because she knew it was true. "I hope that doesn't happen for a while."

"Yeah, well, as long as we take care of the Brave and avoid any more damn rivers, there should be plenty of miles left in her." Patty took a breath and looked over her shoulder at the vehicle. "Well, I should get back to work. I don't suppose you want to help out?"

"I can," offered Clem.

"I was just kidding, go enjoy your new bike," said Patty with a smile.

"Actually, I was thinking about going over to the Target."

"For what?"

"Clothes."

"More? You've gone clothes shopping like three times this week. Don't tell me you're going to replace that leather jacket so soon."

"No way, I love my new jacket," said Clem as she admired the black leather covering her arms. "It looks just like yours."

"Better, mine's getting worn out," admitted Patty as she examined her own jacket. "Still can't believe they had that in your size."

"They have lots of stuff in my size," said Clem as climbed back onto her bike. "But today, I want to get some earrings."

"I can always lend you mine," suggested Patty.

"Yours are cool, but I want my own."

Clem took off down the road and before long she found herself wheeling up to the Target's front doors. She unclipped her helmet and hung it on the handlebars, then parked the bike by the curb. The store's interior was dimly lit by a series of small skylights running across the ceiling, like most of the larger buildings in the shopping center. Devlin had said after they had moved anything they considered a resource to more secure locations, they let residents take whatever they wanted from the stores.

Everything from furniture to cookware to hardware had been whittled down to the point where one department was barely discernible from any another. Electronics in particular was just empty space now, apparently having been cleaned out shortly after the Keystone Dam was brought back online. With few exceptions, like the greetings card aisle, the shelves and racks that made up the store's inventory were mostly empty now.

But Clem had been here enough times to know what had and hadn't been taken, and navigated towards what remained of the jewelry section. She found herself tempted by the various necklaces, rings, and bracelets on display, and even a few of the more stylish watches. But it was the earrings Clem spent most of her time perusing. She spent some time modeling the different types in the mirror, but eventually settled on a couple of hoops covered in colorful beads and tiny tassels, carefully hooking them to her recently pierced ears.

Happy with her selection, Clem headed for clothes next. She had been fortunate in there was much more clothing left for children than adults. She had successfully replaced most of her wardrobe by now, everything from spare socks to a nice top and skirt combo for if there was ever a need to look festive. There really wasn't much left for her to find in the half-empty and often overturned sales racks at this point, but as she was digging through a pile of shirts, she spotted something bright blue peeking out from underneath all the clutter.

Unearthing the mysterious garment, Clementine discovered it was a sleeveless gown. It was a striking shade of dark blue, with an intricate floral pattern decorating the top, a sparkling white series of white gems running across the waist to form a belted section, then transitioning into a long flowing skirt split down the middle by the same floral pattern as the top. Examining it more closely, Clem could tell the gems were just plastic or something else of little value, but she didn't care, it looked beautiful.

Holding the dress up against her chest, Clem realized it was too big for her, and it'd probably be a long time before she would grow into it, but she took it anyway. Satisfied with her finds, Clem was going to make for the exit when there was a sudden bang in the distance. She dropped the dress and reached for a pistol she hadn't brought before she realized the sound wasn't a gunshot. The bang was followed by many more loud yet rhythmic noises echoing throughout the store.

Following the sound out of the clothing aisles, it grew louder and it became more obvious it was drums she was hearing. At first, Clem thought someone was playing a CD or something, but it sounded too loud, and all she could hear were drums and no other instruments. Following the percussive beat, Clem realized she had entered a section of the store that sold musical instruments, and not long after she found the source of the noise; it was Jet sitting behind a drum kit.

She watched as the boy rolled the sticks on top of a snare drum before twisting to his right and bouncing the sticks off every drum head in front of him. He hit the cymbal hanging in the air to create a loud crashing sound before swinging one hand back to snare drum while crossing his other hand over it to tap out a beat on a pair of cymbals mounted on a rod attached to a pedal Jet was tapping with his foot.

Clem sat down and watched as Jet continued to play, doing more drum rolls, hitting cymbals, and stomping on another pedal that caused a mallet to strike the huge overturned drum the other smaller ones were mounted on top of. Even with just the one instrument, she liked listening to the boy play and enjoyed watching him in motion even more.

His movements were fluid yet forceful as he effortlessly transitioned his arms to and from every piece of the kit, all the while his feet moved to a elaborate but consistent beat. The grace and precision Jet demonstrated made it hard for Clem to believe he ever struggled so hard fighting walkers. Eventually, after a final explosive volley of cymbal crashes, Jet stopped playing suddenly. Hearing him take a few quick breaths and realizing he must be taking a break, Clem started clapping.

"Huh," said Jet as he spun around on his stool. "Clementine? How long have you been here?"

"Since not long after I heard you start playing. You're really good."

"Am I?"

"Yeah."

"I was just messing around. It's what I used to do back in Houston. After they wouldn't turn on the power anymore, and I read everything in the house twice, all that was left was just to practice playing the drums, all day."

Jet sighed. "I wished the dam Devlin mentioned still worked, then maybe we could at least watch movies or do something more fun."

"You could go get some new clothes," suggested Clem. "I find that fun."

"Ehh, I don't."

"We could play chess, or maybe another game I'm better at," said Clem. "There's tons of stuff we could do if you're bored."

"It's more then me being bored," said Jet as he shook his head. "I mean, how long are we going to stay here?"

"You want to leave?"

"I… I don't know," admitted Jet. "I mean, here is definitely better than driving around and looking for food like we had been doing, but I'm still worried what'll happen when the food here runs out eventually."

"That won't be for a long time," reasoned Clem. "You should have fun and enjoy yourself while you can."

"I can't. Every time I try, I just keep thinking about all the things I can't do now. I can't get to my parents, I can never be an astronaut, I can't even go back to school."

"You want to go back to school?"

"A little. It was nice seeing other people my age, or just other people at all I guess. I mean, don't you miss it, the ways things were?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

"I miss it but… it's been so long; it feels like it was a million years ago."

"Not to me it doesn't. In Houston, it always felt like I was just waiting for things to go back to normal, or close to it, but it just kept getting worse. They kept giving us less food, they turned on the electricity less and less, and now we're here and I can't stop thinking about how much better things were."

Although it was still distant in her mind, Clem did briefly remember her relatively carefree life before she was forced to scrounge for food, kill monsters that wanted to eat her alive, and be afraid of every single person she met. She just went to school, played with her friends, and spent time with her parents. Despite knowing that's how it happened, it still felt unreal to her, like she had never really lived that life. But looking at Jet, it was clearly real to him, and the loss of it was weighing heavy on the boy's mind.

"Maybe one day things will get better," suggested Clem.

"That's not going to happen," said Jet.

"You don't know that," argued Clem. "If we can kill all these walkers by ourselves, other people will figure it out eventually, especially if we keep leaving behind messages that say they can use the walker smell, and the walkers are so dumb that a lot of them will kill themselves. One day, they're gonna be gone and—"

"And the world will still be screwed up." Jet slumped over on his stool.

"There… there could be other people out there, trying to make things better," reasoned Clem. "We don't know if all the people who left aren't ever coming back, or if there aren't other people still here trying to fix stuff."

Jet twirled one of the drumsticks in his hand, as if he was thinking about what Clem said. "I remember asking my parents why they had to go to somewhere so dangerous, like Afghanistan, and they told me people there needed help. I asked them why they couldn't help people here, they said the ones over there needed help more. Then I asked why did it have to be them, and they said because they could… now everywhere needs help."

"Maybe there are more people like that still out there coming to help us," suggested Clem with a grin. "Maybe your mom and dad made things better over there and will come back here to help us, and you'll find them again."

"They said what they were doing would take years," informed Jet. "And that was before everything got screwed up. Even if they're okay and find a way to get back here, it'd probably take decades for it to be safe enough to go looking for them, if ever; we'll be out of food by then."

Clem tried to think of a counter argument, but nothing sprung to mind. In fact, she found Jet's analysis of the situation upsetting the more she dwelled on it.

"I'm sorry," said Jet, likely noticing Clem's distress. "Truth is, I didn't even see my parents that much anymore because they were gone much, but I still miss them, a lot. I guess it's selfish to say this, but I want more than just not worrying about starving to death."

"I do too," admitted Clem. "But not starving means I can do a lot of stuff I've wanted to do but couldn't because I never had time."

"I guess it's different for me, since when I was in Houston, I had tons of time to read whatever we had, play old board games, and this," said Jet as he hit one of the cymbals. "In a weird way, it feels like I'm stuck back home again, just waiting for something to happen. Like I said, it's better than where we were but—"

"It's still hard," finished Clem. "I know, I spent a lot of time just waiting. The first few months after things changed, I spent all my time at this hotel, just waiting for the day I could go home, which never happened. And then I spent like half a year in this cabin in the woods, just me and OJ's parents. It wasn't bad but…"

"You feel like a prisoner," finished Jet. "Because you know you can't just leave and go somewhere else."

"Um… yeah," said Clem, realizing that was how she had felt. "But once we left the cabin, Sarah and I stayed in this house together for a long time, and that didn't feel like a prison."

"Why not?"

"Because, we had plenty of food, and we had each other, so we could just spend whole days together."

Jet groaned. "I spent too many days alone with Granddad in Houston."

Clem watched as Jet pivoted on his stool back towards the drum kit, frustration stewing on his face. After thinking about what she could say, Clem inched in close and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You've got all of us now too," spoke a sincere Clem.

"Um… thanks," said Jet, sounding a little surprised.

"There's lot of things we could do together; Patty keeps saying she wants to play poker with more people than just me."

"You think she'd really want a kid like me around?" asked Jet.

"Sure, she's really nice to kids, but doesn't treat me and Sarah like kids. You should come play poker with us, you'd love her."

"Yeah, that could be fun, I might do that later," said Jet as he turned back to the drum kit. "I think I'd like to keep doing this for a while though, it does help me relax, a little."

"Okay." Clem turned to leave, but stopped when she noticed the dress on the ground. "Oh, you don't know where Sarah is, do you?" she asked as she grabbed it. "I think she said something at breakfast about getting some stuff from here for OJ."

"She and Anthony were here earlier. They said they were going to take some things over to Devlin," informed Jet. "He's probably watching the road from where he usually is."

"Got it." Clem skipped out of the store to the rhythm of Jet's drumming. She stopped briefly at the checkout counters, grabbing one of the few plastic bags left on the rack, then burst back outside. Clem carefully folded the dress before placing it in the bag, then threaded the bag's handles around the bike's handlebars. She then put her helmet back on and took off in a flash.

Racing across the parking lot on her bike, Clem found herself lamenting never learning to ride a bike sooner. Not only was it fun, she was also able to ride a lot faster than she was ever able to run. The endless hours she spent walking desolate roads easily would have been cut in half on a bike. It had no engine, so it'd make no noise that would attract walkers, and if she got a basket she could carry food and other things much easier with it then she could on her back.

Before Clem could even finish thinking about how much easier her life would have been with a bike, she discovered she had already crossed the parking lot and arrived at the other end of the shopping center at the narrow gap between buildings. The stacks of walkers bodies lining the sides of the opening festering in the morning sun was an unpleasant sight, and an even more unpleasant smell. Luckily, she didn't need to pass through the gap to reach Devlin. Turning to her right, Clem looked past the broken remnants of the semi-trailer and at the rope ladder hanging in front of a store called Marshall's.

Climbing up the ladder, Clem didn't even need to reach the top to know Devlin was there. After they had finished securing the area around the shopping center, Devlin insisted he serve as their lookout. Since then, he diligently spent his days on top of this store to keep watch over the highway. She had hardly seen Devlin over the last two weeks except at meals, and despite his initial warm behavior he had become withdrawn since then, something that had made Clem worry for the man. He had done a lot to help them, but seemed to never want anything in return.

Reaching the top of the ladder, Clem discovered a few pieces of furniture had been added to Devlin's normal lookout spot on the far end of the roof. The few times she had come up here before there had only been a single folding chair and a small stool Devlin usually left his binoculars on. Now there was a lounger chair with a large umbrella providing shade over the area. Walking up to the chair, she spotted Devlin lying on his back while looking out into the distance.

"There a problem?" Clem was a little startled by Devlin speaking so suddenly; she could have sworn he hadn't noticed her yet.

"There's no problem," assured Clem as she moved in front of the man. Seeing his face, he seemed detached, his eyes staring off into nothing, like he wasn't really there. "What about you? Do you have any problems?"

"Like I told Sarah, you don't have to worry about me," assured Devlin as he shifted slightly in his seat.

"Did Sarah really bring you this stuff?" asked Clem as she also noticed a portable CD player sitting by Devlin's lounger.

"Her and Anthony, although I'm pretty sure it was her idea, not his," said Devlin. "Like I said, don't worry about me."

"But I am worried," said Clem. "If you don't want us to worry, you should tell me what's bothering you."

"The last thing I want to do is saddle a kid with my problems, especially one who's raising a baby," said Devlin.

"Sarah is taking care of OJ today, and I've had to deal with really bad problems before."

"I don't think you've had to deal with my kind of problems before."

"Are you worried about what happened to your parents?" said Clem as she crossed her arms. "Because I did for a long time, and it didn't end well, and that was just one time I was worried about someone I loved."

Devlin turned to look Clem in the eyes. "Point taken," spoke the man in an apologetic tone as he sat up. "I just keep thinking about the Chief."

"She was the one who was in charge in Tulsa, right?"

"She was more than in charge, she was leading us," stated Devlin. "Even if the Navy hadn't of assigned her to us we would have followed her."

"You miss her," concluded Clem.

"I do, but that's not what's got me thinking about her lately. Why would she just leave without a word?"

"What do you mean?"

"She said she'd send someone back up the river if anything ever changed in New Orleans, so why wouldn't she send someone up to tell me about the evacuation?"

"Maybe she couldn't?"

"You don't know the Chief. If she was still alive, she would have found a way to get a message up to me."

"Well, maybe she isn't," said Clem in as sympathetic a voice as she could.

"Don't misunderstand me, I know death is around every corner, but the bits and pieces you told me about New Orleans make it hard for me to believe she just up and died. She already said she was going ahead of the other boats, so if something happened to her right then, they all would have come back here, so they didn't kill her at the border.

"Then, what you told me about New Orleans, about how it just looks like they up and left… Sarah showed me the photo she took, and I just can't stop thinking about how there has to be some clue to what happened to the Chief somewhere in the city. I mean, you said you weren't even there that long, and that most of what you know came from a couple of soldiers who got there before you."

"Well, yeah, but—"

"I've got my boat anchored outside of town. I could go down there and—"

"Devlin," said Clem in a stern voice. "I know how you feel, and so does Jet. He wants to find his parents, but they're all the way in Afghanistan, so there's nothing he can do."

"His parents were soldiers?" asked a surprised Devlin.

"No, he said they were part of a group who went places to help people. He also said they were gone a lot even before things changed, but he stills misses them."

"I'm sorry to hear that, but New Orleans is a lot closer than Afghanistan. If the rivers are still mostly clear, I could probably make the trip and back in a few days."

Clementine took a breath. "My parents went on vacation to Savannah before the walkers, and after that I ended up in Macon, which was about half-way across Georgia. I spent months just wanting to go there, to find them, and we did eventually go to Savannah."

"I'm guessing you didn't find them," said Devlin.

"Not then, but I wanted to keep looking anyway. Savannah was a big city, and I thought even if we didn't find them, we might find out where they went, or maybe a message they left me, or…" Clem bit her lip as he thought back to that dark day. "I didn't want to leave, so instead, I trusted someone I shouldn't have and… almost everyone else I knew died because they didn't leave when they had the chance."

"Who was this person you shouldn't have trusted?"

"A man who pretended to be my friend and lied to me," recalled Clem, unable to conceal the bitterness in her voice. "He said my parents were still alive and he could take me to them, but they were already dead."

"I'm sorry," said Devlin. "But it sounds like he's the reason the people you knew died."

"He was," stated Clem in a stern voice. "But, thinking about it now, even if he hadn't of been there, I might have went out to look for my parents anyway, because I couldn't stop thinking about them."

"It can't be easy for a kid your age to be separated from her parents," spoke a sympathetic Devlin. "You shouldn't beat yourself up over it."

"I don't, at least not anymore. But it does make me think about how lucky I am, for all the people who care about me and take care of me that are still here."

"I understand what you're saying and don't worry, I'm not gonna run off on ya," assured Devlin. "If you and Jet can tough it out, then so can I."

"You don't have to be tough all the time," assured Clem. "It's okay if you miss your friend." Devlin laughed a little. "What?"

"Just you being worried about me when it feels like it should be the other way around; I'm the adult."

"That's what Patty said once when I was trying to make her feel better. Adults get sad too, all the time in fact."

"Just feels like it should be other adults who shoulder the burden instead of Sarah getting Anthony to drag this stuff up here and you having to listen to my troubles because you're worried about me; you two kids have enough responsibility as it is with taking care of that baby without adding me to your list."

"I've had to do a lot of things kids shouldn't do," said Clem with a shrug. "I don't think talking to people who feel bad is one of them."

"Well, I think you've done enough talking for today; thanks Clem." Devlin finally cracked a slight smile, which made Clem smile. "If you or Sarah ever need anything, just come see me."

"Actually, I was wondering if you knew where Sarah went."

"She was looking for stuff for your baby," said Devlin as he stood up. "A lot of the toys and the like in the stores we gave away to any family who wanted them, but we saved some for the orphanage."

Clem followed Devlin across the rooftop and back towards where the ladder was. "We turned the chain of stores across from here into some rooms for the kids who lost their parents." Devlin gestured at two sets of small stores in the middle of the parking lot between the far ends of the shopping center. "Ones of the right were for the older kids, ones on the left the younger ones. I heard her and Anthony moving something around down there earlier, so they must have found something they liked."

"Thanks Devlin."

As Clem climbed back down, she heard music start playing from the roof, which made her smile. Reaching the ground, Clem grabbed her bike, choosing just to walk it the short distance over to the nearest shop. Looking at the signs, Clem could see there were a couple of restaurants, a nail salon, a couple of electronic stores, and a UPS store. Moving to the nearest shop, Clem could read 'smashburger' written over the entrance, but pushing past the front door, she found anything but a restaurant inside.

There were no tables or booths to be found, but there were tons of long linens hanging from crude hooks fastened to the ceiling, forming separate spaces like in an emergency room, except these curtains were much more colorful. Moving to the back of the area, Clem found a counter and pieces of what used to be a kitchen, as well as the bathrooms, the only remaining clues that this used to be a restaurant.

With no sign of Sarah, Clem headed back to the entrance. She briefly stopped by one of the bunks. Peeking past the curtain, Clem discovered a small bed inside and a matching dresser. Pulling open one of the colorful drawers, she found clothes that appeared a little too small even for her. Turning away from the dresser, she spotted some papers lying at the foot of the bed.

Picking them up, Clem could see they were crayon drawings. They were crude and simple, reminding Clem a lot of the ones she used to make. The first picture was of a blue house with four stick figures standing by it; two short, two tall. The next picture appeared to be random pieces of food drawn across the page. Clem recognized what was clearly supposed to be a piece of swiss cheese and a watermelon, but the rest of the shapes were much harder to make out.

The next drawing was even more abstract, being an odd arrangement of hastily drawn shapes. Clem couldn't be sure what she was looking at, just that a bunch of dark shapes were surrounding a smaller yellow shape in the middle. The last page was just covered in black marks that filled the entire sheet of paper. Looking in between the marks, Clem could see there was something else drawn underneath, but whatever it was she couldn't tell anymore.

Thinking back to the girl she saw amongst the hundreds of walkers they had killed to reach this place, Clem felt a sense of overwhelming pity for the children that must have lived here before. As she set the drawings down and headed out of the bunk, she couldn't help eyeing every bed as she moved towards the exits, silently counting how many there were. Clem didn't know if that girl she had seen ever lived her, but many other children had.

Searching the other stores provided Clem with no leads to where Sarah had gone. She found more crudely made bunks for children, and more amenities for them. The two buildings in the middle lacked beds and were more like daycares, stocked with tons of toys and other fun playthings that even now Clem felt a slight urge to play with herself, while the last two buildings had more bunks for small children.

It donned on Clem she had never met anyone younger than herself since the outbreak. The only exception was Omid, and she and Sarah both had to work hard to keep him alive. The only other children she knew were dead now, and the next youngest person she knew was Sarah, and they both had more than their fair share of close calls in their time together. But crossing past the wrecked remains of the tank stalled in-between the two types of orphanages just made Clem realize how many more horrible situations they had been been fortunate enough to avoid.

Arriving at the first of the buildings assigned to older kids, Clem found largely the same as she did in the previous stores. The beds were bigger, she found magazines instead of drawings, the curtains were less colorful, and the books had fewer pictures, but the bunks were largely the same. Instead of a daycare, there were three small stores in the middle rebuilt into what Clem could only assume were hangout spots for the children living here.

The left one had TV's and headphones set up all over the place, along with various DVD players and game consoles hooked up to them. The next one simply had racks of clothes set out, even though it wasn't a clothing store. Clem stopped to briefly browse their wares only to find the outfits were all too big for her. And the last store had been made into an indoor basketball court, with hoops attached to different ends of the area and everything in-between cleared out. Looking at the floor, Clem could even see small holes were tables used to be bolted to the ground.

With still no clues to where Sarah was, Clem approached the final building in this cluster of stores. The sign outside read 'Mattress King', and stepping inside, she found more of the same. Eyeing the many bunks she passed, Clem noticed they were larger than the others she had seen, possibly because this store was bigger than the last few, but otherwise there was nothing of interest.

"Now what?"

"Now what what?" Clem nearly jumped out of her skin upon hearing that and spun around to find Anthony suddenly sitting up on a bed behind her. "Whoa, why the hell are you wearing dreamcatchers?"

"They're earrings," retorted Clem.

"Could have fooled me."

Clem glared at Anthony. "What are you doing here?"

"Testing beds," he answered. "Figured the best ones wouldn't have been hauled too far from the mattress store.

"Why are you testing beds?"

"The one in my camper is getting worn out, figured now was a good time to upgrade."

"But why are you testing them? Aren't they all the same?"

"Not hardly. When you spend as much time as me without knowing where you're going to sleep, you learn to appreciate the difference between lying on a fine mattress and some crappy ass futon," said Anthony as he stood up. "Your basic spring mattresses might seem like they're good enough, but once you've tried a foam mattress, you'll never go back if you can help it." Clem watched as the man threw himself onto another bed and just laid there quietly for a moment. "But what I'd really like would be a waterbed."

"A waterbed?"

"You never heard of a waterbed?"

"No."

"Well, I've only been in one myself. I think they're kind of a retro thing," said Anthony. "Man, it feels like sleeping on the ocean."

"The bed's not actually made out of water though, right?" asked Clem, trying her best not to sound foolish.

"No it is," said Anthony.

"It's a bed made out of water?"

"Well, filled with water, like a big balloon."

"And you sleep on it?"

"Hell yeah, like I said, you're sleeping on the ocean. It moves under you, like it's rocking you to sleep. There's nothing else out there like it. I was hoping to find a waterbed here, but no dice."

"You sure know a lot about beds."

"You spend a third of your life sleeping, so where you sleep should be a top priority. It's a shame I didn't think to come here sooner," said Anthony as he stood up. "Besides, I'm bored. Got sick of breaking things the day before yesterday."

"Breaking things?" repeated Clem. "What were you breaking?"

"I started with empty bottles and some other garbage behind the Sam's Club before I found some plates and glasses at one of the restaurants."

"Why… why were you breaking those?" asked a confused Clem.

"It's fun, especially the plates; you throw them at just the right angle and they practically explode when they hit the wall." Clem stared at Anthony in confusion. "Oh come on, you never get pissed off and just wanted to hit something?"

"There have been a few times I felt like that… they weren't fun."

"Probably because you didn't hit the right thing," suggested Anthony. "Don't act you don't know what I'm talking about. Back in Baton Rouge, I could tell you enjoyed killing those people who came up on the bridge."

"They were walkers, and like, only for a second," argued Clem.

"You should try enjoying it longer, you won't regret it." Anthony had a weird smile on his face that made Clem feel uneasy. "Come on, I can show you some nice plates that are just waiting to be smashed."

"That's okay…" said Clem as politely as she could. "I was just trying to find Sarah."

"Oh, after we finished bringing the military man his stuff, I helped her drag some things from the kids' sections into the Books-a-Million to keep your baby happy," said Anthony as he moved towards another bunk. "Seemed like she planned to spend a lot of time there."

"Why?" asked Clem. "She's already brought back tons of books to the Brave. How many more does she need?"

"Got me. I told her it'd be easier for me to grab the books she wants and drag them home than drag stuff in there, but she insisted." Anthony threw himself onto another bed. "She's acting like someone died lately. You should tell her to loosen up; we hit the jackpot."

"Yeah, I'll do that," said Clem half-heartedly as she left the mattress store. The Books-a-Million was just across from her, so Clem quickly biked over to the front entrance. Parked outside was a shopping cart with a tiny plastic driver's seat built onto the front of it. It was an odd sight, with the top being a metal cart and the bottom being a red and yellow toy car with plastic steering wheels in front of the tiny seats. The pair had been using it anytime they needed to move Omid around the shopping center. It was easier than carrying him as well more fun for Omid than being carried.

Knowing Sarah must be inside, Clem removed her helmet and grabbed the bag with the dress from the handlebars. The bookstore had faired slightly better than most of the other stores. Devlin said they had used it as a library, and even added books to it by offering to trade the ones in the store for older books people had in their homes. As such, the shelves were fully stocked with books, old and new.

Walking down the aisles, stepping over piles of books that had never been cleaned up, Clem found herself frustrated she still couldn't find Sarah. She was just about to call out for her friend when she heard a familiar giggling in the distance. Following the noise, the laughter became unmistakeable as Omid's. Hearing him laughing made Clem want to giggle a little herself, and stepping out past a few shelves, she found the noise growing louder as she approached a corner dedicated to a now defunct snack bar.

"OJ…" teased Clem as she eyed past the edge of the counter. "Where are you?" Inching in closer, Clem discovered there was an entire collection of toys surrounding a small plastic pool full of brightly colored plastic balls. "OJ…" Clem could hear him giggling as a few balls near the center of the pit moved slightly as she inched over to edge of the pool. "I wonder where he could be?" Clementine dropped the dress and thrust her hands into the ball pit. A loud squealing sounded as Clem's hands grabbed onto something soft and squirming. "Found you!" Clem pulled Omid out of the ball pit, prompting the boy to laugh uncontrollably as she held him in the air. "Who's my sneaky little boy?"

"Sah-duh!"

"Huh?" Clem looked over her shoulder to see Sarah approaching. "There you are. I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Why, what's wrong?" asked Sarah.

"Nothing's wrong, I just wanted to see you." Clem placed Omid back in the ball pit while Sarah set some books down on the counter. "It sounds like you've been all over the place. Getting stuff from the Target, then bringing it to Devlin before—"

"I just wanted to do something nice for him since he's always up there all alone," said Sarah without looking up from her book. "But I don't know if he even cared about the things we brought him."

"Well, I talked to him, and I think he feels better now," said Clem. "And I think what you did helped too."

"Really?" asked a dubious Sarah.

"Yeah. Just as I was leaving, I heard him turn on the CD player you brought him."

"You did?" Clem nodded. "That's great." Sarah smiled, then turned back to her book.

"Guess what else happened?" asked Clem.

"What?"

"I finally rode a bike today without training wheels."

"That's great Clem," said Sarah as she thumbed through a different book.

"You gotta learn how too, it's so much fun."

"Maybe later." Sarah jotted something down in her notebook.

"Then I got some new earrings," said Clem as she tilted her head. "Do you think they look good with my new jacket?"

Sarah briefly turned towards Clem, then turned back to a book. "They look fine I guess."

"You guess?"

"I'm just… not big on earrings," said Sarah without looking up. "I still can't believe you let Patty pierce your ears. Didn't it hurt?"

"A bit for a little while. It didn't hurt nearly as much as a lot of other things that have happened to me," dismissed Clem. "You should let her pierce your ears too, then we could all go pick out earrings together."

"No thanks." Clem found herself at a loss for words. Sarah was completely engulfed in whatever she was reading and barely noticing Clem. Seeing little point in staying, Clem started to leave before spotting the shopping bag sitting on the ground.

"I know you don't like dresses," said Clem as she removed the dress from the bag. "But I thought you could use one in case you ever wanted to look nice, like for a party or something, and I think this one would be perfect for you."

Sarah was glued to her book, so Clem unfolded the dress and held it up. It looked like a good fit for Sarah but Clem couldn't be sure, so she inched forward and pressed the straps up against Sarah's shoulders. The dress seemed to neatly line up with Sarah's body, or it did until Sarah tried to turn around and nearly bumped into Clem.

"Um… what are you doing?" asked a confused Sarah.

"I just wanted to see if this dress would fit you," said Clem.

"Why, you know I don't like wearing dresses."

"I know that; I just said that."

"You did?"

"Yeah, I was right behind you," said Clem. "You didn't hear me?"

"Sorry, I'm just kind of busy with this," said Sarah as she turned back to her notebook.

"Doing what?" Clem glanced at the page Sarah was writing on and saw a long series of numbers scrawled across it in every direction.

"Just… something. I'm still in the middle of it, I'll tell you later."

"Well, okay," spoke a disappointed Clem. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"It's Valentine's Day?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah."

"I forgot all about that," admitted Sarah as she picked up a different book.

"Oh… okay." Seeing Sarah was pre-occupied with whatever she was reading, Clem let the dress drop onto the floor and turned away.

"Clem, wait."

"Yeah," said Clem as she turned around expectedly.

"Do you think you can take Omid for a while?" asked Sarah. "I've got a lot I want to do and it'd go faster if you watched him."

"Oh, sure." Clem sighed, then went to collect Omid. She found Elma amongst the toys and gave it to him. "I'll take OJ back to the Sam's Club."

"Thanks, I'll see you at lunch."

"See ya." Clem carried Omid back outside. She seated him in the toy plastic seat under the cart, then placed Elma right next to him in the other seat, much to Omid's approval. "Okay, buckle up."

"Bup-bup!" Omid slapped his hands against his plastic steering wheel and Clem pushed the cart forward. She was disappointed to leave her bike behind, but listening to Omid's joyful giggles helped offset the loss. She made sure to occasionally make a sharp left or right turn, just to get a rise out of Omid, which it always did. As they closed in on the Sam's Club, Clem spotted Patty rolling a cart of goods out the front door and towards the Brave.

"Ahh, check out the little man driving himself around," said Patty as she knelt down to look at Omid. "You enjoying the open road?"

"Oh-roh!" repeated Omid as he twisted his wheel around wildly.

"I think he loves it as much as I love riding my new bike," said Clem.

"We'll have to get him a tricycle someday."

"Why not today?" suggested Clem.

"Nah, I think you usually need to around three years old before you can handle a trike; we had to block off the bottom of this thing just to keep him from falling out," said Patty. "How long until he hits his first birthday?"

"It's Valentine's Day now, so his birthday is in two weeks… or two weeks and a day."

"You're not sure?"

"Well, Sarah said the day he was born was February twenty-eighth, but because it was really late at night it might have been past midnight, which would mean he was actually born the next day, and Sarah said it might have been a leap year that year, so…"

"So it's kind of a mess."

"Sarah said it's probably best to just have his birthday on March first."

"Well, I'll be looking forward to it." As Patty took hold of her cart, Clem noticed it was loaded with numerous automobile products and even a couple of car batteries.

"Is all that to fix the Brave?" asked a concerned Clem.

"Nah, I'm done with the tune-up, and I think the old girl will be fine for the time being. This is all just backup stuff for later, and this time I'm storing it inside." Patty's face twisted slightly as she looked directly at Clem. "I uh… I see you got your earrings."

"Do you like them?"

"Um…"

"You don't."

"Sorry partner, they're pretty tacky." Clem frowned in response. "Not trying to be mean, but I'd be a lousy friend if I didn't give you honest fashion advice."

"Well, thanks for that," said Clem as she carefully removed her earrings.

"Don't get down, we'll pick you out some better ones after lunch." Clem smiled upon hearing that. "Speaking of which, I think Sin could use a hand with the cooking, and you're our best chef."

"Got it." Clementine pushed Omid into the Sam's Club, moving past the area full of carts and into the actual store. She had grown to enjoy her visits here, with the group normally convening for their meals at the concessions area. They'd often talk with each other and make plans for how they would spend their day. It was like sorta being back home and having family meals again.

Moving past the collection of tires and automobile products stored just to the right of the entrance, Clem spotted the familiar rows of red and white benches lined up in front of the store's built-in restaurant. Her eyes wandered up towards the large signs running over the area that advertised pizzas, pretzels, and hot dogs. As big an improvement as the food in Tulsa was, Clem found it hard not to look at those ads and want to eat the things on them instead.

"Clementine." Turning her gaze back downward, she spotted Sin standing by the series of caged shelves that ran beside the benches, removing one of their propane tanks. "I'm afraid lunch won't be ready for a little while."

"It's okay, I came by to help," said Clem as she pushed the cart closer to the kitchen.

"Hmm, even when you take time off as our cook you came by to check on me," noted Sin as he carried a propane tank back towards the small kitchen tucked behind the concessions' checkout counter. "Well, I probably could use it, I'm not much of a chef."

Clem watched as Sin set the propane tank on the ground and started attaching it to a hose that ran to a burner positioned under a large pot. "I grabbed this by mistake." Sin picked up what Clem thought was a coffee can. "Cajun peanuts instead of the regular kind." Sin set the container on the counter, revealing it to be not a coffee tin but an incredibly wide can with the words 'boiled peanuts' written on the side. "Would you mind getting me a normal can? It's at the back of the store on the left hand side; they have a green label instead of red."

"Sure. Just let me put OJ in his playpen first."

"Oh, that reminds me. Omid doesn't have a peanut allergy does he?"

"No."

"That's good, hard to make a peanut sauce without them," said Sin. "Hard to make it with boiled peanuts too, but I'm going to try."

Clem pushed the cart past the concessions area, arriving at an open spot where there was fairly lavish looking lawn furniture surrounding a small wooden canopy. Clem wasn't sure where any of this stuff had come from, but she knew the plastic playhouse walled in by cartons of unopened copy paper was their own recent addition. "Okay now," said Clem as she placed Omid inside. "You be good while I help Sin make lunch."

"El-muh," pleaded Omid.

"Here you go," said Clem as she passed Omid his favorite stuffed animal.

"El-muh," he repeated as he tightly gripped the tiny stuffed pachyderm.

"You play with Elma and I'll be back in a little bit."

Clem grabbed the can Sin set out, finding it took both hands to carry it, then hurried further into the store. As she moved, she looked out at the various other foods they had left to choose from. As plentiful as it all was, Clem couldn't help noticing that large parts of the building were empty. The aisles were multi-layered industrial shelves that looked more at home in a warehouse than in a store. But only the section under the bottom shelves ever had any food left, with pallets of mixed goods safely tucked away under most of them; all the shelves above them were empty. It was still more food than Clem had seen in a very long time, but all the empty space above it served as a constant reminder of how much more there used to be.

Locating the boiled peanuts, Clem double checked to make sure she had the correct kind, then hurried them back to Sin. She mostly let the man work on his own, only helping to prepare ingredients briefly before letting him take over. Clem mostly kept herself busy getting ready everything else they needed. She set out bowls, plates, napkins, and silverware, then filled cups and pitchers with water. Next, she used instant mix products to create tea, chocolate, and even coffee for Patty using a mug of hot water Sin had boiled. As Sin finished up in the kitchen, Clem selected a couple of cans of oranges to be their fruit for today's meal.

"So, is lunch ready yet?" asked Anthony as he strolled into the area.

"Almost," said Sin from the kitchen.

"You can have some oranges while you wait," said Clem as she removed the lid from the first can. "And—"

"And you mixed our favorite drinks," said Anthony as he looked at the cup of chocolate milk on the table in front of him. "That's the kind of service I like to see."

"Lunch will be ready in a minute," said Sin from behind the counter. "Why don't you go get Omid?"

"Right." Clem finished opening the cans of oranges, then hurried over to the playpen. She moved in to grab Omid, only for him to run off towards the playhouse. Watching him climb the plastic ramp to get inside, Clem snuck around to the other side and waited. As soon as Omid reached the top of the ramp, she burst in and grabbed him. "I gotcha!"

"Kem-men!" squealed Omid as she carried him back to the concessions area.

"Here ya go," said Clem as she set the boy in the high chair placed next to one of the benches. "Why don't you start off with some oranges?"

"Mah-bah," said Omid before Clem fed him a spoonful of oranges.

"I never really played poker before." Clem turned her head to see Patty and Jet walking together.

"Well hell, next time Clem and I play you can jump in." The pair sat down across from each other while Devlin slowly marched in from behind them. "You know, I used to hate places like this; crowded, dirty, full of walls of crap nobody needed," said Patty as her hand moved right to the coffee Clem had prepared. "But these days, this place feels downright cozy compared to a lot of places we've been lately."

"Thank the Chief," said Devlin as he sat down. "Once she got a good look at this place, she declared this our new command center. The funny thing is we didn't actually have to change all that much. That weird ass cabana thing and its furniture we used for our morning meetings was already here, we just rearranged it. Same goes for all those tires and stuff next to the entrance, this place just had that built in already."

"Probably because they found it as convenient as I did to wheel stuff right out to a vehicle you need to work on," said Patty before sipping her coffee.

"You probably haven't even looked at forklifts in the back of this place yet. There's a whole fleet of them back there, as well as what was basically a maintenance area for them to be worked on. We got a lot of use out of them when we still had power since they're all electric. Then there's the pharmacy which had built in shutters, and that chain link cage around the tobacco section was already there as well. This place was already pretty secure, we just appropriated it."

"Yeah, going back to the tobacco aisle," said Anthony. "You mentioned you also stored the alcohol back there."

"Yeah, so?" asked Devlin.

"So, there any chance we can get some beer after lunch?"

"Make that two," added Patty.

"Just ask me after lunch." Clem felt tempted to ask Devlin for something to drink too, but decided to hold off for now.

"Mah! Mah!" Clem turned to see Omid reaching for the sippy cup resting on the bench. She had wanted to wait for lunch to start before giving it to him, but reasoned it wouldn't hurt if he got it earlier. "Mah-bah," he said before sampling the chocolate milk inside, prompting Clem to take a sip from her own cup. Clem wagered the instant mix chocolate milk was a poor substitute for the real thing, but it had been so long since she tasted any kind of milk that didn't come in powder form it was hard for her to judge.

"Oh, and after lunch, could you check to see if they have anything for headaches left in the pharmacy?" asked Patty. "I've had a migraine off and on all this week."

"After lunch," repeated Devlin as he stirred his sweet tea with a straw.

"You know, if you just gave us the keys or left those areas unlocked, we wouldn't have to bother you every time we wanted something," reminded Anthony.

"Yeah, come on, it's not like we're alcoholics," assured Patty.

"Oh no, I saw enough people drowning their sorrows or worse to deal with this shit as it is," insisted Devlin. "Enough stress and an ample supply of something that kills stress can turn anyone into an addict, and things are plenty stressful right now; I didn't start smoking until I came to Tulsa. Like I said, talk to me after lunch and I'll give you something in moderation."

"Speaking of which, is lunch ever coming?" Anthony said in the direction of the kitchen.

"I'll be right there," retorted Sin in a harsh voice.

"These benches are bolted to the ground," noted Jet before turning to Devlin. "That means they were already here too, right?"

"Yep, like I said, Chief figured this place already had a lot of things we could use for a command center, it just needed some tweaking. After getting a good look at concessions, she told us to rip out those electronic cookers, stick in the gas grills, and turn those cages used for layaway items into storage for propane tanks because this was our new mess hall," said Devlin as he gestured around him. "Although, that grill thing kind of bit us in the ass later when we got the power back on."

"Well we don't have power anymore," said Sin as he placed a large pot on one of the benches. "So it's working to our advantage now." Sin retrieved a second, smaller pot from the kitchen, then started spooning out lunch into everyone's bowls. One pot had noodles while the other had a thick sauce or stew Sin poured on top of the noodles.

"So what is this stuff?" asked Anthony as he examined his meal.

"Noodles with spicy peanut sauce," said Sin

"Oh, like Grandma used to make?" asked an eager Jet.

"The closest I could get without fresh ingredients, and without your grandmother to cook it."

"Wait, I thought you didn't want the spicy peanuts?" asked Clem.

"I didn't, the spice comes from other things," said Sin with a smirk.

"I never thought I'd get to try Thai food after everything fell apart," said Patty with a smirk as she picked up a fork.

"I'll take just about anything at this point that's more elaborate than spooning something out of a damn can," said Anthony before swallowing a spoonful of noodles..

"Well," said Sin as he filled his own bowl. "I guess we're ready to eat."

"Wait, where's Sarah?" asked Clem.

"I'm here," called Sarah as she hurried to join the others. "I'm sorry I'm late." As Sarah sat down across from her, Clem detected a fair amount of anxiety stewing just behind her eyes. Maybe it was how her glasses framed her face, but she didn't look scared so much as worried about something. But about what Clem couldn't say. "I just kind of lost track of time."

"Really?" asked Patty. "You're the only one of us who wears a watch anymore." Devlin cleared his throat. "Well, you and Devlin."

Unable to wait any longer herself, Clem dug into Sin's dish. She found the noodles a little hard to chew, almost like they were undercooked. The vegetables and peanuts in the sauce were a little better and helped to offset the noodles, but their texture was very mushy by comparison. The spices in the dish however felt at odds with each other, giving the dish an odd flavor.

Looking at the others, Clem saw conflicted expressions on their faces that reflected her own mixed feelings. It wasn't a bad meal, just not a great one. Turning to Omid, Clem fished a few noodles out of her bowl, mused up a small piece of them, then feed it to Omid.

"Nuh!" he yelled as he spat out the piece.

"OJ no! You barely tried it," scolded Clem as she mushed up another piece. "Sin worked hard to make this, you can at least eat one bite." Clem moved her spoon closer, but Omid swatted it away.

"Nuh!" he yelled.

"No!" said Clem before turning to Sin. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," he assured with a sigh. "I don't think this is my finest work either."

"It's good," said Jet, his words sounding forced out of his mouth. "Just…"

"Not as good as Grandma's?" Jet nodded. "Even if I had fresh ingredients, I think it'd be a far cry from her cooking."

"It's fine man," said Patty with a warm smile. "How lucky are we that we can even be picky about what we eat, right?"

Clem noticed Sarah flinching slightly upon hearing that. She hadn't said a word since sitting down and didn't even seem interested in eating. "What's wrong?"

"It's… it's nothing," insisted Sarah as she stirred the noodles in her bowl.

"Tell me," pleaded Clem. "What's bothering you?"

Sarah stopped stirring and took a breath. "This food is only going to last two years." Everyone stopped eating and turned to Sarah. "I… um… Devlin let me look at the list they made the last time they took inventory, before they were attacked, and it already broke up most of this stuff into servings, so I added those up and averaged everything we've been eating lately and…" Sarah noticed everyone staring at her, prompting her to turn away in embarrassment. "The food will last two years…" she repeated.

"Jeez Sarah, you say that like it's bad news," said Patty. "I mean, two years of not having to hunt for food means—"

"We'll just have to hunt for it all over again in two years," stated Sarah.

"Yeah, in two years," said Patty.

"In two years there will be no food left to find," declared Sarah.

"Oh come on, there's no way you could possibly know that," argued Anthony.

"I know a lot of this stuff is already past its expiration dates," retorted Sarah. "And I know everything I've looked at will expire in under two years."

"It doesn't always expire," reasoned Clem. "We eat lots of things past the date on the cans, and they're okay."

"Yeah, and a lot of stuff uses 'best by' dates," added Jet. "They don't expire on those dates, that's just when they're at their best, but they're still safe to eat afterwards."

"But for how much longer?" challenged Sarah. "If that's the date they're best by, that just means they're gonna get worse after that. How long until we can't eat them?"

"She has a point," said Sin. "I won't make excuses for being a lousy cook, but even I can't mess up boiling noodles; they went stale, even while still packaged."

"And there's got to be other people out there still looking for food. We're not the only ones who know about using the lurker smell to get past them. In two years, there probably won't be any big stores full of food left for us to find because other people will have eaten it all by then."

"Jesus Sarah, you're really bumming me out here," said Patty. "I mean, you're talking about stuff we have no control over; there isn't anything we can do about it."

"There's something we can do," said Devlin as he turned his head slowly and looked over at Sarah. "You got some kind of plan, don't ya?"

"Well… yeah. I mean, I haven't figured out everything but…"

"It's okay," said Clem as she placed her hand on Sarah's. "Just tell us."

"We… we need to start a farm," said Sarah with as much authority as she could muster. "And we need to start one soon."

"A farm?" repeated Jet.

"There's a lot of things I still want to do," said Anthony. "Farming isn't one of them."

"And what do you mean we need to start soon?" asked Patty. "You just said we had two years of food, and we just got here a couple of weeks ago."

"It'll be spring soon," said Sarah. "If we don't start making plans now we'll come into the growing season late."

"You say that like you're already a farmer," noted Sin, a certain harshness in his voice. "Do you have the slightest idea of how hard farming really is?"

"Just a bit," admitted Sarah. "Clem and I tried growing a garden last summer. It was really hard, and we didn't even grow that much food."

"And now you want to build a farm?" asked a baffled Sin. "Do you have any idea how much we'd have to grow just to keep ourselves feed?"

"There's eight of us, including Omid. If we ate a single fruit or vegetable at every meal of every day, that's twenty-four a day, and after three-hundred and sixty-five days, that'd be—"

"Nearly nine-thousand for a single year," finished Sin.

"Yeah, and we'd need to grow more than that actually, a lot more, because just one fruit or vegetable wouldn't be enough since we'd all be working more and we'd need to eat more."

"And you want to try and grow that much food?" asked Sin. "After trying to manage a garden, something you admit was difficult, you want to move onto something that's roughly equivalent to growing a thousand gardens at once?"

"No…" admitted Sarah in a quiet voice. "But I don't see any other choice. The food is going to run out eventually, that's a fact; what are we going to do when that happens?"

An uneasy silence filled the air as everyone pondered Sarah's question. Clem herself had no answers, and looking around at the others, it became apparent they didn't either. Even Sin, despite being the most outspoken against a farm just now, appeared frustrated that he had no response.

"Ah-bree." Omid waved his empty cup in the air.

"Okay, but one only more cup," said Clem as she spooned instant mix chocolate into Omid's sippy cup. "And that's it for today." Clem poured in some water, mixed it until it turned a solid brown, then screwed the lid back onto the cup.

"Okay, I think you've made your point Sarah," admitted Patty. "But if we got two years of food, then why do we need to start soon? Can't we start next year?"

"It might take us two years just to get good at farming," said Sarah. "If we start this year, and mess up, we'll have enough food leftover to try again next year. If we wait until later, we'd only have one chance to get it right."

"Assuming we get it right at all," said Anthony. "I mean, I did some odd jobs working as a butcher's assistant, but I don't know shit about farming."

"I picked some oranges when I was in Valkaria," said Clementine. "And there's the garden we grew, but that's it."

"Why don't you just ask Granddad what to do?" suggested Jet. "He was a farmer."

Sin and Jet swapped looks of irritation before Sin turned back to the rest of the group. "We might not be able to get it right even in two seasons," he stated. "My parents were second-generation farmers, and our family still struggled to make ends meet. A farm demands whole seasons of back-breaking labor, and we'll be at the mercy of things we can't control. Something as simple as a long enough drought can devastate an entire crop."

Sin suddenly turned to Jet. "And for the record, my experience farming ended about forty years ago, and the thing I remember most about it is never wanting to do it again." Jet turned away while Sin looked at Sarah next. "I'm sorry, but I don't have any brilliant insights into agriculture that'll help us; I don't think any of us do."

"That's why I've been reading a lot lately," said Sarah. "There's books on how long it takes to grow certain plants, what kind of soil they need, how to harvest their seeds."

"We have seeds actually," interjected Devlin. "We had been storing them at the hardware store for when we'd eventually start our own farms."

"I know, and we'll need those, but they'll run out too eventually, so we'll need to be collecting new seeds as well," informed Sarah.

"Okay, this is getting more complicated by the second," said Anthony. "I mean… how the hell do you get seeds from say, an onion, or a carrot?"

"You let them grow for two years and they'll make a flower with seeds in it," informed Sarah. "Then you collect them."

"Which one, onions or carrots?" asked Patty.

"Both."

"They both have to grow for two years before you can harvest them for seeds?" asked Jet in disbelief.

"Yes, it's one more reason we should start a farm this year," said Sarah. "A lot of stuff we'll need to do will take time, and we'll only have less of that if we wait."

"As much as I love onions, I could live without them," reasoned Anthony. "Why not just grow stuff like cucumbers? I know where the seeds on them come from."

"Cucumber seeds won't grow if you don't harvest right," said Sarah. "You have to let them grow until they get mushy, then put the mush in a bucket and stir it every day until the good seeds sink to the bottom."

"Wait, what?" asked a baffled Patty.

"It's… it's complicated, I'm still reading about how to do it right." Sarah turned to Sin suddenly.

"I don't know anything about harvesting seeds," he said. "My family just bought bags of them at the store; I never thought to ask where they came from."

"Neither did I until recently," admitted Sarah. "Just from what I read, it's complicated. You have to make sure they're pollinated, and that they don't pollinate with the wrong thing or themselves or the seed might not grow."

"Themselves?" repeated Jet. "So… plants can inbreed? And if they do, the inbred seeds don't grow?"

"For some plants, yeah," said Sarah. "Some plants do self-pollinate, and they're okay."

"We're having a discussion about incestuous plants now," realized a dismayed Sin.

"Incestuous Plants would be a killer name for a band," said Anthony.

"Do we even need to be talking about this?" asked Patty. "People are out there looking for food, but there's probably tons of seeds still left around the country. I mean, we never even went looking for them. We probably passed tons of farmer's markets loaded with bags of seeds, so do we really need to be worried about which plants can and can't screw their cousins?"

"Seeds only stay good for so long," informed Sarah. "Like a lot of food, most of them will go bad after a few years."

"Man this shit is complicated," mumbled Anthony as he scratched his head. "How the hell did we ever have so much food before?"

"There was an infrastructure in place before," said Sin. "Someone else harvested seeds so others could concentrate on just growing them; division of labor."

"You mean like hiring people for pennies an hour to harvest crops?" groused Devlin as he crossed his arms. "I guess that was a step up from just forcing them to do it for free." Devlin's words made Clem think back to her time at Shaffer's, and how hard she was forced to work so others could live comfortably.

"They don't pay farmers themselves well either," added Sin. "That's why many farms are usually subsidized by the government, to keep food prices low. Even then, most of this country's food was probably being grown at large corporate farms that could afford complex irrigation systems, pesticides, and large-scale farm equipment. I don't know how much, if any of that we can reasonably use at this point."

"Sarah, this sounds really hard," spoke a concerned Clem. "I know we're gonna have to do something when the food runs out, but are you sure you want it to be this? I mean, just working at Shaffer's those few weeks was pretty bad, and they usually gave us easier stuff because we were young."

"I… well… I'm—"

"Ah-bree." Clementine looked at Omid as he waved his empty cup in the air again. Clem took the cup, but hesitated refilling it. Instead, she put the lid on the container of chocolate mix and flipped it over. Printed on the bottom in barely legible ink was a date. After briefly counting years in her head, Clem sighed as she realized the chocolate mix was only a couple of months away from expiring. It also dawned on her, with another spring approaching, it'll have been two whole years since the walkers arrived.

"Ah-bree!" demanded Omid and as he banged his hands on the highchair's table.

"OJ, no, you've already gotten enough chocolate today," said Clem as she loaded some oranges onto a spoon. "Why not eat some nice—"

"Ah-bree!" Omid clamped his mouth shut the second Clem moved the spoon forward.

"Here," said Sarah as she handed the cup to Clem. "I filled it with water, but there was still a tiny bit of chocolate left, so maybe it'll taste close enough that'll he'll drink it."

"All right, here you go." Clem handed the cup to the toddler. Omid took one sip from it before tossing it on the ground. "OJ, no!"

"Nuh!" refuted Omid.

"Omid no!" scolded Sarah.

"You got enough chocolate already," insisted Clem as she picked up the cup. "More will make you sick, so just drink your water." Clem moved the cup towards Omid and he turned his head away in protest.

"Nuh! Nuh!" he said defiantly.

"Then you don't get anything else to drink." Clem pulled the cup away, which prompted Omid to start crying. Clem tried to ignore him, but she couldn't and gave the toddler his cup back. He took one sip off it, then tossed it back on the ground again. "Nuh-huh-huh!" Omid broke down crying again, prompting Sarah to pick him up.

"It's okay," she assured as started cradling the infant. "It'll be okay."

"I wish we still had fresh oranges," lamented Clem as she watched Sarah try to coddle Omid. "I tried making orange juice from the canned ones after we got here, but it just doesn't taste right and Omid won't drink it. He'll eat them but he won't drink juice made from them and I don't know why."

"They probably add preservatives or treat them to last longer, maybe it's more noticeable as a juice," suggested Sin.

"That reminds me of something else we'll have to learn how to do," realized Sarah. "Can or jar our own food to last through the winter when we can't grow anything."

"You're pretty dead set on us starting a farm," realized Patty.

"Even though none of us know what the hell to do," added Anthony.

"What else can we do?" asked Sarah. "Does anyone else have a plan?"

"I talked a little with Devlin about what we should do if we ever needed to leave Tulsa," said Patty. "We both heard rumors about the West Coast. We don't really believe them but—"

"We literally have no idea where else to go at this point," finished Devlin with a shrug.

"We could always do that later if the farm doesn't work out," said Sarah.

"I guess we could always go back to Houston," said Jet. "But—"

"We left because it was probably going to collapse soon too," reminded Sin as he shook his head.

"We could just stay here and enjoy two years of easy living," suggested Anthony as he leaned back in his seat. "I mean, with the ways things are, a couple of years is pretty good."

"I want more than a couple of years," demanded Sarah in a surprisingly stern voice. "I want to see Omid grow up and be happy. I want him to live as long as me—longer than me. And that will never happen if we don't start thinking about the future. We have a chance, right now, to make something that will last longer than a couple of years, and we might never get it again."

Clementine looked at Omid, still sobbing softly as he fidgeted in Sarah's arms. After Sarah returned the toddler to his highchair, Clem scooped some oranges onto a spoon and tried feeding him again, but Omid wasn't interested. Looking at the chunk of congealed fruit sitting on the spoon, Clem briefly recalled how much sweeter Valkaria's oranges tasted than the two year old canned ones she was looking at right now.

"You're right," Clem told Sarah. "We need a farm."

"If you do this," said Sin. "You'll be committing yourself to a hard and often tedious life."

"I kind of think we're already committed to that," noted Patty.

"Farming is different from scavenging, it requires constant care from dawn till dusk," argued Sin. "And the various obstacles and dangers we face now won't disappear just because we start a farm. If anything, that'd make us a target for other scavengers."

"We're already sitting on a target," stated Devlin. "OKC probably wasn't the last army out there. I mean, you were telling me there were still troops left in Houston when you left, and that people there had heard about Tulsa. And, no offense to any of you, we had a lot more people ready to defend Tulsa back then."

"There's also the lurkers," added Sarah. "One herd already came here, another could still come. This is a big city with interstates leading in every direction to other cities that might be full of lurkers."

"We can handle dead people," argued Anthony.

"When we have time and somewhere safe to plan and prepare," retorted Sarah. "If a herd came here in the middle of the night while we're all asleep, we might not get out."

"They only have to bite us once to kill us," spoke a nervous Jet.

"If we go somewhere out in the country, far from the main interstates, then we probably won't run into people or lurkers," reasoned Sarah.

"Hold up, the country?" repeated Devlin. "You mean, you don't want to start a farm here in Tulsa?"

"I think it'd be too dangerous," said Sarah. "Like you just said, other people knew about it."

"So what, you want to pack up everything and leave?" asked Devlin.

"You got a problem with that military man?" retorted Anthony.

"I thought you were worried we'd be attacked a minute ago," said Jet.

"We could be attacked, or we could find more hungry people like you coming here for help," said Devlin. "I was just trying to say adding a farm wouldn't make Tulsa any bigger a target than it already is. I'd rather not just leave this place empty for whoever stumbles upon it next."

"So what, we gotta give up all our plans because you want to stay here forever?" challenged Anthony.

"I thought you didn't want to be a farmer," said Jet.

"I don't, I… I'm speaking hypothetically," reasoned Anthony. "I mean if we did do this, is he really saying we can't take the food here because someone else might come and need it?"

"I didn't say you can or can't do anything," corrected Devlin. "I just said, I'd rather not just abandon this place and leave nothing behind for anyone still heading here."

"In a couple of years there won't be anything left and that will happen anyway," argued Sarah. "And if more people do come they'll need to eat and that will just happen faster. You said Tulsa was already planning to start a farm. I know there's only a few of us now, but I still think that was the right plan, and not only for ourselves. If we do get good at growing our own food, we might able to make enough to feed other people who need help."

"Well, yeah, it was the right plan then, and probably still is now, and I always did want to go looking for the Osage," admitted Devlin. "We know they got hit in the attack, and their town closest to Tulsa got torn apart, but I always wondered if any of them survived. Their territory extends north to the Kansas border, it's possible there's still some up there trying to stay alive."

"We could find out," suggested Sarah. "You said they had farms in the Osage nation, and that you were going to start one there, maybe we still can, and if there's still people there, maybe we could even work together."

"I like the sound of that, but I'm still weary about leaving Tulsa behind," admitted Devlin. "Maybe it's just because I've been here so long, but I hate to think about what happens to the next group who gets here and there's no one or nothing left to help them."

"Well, we could leave some of the food here," suggested Jet. "We don't need to take all of it to start a farm, and then whoever comes here wouldn't starve."

"Leave food? Are you serious?" asked Anthony. "Just so some assholes can come along and steal it?"

"We probably can't bring it all with us anyway," argued Clem. "Even if we packed our RV's and your truck until they were full, there's no way we could get it all in there."

"All the more reason not to do this in the first place," argued Anthony. "We'd be leaving behind a fortune that someone else can snatch away while we're playing farmers up north."

"There's also all the tools and seeds we'd need to even start a farm," added Sin. "Leaving us with even less room to store food in our vehicles."

"Then let's get bigger vehicles," suggested Jet. "All those semi-trailers used to make the wall at the Citadel, they could hold tons of stuff. If Patty could get a truck working, we could use one of them. I bet we could get a year's supply of food into one of them."

"If I can get one of them working," said Patty.

"And even then, that still means leaving half of our stash behind for someone to take," added Anthony. "Seriously, we busted our asses getting this stuff, why just give it away?"

"Because you're not the only people who are hungry," argued Devlin. "And to be honest, I don't think it's enough just to leave food behind. We should leave instructions on how people can reach us too."

"So another roaming gang of pissed off soldiers with a tank can find us and kill us to get the other half of the food?" asked an annoyed Anthony. "That's an even worse idea."

"Fine, I'll stay behind, the rest of you can go," dismissed Devlin. "That way there's someone here who can tell the needing where to go and point anyone else in the wrong direction."

"Jesus Devlin," spoke a concerned Patty. "You really want to stay here after everything that's happened?"

"I thought you wanted to stay with us," added a surprised Clem.

"I do, but I don't feel right just ditching anyone else who comes to Tulsa, and since a sign can't tell the difference between a family and an invading army, somebody will need to be here, like I was when all of you came to town." Devlin sighed. "Maybe it's just as well, I figured I'd die here for quite a while now."

"Devlin, don't say that," pleaded Sarah. "I wanted us to do this together."

"If he's not coming I'm not," insisted Anthony. "Farming is gonna be hard enough without you guys dumping all the hard labor on me."

"It wouldn't all be on you," argued Clem. "If we do start a farm, we'd all help out."

"Yeah, great, one elderly man, some kids, and a couple of women who are barely five-feet high," grumbled Anthony as he crossed his arms. "No offense, but I don't see y'all doing the bulk of the literal heavy lifting."

"No offense? You son of a—"

"He has a point," interrupted Sin.

"Point?" repeated an annoyed Patty.

"Like I said, farming is hard work, and he and Devlin demonstrated they're the fittest amongst us when we had to fight our way here," noted Sin. "That means they can do more physical labor."

"It's just physics," realized Clem with a sigh.

"Oh yeah, well… I'm five-foot-four," blurted out Patty. "Not barely five feet high."

"You're all still smaller than Anthony and Devlin, and I'm far from my physical peak anymore. Not having either of them is going to greatly reduce the amount of work we can get done in a day," stated Sin. "And there will be a lot of work needed to run a successful farm."

"Devlin, we're gonna need you," insisted Sarah.

"I… I suppose you would," realized the man as he looked at the rest of the group. "But… I still don't know if I can just leave this place without a word of warning to the next group who might come here."

"Okay, well…. I'm gonna get bigger," reasoned Clem with a shrug. "So will Jet, and probably Sarah, and then we can do more work."

"That might take a few years, and as Sarah pointed out, we'd need to start this season," said Sin with a sigh. "Even with Devlin and Anthony, this is going to be an uphill climb."

"And I'm still not convinced we should even do this," added Anthony. "Seriously, even if it's only two years, that's two years I'd rather live happy then breaking my back in the dirt just to go hungry anyway because I don't know dick about farming."

"You… you didn't literally work the whole day, every day?" Jet asked Sin. "Right?"

"Well… I suppose not literally," said Sin with a shrug. "But it's a constant chore that needs doing, and then there's the added challenge of having to harvest our own seeds, something I know nothing about, and we'd have no chickens for eggs or cows for milk, meaning we'd be entirely dependent on what we harvest once we eat our current supply of food."

"Two years is a really long time. Maybe things will get sorted out while we're here," Patty told Sarah. "I mean, obviously they're not going back to normal, but in a couple of years maybe most of the walkers will be dead and there will finally be some kind of rescue effort."

"It's already been two years almost," argued Clem. "And there's been no rescue this whole time."

"And even if help does eventually come, it could take more than two years for it to get here," added Sarah. "It might take five years, or ten."

"Or decades," added Jet.

"Exactly," said Sarah. "But if we had a farm, we could last longer than two years—a lot longer."

"That's if we can even build one," said Sin.

"Or want to," added Anthony.

"Look, I know you wanted to start right away, but how bout this: we wait until next year to start a farm," suggested Patty. "We'll all have lots of time to rest, and you and Clem and Jet will all get some time to get a little bigger and stronger."

"And we'd all have more time to read up on the essentials of maintaining a farm," added Sin.

"A year would also give people a lot more time to reach Tulsa too," added Devlin. "After that long, I think I'd be comfortable moving on, and maybe we'll meet a few more helping hands during the wait."

"Yeah, people who like working on a farm," added Anthony with a grin.

"We can start a farm next year," said Patty with a smile. "This year, we can just enjoy ourselves."

Clem watched as Sarah's face sank, clearly heartbroken over her plan being rejected. It hurt Clem too, not just to see Sarah sad, but because Sarah had Clem convinced a farm was not only necessary to live, but that there best chance to succeed was now, not next year. Seeing everyone older than them, all people who got to live more of their lives before the world was thrown into chaos, nodding along with Patty's suggestion to simply forget about it for a year angered Clem.

She realized the reason they could speak so dismissively of something that would grant them greater longevity is because they had already lived a lot longer than Clem. Most of them had been given at least twice as long as she had ever been given to live in a world where they didn't have to constantly fear death and destitution around every corner. While they had been given the time to grow into adults and, at least briefly, pursue their hopes and desires, Clem had only been given just long enough to learn how the world worked before it was turned upside down and she was forced to relearn how to live in a far crueler world that afforded children no luxuries.

The exceptions would be Anthony, who seemed content to drift through life both before and after things changed for the worst, and Jet, who was only a couple of years older than Clem. Looking at the boy, she saw he didn't share the others sense of relief in not wanting to start a farm this year, likely because he was dwelling on the same thought Clem was dwelling on; in two years time, they'd still be children.

And then there was Omid, who would likely never even realize what he was denied just from being born when he was. Reaching over to collect the boy from his high chair, he fidgeted slightly in Clem's grip, likely still upset he was denied his treat. Coddling him close to his body and rubbing her hand up and down his back, she thought about all the other things he'd be denied if he never lived long enough to enjoy them.

Two years would be long enough for Omid to get to ride a tricycle, and that wasn't good enough Clem realized. Nor was it good enough passing up their best chance for him to live a long and full life, or for Clem's own chance to do the same. Watching the others finish off their plates, as if the decision had been made for them, was enough to make Clem scream; but she didn't scream.

"We'll leave behind instructions."

"What?" asked Devlin as he noticed Clem speaking to him.

"We'll leave them instructions," repeated Clem as she set Omid back in his highchair. "Not on how to get to where our farm is, but to wait for us."

"Wait for us?" asked Sarah.

"For one of us to come back, like once a month, to see if anyone has come here while we're gone," figured Clem. "There's enough food for even a really big group to stay a month."

"What's the point?" asked Anthony.

"So we have time to find out if they're bad or not before we tell them about our farm," said Clem.

"Our farm, you mean next year?" asked Anthony.

"We need to do it this year, like Sarah said."

"Clem—"

"What if there are more people out like the ones from Oklahoma City?" challenged Clem as she looked Anthony in the eye. "What if the soldiers in Houston come here because they heard about it like Sin and Jet did?" Clem stared at Devlin as she spoke those words. "Do you want to be here when that happens, or somewhere far away, where they won't find us?"

Clementine watched the pair closely, noticing both Anthony's smug smile and Devlin's typically chiseled face cracking as they were forced to ponder Clem's words.

"There's still the issue of the labor," reminded an unconvinced Sin. "Even if all of us pitch in, we're still likely to be short-handed."

"If more people come to Tulsa, they can help us," reasoned Clem.

"Whoa, I thought we were talking about avoiding people," said Anthony. "Are you seriously still suggesting we should tell people how to get to this hiding spot that I'm still not convinced we should even build?"

"Only if they're good people," said Clem.

"And how the hell do we determine that?"

"Well… we'll leave them a radio and instructions to leave it on a certain channel, that way whoever comes back can talk to them."

"Because people never lie over the phone… or radio."

Clementine scowled at Anthony in response. "Whoever comes back can watch them from the citadel, see what they do, maybe even catch them lying about how many people they say they have."

"Maybe, which means there's still a ton of risk," said Anthony.

"But it's a lot less risk than we were discussing before," retorted Devlin. "I'll be the one that comes back, I can do it on the first of every month. If there's anyone waiting here for us, I'll scout them out. If they look like trouble I'll come right back, if not I'll see if they want to join us on our farm."

"In the meantime, we're all we have to make a farm work by ourselves," reminded Sin. "And if we don't get any volunteers from Tulsa, ourselves is all we'll ever have."

"We killed over a thousand walkers in a single day," Clem reminded Sin. "I think we can handle a farm if we work together and plan things out."

"And if we can't handle it?" retorted Sin.

"Then… we know we can't and can come back this year, when we'll still have plenty of food left, which will give us plenty of time to think of another plan. If we wait until next year, that's a year less of food we'll have if the farm doesn't work."

Sin stroked his chin as he analyzed Clem's suggestion.

"We'd only have to grow enough food for ourselves," reminded Sarah. "It's not like we'll need to grow extra to sell to people for money."

"We don't use money at all anymore. Which means, we can take anything we need," said Jet. "Granddad, you said your family struggled to make ends meet on a farm. Was that because they couldn't always afford what they needed?"

"Sometimes…" admitted Sin.

"We got no shortage of building supplies at the hardware store," said Devlin. "PVC piping, gutters, sheet metal; I helped build a lot of the walls around here, so I've got a little experience with welding, and I think we still have a few acetylene torches left."

"Granddad, you're an engineer," reminded Jet. "You could use that stuff to build an irrigation system."

"I… I don't know," he admitted. "I mean, I couldn't design anything sophisticated, but some simple irrigation systems might be possible if I have some time to think about it."

"If we find any farm equipment, I could try to fix it up," offered Patty. "From what I remember, they're not much different from big trucks."

"So does that mean everyone wants to do the farm?" asked a surprised Sarah. "I mean, this year?"

"I think what Clem suggested would work for keeping watch over people coming to Tulsa," said Devlin. "And screening the area for threats too."

"The last time I worked as a farmer, I was a young and inexperienced man, and it was the nineteen-seventies," said Sin "There have likely been some improvements to farm equipment since then, and if we plan carefully, we might be able to get by just the seven of us."

"I could help Sarah research stuff about plants," offered Jet. "And anything else we need to know about farming."

"There's no mercury in the damn ground is there?" Anthony asked Sin. "Or lead, or something else that'll mean we can only eat stuff that grows out of the dirt twice a week or we get lead poisoning or whatever?"

"Not that I'm aware of," said Sin.

"Well… between eating fresh food again and living somewhere that won't be an obvious target for hundreds of miles, I guess I could put up with a rural lifestyle, at least for a while."

"So we all agree?" asked Sarah. "We're going to start a farm this year?"

Everyone looked at each other, a bit of hesitation on their faces before they all turned to Clem and Sarah.

"Yeah, I think you and Clem sold us," said Patty with a smile.

"At least on not sitting around on a treasure trove that other people might be coming to claim," clarified Anthony. "Still not entirely convinced we can actually run a farm, but whatever, I'll give it a shot."

"If we can't manage a farm, we can always return here, formulate a new plan like Clem suggested," said Sin.

"All right then, it's settled," declared Devlin. "We got a lot of work ahead of us, so let's get started." Everyone quickly filed out in different directions while Sarah gravitated towards Clem.

"I… I can't believe it," she said.

"They're going to do it," said Clem with a smile.

"Because of you."

"Because of both of us," corrected Clem.

Sarah shot forward and wrapped her arms around Clem. Before Clem couldn't even respond, Sarah leaned over and kissed her cheek, much to Clem's surprise. "Thank you," whispered Sarah.

"You're… you're welcome," whispered Clem as she felt her heart skip a beat. Before she could return the favor, Omid started to cry again. "Don't worry, it'll be okay." Clementine let go of Sarah and took hold of Omid, carefully cradling him as she removed him from his highchair. "It's okay OJ," whispered Clem. "We're gonna grow a bunch of really good things, and then you will get to eat food you like for every meal."