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

59. Firestorm

Clementine tensed up as she heard another loud rumble off in the distance. It had been the third time this afternoon and she still found it unsettling. Dim clouds canvassed the entire sky, but it still looked too early to rain, but the sounds of thunder far off in the distance suggested that would change soon. It was a little warmer today, but not much, and the constant bursts of cool wind kept causing the girl to shiver as she tried to keep watch from on top of the Brave.

The overpass they were parked on kept them out of reach of most walkers, and the thunder in the distance seemed to be drawing what few there were left further away. Using the telescope to scan the nearby area, she saw a few walkers moving south through the heart of yet another small and abandoned town off the interstate. Other walkers, possibly too rotted to hear far off noises anymore, remained in place, simply waiting for a victim.

The dead had been growing more common as they had moved west across the region, yet food and supplies were as scarce as ever. Even though they were few and far, Clem couldn't help feeling nervous at just the sight of the walkers below her, and found herself worrying about the ones she couldn't see. Even with her raincoat on, the presence of the dead was unnerving for the girl, a constant reminder that death was always only a single mistake away.

"Patty? Anthony?" said Sarah into her radio. "Are you two okay?"

Clem looked over at the older girl, who was sitting next to her on top of the RV, her atlas spread out on her lap.

"We're fine Sarah," assured Patty over the radio. "We just arrived. The map may say this is an airport, but really it's just a single runway. I have my doubts you could land one plane here, let alone five."

"Really?" asked a disappointed Sarah. "Dammit..." Sarah crossed out a town on her atlas. Peeking down at the map, Clem herself felt discouraged by the series of black marks that spanned the entire state of Louisiana.

"I don't know why we're still bothering with these tiny podunk towns," said Anthony. "As if salvation is gonna be in bumfuck Louisiana."

"Actually this town is in Texas," informed Sarah as she started flipping through the pages of her atlas. "We crossed the border when we crossed that river a few miles before we got here, we're in Orange, Texas."

"God, I really hope the answer to my prayers isn't in Texas," said Patty. "That's the kind of thing that would give me an existential crisis."

"Well if it is, it's not here in goddamn 'Orange' Texas and its shitty one runway airport," grumbled Anthony. "What kind of idiot names a town Orange? And then what kind of idiots waste time thinking they'll find jack shit in a town called Orange? We should just go to Houston already, that's the next big town west of here."

"It's because it's the next big town we're checking the stuff along the way," said Sarah. "We might find out something about Houston if we check these towns around it first."

"We just went into New Orleans, and that worked out." Clem cringed upon hearing that. Looking at Sarah, she seemed bothered by that comment as well. An awkward silence lingered for few seconds before they heard a voice on the radio again.

"And besides," Patty said. "Houston is a lot bigger than New Orleans."

"How big could it be?" asked Anthony.

"New Orleans has—or had—about three-hundred thousand people in it according to to the atlas," informed Sarah. "There were over two million in Houston."

Another few seconds of silence followed. "Okay, that's pretty big," admitted Anthony.

"It's bigger than anywhere any of us have been since shit fell apart," said Patty. "Even Miami only had about a fifth as many people as Houston, and shit wasn't exactly great there either. And it's over twice the size of Jacksonville, Florida, which the girls told me was so tore up they couldn't even get into it."