A Shred of Hope (The Walking Dead) (The Final Season Retelling)

4. Fortuitous Alliances

Clementine stiffened. She had hoped that these people wouldn't enter the building, but now that they had, a confrontation seemed inevitable. She decided to stay hidden in the storeroom until it was absolutely necessary for AJ and her to show themselves.

She glanced at him. He looked back at her, hand on his gun, ready to pull it out at a moment's notice.

"Yeah, way too close," she heard a male voice.

"I told you, we should've stuck to the path we decided with Marlon. Why the fuck did you have to run off?" the female asked, irritation clear in her voice.

"Because it didn't look promising. Besides, if we'd gotten that car outside, it would've made things a hell of a lot easier, don't you think?"

"For fuck's sake, Louis. When will you grow up? We could've gotten killed!"

"Chill out, Vi. We're still alive, aren't we?" the male called Louis said.

"Yeah. Barely," the female scoffed, who Clementine assumed to be Vi. "Don't ever try that again."

"Alright, I promise. I won't do that again," Louis apologised.

There was silence for a few seconds as Clementine heard footsteps move across the room.

"There's still quite a few of them out there," Vi said. "Don't think we can get out right now."

"Let's wait here for a while. They'll thin out soon," Louis proposed. "Hopefully," he added.

"Doesn't look like we have a choice anyway. It'll get dark soon enough though." There was another silence. "Wait, whose bags are those?" Another silence. "And there's a dead walker there."

Clementine's heart skipped a beat. They'd completely forgotten about their bags on the bench and the walker corpse. They didn't have much time before they were discovered.

She looked at AJ as she pulled out her gun. "Don't come out until I tell you to," she whispered. She quickly opened the door, pointing the gun at the intruders as she stepped into the waiting room.

"What the fuck?" Vi said, shocked to see a gun pointed at them.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Don't shoot! We're not here to hurt you!" Louis raised his hands in front of him defensively.

Clementine didn't respond, keeping the gun trained on them. She wasn't about to take chances with people she didn't know. Both of them looked near about her age and carried backpacks. Vi had blonde hair, ending slightly above her shoulders. She wore a denim sleeveless jacket with a black full sleeves t-shirt under her light green t-shirt and grey jeans that looked as if she had fallen one too many times. Her boots were caked with mud. She held a bloody hatchet in one hand.

Louis, on the other hand, wore an olive-green t-shirt and a brown trench coat. His jeans, too, were torn in several places. His brown boots were neatly tucked under the ends of his jeans. His dark brown hair was styled into dreads, nearly the same length as his friend. He held, what looked like, a long wooden rod with nails embedded into it.

"Listen, we'd leave if we could, but there's just too many of them outside," Louis continued.

Clementine had heard the walkers outside, and judging from their conversation, it was possible that they had entered the building to escape from the walkers. Still, she wasn't going to trust them without them taking the first step.

"Put down your weapons first," she instructed.

Louis knelt, putting down his weapon and stood up. "There you go."

"You too," Clementine told Vi.

The girl grit her teeth before thinking better of it. She placed her hatchet down on the floor. "Fine. Better?"