The former hotel group had settled into the new community rather nicely. Lee and Clementine sat inside their new dwelling, Logan and Shane lived in the same house alongside them. The houses of the community were extremely nice compared to the places that they had stayed at before. Vernon assigned work to Lee, as he does to every new survivor that joins the community. Lee's job was to watch over the front gate, taking out any walkers or possible enemies.
Logan and Shane were off doing handy work someplace else in the community. Lee and Clementine sat on the couch of their new home, rather grateful for being able to stay there.
"It feels great to be able to truly relax don't it, sweet pea?" Lee said to Clementine as he let out a wide smile. Lee sat forward on the couch as he grasped his hands together. Clementine returned a smile to Lee, taking her eyes off of a book that she was in the process of reading.
"It sure is!" Clementine said happily. Lee smirked once again before glancing down towards the ground. A lot of thoughts had sat in his mind over the last week. He had promised Clementine that they would look for her parents, and he didn't intend to break it even now that they were in a safe community. He would have to talk to Vernon, possibly being able to take others along for the trip.
"And Clem, I haven't forgot about the promise I made you. We'll get to Savannah, and we're gonna find your parents." Lee smiled as he stood up, giving a tight hug to Clementine.
"I'm gonna head out now, it's about time for my shift." Lee said as he began to walk towards the front door of the house. He grabbed his signature denim jacket off of a coat rack and flung it over himself. Lee walked outside and was greeted by a cold wind to the face. The conditions outside the past week had began to get colder and colder as winter approached. Before Lee could start his shift, he needed to talk to Vernon.
Lee scouted around the neighborhood, looking towards Vernon's house that was next to the gate. He began walking up towards the front door, readying his fist to knock on it. Lee slammed his fist onto the door two or three times before stepping back. He heard some ruckus from inside before the door creaked open. He saw Vernon emerge from the crack of the door. Vernon opened up the door completely and stepped out of the house letting the door slowly close behind him.
"How's it going Lee? Anything you need from me?" Vernon asked curiously.
Lee crossed his arms as he locked eyes with Vernon. He glanced away for a second before asking,
"I know I got here recently and all, but I do need something from you, Vernon."
Vernon nodded his head and raised one of his eyebrows.
"I promised that girl that I would get her to Savannah, find out if her parents were alive or not. I don't wanna break that promise to her." Lee said to Vernon.
Vernon nodded and looked towards the ground seemingly thinking about what Lee had said. He sighed and closed his eyes for a few seconds before looking back up to Lee.
"Alright. When do you wanna head out? I got a few people that could come with you if you need it. Just finish up your shift, that's all I ask. Then you can head out if you want too."
Lee nodded and offered his hand out to Vernon.
"Thank you, Vernon."
The two shook hands before Lee returned near the gate to finish up his guard tower shift. After a few hours, Lee returned down from the tower. Not much had occurred this day besides the couple walkers passing by every so often. Lee made his way back to the house and walked in through the front door. Shane and Logan were conversating with each other just past the front door, Shane sat on a loveseat just next to the couch while Logan was on the far end of the couch. Clementine was nowhere in sight.
Lee walked slowly over to Shane and Logan, stopping in front of the two. Shane sat back on the loveseat and glanced up towards Lee, crossing his arms. Logan looked curiously towards Lee as he stood there, not saying a word for a few seconds.
"Got something you need to say, Lee?" Logan asked curiously.
Lee nodded and looked to Logan,
"I'm gonna be heading out. I made a promise to Clementine and I'm not breaking it. Gonna go look for her parents in Savannah." Shane already looked frustrated as soon as words began to come out of Lee's mouth. Shane stood up and paced forward, rubbing his hand across his head.
"Now Lee, c'mon man, me and you both know how that girl's parents are gonna turn out." Shane looked away as he sighed. Lee looked up towards Shane as his eyebrows winced,
"I'm not arguing with you Shane. I'm doing this for Clementine, one thing she deserves to know is if her parents are alive or not. You guys know where she's at?" Logan nodded and pointed to the stairs just across from the front door,
"She went up there looking for a few new books. Are you doing this alone, Lee?"
Lee shook his head and shrugged his shoulders as he walked near the stairs before stopping.
"Don't know. Not sure if I really wanna drag some other people into this..."
Logan stood up and adjusted his shirt. He stepped towards Lee and glanced to the floor.
"Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to come along. You've been a hell of a friend to us Lee, hell of a leader. You could use some help with that little girl in case shit goes bad."
Lee nodded, "Vernon offered some help too, I'll see who we can bring along. Hell, after all it could be a deciding factor whether we actually make it there or not."
Shane looked towards Lee and stepped towards him, "I guess I'll just stay here then. Someone's got to keep this damn place in check. I'll make sure y'all actually got something to come back to."
Lee nodded before heading upstairs to find Clementine. There laid a few rooms upstairs, and Lee figured that Clementine would be in the master bedroom. She had liked to read on the huge bed that was situated in the room. Lee walked towards the open door, slowly approaching inside. He looked over towards the bed to see Clementine laying on top of it with a book not far from her face. Lee let out a small smirk.
"Hey sweet pea, you ready to go find your parents?" Clementine instantly looked up to Lee, dropping her book and jumping up off the bed. She paced around excitedly as her face lit up.
"YES! YES!" Clementine yelled out before hugging onto Lee. Lee let his hand rest on Clementine's back. A sense of sadness came over Lee's face, knowing that her parents may be dead. Lee looked towards the ground as Clementine stepped back.
"When are we leaving? I'll get my things ready!"
"Today. Just gotta round up a few people and we'll be on our way to Savannah." Lee said. Clementine smiled in response, grabbing a pink backpack that sat on top of a dresser in the room. She began to pack some things inside of it. Lee walked back downstairs to get Logan.
"We're about ready to go, Logan." Lee said to Logan, he nodded in response...
Lee had met up with Vernon outside, Logan and Clementine now stood with him. Vernon had readied a four door SUV for them. He had rounded up a couple people that were willing to go on the trip with Lee. The familiar face of Amy from the drug store was one of them, the other one was a man which Lee had not met. Vernon pointed towards the man, who had bright blue eyes and pitch black hair. He sported a denim shirt with a heavy jacket over it. He was shorter than Lee was, but then again, most people were besides people like Logan.
"His name is James, and she is Amy. I think you two already met before. Well anyways Lee, I wish you good luck on your trip. I hope you all come back home safe and sound." Vernon nodded towards Lee, handing him the keys to the black SUV that laid behind them. Lee walked to the car and began opening up the driver side door,
"You guys ready?"
The new band of survivors hopped in the vehicle with Logan getting on the passenger side next to Lee. Clementine got in the back with the new folks. The gate to the community began to be opened, and Lee stuck the keys into the ignition. He gave one last nod to Vernon before he stepped on the gas pedal. The car scooted slowly outside of the walls and back out into the unsecured neighborhood. Logan pulled out a map and unfolded it, revealing how they would get to Savannah.
"This is gonna be one hell of a ride." Logan muttered out...
After around an hour of driving, where the roads had been surprisingly clear of any obstacles, the group had come across quite a huge one. A huge train loomed in the distance as the group approached it slowly, Lee began to press on the brake pedal as they got closer to the train. Logan looked annoyed,
"Welllllll... shit!""
Lee stopped the car completely and took the keys out of the ignition. He looked forward to the abandoned train and had an idea. He opened up the car door on his side and stepped out, leaning onto the door as he looked at the train. He began walking forward towards the train, gazing up at it. The others began to pile out of the car, approaching behind Lee.
"Don't this train head straight towards Savannah? If we could somehow get this fixed, we could have a straight shot." Lee muttered out to the group, hoping that the train did indeed lead there. To his surprise, it seemed that it did. Logan took out his map and examined it for a few seconds.
"Holy shit, it is a straight shot to Savannah, Lee." Lee looked towards Logan and back to the train as he smiled a bit at the sight of it. Clementine ran up next to Lee with a look of shock on her face as she gazed at the train.
"Woahhhh!" Clementine said in excitement. Lee looked down to her with a smile on his face. Lee looked to the other side of the train, noticing that the cockpit of it didn't lay far down. Unfortunately, it did seem that the train would have to be disconnected from one if its cars, as it was wrecked. Lee climbed up a ladder near the cockpit and made his way across the catwalk of the train, approaching the driver door. Lee snatched a hatchet that hanged from his belt as he got closer to the door.
He readied his hatchet as he looked inside the train door. He saw what he assumed to be a walker on the inside. He slowly opened up the door and flung the hatchet into the walkers skull. No noise was made from the walker, and it just slumped to the ground of the cockpit. It was already dead. Lee noticed a bloody crack on the windshield of the train.
"Huh..." Lee muttered out to himself. Lee noticed some paper that laid on a notebook, sitting in a compartment near the side of the driver's chair. He reached out to pick it up and began examining it.
"The start instructions of the train..." Lee looked at the notebook paper, but it was seemingly tore off at the bottom. However, the pencil sketches from before still remained on the other piece of paper. Lee thought for a moment before realizing,
"I could use a pencil and the rest of the instructions would become visible!" Lee smirked a bit. He looked back towards the control center of the train, before walking back out onto the catwalk. He walked towards the few storing compartments on the side of the train catwalk and opened each individual one. He eventually found a tool that he could use that could possibly rip off the wrecked train car. Lee climbed down the ladder and walked towards the group.
"Anyone by chance, got a pencil I can use?" Lee asked curiously. The group sat on a couple logs not far from the train. Amy looked up towards him and stood up quickly,
"Actually, I do!" She pulled a pencil out of her pocket and handed it to Lee. He nodded and thanked her for the pencil. Amy sat back down on the log and Lee began to write onto the paper. As he did, he eventually noticed the instructions slowly start to become visible. Lee smiled at the sight of the instructions, knowing that they could possibly have a easy way to Savannah.
"Got the instructions to start the train... now I just gotta get that wrecked train car off." Lee said as he looked towards the car that lagged behind the rest of the train. The group looked at him, most of them letting out a grateful smirk. Lee walked towards the train and climbed up into one of the open train cars, passing through it to get to the other side. He emerged on the other side and began to walk towards the wrecked train car.
He pulled out a wrench to attempt to pull back the metal of the train car where the two cars were attached, but he was unable too. Lee looked back towards the driver train car and realized something.
"Ain't gonna be able to get enough force to break this apart my self... Gonna have to start the train first." Lee walked back to the train cockpit and turned to the terminal. He looked at the now filled out starting instructions. Lee turned and pressed a few buttons and before he knew it, the entire dashboard now lit up. Lee walked over to the drivers chair and pressed another button. The rumble of the train starting up shook the entire train, the train rolled forward a bit and Lee heard the sound of something snap far in the back.
Lee chuckled a bit and ran back outside of the cockpit as he waved his arms towards the group.
"HEAR THAT? We got a god damn train!" Lee laughed a bit more before returning to the wrecked train car, prying the piece that held the train cars apart. It eventually gave away and made a loud crack noise as the cars detached from each other. Lee got back into the train car that he had used to pass through the train and put his tool down. A few of the others and Clementine had now filled up the train car. Lee walked back up to the cockpit of the train and Logan leaned over the side of the catwalk. Lee nodded at Logan and stepped inside of the cockpit.
Lee pulled one of the trains gears forward and the train began to speed up, making its way down the tracks. A loud scraping noise sounded out from beneath the train and faded away as they made further ground. Lee sat back in the driver's seat and let out a long sigh.
"Finally, something goes right." Lee muttered to himself. He felt a weight fall off of his shoulders as the train continued to roll forward. Finally on the way to Savannah, he thought to himself.
The train roared forward for some time, ramming down walkers and anything that had gotten in its path. Logan walked into the cockpit and paced around it a bit. He looked towards Lee with a smile on his face, something Lee had never seen before.
"Can't believe we got this shit working... Well, you did at least." Logan chuckled a bit and from his right hand took up a bottle of alcohol. Lee wondered where he had gotten it from. Logan began chugging the bottle a bit as he looked out of the train windshield. Logan looked towards Lee and held up the bottle towards him,
"Want a drink?" Lee nodded and slowly approached his hand towards the bottle before snatching it out of Logan's hands. He quickly guzzled a bit of the bottle down before handing it back to Logan. Logan raised an eyebrow and chuckled a bit. He took a few more sips of the bottle and looked back at Lee.
"Maybe shit is just gonna go right for once. We got a community we call home now, and we got a fucking train. The fuck could go wrong now?" Lee chuckled a bit at his comment as he gazed down towards the floor of the train.
"Just hope by some god damn chance... Clementine's parents are actually alive." Lee said with a tone of sadness in his voice as his eyebrows winced a bit. Logan looked at Lee and nodded his head slowly,
"I bet that girl's parents are alive. Don't know man, I just got a good feeling. You know where they were at? Before the outbreak?" Lee nodded his head and responded,
"Clementine said they were at a motel called The Marsh House, guess we'll go from there." Logan nodded and took another sip of the bottle...
Another couple hours had passed before the sight of Savannah had come into view. Lee looked out into the distance as his slumped up from his boredom, his eyes widened with a bit of excitement.
"Damn, fucking finally!" The train roared forward as Lee began to turn the train off. It creaked to a slow stop right onto a intersection between two roads. The one to their left led straight into Savannah. Logan had returned to the open train car with the others while Lee had stayed in the cockpit. Lee started to make his way out of the cockpit and he climbed down on the left side of the train. The others made their way out of the train as well.
The group converged with each other as Clementine went on the side of Lee. Lee glanced towards everyone in the group,
"Gonna have to walk from here. Don't worry though, we aren't too far now."
The group continued to make their way deeper into Savannah. They were around thirty minutes away on foot from The Marsh House. The group had to deal with a few walkers here and there until they were around ten minutes away from The Marsh House. The number of walkers had began to drastically increase, and Lee had begun to get a bit worried. Lee took out another few walkers, slicing their heads apart with his hatchet.
Clementine stuck close to Lee, with Logan and the others lagging a bit behind. Lee led the group forward until they eventually ran into a small horde of walkers. Lee assumed that there were around ten or fifteen of them. Lee nodded to Logan and stepped forward with him on his side.
"Clementine, stay back." Clementine nodded as Lee and Logan approached the walkers, Amy stayed behind with Clementine, while James approached the dead along with Lee and Logan. Lee took out the first walker approaching him with a clean slice to the head, making the head drop to the ground a few feet away from the corpse. Logan dug his knife into the walker's head before the next one approached slowly, it had the same fate as the last one.
James took out a machete that laid in a holster on his back and sliced through a few walkers. Lee took out a couple more with quick slashes to the head until all of them were dead. The three took a moment to catch their breath. Lee let Clementine catch back up with him before turning around the corner of the street. The Marsh House was in view, but something terrible had blocked their path there.
The group almost simultaneously muttered to themselves, "Shit."
James tugged Lee by his shoulder back around the corner, before he turned around and glanced at a corpse on the ground. He took out his machete once more and stabbed into the walkers stomach. He kept slashing at it until the walker was completely ripped open. Lee and Logan looked at him with a look of confusion on their faces. He glanced up towards them,
"We can use the guts, the smell masks your scent and they don't want nothing to do with you."
Lee nodded but winced his eyebrows a bit. Disgusting he thought to himself... Clementine had an even worse reaction, her eyes widened realizing what she had to do. Lee and Logan dug out some of the walker guts and began smearing the guts onto themselves. Lee kept going until he was completely covered and then began smearing the guts onto Clementine.
"So gross..." Clementine muttered as her shoulders dropped. Amy and James had covered themselves in the walker guts as well, the rest of the group waited for Lee to finish covering Clementine up. Lee smeared the rest of the guts onto Clementine, covering her completely in the walker's blood. Lee grabbed onto Clementine's hand and turned around the corner to face the horde once more.
Lee took a deep sigh as his heart began to race, Logan stepped towards him, giving him a quick nod as he took his right side. Amy and James lagged a bit behind the three. The group began to walk forward approaching closer to The Marsh House. With Lee's free arm holding onto the grip of his hatchet. Lee stepped forward along with Logan slowly, a walker began to walk up to Lee as it groaned in his face.
It stopped for a few seconds almost examining Lee. It stuck its head real close to his face before it ultimately lost interest and walked past him. Many, many, more walkers laid in front of them. Lee continued walking forward approaching The Marsh House, he noticed that a car had lied ahead near The Marsh House.
Most of the walkers they had past by this point, but a few still shambled around. Lee continued walking forward towards the entrance of The Marsh House before he felt Clementine stop dead in her tracks. He heard a small yelp before he looked back towards Clementine, he noticed she was looking forward at something. Lee raised his gaze to see two walkers, a man and a woman. He looked back towards Clementine and saw tears form in her eyes as she started bawling.
Lee hugged onto Clementine tightly, trying to silence the noises that she was making.
"Shhh, Clementine, I know how bad it hurts." Lee looked down at the top of her hat with a look of pain in his face. A tear fell from the corner of Lee's eye.
Logan stopped nearby Lee, along with the other members of the group. Lee heard the noise of James's voice as he muttered out, "Guys... I think their fucking onto us..."
A few walkers began to walk over to James as they groaned. *LAWRRRLLL* James took out his machete and slashed the walker's head off before more walkers began making their way over. Eventually the whole horde was coming down at them. Lee took out his hatchet and began fighting them back, he pushed Clementine into Logan's arms.
"LOGAN, GET HER INTO THE FUCKING MARSH HOUSE!" Lee yelled out as he chopped at more walker heads. The noise of walkers had begun to muffle out any other noises that the group had made. The walkers down the street had also begun to migrate over to where the group was. Amy, Clementine, and Logan ran to The Marsh House door and budged inside. Clementine looked back to Lee and James, James got grabbed on from behind by two walkers, one of them bit out his neck and the other started attempting to rip out his guts, he let out a blood-curdling scream as he dropped to the ground.
Lee quickly looked over to James, wincing his eyebrows before turning his head to the approaching horde of walkers. Lee stepped back to make a run into The Marsh House, but before he could, more of the horde had appeared in front of it. Lee looked towards Clementine as another tear ran down his cheek. Clementine looked at Lee and she screamed out,
"LEE!" Lee sliced through a few other walkers before the sight of walkers had overcame the view of him. Logan slammed The Marsh House door shut blocking the walkers from getting inside. Clementine looked frantically up at Logan with tears in her eyes,
"WE HAVE TO SAVE HIM! WE HAVE TO GET LEE!" She yelped out as she bursted into more tears. She dropped to the ground, continuing to cry the hardest that she ever had.
"I can't lose him too..." Clementine said quietly.