"Think we'll find anything interesting in here?" I asked Lee, raising my gun quickly as we stepped inside and I instantly regretted it. Groaning, I lowered my arm and held a hand over my shoulder which had already started bleeding again. Hershel had stitched me up but there were still gaps in the skin.
"Are you alright?" Lee asked wearily and I watched his hand twitch towards his gun.
"Whoa, whoa, I'm not turning... yet. But if I make a move towards it, you put me down here and now, okay?" I gave him a stern look and he grudgingly agreed.
"I'll check downstairs, you look upstairs. Call if you see anything." I wanted to object that he was telling me to do something, but I knew he was in a better position to do so, so I stalked up the stairs, holding my gun in my left hand so as not to aggravate the wound on my right shoulder.
I walked slowly and sneakily and kicked open each door upstairs -one bedroom and a bathroom so far. I came to the last door and kicked it open but there was nothing inside. I was suddenly transfixed by the layout of the room.
The top half of the walls were light purple and the bottom half were dark purple and where the two colours met, there was a strip of ribbon-decorated wallpaper. All the furniture was light ash colour and clothes were strewn over the blue-carpeted floor.
The thing that had me so completely hypnotised by the small bedroom was how much it reminded me of my old one. I had had it re-painted when I'd turned fifteen, but it used to look just like this. I replaced my glock in its holster and ran my hand over the books that filled the room's bookshelf.
There were dozens of them: everything from Twilight to Cirque Du Freak. There was a picture frame on top and I looked at it and saw a pretty, brunette girl, about eleven or twelve, smiling, probably at the beach. I quickly set the frame down, not wanting to imagine who this girl used to be.
There was a laptop on the bed, an A3 sketch pad and a book labelled 'The Complete Book of Drawing Manga' next to it. I ran my hands over each and paused for a moment to open up the sketchpad for a better look.
The first few drawings consisted of Japanese anime-style people and animals -very good if this girl had been how old I thought she was - but as I flipped past a picture of a girl dancing with a guy, I was mortified to see the page spattered with blood. It had dried but it wasn't when the book had been closed because it coated the page above it too.
I quickly turned the page and the next page was spattered as well, except there was a pair of glowing, red eyes in the centre. Filling the next page was an in-colour drawing of a girl cowering in the corner with a soldier towering over her -judging by the hair colour, it was the same girl as the photo as well - it wasn't nearly to the standard of the one before it, but it looked like it'd been drawn by a six-year-old, the next was the same girl leaping on the soldier and holding up his beating heart in triumph, in furiously rushed and messy writing on the right half of the page it read 'I know he killed mummy, he had to die'.
The next few were the almost same except the girl that was featured in each, got more and more terrifying as they progressed.
In each picture there was blood -more and more blood!
I threw the sketchbook across the room as if it was on fire and it hit the wall, lose papers coming out upon impact and floating down around the bedroom. I covered my face with my hands and fled the room, and came down the stairs, banging into Lee on the way.
His face was grave, but he looked at me with concern and steadied me. "What's wrong?"
I shook my head and wiped my tearful eyes before trying to go past him into the kitchen.
"Whoa, you don't wanna go in there." I gave him a questioning look and pushed past him anyway to get a look. I covered my mouth with my hands when I saw what lay on the floor, unmoving.
In a pool of blood was the girl from the drawings... the girl from the photo.
There was a huge hole in her chest where a bullet had entered and exited, a gun laid a few metres from her cold, dead fingers. As I approached and inspected her head, another hole was through her skull, into the left side, out the right, the blood wasn't coming from her chest, but from her head. She'd killed herself, but hadn't known enough that she knew she'd come back. Someone must have already looted the place and killed her in walker-form.
I gagged and turned away.
I don't want that to be me, my thoughts screamed in my head as I leant on the kitchen wall for support. I don't want my body and face to be mangled beyond recognition. I don't want somebody to have to find me and go through what I am going through. I will not let this happen.
I will survive.
"Clementine?" a panicked voice suddenly rang out and I looked up sharply to see Lee outside, looking around frantically. "Clementine, where are you?" he called and I immediately ran out of the house to his side.
"What? What's wrong?" but I needn't have asked. As I too gazed around, I saw no Robin, nor Clem. I covered my face for what felt like the third time that day. "Robin! Get over here now! Where are you?" My breathing became erratic and I rushed onto the road and craned my neck around like an owl, trying to catch a glimpse of her.
"Where are they?" Lee looked distraught and I knew my expression mirrored his.
"Robin and I... w-we had a fight before I went in there." My bottom lip wobbled. "She might've run off again. Oh god, oh god, oh god! The last time she ran off she got taken by cannibals, oh my god, Lee we have to find 'er!"
"Clementine must have followed her!" he raked a hand through his close-cropped hair and took in a deep, shaky breath. "You run back to the house, I'll search around here. Get everybody, we have to find them."
I nodded frantically and started to sprint to the house.
Forget about surviving myself, I have to keep Robin alive. For her. For me. For her baby.
