My big brother Luke (The Walking Dead Game)

13 - Return

A few days later I just finished school, I came out the building and heard a large rumble. I looked by the gates and they began to open. A few large trucks rolled in making a large amount of noise. It was the collectors.

I ran over to the trucks as fast as I could looking around for Luke. There was three of them and they all parked up with their backs facing towards me. I frantically looked around for him as some men opened up the back of the large trucks. Various items where in the back of the truck such as furniture and piles of clothes.

I wait anxiously by the sidelines as people begin to unload the trucks. I continue to scan the area for Luke. I couldn't see him at all and I begin to panic.

"Oh God" I mutter under my breath now panicking.

I couldn't see Jamie or Anna anywhere either. I walked up to one of the men with a checklist.

"Is there anymore trucks coming back?" I ask him.

"No kid, this is it" He says and returns to his clipboard.

Luke had left me. I knew this would happen. I could feel the tears building up in my eyes. I turned around and began to head back to the room. As I walked I looked back one last time at the trucks and I saw a ginger figure.

I spun myself around. It was Jamie. I froze and looked around for Luke again, it was promising. Then from in between two of the trucks Luke came out holding Anna's hand. I ignored that and ran straight towards him.

"Luke!" I scream. It takes him by surprise and his head shoots up as he sees me running towards him.

I practically attack Luke as I wrap my arms around him. I was extremely happy to see him in one piece.

"So you missed me then?" He laughs and gives me a hug back.

"I thought you'd left me" I admit.

"Now why would I do a silly thing like that?" He smiles and pulls me in for another hug.

"It was okay, wasn't any problems" Anna explains. I still hadn't ignored the fact that she was just holding Luke's hand but I pushed it to the side for the moment.

"That's good" I smile and put my hands back into my black hoodie pockets.

"I promised I'd get you something, so I did" he reaches into a tatty rucksack that had been provided and pulls out a large book. It had a tiger on the front.

"Its a factual book, about animals of the world." Luke explains as he points to the book. I opened up the pages to reveal short paragraphs and hundreds of pictures of different animals.

"Its really cool, thanks Luke" I say with excitement.

After Luke helped the rest of the collectors unload the trucks for sorting tomorrow we headed up to the room for night. We ate a can of food each and drank a soda from our original bags.

I sat by the window in the candlelight and flicked through the book of animals. The writing was too complex to me and I was only able to pick out certain words. I just looked at the animals and Luke was in the background studying his machete.

"What's that called?" I ask pointing to a picture in the book.

"That is a Ocelot" he says reading off of the top of the book.

"Looks like a cat"

"Well it is, I guess" he says.

"So a bit like a tiger? That's a cat, right?" I ask him.

"I think so" Luke wasn't really interested in the conversation and just continued to pick bits of dirt off of his machete in the darkness.

I wanted to start a conversation but there wasn't very much to talk about so we sat in silent for a few minutes before I started asking him questions.

"So was there many walkers?" I question him.

"The walkers are slow since its cold. Not much of a challenge if you ask me. Lurker jumped Anna and I had to put a machete through its head before it got to her." He explains sitting up on the bed.

"You like Anna, don't you" I blurt out in the open air. The room goes cold and Luke stays silent for a minute until he finally replies.

"She's a pretty girl" he smiles.

"She seems nice" I admit.

"There's not a lot of options anymore, but I don't mind. She's a good person" Luke explains.

"I think Lee liked Carley" I say drifting off into my own mind.

"What?" Luke questions, I realised I thought aloud.

"Oh, Lee. I think he liked another woman in my old group. He name was Carley. I saw her kiss him on a balcony" I smile thinking about some of the good things in this crazy world.

"That's nice, what happened?" He asks giving me a small smile.

"Carley got shot by some psycho for no reason so we left her behind and drove off" I explain.

"I would of done the same. She doesn't sound like a reasonable person."

"You a Lee would get along" I laugh, thinking about Lee's personality, it somehow matched Luke's more than I thought.

"Would we now?"

"You're pretty similar" I laughed

"How so?"

"You both love history and you both want to protect me. There's other reasons too but I can't think of them right now" I admit.

"Lee sounds cool." Luke lays on the mattress and shuts his eyes.

"He was cool" I lay down beside him.

I pull off my hoodie and crawl under the warm duvet. My feet accidently knock against his leg when I get under. It made me feel awkward but I had no idea why, he was practically a brother to me.

"So what was being a collector like?" I tuck my hands under my pillow and face him as I ask.

"It was scary at first I can admit that. We went to a old block of houses. I was expecting to find survivors but there was nobody. They had me siphoning gas from the cars, I tasted way too much petrol that day. We slept in the back of the trucks and had patrol shifts. The next day I helped load furniture into the trucks. We collected three couches and an armchair all in good condition." He explains to me turning on the pillow to face me.

"I should come next time"

"I don't know about that. I doubt Turner would let anyone under 16 leave the walls"

"I don't want to be stuck in these walls forever" I sulk

"Sometimes Clem, we don't have a choice"

He gives me a crooked smile.

"Well we best be getting to bed smelly" he flicks the top of my hat and I give him a glare before taking it off and putting it to the side.

"I don't smell" I protest.

"We all smell"

"Yeah and you smell worst" I giggle

"Go to bed" he laughs.

It was good to have a sense of being a child every now and then. It was something I had lost a long time ago.