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]

101. The Undiscovered Country

Clementine looked on in disbelief. They had followed Highway Forty as Simon had said and all they ever found was nothingness broken up by occasional ghost towns with nothing left to salvage. But after a long week of pedaling across the empty roads of rural Colorado, every day their stomachs growling louder while their meager supply of food dwindled down to nothing, they had finally found a sign: 'Vernal - 33'.

"We should find a place to stay the night," reasoned Sarah as she walked up behind Clem. "Then first thing tomorrow morning—"

"No, we need to make it today," dictated Clem as she turned around to examine Omid. He just sat there in the basket of Clem's bike, a quiet look of perpetual sadness lurking under his half-shut eyes.

"I'm exhausted," argued Sarah. "And—"

"How much food do we have left?" asked Clem as she turned to Sarah suddenly. "Well?"

Sarah sighed. "Maybe enough for half a meal?"

"And the last river we saw was yesterday," said Clem. "So there's nowhere to fish either."

"Maybe… maybe we'll find something in town if we—"

"You saw it yourself on our way in. We checked two restaurants and a gas station, they were all picked clean," reminded Clem in a harsh tone.

"But… look at the sky."

"I have been," said Clem as she looked up at the blanket of gray clouds looming on the western horizon. "If we stay here and get snowed in, it could be days before the roads are useable again, maybe weeks even," she argued. "We won't last that long without any food, so—"

"Okay," conceded Sarah. "But can we stop to eat what we have left first? I'm starving."

Clem didn't want to stop, she didn't want to risk wasting time. But Sarah was hungry, and so was Omid, and so was Clem herself. "Okay," she said. "It'll lighten our load."

Just past the road sign was a playground, complete with a couple of benches under a small awning. The pair moved their bikes out of the road and offloaded their backpacks onto a table. Clem looked around as she went back to her bike, giving her surroundings a cursory glance. If there was some threat lurking about, she couldn't see it right now.

Peeling back Omid's scarf, Clem was distraught to see the quiet misery lurking on his face. Picking him up, she couldn't help thinking even in her tired arms he felt a little lighter than usual. Carrying him over to the table, Clem watched as Sarah removed a can from her backpack, their last can; roast beef. Clem doubted it would be anywhere as good as the label made it look, but she unpacked her can opener anyway.

Clem opened the roast beef while Sarah fished out their little tin of chafing fuel; they didn't have the time, energy or materials to start a proper fire. Sarah lit the chafing fuel's wick while Clem finished opening the can; it looked like it was full of mud. Sniffing it, the odor wasn't pleasant but it didn't smell rotten either. Clem slowly emptied everything into her pan then set it on the makeshift grill Sarah had set-up over the chaffing fuel.

They had little to do now but wait until their food was warm. Clem looked over at Sarah, who just gave Clem a look of quiet exhaustion. All they had done was pedal, gather water, occasionally fish if they were fortunate to get the chance, then sleep when they were too tired to do anything else. That had been their day, every day, for a week now. They had nowhere left to go but forward and the two barely talked to each other anymore; there was nothing to say.

Clem held onto hope Simon would join them the first night they stopped to sleep. They never saw nor heard any sign of him, despite waiting an entire day for him to catch up. However, they had seen no sign of the Vaquero either. While waiting for Simon, they also listened carefully, terrified the sound of a diesel engine would come rolling into earshot any second; it never happened. Neither Clem or Sarah wanted to risk going backwards, so they kept moving west as Simon told them.

The mountainous forests of the region morphed into barren plains after a few days and the distance between towns only grew the deeper they ventured into this lonely desert; it was like being back in Wyoming, but even more hopeless. More than once Clem was worried they wouldn't find somewhere to take shelter before dark and they had seen no signs of anyone, dead or undead for nearly a week. Every day it felt more and more like they were the last three people on Earth. Even the wind had become deathly silent these last few days, as if the world as a whole was taking its final breath.

Their only saving grace was the weather had been forgiving. The snow had melted and clear skies had at least allowed enough sunlight to keep them relatively warm during the days. It was a small comfort but it had at least made this voyage to Vernal possible, which was their only hope. Had they been snowed in at any point, with what meager food they had, that probably would have been the end of their trip, as well as their lives.

Looking up at the sky, those dark clouds just hanging there in the distance, Clem feared that could still happen if they didn't make it to Vernal before it started snowing. Thirty miles was a lot of ground to cover, especially when you were already dead tired from pedaling all day. Just turning back to look at her bike, Clem's leg started to ache. Even maintaining a moderate pace was brutal, and watching Sarah take deep breaths as they rode just reminded Clem how much more work it was for her to keep moving.

Tired of watching the tiny flame heating the meat sitting in her pan, Clem turned her interests to Omid. He sat quietly on the table, so still that he appeared more like an object than a tiny person right now. Clem examined him closely, always fearful she'd find a stuffy nose or hear him cough. She didn't see or hear any signs of sickness, but he looked unwell just the same. The curiosity he'd demonstrate anytime they went somewhere new was long gone now, and the only thing he looked forward to anymore was if they found a somewhat warm bed before nightfall.

"Omid?" croaked Clem before reaching for a bottle of water. She took a tiny sip, all she could spare since this one bottle would have to be shared between all three of them. "Omid?" repeated Clem a little louder. Omid slowly turned his head and looked over at Clem. "You… you want to play on that swing?" she suggested, gesturing with her hand to a swing set just next to the benches. "Huh? You think that would be fun?"

Omid looked at the swings just across from where they were sitting. He studied them, then just looked down at the table. He scooched across the wood to get closer to the pan, presumably for the meager warmth the burning chafing fuel provided. "Yeah, me neither," mumbled Clem as she found herself leaning forward for the same reason; she was sick of being cold and hungry all the time.

The chafing fuel's flame went out not long after that, and a brief examination from Sarah revealed they had used up the last of it. Clem sprinkled a little salt and pepper into the pan and then fetched her utensils. The meat was barely warm and tasted like peppered leather, but Clem ate it. Omid did too, even though she could tell from the look on his face he didn't like it. It should have been a relief he had become a less picky eater, but really it just depressed Clem to realize Omid merely accepted he wouldn't get to have food he likes anymore.

After finishing their final meal, for now at least, they packed up what little they had and shuffled back over to their bikes, the mere thought of traveling another thirty miles before dark making them weary. Not long after starting on the road, they discovered another sign: 'Welcome to Utah: Life Elevated' it said, with a picture of a dinosaur on it, for some reason. State lines didn't mean anything to Clem but at very least signs like this reminded her they were indeed making progress, the only question was towards what.

She should have been excited, or at least anxious; all this work and they were almost there. Yet she couldn't summon enough energy to feel much of anything, it was all going into her sore legs and aching lungs as she gasped for more air. They had traveled for so long and so far that it was just hard for her to believe there'd be anything waiting for them. It was more habit than anything that kept her moving, that and she knew they'd die if they stopped moving; they might die anyway.

Clem found she could barely keep her eyes open anymore. Beyond the physical exhaustion, the constant nothingness they had to traverse took a mental toll as well. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she almost wished someone would attack them. Maybe the adrenaline would wake her up and remind her why she was alive, or maybe someone would just kill them; either would end this miserable slog through a seemingly endless purgatory.

By the time Clem spotted a short bridge she was ready to collapse. Everything was sore and every breath felt like a series of needles stabbing her lungs. Wobbling her bike to the edge of the bridge, Clem was relieved to spot a small river running below her. She hastily put down her kickstand then walked over to the front of the bike. Omid was eerily quiet and Clem could barely see his face through his scarf.

"It…" Clem found her throat was so dry she could barely speak. "It'll be okay," she croaked. "I'll be right back." Clem wandered over to the edge of the bridge and started staggering down the embankment. Clem fell to her knees on the dirt and started crawling over to the rushing water. She dipped her hand in the river, ignoring the biting cold as she fished out a palm's worth of water and raised it to her lips.

"Don't…" Clem turned to see Sarah coming down the slope, gasping for air and wiping sweat off her face. She sat down near the edge and took several rapid breaths in a row, a sight that unnerved her. "We haven't… boiled it."

"We don't have time," mumbled Clem as she looked up at the sky and nearly panicked when she saw the storm clouds appeared closer than they did from just a second ago. "And I'm so thirsty."

"Just hang on…" said Sarah between deep breaths as she took off her backpack. "We can still… filter it real quick." Sarah hastily unpacked a couple of empty bottles and a pack of coffee filters. Clem watched as her trembling hand dipped one of the bottles into the water. Clem stuffed a filter into a funnel she removed from Sarah's pack, then placed it in the empty bottle while Sarah poured the water through it.

Watching the water slowly drain through the filter was maddening. Sitting there, waiting impatiently to drink something hopefully free of water-borne illnesses, Clem noticed the despair hanging off Sarah's exhausted face; she looked ready to lay down and die.
"Hey," croaked Clem. "It—"

"Don't tell me it'll be okay," mumbled Sarah as the bottle shook in her hands. "Let's just get this over with and get back on the road."

Clem realized no words would comfort her.

"Okay…"

The second the last of the water passed through the filter Clem tossed the funnel aside and moved the bottle to her lips. The ice-cold water stung as it rushed down her cracked throat, but it was a relief just the same. No sooner had she lowered the bottle had Sarah snatched it away. She drank nearly half of it before breathing out suddenly, like the bottle itself had just infused life into her again.

"I'll go ahead and filter another one," said Sarah as she handed the bottle back to Clem. "You give that to Omid," said Sarah as she picked up the funnel and removed another empty bottle from her pack. "It's all we can give him right now…"

"Okay." Clem took what was left of the water while Sarah took the empty bottle she had and moved closer to the stream. Heading back up the hill, Clem hurried over to her bike. She peeled back Omid's scarf and was disturbed by what she saw; he had been crying.

"Omid?" Omid didn't respond. "Omid!" He opened his eyes slowly and looked at Clem. He had little interest in her, but his eyes went wide when he saw the bottle Clem was holding. "I know you're thirsty," said Clem, realizing she was still thirsty too. "You just go ahead and drink up."

Clem had barely moved the bottle forward before Omid grabbed it. He nearly spilled it angling it upwards and Clem had to keep him from dropping it as he moved the bottle to his lips. There was only a quarter bottle left, and in mere seconds Omid had drained it to nothing. He kept shaking it after that, desperate for more water. Once it finally dawned on him there would be no more water, he looked up at Clem, desperately pleading for more.

"I know," said Clem with a sigh. "Once we stop for the night, we'll boil some water and you can have some more then. We can't drink too much right now though. You don't want to get sick again, do you?"

That answer did nothing to appease him, and taking the empty bottle just caused Omid to frown and look away. He spent most of the day riding in the basket on the end of the bike, and by the time they stopped for the nights they'd be too tired to play with him or read to him. The first night they stopped he kept staring at Clem and Sarah, hoping they'd get out of bed, whereas the last two nights he was the first to go to bed; it was like he had given up on enjoying life altogether.

"It's just a little longer," whispered Clem as she rubbed Omid's back. "I know it sucks but we're almost there." Clem watched as Omid buried his head in his own arms, preparing himself for more travel. Looking over her shoulder, Clem watched as Sarah stumbled up the hill. The pair looked at each other, then got back on their bikes; there was nothing to say right now.

They had gotten into the habit of not breaking for long, it just because anything else made it harder to get back in the rhythm of relentless pedaling. They hurried across the bridge as Clem eyed the sky again. The clouds were undoubtedly closer but she could never actually see them moving. It almost looked like they were moving away at the same speed she was approaching them, or maybe it just felt that way because Clem was worried they wouldn't get anywhere themselves before dark.

She perked up as she saw something big off in the distance, a tall white structure. It was easily the biggest building they had seen today so Clem pedaled a little harder, thinking she had to be getting close to their destination. But as she drew nearer it was revealed to be little more than some silos next to what was probably a manufacturing plant. What it manufactured Clem didn't know, there was no sign outside and just looking at the parking lot made it clear this place was abandoned, like everywhere now.

Eventually, more ruins of civilization came into view, old warehouses, what looked like an abandoned ranch, and a single dilapidated house whose front door hung open like a rotting wound. There were no signs that anyone living had been here in years, and Clem felt the already thick knot in her stomach tighten as she wondered if they were even going the right way. It was a feeling that had nagged at her all week and was so prevalent it made Clem question if the sign she saw earlier was even accurate or not.

She found herself growing increasingly anxious as the sun started to set and none of the signs she saw gave her any clue to where they were. Speed limits, mile markers, faded billboards, nothing that told her where the hell they were going beyond this still being Highway Forty. Looking over her shoulder at one sign on the other side of the road, she saw it listed a few locations; Denver was apparently three-hundred and thirty miles back the way they came.

Barely moving fast enough to keep the bike upright now, Clem was about ready to stop for the night when she caught sight of a sign that said 'City Offices' along with an arrow pointing at the intersection just ahead. Picking up speed, she saw another sign that said: 'Power Planet - 28' and Clem pedaled faster. She barreled across the intersection and skidded to a stop in front of an ornate sign placed in front of what looked like a small park.

"Welcome to the city of… Naples." Clem read it again in her head, as if there was somehow those letters could spell 'Vernal' if she just read it the right way.

"Is… is this it?" asked a drowsy Sarah as she adjusted her glasses. Clem looked around at her surroundings. It was getting harder to see in the low light but what she could make out was far from encouraging. An empty field on one side of them and what looked like a town hall small enough to fit inside one of those silos they saw earlier. "Clem, let's just find a place to rest and tomorrow—"

"Tomorrow we're gonna be sore as hell and barely able to pedal," insisted Clem, recalling how they could barely move during their fourth day out because of how they overexerted themselves on their third day, and they had traveled further than that today. "This is still Highway Forty." Clem pointed to a sign on the road just ahead of were they where standing. "Let's just keep on it and—"

"Clem…"

"Just a bit longer," she insisted. "There's nowhere good to stay right here anywhere, so let's just keep going, just a little more before it's dark."

Sarah looked at Clem, then sighed. "Let me just get a drink, okay?" Clem waited impatiently as Sarah took off her backpack. Looking up at the sky, there was no denying the clouds had moved this time. They were above them now and before long would probably span the entire sky. The idea of having to walk the last few miles in the snow was enough to make Clem anxious as Sarah pulled the bottle out of her backpack. She took a long swing off it, then let out a long sigh.

"Omid, you want some too, right?" Clem watched as Sarah moved around to the front of the basket. Upon seeing her, Omid looked up at Sarah expectedly. "Poor thing, you're thirsty too, aren't you?"

Clem couldn't help but feel jealous at how Omid cracked a tiny smile for Sarah. They used to evenly split the duty of caring for Omid, but Sarah's pregnancy made it increasingly hard for her to do physical labor, so lately Clem would handle whatever few chores they had while Sarah rested with Omid in the evenings. Clem knew it was nothing personal, but she couldn't stop herself from being envious just the same at how much happier Omid looked when Sarah talked to him.

"All right, we need to save some for Clem." Sarah offered Clem the bottle, and what little water was left. She groaned quietly, drank what was left, then handed the bottle back.

"Come on," insisted Clem as Sarah put the bottle away. "We get a bit further in and we can finally rest."

Moving north on the highway, they spotted numerous signs of small town life. Gas stations, auto garages, and restaurants, all common sights at the edge of a small city. It was a bit like the first time they went to Granby, but with more frugal decor on the restaurants and a lack of fancy looking bookshops. The lack of vehicles in most of the parking lots suggested this place evacuated as well, meaning there could be some food left to find.

Frustratingly, there were no signs of living people visiting here recently. Simon had said they were going to 'dig in' for the winter, but there had been no signs of that. Nothing resembling barricades on the road, no tire marks she could see anywhere on the pavement, no lights anywhere in the distance. The last one in particular was disappointing considering Simon told her they were trying to get a dam working. She really hoped this place would have electricity, yet she couldn't even see so much as a fire anywhere in the distance.

Exhaustion was taking hold of Clem now. She was already tired, she had been tired for days, but this was something else. Her aching body felt like it was fighting back against her now. She'd tried to push the pedal down and her calf would just tremble for a second, like it was made of jello until it finally decided to obey her command. The best she could manage at this point was a couple of strong pushes, coax off her momentum for a second, then do it all over again.

This wasn't sustainable, none of this was. They had no food left, the nearest water source and place to fish was at least a few miles back the other way, they still had at least a couple of months left of winter, and their one lead was increasingly seeming like a dead end. Clem felt this sudden tightness in her chest that made it even more difficult to breathe. She wanted to cry, she wanted to scream right now, just anything to let it out and finally admit defeat, but then she saw it.

"Vernal Regional Airport," Clem read as she rolled right up to the road sign. She couldn't believe her eyes, this was it, they were in Vernal, or close enough there's a sign for its damn airport.

"So… is… is this really it?" asked Sarah between deep breaths as she stopped in front of the sign. "Are… are we there?"

Clem whipped out her binoculars and looked around for any signs of people. Even without electricity, there should be some sign of the living; a campfire, a lantern, the sound of a working vehicle or generator carried on the cold wind; there was nothing.

"Where are they?" asked Clem in frustration as she lowered her binoculars. "Why haven't we seen any signs of them yet?"

"Clem… I… I can't go on anymore today."

"We—"

"Clem!" Sarah took several quick rapid breaths in a row. "Please…" She looked close to collapsing and Clem found she couldn't argue with her anymore. Leaning forward to check on Omid, she could hear him whimpering softly to himself from his seat. It was a very pathetic sound, a long whine followed by a short breath on repeat; he just wanted this to be over already.

"Okay, let's just find a house we can sleep in for the night." Clem looked around for a second, then turned her bike to an adjoining street. "This way looks like it goes further into town. Once we're far enough away from the highway, we should find a suburb."

"I hope so," said Sarah as she wiped the sweat off her face.

The pair turned west and started pedaling again. It was getting dark, fast, with thick clouds smothering the sky now and suffocating what tiny waning sunlight was still lingering on the horizon. It'd be pitch black before long and there was still no signs of safety. Looking around desperately just for a place to stop, Clem's eyes fell on a lot full of shipping containers they were passing on their right.

Seeing them initially filled Clem with dread, but examining the old metal containers lying about made Clem wonder what were Simon's people doing, if anything. Had they built any defenses? Did they have any food? How many of them were there? Were they any better off than Clem was right now? If they were, would they even accept them? Were they even still here? Clem didn't have any answers, and the encroaching darkness suggested she wouldn't get any tonight.

Even after switching their lanterns on, it was nearly impossible to see more than a few feet ahead of them. The sun was gone now and the clouds blocked out whatever little star or moonlight there could be. Clem felt something wet on her face followed by a familiar sound. It was raining, not snowing, and they were caught out in the middle of it. It was just a drizzle for the moment but already those cold droplets were stinging her face and making her shiver.

Clem's eyes darted about like mad, searching for anything they could use as shelter. She wasn't even trying to find signs of Simon's people anymore, just something that could serve as a roof over their head. They were already starving and exhausted, being drenched while out in the freezing cold would be a death sentence, quite possibly literally. She felt herself shivering and was terrified of what would happen to Omid if they stayed outside much longer.

Clem veered over to one side of the road, hoping the lantern on the end of her bike would reveal something, soon. She could hear it now, the rain coming down all around them, and Clem couldn't see anything through but an empty field of dirt bordering the road they were on. The bike started to wobble as she gasped for air while a chill shot up her spine; they were going to die out here.

"There!" Clem spotted a glint reflecting off a window and veered sharply towards it. "There's a house!" Clem announced as she saw a front door emerge just at the edge of her lantern's light. She steered her bike right into a little two-story farmhouse's front yard. She popped the bike's kickstand, leapt off, attached the lantern to her waistband, and plucked Omid from his basket with one hand while pulling her tomahawk from her bike's saddle bag with the other.

"Sarah, over here!" Called Clem as she rushed up to the door. She set Omid on the stoop and grabbed the doorknob. "Oh come on!" The door was locked, much to Clem's annoyance. She briefly thought about looking for a window, but then she noticed the door had a few small square windows on its top half. "Stay behind me Omid." Clem gripped her tomahawk with both hands; she didn't even need to take off the sheath to do this.

The first swing banged loudly into the door, the axe-head being too wide to reach the tiny windows nestled inside. Flipping the weapon around, a second swing with the narrower knife-end cracked the window nearest the handle. Pulling her arms back as far as she could, a third swing shattered the glass. Tossing the tomahawk over her shoulder, Clem carefully maneuvered her hand through the opening. Even for someone with small arms like her it was a tight fit, and Clem winced as she felt shards of glass poking her through her sleeves as she felt around for the lock.

"Got it!" There was a loud click and Clem carefully pulled her arm out of the opening. Looking down at Omid, he had his hands over his ears. "It's okay, that loud part is over now." Clem took the sheath off her tomahawk and clutched it one hand while gripping Omid's hand in the other. "Stay close to me." Clem slowly guided them into the house.

Pushing open the door, it was eerily quiet. Clem took a few steps forward and then heard a cracking sound under her feet. It was the bits of glass she broke. Clem nudged Omid away from it and then pressed forward. They traveled past a staircase and into a quaint living room. Clem couldn't hear anything, nor did her lantern reveal any signs that anyone had been here recently. It looked like the houses she checked in Granby; neatly abandoned, as it if the owners had planned on returning someday.

"Just wait here for one second," Clem told Omid. "I'm—" Clem could hear glass cracking behind her. She spun around to find Sarah stumbling down the hall. She only made it a few steps before falling onto her hands and knees.

"Let me help you." Clem set her tomahawk down and then hurried over to Sarah. "Easy now." Sarah groaned as Clem helped her back to her feet, and together they staggered into the living room. Sarah collapsed onto an old sofa and immediately rolled onto her side. Sweat was beading down her face, she was breathing hard, and she looked pale. Clem was worried and so was Omid as he hurried over to her, desperation and anxiety in his eyes as he looked up at Sarah.

"Are—"

"Thirsty…" croaked Sarah.

"I'll get you something to drink." Omid moved in close to try and comfort Sarah while Clem reached around behind her and hurriedly removed a water bottle and funnel from her backpack. Looking around, she saw a glass sliding door overlooking the backyard. Clem hurried over to it, slid the door open and put the bottle out in the rain. Clem watched impatiently until enough drops collected in the bottom, then hurried back over to Sarah.

"Here, drink some rainwater." Clem held the bottle near Sarah's face and she just lied there, breathing shallowly. "Sarah?" Omid started whimpering as he placed his hands on Sarah, as if to shake her. "Sarah!" Sarah's hand slowly moved to the bottle. She grasped it, hands shaking as she held it. Clem helped guide the bottle to Sarah's lips so she could drink. Sarah swallowed what little water there was in a single gulp and dropped the bottle on the carpet.

"Sarah, are you okay?" asked a nervous Clem. "Are… are you—"

"I… I'm so tired," she mumbled without looking up. "I… I can't do this anymore. I—"

"It's fine, we'll just stay here tonight, okay?"

"I'm… I'm also really hungry," said Sarah between breaths.

"Yeah, me too…"

"And… I'm still really thirsty."

"I'll get you some more water." Clem turned to pick up the empty bottle, but it was missing. Looking around, she found Omid near the sliding door, holding the bottle out in the rain. Walking over to him, it was obvious he was trying to collect water with it.

"Here, it's easier with this." Clem picked up the funnel and placed it on the top of the bottle. "Just hold it, like this." Clem showed Omid how to hold the bottle and funnel, then took a step back. "All right, just hold it there for one second." Clem took off her pack and pulled out her pan. She placed it past the edge of the door and watched it for a few seconds as it collected rain.

"You want to see something cool?" asked Clem as she leaned in close to Omid. "Hold onto that bottle real tight now." Clem carefully angled her pan towards the funnel and Omid watched with great interest as the water in the bottle rose sharply. "There we go, that's enough for a drink." Clem set the pan down, took the bottle and tossed the funnel aside. She took a short sip, savoring the cold rainwater on her coarse throat for the measly second it lasted.

"Here, take a sip for yourself now." Clem carefully handed the bottle back to Omid, then helped move it to his lips, but he wouldn't drink from it. "What's wrong? You gotta be thirsty too."

Omid carefully stood up, then started walking over to where Sarah was lying. He carried the bottle over to her and moved it towards her hand. Sarah slowly took the bottle and drank every last drop from it, letting out a long relieved sigh once she was done. "Thanks… thanks Clem."

"I'm not the one you need to thank." Sarah slowly opened her eyes and saw Omid staring at her in concern.

"Omid?" she asked, sounding confused. "You gave him the bottle to give to me?"

"No, he went over to get water all by himself," said Clem with a smile. "And then when I told him to take a sip, he just brought it right to you."

A small smile formed on Sarah's cracked lips, then it immediately turned into a big frown.

"What's wrong?" asked Clem. "I thought you'd like hearing that. He's so smart."

"He didn't do it because he's smart," spoke a weary Sarah. "He did it because he's worried about me." Sarah groaned as she forced herself to sit up. "You're not even two years old yet and you're already worried about us." Sarah stretched out her arms and slowly embraced Omid in a hug. "We're supposed to be taking care of you, not the other way around."

"We're taking care of each other."

"He's still a baby Clem. He should be enjoying his life, not worrying about if I'm gonna die of dehydration or not," said Sarah, her already strained voice choking up.

"Yeah, I know," Clem said to herself. "You keep an eye on him, I'm gonna make sure this house is safe."

"Be careful Clem."

"I—" Clem froze as she saw the silhouette of someone standing in the front door.

"Clem—"

"Get Omid and get behind me." Sarah gasped as Clem moved to confront the stranger. "And be ready to run." The stranger didn't hesitate to move right through the door and Clem's hand moved to her gun while her heart leapt into her throat. "Yuh… um… yah-ought-eh!" Announced Clem loudly as the stranger came into the light. "We don't want any—" The stranger charged and Clem felt them throwing the weight of their entire body on her.

Clem fired her gun into the person's chest as they grabbed her by the side of her head, their thumb nearly puncturing her eye as it dug into cheek. Clem suddenly saw their putrid head lunging forward to bite into her face and screamed out in terror. She kept screaming as she saw those rotten gnashing teeth right in front of her face, just held there in place a mere inch from her nose.

"Clementine!" Sarah's shriek was enough to shake Clementine out of shock. She watched as the walker's head moved away as Sarah slowly pulled it back by its hair. She had nearly pulled it off when the walker suddenly turned to bite Sarah.

"No!" Clem pulled her gun free, planted it in the walker's cheek and pulled the trigger, twice. The first shot blew its jaw off while the second one went right through its skull and blew off the top of its head. Sarah stumbled backwards, dragging the walker's body off Clem before tripping onto the floor.

"Sarah!" Clem sat up in a hurry and rushed over to her friend who was lying on the floor. "The bullet, it didn't hit you did it?" asked a panicked Clem as she examined Sarah's body for a gunshot wound.

"No, I'm okay," said Sarah as she sat up. "But…" Sarah's hands immediately found her way to Clem's face, gripping it almost as tightly as the walker had done.

"Do… do you see anything?" asked a trembling Clem. "Is… is there any teeth marks or…" Clem was shaking too much to keep speaking, she just kept looking at Sarah's eyes, bulging with panic. "Suh… Sarah?"

Clem felt Sarah's fingers on her cheek suddenly and her heart started pounding against her chest. "I'm… I'm bitten, aren't—"

"No," reassured Sarah before taking a deep breath. "It's just… I think its thumbnail left a mark on your face."

"Oh…" Clem took a deep breath. "Um… fingernails aren't bones, are they?"

"No, they're—"

A low groaning noise set a chill up Clem's spine, and Sarah's too judging from the look on her face. Looking towards the door, two more figures were approaching the threshold. Sarah rushed forward and slammed the door shut only for it to burst back open and knock Sarah over. A walker rushed ahead but Clem shot it in the head before it could reach Sarah.

It fell over backwards, landing in the doorframe just in time to trip the walker behind it. Clem was about to shoot that one as it lifted up its head, but then she saw two more outside walking up to the door. They couldn't close the door because the walker's body was blocking it, and shooting these was just gonna draw more towards them. Instead, Clem rushed over to Sarah and helped her to her feet.

"Where are they coming from?" asked Sarah as she stood up.

"I don't know, but there's probably more of them at the windows and other doors," said Clem as the pair rushed into the living room. "It's too dangerous to go outside," she reasoned as she put her backpack on. "We'll cut up one, use it to smell like them, then head upstairs," Clem tossed her tomahawk over her shoulder, not even bothering to sheath it first. "Get Omid and—"

"Omid!" Sarah's startled cry shook Clem to the bone. Looking around, there was no sign of him.

"Where is he!"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know!"

"I had to pull that lurker off you, he must have run—"

"Just check the living room, and hurry!" insisted Clem as she charged into the backyard. "Omid!" Holding out her lantern, she could see an old tree in the middle of the yard and a dilapidated fence surrounding the area. Turning her head, Clem's light fell on a single walker hunched over a dog house. Clementine watched in horror as it dragged Omid out of it by his leg.

"No!" Clem let the lantern fall from her grasp as she placed both hands on her gun. The first shot seemed to graze the walker's neck and Clem pulled the trigger twice more, praying one hit its head since she couldn't even see her gun's sights right now. The walker fell over on its side and Omid scurried back into the doghouse, whining in fright as he did. Clem scooped up her lantern while holstering the gun and hurried over to doghouse.

"Omid!" called Clem. "Omid, it's me! It's Clem!" Clem moved her lantern towards the doghouse so she could see Omid. His eyes were wide-open in abject terror as he shivered in fear; he didn't even seem to notice her right now. "I'm here now." Omid slowly craned his head back to look up at Clem in disbelief. "It's okay, it's…" Clem watched Omid's eyes widen in terror.

She pulled her gun as she looked over her shoulder but felt it fall from her grip as she was knocked into the mud. Her free hand pulled her knife and drove into the walker's face just as it lunged at her. The blade pierced its cheek at an odd angle right next to its eye. Clem could smell that rancid flesh as it kept chomping at her. She pushed down on the knife with both hands and forced the blade past its cheek into the walker's eye socket. Even still, it kept snapping at her and only once the knife had been buried up to the hilt did it finally stop.

"Clem!" called Sarah as Clem pushed the walker off.

"Get Omid! He's in the doghouse!" Sarah hurried over to the doghouse while Clem turned and buried her knife in the walker's chest. She hastily ripped out a chunk of rotten flesh and smeared it across the front of her coat, hoping it would be enough to fool them. There was a loud cracking sound in the distance and Clem turned to see something was moving at the edge of the yard. Scooping up her lantern, she could see two more walkers pushing over the rickety boards that used to be part of a fence.

"Sarah?"

"I'm trying, he doesn't want to come out!"

Clem searched the ground for her gun, but she couldn't find it. Seeing the walkers growing closer, she removed her tomahawk from her shoulder. Clem hurried over to the pair who just barged their way in through the fence. Holding the tomahawk was painful, with her sore arms begging for mercy as she tightened her aching knuckles around its hilt. She took a step forward and swung at the nearest walker's ankle, toppling it.

It didn't seem to notice her so Clem quickly finished it off before downing and killing the one next to it. Turning around, Clem could see more walkers emerging from the sliding backdoor of the house while Sarah was on her knees trying to pull Omid out of the doghouse. Clem ran as fast as she could and toppled the nearest walker emerging from the living room. She was about to finish it off when the one behind it lunged at her.

Clem stumbled backwards, nearly falling over as she did. The walker kept charging and she reflectively swung her tomahawk at its ankle. It toppled onto its side and Clem finished it off before it had a chance to recover. Pulling her tomahawk out of its skull, Clem noticed the bit of gore she had smeared on her coat had mostly been washed away by the rain.

"Shit!"

There were more cracking noises in the distance, this time coming from every direction. The fence around the yard was swaying back and forth like it was caught in the wind, but it was a wave of walkers pushing against it instead. As Clem hurried over to Sarah, she pulled Omid out of the doghouse, still whimpering loudly in a panic as she did.

"Clem, what do we do?" asked a trembling Sarah as she tried to console a squealing Omid. Spinning around, there were walkers closing in from every direction. They couldn't get back in the house because walkers were coming out of it now. What little Clem could see on the edge of the yard was a collage of lurching silhouetted figures and the broken fence they were dismantling a few pieces at a time; they were surrounded.

"Clem!" yelled Sarah, trembling in fear. "What… wuh… I…" Sarah rambled off into incoherent babbling as Clem looked on in despair. She didn't know where her gun was, there were too many walkers to fight, the rain would just wash off the scent, and they had nowhere to go. "Clem!" yelled Sarah as she shook her with her free hand.

"I… I don't know what to do!" babbled Clem as she looked around in a panic. "I… I don't know, I just don't know, I…" Clem's eyes fell upon the tree in the middle of the yard. Looking at it more closely, she noticed something she hadn't before, a crude but large wooden structure nestled amongst its branches. "Over there, into the treehouse!"

Clem started running with Sarah right behind her. Reaching the tree trunk, Clem was relieved to see a rope ladder dangling in front of it. Sarah groaned as she took Omid in one arm and started climbing. She moved very slowly, struggling to plant a foot on each rung as the ladder swayed under her weight. Spinning around, Clem saw two more walkers closing in on them. They were slow, but so were Clem's aching limbs made slower by her soaking wet clothes.

It took most everything she had just to keep swinging her tomahawk. She managed the topple the first one before it reached her but the second lunged at her before she could swing her axe again. Clem dropped the tomahawk and stumbled backwards into the tree as she pulled her knife. She cursed her short arms as she focused on the approaching walker. It moved into arm's length and she lunged forward with her knife. She pierced its eye socket, killing it almost instantly. She then scooped up her tomahawk just in time to kill the first walker as it crawled up to her feet.

Looking up, Clem saw a dozen more closing in from every direction. She spun around and found Sarah was nearly at the top of the ladder, giving her enough room to start climbing. "Sarah, hurry!" yelled Clem as she started scrambling up the ladder. She only made it a few steps before she could hear this horrible moaning surrounding them from every direction. Clem quickly reached the spot just below Sarah and watched as she struggled to move Omid into the treehouse with just the one arm.

"Go on, we'll be right behind you," groaned Sarah as she hoisted Omid into the treehouse. "We—"

Sarah screamed along with Clem as the entire ladder started wildly jerking back and forth, like it was trying to buck them off. Looking down, Clem watched as the snarling walkers were clumsily clawing at the ladder. Clem looked up to see Sarah climbing into the treehouse, prompting her to ascend herself. The ladder bucked harder with each step Clem took and she was terrified she be thrown off any minute, like a piece of meat to a pack of wild dogs. A wave of relief washed over her as her hand landed on the solid wood of the treehouse's floor, followed by the sensation of falling as the ladder broke.

"Clem!" Clem felt Sarah grabbing her arm just as she fell. She screamed out in terror as she dangled helplessly over the undead as they reached out their spindly rotten limbs, ready to pluck her off the tree like a ripe fruit. "You gotta climb up!" yelled Sarah, sounding near the edge of collapse herself. "Hurry, you're really heavy!" Clem could barely orient herself while twisting in place, her arm feeling like it was going to snap.

She turned her head enough to see the edge of the treehouse again and threw out her free arm. She felt the hard floor against her palm and scratched her nails across the wood for anything to grab onto. Her fingers slipped into a cracked and that was enough for Clem to get a grip. The pain was agonizing as she tried to pull herself up. Just as she was starting to make some progress her arm started to wobble.

She could feel it, her arm was gonna give out any second and she was going to fall to her death. They had come all this way, just to die to a herd of walkers anyway. Her fingers went numb as whatever little strength she had left evaporated, and then Clem felt her entire body jerked forward. She expected to fall, but instead she felt her face colliding with the hard wood. She was in the treehouse, and looking over she saw Sarah lying on her back while gasping for breath.

"Sarah?" Sitting up, Clem was disturbed by how rapid Sarah's breathing was; it sounded like she was about to suffocate. "Sarah, are you okay?" She just kept gasping for breath. That's when Clem noticed Omid, his face wracked with terror and disbelief as he hurried over to Sarah. He leaned forward and grabbed hold of one of Sarah's hands with both of his while she just kept struggling to breathe.

"Sarah… I… I'll…" Clem realized she had no idea what to do, nor did Omid as he fruitlessly pulled on Sarah's arm.

"Ju… ju…" Clem could barely hear Sarah over her breathing. "Just give… me a minute," she mumbled between short breaths, her voice barely audible. Clem watched as she raised her trembling hand to clumsily embrace Omid. Catching her own breath, Clem looked around at her surroundings.

This treehouse was in terrible condition, with the wood looking rotten and rain dripping in through the large cracks in the ceiling. Moving closer to the opening that served as a door, Clem saw the crack in the floor that she used as a grip was actually a fairly large hole in the wood. Holding her lantern over it, she couldn't help wincing at the rickety looking branch supporting them; this tree appeared as flimsy as the house built in it. Finally, moving to the door, she looked out to see the yard was now flooded with a few dozen walkers.

"We never should have come here." Clem looked over to see Sarah on her knees, peering out at that horrible sight in anger. "Simon's people weren't safe… nowhere is safe."

"We don't know that," reasoned Clem. "Maybe… maybe we got turned around and—"

"We both saw the sign, Vernal airport," reminded Sarah in a harsh tone. "They probably got hit by a herd, like Tulsa did before we found it, and we just rode right into it." Clem noticed Sarah was staring at her now, a rare judgmental look in her eyes.

"I'll get us out of here," insisted Clem.

"How?"

"We'll just rest up here for the night and—"

"And what? They're not gonna go away."

"When it stops raining we can use the smell to escape."

"How are we supposed to get down? The ladder just broke."

"I'll figure something out."

"What?"

"I don't know yet just… give me a minute okay?" pleaded Clem, feeling dizzy from everything that had just happened. "This… this isn't the first time we got stuck somewhere like this. Remember after we left Shaffer's, and we got stuck on that overhang? We figured something out then." Clem watched as the frustration on Sarah's face began to wane. "And we're a lot smarter now then we were then. So let's just take our time and think—"

The floor shifted suddenly from underneath Clem and she just barely managed to grasp the edge of the door before being thrown out of the treehouse.

"Clem!" screamed Sarah as Omid started whimpering loudly.

"I'm okay," insisted Clem. "I'm—" There was another rumble, weaker this time but still every bit as disorienting.

"What the hell is going on?" Clem tried to look down at the base of the tree, but she couldn't get a good view from the edge of the treehouse.

Spinning around, Clem hurried over to the hole in the floor. She pulled on the broken board next to it and it came up with surprisingly little effort. Holding her lantern over the opening, she could see past the branch to the ground where walkers were slamming into the tree trunk. It wasn't a coordinated effort, but as a bunch of them managed to move against it roughly at the same time, Clem felt the whole tree move with them.

"They're gonna push tree over," realized a horrified Clem.

"No… No! That's not possible!"

"Sarah…"

"It's not, this is a tree, it has roots! You can't just knock over a tree by accident!"

Clem looked down at the branch just below the hole and pulled out her knife. Trying to carve a mark into the tree, she discovered the branch was so soft that even a few clumsy scratches were causing wood to flake off a few small chunks of pulp at a time.

"I think this tree is dead," concluded Clem as she put her knife away. "And probably has been for a while."

"No, that—"

Another rumble, a bigger one this time. Clem felt her stomach drop as the entire treehouse started tilting in one direction and Clem had to grab onto the hole in the floor to keep herself from being pulled to one side. She watched as Sarah scrambled about on her hands and knees while Omid reached out to grab onto a plank sticking up in the corner, both of them yelling out in terror as it felt like they were going to fall.

The rumble passed and the treehouse stopped moving, but Clem could still feel herself being subtly pulled towards the door. She could go back over to hole to check, but she didn't want to look at what she already knew was happening; the tree was leaning to one side now.

"We're gonna die!" yelled Sarah. "They're gonna push over the tree and eat us!"

"No!" yelled back Clem. "We—"

"There's nothing—"

"I've still got the grenade!" Clem hurriedly took off her backpack and tore it open. She pulled out the grenade and tossed her backpack into the corner. "I'll throw it as far as I can and the noise will draw the walkers away."

"This isn't gonna work. We—"

"Yes it will!" barked Clem, her patience for Sarah nearly at its end. "Patty did it and she told us it worked for her!" Before Sarah could object, Clem carefully maneuvered over to the treehouse's door. She braced half her body on the side of the door, fearful that a slight tug of gravity would pull her out. She gripped the grenade tightly, very slowly moving her arm in an arc to make sure she'd have enough room to do a proper throw; she just needed a target now.

"I can see what's left of the fence," informed Clem as she prepared herself. "I'm gonna—" The treehouse shook and with it, Clem felt herself being pulled out the door.

"Clem!"

"No!"

Clem reached out to grab the grenade as it flew out of her hand before she felt herself being pulled back into the treehouse.

"Clem, are—"

"I dropped the grenade!"

"What! What are we going to do now?"

"I… I don't—"

"Oh God!"

"Don't panic!"

"We're gonna die!"

"We're not gonna die!"

"Yes we are!"

"Just… take off your backpack!" ordered an aggravated Clem. "There's gotta be something we can use," rationalized Clem as she hurried into the corner to check her own bag. There was little in it: her gas mask, the can opener, salt and pepper shakers, some knives and a tarp for gutting fish, a toothbrush, utensils for eating, Jet's survival guide, a compass, half a box of bullets for the pistol she lost, and a bag full of lures and hooks for a fishing rod that was still on her bike.

"I don't have anything Clem," reported Sarah as Clem put her pack back on. She then moved across the room to dig into Sarah's bag. There was some worn out cloth diapers, a black trash bag wrapped around Sarah's raincoat, what was left of Omid's stuffed elephant, coffee filters, an empty bottle, the crude makeshift grill that had been folded up, three pill bottles, a lighter with a long handle, another gas mask, another toothbrush, another compass, more utensils, Sarah's journal, and a box of rifle bullets.

"Where's your rifle?"

"On my bike," said Sarah as Clem checked under the box of bullets. "I was so tired I forgot to grab it when I came in."

"This… this is the case for your old glasses," realized Clem as she dug deeper. "Why did you pack that?"

"Because it's my only other pair, so if I lose these I've got the cracked ones as a backup."

"Is… is this our photo album?" Clem picked up the large book at the very bottom of the bag to get a better look at the cover. "You've… you've been carrying around this thing the whole time too?"

"Yeah, so what?" retorted a defensive Sarah.

"So, when I told you to pack everything we needed, you were packing useless junk like this?"

"Useless? It's our only pictures of—why are you getting mad at me? I've been the one carrying it this whole time!"

"Maybe if you weren't, you wouldn't have been too tired to bring your rifle with you just now."

"How would the rifle even help us right now?" challenged Sarah.

"It would have helped more than a photo album!" argued Clem. "So would more food. Maybe if you had packed that instead, we wouldn't have been so tired and gotten here before it got dark!"

"Don't blame this on me, this isn't my fault!" retorted Sarah. "If anything it's your…" Sarah trailed off suddenly.

"What did you just say?"

"Nothing."

"No, what did you just say to me?" demanded Clem.

"I didn't say anything," insisted Sarah.

"You were gonna say this is my fault." Sarah stared angrily at Clem in response. "How? How is this my fault?"

"It's your fault because if you had only listened to me and stopped the night, we wouldn't be up here right now!"

"Don't blame this on me."

"Why not, you were just blaming it on me!" retorted Sarah. "And you were the one who insisted we had to make it to Vernal tonight!"

"Because we did have to!" argued Clem. "We couldn't wait—"

"Because we'd get snowed in—it's not snowing Clem!"

"You didn't know that it was going to rain!"

"You didn't know it was going to snow!"

"I know the last few times it was overcast it did, and it almost killed us!" yelled Clem. "And if you didn't want to stop and eat earlier, we would have gotten here before it was dark!"

"We probably would have passed out by now if we hadn't stopped!" retorted Sarah. "And if we had just found a place to sleep the night near that river we found earlier, we could have gotten some fish the next morning and not wind up stuck here!"

"You didn't even say anything at the river!"

"I was too tired to even think then!"

"More like you just expected me to figure everything out, like you always do!"

"What?"

"You heard me. Anytime something happens you ask me what to do, like I'm always supposed to know, just like you did a minute ago when you were panicking and I tried to use the grenade and you wouldn't stop talking about how it wouldn't work! Maybe if you actually helped me once in a while we'd be out of here already!"

"I help you all the time!"

"Only after I have to decide what we're gonna do! And then you get mad at me anytime I make a mistake, or even when things that aren't my fault happen! You're three years older me, why don't you actually figure out what we're supposed to do for once!"

"If I did you wouldn't even listen to me because you never listen to me! No matter what I say we always just do what you want because you always think you're right about everything!"

"That's bullshit Sarah! It's more like I'm the one who has to go out and do everything hard while you just stay behind with Omid all the time! We don't even take turns anymore!"

"It's not my fault I'm pregnant!"

"Then whose?" Sarah's eyes went wide with rage upon hearing that. "If we had left Anthony behind when we first met him, none of this ever would have happened."

"We don't know that!"

"The only reason we didn't is because you didn't want to leave him."

"I was just trying to do the right thing!"

"And what about every time Anthony didn't want to do the right thing? No matter what he said or did, you always told us to just keep being nice to him even though—"

Sarah charged at Clementine, grabbing her by the collar of her coat and shoving her backwards into the wall of the treehouse. Clem pulled her knife from its sheath and brandished it over her head, causing Sarah to recoil backwards in terror into the other wall. Clem briefly glared at Sarah before looking at the knife in her own hand, which she put away in a hurry; she drew it without even thinking.
"I hate you," grumbled Sarah through her teeth.

"I hate you too!" yelled Clem. "You're scared of everything, so you make me do the dangerous stuff, then act like you're so surprised when something almost fucking kills me!"

"All you ever do is boss me around and get mad when I don't do what you say!"

"Because I was trying to keep you safe Sarah!"

"And you know how to do that better than me?"

"Most of the time… yes."

Sarah glared at Clem. "You sound just like my dad."

"Well… maybe he was right about a few things then."

"Was he right to leave you out in that shed then?" Clem wanted to rush across the room and punch Sarah in the face, and it took every bit of willpower she had left to stop herself from doing just that. "My dad was wrong about a lot of things, and so are you Clem!"

"What?" asked Clem through gritted teeth. "Tell me what I'm wrong about! Name one—"

"You were wrong to rob Simon!" accused Sarah. "If you had just listened to me and asked him for help, we could have all come here together, maybe in time to stop… whatever happened here!"

"We couldn't take that chance!"

"Why not?"

"Because I wasn't gonna let some psycho rape and kill me, that's why!" shrieked Clem in Sarah's face. "You remember that, what she was doing to me? That was because I listened to you! Because you said I had to find you help, and so I trusted them, and let them just put me in handcuffs, all because of you!"

"You can't blame that on me, I had no idea that would happen!"

"We never know what'll happen, but I'm always the one who has to get hurt because of it, and you don't even care!"

"Of course I care, I saved your life just a minute ago! I did everything I could to help you—I gave you my blood even! Do… do you have even the slightest idea how hard all of that was? What… what I had to do to make that happen!"

"I wouldn't need blood if you just hadn't wanted to let Pedro go!"

"You voted to let him go too!"

"Because I knew how much it bothered you! Because I cared more about how you felt about me instead of doing what was best for you!"

"What was best for me? You don't know what's best for anyone!"

"If I don't it's because I kept listening to you when everyone else kept telling me not to! We never should have done your stupid farm in the first place! We had food for years, and if we just waited until next spring we could have done it then, when we were actually ready, and then we wouldn't be stuck in this shitty treehouse!"

"No, we just would have been killed by whoever robbed what was left of Tulsa, because it was just a target waiting to be attacked!"

"That would have been better than working every day for three months just to lose everything anyway!"

"Yeah, we just would have spent three months eating crappy canned stuff that would have just gotten worse with time instead!"

"That was as good as it was going to get! And we threw it all away because you had some stupid dream of—"

"Of actually getting to live a life again, not just survive!"

"Maybe if you actually went out with me and Patty, you would have known surviving was as good as it gets and you should just be happy for that! Maybe if you had, Patty would still be here right now!"

"I if I had believed that, we would have just left Patty behind back in Florida, which is what you wanted to do!"

"No I—"

"Yes you did! You kept going on about how we couldn't trust her and that she was just pretending to care about us and how you just wanted to leave her behind!"

"Because she almost blew me up!"

"And—"

"And in the end I said she could come with us anyway!" refuted Clem. "Like I said Sarah, I did my best! It's easy for you to just sit there and wait for me to decide for both of us, then yell at me if I'm wrong afterwards, like you've never made a mistake!"

"My biggest mistake was every time I didn't tell you how wrong you were before you did something stupid!"

"I did something stupid?" Clem couldn't stop herself from laughing at that comment. "Really? What was so stupid you should have told me right then and there it was stupid?"

"You—"

"Didn't know it would snow? That I was wrong about Simon? I can't see the future Sarah, I'm just fucking eleven! But I always did the best I could, and you have no right to tell me that—"

"Corporal Cruz!" That name hit Clem like a lead brick. "You were wrong about her and I knew it!"

"What… what do you mean?" stuttered Clem.

"We should have went with her!"

"I… I just said, I can't see the—"

"You didn't need to see the future to know not going with her was a terrible idea!" dictated Sarah. "She cared about children—about us! It wasn't some trick, and we both knew it! The second she saw we had a baby she started acting a lot nicer. I think she even had figured out we were alone, and what did she do?

"She told us stuff that helped us stay alive. She told us we could come with her. She was honest, she told us it wasn't a paradise but it was somewhere where people treated kids right. The only reason we didn't go with her was because of you!" Sarah's words cut through Clem like a hot knife. She almost felt her legs give out as Sarah angrily stared her down.

"All because you were scared, so scared you didn't even want to wait for her to come back tomorrow so we could at least tell her goodbye. Maybe she even would have told us how to find her again if we had, but we never found out, all because you kept asking me to go. And we did, because it was what you wanted, even though I didn't think it was a good idea… but I did it anyway, because of you.

"Everything that happened after that: getting robbed, Valkaria, that flood we got trapped in, the farm being attacked, that horrible man who threw Omid in a dumpster, that evil woman and her even worse daughter, the Vaquero, even coming here today, none of it ever would have happened if we just went with her that day.

"We needed help, but we didn't take it because you thought we could handle it, us, a couple of kids with a baby! I… I thought we could handle it because you sounded so sure after we figured out how to get diesel out of the damn gas station. But even then, in the back of my mind, I thought we should at least wait for her to come back in the morning, just in case, and you didn't want to wait, and so I listened to you, like I always do, and now we're here."

Clem had no retort. She could only stand there in silence as the face of the woman she shot the day they moved came flooding back into mind. It was such a vivid sight she could swear she heard the woman's voice shrieking in her ear. Looking at Sarah, it seemed like she could hear that horrible wailing too. Looking around, Clem discovered the source of that terrible noise, it was Omid crying in the corner.

He was curled up into a ball and was screaming his lungs out. It was the first time in a long time that Clem could remember him crying this loudly. For so long, she had actually hoped he'd start crying again instead of whimpering when he was upset, let them know when he was really hurt instead of being afraid to tell them. Now that the time had finally arrived, Clem felt nothing but guilt and shame over the fact that she was the cause of it.

Clem watched as Sarah crawled over to Omid and tried to pick him up, only for him to resist her and try to crawl away. She just sat there on her knees, listening to that awful sound of Omid crying his heart out while walkers shuffled about beneath, ready to kill them all. That this is where their journey had ultimately led them was heart-breaking. Only one thing came to mind as Clementine opened her mouth.

"I'm sorry…"

"What?" said Sarah.

"I'm—"

There was a sudden violent rumbling followed by a loud cracking sound as the entire treehouse started shifting forward. Sarah hastily grabbed onto Omid before stumbling into the corner nearest the door where Clem was already struggling to keep her balance. She felt her whole body being pulled into the corner as the treehouse continued to rumble. Sarah collided with Clem and she instinctively put her arms around her and Omid, and was grateful when they did the same.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed as she could hear the moans of the undead get louder. "You're… you're right."

"What?" said Sarah as she cradled Omid.

"This… everything… it's all my fault!"

"No, Clem… I—"

"You were right!"

"No!"

"It's my fault!"

"It's not!" insisted Sarah. "It's…"

Sarah turned her head and started crying to herself. It was horrible, and as it harmonized with Omid's own crying, Clem started crying too. The chorus of misery combined with the moans of the undead was deafening. Clem just clung to Sarah and Omid and prayed for anything to put an end to this horrible nightmare, and soon after that she heard a new sound. Clem looked over and saw Sarah was laughing now.

"Sarah?" asked a disturbed Clem. "What—"

"We did pretty good for a couple of kids," she suddenly mumbled, crying and laughing all at once. "We… we didn't have a clue what to do and… we made it really far."

"Sarah, stop it," begged Clem.

"We had to do everything because there weren't any adults left, any that cared about us, and so we tried to raise a baby and start a farm and…" she rambled, her laughter diminishing until she just started full on crying again. "We did pretty good," she repeated, her voice barely audible, tears streaming down her face as she hugged a still crying Omid. "It… it's not our fault we were born just before the world died."

"Sarah it's… it's not fair," she mumbled. "We never should have had to do any of this," said Clem as she stroked Omid's hair. "What happened to all the grown-ups out there? Why couldn't they fix this? How come we had to learn how to purify water and kill hundreds of walkers and they didn't have to do anything?" Clem listened to the constant moaning just below them. "They're all at least twice our age. How come they can just die and leave us to deal with them becoming monsters? I bet most of them didn't even try half as hard as we did."

"They didn't care," said Sarah. "Like you said, they're older than us, they got to live their lives, got to do all kinds of stuff they wanted to do, so they didn't care what happened to kids like us, or Omid, they didn't think about how we'd never even get a chance to be happy."

Clem took a deep breath and nearly gagged on the awful stench coming from just outside. "I'm so tired Sarah."

"Me too," she whispered. "I'm sick of it."

"Me too," said Clem. "Even if we get out of here—"

"Then what?"

"Exactly…"

"What's the point anymore?" asked Sarah. "I… I just want this to be over."

"If I just hadn't dropped my gun, maybe there was something I could do."

"I… I've still got this." Sarah reached down and pulled up her pant leg to reveal the revolver tucked in her sock.

"That's not gonna do us much good," noted Clem as Sarah pulled it out. "There aren't enough bullets for all of them, and the ones in my backpack won't fit that gun."

"It's… it's enough that we don't suffer."

Clem's eyes went wide with shock upon hearing Sarah say that.

"Sarah…"

"Isn't that what we're talking about?" she asked in tears as she held out the gun. "What… what else can we do? I… I don't want him to be afraid anymore," sobbed Sarah as she clutched Omid's head to her stomach. "And… if we can't get out of here… at least this way he won't suffer. He… he won't have to be in pain and wonder… why we're not stopping them, because we can't."

Clem was horrified by what Sarah was saying, but she couldn't think of anything to say in response. Just turning her head enough to see out the door, she could see them all below, those ravenous beasts who would wait until the sun itself burnt out just for the chance to literally tear them apart. Clem turned to the gun Sarah was holding; it was practically beckoning to her. Slowly, her hand shaking, she took it. It felt heavy, heavier than a gun this size should feel.

"There… there's only two bullets left," said Clem as she popped out the chambers.

"I… um…" Sarah trailed off as she stared at those two bullets. "What—"

There was a sudden violent shake and the pair screamed. The treehouse rumbled with the rest of tree, but didn't seem to move this time.

"I'll do it," volunteered Clem as she hastily put the chambers back. "And I'll… just figure something out for me afterwards. I've got my knife, maybe that'll be enough to—"

"Clem…"

"Let's just do this, before it's too late." Clem carefully rotated the chambers so the next two were the loaded ones. Clicking the gun shut, Clem turned her head and found herself looking right into Sarah's eyes.

"I loved you," proclaimed Clem.

"I loved you too," said Sarah. "And I'm sorry for what I said."

"Me too." Clem turned to Omid, clinging to Sarah's legs for comfort and stability. She knelt down as much as she could with her back to the wall. "Omid." He turned his head and looked into her eyes, his cheeks wet with fresh tears. "We… we loved you so much," wept Clem as she very gently stroked his hair. "And… and we'll miss you," said Clem, nearly choking on her own words.

"Hey Omid," said Sarah, barely able to contain her own sorrow. "Just look at me. It's gonna be okay."

Sarah distracted Omid as Clem raised the gun. Her hand trembled as she tried to line up the sights with Omid's head. She forced herself to stop shaking as she listened to the horrible sounds of the undead wailing beneath them. 'They'd do so much worse than this,' Clem told herself. 'Just one bang, and then no more pain,' she reasoned as she put her finger on the trigger. 'It's all you can do for him."

"I… I can't do it!" Clem pointed the gun at her own head instead.

"Clem no!" Sarah's outburst stopped her from pulling the trigger. Instead, she yelled out in frustration as she put the gun down. She turned to the door and looked at the walkers with a sense of unbridled rage she had never felt before. "Fucking assholes! If… If I'm gonna die I think I'd rather die killing as many of those fucking things as I could before it happens!"

"Clem…"

"I mean it! What other choice do I have anyway? Shoot you and Omid and just wait for them to eat me? I… I'd rather throw myself out there right now and just…. stab as many of them as I could! I'm small and they're bunched up, they'll probably trip over each other just trying to get to me. If the rain hadn't washed the blood off my coat I could even…" Clem looked around the treehouse frantically, hoping it hadn't fallen out in all the turmoil. She spotted it, Sarah's backpack, sitting half open in the opposite corner.

"Sarah, grab onto my belt," ordered Clem as she pocketed the gun.

"What? Why?"

"Just do it!" Clem felt Sarah's hand on her waistband, then reached out past the door to the other corner. She could practically feel their vacant eyes aimed up at her while she dangled in front of the doorway, like a worm on a hook. Clem's fingers managed to wrap around one of the bag's straps, and pulling on it, she managed to force her tired arm to lift it up. She was about to pull it over when everything started shaking again.

Sarah screamed and Clem felt herself briefly become weightless before a forceful tug on her belt reeled her in. Her arm felt like it was about to be pulled out of the socket as the bag dangled out the door. It was nearly close enough for the walkers themselves to grab it, and it took every bit of strength Clem had to pull it into the treehouse before one of them managed to snag the other strap from the ground.

"What are you doing?" asked Sarah as Clem reached into the bag.

"Your raincoat, you weren't wearing it when we got caught outside," realized Clem as she pulled it out. "It still smells like them."

"It's been awhile since we used it though," pointed out Sarah. "And once you go out there, the rain is just gonna wash the smell off."

"Not right away, it took a little while before when I smeared some more on my clothes," said Clem as she untangled the raincoat from the trash bag. "If it works just long enough for me to get into the house or… something, maybe I can figure out a way to distract them."

"Like what? What can—"

There was another horrible rumbling followed by a cracking sound that left Clem shaking long after the tree stopped moving.

"This is our only chance Sarah." Clem tossed her tomahawk into the corner and hastily pulled the coat down over her head. "If we don't do something soon, we're gonna die anyway." Clem pulled out the compass from Sarah's bag before tossing the bag into the corner and picking up her own instead. "Maybe this way… maybe I can at least draw them away from the treehouse."

"Clem…" Sarah sighed, then handed the gun back to Clem.

"No, if I don't make it, then—"

"I… I'm afraid of what I'll do if you leave it here," confessed Sarah in a shameful tone. "If you're gonna try to save us, then it's better you keep it, in case there is something you can do with it."

Clem reluctantly pocketed the gun, then handed Sarah the compass from her backpack. "Here," said Clem as she pocketed the other compass. "We can use these to find each other afterwards." Looking at Sarah, clutching just a compass while holding onto a whimpering Omid, Clem didn't like the idea of just leaving them here defenseless. "You should take this too." Clem grabbed her tomahawk and offered it to Sarah "We all have a better chance if we both have something to fight with."

"You—"

"I'm too tired to even carry it anymore," admitted Clem as she pulled her gas mask out of her backpack. "I've got a better chance without it right now." Sarah looked at the tomahawk, then took it in her free hand.

"You… you're sure you want to do this?" asked Sarah.

"I—"

Another rumble and this time the treehouse shifted. Clem felt her whole back being pressed against the wall bordering the door and could even feel herself nearly rolling out before she grabbed onto Sarah for balance.

"I gotta go!" realized Clem as she hastily slipped her mask on, thinking it could at least protect her face from walkers' teeth. "If I make it, I'll find a way to distract them and then call you on the radio!"

"Good luck!"

Clem turned around and saw both Omid and Sarah staring at her in desperation. "You two take care of each other." Clem braced herself as she stared down at the abyss of dead bodies hungry for her blood. They were like a sea of monsters waiting to swallow her whole, and the mere sight of it paralyzed her. Since she couldn't look away, she focused on a single walker instead, a big one with a fat head. Clem pulled her knife, positioned herself the best she could past the edge of the door, then threw herself at him.

The air whipped at her entire body for a brief second before the big walker rushed up met her. The knife came down clean through the top of his skull and he collapsed beneath Clem, like a big rotten pillow that cushioned her fall. Even with undead padding, the fall rattled her whole body and reminded Clem of her every ache and pain she had all at once.

Snapping to her senses, Clem gritted her teeth and pulled the knife out of the walker's skull. She buried it in his stomach instead and tore open the walker's insides. She shoved her whole arm inside him and ripped out his entrails which she desperately started rubbing against her raincoat. For once in her life she didn't feel a shiver up her spine for touching one of these rotten things.

Clem then felt something hard collide with her back and someone collapsed on top of her. She closed her eyes and reached for the gun with her free hand as that horrible mass of putrid flesh suffocated her. Clem had the gun pointed under her chin, just waiting for the bite, but one didn't come. Opening her eyes she narrowly stopped herself from screaming as she saw a walker literally climb over her.

She was gonna turn back to the one she killed but another walker tripped onto it and Clem recoiled backwards, bumping into a third walker's ankles. They still weren't attacking but she could still see the rain in her lantern's light. She spun around on her hands and knees before narrowly spotting the house ahead of her. She tried crawling forward but immediately bumped into yet another walker's legs.

There was too many of them and there was too little space to maneuver between them, but then Clem realized she was still holding her knife in her right hand. She put the gun away so she could balance off her left hand more easily and slashed at a walker's ankle. It fell over on its side, knocking over the one standing next to it and Clem scrambled over them like the scared animal she was.

She slashed at another ankle and another, desperately trying to cut down enough walkers to clear a path back into the house. She could see the glass sliding doors now, just barely through the forest of legs in front of her. She was slowly closing in on it but every step forward she felt the water sliding down the raincoat's slick vinyl, gradually washing away what little blood and gore it had on it. A few paces away now, Clem decided she couldn't wait any longer.

She stood up and charged between a couple of walkers, knocking her way past them. She picked up speed and shoved smaller walker off its feet and could see the sliding door now; she was going to hit the window next to it. Clem tried to stop but was going too fast, instead she stumbled off course and face first into a walker. She and it went backwards into the glass, shattering it.

Clem rolled away in a panic as more walkers began to descend upon her. She resorted back to crawling as they came from all directions to investigate the sound of glass breaking. Clem slashed a couple of walkers' ankles and crawled forward, finally arriving at the actual door. Crossing into the house, there were more walkers inside but they were much less dense, giving her actual room to maneuver.

She rushed up to nearest one and slashed at its ankle, then drove the knife into its eye socket. She hastily freshened her coat with more gore, but stopped when she saw a light trembling from the backyard. It was Sarah's lantern from inside the treehouse, and she could see there were still walkers around the tree, repeating bumping into the trunk in an attempt to scale it. Looking at it from afar, Clem was terrified at the sight of the dead tree already being half-uprooted and leaning forward at such a steep angle; it could fall any second now.

Clem moved towards a corner in the living room and searched for anything she could pick up. She found an umbrella leaning against the wall but figured it wouldn't be heavy enough. Moving towards a bookshelf just past that, she grabbed a big hard-cover dictionary, then took a step back towards the walkers converging by the sliding glass door. She hurled it as hard as she could, but the book bounced off the glass, merely cracking it instead of breaking it.

Clem thought about shooting the glass next, but then realized the gunshot alone would make more noise. Reasoning she didn't want be trapped in a corner when walkers came chasing after a gunshot, Clem made a dash for the front door. She encountered more walkers in the hall on the way out, but she quickly pushed past them and leapt over the dead one still blocking up the door frame.

Bursting back outside, Clem immediately aimed the pistol into the air but stopped just short of shooting it. She spun around to make sure there weren't any walkers in arm's reach, and in the process discovered Sarah's bike lying in the mud next to her own. Strapped to the back of it was Sarah's rifle, which was louder and had more bullets. Clem put the pistol away and hurried over to the bike. Kneeling down to unstrap the gun from the bike, she quickly looked around to evaluate her surroundings.

There were a lot of walkers idling about in the street, with some moving towards the house she had just escaped from. She looked across the street and saw another house with a covered porch. She ran as fast as she could, hoping to get out of the rain before the gore was washed away. Stumbling up the steps, dead-tired as she raised the rifle in her aching arms, Clem took aim at the sky and fired.

The rifle kicked, hard, causing her already aching shoulder to feel like it was burning now. Clem struggled to stand back up and stumbled into the house, hoping to keep out of the rain while walkers converged on the porch she shot the rifle from. Collapsing on the floor for a second to catch her breath, it dawned on Clem this was still much too close for Sarah and Omid's safety. What good was it to them if the walkers were going to be waiting for them on the other side of the street?

Clem groaned as she stood up, then located a backdoor that led her back outside. It was still dark and raining, and her tiny little electric lantern didn't throw a lot of light. She could see walkers moving about just around the edges of her vision, and every second she was out in rain she was terrified they'd suddenly notice her, but she had to risk it to make it to the next house. She hurried through the darkness, praying some hungry cadaver didn't take notice of her, found a house to use to get out of the rain, then fired the rifle again.

It sounded like a cannon when she shot it, and it felt like one too. Once her ears stopped ringing, Clem hurried through the rest of the house and repeated the cycle. Get to the nearest house, get out of the rain, fire the rifle, then keep moving, over and over again. The rifle just got heavier and heavier every time she fired it, and each house felt further and further away, and when one was locked she had to risk running further through the rain just to get to another one.

After a dozen houses or so, she was choking for air and had to pull her mask down just to be able to breathe anymore. Moving through another couple of yards, she spotted a slow-moving walker shuffling forward, probably chasing the shot she fired on the back porch of the last house. As Clem approached it, it turned to look at her suddenly. The rain must have finally washed her raincoat clean. She threw the rifle over her aching shoulder and pulled out her knife.

It was slow, even for a walker, with its torso a shredded mess of dangling meat and only a single arm left attached to it, trying to waddle forward on badly chewed up legs. They were probably some poor soul who got eaten and then came back as this sorry shambling corpse. At the very least, this probably meant Clem was past the bulk of the walkers now. All the faster ones had hurried ahead after the shots, leaving this pathetic sight long behind.

Clem slashed at the walker's ankle and it collapsed onto the dirt with a soft thud. It didn't even move after it hit the ground, so Clem quickly stabbed it in the back of the head then hurried over to the nearest house. It had a small porch leading up to the door. Clem sat down and pulled the rifle off her shoulder. She braced the butt of the gun against the floor, sparing her shoulder further abuse and aimed it past the awning; all it did was click when she pulled the trigger.

Clem tossed the empty rifle aside and rolled over onto her back. She gasped for air while rubbing her tender shoulder. She was sore, hungry, thirsty, and shivering wet from the rain. Just lying there, she had to fight the urge to just drift off to sleep because despite how miserable she felt, more than anything she was exhausted. Clem couldn't remember ever being this tired before, it felt like each breath was what little life she had left leaving her body. She could barely even remember how this day started.

"Sarah!" Clem forced her hand to her belt and picked up her radio. She made sure it was on then pressed the talk button. "Sarah?" Clem waited for an answer, then pressed the button again. "Sarah, are you there?" Clem waited several seconds for an answer; none came. "Sarah, are… are you and Omid okay?" Clem waited a long time for an answer this time. Maybe Sarah couldn't talk right now, maybe her hands were full, maybe she was busy with Omid at the second.

There was no answer, no bits of static suggesting someone was trying to respond, nothing. Clem just covered her face with her free hand in an attempt to stop herself from crying again. Try as she might, she couldn't force out the image of Sarah and Omid plummeting into that pit of walkers and being ripped apart limb by painful limb, screaming in anguish as there very flesh was torn apart in front of each others' eyes, and it was all Clem's fault.

It would be enough to make her scream, to yell out in pain, to curse God them-self for sentencing the kindest person she ever knew and an innocent baby to suffer and die so needlessly. But she didn't, because she couldn't, she had nothing left in her at this point. Clem felt empty, like a balloon after you let all the air out, and she was just waiting for the world to throw her away already, and that's when she felt something grabbing her wrist.

Clem looked over to see the one-armed walker from early pulling on her arm. Clem dropped the radio and tried to pull away when it snapped its teeth at her fingers. Clem pulled her knife with her free hand and swung it around in a huge arc, bringing it down on top of the walker's skull. Going limp, Clem inched over to see the wound from the previous attack she made earlier: she'd hit the top of its neck instead of its skull the first time.

"No…" Her left hand free now, Clem, pulled it in close and examined it. It looked okay, except for a couple of bleeding cuts on her pinky and ring finger. "No!" Clem looked at the injuries carefully with her lantern; they were clearly teeth marks. "No goddammit! That's… why!" She screamed up at the heavens itself. "What… what did I ever do to deserve this—any of this! WHY?!"

Clem yelled out loud in anger as she grasped her head with both hands. She groaned to herself, then hastily undid her coat. She used her knife to cut off a large section of her shirt and laid the strip of fabric flat on the porch. She laid out her hand on the fabric next and positioned her knife over her pinky, then froze. The idea of cutting off her own finger petrified her, and then she noticed the blood dripping off her blade.

She tried wiping it off on what remained of her shirt, but the knife was so caked in blood that a quick wipe down would never fully clean it. Looking at the stains on the severely dulled blade, Clem realized using this knife to cut off her finger would probably just give her an infection, assuming it was even sharp enough anymore to cut through her own bones one-handed. She dropped the blade and just looked out from the porch. She couldn't see anything, just darkness, with only the distant moans of the dead to keep her company.

Slowly, Clem put her knife back in its sheath for the last time, then pulled out the revolver Sarah gave her. She sighed deeply as she stared at the gun for a second. There had been a lot of dark days where she was almost sure she was going to die, but none quite like this. All those other times it felt like there was always something still worth staying alive for, but now, there was nothing.

She probably couldn't even save her own life if she tried at this point, and even if she could it wasn't worth the effort. All that awaited her was a used up world already on its last legs; she wouldn't miss it. With seemingly nothing left for her to lose anymore, not even her own life which was already forfeit, Clem cocked the gun and aimed at it her own head.

Feeling the cold steel barrel pressed her temple, she hesitated to pull the trigger. Even now there was an inkling of fear stopping her as she pondered what it would be like to die. Would she be reunited with all the others she lost along the way? Would her mom and dad be waiting on the other side with open arms? Or was it just a bang and then an eternity of darkness? Seeing as darkness and pain was all this world had left to offer, Clem put her finger on the trigger.

"Clementine?" The gun trembled in her hand. "Clem, are you there?" Clem's eyes moved to her radio, just sitting on the porch where she dropped it. "We're okay." Clem put her gun down and looked at her left hand again; was there anything she could do? "Clem? Please tell me you're okay too." The desperation in Sarah's voice sent a panic up Clem's spine. "Clementine? Please… please say something."

Clem planted her hand on the fabric, then pressed the barrel of the gun right below the bite on her pinky. She tried pulling the trigger but found it heavy in her hand; then she noticed the bracelet Sarah made her on her wrist. Closing her eyes and gritting her teeth, there was a deafening bang and Clem shrieked out in agony as she felt a piece of molten metal tear apart a piece of her own body.

"Clementine?" called Sarah from the radio as Clem herself recoiled in agony. She clutched her bleeding hand to her chest as that horrible throbbing pain seemed to shoot through every nerve ending in her entire body. "Clem, I just heard a shot. Was that you? If it's you, shoot again so I'll know."

Those words were just enough to force Clem to place her hand back on the fabric. The sight of her dismembered pinky lying in a small puddle of blood was too much to bear and she shifted her hand just enough to put it out of view. As she planted the gun on her ring finger next, Clem felt the overwhelming urge to throw up as she saw blood pouring out of that burnt stump protruding from her hand. She closed her eyes as the searing hot barrel burnt her skin before pulling the trigger a second time.

"Clem!" Called Sarah as Clem nearly gagged on her own screams. Looking at her severed digits just sitting there, Clem clumsily swatted them out of sight before puking on the porch's steps. Her head feeling light, Clem flopped her bleeding hand onto the fabric swatch she tore off earlier. The sight of three twitching fingers lying next to those stumps gushing blood horrified her. She couldn't cover them fast enough, struggling to wrap a bandage around it with one hand while in the worst pain in her life.

"Clem, I took Omid and went south from that house we were trapped in," explained Sarah as Clem did her best to tie off the bandage with only one hand and more pain then she knew what to do with. "If you can hear me but can't talk, that's where we'll be. I… I'll start a fire in the yard so you can find… no, it's still raining. Maybe there're some fireworks in the garage… no, the noise."

"I'm coming!" announced Clem suddenly as she picked up the radio, doing as much as she could to stifle the pain in her voice.

"Clem? Thank God!"

Clem didn't really feel like God deserved any thanks right now, but it was good just the same to speak to Sarah again. "I can't talk right now, but… I'm gonna find my way back to you."

"I'll figure out a way to signal you, I promise!"

Putting down the radio, Clem noticed a few walkers approaching from the opposite house, and behind them she could hear several more shuffling forward from the darkness.

The gunshots must have drawn them. Clem clipped the radio onto her belt and turned to the walker she killed earlier. She tore off a chunk of rotten meat from what used to be it stomach and started smearing it on her raincoat as the other walkers loomed closer. Her coat was so slick from water that the blood and bits of meat seemed to be sliding right off of her as the undead closed in.

Clem spun around and tried to open the door, but it was locked. With the walkers on the porch steps now, she hurried to the other end of the porch and leapt over the railing. She face-planted in the mud soon after and struggled to get back on her feet. Everything felt heavier then it did a minute ago, and it was a fight just to get back up and keep walking.

Clem could hear walkers groaning all around her but had no choice except to keep charging blindly through the darkness, hoping she didn't stumble right into one. Another house came into view and Clem hurried over to it and quickly pressed herself up against the side of it topped with gutters. Flat against the wall, she was out of the rain at least, but looking around she couldn't see anything further than a few feet away.

Groaning in pain as she crossed her right hand over to her left pocket, Clem fished out her compass and held it up to the light. Her lantern was much dimmer then it was a minute ago, making it hard to read the compass, but she managed to figure out which way south was, and with that information concluded she also needed to go east as well to retrace her steps to the street Sarah traveled on.

Looking up at the inky blackness spread out in front of her, Clem hesitated for a moment, then forced herself to move south. She managed to find a road before long. She still couldn't see the walkers shuffling about, moaning in the distance outside of her meager field of view. Her left hand was pulsing with pain as she clutched it to her chest, and worse yet Clem knew if any blood dripped out it might bring walkers right on top of her. That's assuming the rain didn't wash what little gore she had put on her coat and get her killed that way.

Clem stumbled into an intersection, then checked her compass to make sure she was facing east. She had no idea if she had gone far enough south, she had no idea if Sarah had even given her good directions. All she could do is keep walking, which wasn't easy since she felt half dead already. Light-headed from hunger and blood loss, her entire body fighting against her waning will, sharp pains shooting through her bleeding hand occasionally sending shivers up her spine, the biting cold of the wind chilling her to her already aching bones, it was all enough to make her wish she had one bullet left.

The only thing that kept her moving was the idea of seeing Sarah and Omid again, the only two good things left in this rotten husk of a world. She tried to keep their faces in mind, but it was difficult. She never thought she'd struggle so hard to remember what the people she loved most looked like, but she was so tired that even keeping them in mind was difficult. Clem kept closing her eyes as she moved, almost wishing she could just sleepwalk the rest of the way there.

Time passed as she moved. She didn't know how long, but the moans of walkers eventually faded from earshot and she was just left with the sound of her own weak footsteps on the pavement. Sometime after that even her footsteps seemed to fade into nothing. Opening her eyes, Clem found herself standing in an open dirt lot. She slowly spun in place, feeling dizzy as she looked for a sign, any sign to where the hell she was going.

In the distance, she could see what she thought was a bright glimmering light. Clem pulled out her binoculars for a better look, but her hands were shaking so bad and her vision so blurry she couldn't find the light through them. Just looking at it again with only her eyes, it was literally the only thing she could see anymore, so she started marching towards it, barely able to put one foot in front of the other.

No matter how many steps she took, the light never seemed to get any closer. It almost felt like Clem was just walking in place now, and for what felt like hours. After a while, Clem started to think maybe it was enough that Sarah and Omid survived, even if she didn't. She stumbled forward a few more steps, nearly falling over as she did, then stood up to see a dark figure suddenly standing in front of her.

It stood before her, silhouetted against the light that had somehow grown closer without her knowing it. Clem just stared at it in disbelief, wondering what it was. It was imposing but she didn't feel threatened by it. It almost reminded her of Lee somehow. It said nothing, but slowly it extended its hand, offering it to her. Clem didn't know what it wanted, but she didn't feel afraid. She offered her own hand to the figure, and upon touching it everything went black.

Clem felt weightless. The world just seemed to drift away and she could see her own body lying in the mud where it fell. Gradually it shrunk from view, like a picture shrinking as you backed away from it. Eventually it disappeared into the darkness with everything else, and for a time that's all there was. For the first time in a long time Clem felt no pain and was content, at peace even. She didn't know how long she remained there, but the darkness eventually passed and there was a blinding light everywhere instead, followed by a voice.

"Clementine?"

"Mom?" mumbled Clem as the light seemed to get brighter.

"Clementine!"

"Mom!" Clem reached out for mother and found herself being cradled in her warm arms; it was the greatest feeling of her life. "I… I can't believe you're really here," wept Clem. "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too Clem."

That wasn't her mother's voice. Blinking her eyes a few times, things slowly came into focus. Clem watched as a lantern was moved away from her face and Sarah emerged into her view.

"It's you…"

"Yeah, I'm here for you Clem," said Sarah as she gently stoked Clem's cheek. Looking around, Clem discovered she was lying in a bed. Her clothes were missing and a blanket had been tightly wrapped around her body. "Thank God you're okay," said Sarah as she leaned in to embrace Clem.

"Where are we?" she asked, happy to endure some soreness in her arms to hold Sarah again.

"In another house, but I made sure to lock all the doors. There's no sliding glass ones or big windows this time, and I dragged a dead lurker into to the kitchen, in case… we need to smell like them to get away," said Sarah before taking a deep breath. "I think we're okay for now, most of them followed the gunshots you were making, and I only saw a couple on my way up to this house. As long as don't make any noise they hopefully won't come back this way, at least for tonight."

Sarah let go of Clem, who proceeded to examine her surroundings. She couldn't see a whole lot, just that she was in a dimly lit bedroom of some kind. Looking over at one of the windows, she noticed a light but it seemed to be pointed the wrong way.

"What's that?" asked Clem as she looked at the window.

"Oh, it's a flashlight I found." Sarah went over to the window, picked up the flashlight and turned it off. "I found them and some batteries here, so I put a light in a window facing every different direction, so you'd hopefully see it."

"Is… is that what I saw?" asked Clem, recalling the mysterious light she saw before.

"You must have because you were walking right towards us," said Sarah as she unscrewed the flashlight. "And, that's how I found you. I just barely saw your lantern through the window and came out to get you." Sarah took the batteries out of the flashlight and put them in Clem's lantern, which proceeded to illuminate the room. "And when I saw you…" Clem watched as Sarah bit her own lip.

"What?"

"I thought you were a lurker," admitted Sarah in a heavy voice. "You just came right up to me and stared at me and… I was too afraid to say anything. I had this strange thought that you… you recognized me even though you were a lurker and…" Sarah covered her face to stop herself from crying.

"I could see someone standing in front of me, but I couldn't tell who because of the light behind them."

"It was me Clem," assured Sarah.

"So it was your hand I touched?"

"What?"

"I saw you reaching your hand out to touch me, and so I did the same."

"Clem, you just keep standing there, not saying anything, and then you fell over." Sarah shuddered. "I thought you were dead Clem."

"So did I," confessed Clem. "I remember everything disappearing and I just… floated away."

"You must have passed out," concluded Sarah as she sat down on the bed. "I had to drag you back here, and the whole time… I was worried it was already too late."

"I thought that when you didn't call me back on the radio," admitted Clem. "I… I was just ready to end it."

"Oh God, I'm so sorry Clem," professed Sarah, her words dripping with guilt. "Omid started crying again and I had to get him into the bathroom where hopefully nothing would hear him and—"

"It's okay," insisted a weary Clem. "It's…" Clem found herself struggling to speak all of a sudden. She tried clearing her throat, but couldn't. Her mouth was so dry she couldn't even spit right now.

"Let me get you some water." Sarah hurried over to a pot sitting on the dresser and dipped a glass in it. "Drink as much as you like, one of the first things I did when I got here was put out every pot in the kitchen to catch rain, so we at least got clean water for a little while."

Clem obliged Sarah's request and didn't hesitate to gulp down that entire glass as fast as she could. She hadn't even realized just how thirsty she was until the cool water touched her cracked lips.

"Again, I'm so sorry I didn't hear you," repeated Sarah as Clem handed the glass back. "If I had any idea that you were calling I'd—"

"Sarah, it's okay. I'm sure you did your best," said Clem. "We're all still alive after all."

"Barely," said Sarah with a sigh.

"Where… where is Omid?" asked Clem as she looked around.

"He fell asleep in the bathroom after I dried him off," explained Sarah. "He… oh."

Clem watched as Sarah looked at the door suddenly. Turning her head, Clem watched as Omid hurried in, clad in nothing but a diaper. Without any prompting, he climbed on top of the bed and crawled towards Clem, his eyes brimming with a strange mixture of fear and relief.

"Hey Omid," said Clem, tears of joys streaking down her face. "I'm so happy you're…" Omid recoiled in horror as he Clem stretched out her arms, revealing her bloodied hand wrapped in gauze. He turned and hurried away as Sarah's gently grasped Clem's injured hand.

"I found a little rubbing alcohol and gauze in the bathroom," muttered a disturbed Sarah as she carefully checked the bandage she made. "I… I did everything I could but… Clem, what happened?"

"I…" Clem swallowed hard as she saw the growing anxiety gripping Sarah's face. "I was bitten." Sarah's eyes went wide with shock. "I… I think I got rid of it in time."

"Oh God, Clem… I—"

"I guess we'll find out," chuckled Clem in a pained voice, trying not to cry. "What about you and Omid? Did—"

"No, they didn't get to us," assured Sarah. "The gunshots drew most of them away, and after the tree fell over—"

"It fell over with you in it?"

"Yeah, it was… terrifying," said Sarah, her hands shaking as she spoke. "Luckily, it wasn't far to the ground by then and Omid and I already had our backs to the corner and the ground was soft from the rain, so it was just the big bump and then it was over." Sarah put an arm around Omid and started cradling him while she spoke. "I killed the ones left in the yard with your tomahawk, most of them were just crawling anyway."

"How did you get past them after that?"

"I cut open one inside the house, covered me in Omid in its blood."

"But, the rain."

"I grabbed an umbrella I found near the door. I figured if it could just keep the water off us it wouldn't wash away the blood."

"That's… that's it?" asked Clem, disheartened that she could have avoided so much pain if she had just thought of such a simple solution. "I'm so stupid."

"It's not as easy as it sounds," insisted Sarah. "I had to put my mask on Omid so he wouldn't smell the lurkers, and so if he started crying they wouldn't hear him… hopefully." Sarah took a breath and released Omid.

"I had to walk with him holding one hand while I tried to keep the umbrella over us with the other for a long time… I haven't been that scared since the day we left Shaffer's." Omid came walking across the bed. Clem moved her injured hand out of sight and greeted him with only the uninjured one.

"Hey, you were really brave today, the bravest baby in the world, ever," praised Clem in a weak voice. "I… I don't feel too brave myself right now though… I think I could really use a hug."

Omid just stared at Clem, almost like he was frightened of her. Whenever because of her hand or because of her and Sarah arguing earlier, Clem didn't know, but she suspected it was the latter. Omid stared at her for several seconds, then opened his arms and leaned in.

"Oh… I love you too." Clem turned her head and kissed Omid's cheek, then leaned backwards onto the bed with him. Omid laid down with her and Clem just gripped him tighter as Sarah covered both of them with the blanket, then she carefully placed a pillow under Omid's head.

"You both rest for a while," insisted Sarah.

"No," said Clem as she tried to sit up. "If I'm still bitten, then—"

"I'll keep an eye on you both," insisted Sarah as she gently pushed Clem back down. "Just sleep, you'll… you'll be okay."

"And if I'm not?"

Sarah sighed, then pulled something from my waistband. "I've got this, just in case." She held out Clementine's pistol.

"You found my gun."

"Yeah, I… I was a bit nervous to go outside even with the umbrella, so I… tested it in the backyard, and I found it near the doghouse."

"But… if you have to shoot me, that's gonna bring walkers right back here."

"Well, I found this next to the treehouse after it crashed into the ground." Sarah walked over to the dresser and pulled something out of her backpack. "If it gets bad, I'll go out there and use it to lure them somewhere else." Sarah held up the grenade so Clem could see it.

"Still," said Clem. "It might be safer if—"

"If you're bitten than I want to be here, with you, and so does Omid!" insisted Sarah as she put the grenade away. "And you said you think you got rid of... it, in time?"

"I hope so," said Clem. "I don't know how it really works exactly, but… I shot them off not long after it happened."

"I'm… I'm so sorry Clem," wept Sarah. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"Yeah," said Clem, twitching as she could actually feel the blood in her stumps pounding against the edges of her bandage. "And… I swear I can still feel them."

"Your fingers?"

"Yeah," said Clem as she tried to touch her missing fingers with her free hand. "I know they're gone, but I can still feel them somehow… and they really hurt."

"I'm sorry Clem, I wish…" Sarah sat up suddenly, then hurried over to her backpack. "There's something I can do actually."

"Is that our xanax?" asked Clem as Sarah opened one of the pill bottles.

"And a painkiller," she said as she opened another. "I made sure to pack them the day we left the bunker," said Sarah as she opened a third pill bottle. "And you should take one of the antibiotics we used for Omid, just in case." Sarah dipped the glass back in the pot of water, then hurried over to the bed.

"Thank you Sarah." Clem instinctively tried to move both hands to take the glass and the pills, only to flinch in pain after she moved her left hand. Instead, she just used her right hand to place the pills in her mouth, then took the glass after. Even with water, swallowing three pills at once was horrible. It felt like a bunch pebbles trying to get stuck in her throat, and one of them left a bitter taste in her mouth. But then it was done and Clem handed the glass back so she could immediately wrap her good hand around Omid for the comfort he provided.

Lying in bed, watching Sarah put away the pill bottles, Clem couldn't shake this feeling in the back of her head this might be the last time she'd get to talk to her. If she was still bitten and turned in her sleep, that'd be it, and anything that went unsaid between would remain that way.

"Sarah," said Clem suddenly. "I'm… I… I love you."

"I know." No she didn't, not really, but Clem decided it best not to burden her with the truth. It this was the last time they'd talk, it'd just make it all the more painful when Clem didn't wake up. And if it wasn't, it would just make things more complicated the next morning when she woke up. She had nearly taken this secret to her grave tonight, she could sit on it a while longer.

"Again, I'm really sorry for what I said earlier, in the treehouse," said Clem in a shameful voice, realizing she didn't want that to go unspoken.

"I'm sorry too for… what I did," spoke a penitent Sarah as she approached the bed. "Let's… let's just forget about it, okay?"

Sarah leaned in close. The stench of walker's blood was still on her, but Clem didn't really mind right now. Sarah carefully placed a kiss on Clem's cheek, and Clem didn't hesitate to kiss her back.

"Wish we could just forget all of this," said Clem as she leaned back into the soft pillow behind her. "If only we had come here sooner, maybe we could have helped Simon's people before… whatever happened."

"Yeah, well, in the morning, if the rain stops, I can go out and get our bikes back," reasoned Sarah as she sat down in a chair in the corner of the room.

"Then what?" asked Clem. "Vernal was supposed to be safe, and it's not. Either a herd came here, or that's just Simon's people out there right now."

"I don't think that's them."

"How do you know?"

"Because all the lurkers look way too old," explained Sarah. "They're all beat down and tore up, like they've been outside for months; Simon had just been with his people less than a month ago."

"Maybe there weren't many of them left and—"

"Clem, I had a lot of time to look at all those lurkers when I had to walk through them, none of them look recent."

"Okay, but how does that help us? I mean, if Simon's people survived, they're clearly not here anymore."

"Well, I was thinking…" Sarah pulled out her radio, and Clem watched as she traced her finger around the talk button. "The way Simon talked, about how it was the Navajo, the Ute and some other people from Salt Lake City, it sounds like they were a pretty big group, which means they might use radios to keep in touch."

"Wait, you're not—"

"I would just say… we need help," explained Sarah. "I wouldn't tell them who we are or where—"

"Sarah, that's not a good idea. We—"

"What choice do we have?" asked a weary Sarah as she kicked her shoes off, grimacing as she did. "We're tired, we're hungry, we don't have any food… we can't go on like this."

Clem was going to say something, but she watched as Sarah pulled her sock off. Her ankles were bright red from swelling and her soles had such big cracks in the skin Clem could see bits of red when she moved her foot a certain way. There were also blisters all over it, some popped, some not, some bloody. Just looking at that made Clem's own feet hurt, and terrified to think what she would see if she pulled the blanket back right now to look at them.

Turning away, she found herself looking at Omid, still lying in her arm. He was fast asleep but the pain on his scrunched face was heart-breaking. Clem didn't know what he was thinking about, but it must have been horrible; seeing them fighting like that, walking past all those walkers, seeing her hand just now. Clem remembered having nightmares about walkers for weeks after she left Savannah.

"We need help Clem," spoke Sarah, the fight in her voice gone now. "We're… we're not gonna make it much further just the two of us. If Simon's people are out there somewhere, we gotta find them."

"We…" Clem sighed as she felt her head become heavy from Sarah's words. "Do whatever you think is best," she conceded as she closed her eyes. "We really don't have much to lose at this point."

"Yeah…" Clem listened as she heard Sarah fumble with the radio.

"Hello? If anyone can hear this… we need help, bad." Those words seemed to hang in the air after Sarah said them, like the rain clouds over their heads. After a long silence, Clem heard Sarah fiddling with the radio again, likely changing channels, then repeating her message. It sounded even more pathetic the second time. Lying there, Clem felt her head getting heavier. Whenever from exhaustion, the medicine, the bite or any combination of them, she didn't know, but her thoughts began to drift as she lay there.

"Sarah?" asked Clem. "Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?"

"Huh?"

"Heaven and Hell," repeated Clem. "I remember asking my mom about it once, and she said Heaven is where good people go after they die, where you can be happy forever, and Hell is a bad place where you're punished, forever."

"I asked my dad once what happens after we die, and he told me to not think about it," said Sarah. "He told me to just be good to people and be happy with life, and whatever happens after that I can think about it then."

"So, no then?"

"I don't know, I guess not," said Sarah. "What about you? Do you believe there's a heaven and a hell?"

Clem briefly pondered Sarah's question. "I don't believe in Heaven."