Clementine felt her chest tightening as she tried to decide what to do, knowing full well her next decision may be her last. She moved her hand forward, then suddenly stopped herself.
"You're stalling," teased Patty as she leaned back in her seat.
"I'm thinking," insisted Clem as she looked at the cards she was holding.
"Well that can't be easy with this damn music." Patty turned around and looked to the front of the RV. "Seriously, Sarah, do you ever put on anything but this Pink Floyd crap?"
"When you're driving you can pick the music," said Sarah without turning away from the road.
"That's not what I asked you," said Patty. "I'm wondering if you've literally ever listened to anything else?"
"Not while she's driving," said Clem as she studied her cards. "It's always the same three CD's when it's her turn."
"It helps me relax when I'm driving," said Sarah. "Which I have to do all the time."
"And here I was thinking I'd be grateful for any music after going without it for so long. Remind me to switch off with you after our next stop so we can have some better tunes," said Patty as she turned away from Sarah. "That's assuming Clem here ever finishes this hand or not."
"I told you, I'm thinking." Clem had a pair of aces, along with a ten, a jack, and a queen. Her first instinct was just to ditch every card that wasn't an ace and hope for another pair or even three of a kind. Except for the ace of hearts, all the cards in her hand were diamonds. If she got rid of it, she might get another diamond and have a flush. She might also get a king, which would give her a straight. And if she got the king of diamonds, that would give her a royal flush.
"Kem-men, Kem-men." Clementine turned to find Omid standing right beside her, an excited look on his face. "El-muh," he said as he held up a worn stuffed elephant.
"Hey Little Man," said Patty in a sweet voice. "Why don't you bring Elma over here? You two can sit on my lap and watch Clem lose the rest of her money."
"Pah-duh." Omid walked over to Patty, giggling as the woman lifted him into her lap. Clementine couldn't stop herself from smirking, then looked back at her cards. She placed her fingers on the ace of hearts, but hesitated from removing it from her hand.
"Clem, I've seen people at the DMV move faster than this."
"What's the DMV?" asked Clem.
"What? It's where you—forget it, I'm just saying you're taking forever." Clem sighed, then pulled the ace of hearts out of her hand. She quickly slapped it face down on the table and pulled another card off the top of the deck. "Finally. I raise you five bucks." Patty reached past Omid and grabbed a five-dollar bill out of the pile of money sitting in front of her.
"Just like that?" asked Clem as she watched the Patty toss the bill onto the other ones sitting in the middle of the table.
"Um… yeah, I've had like ten minutes to decide," said Patty. "So are you in, or should I break for lunch while you make up your mind?"
Clementine realized she hadn't even looked at her new card yet. She quickly glanced down, making a mental note to look pleased regardless of what she saw. There was now a five of clubs in Clem's hand, a card that did her absolutely no good.
"Mah-bah." Omid let go of his elephant, letting it tumble onto the floor while he started clumsily pawing at the loose pile of dollar bills lying in front of Patty.
"Yeah, you're in the money," said Patty as she helped shovel the pile of bills closer to Omid. "You're the richest baby in the world."
Clem looked at her cards one more time and forced a sly smile across her face. "Well, he's about to get a little less rich." Clem collected whatever little money was left on her side of the table. "I see your five, and raise you… twenty." Clem dumped the bills onto the pile, making sure to flash Patty a wicked grin before she did. The woman looked puzzled for a second, then opened her mouth to speak.
"You're bluffing," Patty said with no uncertainty as she tossed more money onto the center of the table. "Hope it was with something better than a pair of kings," Clem watched in dismay as Patty revealed her cards, showing she did in fact only have a pair of kings, one of which was the king of diamonds. The girl sighed and revealed her cards. "Jeez, I figured you at least had a pair."
"I did, but I got rid of it because I was hoping for a flush or a straight." Clem watched as Patty dragged the pile of money towards her side of the table, leaving Clem with none. "If I just had your king of diamonds, I would have had a royal flush."
"Well that's thing with poker, you have to play the cards you're dealt, and usually those won't be the ones you wanted," said Patty as she started pooling all the loose money into a single pile.
"I don't think I like poker as much as chess," admitted Clem as she gathered the cards into a single stack. "Most of the time there's nothing I can do but hope I get lucky. It just doesn't feel fair."
"Hey, life isn't fair," said Patty as she organized the money into a stack. "And you can't change the cards, but you can still change your opponent's mind if you know how."
"I tried bluffing you."
"Yeah, and it needs a lot of work. Boasting about how you're going to win while wearing a big smile? It couldn't be more obvious you were trying to psyche me out into folding."
"What should I have done?" asked Clem as she put the cards into a box.
"Play it cool, like me," said Patty as she pulled a rubber band around the wad of cash. "Did you ever think I had a bad hand? Or a good one?"
"No. I don't think you ever looked worried, or anything, just…"
"Relaxed?" Patty tossed the wad of money onto the table. "That's a good poker face, when you can't tell what the person's thinking. You master that, and you'll always keep your opponent guessing."
"But you also told me I should try to get you to think I have a good hand when I have a bad one, and the other way around," reminded Clem. "How am I supposed to do that if I just look the same the whole time?"
"You want to be subtle with your bluffs, and save them for when you really need them," explained Patty. "Instead of proclaiming yourself the winner, try to fake a slight smile if you get a bad hand, like you just got something good and it took you a split second to realize you were smiling at all. Then I might think you lucked up and let it slip for a second."
"But since you just told me this, wouldn't you know I'm bluffing if I did that?" asked Clem.
"Then do it when you actually get a good hand, so I'll think you're bluffing me when you're really not."
"Huh?"
"It's called a double bluff," explained Patty. "That's when you're letting people in on the truth because you know they'll think you're lying."
"But then, wouldn't they think I'm telling the truth to make them think I'm lying and… they would… um…" Clementine found herself struggling to grasp her own train of thought anymore.
"Look, this is all advanced stuff we're talking about," said Patty. "To bluff, just think about what you would think if you were in the other person's shoes, and then figure what you would need to do to get the other person to think what you want them to think."
"You make it sound like it's easy," said Clem.
"Just keep trying, it'll get easier, trust me," said Patty with a smile.
"Mah-bah." Omid stretched across the table and grabbed hold of the wad of dollars bills with both hands.
"Don't spend it all in one place," said Patty as she set Omid on the floor. "We'll need it for the next time we play."
"I guess I'm just not used to poker yet," concluded Clem.
"You'll get the hang of it. You just got to keep playing, that's all," assured Patty. "We could start over and play a new round right now if you want."
"Um, Patty? Clem?" said Sarah. "I think I see a gas station coming up."
"I guess we'll have to play later," said Clem.
"It's just as well, we've been on this road for so long now, I was starting to think Mississippi had outlawed gas stations or something," said Patty as she headed for the cupboard. "You put Omid back in his room, I'll get our gear ready."
"Okay." Clem grabbed Omid around the waist. "You're getting almost too big to carry," said Clem as she toted Omid into the bedroom and placed him back in his crib.
"El-muh," said Omid.
"Of course, I'll go get Elma for you." Clem hurried back to the front of the RV and found the stuffed elephant lying under the table. She picked it up and hurried back to the bedroom. "Here you go OJ," said Clem as she handed the mangy looking stuffed pachyderm to its rightful owner. "You be good for Sarah while Patty and me are getting diesel."
Clementine only made it a few steps to the door before she heard Omid call out to her. "Kem-men!" he said.
"What is it?"
"El-muh," said Omid as he hoisted his stuffed toy over his head.
"Yeah, I see her." Omid pushed the elephant over the edge of the crib and sent it tumbling onto the floor. "What'd you do that for?" Clementine picked up the toy and tried to give it back to the boy, but he just pushed it back towards her as she tried to pass it over the top of the crib. "I thought you wanted your elephant?"
"Kem-men el-muh."
"You… want me to have it?" Clem pulled the stuffed animal close to her chest, which caused Omid to smile. "You want me to take Elma with me today."
"El-muh," repeated Omid, sounding happy.
"Okay, I'll take good care of her." Clem smiled at Omid, then headed back to the front of the RV.
"Everything good with the Little Man?" asked Patty as she threw her raincoat on.
"Yeah, he just wants me to take Elma with me," said Clem as she carefully placed the toy into her backpack. "Maybe it'll bring us good luck."
"We could always use more of that," said Patty as she tossed a machete over her shoulder.
"I didn't see anything dangerous from the windows," informed Sarah. "But I can't see much from inside here."
"Just be ready to leave in a hurry," said Patty as she grabbed hold of her shotgun with both hands.
"I will," said Sarah.
Clem placed her pistol and knife on her belt, grabbed her lantern, pulled her respirator down over her mouth, threw on her raincoat and backpack, then finally grabbed her tomahawk. She looked up at Patty and then, without a word, headed out the door. Patty stepped out first, her shotgun gripped tightly in both hands, and Clem followed right behind her with a pistol. It was cold outside, cold enough to make Clem want to go back inside. It was also dead quiet, the pair's soft footsteps across the concrete traveling on the cold win being the only noise Clem could hear.
"Head up top," whispered Patty. "I'll keep watch from down here."
Clem holstered her pistol and ran around to the back of the Brave. She squeezed past the small trailer hitched to the RV and climbed the ladder mounted on the back of the vehicle. After reaching the top of the RV, Clem whipped out her binoculars and started scanning the area.
She first studied the gas station they were parked in front of. It was a very old long brick building with some big windows in the front. Bricks were missing around the corners, the parking lot was small and severely cracked, and the windows had been broken out entirely. Clem wouldn't be surprised if it looked like this before the outbreak. And if not for the three fuel pumps in front of it, she never would have thought this place was a gas station.
Turning in place, Clem checked up and down the highway. There were trees lining both sides of the road; some with browning pine needles, others mostly devoid of leaves. They hadn't seen any palm trees since they made the decision to move away from the coast. A small gust of wind sent a shiver down Clem's spine, causing the girl to button her jacket. The days had been growing colder, and looking out at the desolate forest sprawled out in every direction, it felt like it was just going to keep getting colder for a while.
The gas station appeared to be the only man-made structure in sight, a single former sign of civilization slowly rotting away beside a cracked and forgotten country highway. Standing atop the RV, searching for any signs of life, Clementine suddenly felt very alone. There was nothing as far as the eye could see, or the ear could hear, just a cold and indifferent world spread out before her in every direction.
"Clem?" called Patty from the radio. "Talk to me."
"Yeah, I don't see anything… anywhere," reported Clem.
"Great, get down here and we'll check the gas station real quick."
"Right."
Clem put her binoculars away and hurried back down the ladder. The girl removed a sports bottle clipped to her belt and approached the door. She pulled a wad of cotton out of the bottle and then resealed it. Clem glanced over at Patty to confirm she was ready, then started shaking the bottle. A loud rattling sound cut through the silence for a few seconds, then Clem stopped shaking her bottle and listened carefully. A faint moaning echoed from inside the gas station, followed by a weak groaning sound next.
"Walkers," concluded Patty as she threw her shotgun over her shoulder. "Maybe that means there's some food to be found here too." Patty drew her machete out of its sheath while Clem grabbed her tomahawk. The pair backed away from the door and waited for their prey to come to them, but they didn't. Instead, the pair only heard the distant moans for a few more seconds before the silence returned.
"Fucking dumbass corpses," grumbled Patty. "Make a little more noise until they find their way out here." Clem grabbed her bottle again and gave it a longer and much more vigorous shake right in front of the door. Again, a pair of faint moans sounded in response and Clem jumped back, ready for an attack. But again, the moans faded, sounding no closer than before. "I guess we're going inside."
Clem turned on her lantern as Patty clipped a flashlight to her jacket and the two stepped inside. The interior was dark and destitute, with empty cans and chunks of glass from the broken windows littering the faded and peeled linoleum flooring. The counter was covered in cheap keychains while most of the shelves appeared empty say for the occasional empty wrapper or opened box left to rot. But peering into the back of this small service station, Clem's light revealed a series of cases with broken glass doors that had what appeared to be a couple of unopened cans sitting their shelves.
Slowly and carefully, Clem walked across the length of the store, stopping every few steps to check the immediate area for signs of the walkers they had heard. Nearing the shelf in the back, Clem could see at least one of the cans was resting on its side, revealing an unopened metal top. She was about to move forward to grab it, but stopped when she spotted a mangy corpse lying right next to the case she was approaching. It appeared pinned under an overturned shelf that partially concealed it, its arms and head being the only parts of it Clementine could actually see.
The girl gripped her tomahawk tightly, then swung it downward. The knife end of the weapon cut right into corpse's skull, which suddenly twitched and let out a loud groan in response. Clem quickly pulled her tomahawk out and took a few steps back, surprised to see the walker wasn't fully dead. She always stabbed downed walkers to be safe, but very rarely were they ever actually still alive. Clem suddenly heard another groan and spun around in time to see Patty stabbing another downed walker a few aisles over.
"You okay?" asked Patty in a whisper.
"Yeah, there was just a walker lying here," assured Clem. "I killed it."
"Same here." Patty sheathed her machete and grabbed a couple of cans sitting on the shelf closest to her. Clem turned back to her own shelf, finding the cans she had approached were green beans and were indeed in fact still unopened. She quickly stuffed them into her backpack, then scanned the rest of the shelves in the immediate area, eager to find more food.
She found empty cans and bits of broken glass were almost everywhere she stepped, but no unclaimed food. Searching around the bottom shelf, Clem noticed even more broken glass on the floor in front of the case, but it didn't appear to be from the glass doors. The pieces were very thin and curved, as if something else had been broken in addition to the glass doors.
"Clem?" Clem turned to see Patty was standing beside her. "I don't think there're any more walkers to find in here, so let's get back outside and get what we came for."
"Right." The pair turned around and headed out of the store. Clem searched for a metal lid sticking out of the pavement but found an already uncovered hole instead. Kneeling down, she spotted a still sealed fuel tank with a worn plastic tag on it that read 'Diesel'. The padlock on the lid had several dents and nicks in it, along with the lid itself. Somebody had clearly tried to break the lock, and failed. Whenever recently or not, Clementine had no idea.
"Bolt cutter, coming up." Patty knelt down and positioned the end of the tool into the hole. Clem watched as the motorized blades closed in on the padlock. She expected them to quickly snap the lock, but the blades stalled while the tool's motor started humming louder. Soon after, there was a loud snap and the blades cut cleanly through the metal loop. "Tough lock," noted Patty as she removed it from the tank lid.
"Or maybe the bolt cutter is wearing out," spoke Clem in a whisper as Patty unscrewed the tank's lid.
"All right, I smell diesel," said Patty after she pulled her respirator off. "Let's get started." The pair hurried over to the short trailer hitched to the back of the Brave and pulled the tarp off of it. "You get the pump in place, I'll get the power going." Patty immediately started tinkering with the large diesel generator sitting in the trailer while Clem moved their portable water pump towards the diesel tank.
Clementine collected the hoses from the trailer and connected them to the pump, dropping the long one into the tank and setting the short one on the pavement. Then she began carrying the diesel cans over to the pump a couple at a time. As she was doing this, Clem could hear Patty trying to start the generator. There'd be a few odd mechanical putters, followed by a string of mumbled swear words, a few moments of silence, then the whole thing would start over. She heard this entire routine at least three times before she set the last couple of cans on the concrete. Returning to the trailer, Clem found Patty desperately catching her breath.
"It still won't start?" asked Clem.
"Cold and diesel aren't a good match…" Patty said between deep breaths as she tried to rub her arms to get warm. "Neither are the cold and I for that matter. Do you think you can give me a hand with this ripcord?"
"Sure." Clem moved in close and gripped the cord's handle just under where Patty was holding it.
"Okay, on three. One, two, three!" Clem jerked the cord backwards as hard as she could, nearly falling over from how suddenly she moved with Patty's help. There was a slight sputtering as Patty let go of the cord and grabbed a switch on the generator. The soft sputtering turned into a steady mechanical humming and Clem could hear Patty letting out a nervous laugh.
"Finally," said the woman as she plugged the pump into the generator. "I'm starting to think this thing was just pretending to be cooperative when we found it so we'd take it with us." Patty plugged in the charger for the bolt cutter next. "If this is going to be the norm for this thing, we're going to need a replacement for our replacement."
"If we can even find another replacement," Clem said to herself as she headed over to their pump. The pair worked in tandem to quickly siphon as much diesel as possible. Clem would move the hose after a can filled up, measure out and pour fuel stabilizer into the can, then Patty sealed it up and carried it back to the trailer. It was entirely routine for Clem, and her hands moved without her thinking most of the time.
"Bitchy generator aside, I think this new setup is going to work a lot better for us," said Patty as she set a fuel can in the trailer. "One vehicle and one fuel type; much easier."
"It's too bad this generator doesn't work with the stuff in the Brave," said Clem as she poured fuel stabilizer into a diesel can.
"Yeah, but we almost never used the old one for anything but getting gas," reminded Patty as she headed back. "And I was thinking, when things warm up, maybe we can get a little mini fridge or something to put in the trailer, plug it when we get diesel, have cold drinks when we're done. That sound good?"
"I guess," said Clem as she screwed a lid onto a can.
"You guess?" asked Patty as she grabbed the filled can.
"Well, I guess I just have a hard time seeing it right now," admitted Clem as she moved the hose into an empty can. "It's so cold. It feels like it's been winter forever, and it's only just started."
"Yeah, tell me about it," said Patty as she sat down by Clem. "I used to like the winter, was a nice break from the grueling summers we'd get in Miami. But I'm not in Miami anymore…"
"Other than Christmas, I never liked the winter," admitted Clem.
"What about Thanksgiving?" asked Patty.
"That's more like fall," reasoned Clem. "I liked the summer best. I could just go out and play as much as I wanted. There was no school, and I didn't have to put on a bunch of warm clothes or worry about getting sick. Everything just felt happy and alive, and when they had time… my parents would go on picnics with me." Clem sighed to herself.
"Hey, the four of us can go on a picnic together as soon as the summer gets here," assured Patty as she placed her arm around Clem's shoulder.
"That's what, like six months away?" Patty didn't answer Clem. Instead, she just grabbed a fuel can and toted it back to the trailer while Clem moved the hose into the next empty one.
"Well, at least this should be enough diesel to get us to New Orleans," said Patty as she set the can in the trailer. "We won't have to make any more stops along the way."
"Do you really think we'll find anything there?" asked a doubtful Clem as she poured stabilizer into a measuring cup.
"Probably not," admitted Patty. "But we talked about this, we need to get serious about finding somewhere more permanent to stay. As great as it was spending the last month or so with you guys, we can't keep stopping for every holiday or theme park we find anymore; between food getting harder to find and diesel lasting who knows how long, we're living on borrowed time."
"I know all that," said Clem as she cleaned up and sealed another can. "I just don't know if we're ever actually going to find anything. Sometimes… it feels like we're the only people left in the world."
"Come on, you know that's not true," said Patty as she grabbed a fuel can. "Although we're not going back there, you know there were more people left in Valkaria."
"That was so long ago, and so far away…" said Clem. "We don't even know if they're still there or not."
"We wouldn't be lucky enough for them to kill themselves off and leave their damn oranges for the rest of us," joked Patty. "And it's not just them. As horrible as Mobile was… somebody clearly won that fight. That's why there were no loaded guns or food left behind; whoever survived packed up what they had and hightailed it out of there."
"But how do we know they're still alive?"
"I don't Clem—jeez, give me a break here will ya?" retorted Patty.
"I'm… I'm sorry." Clem turned away from the woman.
"No, I'm sorry," said Patty as she sat down next to Clem. "It's just… I don't have any good answers; all I can do is to tell myself to keep going."
"Yeah, me too, but it's hard sometimes," said Clem.
"Still, think about it like this: This is huge ass country with tons of cities and people. If just three of us can fend off those damn things with some bloody raincoats and machetes, then there has to be somewhere where they got all this under control."
"Yeah, but where?"
"Well I don't know, but we're going to find it," assured Patty. "That's why we're doubling up on our diesel hoarding. We fill up today, then after a day or two of driving, depending on how passable the roads are, we'll be in New Orleans."
"And then what if we find nothing there?"
"Then we hit another gas station, fuel up, and hit another big city," said Patty. "And if there's nothing there, we hit another one, over and over again, all the way to the West Coast if we have to until we find somewhere safe."
"But do you really think we're going to find anything? Really?"
"Valkaria may have been full of assholes, but they took pretty good care of themselves despite having no idea what they were doing. Just the three of us have done pretty well. Hell, just you and Sarah, two kids on their own, while taking of a baby, did damn good."
Clem felt a smile sneaking its way onto her face. "I… I told Sarah something like this when we left our first home, that we were just two girls taking care of a baby and we were doing okay, so there had to be other people doing better."
"Well you two aren't any ordinary girls, you gotta be the two smartest kids I've ever met." Clem found herself blushing at Patty's compliment. "But I'm pretty sure if you stick enough adults together, they'd eventually be up to you and Sarah's level."
"Actually, me and Sarah did meet a woman who said she was a scout for a town when we first started living in the Brave," recalled Clem. "She said we could go with her… but we didn't."
"Why not?"
"I was scared of what they might do to us," confessed Clem. "The place we stayed before was so horrible that… that we didn't even wait for her to come back, we just left."
"Well, maybe we could go there now?" suggested Patty. "Check it out, see if it's legit or not."
"I don't know where it is, she never told us," said Clem. "And… I… I…" A distant gunshot echoed through the cold air and Clem jumped to her feet.
"Clem, what's wrong?" asked a startled Patty.
"Didn't… didn't you hear that?" asked Clem as her heart started pounding against her chest.
"Hear what?" asked Patty. "You were about to tell me something and then you looked like you saw a ghost."
"It's… nothing," said Clem as she turned away from Patty. "I just thought I heard something, that's all."
"Oh… kay."
"Anyway, we couldn't go to that woman's town even if we knew where to look, just like Valkaria," said Clem with a sigh. "And she said they were running out of places to look for food, and growing their own was really hard, so it probably isn't even worth looking for."
"Yeah, food was a problem at Valkaria too if you wanted anything other than oranges to eat, and we didn't even have oranges in Miami," recalled Patty as she looked over at the desolate gas station. "You know, I worked part time as a stocker at a grocery store once, and they threw out food all the damn time."
"Really?" asked a surprised Clem.
"Tons of it, almost every day," said Patty.
"Why?"
"Because it looked funny, or the box had some old movie promo on it that was no longer in theaters, or it was past the sell-by date."
"Everything we eat now is past its expiration date," reminded Clem.
"No kidding. People would literally kill now to get their hands on a dumpster full of irregularly shaped peaches and boxes of cereal with some awful kid's movie on it." Patty sighed, then looked over at Clem. "Still, if we used to make so much food that we could just throw away tons of it, I'm pretty confident someone out there knows how to grow enough food to keep people fed. We just got to find them."
"And hope they'll give us some of their food."
"Yeah, that too. But buck up, we'll find something, it's just a numbers game."
"Numbers game?"
"It means we just got to keep doing it long enough and it'll eventually pay off for us, just like you if you keep playing poker you'll eventually get a great hand."
"Why?" asked Clem. "Can't you play for a long time and still not get a great hand? Or get a really bad one? Or a bunch of bad ones?"
"Like I said Clem, I don't have all the answers," reminded Patty. "I'm just saying, if we're ever going to get anywhere, we got to keep playing. That's all."
"Okay, that makes sense I guess," conceded Clem as she looked down at her feet.
"Why don't you go inside and relax?" suggested Patty. "I'll finish up with the diesel."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I think I can handle a measuring cup," said Patty. "And then I'll drive for a while so we can finally have some better music."
"Well, how bout I check the gas station again instead?" suggested Clem. "We didn't really look that hard, and all this talking about food has made me hungry, and we did find some cans. Maybe if I check again, I'll find something other than green beans."
"That's what you got too huh?" asked Patty with a smirk. "It's like whoever was here last decided they'd rather starve than eat any more damn green beans."
"Maybe they were allergic to them?" suggested Clem.
"I like my theory better. I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually likes green beans."
"Sarah likes green beans," informed Clem.
"Well so much for that then," said Patty. "Do you like green beans?"
"They're okay," shrugged the girl.
"Well, maybe you'll find something the two of us want to eat," said Patty.
"Well, we'll have to eventually, it's a numbers game… right?"
Clem could tell Patty was smirking at her through her respirator. "Just be careful, and call me if anything happens. Once I finish up with the diesel, I'll come inside and help you tote out anything you've found."
"I will." Clem smiled at Patty, then hopped back to her feet. The girl flipped her lantern on and headed back into the gas station, determined to find something useful. However, every container and shelf Clem checked had been picked clean of anything even resembling food. There wasn't so much as a crumb or even a sticky stain left in the entire store. Clem was starting to wonder if Patty was right about whoever was here before hating green beans.
Not finding anything to eat, Clem briefly stopped to check the walker she killed earlier. She peered under the knocked over shelf, hoping to find some forgotten food people dare not get close enough to a walker to take. Sadly, there was no food hidden under the shelf, but Clem did notice the walker's legs appeared to be severely mangled, as if someone had run them over with a car. Moving over to the walker Patty killed, Clem noticed it too was partially trapped under a knocked over shelf, and again she found the walker's legs had been badly broken.
Despite the lack of success, Clem clung to hope that there may be something left in the very back, which she had saved for last. Navigating through the mess of the store, Clem found a door that had been splintered near the edges. It was pretty obvious someone had broken into the back and probably cleared out everything worth taking, likely well over a year ago, but Clem went ahead anyway. Despite the broken lock, the door would only open half way before getting stuck, but that was more than enough for Clem to slip inside.
The first thing Clem noticed was the back room seemed cleaner than the front of the store. There weren't any stray cans on the floor, empty or otherwise, and the entire area was empty. No pallets of cans, or stacks of bottles, or boxes full of individually wrapped snacks, just a dark empty store room, like so many others Clem had seen before; disappointing, but not unexpected.
Clem was about to leave when she noticed a table pushed up against the far wall. Approaching it, Clem did spot some plastic buckets resting on the table along with a small tool case of some kind. Opening the tool case revealed a wide variety of sinister looking serrated blades tucked inside. Clem couldn't help noticing some of the knives had been stained dark red. A sense of dread gripped Clementine's stomach as she noticed similar stains on the table near where the buckets were sitting. Clem was afraid of what she was going to find, but forced herself to peer into the nearest bucket. It was filled with bloody chunks of meat and cut up organs.
Panic shot through Clem like a lightning bolt as her every instinct told her to run for the door. She spun around as fast as she could but didn't make it a single step closer to escaping the room. There was someone standing in front of her now, and they were aiming a gun at her.