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“God, I’m tired of this shit.” Clementine glared at Sarah’s comment and loaded her gun. They had managed to get away from the hoard of walkers that had been chasing them, and now they had ran into a group of men who weren’t exactly friendly.
The men had tried to take their supplies and their lives but the two girls managed to get away thanks to Sarah’s skill when it came to knife throwing and hand to hand combat.
“Yeah, well maybe next time we could have just run away, instead of killing one of their men.” That perfectly reasonable argument earned a chuckle from the older girl.
“I was growing tired of their pathetic taunts. Calm down.”
“Calm down?! We are getting chased by two delusional men who have just lost like, ten men from their group!”
Sarah smirked and looked below at the forest floor. After becoming aware of the fact they were both being stalked by the two men they had lost, Clem and Sarah immediately took to higher ground, which turned out to be a tree.
Clementine groaned and murmured, “I really hate it when you get all psychopathic like this.”
“Don’t you all.”
Clementine stood on the sturdy oak branch and looked across at the bed of the woodland. The tall fern and the similar colours made it difficult to see anything other than leaves and branches, but she had a sharp eye, sharper than Sarah’s, and that’s why she was given the sniper and crossbow.
“Give me the crossbow Sarah. I don’t want to draw any more attention to ourselves today.”
Without saying anything, Sarah unhooked the weapon from her rucksack and handed it over to Clem.
A couple of hours passed, before Clemmy had spotted any movement. She had begun to wonder if they had lost the two rogues. Sarah had fallen asleep after some well-deserved food and an argument about where to go after the two men had been dealt with. As always, Clemmy had overruled the small fight with logic and common sense.
For a while now, the younger girl had been hoping to expand the duo into a solid group, but every time she brought up the idea, Sarah would give her a cold stare that would send shivers down anyone’s spine, and simply say ‘no’. She never gave a reason for it, but Clemmy wasn’t stupid and it wasn’t exactly hard to guess. The last time they had a group, had people they cared about, they were torn to pieces. Sarah’s father was part of the walker’s buffet. Clementine thought it would be a long time before Sarah would want to be part of a group again. Maybe they would never been in a group again.
Is that such a bad thing?
Clemmy often debated that with herself. She tore her eyes away from the placid scene of the forest night, and let her gaze settle on her sleeping companion, which was an equally peaceful thing to watch. It was moments like these that make people forget that the world has gone to shit. It reminds people that maybe there is hope for a dream like future that will allow man kind to forget the nightmarish past, of the apocalypse. While Clementine dwells on these fantasies, she almost doesn’t hear the faint rustles coming from the forest floor. She swiftly turns her head back to her appointed task. It doesn’t take long for her to spot the two men from earlier that day. Equally, it doesn’t take long for her to dispose of them. Two arrows, two men, two heads, two threats eliminated.
Threats. She tells herself.
Not humans.
Always just threats.
Clementine takes a closer look at the men and frowns when she spots gas masks attached to their bags. Why would anyone need gas masks? She lists different reasons why someone would, but this isn’t helping her stay alert, so thinks about other unimportant, trivial things. She keeps herself awake until Sarah wakes herself up, and swaps shifts.
“They’re dead.” Sarah simply nods in acknowledgement, and then turns her attention to the space surrounding them. Clem almost doesn’t want to close her eyes. She doesn’t want to relive all the nightmares again, but despite her minds protests, her body objects, her eyes close and she drifts off into a dreamless sleep.
~~~~
“How long have we been walking?” Sarah looks up at the clear blue sky and shrugs.
“About two hours.” Clementine groans.
“Let’s find water. I want to wash.” Sarah nods and jogs off ahead to scout for a lake, river, whatever they could find.
Clementine cuts left and begins to look for a water source too. She frowns when coming across a large patch of moss. She kneels down and plucks some out of the ground. It was moist.
“There must be water around here somewhere…” She stands and looks to the trees around her. Clem picks out the most climbable one and begins to ascend it. After she was at a reasonable height she looks out across the direction the moss seemed to be coming from. Sure enough she spotted a lake. Grinning like a fool she whistled to Sarah, sounding like any ordinary bird and climbs back down the tree heading for the lake. When she gets there, she scouts the area around it. Clemmy comes across a sandy coloured horse. The horse was carrying weapons and bags filled to the brim with supplies. She frowns, not remembering seeing anyone while circling the lake. The horse wasn’t tied up, so perhaps it just ran away, or maybe it was lost. Clemmy takes another look around then shrugs. She walks down the water’s edge, removing her hat and her shirt. She is about to remove the rest of her clothing when she hears someone wolf whistle in front of her. Without really thinking she reaches for her gun and faces the unknown whistler.
“Whoa! Whoa! Don’t shoot, Jesus!” The girl, holds up her hands in defence and Clemmy blushes furiously as she notices the girl is warring nothing. Turning round she hastily puts her shirt back on.
“Will you put something on please?”
“Well, excuse me. I was just washing myself, and you come and very rudely interrupt.”
“Just put something on goddammit!”
Clemmy was, at this point, embarrassed, angry and so damn curious. She hears the woman mutter something under her breath as she gets out the water.
“Are you decent yet?”
“Yes Mother Mary, I am. And here. I think you dropped something.” Clemmy turns round and gasps. She snatches her hat out of the strangers hand and places it back on her head.
“Who are you?” Clem raises her gun again, and as she does the other girl does too.
Oh great. A shoot out.
The stranger looked a little older than herself. She had, brown hair, possibly black. It was hard to tell as she had just come out of the water and her hair was wet. She had pale skin, big brown eyes that were now sparkling with a hint of mischief, and her face was decorated with faint freckles. She was quite alluring in appearance. The stranger was taller than Clementine, but not as tall as Sarah.
“I am a girl holding a gun at your head, that doesn’t even want to be. I’m sorry if I startled you, but you do have a nice-“
“Don’t finish that sentence. I beg you.” Clemmy lowered her gun and sighed, her cheeks still, embarrassingly red.
“My name is Clementine. I was just looking for somewhere to wash. I didn’t realise you were here.”
The girl had lowered her gun and raised an eyebrow at Clem. She looked to her horse and bags, then back to Clementine as if to say, ‘Really?’
“I’m serious!” Despite the situation Clemmy laughed at herself. Maybe it had been a little stupid.
“Well, Clem. My name is Ellie and it is a pleasure to meet you. Even under the circumstances.”
“Clementine. Unless you’re a friend.”
“Aren’t we friends?”
“No. You could be an axe murderer.”
“Oh how cliché!” That made them both laugh, and it was their laughing which alerted the attention of Sarah. She walked into the area, her dagger in hand and a bewildered look on her face.
“Clementine, who is this?”
Ellie slowly raised her gun, a little wary of this aggressive looking woman with the dagger.
“Sarah meet Ellie, Ellie meet Sarah. Please put down your weapons guys.”
Ellie gave a small sideways glance at Clemmy then obliged. Sarah, on the other hand, kept her eyes on Ellie for a few more minutes before she too, put down her weapon.
“So… This is awkward…” The new girl chuckled nervously and scratched the back of her head awkwardly.
“I think I’ll go put on a jumper or something…” After Ellie had wandered back to her horse, Sarah marched over to the younger girl and scowled darkly.
“You wanna explain to me what’s going on?” Clementine winced. If there was one thing worse than Sarah yelling at someone, it was Sarah not yelling at someone. She had this terrifying demeanour when she was really infuriated, and this is what Clementine was getting right now.
“I sort of just came across her. She’s on her own!” Clementine slammed a hand over her mouth after realising she had just shouted. They both looked at Ellie, who was either completely oblivious to their conversation, or was being polite.
“Listen, we have to get rid of her. She isn’t coming with us Clementine. No discussion.” Clem frowned and shook her head. She wasn’t going to argue with Sarah, but she was quite disappointed. She liked the girl. She was humorous, and it had been a while since she last laughed. She looked over at Ellie and sighed.
“I don’t like it. She’s on her own Sarah.”
“Well, she has made it this far.”
Clementine sighed again; she walked over to Ellie and offered a small smile. Sarah had followed her, doubting Clem would actually go through with this.
“Hey, Ellie… Uh, Sarah and I are going to head off now.” Clementine did well to hide the grimace that came from the reaction on Ellie’s face on hearing the news.
“Sorry for disrupting you… Earlier.” Ellie smirked and shrugged, mounting her horse.
“It’s fine. I hope it happens again sometime.” Clemmy blushed and hid her face.
“Yeah, whatever axe murderer.” They both giggled softly, which gained a raised eyebrow from Sarah.
“Clementine, let’s go-“Clemmy looked up at Sarah when she heard the sharp intake of breath come from her mouth.
“What the fuck, is that?” Ellie and Clementine followed Sarah’s pointed finger. Where Clementine gasped, Ellie cursed.
The brunette got off her horse and suddenly, this witty, cocky persona transformed into the deadly, cunning predator. She readied her bow and arrow and aimed.
“Stay down, and keep quiet. They can’t see you, but they sure as hell can hear you.”
Without question the two survivors crouched down and watched as Ellie advanced forward, away from the water, and towards, the creature. The girl released the arrow, and away it went, slicing through the air then through the things head. It dropped to the ground, and as it did, the three girls heard a screech. Then another. Ellie fired another arrow and started to make her way back to Clemmy and Sarah.
“There are five clickers. No runners that I can see, but we best get back to my base. Unless you two feel like getting eaten, hm?” Her voice was but a mere whisper, but she spoke with experience and higher authority so they both listened.
“Wait, what the hell are those things? And what is a runner?” Clemmy stared at the girl with the bow and waited for an answer. She got a confused look from Ellie.
“Where the fuck have you two been living for the past eighteen years?” Before they had a chance to answer that Ellie stood, two daggers in her hands. Sarah and Clemmy backed up and watched in utter awe as Ellie disposed of three of those creatures in about fifteen seconds.
“With me! NOW!” Sarah got to her feet, dragging an impressed Clementine with her.
Ellie, with a calm grace hopped onto her horse.
“Get on.” Sarah got on the back of the horse but Clem stayed on the ground.
“I’ll keep up, if you keep her at a steady gallop.”
Clementine was one of the fastest runners Sarah had seen. She used to out run the older members of their old group, and then, she was only eleven.
Ellie looked to Sarah for confirmation and she nodded with a smirk.
“I’ve seen this girl keep up with a pack of wolves. Let’s go.”
That was all the confirmation Ellie needed and with a firm nod they began to race towards Ellie’s fort, not knowing what to expect of it.