*THRACK*
Lee slammed his hatchet straight through the head of a walker. He looked forward at the Marsh House doors, which were completely blocked off by the insane amount of walkers in the area. Not only that, but the doors had now been slammed shut. Lee looked around frantically for an escape, but besides for the few buildings around, there was not a very clear one. As more walkers began to surround Lee, they all collided with the same sharp edge of his hatchet with their faces.
Lee burst out into a sprint, running through the groups of walkers who had headed towards him. Once through, Lee had finally made it to some sort of clearing in the street. A small section of the road ahead was clear, but he did not have much time. Lee looked around, noticing a relatively clear entrance to one of the buildings. He ran towards the door, smashing down a walker on his way there. Lee burst through the door, entering in a hotel similar to The Marsh House, but much smaller.
Once inside, Lee glared his eyes around, looking for something to barricade the door. A few small armchairs laid around the small hotel lobby. Lee ran over to one of the chairs, pushing it onto the entrance door. The bangs of walker fists rang out as multiple walkers stacked up against it. As Lee began to take multiple deep breaths, he placed his hands on his knees.
"Gotta get back To Clementine." Lee muttered out. He then turned around, examining the lobby of the hotel. Besides the entrance check-in, there laid a hallway past that which led to the hotel rooms, along with a staircase to the side of the hallway.
"Need to find a way out of here..." Lee muttered quietly to himself. He began walking forward in the direction of the rooms, before the sound of a window breaking open sounded out from behind him. Lee turned around quickly, being greeted by the sight of multiple walkers climbing into the hotel lobby.
"SHIT!" Lee yelled out. Thinking quickly on his toes, he ran upstairs. Once Lee had finally climbed up the staircase, he ran down to the right side of the hall. He needed to get away as far as possible from the entrance of the building. He made it to the end of the hallway and tried opening the last door on the left side. He was greeted by the sound of a lock, before kicking the rickety wooden door down.
Lee stumbled inside of the hotel room before being greeted by the face of a female walker. The walker grabbed onto him, pushing him into a wall near the hotel bed. Lee groaned out as the walker chomped its teeth down, hoping to get a nice chunk out of his face. He then quickly snatched his hatchet out of his holster, flinging into the side of the walker's head. It collapsed to the ground, then making the sound of loud walker moaning hearable.
The horde from outside was approaching the hotel room that Lee was in. He quickly ran towards the only window in the hotel room, smashing it open with his hatchet. He loomed over the side of the window, looking down at the far drop. Lee's stomach filled with anxiousness, realizing he had no other choice. A few walkers loomed down at the bottom, but not nearly as much that were by the entrance of the hotel.
Luckily, they were all rather spread out. Lee turned around to be greeted by walkers entering the hotel room, as Lee gulped down his anxiousness, he turned to the window and flung himself out of it. Wind rushed across his body as he began falling to the ground. He landed on his feet, but collapsed to the ground as he heard a crack somewhere in his leg. Lee groaned out in immense pain as he hit the hard concrete ground.
Lee sat up and looked around, the walkers near him had already started making their way towards him. He then groaned out in pain once more, bringing himself to his feet. Lee quickly limped his way towards a rather empty road that he had hoped led back to the train. He returned his gaze to The Marsh House, which was just around the street corner. The streets near The Marsh House were still filled to the brim with walkers.
Lee walked for around twenty minutes but he was not even close to the train. By not being able to take the road that they had came, it took Lee much longer to make it there. Even more so with his injured leg. He had to take often rest breaks before continuing, as the pain in his leg only increased over time. Lee continued to limp at a slow pace before running into another obstacle. Another god forsaken walker horde, Lee groaned out in frustration as he laid his eyes on the walkers.
Lee knew that with his injured leg, he would not be able to make it through another walker horde of similar size of that from The Marsh House. He looked around, thinking that the best possible thing to do would be to find somewhere to rest, possibly being able to find some medical supplies. As he scouted around the streets, he spotted a rather large home which had a metal fence around a small brick wall on the perimeter, it looked rather safe.
Lee ran towards the fence, toppling himself over it and onto the other side.
Lee looked around the deserted yard of the house and towards the actual entrance of the house. All of the windows, including the entrance of the house, were boarded up tight. Lee tried to pull of the planks of the door, but was unable too. Lee looked around the yard of the house, he noticed a small grave near the fence that he had toppled over.
"Huh..." Lee noticed a small dog house next to the grave. He then turned back towards the entrance of the house, noticing the doggy door.
"If only I could fit through that..." Lee muttered to himself. He then walked over to the small shed in the backyard, opening it up. He was greeted by the sight of a rather large boat on the inside, but also spotted some rather handy tools on a few wooden shelves. Lee walked over to the shelves, squeezing himself through the side of the boat. He picked up a crowbar and grasped it tightly in his hands.
"This will work just fine..." Lee said quietly to himself. He walked back over to the entrance door of the house, slowly raising up his crowbar, placing the top of it into one of the planks. He began to hear walker groaning approach nearby, he looked around anxiously from the sounds.
"Better hurry up." Lee jammed the top of the crowbar into the planks and ripped them off one by one. As he got the last plank off, he opened up the door, which was luckily unlocked. Lee walked inside the massive house, shutting the door behind him.
Lee glanced down at his injured leg, which was bleeding quite badly. He walked into the living room of the house on the right and sighed as he was greeted by the sight of a few pieces of furniture. He dropped his crowbar to the ground as he approached closer to the furniture.
Lee limped over to the nearest couch and plopped himself down to it. Lee brought his pant leg up, revealing his injury more clearly. There was a pretty bad cut on his leg, along with some pretty bad swelling. He assumed that it was sprained, but it could of been much worse. Lee looked around the couch of the house as he rested, but he could not catch a glimpse of any lucky medical supplies anywhere.
He was going to get up and look around the house for any supplies which may be useful for his injury, but was instead quickly taken over by sleep as he continued to sit on the couch. He was completely and utterly exhausted. His eyes felt as heavy as bricks as he began to blink rather rapidly, trying to keep them open. His head fell back, and with that, he fell asleep.
Lee awoke much time later, quickly snapping to, jumping off of the couch. A pain in his leg had still lingered, but it seemingly had gotten a bit better since yesterday. However, he still walked with a rather bad limp. The only thought that laid on Lee's mind, was finding Clementine. He walked out of the house, not knowing how much had passed, he wanted to get back to the train as quickly as possible.
With the walker horde luckily clearing out, Lee sailed smoothly towards the direction of the train.
After walking for around another thirty minutes or so, the familiar look of the train tracks emerged in the distance. The only thing was, there was no train there. Lee walked towards the tracks rapidly as the worst feeling of anxiousness had consumed his stomach. He gulped down as he tried to calm himself down. He placed his hands on the top of his head, as he looked towards the ground.
"They left me behind?" Lee muttered out as a look of desperation hit his face. Who knew how long a walk back to Macon would take normally, add on an injured leg, along with dead things roaming around? Lee sat on the ground for a few minutes as he looked up to the bright blue sky. Lee let his head rest back on the inch of snow that still laid on the ground. As Lee stammered back to his feet, he looked ahead in the distance of the train tracks.
"Looks like I'll be following this then."
He mumbled out before beginning his walk back to Macon, as he began following the train tracks. He walked, and walked, and walked, seemingly with no end in sight. As the hours passed and daylight eventually shifted to night, Lee knew he had to find somewhere to stay. Problem is, he was in the middle of nowhere, on train tracks. Over the past few hours, the pain in his leg had only ramped up in intensity.
Lee continued walking forward for what seemed like another hour, eventually reaching an intersection of two streets and the train tracks. It seemed that a small town had laid here. Lee collapsed to the ground as he reached the intersection, gulping down saliva which had been the only kind of liquid to touch his tongue within the last couple days. He was severely dehydrated, he could feel his body getting weaker as the time went on. Lee laid on the cold concrete, not wanting to even get back up.
Yet the thought of Clementine willed him to his feet anyway. He shambled forward a bit deeper into this small town, walking towards the first house he saw.
Lee walked near the front door of the nearest brick house, attempting to open it. And of course, it was locked. Lee walked over to the window on the left side near the front stoop, smashing his hatchet through it. He shoved the remaining glass pieces off inside of the house as he toppled over the window and inside the house. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, eventually making out the view of a dirty bed and another door frame lying ahead. He walked out of the bedroom and into a hallway, he followed it down a bit before entering into the main small part of the house.
A rundown and dirty kitchen laid on the left side and a living room on the other side. Lee walked into the kitchen, opening up the fridge to somehow find any water. He was dying of thirst at this point, swallowing more saliva down his dry throat. Lee stumbled slowly towards the living room before collapsing to the ground again. His head hit the dirty carpet of the house, as his eyes began to slowly close. He lost consciousness once again.
Lee came to sometime earlier, this time with the shine of daylight through his closed eyelids. But something else also alerted him. The sounds of voices around him.
"Look at this son of a bitch, is he dead?" A raspy voice asked to some other person in the room. The voices lied just around Lee. He was listening intently, with his eyelids still closed. Lee had hoped that the men would just go away. All of the sudden, Lee felt a sharp kick to his side, making him flinch up and groan out in pain. The two men in the room began chuckling at this.
"Holy shit! He's still alive!" One of the men said. Lee opened up his eyes to look at the men as he began to get up to his feet. He glared at the two men, was one on the other side with a heavy beard and the other was a young guy, assumingly in his twenties. The older man with the raspy voice spoke out as he approached Lee, gun in hand.
"You're coming with us, dickhead." The man scoffed out as he began holding his gun up to Lee. Lee suddenly slammed the gun out of the man's hand as he approached, delivering a punch to his jaw. The man stumbled back grasping onto his face before looking back up to Lee. The other man looked shocked before slamming a punch into Lee's face. Lee stumbled back to the wall before the two men started beating him brutally. As Lee slowly fell to the ground, the men kicked him in his sides, delivering more punches to his face all the while.
As the men backed off just a bit, Lee spat out blood onto the carpet. He glared up at the two men with fury in his eyes. The older man round up a kick before Lee met the blackness of his boot, along with the blackness of his eyelids. He had finally lost consciousness once more. Lee woke up some time later, this time being greeted by a tight grip around his wrists. He was tied down to a chair, outside in the cold.
Lee looked around, noticing that they were in some kind of secure location now. Lee noticed that they were in the parking lot of some small food market. Wooden walls had been constructed around the parking lot, with Lee sitting just to the side of an RV. Lee attempted to break free from the restraints, but they didn't budge. As time passed, the older man from earlier returned, walking in front of Lee.
He pulled up a small milkcrate before taking a seat on it, right in front of Lee. He glared at Lee with anger in his eyes as his eyebrows winced. He then pulled out a small water bottle as he cracked open the cap.
"You thirsty ain't you? You don't look the best. This the only water you gonna be getting for a while." The man stood up and approached Lee, holding the water bottle to his mouth. Lee reluctantly opened up his mouth as the man poured water in. Lee quickly drunk up every last drop of the water before the man pulled it out of his mouth. The man then threw the last of the remaining water in the bottle somewhere outside the walls.
"So, are you one of these fuckin' bastards that been driving THAT GOD DAMN TRAIN AROUND? So many of my fucking guys got killed. We went from twenty five people to fucking TEN. FUCKING TEN." The man yelled out at Lee, spit flew into Lee's face from the man. Lee continued to glare at him with even more fury then the man had held. He rounded up and delivered a punch into Lee's stomach, then in the face. Lee winced in pain from the punches which had hurt a whole lot worse then they usually would.
"So now, how about you get a fucking taste of what it's like. You get to do some labor for me, outside on that wall." The man punched Lee across the face once more, before undoing his bindings with a knife. Another man walked over with a M16, seemingly guarding the older man. The man flung Lee up off of the chair as they walked outside of the small communities gate. As they walked outside of the wall, Lee saw many walker corpses lining the streets.
The older man locked Lee in some metal leg cuffs that lied outside of the wall, handing him a flimsy spear like weapon. The other man held his gun on Lee the entire time.
"Enjoy. You gon' be here for a while, but you do this, and I let you off scotch free eventually. How that sound? I say it's pretty fuckin' light for all the men I lost." The two men walked back inside the walls of the community, leaving Lee outside in the deserted streets, smell of death flying into his nose. Lee looked around, but he did not see any walkers roaming the streets.
Lee sighed to himself as the only thing he had continued to think about this entire time, was getting back to Clementine. The hours passed as Lee stood out in the cold with his legs in very immense pain. They had ached badly and the pain from his injured leg had continued to get worse. Lee had managed to deal with the every so often passing walkers. And as hours passed, the hours began to turn into days, and then weeks.
Every couple days Lee would be let back into the community, he was given a small meal and some water, along with time to sleep. That was of course before he was forced back outside by gunpoint, forced into doing the labor again and again. Lee had learned that the older man's name was Carver, along with the names of a couple other soldiers in the community. Troy and Vince were the two that had led him back outside for labor, seemingly shifting in with each other to do it every couple days.
With as much time as Lee had to think, he began to think up of a plan to get out of the hellhole that he was trapped in. He knew most likely if he had stayed like a rat in a cage, he would be killed. He saw other people be brought in the community, being forced onto the labor line with him. He knew that none of them were involved with the train at all. In fact, he thought Carver did this just for free protection outside the wall.
People that didn't do good enough work up to Carver's standards were killed on the spot. As the time had passed of Lee being there, he noticed that the guards had gotten more and more sloppy with him. And when Lee eventually noticed that there was no guard looming above watching over the outside, Vince looking rather tired as he took him out to the wall...
Lee pounced onto Vince and shoved him against the wall, headbutting him with pure fury, smashing his head against the wooden wall. Lee grabbed ahold of his throat, pushing down onto it with the most strength that he had ever used. The man choked and started to fling his hands at Lee, but he did not loosen his grip. Lee watched as the man's life dissipated, he eventually slid down the wall and dropped to the ground, dead.
Lee quickly grabbed his M16 off of the ground and slowly crouched over as he walked towards the directions of the train tracks once more. As he made his way past the wooden gate, one of the survivors from the labor line had asked him for help.
"HEY! Lee... don't leave me out here man. THEY GONNA KILL ME!" He groaned out. But Lee shook his head.
"Sorry man. Not taking any chances anymore." Lee said as he walked away from the man. And as he walked away, he heard yelling come from behind him.
"LEE'S ESCAPING! HE'S ON THE RUN!" The man from the labor line yelled out, Lee looked back towards him with fury. Lee held up the M16 and put the sights over the man's head, pulling the trigger.
The man let out a quick scream before his brains splattered onto the wall behind him. Lee began to run, crossing through some thick shrubbery and trees that led back to the train tracks. Lee felt pity as he began to run away. Did that guy really deserve that?
Luckily it seemed that none of the guards had seen where Lee went, and he continued walking back in the direction of Macon. He walked for hours and hours, only stopping for the lone houses from small towns that he had stumbled across on the way, looting them for any food or water. After around a couple more days of walking, Lee eventually saw the familiar street from which he had left Macon from. Lee followed the road just as dusk had hit, eventually running into the same neighborhood that the community was not far from.
Lee thought back to the two men that he had killed, did they truly deserve it? Maybe not, but Lee only thought about one thing now, and that was his survival. As he saw the gates of the community loom in the far distance, he limped towards it as a man from the guard tower above shouted out something. He saw the gates began to open up as he was greeted by the sights of two familiar people.
Logan and Clementine.
"Holy shit... Lee?" Clementine yelled out, Lee smirked a bit as he approached Clementine. The two hugged as Logan approached behind Clementine.
"I missed you so much, sweet pea." Lee said quietly. Clementine held onto Lee tightly, not loosening her grip on him.
"Where were you this whole time?" Clementine muttered out.
"I went through hell and back to get to you. That's all that matters." Lee said. The two loosened grips from each other as Lee looked towards Logan. Logan looked shocked from the sight of Lee, who had been drenched in dried blood.
"Let's get you inside, ay?" Logan muttered out. Lee nodded in return as they began to walk inside the gates of the community.
...