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]

99. Sunset

Clementine hacked and wheezed for air, trying to breathe through her plugged up nose and congested lungs. She stumbled away from the sink and over to the toilet where she pulled her mask down and took a deep breath. She grabbed some toilet paper and immediately blew her nose, then blew it again. It seemed like no matter how many times she blew her nose or hacked up some phlegm there was almost plenty more to replace it. At times she even wondered how it's possible she had so much mucus inside of her.

Drinking some water to slightly ease the pain in her throat, Clem cursed her luck. Searching as much of town as she could yesterday, she had found batteries, clean clothes, fresh diapers, and even more food. But the drugstore she checked last night had been picked clean with not even so much a pack of chapstick to be found on the shelves. It was the kind of thing that made Clem question the priorities of the people who lived here before, but mostly it just filled her with hopelessness.

This morning she was checking some of the houses she passed on the way into town. Occasionally she found pill bottles with names printed on the labels she didn't recognize, most of which were empty, but no cold medicine. Thinking back, Clem remembered it was spring break when the walkers first came, meaning probably most people didn't have colds at the time, and therefore wouldn't have left cold medicine in their homes. Her head getting heavier with every passing second, Clem stumbled back downstairs and onto her bike that was parked outside.

The only thing she had found was a nearly empty bottle of aspirin. She took out a couple of tablets and swallowed them, then blew her nose so hard it hurt her head. Before she could put her gas mask back on she felt a sneeze coming. She waited for it, that annoying tickle in her nose that always seemed to linger for several seconds just to irritate her. She sneezed, which also caused her head to hurt; everything hurt.

Her backpack was heavy with all but the one thing she wanted most right now. Pedaling back and shuddering as that familiar sting of the cold air returned, Clem kept turning her eyes turning skyward. A thick cover of gray clouds blanketed the entire sky, blotting out the sun and threatening to block off the roads with snow again should they feel so inclined. Clem didn't know how to bike through snow, and walking through it was horrible.

Seeing the Brickhouse come into view, Clem forced herself to pedal a little faster. It wasn't much of a new home but it had a fire, Sarah, and Omid, which was as much as Clem could hope for these days. She burst in, hastily tossed off her mask, coat and backpack, then walked up to the fireplace. Sarah was sitting there next to the mattress Clem had dragged back the other evening. Lying on the bed was Omid, curled up tightly in his blankets.

"Hey," said Clem, trying not to sound too tired. "I managed to find some chicken soup and crackers that hadn't been opened," explained Clem as she unpacked her bag. "The soup will probably taste like crap and the crackers are gonna be stale but… it's something." Clem reached for their pot when she realized Sarah hadn't said anything. Looking at her face, it was entirely fixated on Omid, which in-turn caused Clem to fixate on him. He was just lying there under the covers, breathing rapidly but shallowly.

"What's wrong with him?" Sarah didn't respond, she just started weeping gently. "Sarah!"

"I think he has pneumonia…"

"What?" The news hit Clem like a kick to the stomach. "That's… that's really bad isn't it?"

"Yeah…" confirmed Sarah with a whimper.

"Well, what do we do?"

"Clem…"

"Just tell me—"

"There's nothing we can do!" Her face was a contorted mess of pain, anger and sadness, and the way her eyes bulged out as she stared at Clem just made her feel sick. She didn't someone could feel so much pain, pain that Clem was feeling now as it crawled up her back and burrowed under her skin, causing her to tremble in fright.

"No…" said Clem in a quiet voice as she fell to her knees beside Omid. His eyes were firmly shut and his head listing slightly to the slide, almost like he was already asleep. But that wheezing he was making, that painful gasping for air, that horrible noise that made every breath sound like a dying one, felt like a cold knife sliding right through Clem's chest. "There… there's gotta be something."

"Clem…"

"There… there's gotta be medicine for it right?"

"What kind?" asked Sarah.

"I… I don't know, like… antibiotics?" she said. "Christa gave me some after that dog bit me, so—"

"What kind?"

"What?"

"What kind of antibiotics?" asked a frustrated Sarah. "There's a bunch of types of antibiotics and if you don't get the right kind it can make things worse."

"Well, how many—"

"Tons! And they all have weird complicated names that I don't remember… no matter how much I try," Sarah collapsed into her hands and started sobbing.

"Omid…" cried Clem as she leaned in close. He didn't even respond, he just lay there gasping for breath, oblivious to his surroundings as Clem gently caressed his face; his forehead was burning up.

"If only I still had those medical books from the Brave."

"Books…" Clem rushed over to her backpack and dug through it as fast as she could. She whipped out Jet's guide and started frantically flipping through the pages. Looking at the table of contents, there was a section labeled medicine which Clem immediately turned to. She started eying the page, reading it out loud without knowing it.

"Common ailments and how to treat them." Sarah stopped crying as Clem said that. "I didn't know he wrote this."

"I did," said Sarah as she rushed over to Clem and snatched the book out of her hands. "I mean, I didn't at the time, I just knew he came into the book store asking me where to find certain books when we stayed in Tulsa. I was so busy trying to figure out the farm I never stopped and realized he was…" Sarah stopped speaking suddenly.

"Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lungs whose symptoms include difficulty breathing, high fever, and stabbing chest pains." Clem looked over at Omid and wondered if that was what he was feeling right now. "Bacterial pneumonia can be treated by antibiotics in the penicillin family, whereas viral pneumonia can only be treated by rest and…"

"What?"

"Can last one to three weeks…"

Looking at Omid, Clem wasn't sure if Omid would make it through the day.

"How… how do we know which—"

"It doesn't say," answered a frustrated Sarah as she scanned the page. "But… it has a list of antibiotics to use for bacterial pneumonia."

"Oh my God." Clem looked over at the complicated names printed out on the page. "Jet you were so smart, you just… we can save him."

"If he doesn't have a virus, maybe…" said Sarah as she checked the next page. "But where are we going to find any of these? You said the drugstore was completely empty. Did you find any medicine in those houses?"

"Almost nothing," reported a saddened Clem. "It looks like the people who lived here before packed up and left. There are clothes missing from the drawers in most houses, which means they probably took all their important medicine with him."

"Dammit, we actually have a chance," said Sarah as she turned back and studied the names again. "We… we'll just have to search everywhere and hope someone forgot—"

"That's no good, I've already checked out a half-dozen houses this morning and all I found was aspirin, and barely any."

"Then what are we going to do?"

Clem looked at Omid and thought to herself.

"I've got one idea," she said as she picked up her mask.

"What?"

"That… guy might still be around, I saw him yesterday searching the buildings and kept my distance, but I didn't hear his RV drive off so…"

"Clem… what are you going to do?"

Clem sighed as she looked at the cracked lens on her mask. "I'm gonna ask him for help. Maybe he'll drive me somewhere there's a pharmacy that still has some medicine left."

"What… what if he says no?"

"What do you want me to do?" asked Clem as she looked over at Sarah.

"I… just… I don't know," realized Sarah as she shook her head in confusion. "Just… do whatever you have to," said Sarah as she turned away and looked down at Omid. "We… we promised we'd take care of him and…" Sarah wet down a small rag with some water and carefully placed it over his forehead. "We can't just let him die."

"I won't," insisted Clem as she slipped on her mask. "And I…" Clem felt a familiar tingle in her nose, and then there was a sneeze before she could take her mask off. "Ugh…"

"Clem?"

"I'm okay," she insisted as she took her mask off. "It was just a sneeze." Clem started wiping the inside of her mask with her sleeve when she noticed Sarah staring at her, her face a twisted mess of emotion. "What now?"

"I should go," declared Sarah.

"You need to stay here with Omid."

"You're sick."

"Yeah, that…" Clem tried to say something but coughed instead. "That means me staying might make Omid worse," she croaked, her throat aching as she spoke. "And you're still pregnant."

"That doesn't mean I'm helpless," argued Sarah.

"No, it means getting around is a lot harder for you," reminded Clem. "Just yesterday you needed my help to get off the toilet."

"I didn't need it, I just…" Sarah balled up her fists in frustration. "You don't even know if that guy will talk to you after what you did, he might just kill you," she argued. "I didn't point a gun at his head, he might listen to me if I went instead."

"Or he might decide you're just as bad for being with me," argued Clem. "Are you gonna be ready if he tries something, tries to fight back after what happened?"

"You're… you're gonna kill him, aren't you?"

"Not if I don't have to."

"You don't have too!"

"We don't know that!"

"Yes we do!"

"What if I don't? What if he just drives off, and then I come back here and just tell you, sorry, we can't do anything for Omid and he's just gonna have to die!" barked Clem as she pointed at him, looking even sicker than he did a minute ago. "I don't like any of this Sarah and I don't want to kill anyone, but after what we… after what I did, he might just try it, and then what? Would you rather I let him kill me, and then you and Omid would be alone?"

Clem's words wounded Sarah. She turned away, her face scrunched up in agony as she processed everything she was just told. Clem felt even sicker for seeing Sarah like this. She wanted to take it all back, tell Sarah she was wrong, but couldn't, she honestly couldn't think of another way at this point. Yesterday, Sarah told Clem the cars around here are probably beyond her ability to repair and after tossing the drugstore and a bunch of houses, it had become clear that medicine was the one thing they couldn't find in Granby.

"Sarah…" said Clem as she struggled for words. "I…"

"Just go," spoke Sarah in a whisper. "The longer we wait the worse Omid is gonna get."

"Okay," Clem turned to the door.

"Wait, you should take my rifle," suggested Sarah. "That way you can see him before he sees you."

"No, I don't want to do that," said Clem. "If he sees me with that, he's just gonna run, or worse."

"Okay but… keep your radio on," said Sarah. "If he does try to hurt you, call me and I'll come, with my rifle."

"Okay." Clem briefly examined her radio to make sure it was in working order. "There's a gas station about five blocks east on the road we're on. I saw him pull into it yesterday; hopefully he's still there."

"If not you come right back," insisted Sarah. "It doesn't help Omid if… if you get yourself killed."

"Oh… okay," mumbled Clem, disturbed by the image of Sarah having to deal with a sickly Omid by herself. She waited to see if she had anything else to say, then when it was clear she didn't, Clem tried to think of something comforting to say herself; nothing came to mind and she stepped outside without a word. She immediately returned to her bike, then looked down the road to where she could just see the sign advertising her destination; she started pedaling.

Pushing her sore legs to keep moving, cold air cutting at whatever few bits of skin weren't fully covered, Clem couldn't help thinking how much easier things would be if she had just killed that man yesterday. She hated herself for thinking that but couldn't stop thinking it just the same. There'd be no discussion if she had and they'd already be on their way. Instead, Clem was going to gamble her life for the mere chance to save Omid, who was suffering this very moment.

As she neared the gas station, Clem saw it, that same beat-up old RV with faded paint; he hadn't left yet. Clem got off her bike and started walking towards it, slowly. She didn't know how receptive the stranger would be to this idea so she didn't want to come off as threatening. She kept her hands out by her sides, she walked a slow pace, and all the time she was looking around for any sign of where the stranger was, then there was a gunshot

It tore through the cold air like thunder and Clem felt a sudden sting in her left leg. She froze, terrified she had just been shot again, but the pain felt too slight. Looking down, she saw a pot mark on the pavement and concluded a bullet had impacted on the cement just ahead of her. And looking down at the tiny chunks of concrete near the impact, she speculated one bit of shrapnel must have stung her leg. The pain had passed and her leg felt okay, but she was overcome with fear; he had her right in his sights and she didn't even know where he was right now.

"That was your one and only warning shot!" yelled the stranger's voice. She couldn't be sure but it sounded like he was behind his RV. That she couldn't be sure where he was terrified Clem; he could have already killed her if he wanted. "Do the smart thing and turn around!"

"I need your help!" yelled Clem back in desperation. "My…" Clem stopped herself just short of mentioning Omid. "My friend is sick, and—"

"I don't care!" She was pretty sure the voice was coming from inside the RV now. He must have sniped at her from the cab. That means he couldn't see her right now, but she couldn't see him either. "I'm leaving and you're not stopping me this time, now get out of here before I shoot you!"

Clem found herself trembling as whatever little options she had dwindled away right in front of her. The stranger could leave her any second, or he could just shoot her; Clem's next words could be her last.

"She's pregnant!" She waited for the stranger to yell back, but he was silent this time. "You noticed didn't you? Even with everything that was happening you saw that she—"

"It's not my fault your friend is pregnant," he called back.

"It's not hers either!" retorted Clem. "Please, she means everything to me."

"Go away!"

"And she's sick now, and I've got to find her some medicine, and I can't do it without your help," begged Clementine. "Please, I'll do anything you want, just don't let him… don't let her die. I'll give you all the food we have, I'll give you our guns, just help me get some medicine today, before it's too late. Please, don't let her die. Don't… don't let a baby die because of what I did."

Clem waited anxiously for his response.

"What kind of medicine?"

Clem found that to be an odd question under the circumstances, but that he was even asking was a good sign. "Antibiotics, ones to treat pneumonia."

"You didn't find that at the drugstore?"

"You mean the one on the road across from where you dropped us off?"

"Yeah."

"No, it was completely empty."

The stranger said something but not loud enough for Clem to make it out. "It was empty before you got there?" he asked, the anger in his voice fading.

"Yeah, why?"

"I figured you cleaned it out before I could get there…"

He needed something, some kind of medicine himself. "What did you need from a drugstore?" No answer; this was the leverage she needed. "Whatever it is, you're not gonna find it here. That's why you were getting ready to leave, right?" Still no answer, so she kept talking. "I've gotta find antibiotics for my friend, and I think I know where we can find some, but I'd need your help to get there."

"Where?"

Clem considered her answer carefully. If she told him he might just drive off, but then if he did it would be his funeral. "Denver."

"What's in Denver?"

"A lot of dead people who aren't quite dead yet."

"Then why the hell would you want to go there?"

"All the dead means it probably hasn't been cleared out yet, at least not all of it. I went there once before and turned back when… I saw tons of them just walking around. There has to be stores in there that didn't get completely looted before it was overrun."

"That's suicide," declared the stranger.

"It's dangerous, but I know ways to get past them," said Clem.

"If that's the case why do you need me?" he asked, his voice becoming more combative again. "In fact, if you can get past those… things, why didn't you just stay in Denver?"

"Like I said, it's dangerous, and even when you know how to get past the dead it's hard to move stuff around without getting their attention, but I don't see what choice I have. It's clear whoever was here before had time to pack up before they left. They forgot some food here and there, but most anything else important they took with them.

"I don't know if you've checked any of the houses on the edge of town but their medicine cabinets are almost completely bare. If you need medicine too, you're not gonna find it here, and you're not gonna survive in Denver without my help. So… what's it gonna be?"

Clem waited, eventually she saw the stranger appear in the window of his RV. He had his hat on again, with the mask covering his mouth. He also had what looked like snow goggles that covered his eyes, making it impossible to see any of his face; maybe he didn't want her to see it anymore. What Clem did see was the large, automatic rifle grasped in his hands as he stepped out of the cab. She didn't know where that came from, but she also didn't have time to check the police station last night.

"You really think there's medicine in Denver?"

"Probably, it's getting to it that's gonna be a problem."

"Yeah, and do you actually know how to get to it?"

"We drive out as close we can, then we take bikes as far into town as we can, then we start walking until we find a drugstore or anywhere that has prescription drugs."

"What about the dead you keep telling me about?"

"I've got a way to get past them."

"How?"

"I tell you that and you'll drive off to do this without me," reasoned Clem.

"I—"

"If you need something yourself you'll have to be patient," said Clem. "My friend is dying and she needs medicine, and if you do too you'll just have to trust me long enough to get out there."

"How do I know we won't get out there and you won't just shoot me and take my RV?" he asked. "It's not like you really need me, it's this damn RV you want again, isn't it?"

"I probably need both actually," admitted Clem. "Trying to sneak past walkers is always risky, and if something goes wrong you got a lot better chance to survive if there's someone else there watching you back." She waited for the stranger to respond, but he just stood there quietly. "Look, either you say yes or I need to get going, because if I can't get to Denver I'm gonna just have to search every house in town and pray for the best."

Clem waited for the stranger's answer. The mask and goggles he was wearing made it impossible for her to read his face to know what he was thinking, so she had no choice but to just stand there and wait patiently for his answer; the silence was maddening,

"Do you really think you could find a pharmacy?" he finally asked. "One that's not cleared out?"

"If I don't, I'll die trying," she stated with no uncertainty; she'd rather die than just stand around and watch Omid die instead.

"Give me a minute," said the stranger. "I gotta warm up the engine and eat something."

"All right. You do that and anything else you need to get ready." Clem hurried over to her bike, eager to leave. "I'll be at the restaurant we stopped at yesterday, just pull up front and I'll be right out." Clem got on her bike and started pedaling as fast as she could; she didn't want to give him a chance to back out of the deal. It wasn't long until the Brickhouse came back into view. She hurried off her bike and burst inside to find Sarah hovering over a pot sitting on the fire.

"You're okay," spoke a relieved Sarah as she slowly rose to her feet.

"Yeah," said Clem as she took off her mask and hurried over to the fire. "How's Omid?"

Sarah frowned when Clem said that. "I… I tried feeding him, but he… he doesn't even seem to know I'm here right now." Clem moved in close to Omid. He was still wheezing quietly under the covers, his eyes were still shut tight, and it still sounded like he was dying. The only thing that had changed was he was sitting up now, but it didn't look like he had done it on his own. He was propped up against a pillow and looked ready to fall over if Clem touched him.

"Jet's book said it helps to cough up the stuff making it hard to breathe when you have pneumonia," informed Sarah as she sat down beside Clem. "So I sat him up and was patting his back, kind of like how we used to burp him."

"And?"

"Nothing… but I'll keep trying."

Looking at Omid, his was face glistening with sweat and Clem could hear him whimpering to himself between breaths.

"Just be brave for a little while," whispered Clem, doing her best not to cry. "We're gonna take care of you." Clem wanted to give him a kiss or a hug, but couldn't; she might make him sicker. "That man was still there, and said he'll help."

"Really?" asked Sarah, nearly smiling as she did.

"Yeah, he's gonna get ready, then we'll go to Denver and—"

"What?" asked Sarah. "You never said anything about going to Denver."

"Where else should we look?" asked Clem. "You saw it that map I brought back last night; Denver is the only thing even close to here."

"That's not true, there are plenty of other small towns nearby."

"Yeah, most of which we passed by on the way here; they were empty."

"But—"

"And the ones we didn't we can check on our way to Denver," added Clem. "Maybe… maybe we'll get lucky and won't have to go that far."

"You said you couldn't even get into Denver before," Clem sighed as Sarah repeated her words. "Even with the coat on."

"I… I never actually tried," said Clem with a shrug.

"That's it? You never tried so you're going to today?"

"What else can we do?" asked Clem.

"It's… it's not worth the risk," mumbled Sarah.

"Omid is not worth the risk?" Sarah just looked away in shame. "Sarah!"

"I don't want to lose you both!" she cried. "I… I love you… and I love Omid, but… I can't help thinking you're gonna go and it'll be the last time I'll ever see you… and then Omid will die… and I'll be alone… and…" Clem knelt down and put her arms around Sarah as she started crying. "It's not fair."

"I know, it's never fair," said Clem. "But I have to do this."

"I know… it's the only way to save Omid."

"It's more than that," said Clem. "We're gonna need more stuff to get through the winter. More food, better bait for fishing, and…" Clem turned away and coughed suddenly, then coughed again even harder. She cleared her throat and spit some phlegm onto the floor. "More medicine than just what Omid needs."

Sarah approached Clem and placed her hand on her forehead. "You feel warm too," noted a concerned Sarah.

"Yeah, I've still got this stupid cold."

"You're sure it's just a cold?" Clem looked up and saw Sarah looked even more worried than she did a second ago.

"I don't have pneumonia," stated Clem.

"You're—"

"Yes I'm sure, my chest doesn't hurt and it's not nearly as hard for me to breathe as it is for… Omid." Clem took a deep breath. "Is this my fault?"

"Huh?"

"Is Omid sick because of me?" clarified Clem. "I tried to be careful, not touch him while I was sick, but…"

"This isn't your fault Clem," said Sarah. "It's just… this isn't a good place for a little baby."

"Yeah, or any of us…" Clem turned away and coughed into her hands. "I should get ready to leave."

"You should eat first," insisted Sarah as she grabbed the pot from the makeshift grill in the fireplace. "I put some salt and pepper in the soup, so it's not too bad, and I tried the crackers; their stale but if you dunk them in the soup they're no so bad."

"Thanks Sarah," said Clem as she poured the soup into a bowl. Just the steam coming off it helped her breathe a little easier.

"If you do find a drugstore, we could use more than just antibiotics."

"Like what?" asked Clem before dipping a particularly stiff cracker into her soup.

"Aspirin, cold medicine, anything that helps with pain."

"Don't worry, I was already looking for all that this morning."

"And be on the lookout for a bulb syringe too."

"What's that?"

"It's this little ball with a tube on the end you can squeeze," explained Sarah. "It… helps get stuff out of baby's nose."

"Wait, I think I remember that. We—"

"Had one in the Brave, yeah… I should have grabbed it," Sarah sighed as she looked down at Omid, still gasping for air.

"I'll get one, and the medicine."

The pair ate a quick breakfast in silence. The soggy cracker felt a little chewing cardboard that had been soaked in piss, but she had to eat something. If nothing else, the warmth was welcome and helped to slightly ease her sore throat. What didn't help was watching Sarah try to feed Omid again. He never even noticed the spoon being placed next to him, he just kept sitting there while struggling to breathe; Clem wanted to cry.

Just as they were done eating, Clem heard an approaching engine in the distance. Looking out the windows, she and Sarah saw a familiar RV pull up outside. Clem felt Sarah coming up behind her, holding her tightly, clearly afraid of losing her.

"Do you think you can trust him?"

"No," admitted Clem. "That's why I told him I was getting medicine for you instead of Omid. I don't want him to know how bad we need this, or that there's a sick baby in here he can hurt to get to us."

"Still, you're gonna be alone with him," noted Sarah. "I should come with you and—"

"One of us has to stay with Omid."

"But—"

"And I've done this more."

"You—"

"And if you came I'd have to explain I just lied to him about you being sick."

Sarah sighed. "Clem…"

"I'll be back," promised Clem as she locked fingers with Sarah. "Just take care of Omid while I'm gone."

"I will…" said Sarah in a whisper. "I had a dream last night, that the three of us were somewhere warm, and we had good food to eat again, and I wasn't pregnant, and we were just… happy."

"Where were we?" asked Clem as she tried to picture it.

"I don't know," admitted Sarah. "Just somewhere we weren't afraid or sick or tired anymore, and you and I were laughing, and Omid talked to us."

"He talked?" said Clem with a smile. "God… I almost forgot, he used to talk to us all the time. He was even starting to use words…"

"He just smiled at us and said 'Muh-boo' really loud."

"What I wouldn't give—"

A loud honking sound cut through the air.

"I gotta go," said Clem.

"Be careful."

The pair embraced and Clem was tempted to kiss Sarah goodbye, but didn't out of fear of passing her illness onto her. Standing up, Clem donned her coat and mask, stuffed the map she had found last night and Jet's guide into her pockets, and threw her pack and tomahawk over her shoulder. Lastly, she collected her hand grenade and clipped it to her belt; a little added insurance. Clem walked outside, headed right up to the RV and climbed into the cab.

"I want to make one thing clear," stated the stranger as Clem settled into the seat beside him. "I'm doing this because I need to; I'm not doing it for you or your friend."

"Fine," said Clem, not wanting to argue. "As long you know you gotta better chance of getting whatever you need with my help."

"If I didn't think that I'd be gone already."

"Let's just get going already," suggested Clem. "Pull up a little closer and I'll load the bikes into your RV. Also, you're gonna need this map. I found it in a gift shop. It's mostly pointing out the vacation spots in the area, but it does have Denver on it." As Clem placed the folded map on the dashboard, she spotted the stranger's rifled tucked in near the edge of his seat. "Do you have anything other than that gun?"

"I got it and my knife," he said as he maneuvered the RV closer to the Brickhouse.

"That's it?"

"It'll have to do," he said as he parked the RV.

"It won't, you'll need a longer weapon so you can keep walkers at arm's length; once they grab you they don't let go until one of you is dead."

"Walker?"

"It's what I call them, because they're dead but they keep walking anyway," explained Clem. "What do you call them?"

"Chindi," he answered.

"Why that?"

The stranger just sat there for a second. "Just cause."

Clem could tell he was lying but had no idea why. She also didn't have time to care. "Just stop at the first hardware or sporting goods store you see; we'll find you something you can use."

Clem hopped out of the cab and moved over to the front of the store to collect her bike. Looking at it, she noticed the basket and her name still painted across the front of it. She sighed, then used her knife to scratch off the letters until it wasn't readable. She'd make it up to Sarah later, assuming there was a later. After loading the bikes, Clem climbed back into the cab and unfolded the map.

There was no direct road from here to Denver, just a winding route to the south that eventually dropped them on an interstate that would take them the rest of the way. Looking at the legend, Clem realized it was about a hundred miles from Granby; it would take her an entire day to go that far on her bike, assuming she didn't drop dead of exhaustion along the way.

Their first stop was right on the edge of town. A camping goods store caught Clem's attention and figured it was better to arm the stranger now instead of later. They were a lot of things that could be potentially useful but nothing they needed this moment beyond a weapon for the stranger; he settled on a machete small enough to clip to his belt. He seemed satisfied with himself as they returned to the RV; Clem wagered that wouldn't last.

After that was a lot of empty roads and awkward silence. It'd be at least a couple of hours before they reached Denver, assuming there wasn't something blocking the road. Occasionally, the stranger would stop when they saw a car stalled on the side of the road. Not wanting to agitate him, Clem volunteered to take the risk of examining them. No recent signs of people, nor were there any supplies worth salvaging. At least there weren't any tall trees here that could block the roads.

Eventually, some houses came into view and the stranger slowed down. It was a rural farm town, and looked every bit as abandoned as the ones they passed the other day, so they kept driving. Some more cars on the side of the road came into view, and after that another tiny smattering of houses that could barely be called a village. Every time the stranger slowed down, Clem was afraid he would lose his patience and declare they were turning back, but he never even so much as complained.

Eventually, a larger town came into view. It wasn't Denver, looking closer to Granby's size if even that. But there were a couple of restaurants and a gas station, suggesting this place was big enough to have a few stores, and maybe even a pharmacy. The stranger must have been thinking the same thing, because in addition to slowing down he was also eyeing the windows desperately for any signs of hope, and then he got one. 'FOOD & DRUG' it said in big red letters on the building just across from them.

"This is it!" he declared as he turned left.

"Wait," ordered Clem.

"Forget Denver, I—"

"Be smart about this!" ordered Clem. "Turn off the engine before anyone else hears us, living or dead." The stranger turned to Clem, giving her a look of doubt, she assumed, she couldn't be sure through his goggles. "You want a repeat of yesterday? I'm not the only thing out there you need to be afraid of you know."

The stranger groaned, then shifted the RV into park before switching off the engine. The pair exited out onto the road, the stranger making sure to pocket the RV's keys before he got out of the cab. Looking around, Clem didn't see many signs of trouble, or hope. There wasn't any bodies or major damage, but there were also few cars around and most of the ones that remained were left wide open; the place had probably already been picked clean already.

Stepping into the drugstore, it became more painfully obvious. The shelves were almost entirely bare but it didn't discourage the stranger, who went charging towards the pharmacy's back counter. Clem just stopped and examined what was left. Digging through what few boxes remained, she managed to uncover a couple of packages of cold medicine and a bag of cough drops; it was more than she expected.

Looking over at the back counter, she no sign of the stranger, so she quickly slipped off her mask. She coughed a few times, clearing out her throat before drinking some water and swallowing a couple of the cold pills. Hopefully they didn't make her drowsy, the packing said it was 'daytime' medicine after all. Then she unwrapped a cough drop and tossed it in her mouth. She used to hate these before the outbreak, but nowadays their weird not-quite-fruit flavor was about as close to candy as she could expect.

"God dammit!" Clem pulled her mask back down in time to see the stranger angrily stomping out of the backroom. "There's nothing in there!"

"Keep your voice down!" ordered Clem in a harsh whisper. "And what were you expecting? It's been over two years and this place is wide open," explained Clem as she pocketed the cough drops and cold medicine. "I'm honestly surprised there's even this much left up front."

"You're fucking joking, right?" he barked.

"No, I'm not," she asserted. "You think I'd suggest going somewhere full of walkers if there was any other place we could go?" The stranger just stared at her in response, as if he couldn't think of a comeback. "Come on, we need to get back on the road if we're gonna get there before dark."

The stranger reluctantly marched back to his RV and the pair returned to the open road. He didn't slow down when they passed some sleepy hamlet after that because. He didn't even slow down for the occasional abandoned car on the side of the road anymore. He had learned the simple truth Clem had known for a while now; there were no jackpots just waiting out in the open to be claimed anymore.

Gradually the open plains morphed into hillsides, and not long after that into actual cliffs. Eventually, they were surrounded by snow-capped peaks on the horizon as they snaked their way down a long and winding road carved into the side of a mountain. It was a striking vista and one Clem would have loved to stop and admire had she not been in such a hurry. Instead, she cursed this curvy road and how much time it was taking to get through it.

After finally reaching the interstate, signs of distress and panic starting appearing alongside the road. Abandoned cars started popping up more frequently on the sides of the road, and now with cracked windshields and bloodied bumpers. The kept appearing more and more the closer they got to Denver, like ominous giant metal weeds. Eventually, they started sprouting up in the middle of the road itself which the stranger had to weave around. Clem eyed each and every one of them for signs of life or the undead. They weren't there yet but she could sense the impending danger.

The further they traveled the more desperation they saw. Briefcases and other luggage spread out over the interstate, their contents half spilled across the pavement along with putrid bodies too forgone to even be walkers anymore, all decorating this increasingly thick maze of forgotten vehicles. they were trying to navigate. Clem's stomach dropped as the RV screeched to a sudden stop and three figures lurched towards them just ahead on the road.

"Are… are those—"

"Walkers," confirmed Clem as she examined the trio. Their clothes were ragged and caked with filth, they moved very slowly and clumsily even for the dead, and one of them was missing both their arms. "Turn off the engine, we're gonna have to deal with them."

The stranger obeyed and the pair exited the vehicle in a hurry. Clem hadn't seen a walker since the last time she tried to enter Denver, and looking at these reminded her of how much she hated these things. Their rotted skin, those milky soulless eyes, that annoying low groan, and that smell. Even with a full gas mask strapped to the front of her face, even with a stuffy nose, she could somehow still smell it, like the stench had been burned into her very nostrils and the mere sight of these murderous corpses was all it took to inflame the senses.

"God damn…" The stranger sounded memorized as he raised his rifle.

"Put that down!" ordered Clem.

"They—"

"You shoot that and all of Denver will come marching up this road to find us," insisted Clem as she removed her tomahawk's sheath.

"What are we supposed to do then, just—"

"It's just three, I'll take care of them," said Clem as she took several steps forward. "Keep a lookout, and I mean it; where there's a few there's usually more." Clem stepped up to the nearest walker and it started stumbling right towards her in response; her coat didn't smell strong enough to fool them. It was slow though, its body and clothes were almost pitch black, and it looked like a rotted chunk of wood with limbs.

Clem took a step forward and sliced into the walker's ankle before it could even react. She quickly smashed its head then jumped back as the other two stumbled blindly forward. The second one fell over the first one's corpse, making it easy for Clem to finish it off. The last one didn't move any faster and Clem easily cut its entire foot out from under it. And since it didn't even have arms, all it could do was flop there helplessly.

"God damn…" said the stranger.

"Is this your first time seeing a walker?" asked Clem.

"Of course not," he said. "But…"

"First time seeing them this close?"

"Yeah, the people I was with always said it was other people who were still alive we had to worry about," said the stranger. "The chindi never pretend they're not monsters."

"They're right." Clem realized that's the first time the stranger had mentioned being with anyone else. "What happened to your people?"

"They're gone." Clem was pretty sure there was more to the story than that, but she was also sure the stranger wasn't going to tell her anything else.

"Walkers are scary, but they're also slow, stupid, and they don't adapt," explained Clem. "They also don't heal; crack their ankle or slice their leg out from under them and all they can do is crawl, which makes it easier to crush their head, which is the only way to kill them; that's your first lesson."

"Okay, but—"

"The second one is always be sure they're dead," explained Clem as she honed in on the walker she just downed. After flopping around for a few seconds, it became still. With no arms and only one foot, it wasn't going anywhere. "Sometimes they get beat up so bad they just stop walking, and when that happens they just lay there, waiting for someone to get close enough to bite them. So remember…" Clem carefully positioned herself by the corpse, making sure to keep her ankles away from its teeth. "A body is never just a body anymore."

Clem drove her tomahawk into the corpse's skull, and it briefly convulsed and growled from the impact before falling silent. Clem pulled back her tomahawk, then stabbed the walker's head a second time, just to be certain. Confident it was fully dead, Clem flipped her weapon around in her hand and drove the axehead into the walker's chest.

"What are you doing now?" he asked as Clem sliced the corpse open.

"This is my trick for getting past them," said Clem as she strained her muscles to tear open the walker's chest cavity. "They can't tell a walker from a person with their eyes, and they follow anything that's loud." Clem knelt down and looked at the oozing black mess of liquified organs and rotting flesh all spilling out of the open wound like a grotesque stew. "It's the smell they depend on. If you smell like one of them, they don't know you're there."

"What?" he asked. "That—"

"Doesn't make sense, yeah, neither does them moving at all," said Clem. "But what I can tell you is I've been covering my clothes in their… stuff for years and it lets me walk right past them." Clem slipped off her backpack and then her overcoat, which she tossed on the pavement. "Rain can wash it off, and the smell kind of fades with enough time so you… have to freshen it up every so often." Clem pulled Sarah's raincoat out of her backpack and looked up at the stranger. "I'll need this back when we're done, but you can make one yourself later. It's disgusting, but it's not hard."

The stranger kept staring in her direction. She couldn't see his face but she could tell he was in shock from everything she was telling him. "Look, I know it's crazy but it's our best chance for staying alive." Clem held out her arms. "Look at me, look at how small I am. I was even smaller a couple of years ago when this all started. This is one of the only ways I've managed to keep alive this long, and if you're careful, it'll keep you alive today too."

The stranger stared at her, then took off the raincoat from Clem and knelt down beside her on the pavement. Clem reached into the walker's chest and a chill shot up her spine as she felt that black puss oozing through her glove as she grasped something slick and soft. She pulled it out, whatever it was, having to tear it free from the rest of the body, and started smearing it across her coat. The stranger watched her in disbelief for several seconds, then reluctantly reached into the walker's corpse.

"I just can't believe this," he said as he pulled out a mess of rotting meat. "I remember people talking every day about having to deal with them. We need ditches, we need fences, we need more guns, stay away from them, stay away from the cities, stay away from everything," he listed as she smeared the gore across the raincoat. "And all this time we could have just gone right past them."

"It's not perfect," informed Clem as she flipped her coat over. "They still chase after loud noises, and so if you make enough noise they'll chase after you. They can also smell fresh blood—our blood, even if you're covered in theirs. If you cut yourself or something cuts you bad enough that you bleed a lot, they'll jump on you in an instant."

Clem stopped and examined her coat, it looked like she had smeared tar all over it; good enough. She looked over her shoulder at the stranger, who was seemingly wincing through his mask as he lifted up the rancid raincoat. "I know, they smell horrible," said Clem as she slowly put on her coat. "You learn to deal with it, but you never really get used to it."

"This… this could actually work," realized the stranger as he slowly slid the raincoat on, sounding optimistic for the first time since he spotted that pharmacy a way back. "I mean, you took down those three like it was nothing, and that was before you... freshened your coat."

"There's a lot more of them in Denver," warned Clem as she put her backpack on. "They may be stupid and slow, but they only got to bite you once to kill you. Hell, if one of their bones scratch you that can be enough."

"Seriously?" he asked, sounding more shocked by that than anything.

"Maybe, the person who tried to kill me that way never got a chance to find out if it works."

"Shit," said the stranger, sounding nervous. "The people I knew always called them monsters. I wanted to believe it was just a virus or something and someday they'd find a cure for it."

"Only one I know of is to chop off whatever got bitten," said Clem as she buttoned her now freshly filthied coat. "And even then, you gotta do it right away or it doesn't work."

"How do you know all this?"

Clem sighed. "I wasn't always on my own, and the people who took care of me would teach me what they learned… some of it they learned the hard way."

"The hard way? You mean—"

"They're gone," answered Clem as she headed back to the RV. "Like my friend's gonna be if we don't hurry." Clem retrieved the bikes from the back and set them on the pavement. "You know how to ride a bike right?"

"Yeah," he said. "Just wondering why we need to."

"These don't make any noise, a diesel engine does. That's how we heard you yesterday, how those walkers heard us just now, and how all the ones in Denver will hear us coming too, along with anyone else there."

"You think there are people still alive in Denver?"

"You never know." Clem looked at the small RV then back at the stranger. "You've got the keys, right?"

"Yeah, and they stay with me," he asserted.

"Then lock the RV."

"There's really nothing worth stealing in—"

"Just do it," insisted Clem. "You didn't like us surprising you so don't give anyone else the chance to wait for us in there when we get back."

"Who the hell would wait in some old RV in the middle of the interstate?"

"Someone desperate like me," growled Clem. "Someone who notices it's windshield isn't covered in dust and dirt like all the other cars around it. Who notices the three dead walkers just in front of it and realizes someone just went through here." Clem walked up to the stranger and looked right up at him. "Nothing good will come from leaving it unlocked, understand?"

The stranger stood there, then looked over at the RV. "Just give me a minute," he said before pulling the keys out of his pocket.

After that, the pair mounted the bikes and started on the next leg of their journey, using the shoulder of the road to avoid the chaos. Not long after starting, they passed a road sign, and the bottom of it read 'Denver West Blvd - 3'. Clem assumed Denver West Boulevard was somewhere inside Denver and three miles wasn't too far. At very least they were probably going to make it to Denver; now only if they survived it.

The interstate leading was a four-lane road with a small cushion of space between it and the steep hills surrounding it. It presented Clem and the stranger just enough room to keep moving forward on their bikes, but the occasional stray car pulled too far over required them to detour closer to the center of the road, and that's where the danger lurked. Trying to zig between a couple of cars, Clem noticed a walker idling in place in the only spot they could probably slip through.

The pair skidded to a sudden stop and hopped off their bikes. The stranger stumbled forward as he pulled the machete from the sheath he had hooked onto his belt. He was nervous, Clem could tell by the way the blade he was shaking in his hands as he approached the lone walker. Clem put herself ahead of the stranger and downed the walker herself, then took a step back. She gave the stranger a look, and he took a step forward and finished it off while it was writhing on the pavement.

Their freshly smeared coats kept them undetected and the bikes kept them moving quickly, but only as long as they had open ground to ride across. The mountains disappeared and were replaced with half-walls as the shoulder became increasingly cluttered with vehicles and more walkers. It got so bad Clem had to lead the stranger across the road into the median. There was more open space there but they were on uneven dirt instead of pavement and had to pedal harder.

Looking around, Clem could see a suburb off to her right and off to the left looked like a school. She could also see walkers in both directions, albeit they were few and far apart. Normally that was a sign there was salvage left to find, but when she had checked houses north of town before she had come away empty handed. It's possible people just missed killing some walkers as they cleared out an area, or it's possible these walkers were part of a herd who only arrived after Denver was picked clean; Clem prayed it was the former.

Looking ahead, she could see cars encroaching onto the median and realized they'd start running short of room even here before long, and not long after that walkers would probably start blocking the way. They had come from a totally different direction than she had come from before, and months later no less, and yet this all felt very familiar to Clem. If things continued on this way, then Clem dreaded what was coming next.

As they slowly pedaled past a couple of corpses and more than a couple of SUV's cluttering up the median, the roads started tilting upward while the median led down to a concrete slab that would just dump them onto a different road several feet below the overpass. Looking around, Clem didn't know how they could get any further while keeping their bikes. She stopped and deployed her kickstand, then motioned for the stranger to do the same.

The short overpass they were on overlooked a road leading east, and so Clem gestured to the stranger to follow her. She led him over to a truck that had crashed into the railing. She went slowly, stopping to attack a couple of corpses lying just outside the truck. One of them didn't respond, the other did, but not for long. Clem very carefully climbed onto the hood of the truck, then motioned for the stranger to join her. Standing on top of the cab, the pair could see far off into the distance.

"Holy shit…" said the stranger as he gazed out on their surroundings. It was a sprawling mess of bodies, walkers, vehicles, and trash that paved a horrifying road east towards the heart of Denver. Clem had quietly nursed the hope that the conditions here would still somehow be better than the ones she had seen approaching from the north. In total honestly, this did look more promising. The walkers here weren't as densely packed and Clem found herself tracing a route forward with her eyes.

"Where did they all come from?" he whispered. "I mean, this isn't even like… downtown or whatever. How are there this many chindi this far out?"

"Maybe people came here from the towns we passed?" suggested Clem. "Maybe they thought it would be safer here, but it made things worse because they didn't know what was happening yet."

Examining the disaster stretched out before them, Clem noticed there was little consistency to what direction the cars were facing. There were ones facing both ways in the same lane, and each lane no less. Others were turned sideways like they tried to turn back suddenly and were stopped suddenly, maybe from the vehicles behind them crashing into them. Whatever happened, Clem felt bad for the people who were trapped here.

"We're gonna have to walk from here," she concluded.

"What?" asked the stranger, terror in his voice. "You want—"

"There's not enough room to use the bikes, but we should be able to keep going on foot."

"Keep going? You want to keep going?"

"Have we got what we came for yet?"

"No, but… the houses around here and—"

"We could waste hours searching them and not find what either of us needs," insisted Clem. "We need a drugstore, and one deep enough into this mess that we know almost no one ever got to it."

"Yeah, because it's a death trap," said the stranger. "And what's this we crap? I told you I'm just doing this because I need something."

Clem sighed.

"I'll go alone then, you can look for what you need out here." Clem felt her heart in her throat after blurting that out. She didn't want to go alone, especially when the only other person here is the one with the keys to travel the hours back to the only people left in the world she cared about. "Well?"

The stranger groaned. "Do you really think you can go down there and get back out?"

"If I'm quiet and careful, yes."

"Have you done this before?"

"With something that looks this bad? Once, and I had no choice… I don't today either, so I'm going."

"Fuck…" the stranger pulled his machete from its sheath. "Anything else I need to know about the chindi before I go down there?"

"Don't even think about using that gun," warned Clem as she pointed to the rifle draped over the stranger's shoulder. "The noise would bring them all down on top of us before we could even do anything about it."

"If that's true, why do you have a gun?"

"For things that aren't walkers," answered Clem. "And I only brought the gun that fits on my hip today. If you really want to lug that heavy thing all the way there and back, that's your choice."

"I think I will," he retorted. "And if you're so worried about noise, why'd you bring that too?" The stranger pointed to the grenade clipped to Clem's belt.

"I can throw that," she explained. "And then the noise from the explosion will draw them away from me."

"I… I hadn't thought about it," admitted the stranger.

"Fireworks can do it too, but I haven't been looking for them lately," admitted Clem. "It's been a while since walkers were a problem."

"That's reassuring." The stranger shrugged. "Let me just eat a little something and… I guess we'll do this." Clem watched as the stranger fished a plastic bag out of his pocket. It looked like it was filled with the same spinach she gave him yesterday. She's not sure why he was carrying a snack, but Clem used the opportunity to slip away from him.

Her head still hurt and her throat was still sore. She slipped off her mask and coughed a few times to clear it, then drank some water. After that, she fished a couple of cough drops out of her pocket. They had a long walk ahead and she didn't want to die because of a cough, and Sarah wasn't here to cover her mouth this time. Clem popped them in her mouth, pulled her mask down and looked over her shoulder; the stranger looked as ready as she was at this point.

The pair carefully made their way off the overpass and headed onto the not-so-open road leading into the city. Looking at the walkers they passed as they crept further into town, whittled down to little more than fleshy skeletons by time and the weather, Clem almost empathised with them. Her head was throbbing, her limbs aching, and she briefly wondered why she bothered staggering forward deeper into this death trap, then an image of Omid gasping flashed into her mind and she started walking faster.

Looking over her shoulder, Clem couldn't even see the overpass they came down from anymore. They were surrounded by death in every direction. Everywhere she stepped there was dried blood splattered across the pavement, or old shell casings, or even rotted body parts left like so much litter across the highway. The cars closed in around them the further they went, foreboding walls of doom decorated with mauled bodies hanging out of broken windows.

And then there were walkers themselves, putrified corpses with tattered rags hanging off their spindly limbs, ever ready to sink their rotten teeth into a couple of juicy living morsels if they could just pick up the scent. More and more they had to stop to deal with them just to keep moving forward, whenever stabbing downed corpses or carefully toppling the still moving ones. One walker Clem kneecapped banged into the hood of a car as it fell and started pounding against the metal, attracting more walkers.

Their coats allowed them to slip away and take a longer route around the small gathering of walkers tripping over themselves to follow the noise. As they continued forward, Clem found herself recalling Sin's words: If they didn't know why this trick worked, then they also wouldn't know what to do if a day ever came where it stopped working. Looking back at the ongoing commotion a single walker created, Clem was terrified to think that today might be that day.

She didn't know how long they walked now, or how much longer they needed to go. It was likely already noon and there was still no sign of any stores nearby, just more suburbs that grew thicker with walkers every step stretching all the way into the horizon. Occasionally there'd be cushions of space between the danger where she could briefly get up to a jog, knock a little time of this already lengthy journey, but they were getting rarer the further they went. The stranger moved in sync with her without a word between them; whatever he needed, he was as committed as Clem to get it.

After what had to be at least a couple of miles, Clem finally saw a break from the sprawling suburbs that surrounded them. It was a strip mall and the first proper stores she'd seen since starting this long walk. She found herself walking a bit faster to get a better look at the signs. Breakfast, lunch, liquor, wine, books, sports, martial arts, yoga, animal care, credit union, almost everything you could think of, except medicine.

Looking over her shoulder she saw the stranger examining the same signs, then he turned to her; Clem's only answer was just to keep moving deeper into town. Before long, the strip mall was far behind him and they were surrounded by suburbs again, whose roads were choked with metal and bodies, plenty of which were still moving. At this point the walkers weren't Clem's concern, it was attrition. The longer they walked the longer they'd have to walk back, and they still hadn't found anything worth bringing back.

Her adrenaline had kept her going for a while but it was fading now as she realized there just might not be anywhere they could reach in time. Her legs were aching, her throat was sore, her stomach was growling, and there was a flood of walkers waiting just ahead to greet them. Some of them were standing, some crawling, some falling over each other as they bumbled about the gridlock choking all eight lanes of the highway, keepers of this grotesque shrine to the human race's downfall.

It was enough to finally make Clem turn back, only to find the stranger standing directly behind her. "Look." He pointed far off to the south road. Clem saw more cars, more walkers, more nothingness. "You see it? The sign?" She saw a sign for a bank, a hotel, a garage; nothing they needed. "All the way at the end of the road on the left, can you read that?" Clem looked and saw one more sign barely visible past the trees running along the sidewalk, and she could make out two words; super center.

"Holy shit…"

"Do you think—"

"Yes!"

Clem moved with renewed vigor, hastily locating an off-ramp to get off the overpass and leading the stranger down to the south road. At this point, this far into town, the constant wreckage cluttering up the roads was a good sign. A herd wouldn't have driven here and the military would have cleared the streets if they had ever looted Denver. Whatever happened, it happened right after the outbreak and there was ample evidence no one had cleared out the city after it happened.

Her feet were really starting to hurt but Clem pushed onward as a massive brick building came into view on the left. There was a row of garages, along with a sign that simply read 'Auto Center' above them, but little else on this side. Reaching the corner, Clem finally saw the rest of it. There was an enormous parking lot that made the congested roads look open by comparison, complete with its own platoon of walkers wandering around, and on the front of the building near the corner, a pair of double doors with the words 'Home & Pharmacy' written over them.

"This is it," whispered the stranger, sounding excited.

"Yeah," whispered Clem. "Now we just got to get inside."

The pair moved with renewed energy as they negotiated the gauntlet of walkers and crashed cars. They clearly weren't the only ones who knew the value of a place like this as the traffic veered off the street right towards the front doors, resulting in an avalanche of crashed vehicles blocking the entrance. And there were so many walkers around that all Clem could hear was as that awful uneven chorus of moaning and hissing, like the final pitiful song of so many long-dead people who just wanted to stay alive; she knew their pain.

They'd be moving slower with full backpacks and probably be less alert, so Clem thought it wise to clear a path now. Moving up to the edge of the store, she stopped to kill every walker and stab every corpse in her way, of which there was plenty of both. The stranger moved alongside her, seemingly falling into Clem's rhythm as they slowly chopped and hacked their way closer to salvation.

Most of the cars left just enough space for them to squeeze past, but inching past a couple of SUV's, Clem found her path blocked by a station wagon that had slammed into the edge of the building and apparently whoever was standing next to it at the time. The walker just moaned quietly, permanently pinned to the wall by the mess of twisted metal. They didn't even see it coming judging from how they were facing the wall, which they helplessly pawed against.

The doors were right there but the car blocked the way. Trying to negotiate the whole parking lot to get around it would be dangerous and time-consuming. Clem didn't like the idea of going under the car because even if she fit her backpack wouldn't on the way out. And crawling past the hood made her nervous because of the noise it might make. Edging up to the window, the inside of the vehicle was empty. She tried opening the door but it was locked, and trying to reach through the ajar window, she discovered her arm wasn't long enough to reach the mechanism inside.

"Hey," she said in a barely audible whisper. "You've got longer arms than me, unlock this door and we can slip through the car."

The stranger looked at Clem for a second, then shuffled over to it. Clem turned around and kept watch while he tried to open the door. They had cleared the way behind them but already Clem could see more walkers roaming into place, as if to replace them. She never understood why they kept moving even when they didn't smell or hear anything. It was almost like they did it just to spite her.

"Oh no." Clem pulled her mask off and hastily covered her face just in time to catch a sneeze. It was a big one, nearly toppling her over and making her head pound in pain. It took her a second to regain her senses and the first thing she noticed was an overwhelming stench that smelled like burning garbage jammed right up her nose; the second thing she noticed was how much louder the walkers sounded now.

She looked up in a hurry as she pulled her mask down and grabbed her tomahawk off the ground, terrified she'd be attacked any second. But she didn't see any walkers coming towards her, and after listening for a second she noticed they sounded the same again. Maybe the sneeze made her ears ring for a second or maybe she was just hearing things. Either way, it left her confused, especially when she heard a voice right in her ear.

"Hey." Clem spun around and held her tomahawk out in front of her, spooking the stranger. "The hell are you doing?"

"Nothing," said Clem as she lowered the weapon. "Just thought I heard something else."

Looking past the stranger, she saw that he had opened the door and was seemingly looking to her for direction now; she headed into the car. They climbed across the seats to the already open passenger side door, which was covered in dried blood and broken glass. They emerged in front of the store and what had been a couple of sliding doors. Now it was a mess of broken glass and mutilated bodies, some of which were still moving.

Clem led the stranger in a gradual culling of corpses, stabbing each and every one in the head to stop those who were moving and to make sure those who weren't never started. Moving into this warehouse of a store dimly lit by the afternoon light peering in through the skylights, things didn't look much better. Shelves had spilled their contents across a floor already strained with more blood, body parts and bodies themselves.

Hacking through some more corpses on the floor, Clem saw less walkers ahead but more signs of their handiwork. Long streaks of blood dragged across the concrete dotted with strange black smudges that she could only assume used to be body parts. They all blended in with a black and moldy mush spewing forth from what a sign told Clem used to be a produce section. People and food, all left to rot just the same.

Moving deeper into the store, Clem saw canned goods spilled out across the floor, and shortly after that the stranger rushing over to grab a couple of them. Clem took off her own backpack and knelt down to examine the labels: fruits, vegetables, soups, stews, most anything that was commonly canned. It had been a while since she had the luxury of being picky. She looked around to make sure there weren't any walkers nearby, then looked up to see the stranger stuffing his pack with cans.

"Don't take too many," warned Clem.

"There's plenty for both of us," he dismissed.

"It's not that, it that's you're gonna have to carry all that back." Those words stopped the stranger mid-motion as he was about to pack away two more cans. "We got a long walk back, so keep that in mind."

"Shit…" he swore under his breath. "I'm already exhausted."

"We'll eat something before we leave, to keep our strength up," assured Clem. "Also, keep an eye out for dried, freeze-dried or any food you mix with water. It all weighs less and usually is still good, well as good as anything can be after all this time. Also, don't forget spices."

"Spices?"

"Salt, pepper, anything you really like the taste of," she explained. "A single shaker doesn't weigh much, doesn't take up much room, and can make your food a little better for a long time."

"I like honey," he said.

"Good, get some more of it," instructed Clem. "And save room for other little things you might need; lighters, utensils to eat with, batteries for flashlights or radio, a toothbrush."

"Toothbrush?" he asked.

"Yes, a toothbrush," repeated Clem. "There are no dentists left, at least I haven't met any, and if you got a cavity now you'd be stuck with a sore tooth that would hurt every time you'd tried to eat, and there would be nothing you could do about it."

"I… hadn't thought of that."

"Oh, and keep an eye out for cookware," said Clem. "A single good cast iron pan will last you forever and easier to keep clean than stainless steel."

"You've been doing this a long time," noted the stranger.

"Longer than I ever wanted."

The store was a disaster but thankfully the walkers were relatively spread out, giving the pair ample space to kill them as moved deeper into it. There were more bodies than standing walkers at this point, and most of them had already been torn apart yet still not dead. This place had been a feeding frenzy for the undead, and at this point stabbing the ones ripped apart felt more like mercy killings than a precaution.

Heading down the aisles, Clem and her accomplice pocketed whatever they felt like they needed. Two jars of peanut butter, some oatmeal, instant tea mix, and other treats Clem couldn't remember the last time she enjoyed. She also found kool-aid and honed in on an orange package. Omid loved orange juice, and Clem figured artificially flavored orange sugar water was better than nothing. Now, if she could just find some actual medicine.

Creeping closer to the pharmacy, Clem spotted an aisle for baby supplies and slipped away when the stranger wasn't looking. After scanning the shelves carefully, she located a bulb syringe. It was just an odd little rubber ball with a long tip jutting out of it, and when you squeezed it air would get sucked in. It was light so she packed away two of them; now she just needed antibiotics.

"God dammit!" Clem was disturbed by how loud his voice was. Poking out of the baby aisle, she could see him behind the pharmacy counter at the end of the store, a stack of bodies between him and where Clem was standing. She quickly stabbed her way through the bodies while the stranger made more noise as he tried to force a door open. After none of the bodies reacted, Clem skipped the last few and rushed right up to the counter.

"Would you keep it down!" she demanded in a loud whisper. "You're gonna get us both killed!"

"There's nothing behind the counter but this," he grumbled as he stuck his machete into the slit between a metal door and its frame. "All the drugs must be locked up inside."

Clem found the stranger's sudden urgency alarming. It reminded her of the first time she went out with Patty who suddenly got excited at the idea of looting the pharmacy, and she admitted afterwards she probably looked like a drug addict. Then Clem realized, she didn't care if this person was an addict or not. If anything, that just meant he'd be more motivated to get into the same place Clem needed to get into.

"You're just gonna bend your machete," warned Clem as she climbed over the counter. "Stay calm, we'll figure something out."

Coming over to the only door, Clem discovered it was locked. The lock was built into the handle so even if they had bolt cutters they would be of no use. Looking at the sides there were no hinges to remove on this side. There was no window or any other opening to exploit. Clem thought about trying to pick the lock with her paperclip, but just looking at it she could tell it was much more complicated than handcuffs. And on top of everything, it was a sturdy metal door they wouldn't be able to just knock down either.

"The grenade!" exclaimed the stranger. "Use it to blow open the door!"

"No."

"We got no choice!"

Clem changed her mind, she did care that this person might be a drug addict; his desperation was frightening her.

"The noise would bring every walker in the city here," said Clem.

"We—"

"And might set the entire building on fire."

"But—"

"And destroy the medicine in there."

The last one silenced him, but even behind his mask and goggles Clem could tell he was getting anxious. "What about your tomahawk?" He said as he gestured to it. "It looks durable, maybe we could force the door open with it."

"It's worth a try." Clem took off the weapon and offered it to the stranger, who snatched it away and immediately jammed the axe head into the door, at least as much as he could force it into the opening. Then he started pushing against the tomahawk's handle, to little effect.

"Help me dammit!" Clem moved in close found it difficult to get a grip. The handle was small and the space behind the counter made it difficult to arrange herself. She found her face being forced into the stranger's chest as he started pushing without so much as giving her a word. Her mask was smeared with blood from the stranger's raincoat and Clem found it impossible to push at this awkward angle.

"Are you even trying?"

"I can't!" Clem broke free of the stranger's grip and moved away. "This won't work."

"Then what will?" asked the stranger, sounding like he was on the verge of crying. "Fucking come all this way just to be stopped by a stupid door!"

His whining didn't make Clem feel any better, but the irony was painful. This place was mostly unlooted and this door clearly hadn't been breached, so the odds were very good there were antibiotics just waiting in the back there, but they couldn't get to them. At a loss, Clem sat down and dug through her pockets. She pulled out Jet's guide and flipped to the medical section. She even had the names of the drugs she needed, but flipping through the pages she didn't see any section for breaking into doors.

"What are you doing?" asked the stranger. "Are you giving up? I thought you said your friend is sick!"

"She is!" said Clem through her teeth. "But… I don't know what to do."

"I thought you do stuff like this all the time?"

"I do!" growled Clem as she jumped to her feet. "And you know what? It's a constant pain in the ass of bullshit like this just to stay alive for one more day! Yesterday I thought I had to rob you to avoid freezing to death, today I had to march into a city full of walkers, and now we're stuck in front of a fucking door! It never ends! We'll probably get a fucking flat tire on the way back and…" A thought flashed into Clementine's mind, like a bolt of lightning. "This place has gotta have a hardware section."

"And?" asked the stranger, sounding eager. "You got an idea?"

"Maybe."

The pair ditched their backpacks so they could move quicker. The store may not have been as perilous as the approach but the overturned shelves, bodies littered about, and encroaching darkness from the sun setting gave Clem plenty of reason to take pause. 'Don't die now, not this close to saving Omid,' she told herself as she drove her tomahawk into the skull of a walker who was little more than a writhing torso at this point.

They eventually reached the hardware section and Clem started grabbing things. She didn't have a definitive plan, but looking at the shelves of tools had stirred some memories that would hopefully prove useful. Clem directed the stranger to grab certain items as she tried to picture them being used together. Even her best idea right now was incredibly crude, but it was all she had.

Returning to the pharmacy, the stranger set up a couple of lanterns they took from hardware while Clem shook up an aerosol can. She remembered Devlin once telling her this grease could loosen almost anything, so she sprayed it into slight opening around the lock. Next, she stuck a shovel into the slit, which wouldn't slide in any further than half an inch. Clem held the shovel in place and motioned to the stranger. He came over and took her place while Clem grabbed a hammer off the counter.

She remembered asking Sin once why he used a rubber mallet to knock pipes together for their rainwater collectors, and he said it was better for not breaking things, and that it made less noise than a metal one. Smacking this rubber mallet into the shovel's handle wasn't as quiet as Clem would have hoped, but watching from behind the counter, she didn't see any walkers approaching, so she gave it another strong knock.

Each hit didn't make much difference, but Clem kept tapping the end of a shovel and slowly but surely the other end slid deeper in-between the door and the frame. Once the head of the shovel was almost fully jammed inside the door frame, Clem took a step back. She gestured to the stranger and he hurried over to her side, leaving the shovel in the door; it was in there good.

"Now there's enough room for both of us to push at the same time," said the stranger as he gripped the shovel.

"Not only that," said Clem as she grabbed the handle on the very end. "We've got leverage."

"Huh?"

"Just get ready," said Clem as she steeled herself. "We'll go on three."

"All right."

"One, two, three!" The pair both threw the weight against the shovel with as much force as they could. Clem could feel it moving, but not much, and before long she felt her arms throbbing. "Stop!" Clem took a couple of deep breaths, then grabbed the shovel again. "One, two, three!" Another push and this time there was a loud cracking sound that just made Clem push even harder. "Stah… stop," mumbled Clem between deep breaths.

Her arms were begging her to quit and her head was throbbing, but she ignored them both. "One more, with everything you got," instructed Clem as she grabbed the shovel one last time.

"All right," said the stranger, sounding short of breath himself.

"Come on," pleaded Clem. "Give me a break, just this one time." Clem cringed as her sore fingers wrapped around that steel handle. "One… two… three." Clem gritted her teeth as pains shot up both arms and wheezed for air as she felt herself getting light-headed, but she didn't stop. She pushed like her life depended on it, because Omid's did. Suddenly there a loud metal banging noise and the shovel moved out from under Clem, causing her to fall onto the floor. Rolling onto her side, Clem watched as the stranger rushed over to the door.

"I… I think it worked," he said as he started twisting the handle. "It's loose now, I think if I just—" The door flung open, knocking the stranger onto his back as a walker came stumbling out. "Holy shit!"

The walker fell forward onto the stranger and started clawing at the source of the outburst as he yelled out in terror. Clem pulled her gun, took aim, and froze. 'The noise!' Clem reminded herself as the stranger grabbed the corpse by its stringy hair, desperately trying to pull its snarling maw away from his face. Clem dropped the gun, pulled her knife and charged.

She drove the blade into the walker's skull and it sunk in halfway before the walker twitched from under her. It nearly pulled the blade out of Clem's hand as it looked up at her, those milky soulless eyes and gnashing rotten teeth lurching forward. Clem shifted her weight onto to the knife and drove it the blade the rest of the way into the walker's brain. It collapsed under her and Clem pulled her knife out, spilling blood across the stranger's already bloody coat.

"Did… did you get bitten?" Asked Clem as the stranger crawled out from under the walker's corpse. "Because if you did—"

"I didn't!" he suddenly yelled out before turning onto his side. Clem kept looking up at the door, expecting another walker to rush out. One didn't come, and she didn't hear any moaning. She did hear crying though, and it was from the stranger.

"Hey," said Clem as she walked over to him. "Are—"

"I didn't get bitten!" he repeated, sounding angry. "It's just… fuck… I've never seen a chindi that close before."

"Yeah… I know." Clem sighed, trying not to think about all the ones she had seen up close. Even just a second ago, it still unnerved her looking one in the eyes, knowing it wanted nothing in the world but to kill you.

"What the fuck was it doing in there?"

"They probably locked themselves in there," speculated Clem as she examined the corpse. They were wearing a uniform and their body looked completely unharmed beyond the damage Clem had just done. "And they don't look skinny enough to have starved. Maybe they ran out of water."

"Or maybe they swallowed some pills while they were back there, because they knew they were gonna die anyway…" The stranger slowly stood up and headed for the door, but Clem intercepted him.

"Hang on, let's make sure there's not anyone else in there." Clem stowed her knife and holstered her gun, then picked up her tomahawk. She rapped it against the side of the door, making a loud clang, then listened closely; no moaning or approaching footsteps. "All right, get the lanterns."

The pair headed into the back. Clem pulled out Jet's guide and kept it in one hand and the lantern in the other. The back of the pharmacy wasn't very big and there wasn't any other signs of walkers, but there were quite a few shelves packed with pill bottles, tubes, and inhalers. There was also a big work station at the back full of compounds and components for making medicines that Clem didn't even want to try to figure out.

Even with Jet's guide in front of her, it was difficult to know what to look for. The names all looked like magic spells to her which she could barely keep in mind. Checking label after label, one did finally catch her eye: alprazolam, generic xanax. Clem pocketed it, reasoning she could use a good night's sleep after this. After dozens of bottles across several shelves, Clem finally saw one from Jet's list; amoxicillin. She shoved it on her pack and was ready to leave, but then pulled it out and reexamined it.

Checking the label, it said there were thirty pills inside. That sounded like a lot, but looking at Jet's guide she reread the part mentioning pneumonia could last weeks, and then went back to the shelf to start searching again. Reading all the long and confusing names, her eyes straining against the dim light, Clem found herself growing more lightheaded. She looked over at the stranger and saw he was absorbed in examining every bottle's label like his life depended on it, so Clem did the same.

Around the time Clem and the stranger were searching the same shelf, she found another bottle of amoxicillin. This one didn't have pills but liquid, and the cap was a dropper. She took it from the shelf, only to stranger to grab her hand. She was about demand he let her go, but one look at the bottle and he released it and moved past Clem, checking the shelves she had already searched.

Checking the last few shelves, Clem found one final bottle of pills with amoxicillin on the label. There were two other medication's names in Jet's guide for pneumonia but Clem never saw them anywhere in here. Hopefully the one she did find was the right one, because she had three bottles of it and nothing else for Omid. Turning to the stranger, he seemed to be rechecking the first shelf Clem searched when they came in.

"Hey," she said. "Are you ready to go?"

The stranger looked at Clem, then back at the shelf. "Yeah," he said as he turned around. "Let's get out of here."

Moving back to the entrance, Clem instructed the stranger to grab some bottled waters and something to eat, then led him to the nearest bathrooms, both so they could have some privacy to eat and so if they actually needed a bathroom they had that too. The men's room had a couple of standing walkers and one chewed apart so badly it could barely move. They killed them all and dragged their bodies outside.

The ladies' room was much the same, except after clearing out a couple of walkers idling by the entrance, there was one more body curled up in the back. It was a dead woman, but in her arms was a baby's corpse. The woman was largely intact but the baby was a twisted mess of chewed up flesh, barely recognizable as once human. The dead woman moaned quietly as they approached, and so did the baby. Its head twisted into an unnatural position as it tried to move. It let out the most disturbing cry Clem had ever heard, and that's when she noticed the stranger readying his machete.

"Don't!" Clem grabbed his arms to prevent him from swinging.

"They're already dead, we gotta—"

"I know, I…" Clem heard that undead baby's cry again, it was like a tiny animal choking on its own blood. She rushed outside and back into the hall. She tried to stop herself from crying as should still hear that horrible sound in her head. It stopped eventually, and a few seconds later Clem watched as the stranger dragged the woman's body out, then presumably the baby. Clem didn't actually know because she couldn't bear to watch what he did next.

"It's empty now." Clem looked over her shoulder and saw the stranger staring at her. She couldn't see his face but the tone of voice sounded sympathetic, if only slightly.

"Thanks," replied Clem in a weak voice. "Eat, drink, and meet me back out here in ten minutes, okay?"

"Yeah." The stranger disappeared into the men's room, and then Clem headed into the ladies' room. She took off her mask for a breath of fresh air, and what she got was anything but fresh. Even with the bodies gone the smell lingered and Clem could barely stand it. She had to breathe through her mouth, meaning she had to chew quickly to finish her cold meal of canned stew and fruit. She could barely taste anything and what little she did was ruined by that awful stench.

Lying there in a filthy bathroom, nostrils stringing from the lingering odor, her arms and legs both aching, Clem found herself overcome by weariness as thought about the long walk, ride, and drive back it would take to return to Sarah and Omid. Feeling lonely, she found herself reaching for the radio. She knew it was way too far to ever reach Sarah, but she pressed the talk button anyway.

"Sarah?" Clem waited for a response she knew wasn't coming. "I… I think I found what we need for Omid. I hope it's enough, and I hope I get back in time… I miss you." Even in the lowlight of the lantern, Clem could see the outlines of where her radio used to have stickers on it. "So many people have died… it feels like we're just putting off our turn." Clem set her radio down. "I still remember trying to call my parents, and how happy I was to hear someone call back and say—"

"Hey."

Clem jumped to her feet, pulling her mask down and drawing her gun all in one quick movement. She didn't see anyone in the room with her, so she knelt down and picked up her radio.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey." It was the stranger's voice she was hearing, and from just outside the door, not her radio. "Are you done? I want to get out of here."

"Yeah," called Clem as she put her radio away. She stepped out and saw the stranger standing outside the bathroom door. "Surprised you just didn't leave without me," she admitted.

"You still got that grenade," said the stranger. "I might need it to get back to the RV if something goes wrong."

"Oh…" Clem stood there in silence for a second. "Let's get going."

Stepping outside, Clem noted the orange glow of the afternoon sun behind the thick cover of clouds blanketing the sky. They'd have to hurry, Clem didn't feel like navigating this mess of abandoned vehicles and walkers in the dark, or being snowed into a crappy RV a hundred miles from the only people she cared about. She moved as quick as she could for someone weaving through tight spaces and past the living dead with a head cold and several pounds on her back.

Her movements were almost involuntary as she pushed forward. There was rarely more than a single opening between the wreckage and walkers so it more an issue of will than wits at this point if they could get out of this death trap and back to the outskirts. They were facing west now and it felt like Clem was watching their own doom approaching as the sun began to set. The darker it got the faster she moved, reasoning if she didn't hurry then this would be the last sunset she would ever see.

Looking ahead, Clem saw a couple of walkers standing in the way of an otherwise clear path forward. Killing them meant risking them making noise and looking for another path would take more time, so Clem decided to go through them instead. She still remembered leaving Savannah and watching a walker bump right into Lee, then kept moving, so Clem did the same. She moved slowly but surely right up to the pair blocking her path, then pushed beside them.

Her skin crawled as she felt their bodies pushing against hers, and she kept one hand on her knife the entire time, fearful they'd detect her at any moment, then she was through. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the stranger behind them. She couldn't be sure, but she was pretty confident he was looking at her in disbelief. Clem just gestured with her head, and very slowly he approached the pair much like Clem had done.

He was a little taller than her, and his head came up to one of the walker's chins as he scooched past. He seemed to freeze for a moment and stare at it in terror, then inched past them. He looked at Clem, again, almost certainly in disbelief, and she just gestured with her heard to keep moving. She didn't like this any more than he probably did but it seemed like the only way they could make up for lost time.

Pushing past still moving walkers was unnerving every time they had to do it, but they kept doing it anyway, risking death now instead of waiting for it to come with nightfall. Eventually, the walkers began to thin enough Clem could almost get up to a jog again. She had been careful not to overstuff her backpack, but her legs were sore just from being on her feet so long. She stopped to take a breath, knowing they had a few miles ahead of them, then she realized the stranger wasn't following her anymore.

At first she thought he was just gone, like he had run off in another direction when she wasn't looking. But then she spotted him lying face down on the pavement several feet behind her. She only knew it was him because she recognized his backpack and could see it was still stuffed from the things they took from the store. Clem looked around, fearful something had attacked him. There were a few walkers idling not far away, but nothing right next to him.

Clem turned away and looked down the road. It'd probably be dark in less than two hours, and they still had a distance they'd have to ride on bikes to reach the RV again. She took a couple steps forward, tried to force herself up to a steady pace to get away from him, then stopped and sighed. She spun around and hurried back to where the stranger was lying. He wasn't moving, so she took out her tomahawk, just in case.

"Hey," whispered Clem as she poked the stranger's backpack. "Hey, can you hear me?" Clem poked the pack again and the stranger suddenly stirred, forcing Clem to jump back. She lifted her tomahawk upwards as the stranger raised his head and looked at Clem. His goggles made it impossible to see his eyes, and his mask covered the rest of his face.

"Say something," prompted a nervous Clem.

"What happened?" he whispered.

Clem breathed a sigh of relief. "I don't know, I just turned around and you were lying on the pavement."

"Yeah… I… I must have fallen," he said, sounding unsure.

"You're… you're sure you didn't get bitten earlier, right?"

"I'm sure, okay? I'm just... fucking exhausted," he insisted as he stood up. "How… how long was I out?"

"I don't know, maybe a minute or two?"

"And… you came back for me?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"You have the keys to the RV."

"Oh…" The stranger took a breath. "Let's just get back already."

It was such a long walk back to the overpass Clem was afraid she'd pass out herself. It was nearly dark when they finally got there and they would have walked past it wasn't literally over their heads. Even then, it took them a while to find their way back to the offramp with just lamplight. It took even longer to finally discover where they left their bikes and Clem groaned as she climbed onto it; it was at least another three miles from here to the RV.

They had to go slow, with the clouds blocking out what little light was left and their lanterns giving them only a short view of what was directly ahead of them. It was getting colder too, with the air rushing past stinging the bits of Clem's face her mask didn't cover. And if that wasn't enough, it also started snowing. It was just a few flakes in the air at the moment, but Clem was terrified of it getting worse any second.

It was pitch black when they finally reached the RV. They had almost ridden right past it until Clem had spotted that familiar green paint out of the corner of her eyes. The stranger unlocked it while Clem tossed the bikes into the back. No more walking, no more pedaling, just one long drive and she'd finally be home. Collapsing into the seat next to the stranger, Clem thought that crappy upholstery never felt so good, and dropping her pack on the floor was a great weight off her shoulders, literal and figurative.

"All right," said the stranger. "We'll find a hotel or something nearby, and spend the night there," he said as he stuck the key in the ignition.

"What? No, I gotta get this medicine back tonight, my friend—"

"I can barely keep my eyes open, and—"

"I'll drive," insisted Clem as she inched over.

"The hell you will," insisted the stranger as he pushed her back.
"You're gonna kill my friend! You're gonna kill our baby!"

"I… I'm sorry, but—hey!"

Clem pulled her gun and held it out at the stranger. He looked at, likely confused why Clem was aiming the grip at him and not the barrel.

"What are—"

"Take it," insisted Clem. "Keep it pointed at me and if you think I'm trying anything while we're driving… you can shoot me."

"Are you serious?" he asked.

"I… I gotta get back tonight," said Clem as she held the gun out. "That's all that matters to me right now."

The stranger eyed the gun, then slowly took it from Clem. "All right, but no tricks," said the stranger as inched towards Clem. "And if a blizzard hits us, you're pulling over at the first place you see. Got it?"

"If I don't, you can always kill me and just take the wheel." Clem felt nervous as the stranger grasped her gun. He wasn't aiming it directly at her, but just the barrel pointing in her direction made her nervous. She swapped places with him and took hold of the wheel. The pedals were hard to reach and it took Clem a while to remember how to shift gears, but once they started moving it all came back to her.

It was a long drive, made longer by the darkness and slowly thickening snowfall cutting her already limited visibility down even further. Looking at those little specks of white sticking to the windshield, Clem was terrified it would just start pouring down snow at any second. Looking at the stranger, he was probably thinking the same thing. Although he kept the gun aimed in Clem's direction, his eyes were fixated on the windshield, waiting for the moment he'd tell her to stop.

Clem sped up after they pulled off the interstate, hoping to stay ahead of the snow on the more open backroads. With every passing moment, Clem's mind was invaded with a new terrible thought. What if Jet was wrong and the medicine wouldn't help? What if Omid was allergic to it? What if she was already too late? What if she wasn't, but they ran out of gas before they got back? Looking at the fuel gauge, they had less than a quarter tank left. But then Clem saw it, a literal sign of hope: 'Granby - 15'.

Clem pushed the pedal down to speed up as she felt a sudden swell of success rushing through her veins. She marched into the most dangerous place she knew and came right back out with exactly what she needed. Before long, they were passing the sporting good store they stopped at earlier and Clem could see the main road again. Watching the headlights fall on the Brickhouse, smoke pouring out of its chimney, Clem's heart skipped a beat as she skidded to a stop right next to the door.

"Uhh…" The stranger groaned loudly as his head rolled about, like he was confused. For a brief moment, Clem was terrified he had become a walker. "Are… are we there?"

"Yeah, we're back," said Clem. "Can… I have my gun back?"

The stranger looked at the pistol he was clutching in his hands. He stared at it for a long time and Clem was frightened at what he might be thinking about. But then he offered it back to her, and Clem put it in her holster.

"We're done now," he declared. "I'll leave your bikes and raincoat outside and I'm going, got it?"

"Yeah, got it." Clem picked up her backpack and rushed out the door. She sprinted over to the Brickhouse and burst through the front doors. Clem's eyes immediately fell on Sarah, who was kneeling quietly over the roaring fireplace. She turned around as Clem tossed off her mask and coat. They stared at each other, seemingly in disbelief at what they saw, then they ran into each other's arms.

"You're back!" cried Sarah as she squealed in delight and nearly crushed Clem with a bear hug. "Thank God!"

"I found it Sarah, I found antibiotics, and the nasal bulb!" announced Clem, crying with joy. "Omid's gonna be okay!"

Sarah suddenly went silent. Clem looked at her, a horrible dread brewing in her stomach as she noticed the tears running down her cheeks. "What… what's wrong?" Sarah started choking with sobs as she tried to speak. "Sarah!"

"He's gone…" Clem fell to her knees as her eyes spotted a lifeless Omid lying in front of the fireplace. "I… I don't know what happened," mumbled Sarah as Clementine crawled forward. "He just stopped breathing a minute ago and I… I… I…"

"Shut up," insisted Clem as she crawled right up to Omid. He was as still as he was dead silent. "Omid?" Clem shook him slightly; no response. "Omid!" she repeated as she shook him harder, causing his head to bob slightly from the force. His lips were blue and his mouth just hung limply open. "Wake up! Omid! Wake up Omid! Oh… Oh…"

Tears poured down the sides of Clem's face as she turned away suddenly before collapsing onto the floor in agony. Once again, Clementine found herself wondering why she just couldn't wake up. Why wouldn't, just this once, this be an actual nightmare, and she could just wake up and have this horrible thing erased from the world? Why?

"Clem…

"Why!" shrieked Clem as Sarah knelt down to comfort her. "Why…"

"I don't know," cried Sarah.

"It's not fair," croaked Clem. "He… he never hurt anyone."

"I know, I know," sobbed Sarah. "When… when you came in, I was thinking we can bury him—"

"No!"

"With his stuffed elephant," wept Sarah. "I… I think he'd like that."

"He'd like to be alive!" yelled Clem as she tried to wriggle free of Sarah's grasp. "He… was like the one person in the world who was still happy to be alive! It's not fair! It's…"

A horrible dread overtook Clem's anguish as she could hear it now; Omid groaning. Clem pulled away from Sarah and saw him squirming under the covers. Her heart broke all over again as her hand slowly pulled her gun, both hands shaking uncontrollably as she did everything she could to stifle her misery.

"What are—"

"It's what happens when you die now…" recited an anguished Clem as she switched the safety off. "It's what gonna happen to all of us." Clem's hands shook as she raised the gun. Omid spun around in place and Clem found herself staring into his sickly eyes; he was crying. "Oh… Omid?" He wheezed slightly in response.

"You said—"

"I swear he wasn't breathing anymore but…" Sarah scrambled across the floor in an instant to Clem's pack and started digging through it. She found the bulb syringe in no time and already had it out and aimed at Omid's face before Clem knew it.

"Sarah, be careful, he might actually be—"

"He's alive!" declared Sarah as she moved the tip of the rubber tool towards Omid's nose. "Right Omid? You're just miserable right now, but this will make you better." Clem watched anxiously as Sarah's hand moved right in front of Omid's mouth; he only groaned in response. Sarah held him in place as she used the bulb to clear out Omid's stuffy nose. He was wheezing the entire time but not as quickly after Sarah finished. He was still gasping for air, but not desperately.

"You said you found antibiotics?" asked Sarah as she helped Omid sit up.

"Yeah."

"Get them. I'm gonna get him to spit up some of that stuff making it so hard for him to breathe."

Clem dug through her pack and found all three bottles of amoxicillin. She grabbed them and hurried over to Sarah. She watched as Sarah gently patted Omid's back until he started coughing into the paper towel she was holding out; the large brown blob of phlegm she pulled back was disturbing.

"Clem!"

Clem snapped to her senses and handed one of the bottles to Sarah. She twisted the cap off, fished a couple of pills out of it, then grabbed a bottle of water. "Okay, now you must be thirsty." Omid only wheezed in response as Sarah held the bottle up to his still blue lips. "Here you go." Clem watched as Sarah lifted up the bottle with one hand and held a pill out in the other. As Omid started to drink she gently moved the pill forward, and the second it touched his lips he spit it out.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" muttered Sarah as Omid cried in-between wheezed breaths. Looking at that red and yellow capsule, Clem remembered how hard it was the first time she swallowed a pill like that, and she was nine years old when that happened. "I know you don't feel well, but this—"

"He's not gonna swallow it Sarah," said Clem. "It's probably hard enough for him to just drink water right now."

"Well we gotta do something!"

"We will." Clem handed Sarah a different bottle.

"What's this?"

"Same medicine, but as a liquid."

"That's perfect!" said Sarah as she unscrewed the cap. "Okay, just wait one second Omid, I've got something that'll make you feel all…" Sarah's eyes narrowed as she examined the label, then they shut suddenly like she was in pain.

"What's—"

"It's expired," said Sarah as she put the bottle down.

"What, when?"

"Like… a month after all this started."

"Well, it might still—"

"It might make kill him for all we know!"

"Well he's gotta take one of them or that's gonna happen anyway!"

Sarah looked around in frustration, then her eyes fell on the last bottle.

"What about that one?"

"It's—" Sarah grabbed it and unscrewed the top before Clem could answer. "Just more pills."

Sarah looked inside the bottle, seemingly stunned at what she saw.

"Let's just give him the liquid one," suggested Clem with a sigh. "It's better than—"

"These could work."

"What? How?"

Sarah only answered Clem by digging through her own backpack now. She pulled out the jar of jam and a spoon. "Guess he's getting his birthday gift early."

"Sarah, what—"

"Give me your tomahawk," she ordered.

"Why?"

"Just do it!" Clem obeyed and watched with great curiosity as Sarah dropped a single tablet onto a paper towel. She wrapped it up tightly, then started banging the tomahawk's handle against it. The noise seemed to unsettle Omid, causing him to cry for a few seconds before coughing loudly.

"It'll be okay," assured Clem as she came around behind him and patted his back. "It'll be okay."

Clem watched as Sarah set the tomahawk aside and unfolded the paper towel, revealing the pill had been broken into tiny fragments and bits of dust. She took out her canteen and unscrewed the cap, then scooped all the crushed pill into the spoon. She poured them into the cap, then fished some jam out of the jar and put it in the cap where she started stirring them together.

"I get it," realized Clem. "It's—"

"A spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down," rambled Sarah as her hands moved almost faster than Clem could keep track with. Before she knew it, she had scooped out all the medicated jam and was offering it to Omid.

"Hey, look what I got." Sarah held the spoon out in front of Omid's face. He eyes were closed but his headed shifted slightly, like he was trying to get a little closer.

"Come on Omid, you'll like it," urged Clem as she gently stroked his back. "It's jam, it's probably the best-tasting thing in the whole world right now."

Clem carefully tilted Omid's head closer towards the spoon.

"And you deserve it, because you're the sweetest baby in the whole world," rambled Sarah, almost in tears again. Clem watched anxiously as Sarah slowly moved the spoon to his lips. His mouth just barely opened and Sarah gently slipped it in.

"He's eating it!" The pair watched in relief as Omid very slowly chewed the jam. His face scrunched up as he swallowed it. Clem remembered the antibiotics Christa gave her tasted bitter and realized these probably did too.

"It's okay, you did good, that's all for today…" Clem looked up at Sarah suddenly. "Right?"

"Yeah, the label says once every twenty-four hours," she said as she screwed the cap back on the bottle.

"And how long is he gonna have to take them?" asked Clem.

"I have no idea," admitted Sarah with a sigh. "We should get out the last of the ice-cream and those apples. He hasn't eaten today until just now so we should feed him as much as we… what is he doing out there?"

"Huh?" Clem looked out the window and saw the stranger's RV was still parked outside.

"He said he was going to leave." Clem put her hand on her gun but didn't draw it. "Wait with Omid, I'll check on him." Sarah hurried over to Omid's side while Clem stepped outside. The first thing she noticed was their bikes leaning against the side of the Brickhouse, and the raincoat draped over them. The next thing she noticed was the door to the RV's camper was open. Stepping through the snow gathering in the street, Clem peered inside to find the stranger curled up in a sleeping bag.

"Are… are you okay?"

"The fuck do you care?" he mumbled as he rolled over slowly. "Want first dibs on the RV after I… what the fuck?" The stranger's mask and goggles were gone and Clem could see he was giving her a look of total shock. "You're just a kid?"

"Yeah," Clem said with a sigh as she realized she wasn't wearing her own mask either. "People think they can get away with doing all kinds of bad things to kids, so I try to hide it."

"How… how old are you?"

"Eleven."

"I got held up by a middle-schooler," mumbled in disbelief as the stranger rolled over.

"I never made it to middle school," shrugged Clem. "If it makes you any feel better, Sarah, my friend, she's only fifteen."

"Jesus, and I thought I was young."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen," he mumbled as he sat up and rubbed his head. "Probably."

"You really couldn't tell I was a kid until now?"

He shrugged. "I mean, I knew you couldn't be that old, what with talking about how small you were. But I figured you were just short. I've known some really mean and really short people before. And you were talking about how you've done this longer than you ever wanted."

"I was still eight when this all started."

"And I thought my life was fucked," mumbled the stranger as he rubbed his head.

"What is wrong with you?" asked Clem. "Why did you come with me today?"

"What do you care?"

"Look, again, I'm so sorry for what I did to you," professed Clem. "I just didn't know how else I could save Omid."

"Save what?"

"Omid," repeated Clem. "Our baby."

"Baby?" exclaimed the man. "You've already named your friend's baby?"

"No… this is the baby we already have."

"Already have? Where did—"

"You remember my friend running out with a bundle of blankets the other day?" asked Clem. "He was in there."

"I... I don't understand," mumbled the stranger. "Does... does this mean your friend isn't pregnant?"

"No, she is… and we also already have a little boy, and he's sick." The stranger's eyes went wide with shock when he heard that. "Yeah, that's… pretty much how we feel."

"So, is your friend also sick?"

"No, she's okay, besides being pregnant, it was just Omid who's sick."

"Why did you lie to me about that of all things?"

"I told you, people think they can get away with doing all kinds of bad things to little kids."

"But to a baby?" Clem just stared at him in response. "Fuck…"

"Yeah." Clem rubbed her arms to try and keep warm. "Why… why don't you come in?"

"Why?"

"We got a fire, and then you won't have to stay out here or drive around and look for a place to keep warm."

The stranger shook his weary head, like he was trying to make sense of everything Clem just told him. He looked like he was on the brink of collapse as he tried to wrap his sleeping bag around his shoulders.

"Why not… I gotta nothing to lose," he said as he stood up.

"Just one thing," said Clem as the stranger stumbled out of his RV. "If you're sick, then—"

"What's wrong with me ain't contagious," he insisted as he lurched forward. "And I'd really like to sleep by a fire tonight."

They walked together back into the Brickhouse, where Sarah was still hovering over Omid.

"I don't think he ever totally stopped breathing," reported Sarah without looking up. "I think he passed out for a second and I just couldn't hear him breathing because it was quiet and I was panicking and… I should have known.

"I should have taken the bulb the second you said you had it and helped him. If he hadn't woken up when he did, he probably would have—" Sarah gasped as she looked over her shoulder and saw the stranger staring at her.

"Hey," he said in a weak voice.

"Hello," answered a nervous Sarah.

"You… you're the taller one from yesterday." Sarah could only stare at him in response. "You look a lot friendlier without that mask on."

"She's probably the nicest person in the world," informed Clem. "If I just listened to her, we would have asked for your help instead of robbing you." Clem sat down to look Sarah in the eye. "I should have listened to you."

Clem looked over her shoulder to see the young man was staring at Omid, a strange mix of astonishment and sadness on his face as he did.

"Is… is he okay?"

Sarah looked over her shoulder, then back at the young man. "Maybe," she said in a quiet voice. "He's still got a fever, and he's still having trouble breathing," said Sarah over the sound of Omid wheezing. "His lips aren't as blue as they were a minute ago though, so I think he's getting more air at least."

"If he is okay, we have you to thank for it," realized Clem.

"You really should have just told me," he mumbled. "You didn't have to hold me up to get me to help a baby."

"The last people who saw Omid weren't good to him," spoke Sarah in a hushed voice.

"Or us…" added Clem. "By the time we met you, we figured you sooner shoot us than help us."

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I first met you two."

Clem sighed. "My… my name is Clementine," she introduced.

"And I'm Sarah. Who are you?"

He looked at the pair for a moment before speaking. "Simon."

"I'm sorry Simon," apologized Clem.

"Yeah, I heard you before," he said as he started rubbing his head again.

"Just rest, okay?" said Clem as she helped him sit down by the fire.

"Yeah, sure…" he mumbled as he laid out his sleeping back.

"Is there something wrong with him?" asked Sarah.

"I'm dying," he said as he turned onto his side.

"How?" asked Clem.

"I'm diabetic," he said with a sigh.

"So, that means—"

"I was hoping to find insulin in Denver."

"But you didn't," concluded Clem.

"Sure I did. Found plenty in fact." Clem watched as he pulled a small glass vial of his pocket. He held it limply as he looked at the label. "I used some in the bathroom before we left… but I don't think it's working."

"Why not?" asked Clem.

"I guess it's expired or something." Simon sighed as he pocketed the bottle. "I noticed over time the insulin I was taking felt like it did less and less… I guess it was only a matter of time." He took a deep breath and lied down on his side. "He's bigger than I thought he'd be when you said there was a baby," said Simon as he looked over at a gasping sickly Omid.

"He's a growing boy," said Sarah. "Or at least we hope he still is."

"Why is he staring at me like that?" noted Simon, sounding uneasy. Clem looked down and saw Omid's eyes were wide with concern as he studied Simon.

"Well, you're the first new person he's met in months," noted Clem. "The last ones hurt him… bad."

"I'm sorry," said Simon.

Clem looked down at Omid and could tell he was scared. "It's okay," she assured. "This is Simon, and he's a good person… better than me."

"Eh, I wouldn't say that," he shrugged as Clem gave him a pillow for his head.

"You're not hungry, are you Simon?" asked Sarah.

"Always," he mumbled.

"Would… would you like some apples?"

"You got some?" he asked as he sat up suddenly.

"Freeze-dried," said Clem. "We wanted to save them for a special occasion… but Omid needs to eat and we don't have much else he likes."

"It is a special occasion," said Sarah. "It's Thanksgiving."

"It is?" asked Clem.

"Probably, or it could be December, in which case, merry early Christmas."

"I think I'd like that better," said Simon. "Thanksgiving's kind of a sore spot for people like me."

"People like you?"

"I'm from the Navajo nation."

"You're an Indian?"

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "My uncle told me the first Thanksgiving was really the Wampanoag checking in on those weird new white people who just showed up out of nowhere and wondering why they were shooting off their guns at the end of the year. It wasn't so much a big happy meal as kind of a truce to agree not to kill each other."

"Huh, kind of like you and I had earlier today," noted Clem.

"Yeah, shitty deals where I'm worried about the other person going back on it is just part of my heritage I guess," he said with a shrug. "Along with people coming along threatening to kill me and take everything I have."

"I'm so sorry for what we did Simon," said Sarah.

"I did," corrected Clem. "You didn't want—"

"I went along with it—"

"Hey," said Simon. "If you two want to stop feeling guilty, I wouldn't mind trying those apples you just mentioned."

He smiled at them, and for some reason, it made them both feel a lot better. Sarah dug out the remaining bit of freeze-dried ice cream they had, along with their only pack of apples. She opened it up and immediately fished one out for Omid. He was hesitant at first, but after it touched his lips he accepted it and started chewing it slowly.

Clem took a couple, handing one to Simon and keeping one to herself.

"So, these like some kind of fancy apple-flavored chips?" asked Simon.

"Just apples with all the water sucked out of them," said Clem as she popped it into her mouth. "Try it."

Simon shrugged and bite into the apple slice. Clem watched as his face twisted from apprehensive to pleasantly surprised. "God damn, it's like a real apple after a while," he said while chewing. "Can't remember the last time I tasted a real apple."

"What about ice cream?" Sarah handed Simon a small white chunk.

"What is—"

"Just try it," urged Clem with a smile. "You won't regret it."

Simon shrugged as popped the piece in his mouth. Clem watched as Simon again looked apprehensive, then his eyes bugged out in delight. "Holy shit!" he said he kept chewing. "You got any more of this?"

"Just a few, then it's all gone," said Sarah as she plopped a chunk of strawberry ice cream in Clem's hand. "So let's enjoy."

Clem did, and so did Sarah, and so did Omid when she offered him the last chunk of vanilla ice cream. Watching him chew that sweet treat, Clem's heart skipped a beat as a smile briefly appeared on Omid's face before he started wheezing again.

"So, is just you guys, alone, taking care of a baby, and… expecting another one?" Sarah turned away suddenly and Clem sighed.

"Pretty much," confirmed Clem. "There have been other people who've helped us, but like I said they're gone, and have been for a while."

"No parents?"

"We lost them a long time ago," croaked Sarah. "So did Omid."

"What happened to yours?" asked Clem.

"I lost them before all this happened." Simon took a breath. "My mom went to Phoenix once to visit some friends. While she was there, she ran into this piece of shit who couldn't keep his hands to himself and wouldn't leave her alone, so my mom had to break his nose." Clem watched as Simon's face twisted to a bitter and vicious expression. "They put her in prison, not him."

"What, but you just said—"

"It didn't matter, they took that asshole's side over her." Simon sighed. "She was supposed to get out at the end of the year, but then all this shit happened."

"And your dad?" asked Sarah.

"My dad was an artist," said Simon with a smile. "He'd weave these really beautiful rugs, like you wouldn't even believe, then go on trips to sell them across the four-state area; authentic Navajo crafts he'd always say."

"What… what happened?" All the joy drained right out of Simon's face.

"Some fucking drunk redneck just shot him one night," cried Simon. "I don't even know why he did it because I wasn't there. I just heard about it from my uncle after the police came onto the reservation."

"Your uncle? Is…"

"He's gone," snapped Simon, in tears now. "You know the really funny part? I didn't find out I was a diabetic until a month before the chindi showed up. It's like my whole has been one long cruel joke."

"I'm so sorry," said Clem.

"What's chindi?" asked Sarah.

"Oh, that's what my uncle called the people who kept walking after they died," mumbled Simon. "Old Navajo legend he told me. The chindi is the ghost made up of every bad thing you ever did that leaves your body when you die. They hang out around your bones or your house and if one touches you they pass their sickness onto you and kill you; the only thing he got wrong is it looks like they don't leave the bodies behind anymore."

"I remember when I was real little once and I was scared there was something under my bed because someone at school told me that's where monsters live," said Clem. "My mom told me monsters aren't real, or ghosts, or any that bad stuff… then one day they suddenly are."

"Yeah, tell me about it," griped Simon. "My uncle told me that there was a time long ago when monsters roamed the world, and they killed most of the people on it. But then a goddess gave birth to twins who slew the monsters and gave the world back to the people." Simon looked over at Clem and Sarah. "I don't suppose you're twins who just happen to be born years apart are you?"

"We're not even related," said Sarah.

"We have killed a lot of walkers," added Clem. "I don't think we could ever kill them all though."

"After today, I don't think anyone ever will." Simon sighed. "I always wanted to see the world but the world didn't want me to see it. Just when I started to get used to living with diabetes, that's when the news broke that the world was filling up with monsters all over again. There's so much I'll never get to do now." Simon looked over at Omid, who was still struggling for breath. "Sorry, I shouldn't complain."

"Go ahead," offered Clem. "We're pissed off about it too."

"What are all these flags?" asked Sarah as she looked at the patches sewn onto Simon's denim vest.

"It's everywhere I wanted to go," he explained. "Dad used to get me a new one every time he made a business trip. Figured one day I'd leave the reservation and just explore the world… I guess got my fucking wish." Listening to Simon try to stop himself from crying while Omid kept gasping for air, Clem was determined to do one last thing tonight.

She went over to her backpack and started unpacking everything. The oatmeal, the kool-aid, the peanut butter, any and every piece of food she collected today. She laid them out each and all and immediately started unscrewing the jar of peanut butter.

"Clem, what are—"

"Eating," she said. "I'm still hungry."

"We all are, but—"

"We should save it?" said Clem as she looked Sarah in the eye. "We already ate the last of our ice cream and opened our only pack of apples." Clem handed the peanut butter to Sarah. "Let's make it a special occasion, and just eat whatever we want, at least for tonight."

Sarah looked down at the peanut butter, the smiled. "What the hell," she said as she grabbed a spoon. "It is Thanksgiving after all."

"Or Christmas," said Clem as she walked over to Simon. She smiled and offered him another apple splice. "Would you like that?"

Simon smirked at her, then sat up. "Yeah, that's sound nice." Simon took the apple slice, but he didn't eat it. "What about you little guy?" asked Simon as he offered the apple splice to Omid. "You want an early Christmas this year?"

Omid opened his eyes and saw Simon hovering over him. He looked at him in fear, but then he saw the apple slice. Simon smiled as he moved the apple slice forward and Omid gladly accepted it. Like the ice cream, the treat produced a brief smile from Omid, and suddenly the room felt a little warmer.