"You could use a coat for yourself, huh Lee? Bet my ass you're freezing your balls off out here." Ross yammered out.
Lee chuckled a bit in response, "Yeah, It's pretty cold out here. Not as bad as it will be soon though." The newly assembled group were making their way to the motel. They had now made their way out of the forest and onto a road, assumingly following it until they reached the motel. Lee glanced down towards Clem, noticing that she must be exhausted.
"How much farther do we got before we get to this motel?" Ross glanced back towards Lee.
"Not much further now, should be just ahead." Lee and the group kept walking forward until the motel eventually came into view on the right side of the road along with a few other houses around. Lee noticed that It had decent defenses, a fence was placed around the entrance of the motel, along with a gate that was protected by a few garbage bins. The fence was barricaded by pieces of wood, along with a couple cars backed against it.
"LET US IN, SHITHEADS!" Ross yelled out to a person standing by the gate. The gate began to be pushed open, letting out a loud creaking noise. The group dispersed into the motel, Logan took a seat on a chair not far from the gate.
"God damn, it feels good to be able to rest for a bit." Richard and Lola walked into one of the motel's rooms together. Lee noticed that there seemed to be a decent amount of people in this motel group. He saw around eight other people outside. He assumed that the rooms also held a few others. Among those eight people were two children, around Clementine's age.
Lee smiled after noticing this, glancing down to Clem.
He exclaimed, "Hey Clem, why don't you go talk with a couple kids your age?" Clementine looked over to the other children and then back up to Lee. She then ran over to them and began talking to them. Lee let out another smile in response.
"Hey Lee, I know you're new here and all, but I could really use your help." Ross said to Lee, approaching him slowly.
"Yeah? What is it?" Ross gestured to Lee to follow him and began to walk inside of one of the motel rooms. Lee followed not long behind. The two men walked inside of the motel room, Ross took a seat on the bed of the room. The room wasn't in the best conditions, and was rather run down. The room held a bed, a couple drawers and a stand with a TV on it, which obviously, no longer worked.
Ross pointed at a chair sitting across from the bed.
"Take a seat, Lee." Lee nodded and sat on the chair.
"So, what do you need?" Lee exclaimed. Ross sighed before looking down to the floor, and then back up to Lee.
"I wouldn't normally ask someone new to do this, but I think you're capable of it, Lee. I had a few of my people go scavenging, and the thing is... they never came back. They've been gone for a few days now." Lee nodded his head in response.
"Glenn and Shane, that's their names. They went into Atlanta, and god knows how bad it is there. I just hope they're alive." Ross said with a sorrowful look in his eyes.
Lee's eyes widened in shock, thinking about how bad the city must be.
"I'll probably die if I go there! I got a girl who needs me, man." Ross nodded his head.
"I know Lee, she will be fine here. She's protected and we'll get her something to eat too. This is the one thing I gotta insist on, man." Ross sighed and looked towards the ground again before standing up.
"Well... if you're up for it Lee, just let me know. I got a car you can use to get to the city." Ross walked out of the motel room and back outside.
Lee stood up and walked back outside as well. Lee glared around, looking for Clementine. He spotted her drawing on a wooden board with the two other kids. Lee walked up towards Clementine, gesturing to her to come over. Clementine looked up towards Lee, smiling and then getting up to walk towards him.
"Hey, sweet pea. How are you doing?" Clementine smiled at Lee, she held her hands together with a fast sway as she stood.
"It's so awesome being around other kids! It's almost like before the world got so bad!" Lee chuckled a bit and smiled.
"I bet, Clem." Lee took a knee to the ground and looked up towards Clementine.
"I got something I need to do, Clementine." Clementine raised a brow in response to Lee.
"What is it?" Lee looked down towards the ground,
"Ross wants me to head in the city, look for a few of his people. I'm not sure how long I'll be gone." Clementine frowned at Lee.
"Okay, Lee..." She said in a sad tone of voice.
Lee looked back up at Clem and exclaimed,
"Hey, Ross is gonna something for you to eat, I bet you'll love that." Clementine smiled at Lee.
"I sure would!" Lee stood back up as he saw Ross approaching.
"So, you up for it Lee?" Lee turned his body to face Ross and crossed his arms.
"Yeah, I'm up for it. Get my girl some food while I'm gone, will you?" Ross nodded his head and gave Lee a re-affirming pat on his shoulder.
"Sure thing, Lee. Again, I got a truck you can use to drive there. I'll get someone to tag along with you. God knows you could use a helping hand out there." Ross looked back towards another one of the men in the motel.
"HEY MARTIN!" Martin, who was pretty scrawny and on the shorter side, came running over.
"Yeah, boss?" He had a rather memorable look, he had a white shirt on along with a black tie and black suit pants. He had nerdy glasses on and held an unshaven stubble of facial hair.
"Lee here is gonna need your help, he's gonna go into the city to look for Glenn and Shane." Martin looked at Lee and glanced up and down, almost examining him. Lee crossed his arms and glanced over at Martin.
"Uh- nice to meet you Martin." Lee said.
Martin nodded and responded the same. "You too, Lee." Ross put a finger up as if he had just remembered something,
"Oh yeah! About that coat, Lee." Ross scrambled over to a car that was parked inside of the motel, opening its door and looking around inside a bit. Eventually, he came out of the car with a fresh looking jacket, it was black denim with a hint of red. He handed it to Lee. Lee chuckled as he examined the jacket.
"Pretty nice. Thank you." Lee flung the jacket up and onto himself.
"And here's the keys to that truck. Glenn and Shane were trying to hit one of the food markets not far from the entrance of the city, check there." Ross exclaimed, as he handed some car keys to Lee. He then pointed over to a truck on the road laying outside of the motel wall...
Lee and Martin had been driving towards the city for around 25 minutes by this point, they were almost into the city. Lee had to make sharp turns every so often to avoid the rather common wrecked car. The number of walkers had also picked up drastically. Martin opened up the glove box of the car, and pulled out a couple protein bars.
"You want one of these, Lee?" Lee glanced over towards Martin, not loosening his tight grip on the steering wheel.
"Hell yeah!" Martin handed over the protein bar which Lee grabbed quickly. He kept one arm on the steering wheel as he started to rip off the plastic covering of the protein bar. He used his knee to balance it. The intense rumbling in his stomach made a protein bar seem like a gift from the gods. Lee shoved the protein bar into his mouth and started chewing, taking a break to say something.
"Thanks man!" Lee muttered out in between his chewing. Martin chuckled a bit at Lee's devourment of the protein bar. He then glanced towards Lee, taking his eyes off the road.
"So Lee, before you got here, it was just you and the little girl surviving all on your own?" Lee sighed,
"Yeah it was just us, it was a hell of a rough time. My heart aches for that little girl, she lost her parents before the outbreak even began. They went on a vacation and... Never came back. They left her with a sitter who ended up turning. I've been taking care of her ever since I ran into her." Martin looked back to the road, seeming to ponder what Lee had said.
"So, uh- how many walkers have you killed?" Lee glanced back to Martin,
"No idea, I haven't been counting. A lot. Why do you care?" Lee said.
Martin looked down, ignoring Lee's question.
"What about people?" Martin said as he glanced back up towards Lee, raising an eyebrow. Lee shook his head, closing his eyes for a couple seconds.
"I killed around five people, I think..." Martin looked shocked, but understood.
"What for?" Lee looked towards Martin, "They wanted to hurt me, so I did what I had too... All except for one, at least." Lee gulped a sense of guilt down, remembering what he did before the apocalypse began. Trying to change the subject, Lee rambled out, "You got any family?"
"Eh, I did... but they're gone now." Martin responded. He glanced down at the floor, closing his eyes for a few seconds before looking back up towards the road.
"I bet the same thing happened to your family, it happens to everyone, especially nowad-" His sentence was interrupted by the sharp turn of the truck, Lee had to swerve around a large number of walkers. *BUMP* The truck smashed into one of the walkers, flinging them over the windshield.
"SHIT!" Lee yelled out. Martin looked surprised and chuckled a bit, getting a kick out of the commotion.
"Looks like we're in the city now!" A bit of blood remained on the windshield from the walker that had flung over it, obstructing part of Martin's view of the road. Lee was able to get the truck into the main part of the city, crossing a bridge that went over the highway, before having to stop completely. The roads were pretty much completely blocked by cars. Lee took the keys out of the ignition.
"Looks like we're walking from here." Lee and Martin stepped out of the car and began examining their surroundings. A few stores lined up across the road, with another few conjoining roads up ahead.
"The food market should be around here somewhere." Lee made his way onto a sidewalk and began to walk around, looking for any sign of a food market. Martin followed not long behind him. *LARRWWWWL* A walker had stepped around the corner in front of Lee. His jaw was completely gone.
"Look at this guy," Lee mumbled out to himself, before taking out his pistol to shoot the walker.
"HEY! Remember we're in a damn city! You use that, we're gonna be fucked!" Martin took out a huge kitchen knife and ran into the walker, smashing him against the wall. He then jammed the knife straight through the side of the walker's head. It splattered blood all over the wall, making a bit land on Martin's white shirt, staining it. Martin let the corpse drop to the ground, brushing himself off a bit.
"Well shit, I forgot my damn axe at the motel." Lee felt angry at himself for forgetting. Martin pulled out a pocket knife from his left pocket and handed it to Lee.
"I always have two, you're in luck this time." Lee smiled, "Thanks." Lee and Martin made their way around the street corner, turning onto another road. A huge relief came over both of them, a huge sign that read, "BRAVO SUPERMARKET"
Both Lee and Martin looked at each other, letting out a chuckle.
"Let's go find these guys." Lee pushed open the supermarket door, it was dark inside with only the light from outside illuminating the inside of the market. Most of the shelves of which food and other items used to be stored were ransacked and turned over on the ground. Lee noticed a few walker corpses were scattered around the store.
"Well, someone's been here." Lee walked up to one of the corpses and pushed it over.
"Is this one of them? Shane or Glenn? Blood looks pretty fresh." Martin walked over and loomed over the corpse.
"Nope." Lee sighed and began to walk over to the other corpses. He noticed that a blood trail led to the back of the store in an employee only section.
"Wanna check this out?" Lee mumbled out to Martin. Lee walked over to the door and pushed it open, gripping onto his knife in hand. The room had nothing much except for some boxes and large metal shelves. There was an emergency exit on the left side of the room. Lee walked in and followed the blood trail that he had seen. It led to another room, which had a closed wooden door. Lee tried to open the door, but it was locked.
"I'm gonna kick it down." Lee said to Martin, which he nodded to. Lee stepped back a bit from the door, and began to muster up a powerful kick. With one kick the door gave way, and smashed open. Lee ran inside, and looked around, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the lighting... All of the sudden, Lee felt someone smash into him. Lee was pushed against the wall with a strong force, and felt the metal of what seemed to be a big gun touch his neck.
As his vision adjusted, he saw a man in front of him who had dark hair, with a stocky build, a couple inches shorter than himself.
Martin yelled out, "SHANE! Don't hurt him, he's with us!" Shane looked towards Martin, and took a step back. He was eyeing Lee as he stepped back.
He glared at Martin, he flung his shotgun around with his arm, gesturing angrily, "Man, let me ask you something man, what the hell is it with Ross bringing in all these new people? Like how the hell can we even trust this guy?"
Lee stood forward and glared at Shane, staring him down.
"Thanks, asshole. What are you doing held up in here?" Lee scoffed.
Martin looked at Shane and then back at Lee.
"Better question is... Shane, what the hell happened to Glenn?" Shane budged past Lee and Martin, walking out into the employee only section.
Turning around, Shane groaned out, "I ain't know man, tons of walkers came in here when we was looting the place, he could be dead for all I know." Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a truck starting outside. Lee began to sprint at the sound of the truck.
"SOMEONE'S TAKING THE FUCKING TRUCK!" Martin and Shane followed after Lee quickly. Lee ran outside and saw the truck in his view, along with two men on the inside of the truck. Lee ran over to the door of the truck and tried opening the door, but it was locked.
He began to pound on the window, staring down at the guy inside of the truck. It was an old white man, hefty beard, and the other guy was dark-skinned and looked pretty young. They began to reverse the truck, and the old man started to honk the horn. Shane and Martin caught up to Lee, and Shane ran towards the truck with his gun on it.
"YOU SONS O' BITCHES!" Shane yelled out furiously. The truck reversed and turned around, speeding off into the distance with the sound of the horn getting further away. Shane fired a few shots at the truck, but nothing that did any damage to the people in the truck.
Lee groaned out in anger, putting his hands on his knees to take a breath. "Fuckers hot wired the damn truck." Martin stepped out in front of Lee and Shane with a scared look on his face.
"Uh, guys, we got a HUGE FUCKING PROBLEM!" He pointed towards the road behind them. Both Lee and Shane turned around to face the opposite direction of the bridge. There, a horde of walkers, around a hundred or more...
Both Lee and Shane yelled out.
"SHIT!"