Young and Young at Heart (The Rewrite of The Walking Dead Game: S2) [TWDG/TWD]

64. The Herd

Clementine struggled to move upstream against the dozens upon dozens of walkers flocking right to Shaffer's walls. She ducked and weaved past one after another, finding herself only making minuscule progress as she had to keep changing directions to avoid running into the walkers. Ducking away from one walker she found herself slamming into another one's legs, causing it to fall forward right on top of her.

Clem felt her heart in her throat as she found herself pinned under the walker's body. She closed her eyes and waited for the end, but the walker merely started crawling forward, eventually pulling itself off the small girl. Rolling onto all fours, Clem started crawling herself, trying to navigate out of the path of the dead. Seeing an opening, Clem darted past a few walkers and out of their path of travel.

She stood up and took a few more steps away, looking at the army of dead slamming against Shaffer's walls. Looking towards the gate, the entire loading area was now overflowing with walkers. They didn't seem to be making any progress, at least not yet, but more walkers kept crashing into the ones already pushing on the gates.

As Clem moved further away from Shaffer's, she felt a horrible scratching sensation in her throat. She covered her mouth to cough, but forgot about the gore on her hands. The horrid stench caused Clementine to gag, causing her to cough a few times before throwing up onto the grass. Clem fell to her knees and felt another sick feeling come over her. She tried to suppress the urge, but it was useless. The putrid scent of her own vomit and horrid acidic taste in her mouth was too much, causing the small girl to throw up again

Looking up, Clem panicked as she saw a trio of walkers stumbling towards her just a few feet away. She sprung to her feet and ran, turning back to them once she had a distance. Clementine aimed her gun at the walkers, but noticed they weren't following her. They moved past the puddle of vomit and stopped, clueless to what happened to the noise they were chasing.

Taking a breath, Clementine started moving again, following the trail of wayward walkers towards the highway. As she moved, Clem looked around for any signs of the others. As much as she wanted to, Clem did not dare call to them for fear of attracting more walkers. But she found herself more and more worried as she saw no sign of anyone, and then felt hopeless as she saw the highway.

All the dozens upon dozens of walkers streaming towards Shaffer's paled in comparison to the hundreds shuffling across the highway in a disorderly fashion. Looking left Clementine saw a never-ending stream of more oncoming dead, and turning to her right she saw the same moving away from her. As Clementine prepared to slip into the stream of traffic, she noticed a light coming from the wooded area to her left.

Moving away from the highway, Clementine went after the odd light. She didn't see it a minute ago, but it was impossible to ignore now. It didn't look like a fire, but it was bright, whatever it was. Moving past a tree, Clementine found the source. It was Sarah sitting on the ground, her knees pulled her to her chest, her hands covering her mouth, and a lit lantern clipped to her waist.

"Sarah." The older girl turned to Clem and suddenly looked relieved.

"Clementine." Sarah took her hands away from her mouth and hugged Clementine, who tried to return the hug, but found the smell of being so close to Sarah's gore-stained jacket too much to bear. Clem pushed Sarah away before she gagged again.

"I'm sorry," apologized Clem. "But the smell makes me sick."

"I... I don't know where anyone is," informed a frightened Sarah.

"I don't either," spoke an uneasy Clementine.

"What... what do we do?" whispered an anxious Sarah.