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]

106. Chance

Clementine stared at herself in the mirror. Maybe it was the dim light or maybe it was just she didn't get much sleep last night, again, but she barely recognized herself anymore. Her eyes were droopy and bloodshot, the scar across her face had faded slightly but was still all too obvious, her hair was a butchered mess of lopped off curls, and even her face looked wrong. It looked thin, stretched and pale. It was more like seeing her own ghost than herself.

Looking at the clumps of hair in the sink, Clem found herself regretting cutting it so short, like she always does. Every time she would tell herself she shouldn't care, and every time it did nothing to reassure her. If anything, it just got worse with time. She looked so different now that her hair was the only thing she had recognized anymore, and she had just used a knife to slice it off. It hurt her to cut off her hair, as it did to look at her left hand.

Horatio's surgery had been more painful than she expected, but in the days that followed the lingering soreness in her hand had begun to fade. Now, a week later and confident she probably wouldn't die of infection anytime soon, Clem's morbid curiosity had finally gotten the best of her. Pulling off her glove, she saw the bandage underneath and began to unravel it.

Slowly the dressing fell away and Clem found herself getting her first good look at the mark Vernal had left on her. Where her pinky and ring finger used to be were two twitching little nubs scarred with stitches pulling together parts of flesh around what remained of the bones. The skin around the stitches had splotches of black and dark red, like they were starting to rot, and just the way those nubs wiggled made Clem wanted to throw up.

They didn't even feel like they were part of her body anymore, but strange little alien growths that did nothing but hurt her if she clenched her fist too hard. Staring at them, sneering at them, Clem had the overwhelming urge to draw her knife and cut them off, excise these grotesque reminders of one of many horrible days she wished she could forget. But Clem knew it wouldn't do any good, it'd just create another unsightly injury on her already mangled hand, and the thought of losing more of her body made her wept.

Clutching one hand with the other, Clem suddenly noticed her bracelet. She often forgot about it, that little ring of colorful beads and its heart medallion. Looking at her stumps again, Clem found herself hastily yanking the bracelet off her right wrist and quickly relocating it to her left one. It was like decorating a mutilated tree. She didn't know what she expected exactly, that maybe the bracelet would distract her from the injury. Or maybe it was the idea Sarah could just take away all of her pain, but she couldn't.

"Clem?"

Sarah's voice startled Clem. It felt like having a bucket of cold water tossed on her as the rest of the world outside of the bathroom came flooding back into mind.

"Yeah," said Clem as she picked up the bandage. "I'll be right out."

Clem hastily wrapped her hand as quickly as she could, which still wasn't very quick, then unlocked the door.

"Are you okay?" asked Sarah as Clem stepped out, wearing the same worrisome look she always wore these days.

"I'm fine." It was clear from the look Sarah gave Clem she didn't believe her. Clem tried to force a weak smile onto her face, but she couldn't do it. She started crying instead, and when she tried to turn away she found herself in Sarah's arms.

"It's okay," she whispered in a pained voice. "Just tell me—"

"I looked at my hand," confessed Clem in a whisper, embarrassed to even say that out loud. "It's stupid but—"

"It's not."

Clem took a deep breath. "I guess I just thought if I didn't look at it, I could keep pretending my fingers were still there. I… I swear I can still feel them sometimes."

"Yay, Horatio said it's called phantom limb syndrome."

"I know, and it still doesn't make sense to me. The… the last time I saw Lee, he had cut his own arm off. And I remember seeing that and thinking it was one of the scariest things I'd ever seen. I only lost two fingers and it's driving me crazy."

"Maybe… maybe you should stay here today."

"No, we talked about this," insisted Clem as she broke away from Sarah. "We need things, a lot and—"

"And there are four other people who can get it," said Sarah. "Horatio offered to take your place—he's still offering to do that. I just asked him a few minutes ago. You can—"

"We've been over this a million times already. He's the only doctor and Sabriya wants him ready to come get us in the bus if something goes wrong."

"If he was out there with them he could take care of something a lot faster then waiting here for you to get hurt, he said so himself!"

"And if he gets hurt out there then there's no one left to take care of any of us, like Sabriya said!"

"Clem—"

"Sarah, I'm going. We've already talked about this and we both know we need more food and even Horatio had to admit I'm better at this than he is." Sarah looked at Clem, annoyed she couldn't think of something to say. "So, unless you've thought of something we haven't argued about a dozen times already, I—"

"I'll go," blurted out Sarah suddenly. "Instead of you."

"What? That doesn't—"

"I haven't forgotten how to look for food, I used to do it all time."

"But—"

"And I know how to grow food too! If you guys find anything that we could use to grow food this spring, you wouldn't know it unless I was there. It should be me going, not you."

"You're pregnant," reminded Clem. "Eight months."

"So what?" challenged Sarah. "My feet mostly feel better, and Christa had to do all kinds of things when she was this pregnant."

"Because she had no choice! You were there, you remember how hard it was for her to keep up when we left the cabin. Why would you want to put yourself through something even worse than that?"

"So you won't have to!" Clem was shocked to hear Sarah raise her voice like that. "Please, Clem, let me go. I… I want to do this for you."

"Sarah…"

"You're just going to be keeping watch while the other three take out lurkers," reminded Sarah. "I can handle that, you don't have to go. Please, Clem…"

Clem turned away, unable to bear looking at Sarah's quivering eyes as she pleaded with her. "Next time…"

"Next time?"

"Next time you can go and I'll stay," clarified Clem. "Okay?" Clem looked up and saw an odd mix of dissatisfaction and relief in Sarah's eyes. "Well?"

"Next time…" An awkward silence followed after Sarah said that; it didn't sound like an agreement.

"Hey." Clem looked past Sarah to see Sabriya approaching them.

"We're fine," said Sarah in a quiet voice as she turned around. "We're just… worried about today."

"Are you sure? Is there—"

"No," interrupted Sarah. "Not anything you're not already doing."

"Okay…" Sabriya looked aside awkwardly. "Do you still want to take your baby, Omid, to—"

"Definitely," said Sarah, some eagerness emerging in her voice. "We can't pass up this chance."

"Here's hoping he comes out of bed today."

Pulling back the curtain, Clem knelt down to check under their new bed. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one they had on the farm, or as big, but it was certainly an improvement over the crappy futon they had before. One of the nicer things was the boxspring Dilawar set up gave them an empty space beneath the bed, and Omid had quickly grown fond of it.

He discovered it the day after the new bed was put in, likely confused to where the futon had gone. It wasn't long until he dragged Elma and the entire blanket under the bed. Since then, Sabriya brought back some extra sheets to create a curtain around the edge of the bed and Horatio had given him a little pillow to create as close to his own room as they could give him right now. Pulling back the improvised curtain, Clem found Omid lying on his side with a pad of paper sitting next to him along with a small tub of crayons.

"What're you working on?" Clem groaned as she squeezed herself under the bed. She was the only one other than Omid who could, and it was a much tighter fit for her than it was for him. Crawling over to where he was lying, she looked at the pad of paper and saw it was mostly blank. There were a couple of scribbles around the top of the page, which Clem had made herself in hopes of enticing Omid into drawing something. Looking at the tub of crayons, it was clear it hadn't moved from where Clem left it yesterday.

"It's okay, I haven't felt like drawing anything myself in a long time," said Clem as she gently rolled Omid towards her. "Omid." Omid turned his head and looked up at Clem. "Do you want to come out for a little while?" Omid just stared at her. "We're somewhere special and I think you'd like to see it before we go." Omid kept staring at her. "It'll be fun." He twitched a little when she said fun. Clem could see it in his eyes that he was listening more carefully now. "Why don't you come on out, just for a minute. You'll have fun, I promise."

Omid kept staring at Clem but didn't say anything, nor did he move from the spot he was lying in. Eventually, Clem turned around and crawled out from under the bed. As she awkwardly clambered back into the bus's aisle, Sarah knelt down to help Clem off the floor.

"Well, do you think he's going to come out?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know, probably not" admitted Clem as she stood up. "He was listening to me, but I don't how much he understood."

"Omid," said Sarah as she struggled to kneel down. "Do you want to come out?" Sarah sat down beside the bed and waited patiently, but Omid refused to emerge. "Omid?" Sarah reached under the bed, trying to touch him. Eventually, she drew back her hand to reveal all she was gripping was a pad of paper.

"I'm sorry to interrupt." Clem looked over to Sabriya standing in the aisle behind her, Dilawar walking up behind her. "We need to get moving soon. Is… do you still want to take him out?"

"Yeah." Clem sighed as she looked over at the bed. "But he's not coming out. So I guess—"

"Wait."

Clem watched in disbelief as Omid slowly crawled out from under the bed. He moved into Sarah's arms, then stopped and looked up at Clem, like he was expecting something.

"Well…" said Sabriya. "Now that he's out, we can spare a few minutes." Sabriya turned and began to walk away, only to notice Dilawar wasn't following her. "Dil."

"I'm sorry. It's just…" he said, sounding awestruck. "He's so cute."

"Yes he is," said Sarah in a sweet voice as she slipped Omid's NASA jacket around his arms.

"But he looks so sad."

"Yeah, he is." Clem sighed.

"We're gonna change that today." As Sarah zipped up Omid's jacket, Clem caught sight of the keychain hanging from its zipper. That little totem covered in colorful beads that Simon had given Omid before they were separated. Thinking of Simon filled Clem with fresh misery; he should be here right now with them. Looking at Sarah, she was staring at the keychain too, her face gripped by quiet loss.

"What's wrong?" asked Dilawar.

"Nothing," insisted Sarah as she stood up.

"We're just… thinking about something," said Clem.

"Come on Omid," said Sarah with force enthusiasm as she took hold of one of Omid's hands.

"We've got something special to show you." Clem squeezed Omid's other hand and took a breath. She took a step forward, only for Omid to resist her. "I know you're scared, but sometimes you need to take a chance on something you'll like." Clem looked at Omid and gave him a desperate look. "Please?" Clem gave him a gentle nudge and Omid resisted her, then finally took a step forward.

"Come on, you're gonna love this." Sabriya and Dilawar led the way to the front and slowly but surely, Clem and Sarah encouraged Omid to follow them. Opening the door, Omid stepped backwards suddenly, possibly recoiling from the cold draft that blew in. Clem knelt down and gently put an arm around him to comfort him. "It'll be okay," she whispered. "Just stay close to me."

Standing up, Clem moved down a step with Sarah, and Omid hesitantly followed them, the pair helping him outside one step at a time. Once on the ground, Clem briefly eyed Horatio and Eskiya crouched over a small fire in the distance. They had been cooking what would be breakfast, but Horatio took special notice as soon as he saw Omid step outside; Eskiya remained where he was. Horatio joined Dilawar and Sabriya as they came out of the bus while Clem and Sarah stopped to enjoy the view.

The Great Salt Lake was like a small ocean stranded on land. A mix of rock and sand made up a beach that overlooked the water. The lake itself was calm and still, with only faint ripples from a gentle breeze dancing across it in the morning sunlight. The water was so shallow that Clem could see the beach running under it far off into the distance. It was very scenic, breathtaking even. No signs of the broken world had intruded here, just a serene lake and the calming quiet that came with it.

Clem briefly envisioned herself with Sarah and Omid all taking a casual walk on the beach, but in the summer, and in a time not torn apart by the dead. They could just come here on a hot day, maybe even go swimming together. Horatio had mentioned something about the saltwater making it very easy to float on, but none of them dared to test it in the dead of winter. Looking over her shoulder, Clem could see Horatio, Dilawar and Sabriya were all admiring the sight as well; maybe they were entertaining ideas of what it'd be like to visit it in another life too.

Looking down, Clem saw the only person not enjoying the view was Omid himself. He was just staring down at his feet. Clem stifled a sigh as she realized he had no interest in looking at the lake. She had hoped seeing it would stir something inside him, make him remember there's something worthwhile beyond the blanket he hides under, but he clearly didn't care. Clem turned to head back to the bus, but Omid didn't move with her.

Looking closer, Clem realized Omid wasn't staring at his feet but the sand itself. He took a step back, intrigued by the footprint he had left on the ground. Omid then sat and pressed his mitten across the sand, then pulled it back suddenly. That his hand had left an imprint fascinated Omid in a way that Clem hadn't seen in a long time. His eyes were wide with anticipation as he pressed against the sand harder, and watched in disbelief as he discovered he could move bits of Earth itself.

"We come all the way out here to show him the lake, and he just wants to play in the sand," noted Sabriya, a slight chuckle mingling with her words.

"Of course he does, sand's like crack to little kids," said Dilawar. "We used to spend whole afternoons in our sandbox as kids."

"Oh yeah, we'd use a hose to carve out caves for your action figures."

"Sand is like clay," said Horatio as Omid started dragging both hands across the beach just to see the trails they'd leave. "You can shape it and change it to whatever you want, and for a young child that can ignite their imagination."

Clem watched as Sarah sat down beside Omid. She placed her own hands over Omid's, then helped him shovel two scoops of sand together. He looked at Sarah like she was a wizard. Pushing their hands together to turn those lumps of sand into a crude ball caused Omid's jaw to drop in awe. Clem felt like crying. In fact, she could feel tears welling up in the sides of her eyes and had to look away, wiping her face in embarrassment.

"Are you okay?" she heard Horatio ask her.

"Yeah," spoke Clem, choked with joy. "I can't remember the last time he looked this happy."

"Then I'm glad we came here today." Clem felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and saw it belonged to Sabriya; she looked like she was on the verge of crying herself.

"Why don't we go and get them breakfast," suggested Dilawar as he inched in close to Sabriya. "Give them a minute to… be kids again."

"Right," she said with a nod. "You two just stay with him for a minute, and we'll bring your food over."

Clem sat down on the ground, content to just rest there with Sarah as Omid played in the sand. She didn't even say anything to them, she just put an arm around Sarah and watched Omid. He took off one of his mittens and poked a finger into the sand to make a small hole, then he poked all his fingers into the sand. He gripped a clump of sand and tossed it on to the ball Sarah had helped him make.

All the while he was playing, Clem could hear him making little happy noises. It started with just simple mumbling, little 'ohs' and 'ahs' as he crudely lumped different bits of sand together into a mound. He giggled to himself as he patted his creation, shaping it into a smoother mound before dropping another handful of sand on top of that. After a few minutes of building up his lumpy creation, Omid looked at it for a second, then pushed it over, laughing joyfully as it crumbled.

"I can't remember the last time I heard him laugh," said Sarah, tears running down her cheeks.

"I can," said Clem, overjoyed to hear Omid's voice again as he played. "That day at the hot spring, Simon was rolling a ball down a hill, and Omid was laughing as he chased after it." Clem felt an overwhelming sense of guilt wash over her. "I should have stayed behind, not him…"

"Don't say that."

"Why not?" challenged Clem. "Why shouldn't he be here instead of me?"

"You… Clem… we need you; Omid needs you," insisted Sarah, sounding unsure.

"Is that just my excuse for everything?" Clem mumbled to herself. "No matter what I do it's okay, because—"

"Omid!" yelled Sarah. "Don't eat that!"

Clem looked down in time to see Omid about to shovel a lump of sand into his mouth.

"Don't!" Clem instinctively grabbed Omid's hand and stopped him.

"What's wrong?" asked Dilawar as he rushed over.

"Nothing," said Clem as she gently pried the clump out of Omid's hand. "Omid's just trying to eat sand."

"Well, I think he'd like this better. Cream of chicken and rice." Clem looked over to see Dilawar passing down a couple of bowls with spoons to Sarah. "Or stale grain soaked in salty mush as I've come to know it."

"Warm stale grain soaked in salty mush," corrected Sarah as she handed a bowl to Clem.

"Thanks Dil," said Clem as she moved her bowl closer while keeping one hand on Omid.

"Just yell if you need anything." Dilawar left while Clem grabbed a spoon from her bowl. She was about to feed Omid when she noticed him staring at her hand. Specifically, he was staring at the spot in her glove where Sarah had pinned back two fingers so it would fit better. Omid reached out to touch Clem's stumps while she pulled her hand away.

"Here," she said as she offered Omid a spoonful of soup. "This will keep you warm." Omid hesitated as he tried to find Clem's left hand, then turned to the spoon. He opened his mouth and Clem fed him some soup and rice, then ate a spoonful herself. Years old rice and soup was hardly a delicacy, but it was one of the better things Clem had eaten lately, and heating it up helped mask the staleness.

The three of them sat by the lake together, sipping soup and playing in the sand. The sun was out and it wasn't too cold today, and watching Omid play was a delight. Sarah and Clem alternated between eating and helping Omid with his creations. Sarah helped shaped a mound into a base with corners and Clem fashioned crude little points on top of it. By the time they had finished eating, they had built a very crude sandcastle.

"Hey, are you guys ready?" Clem looked over to see Sabriya approaching them. "We need to get moving."

"All right Omid," said Clem as she stood up. "It's time to go." Clem tried to pull Omid to his feet but he started whimpering in protest. "Come on, we…" Looking Omid in the eyes, the disappointment welling up in them, Clem found it hard to defy him.

"Please?" begged Sarah. "He hasn't been this happy in ages."

"We're burning daylight," argued Sabriya. "We…" She sighed as she looked down at the trio. "We… could get our equipment ready now, that will take a few minutes, but that's it, all right?"

"All right," said Sarah with a smile as she turned back to Omid.

"That means you'll need to get ready too," Sabriya told Clem.

"All right," said Clem as she knocked the sand off her pants. "You be good for Sarah," Clem told Omid as he kept playing. "Love you both."

Clem followed Sabriya over towards the bus, where she instructed Dilawar to start unpacking their equipment from its storage bin. She watched as her things were set out in a pile. Her tomahawk, gas mask, and radio all laid out amongst the gear. Clem pulled her backpack from the pile and started storing everything very carefully.

As Clem packed, she noticed there was still a can of white spray paint at the bottom of her pack, from where she left the Ceres code back before they met Sabriya and the others. She thought about tossing it aside, but it weighed little and she could always get rid of it later if she needed the room today. Clem also briefly clutched the back of her belt to make sure her paper clip was still there; it was. As Clem zipped up her pack, she watched as Sabriya loaded a pistol, Clem's pistol.

"I'm gonna need that today." Sabriya stood there in silence in response. "If I'm going with you, then—"

"It's not too late for you to stay here," answered Sabriya in a quiet voice.

"What? Not you too," groaned Clem. "We already talked about this, like a hundred times and… you agreed with me."

"Well, I've had time to think, and…"

"And what?"

"And I don't want to see another child die."

"You didn't care much about that when we first met."

"Yeah… and that's a mistake I don't want to make… again."

"If you really mean that then give me my gun back," insisted Clem.

"I—"

"I know what you mean and I get it, but if you're really worried about kids, worry about what's best for Omid."

"Isn't what's best for him having you close to him?"

Clem looked over her shoulder at Sarah and Omid. They were still playing in the sand together. It was tempting to go back over to them, but she felt content enough knowing they were happy together.

"I can do more good for him and Sarah out there," said Clem in a resigned voice as she looked up at Sabriya. "I really don't want to argue about this anymore, okay?"

Sabriya sighed and handed the pistol to Clem. "Remember, this is a last resort. A gunshot will draw the undead on us in no time."

"Believe me, I know." Clem held up her left hand. Sabriya let go of the gun, leaving it entirely in Clem's possession. It was heavy, much heavier than she remembered, and just holding it Clem found her hand trembling. Moving it to her hip, it took a couple of tries to thread it into her holster. She thought having her gun back would make her safer, but really it just filled her with dread over what happened next time she used it.

"I'd… I'd like my grenade back too."

"Absolutely not," answered Sabriya.

"You don't trust me?"

"I trust you enough that you wouldn't use it against us," said Sabriya. "To not blow us up by accident when something attacks us? No."

"I—"

"It's not personal, I'm not letting anyone but myself carry that."

"It's—"

"The answer's no."

Clem groaned to herself.

"Eskiya, what are you doing?" Sabriya's call caught Clem's attention. She hadn't even noticed Eskiya was still sitting by the now waning fire. "Get over here already! It's not like you to be distracted."

Clem watched as Eskiya slowly stood up and started approaching the bus. As he moved she noticed his attention was elsewhere; he was looking at Sarah and Omid.

"What are you doing? You suddenly care about what happens to a baby?" asked Clem as Eskiya started digging through the storage bin. "Why are you staring at Sarah and Omid? Do you think they're gonna try something?" Clem's sarcasm had no visible effect on Eskiya, he just kept gazing off at the pair while he absentmindedly collected his gear. "Hey!" said Clem, growing impatient as she knelt down to get a better look at Eskiya's face. "What are you planning?"

"Nothing," he said in a quiet voice. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

"It's just… Ezina would have loved this," his voice was so quiet Clem had barely heard him. Looking over her shoulder, Clem noticed Eskiya didn't look like his normal vacant self, he actually looked sad, which was strange to see, strange enough Clem decided not to press the issue.

Having gathered everything she needed, she moved over to the front door, where Sabriya was handing Horatio a scoped rifle, Sarah's rifle.

"I'm not much of a sniper," admitted Horatio as he examined the weapon.

"Sarah is," informed Clem as she moved over to the pair. "You should give it back to her, it is her gun after all."

"Ray will keep a lookout on the bus while we're away," stated Sabriya.

"Sarah could handle it," insisted Clem.

"It's not that," said Sabriya. "It's just…"

"A pregnant girl should haven't to be a lookout," said Horatio.

"Pretty much," said Sabriya with a sad shrug. "I know she's feeling better lately, but both Ray and I agree she should avoid exerting herself for the time being."

"She had to do a lot more than just keep watch before we met you people." Saying that out loud, it suddenly dawned on Clem how helpful these people had really been. Sarah had literally walked until her feet bled, all the while still boiling water and pedaling miles on her bike. For the last week, she had finally been able to rest, and thinking about it, Clem found she only had one thing she wanted to say. "Thank… thank you, for taking us in."

"Don't thank us yet," insisted Sabriya. "Depending on how this goes today, you might have wished someone else had found you first."

"There is no one else," lamented Clem. "No one else who wouldn't try to kill us anyway."

"We've got everything we can prepared," said Sabriya. "Go get your baby and tell Sarah it's time to go."

"All right." Clem could hear Omid laughing even from the bus, and it pained her walking over to him, knowing she'd have to tell him it's time to leave. Approaching Sarah, she saw Omid still sitting in the ground, tossing away handfuls of sands while giggling to himself. Seeing him so happy again made Clem smile herself; if only it could have lasted.

"Hey," said Clem as she knelt down beside Sarah. "It's time to go."

"Really?" asked Sarah in disappointment. "We can't stay a little longer? I mean… look at him."

"I am." Clem watched as Omid squished two handfuls of sand together into a ball, then squealed with joy as he tossed it away.

"I don't think I've ever seen him smile before." Clem and Sarah looked over to see Dilawar standing behind them.

"What are you doing here?"

"I figured Sarah could use a hand," said Dilawar as he knelt down. "Also, I kind of wanted to see Omid up close." Dil watched intently as Omid starting digging a hole in the sand, seemingly just to see what would happen. "He… he was born after things changed, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's so messed up."

"I know," said Clem. "He's never gonna get to live a normal life."

"Don't say that," said Sarah.

"It's true," shrugged Clem.

"Not it's not," insisted Dilawar. "Me and Sab's dad grew up as a refugee, spent his whole childhood in an effective warzone, or worse. Eventually, things changed, he met our mom, got to raise a family and live a normal life… wish he was still here with us."

"I'm sorry Dilawar," said Sarah.

"It's okay," he insisted. "Just, don't give up on things getting better. You never know what'll happen."

"How?"

"Huh?"

"You said things changed for your dad," repeated Clem. "How did they change?"

"Well, he had an uncle here in the United States who recommended dad for the refugee resettlement program."

"So, he got lucky?" asked Sarah.

"Um, yeah… basically," admitted Dilawar. "They pick only a handful of people each year and… dad got to be one of them."

"And now this country is a warzone," added Clem.

"Yeah, well…"

"Hey!" Sabriya's voice cut through the air like a hot knife. "I said we're going!"

"We're coming," said Dilawar as he helped Sarah to her feet.

"Come on Omid," said Clem as she grabbed one of his hands. "We gotta go." Omid started whimpering loudly in protest as he was forced to his feet. "I know, I know," said Clem as she urged Omid to follow her to the bus. "If I could, I'd let you play all day every day. But I just can't right now, so we gotta go." Clem kept moving forward and Omid kept pulling back against her every step of the way.

Eventually, Clem resorted to picking Omid up, which wasn't easy. He weighed a ton and was big enough to resist her now. He pulled at her arms and kicked his feet into her thighs in protest, all the while sounding closer to crying with every passing second. It broke Clem's heart to cut short the only fun he had in weeks, but she did it anyway and carried him onto the bus. Promptly after setting him down, Dilawar pulled the door close and Omid hurried over to it.

Omid started pushing on the door but it didn't move no matter how hard he tried. Clem tried to pick him up again but Omid refused to hold still long enough for Clem to get a good grip on him. He kept slapping his hands against the door until the engine started and the bus began to move. After that, he just stood there silently and watched as the lake and all the sand he wanted to play with disappeared into the horizon.

"Omid," said Clem. "I'm—" Omid spun around and ran down the aisle as fast as his short legs would carry him. Following after him, Clem caught up with him in time to watch him hurrying under the bed. As she walked up to the bed to check in on him, she could hear him crying.

"It'll be okay." Clem only just now noticed Sarah sitting on the bed. "Once he calms down, I'll find a way to cheer him up."

"How?" mumbled Clem as she sat down beside Sarah. "That was the first thing he enjoyed since the hot spring, and now it's gone."

"I'll… figure something out."

An awkward silence fell between the pair. Clem's eyes turned to the window and watched as the ruins of Ogden passed them by. The others had scoured it over the past week and Clem had gone out with Dilawar the day before for a final look around. There were a few walkers left, barely able to shamble about, but that was it. It had been just one big graveyard and there wasn't a single stash of food as big as the one they found in Morgan.

Listening closely, Clem couldn't hear Omid crying anymore. Leaning past the edge of the bed and looking underneath, she saw he had wrapped himself in his blanket and retreated from the world, like he so often had done before. The difference this time was there had been a part of the outside world he liked, and they were driving far away from it.

"Is he okay?" asked Sarah.

"Yeah." Clem sighed as she kicked off her shoes. "I think I'm gonna lie down until we get there." Sarah moved back on the bed as Clem turned onto her side. Not long after that, Sarah laid down next to her. Clem felt Sarah's stomach pressing against her back, followed by her hands on her shoulders. Going to bed in the evening was often the only peace Clem found anymore, and even then she rarely got much rest. Sleeping in your clothes because you're sharing a drafty bus with other people was hardly ideal, and that was before Clem would remind herself of what happened to Zahra.

"Don't worry about Omid," whispered Sarah in a soft voice. "He loves you."

"Does he?" asked a weary Clem. "He spends most of his time hiding from us, and when he's not he's usually with you. I'll be gone all day and he'll probably just hate me for being the one who wouldn't let him play in the sand."

"That's not true and you know it."

"No, I don't know that," refuted Clem. "I never know what he's thinking, and ever since he stopped talking it's like I don't know him anymore."

"He loves you Clem," insisted Sarah.

"It's okay," mumbled Clem. "He doesn't have to."

Clem felt Sarah moving in closer before reaching an arm around her. Sarah's fingers intertwined with Clem's own and her heart skipped a beat as Sarah's lips pressed against her cheek.

"I love you," whispered Sarah in a sweet voice.

"I… I know you do." Clem rested a little easier after that. The trip towards Salt Lake City was slow but uneventful. The group largely agreed they wanted to avoid approaching a major city if at all possible, and had committed to scouring the surrounding area first. Now that they exhausted what little resources that had provided, they were low on everything and after much debate, decided they had to chance it.

Clem had dreaded going back to a big city again, and it was made worse that Sabriya had questioned her quite extensively on what it had been like to go to Denver. It was purely to prepare the group for today's incursion, but talking about it brought back bad memories just the same. Bad memories of walking past hundreds of the dead, of Simon going through hell to get insulin that probably had expired, of that poor woman and her baby.

There was a slight bumping sensation and Clem sat up suddenly. Looking out the window, they were slowing down now and the ruins of Ogden were long gone. Clem could only see a large hill outside, and turning to look out the window across the aisle, she saw steep hills in the distance, like a miniature mountain range. The brakes squeaked loudly and Clem heard a shuffling of feet from the front. She watched as Sabriya and Dilawar approached the door.

"What's happening?" whispered Sarah as she sat up.

"I think this is where we're stopping for the day." Clem watched as Sabriya and Dilawar charged outside. Horatio sat down in the driver's seat while Eskiya thoroughly eyed the windows. They didn't have time and fuel to scout ahead so they had to just pick a spot from a map they found that looked remote. Moving over to the windows, Clem thought it looked remote, but then there was a lot she couldn't see from where she was sitting.

"Wait here," said Clem as she put her shoes back on. "I'll go see if everything's all right."

Clem found her hand instinctively move to the gun on her hip as she approached the front. She heard a noise from above and realized that was Sabriya walking across the roof. Going to the front, she saw Eskiya carefully studying the exterior through the windows, his cold eyes scanning one part of the horizon before turning his head and starting over at a different window.

"See anything?" whispered Clem.

"Not yet," answered Eskiya.

"Keep looking," said Clem as she headed for the door.

"Where—"

"I'll be going out anyway," she said as she opened the door. "If this isn't safe, we're never gonna make it to Salt Lake City today."

Clem pulled her gun and rushed outside. Her eyes had to adjust to the morning light again. They had picked a fairly scenic place to stop if nothing else. They were in a valley, with slopping hills on their right and steeper looking rocky mounds to their left. A morning frost painted everything a bright white with a single dark shade of blue nestled in-between them. It was a very small lake, and Clem found herself scanning it for something resembling a beach like the one near the Salt Lake.

"Down there!" Clem looked over her shoulder to see Sabriya on top of the bus. She was gesturing towards the lake Clem was looking at. "There's a road leading down by the edge of the water. The bus will be less visible down there and Ray and Sarah can boil water once we confirm there's nobody nearby to see the smoke from a fire."

Clem watched as Dilawar came up beside her, his bow gripped tightly in his hands. He looked tense like her, but he just gave her a nod and they both understood. Everyone returned to the bus and the group remained on edge as Dilawar took the wheel. In addition to fearing they were being watched, backing a bus down a narrow incline bordering a lake made Clem fearful the whole thing would go tumbling into the water.

It didn't and after putting on the parking brake, an uneasy silence fell over the bus. Clem found herself returning to her bed briefly to check on Omid. He was still brooding underneath his blanket, or just sleeping. She wouldn't know without pulling back the covers, and she didn't want to worry him when she didn't need to. It's not like there's anything he can do right now. As much as he might want to go outside it was too risky for the time being.

"All right everyone," said Sabriya as Clem and Sarah headed for the front. "You all know what we need to do, right? Eskiya?"

"I'm the rear guard," he said. "While Dilawar uses their bow to kill the undead from a distance and you cover his flanks with a machete, I keep anything from coming up behind us."

"Clementine?"

"I'm the lookout for the group," she recited. "I'm to keep my eyes open for anything the rest of you miss."

"And call it out if it's something we need to know about," added Sabriya. "Horatio?"

"Lookout for the bus," said Horatio. "I'll take the rifle and go up top."

"Don't remove the lenses cover unless you think you need to shoot something. Scopes can reflect light," said Sabriya. "Sarah?"

"I'll be near the driver's seat, ready to move the bus if something happens," said Sarah. "And I'll be listening closely on the radio all day."

"Good," said Sabriya. "We're just scouting out the edge of Salt Lake City today. If we can bring back supplies then good, but no heroics. Stay alert and stick to the plan, but be ready for anything, adapt, and overcome. Got it?"

"Got it," said everyone, not quite in unison.

"All right, let's move." Sabriya stepped out and everyone but Sarah followed after her. Horatio immediately hurried to the back of the bus while the rest of them gravitated to the luggage bin. Opening it up, everyone's equipment was already neatly packed in their bags, except one thing. Dilawar removed a large rubber bin from storage while Clem fished out her gas mask from her backpack.

Popping open the lid revealed everyone's gore smeared clothes. After the others removed their own coats, Clem dug hers out of the bottom. Over the past week, the group had salvaged odds and ends they needed, and amongst them had been a black leather coat to replace her old one, which had become weathered and torn with time. This one was warmer than her old coat and had a hood to keep her head covered. It was too big for her, but only slightly. Rolling up the sleeves a little was all she needed to do for it to be a fit.

After slipping it on, Clem tossed her tomahawk over her shoulder, clipped her radio to her belt, then tossed her backpack on. Turning in place, she saw the rest were likewise geared up now. Sabriya had a second scarf covering most of her face, Eskiya his bandana, and Dilawar had donned a respirator and a pair of googles. Clem slipped her mask on and tightened the straps as much as she could. Taking a breath, she couldn't smell the walker's scent anymore and breathed a little easier.

"Atlas says it's about ten miles from here to Salt Lake City," said Dilawar as he led everyone to the back of the bus. "So I hope everyone's up for some cardio."

Dilawar removed one of the four bikes hanging from the rack on the back of the bus, Dilawar's own recent addition. Amongst the things they scavenged from Ogden were two more bikes and enough scrap for Dilawar to build a rack to carry them without having to fiddle with the storage bin. Clem wasted no time mounting her own bike after Dilawar pulled it down. Before long everyone was ready to go, except maybe Sabriya who was struggling to maintain her balance.

"You shouldn't have skipped all those summers you could have spent on Raza's farm," said Dilawar. "Me and dad got plenty of practice on a bicycle, amongst other things."

"I'll be fine once we get moving," she grumbled, trying to thread her foot onto the pedal. "Speaking of which, let's go already."

Clem took it upon herself to lead the group, pedaling onward. It took some effort getting up the hill, but once she returned to the main road things got easier. Normally, Clem tuned out while riding her bike to and from, there was just too much distance for her to stay attentive. But today was different, they were charging into what was likely another city choked by the dead; she couldn't tune out the world if she wanted to.

They had barely started moving when they all came to a sudden stop at an intersection. A smaller road branched off the one they were on, but also pointed them west towards Salt Lake City. Dilawar consulted an atlas he removed from his backpack while the others idled impatiently. Every second they stood out in the open Clem grew more anxious something or someone would attack them. Eventually, Dilawar pedaled ahead on the bigger road and everyone followed him.

Clem couldn't help thinking back to when she and Simon went to Denver, and how every second of it was nerve-racking. She watched the road ahead for cars or any other signs people had been here, recently or otherwise. She watched the hills, fearful of a horde of walkers or even wild animals on the prowl. She looked up, afraid of the weather even. It was clear blue skies right now, but she was terrified storm clouds and a blizzard would come rolling in if she looked away for too long.

Like Denver, signs of civilization, or what remained of it, became more apparent the closer they got. Cars began appearing on the sides of the road, then bodies, then strewed cases of luggage alongside other clues to the madness that must have unfolded when people either fled from or to a major city. Clem felt her hands trembling as the number of cars increased. Danger was growing ever closer, if not already surrounding them, and they were charging headlong into it.

She found her eyes were darting about like mad now, overwhelmed by possible threats. There were a few scant clouds on the horizon, so the weather was changing. There were dozens of dead walkers lining each side of the road, which just forced her to think about how many hundreds more were waiting ahead. There were rows of cars laid out as far as the eye could see, but none of them were blocking their way. Clem had only just now realized every car had been moved out of the middle of the road. Looking down at the asphalt, Clem suddenly noticed faint tire tracks, then a shot rang out.

Clem skidded to a sudden stop, her heart pounding against her chest. Looking over her shoulder, she watched in horror as Sabriya fell off her bike.

"Sab!" Dilawar leapt off his own bike and rushed over to her.

"We need to go back!" yelled Clem as she turned her bike around.

"No!" Eskiya grabbed her arm and pulled her off the bike. "We'll be easy targets, we need to take cover!" Eskiya practically dragged Clem to the nearest car, hurting her arm as he did. He pulled open the back to an SUV and shoved Clem inside before hurrying into it as well and slamming the door behind him. Before Clem could say anything, one of the doors in the front of the vehicle swung open. Sabriya came stumbling in, with Dilawar right behind her.

"Is she okay?" asked Clem.

"I'm not hit!" announced Sabriya in-between deep breaths as she climbed across the seats. "I just… fell off my bike when I heard the shot."

"What we do now?" asked Dilawar, panic gripping his voice. "We're out in the open and—"

"Quiet!" ordered Sabriya before taking a deep breath. "Everyone stay quiet, keep your heads down and stay away from the windows." A tense hush fell over the vehicle as everyone became very still. The only noise was their breathing, and Clem couldn't tell one person from her another. Everyone sounded so nervous, and that's when a second shot rang out. It was loud, probably a rifle, and it echoed through the cold air for what felt like an eternity.

"They know we're in here," realized a terrified Clem.

"No, it sounds too distant," dismissed Sabriya. "If someone is aiming at us from that far, we'd probably hear the shot impact here separately from where the gun was fired."

"So, we're not the target?" concluded Eskiya.

Sabriya reached for something in her pocket and pulled out a small mirror. She held it up near the edge of the dashboard and starting carefully tilting it.

"See anything?" whispered Dilawar.

"A lot of open space and a few hundred places someone could snipe at us from," reported Sabriya. "Beyond that, not much. I'm trying to check the cars on the road ahead of us. They all looked abandoned, and I don't see—"

Another gunshot and Clem's blood froze as an eerie hush fell over the car again.

"They're not shooting at us," concluded Sabriya.

"How can you be sure?" asked Eskiya.

"Well I can't give you a guarantee, but my educated guess is that's coming from a couple of miles ahead of us," stated Sabriya.

"That probably puts them inside the city," said Dilawar.

"Someone's already in Salt Lake," concluded Eskiya.

"We should leave, while we still can," said Clem, her hands trembling as she looked for a handle to open the back door.

"Yeah, I tend to agree," said Dilawar.

"And then what?" asked Sabriya. "We wander around the state and just hope we don't run into this mystery person, assuming it's just one person and not several?"

"As opposed to what exactly?" challenged Dilawar.

Sabriya used her mirror to look out the passenger side window. "That's a pretty tall cliff." Clem moved over to the nearest window. The road bordered a steep hill of red dirt leading up to an even steeper mound of jagged rocks. Looking at it, she found herself instinctively searching for good hand and footholds and realized it wouldn't be hard to climb. "It's still morning and Salt Lake City is to the west of us, so the sun will be at our back. I go up there and try to see where those shots are coming from."

"Sab…"

"There could be anything from a lone holdout fighting the undead to an entire city worth of people in Salt Lake City. I'd rather not go home without at least trying to figure out what's just down the road from us first." Sabriya sat up and removed her rifle from her back. "Eskiya, come with me; Dil, you and Clementine stay here and keep your eyes open."

"Wait, why are you taking Eskiya?" asked Dilawar as Sabriya opened the door.

"Because you refuse to use a damn gun," said Sabriya as she gestured to Eskiya. "Try to call Sarah and Horatio, let them know what happened and that they should be ready to move the bus." Sabriya sprung out of the vehicle suddenly and Eskiya followed after her. Clem watched as the pair hurried over to the cliffside, then began maneuvering upwards as fast as they could.

"Horatio, are you there?" Dilawar said into his radio. "We're outside of Salt Lake City and heard gunfire. Sabriya's gonna try to find out what's happening, but she wants you to be ready to move, maybe even pick us up depending on what happens." Dilawar let go of the talk button and both he and Clem waited impatiently for an answer. After several seconds of dead silence, Clem picked up her own radio.

"Sarah, can you hear us?" Clem waited for an answer again, but didn't even get static in response. "Anybody?" No answer.

"God dammit."

"It's probably these stupid cliffs blocking the signal." Clem looked over at Dilawar; he was visibly shaking.

"Are you okay?" asked Clem.

"Not really." He sat there for a second, then looked over at Clem suddenly. "What am I saying? I should be asking you if you're okay. I—"

"It's okay," insisted Clem as she heard the panic in Dilawar's voice. "I'm scared too."

"This is all so fucked up…" he mumbled to himself.

"Dilawar," said Clem. "Why don't you use a gun?" Dilawar became deadly silent after Clem asked that. "I'm just asking because if you're scared, maybe it'd help."

"Does having a gun help you when you're afraid?" asked Dilawar.

"Honestly?" Clem thought to herself for a second. "Not really."

"Then why do you have it?"

"I guess because I'm more scared of what could happen if I don't have it."

"Well, I'm more scared of what could happen if I carried gun, so let's leave it at that."

Clem didn't fully understand, but she knew of at least one occasion she wished she hadn't taken a gun with her and decided not to question Dilawar further; he clearly had his reasons.

"Dil, Clem, you need to get up here," ordered Sabriya over the radio.

"What's up?" asked Dilawar.

"There's a lot to take in, it'd be easier to just show you," she answered.

"Are we talking good news or bad news?"

"Bad," answered Eskiya.

"Fuck," swore Dilawar before putting his radio away.

"It's always bad news," griped Clem.

"Certainly feels like it." Dilawar sighed. "Come on. Let's get this over with." Dilawar stepped out of the vehicle and Clem followed after him. Looking at the steep hill bordering the road, Clem followed Dilawar as he tried to find the easiest way to the top. Walking up a steep mound of dirt, then clinging to rocks made slick from the morning frost, Clem hated she was having to brave a cliff just to find out what new horror awaited her, even if it was an easy cliff to climb.

Finding her footing near the top of the rock, Clem was surprised to see she had beaten Dilawar, who came up right behind her. Looking around, she spotted Eskiya and Sabriya further ahead, lying flat on the ground. Seeing that made Clem fearful and she hunched down as approached them, terrified someone would see them. She slid across the dirt to place herself next to Sabriya, who was holding her rifle scope to her eye. Eskiya had his binoculars out so Clem reached for her own while Dilawar laid down next to her.

From their perch, Clem got her first good look at Salt Lake City. There were tall office buildings far off in the distance on her right, making for a notable skyline. However, the surrounding areas were a sprawling mix of suburbia, trees and occasional stores Clem had grown used to seeing across so much of the country. She could see cars left in the roads and occasional figures moving slowly, almost certainly walkers. It didn't look as densely packed as Denver, but it was hard to tell from this far away.

"What is it?" whispered Clem.

"Right below us, big shopping center right off the interstate," instructed Sabriya without looking up.

"What am I looking for?" asked Clem as she raised her binoculars.

"Your old friends."

Clem was confused by Eskiya's comment, but after she located the shopping center it wasn't long before she noticed movement around a big semi-truck settled in its parking lot. Pushing her binoculars as tightly as she could against her mask, Clem was able to make out a single word nestled amongst the sloppy graffiti covering the side of the truck's trailer: vaquero.

"It can't be," she said in disbelief.

"This is them, isn't it?" asked Dilawar in a hushed voice. "These are the guys who killed Ezina."

"They're all wearing the same type of helmet," said Eskiya. "Same colors as the one we caught."

"And now they're here," added Sabriya as she adjusted the dial on her rifle's scope.

Clem could see a couple of them now, dressed in dark clothes and those strange masks she still didn't understand. They were moving things into the semi's trailer. As she examined the surrounding area, she spotted the school bus next, then the firetruck, and that god damn racing car. It was parked on the edge of the lot, facing in the direction they were coming from. Clem's shivered as she wondered what would have happened if it had gone out while they were still on bikes heading into the city.

"They're following us," said Clem.

"No, I don't think so," said Sabriya. "I think they just had the same idea we did and came to the biggest city in the region because they were hungry."

"What about the gunshots?" asked Dilawar. "Were they just shooting the undead?"

"In a way," said Eskiya.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Just past the shopping center on your right, in the middle of the main road," instructed Sabriya. "Odds are, the gunshots were just to lure them out."

Clem adjusted her binoculars and followed the road. It was difficult to look through the binoculars with her mask on, and every second she was up here Clem was afraid she'd be shot, again. Eventually, she managed to follow along the road far enough to see what Sabriya was talking about. The other semi-truck was parked on the road, but its flatbed trailer was empty. About a block away from it was another vehicle, the one that had been riding on the flatbed.

It wasn't a truck but some kind of construction equipment. It looked a little like a small bulldozer, but instead of a massive shovel on the front it was something else. Clem watched as the strange tool mounted to the front of the vehicle raised up several feet while three walkers stumbled towards it. From this far, it just looked a bulldozer with an incomplete shovel, but as it was brought down on the walkers there was a sudden eruption and blood went shooting out of the front of it.

"Holy shit…" said Clem as she watched as the walkers were almost instantly reduced to a dark mist that was violently sprayed across the pavement in front of the machine.

"They got a mulcher," realized Dilawar.

"Effectively," said Eskiya.

"Not effectively, that's what it is," he explained. "That's a forest mulcher, the kind you clear out literal forests with. You could chop down an oak tree with one of those if you know what you're doing."

"And the undead are easier to chop down than trees," added Sabriya.

"The noise from the engine must draw the walkers right to it," realized Clem.

"Then why would they need gunshots?" asked Dilawar.

"Attract the ones too far from the engine, I would guess," figured Sabriya.

"The walkers sometimes can't hear much over each other when they get in big groups, unless it's something really loud and they hear it a bunch of times. We used firecrackers back in—"

"Man with a rifle!" called our Sabriya.

"Where?"

"On top of the gas station."

Clem fought the urge to get up and run long enough to pull her binoculars back towards the gas station. There was a single Vaquero walking across the roof of the station. Clem started trembling as he raised a long rifle with a scope. She heard Sabriya shifting slightly beside her, no doubt adjusting her own rifle. The Vaquero pointed his rifle straight up, then pulled the trigger. Clem watched the barrel flash briefly before hearing the shot.

"That answers that," said Dilawar as the Vaquero fired a second shot. Trying to examine the mulcher again, Clem noticed there were several stains across the road behind it from where it had previously stopped to grind up walkers. It painted a grizzly path of progress forward and beside it were more walker corpses adorning the edges of the road. Sighting the mulcher again, Clem noticed a lone Vaquero with a baseball bat next to it, guarding its driver against stray walkers coming in from the sides.

"That's how they got into—"

"Denver," everyone was frightened by the sound of a new voice beside them. They looked over to see Eskiya holding up his radio.

"I assumed they were using radios to communicate," he explained. "It would seem I found the channel they're using."

"Next time fucking warn us," swore an irate Dilawar.

"Quiet." Sabriya's order silenced the others and everyone listened closely as static started coming from Eskiya's radio.

"Yeah it's not as bad as Denver," spoke a voice different from the last one. They were strained by static and muffled by the mask they were wearing. Other than being a man's voice, it was hard for Clem to get an image of who was speaking. "But that means we're probably not gonna find jack shit here. Those skyscrapers won't have anything, business districts never do, and this Wal-Mart is pretty much already cleared out already."

"It's right next to the edge of town, of course someone got to that," spoke a second, higher-pitched voice. "But there's gonna be something worth it deeper into town."

"How would you know?" asked a third voice.

"Because they didn't even siphon off this gas station," said the second voice. "I'm guessing people robbed the store and just left town, which means they'll have forgotten plenty."

"You don't know that," said the first voice. "It could be people held up outside of town and looted the city a bit at a time."

"Nah, then people be stopping here to get gas every time they did that."

"And start up a generator next to a city full of the dead?"

"Wouldn't need to, a hand pump would be nice and quiet, but no one had even broken the locks on the fuel tanks here. I'm telling you, I got a good feeling about this."

"Motherfuckers," swore Dilawar in an angry whisper. "They're gonna drain that thing dry in no time. Just look at how many fuel cans they brought!"

Clem eyed the gas station again and looking around the pumps she saw dozens upon dozens of red canisters lined up beside a pair of Vaquero hunched over a generator hooked up to a machine with a hose.

"Why not use the fire engine?" pondered Eskiya as he studied the gas station. "Surely it could pump liquid more efficiently."

"Because they're probably using it for water, like I said. You want to drink from the same pump that had a literal ton of diesel going through it?"

"Maybe they should have taken two fire engines," mused Clem. "One for diesel and one for—"

"Hey," spoke a new voice on the radio accompanied by a loud whirring sound. "The next group of corpses is a bit bigger than the last couple. I'd feel a lot better with an extra hand, plus I'm gonna need to refuel soon."

"I'll take care of it," radioed one of the Vaquero at the gas station. "I'm sick of babysitting the pumps anyway." Clem watched as this person grabbed one of the fuel cans, then pulled a machete from their back. They started carrying the fuel down the road towards where the mulcher was.

"We're so fucked."

"Dil, this isn't the time," insisted Sabriya as she sat up.

"You don't understand, we—"

"We're leaving, now," ordered Sabriya. "The longer we're here the more likely someone will spot us, and I've counted over a dozen of them already."

Clem felt her blood run cold as she watched Vaquero spread out over the entire area. One on each side of the mulcher now, watching its flanks, another pair emerged at the gas station to help the one who stayed behind, the one with the rifle on top of the gas station, and at least six more moving about in and out of view all across the parking lot. She always knew they were a bigger group then most she encountered, but seeing so many at once was terrifying.

"Come on!" Clem looked over her shoulder to see Sabriya staring at her, and intense glare in her eyes. "We need to go."

Clem didn't question her. She hastily put away her binoculars and the group started moving carefully back down the cliff. They hurried back to her bikes and started pedaling east back to the bus. And the sound of the Vaquero's voices followed them on Eskiya's radio. He didn't turn it off, nor did anyone ask him to. Clem didn't know about the others, but she was afraid they'd miss something important if they stopped listening.

Yet the entire time they never discussed anything relevant, at least to Clem. Someone asked if anyone had found any cigarettes, someone else complained about how much they hated beans, a couple of them started arguing about borrowing the other's tape player. The argument eventually ended when a new voice calmly asked them to stop, followed by both of them saying 'Sorry, Jim'. That was the only name they mentioned before pedaling out of radio range, and it told Clem nothing about the Vaquero.

Eventually, they were able to raise Horatio and Sarah on the radio, and Sabriya simply told them to be ready to move the bus. Sabriya insisted they say no more over the radio but Clem defied her long enough to assure Sarah everyone was okay. That helped to calm Sarah, but it didn't answer her question about what was happening. Clem wanted to tell her, but she didn't know where to start herself, and just thinking about was making her nervous, so she just told Sarah she'd explain later.

The trip back seemed a little shorter than the one to the city, despite having to go uphill. The sight of their worst enemy was enough to get Clem moving faster, and she suspected it was enough for the others as well. They didn't stop until they saw the lake again, and from there it was an even quicker ride downhill to where the bus was parked. Clem was moving so fast she almost didn't stop in time to avoid slamming into the side of it, and her heart kept pounding a good minute after she got off her bike.

"Everyone, inside, now." Sabriya's order caught Clem by surprise. She hadn't even noticed Dilawar had put her bike back on the rack when she wasn't looking. Clem followed the others inside, eager to leave this place behind. Upon entering the bus both Horatio and Sarah rushed up to speak with the group.

"Are you okay?" Sarah immediately asked Clem.

"I'm fine," assured Clem.

"What happened?" asked Horatio.

"It's them," confirmed Sabriya as she pulled the scarf away from her mouth. "It's the same bandits who killed Ezina."

"The Vaquero?" asked Sarah, her voice breaking in terror. "Here?"

"Right on the edge of Salt Lake City," confirmed Dilawar.

"They followed us?"

"I don't think so," said Eskiya.

"At least not on purpose," added Clem.

"They've set up on the edge of town with this… machine."

"Whatever the case, we were lucky they didn't notice us," said Sabriya as she sat down in the driver's seat. "And with a little more luck, all the noise they're making will keep them from hearing this bus's engine."

"Wait, we can't leave, not yet," said Dilawar.

"Of course we can," said Sabriya as she grabbed the bus's keys.

"There's a lot more of them than us," noted Eskiya. "It's a fight we're better off avoiding."

"Yeah, but that's easier said than done. Seriously, stop!" Dilawar placed his hand on top of Sabriya's to prevent her from starting the bus. "Where are we gonna go exactly?"

"Anywhere, just so long as it's far from here."

"Well that's gonna be a problem, because we don't have enough diesel to go far very right now," informed Dilawar. "I was planning on stocking up in Salt Lake City, hopefully today, but—"

"We'll just have to find somewhere else, Dil. We—"

"We already drained every gas station in the region dry along the way, and if we drive off trying to find more we're gonna strand ourselves in the middle of nowhere," declared Dilawar.

"We have the bikes now," argued Sabriya. "Even if we run out of fuel, we can just—"

"Ride to the nearest gas station and pray it's not emptied out as well? Then what? Hand pump out twenty gallons and carry it back? We're low on food as it is and we'll be burning through what we got left if we do that. It's getting hard to find any gas stations that haven't been emptied out, and that guy on the radio made it clear that one just down the road is still full."

"Guy on the radio?" asked Sarah.

"Eskiya found out which channel the Vaquero were using and we listened in," explained Clem.

"What did you hear?" asked Horatio. "Did—"

"It was nothing particularly useful Ray," asserted Sabriya.

"Except the god damn treasure trove of diesel they're sitting on!"

"We can't get to it, Dil!" yelled Sabriya as she stood up suddenly. "You saw that yourself, those people are swarming over the entire area. So what can we do?"

Dilawar stood there quietly for a second, then hurried off into the back.

"Clem," whispered Sarah. "What do you think we should do?"

"Stay away from them," answered Clem as Sabriya returned to the driver's seat. "We got lucky this time and they didn't notice us."

"But that doesn't do anything about—"

Dilawar suddenly charged past the pair and slammed something onto the dashboard; it was the Vaquero helmet they had taken off the one the group had captured.

"What are you doing with—"

"I pose as one of them, take a couple of cans of fuel at a time—"

"That's insane!" said Sabriya.

"Yeah, that's a terrible idea," said Horatio. "We're better off leaving while we still have the chance."

"Like I said, we don't have the chance, not without more diesel," stressed Dilawar as he looked as Eskiya suddenly. "I can wear Eskiya's coat while I do it, his dark jacket looks a lot like the ones they wear, I'll blend right in."

"And then what?" grumbled Sabriya as she stood up again. "Ask them nicely for some fuel?"

"Of course not," said Eskiya. "They'd simply take it while the others are distracted with their duties today."

"You can't seriously be supporting this," said Sabriya.

"Dilawar, you don't know these people," warned Clem. "They kill everyone they find."

"Except their own, obviously."

"And how are you gonna pass yourself off as one of them?" challenged Horatio.

"I'm about the same size and build as the one we caught," reasoned Dilawar. "And they're a big group who all cover their face when they're outside. I'll be discreet."

"What if you're not?" challenged Sabriya. "What if one them asks you your name, or catches you carrying off a can of fuel?"

"That won't," he insisted.

"Don't say that. People always say stuff like that right before something terrible happens," insisted a weary Sarah. "And you really think the Vaquero won't notice they're missing so many cans of fuel?"

"They've got five vehicles—six, all of them need diesel!" argued Dilawar. "They'll need a literal ton of fuel and we only need a fraction of that for this one bus."

"We don't need diesel bad enough to risk you walking into their damn camp!" yelled Sabriya.

"Yes we do!" yelled Dilawar. "I didn't say anything because like I said, I figured one way or another we could scrounge up enough in Salt Lake City but that's gonna take some extra effort now."

"We're not—"

"Where are we gonna go Sab?" repeated Dilawar. "Which way away exactly? You want to go back east?"

"Of course not, we didn't leave anything of use back that way."

"North then?"

"And risk getting trapped in a blizzard?" scoffed Clem. "I'm not going north as long as it's still winter."

"South then?"

"What, no!" interjected Sarah. "We told you people, about Houston—"

"Getting bombed and hearing all kinds of weird rumors about a war between Mexico and the US or something insane that we'd all rather avoid learning about the hard way," rambled Dilawar. "Hell, for all we know, these people fled whatever is happening down south; Vaquero is Spanish after all."

"What's your fucking point Dilawar?" asked an infuriated Sabriya.

"My point is, the only way forward is west."

"So?"

"So? Salt Lake City is west of here."

"We go around it," answered Sabriya in a patronizing tone.

"Oh do we?" he asked. "How?"

"What do you mean. We—"

"We'll have to go north back to Ogden, head west until we can find a damn county road that connects back to Interstate Eighty on the other side of Salt Lake City because none of us want to go north during the middle of winter or risk seeing what's down south.

"That's a hundred-mile detour on top of what would have been a hundred-mile trip if we could have just cut through Salt Lake City! I don't suppose any of you want to chance just driving past the Vaquero into a city that's probably choked with the undead and other shit blocking the road."

"Of course we don't," said Horatio.

"Then we need diesel, and a lot of it, because on a good day—a good day, we're getting about three miles to the gallon."

"Ah shit," swore Sabriya as Dilawar's words started to sink in.

"So just to go around Salt Lake City we're gonna need at least sixty gallons, and realistically I'd say we'd need at least a hundred; we've got about forty right now."

"Is that true?" whispered Clem to Sarah.

"Yeah," she answered with a sigh.

"And then after that, we've gotta cross Nevada, a state-sized desert."

"A state that will have more diesel in it!" argued Sabriya. "That gas station is not the last one on earth."

"It's the last one we know isn't empty right now within a hundred miles of here, and I'm willing to bet since Nevada was one big empty wasteland before the outbreak, anyone driving across it will have siphoned off the gas stations along the way just to make it to the other side." reasoned Dilawar.

"And that's another thing, the south-west in general isn't all that densely populated. It was a desert before the outbreak and there's a whole lot of nothing out there between the few big cities in the region. That means less towns, less gas stations, and less chances to unfuck ourselves if we get stranded.

"We need fuel, today, if we're gonna have any chance of surviving. It's that, or we're gonna have to get used to biking everywhere to get around."

"I don't want to do that again," spoke a trembling Clem.

"Me neither," added Sarah.

"None of us do!"

"Can't you… fix a different vehicle?" suggested Sabriya. "This bus has shitty mileage because it was designed for like forty people. If we just switched to a truck or—"

"Sab, I was lucky to get this damn thing running and it's been a miracle I've kept it running since then."

"And I've tried fixing other cars before," added Sarah. "Tried jumping off the batteries with whatever I could find and draining out the old fuel and… I just can't make it work! I'm not a mechanic," lamented Sarah as Clem put her arm around her. "I'm not Patty," she whispered.

"It's okay," assured Clem.

"None of us are mechanics," stated Dilawar. "That's why it's in our best interest to keep this thing going as long as possible."

"By risking a war with a group of raiders who grossly outnumber us?" barked Sabriya. "You keep talking about what happens if we run out of gas, but what if this goes badly, like it almost certainly will? As bad as stranding ourselves without a working vehicle would be, it's better than being hunted down and killed by those monsters."

"If you're worried about a fight now, imagine when they come to us and we don't have enough gas to get away."

Those words hung heavy over everyone's head as a deathly silence overtook the conversation. Twice now, Clem had barely escaped the Vaquero with a working vehicle, and both times they lost that vehicle in the process.

"If we just go off trying to find another source of diesel, that's more time in the region, and more time for them to discover us. If we do this today, we can be on the Nevada border tomorrow, far from these assholes while they take their time clearing out Salt Lake City."

"Assuming they don't catch you and find us," warned Horatio in a harsh voice.

"Look, I won't pretend this is foolproof, but this is the best chance we got."

"How are you even going to get to that gas station without them noticing you?" challenged Sabriya. "Just walk up and wave to them?"

"We take the north road into town this time, that'll put us out about two miles away from where they are."

"North road?"

"We passed it earlier on the way in, the intersection?" reminded Dilawar.

"How do you know where it—"

"Because I looked it up in the atlas just to be sure of which way we were going," argued Dilawar. "There's a lot of buildings and the like north of where the interstate comes in, I can use those to stay out of sight long enough to slip in, grab the gas, use them to hide myself coming back, then stash them somewhere out of sight near the north road."

"And you're going to just do that a dozen times and no one will notice?"

"Not a dozen."

"Then how many?"

Dilawar groaned to himself as he rubbed his head. "Probably ten," he finally said.

"Ten?"

"Two cans, five gallons each, that's ten trips for a hundred gallons."

"You really think you can steal their fuel ten times and no one notice?"

Dilawar groaned to himself. "Six."

"That's—"

"Gives us sixty, plus forty in the bus, minus us having to move it closer so you guys can carry it back in time for me to get more."

"Dil—"

"I want at least two hundred miles worth of fuel," he said. "It's fifty miles just to get back to Ogden alone."

"We never should have gone to the Salt Lake today," spoke an apologetic Sarah.

"We were already next to it because we were hoping Ogden would be enough to avoid Salt Lake City, Sarah," spoke Dilawar in a softer tone. "It was a drop in the bucket compared to what we're talking about. We burnt more fuel taking the long way out here because Sabriya wanted somewhere off the beaten path to park the bus."

"And it's a good damn thing I did!" she added.

"Why didn't we take the north road into Salt Lake City earlier today?" asked Eskiya.

"Figured we'd get a better idea of what to expect from the road that took us down to the interstate," said Dilawar. "Now that we know what's that way, the north road is a safer bet for slipping in without those assholes noticing us."

"If the north road is far enough away to not be noticed, perhaps we're better off just searching for fuel on our own?" suggested Eskiya. "It's a big city, surely there's another gas station away from these Vaquero?"

"Yeah, but we're not gonna have time to pump it with our shitty hand pump," said Dilawar. "That would be hours upon hours of work a few blocks away from the Vaquero in a city probably still dangerous enough on its own. That's on top of the fact they were using that mulcher to push north towards where we're gonna come in. I don't think they're gonna stay stuck there for very long."

"Can't we… at least wait until night?" suggested Clem, who'd grown very anxious listening to Dilawar's plan. "It's a bad idea to do anything in the middle of the day where they could see us."

"We know where the fuel is right now and they're busy clearing out the area today," said Dilawar. "At night, who knows? They'll probably lock it up somewhere, and they're definitely gonna notice if one of theirs suddenly shows up when everyone is trying to sleep."

"If they sleep," said Sabriya in a choked voice. "They attacked us in the middle of the night when the murdered Ezina. No way they won't have a night watch. Not hard when there's so many of them…"

"Exactly," said Dilawar. "We're wasting time as it is, Sab. We—"

"I still don't like this idea Dil."

"It has merit," interjected Eskiya. "They're preoccupied with securing the area and dealing with the undead. Their communication was fairly basic, as if they all already knew what needed to be done. They likely won't be paying close attention to a single member moving about when there's so much work to be done."

"But we still don't know anything about these people beyond what they wear," argued Clem. "Dilawar, if you pretend to be one of them and they figure it out, then…"

"They won't."

"Dil," said Sarah.

"I'll kill myself before I tell them about any of you."

"Jesus Dilawar," exclaimed Sabriya. "Don't say that."

"Believe me, I'm not wild about this either, but I don't see where we have a choice." Dilawar's confidence suddenly gave way to weary resignation. "Clem, have you ever heard a woman's voice from any of these people?"

"I haven't heard much from them at all before today," she admitted. "But no, the few voices I heard yelling in Colorado sounded like men."

"Just like all the ones we heard on the radio today," said Dilawar. "So that means it can't be you Sab and Horatio's our doctor, so I'm more expendable than him."

"But not me," interjected Eskiya. "I could go."

"No offense Eskiya, but if one of them asks you a question, they're probably gonna piece together you're not from around here."

"What do you mean?"

"Your accent doesn't exactly sound local and then… there's that thing you do when you talk."

"What thing?"

"You're always saying they or them instead of him or her."

"So? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, except you're the only person I know who does that all the time," said Dilawar. "Unless there's someone else in their group who talks like that, I think it'd be a dead giveaway you're not with them."

"I've always wondered," said Horatio. "Why do you do that?"

Eskiya looked surprised by that question. "English is a second language for me. I never got in the habit of using gendered pronouns, we just don't use them in Turkish."

"Turkish?" repeated Clem. "I thought you were from Wisconsin?"

"I am," said Eskiya.

"And you learned Turkish before you learned English there?"

Eskiya said nothing, merely turning away after Clem asked him that.

"This is all the more the reason I need to go," said Dilawar. "Believe me, I'm not volunteering to be noble. This… just makes the most sense."

"No it doesn't!" declared Sabriya. "It's too dangerous!"

"Wandering around the state and hoping we don't run into more of these people is too dangerous. You practically said so yourself back in the car."

"That was before I saw there was an entire platoon between us and Salt Lake City. And back in the car, you just wanted to leave after hearing a single gunshot."

"That was before I got back here and realized there was nowhere to run to if we don't get more diesel first," answered Dilawar. "And going off into the wild hoping for more diesel after we tore apart every gas station we found is more dangerous than what I'm suggesting."

"I say it's not, and I don't think I'm the only one." Sabriya looked at the rest of the group suddenly. "All in favor of Dilawar not volunteering for a damn suicide mission?"

Sabriya raised her own hand, and an awkward silence followed, then Horatio raised his hand.

"Really Ray?"

"She's right," he said. "Everything you're talking about and… I'm just thinking about the ten million things that could go wrong."

"Things can go wrong anywhere."

"Yeah, but trying to impersonate someone from a group we know almost nothing about beyond they want to kill us to steal their resources right under their noses a half-dozen times in a city still filled with the undead?" listed Horatio. "Even if our luck wasn't shit, I wouldn't want to take that chance."

"Exactly," said Sabriya.

"We've been avoiding taking any chances for a while now, and it's led us to where we are now, desperate and destitute," spoke Eskiya. "Plus, we have the element of surprise. I don't think we'll ever get an opportunity like this again in dealing with these Vaquero. Best take it now, especially since if this works, it's our best chance of escaping them."

"Our best chance of escaping them is to leave, before they come this way," argued Sabriya. "Sarah, you and Clem have told us what these Vaquero did to you, how they took everything and still wanted your lives as well. Surely, you don't want to do this."

"No," admitted Sarah in a quiet voice. "I don't want to do this."

"You see, she—"

"But Dilawar's right," continued Sarah. "If we don't get diesel now we're going to lose the bus, and we need it," stressed Sarah as she started to tremble.

"And if this fails and they come after the bus?" challenged Sabriya.

"Then we kill as many of them as we can," retorted Sarah while shooting Sabriya a deathly glare. "They're not invincible, it wouldn't be the first time we've had to fight them off."

"But it could be the last," argued Sabriya.

"If we just leave now, our last day probably isn't much further ahead anyway."

Sabriya groaned loudly as Clem spotted something moving under her bed. It had to be Omid, and Clem moved over and knelt down to see if he was okay, worried that their arguing was upsetting him.

"Omid?" whispered Clem as she moved in for a better look. "Are you okay?" Omid wasn't wrapped up in his blanket anymore. Instead, he was lying on his stomach, fiddling with something in his hands. "What are you doing down here?" Clem tilted her head and leaned in for a closer look. Omid had taken a brown crayon and was scribbling on the pad of paper. There were large, sloppy brown scribbles all across the page. Looking at it for a second, Clem realized he was drawing sand.

"Clem!" Clem stumbled out from under the bed and saw everyone was staring at her, Sabriya and Dilawar most intensely. "You're the only one who hasn't voiced her opinion, so what's it gonna be?"

Clem looked over at her bed, then sighed. "We're gonna have to take a chance."

"God dammit…" mumbled Sabriya.

"They're gonna use that racing car to start looking around soon, probably once they get enough diesel themselves, and then they'll find us anyway."

"Not if we leave right now."

"Even then," insisted Clem. "The first day after we escaped, that damn thing followed us to next town over, and it was just luck they didn't find us."

"They're not omniscient, they won't find us if we're smart—"

"Then they found us again, miles before we even got to go back to Denver," continued Clem. "And they followed our tire tracks right to where we were staying two towns over. We're never gonna be safe with them anywhere near us, this might be our only chance to get far away from them."

"Fuck me," griped Sabriya. "Why isn't there ever anyone on my side?"

"I am," reminded Horatio.

"Yeah, and the one time you are everyone else is against me."

"You heard them, Sab. We—"

"Enough!" Sabriya held up her hand and took a deep breath. "Every minute we spend here is a minute they're getting closer to finding us," she said. "Let's get this over with before things change again and we have no chance left for survival."