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

77. Force

Clementine awoke to a couple of dull thuds in the distance. Sitting up, she could see it was morning now but wasn't sure if it was really early or just cloudy out. There were another couple of thuds which she almost thought were thunder. She could see through the window it was raining, but a couple of louder thuds sounded without a hint of lightning as she stared out at the gentle summer shower. Clem was about to get out of bed when there was another thud followed by a violent cracking as the bedroom door was knocked off its hinges.

"Finally," said Corporal Cruz as she raised her rifle. "I finally found you."

"No!" There a deafening bang and then nothing as Clem felt herself clawing helplessly at the suffocating darkness.

"Clementine!" Hearing her name called, Clem stopped panicking long enough to realize what she had been clawing at was just a blanket. Pulling it off, she found their dimly lit bedroom as it should be and Sarah sitting in bed beside her. "Are you okay?" asked Sarah, her sleepy face racked with concern. "What's wrong?"

Instead of answering, Clem hurried to the bedroom door. It was still on its hinges, and peeking out into the hall she didn't any signs of an intruder. With panic coursing through her veins, Clem pushed the door shut, locked it, the hurried back into bed and immediately wrapped her arms around Sarah. Even with Sarah returning the embrace, Clem couldn't quite stop herself from crying onto her friend's shoulder.

"What's wrong?" asked Sarah as she ran her hand up and down Clem's back.

"I... I... had a really bad dream," Clem blurted out between sobs.

"About what?" asked Sarah, sounding unsettled herself. "About that... person, we found?"

Clem paused as she thought about how to answer Sarah. "Yes," she said. "I'm... I'm really worried about what's going to happen."

"Me too."

The pair remained in each's other arms as the sound of a light rain gradually eased Clementine's frayed nerves. Neither girl felt like going back to bed, so instead they got dressed and prepared to do their morning routines. First they checked on Omid, who Clem was happy to see was still sound asleep. Whereas the rest of group had been nervous, he had remained blissfully unaware of the implications of the intruder they had taken captive; Clem only hoped it would stay that way.

As Omid didn't need tending to at the moment, Sarah led Clem out of his bedroom and onto their next task; checking slug traps. It actually felt strange putting on a raincoat not covered in dried blood for once, but it felt even stranger looking at a bowl covered in fat little lumps of slimy flesh. Much to Clem's surprise, and horror, Sarah said there were usually a lot more slugs when it rained.

Clem felt a chill running up her spine just watching Sarah touch the bowl, even with gloves on. The black and green lumps seemed completely unaware of their fate as Sarah brought them back to the porch and dumped them into a bucket filled with soapy water. Having to pry the last few stuck to the bowl and toss them in, Clem could tell Sarah hated doing this. But not because she hated touching the slugs; she hated killing them.

But kill them they did as Clem helped, much to her repulsion, to clean out the traps and drown the slugs in a bubbly grave. Moving across the center of the field, Clem heard Buster, their scarecrow, start moaning at her. Looking at him, she noticed its new taped stumps where its shins used to be. Anthony had cut them off yesterday after he said Buster lunged at him, and he wasn't waiting for the collar to snap before taking action.

Listening to the Buster's snarling, Clem found herself having second thoughts about using a walker to keep crows away. Birds were avoiding all but the edges of the pasture now, and Clem didn't blame them as watering the field yesterday meant having to endure the constant moaning of their scarecrow as it struggled in vain endlessly against its chain. Seeing the indomitable corpse crawl forward on its stumps as best it could, Clem just did her best to ignore it.