The Walking Dead: Blood

Chapter 39: The Message

Chapter 39: The Message

"Let's go outside now." Clementine asked me after I picked up the blowtorch.

"What did we learn?" I asked her.

She looked down to the ground. "I'm not ready for a gun."

"No." I corrected her. "You just have to learn to pull the trigger."

"It's so hard." She complained.

"Don't think." I told her. "Just do it. Live with what happens afterward."

"I'll try." She said.

We walked out back outside. It was almost blinding. When we approached the train again I yelled out to Kenny, who was in the front seat of the train teach Omid how to drive it. "I found a blowtorch in the station. Should make quick work of the coupling up there."

"Excellent." Omid emerged from the train. "I'll come up there with you to have a look." It was difficult hauling the propane tank up the ladder, but I was able to manage it.

I walked up to the break in the wall where the oil rig had fallen over the side. The coupling was mangled to hell. There was no way I was prying that apart. That's why we needed the blowtorch. I took the torch part of the tool and quickly started cutting the metal.

"Be careful!" Omid joked. "I don't want my eyebrows burned off."

"Ha ha."

"That's crazy." Omid was easily impressed. "Look at it go!"

"Just about got it." I told him. All of a sudden, I felt his arm grab me and pull me backwards. I realized that by cutting it, the rig had rolled forward. It would have pushed me off the edge. Omid had saved my life. "Thanks. Dude."

He laughed. "Don't sweat it."

"This thing is hanging by a thread." I told him, looking at the metal I had already cut. "The smallest cut and it'll go." I handed the torch to Omid. "Here. The weak portion of the coupling's out of my reach."

He shoved it away. "You think it'll be within mine."

"No." I laughed. "But I'm gonna dangle you over that ledge."

"The hell you are!" Omid said angrily.

"You're a real son of a bi***, aren't you?!" Omid yelled a few seconds later, holding onto my arm for dear life.

"Shut up and start cutting." I told him.

Ben, who was standing on top of the train on watch looked out in the distance and raised his hand to his forehead to see off in the distance. He dropped everything and started sprinting toward the locomotive. "We gotta go!" He yelled.

I looked out there myself. I heard the groaning of walkers. I spotted a herd of hundreds, if not thousands of walkers heading this way down the train track.

"What the f***?" Omid was too busy cutting to see the herd.

"There must be thousands." I muttered to myself. "Omid! Cut, CUT!"

"I am!" He yelled. A few seconds later he exclaimed. "I did it!" I heard the crash of the oil rig that had been dangling over the edge crashing to the ground. Along the way, it totaled the ladder down to the ground. Omid and I were stranded up here.

"Kenny, go!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Christa, Clementine and Chuck all piled onto the train. I saw that the oil rig was now leaking oil all over the ground. "Sh**." Omid said. "What do we do now?"

"Hope to God this works." I said.

"What?" Omid asked as I kicked the blowtorch over the edge of the bridge. It instantly went up in flames in the gasoline pool on the ground.

We ran over to the other side of the bridge where the train was just emerging. "We gotta jump!" I told him.

"What?!" Omid panicked. "No way!"

"Fine!" I told him. "You stay here and we'll go with your lady!" I held my breath and jumped off the bridge. It hurt like crap, but I managed to maintain balance atop the box car.

"The hell you will!" Omid yelled, jumping himself. I could tell he wasn't braced correctly, because he bounced off the roof of the train and onto the ground.

"Sh**!" Christa yelled, jumping out of the train and back to her boyfriend. She reached him and helped him up. He seemed to have a broken leg.

I hopped down into the boxcar. "Run!" I yelled to them. They both approached the boxcar. I helped Omid up first.

"No!" He looked distressed. "Her, not me!" Christa tripped and fell out of sight. "CHRISTA, NO! You piece of sh**! She's a woman! Don't you know..."

As Omid said that, Christa managed to get a hold of the boxcar and pull herself up. I looked out the windows. My wall of flames hadn't worked. Before we had a herd of zombies after us. Now we had a herd of burning zombies chasing after us. "Baby..." Omid seemed relieved.

"It's okay, honey." She breathed rapidly. "I'm okay."

"That...was a lot...of them..." Omid breathed.

Clementine burst through the boxcar door. "Are you hurt?" She asked.

"No." I replied. "We're okay."

"Speak for yourself!" Omid clutched his leg in pain. "My leg is f***ed!"

"We're fine, Clementine. We're fine." Christa said calmly, standing up.

I stood up myself and made my way to the driver's room where Kenny sat. We sat there in silence for two hours, until I saw a skyscraper on the horizon. It was Savannah. I felt childlike wonder watching the sun fall behind the city. It felt like our long journey had finally drawn to a close.

I smiled over to Clementine, who was sleeping in a chair to the left of us. She looked peaceful. Right now was a happy time. I walked over to her backpack and pulled out a drawing she had made. It was a crudely drawn picture of Kenny standing hand in hand with Duck and Katjaa. I felt a wave of sadness and felt that Kenny didn't need to see this picture.

"Next stop, the Atlantic." It was the first time I'd seen Kenny happy since what happened with his family.

"We're finding Clementine's parents when we get there." I told Kenny.

"I thought they were dead."

The words sounded harsh rolling off Kenny's tongue. "Looking for them there." I restated.

"That's not the plan." He shook his head.

"Well it's ours. She and I talked it over." The wound from our fight had scabbed over and I felt like our friendship had as well.

"You'll be all right." I told him, even though Kenny had just suffered through what could quite possibly be the worst day in his life.

Kenny seemed depressed. He had great reason to be. "I'll be alive, I guess. Blood in my heart. Blood in my brain, at least."

"I'll leave you to your thoughts." I told him, walking over to Clementine. She was out cold like I had never seen.

A few seconds later a loud staticky sound was emitted from Clementine's backpack. I reached into it and pulled out her radio. She had told me it was busted. "Hello there?" Someone said from the other side. It sounded like a middle aged man.

"What the..." Kenny started, but the man spoke again and stopped him in his tracks.

"Can't wait for you to get to Savannah, Clementine." He said. "I've got your parents right here! And you be sure to find me whether Lee wants you to or not. Now, what I need-"

He hung up. "Holy...sh**..." I said slowly.

"I thought that f***in thing was broken." Kenny sighed.

"So did I..." I turned to meet Kenny's jaw-dropped face. "Who was that...? If he's convinced Clementine that he has her parents, then..."

"I don't know. But I doubt we'll be happy when we find out." Kenny for the first time, put his hand on my back. "Y'all might want to rethink your plan."