Three Orphan Pilgrimage (The Alternative to TWDG's Final Season) [Walking Dead]

7. A Single Step

Clementine pushed the door open and shook her sports bottle full of loose change like a rattle. Listening carefully, Clem heard a distant moaning, followed by something shuffling towards her position. She secured the bottle, quickly removed her tomahawk from her shoulder and pulled the sheath off the weapon's head. A walker stumbled past the threshold, but Clem was ready for it. Unable to locate the girl because of her gore-stained raincoat, Clem neatly sidestepped the walker and swung her tomahawk into its ankle, slicing its rotted tendons and causing it to fall onto its side. Quickly flipping the tomahawk around in her hands, Clem drove the knife end down into the corpse's skull, killing it with relative ease.

Clem pulled her tomahawk back, only to find it stuck in the walker's head. She tugged on it a few times, but it wouldn't budge. She put her foot on the walker's head then gripped her tomahawk with both hands. A quick and violent jerk managed to dislodge the blade and a generous portion of the walker's skull.

Clem shook off some of the blood, then replaced the sheath on her weapon before hoisting it back onto her shoulder. She then removed her sports bottle and rattled it again. Receiving no response this time, Clem stuffed the cotton back into the bottle and clipped the simple device onto her belt.

Moving into the next room, it became apparent all Clem's work seemed to be for naught as this dilapidated gas station had almost nothing to offer her, much like most places she had checked recently. She had hoped to maybe find some goods whoever had looted the front had overlooked. And she had, but it was mostly things she would have overlooked herself if she hadn't found so little elsewhere.

A few bottles of soda and water scattered around the cold case, a box of packets of powdered flavor to mix with water, a can of mixed nuts that had rolled behind a shelf, lots of gum, and a few travel-size boxes of cereal. A disappointing bounty to say the least. Clementine carefully packed the items into her backpack and headed for the exit, moving through the now empty back room, past the cleared out shelves, and through the glass doors.

Stepping outside, the girl eyed her surroundings carefully as she moved past the gas pumps, looking carefully for any threats lurking nearby. Her entire morning routine had been uneventful besides a few stray walkers, but moving back out into the open always gave her reason to pause. Stepping onto the highway, the girl took a breath of the cool air and started walking.

It was still early, which did give Clem some hope she'd find more today, but the walk back to the Brave wounded that faint hope. Traveling on the rural highway, she passed a flea market, a dentist's office, a few churches, and a funeral home, which Clem didn't even want to think about approaching. It was an odd stretch of road, to say the least. After a bit of walking, Clementine spotted a familiar RV parked next to a different gas station, prompting the girl to reach for her radio.

"Sarah?" said Clem. "Are you there?"

"I'm in the Brave," answered Sarah. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm almost back. Can you see me?

"Yes." Clem saw Sarah staring through the Brave's windshield.

"I'll be right there." Clem clipped her radio back to her belt and picked up the pace. She rushed up to the front door which sprung open. Clem hurried inside and Sarah locked the door behind her.

"Here, I'll take your coat." Clem maneuvered her arms free as Sarah removed the bloody raincoat. Sarah carefully folded the coat while Clem pulled off her ski mask. She hated wearing it, mostly because of how hot it was, but ever since they applied a fresh coat of walker gore to their raincoats as a precaution, the smell proved worse than the heat. Sarah carefully packed the coat into the fridge, which while useless for keeping things cold without the use of the generator, was great at keeping toxic odors locked inside.