"So did you have a good day at school?" Luke asks as he walks down and takes his shoes off. Finally he thought it was safe enough to take off your shoes for more than a second.
"It was okay. I'm not very good at writing" I admit slightly embarrassed.
"I can always help Clem, plus you'll get better" he rubs me on the back and I turn and smile at him.
"This place seems good" I say. It seemed safe and I trusted it so far, if things headed south I would quickly run away with Luke back into nothingness and danger.
"I think so. I think we have a chance of survival here. Hope" we look out of the large window and stare into the darkness, the candle light danced in the reflection as it sat on the desk.
"Hope" I repeat as the light flickers. It wasn't so cold in the building as it was in the small house we were in before. Although we had blankets here and in the house the office room seemed more homely. I didn't have to worry about a walker knocking on my door at 3 in the morning or waking up without any food at all.
"So how was patrol?" I ask Luke.
"It was okay, I just got shown what to do in an emergency and how to handle a stray walker by the fence. That's all my job consists of so far, kind of boring if you ask me" he smirks a little.
"Better than school"
"Maybe so, but I'd prefer to sit around people my age than be told off by someone like Harrison who is about 10 years younger than me" he laughs again he gets up and sits on the mattress.
"You coming to bed?" Luke asks as he sits down.
"I wish we had separate beds" I say under my breath.
"Do I smell or something?" He sounded offended but in a joking way.
"Its just there would be more room, that's all. But its warmer when we're together" I admit. Sounds a bit weird to say aloud but I say it anyway.
"We do have this big duvet though." He pulls off his brown sweater to reveal his white vest underneath he sleeps in. There wasn't a lot of clothing options and we basically wore the same thing everyday. I stayed in the same clothes and climbed onto the mattress next to him.
"It'll all be fine in the end Clem, don't you worry" he tucks his arms behind his head on the pillow and stares at the ceiling. It was hard to see him in the dark so I just tried to do the same.
"Who says I'm worrying?"
"Sass Queen today are we?" He chuckles.
I jab him in the stomach with my fingers again and he squirms.
"Just go to bed clemmy cloo" he teases and turns away from me. I listen to his breath for a while before falling asleep myself.
I wake up to a banging on the door.
"CHURCH IN 30 MINUTES!" A loud voice booms through the corridor. Luke sits up as well and we look at each other for a second before both collapsing onto the pillows.
"Even though I'm sleeping more, I still want to lay in" he laughs.
"Couldn't agree with you more" I rolled over and went outside into the hall and made my way to the bathroom outside. It was basically an outhouse which some unlucky person had to clean everyday. I stepped inside and blocked out the smell, my nostrils had become accepting to unpleasant smells so smelling peoples crap wasn't the nicest thing but it wasn't the worst.
Me and Luke walk down to the main yard where church is held, it was more like a car park but I'll let them call it whatever they wanted. We all crowded around a small podium in which Turner stood behind. Anna and Jamie stood quite close to us. Anna waved at me and Luke and we both waved and smiled back. Turner cleared his throat before he spoke.
"Thank you all for being here today. It has been a struggle in these times of weakness and us holding together makes our community stronger. As Wellington continues to grow I hope the hospitality shown does as well. We have some new members joined this week, Luke Bennett and Clementine Everett" as Turner announces our names everyone gives and quiet clap and turns towards us.
"I would like to have a word with them at the end." Turner says in front of everyone, it made me swallow hard and look up at Luke with a panicked expression. Anna leant over and smiled at Luke.
"Don't worry, he does that to everyone. He just wants to see how you are" she explains reassuring us.
"We need more volunteers to go on the collectors programme as we would like some more of everything. If anyone is interested in collecting anything and everything report to the truck by the south of the site in the next hour or so. Regarding site maintenance we are working on sustaining power at this current time. We have gotten a few of the old generators working and should have them running by Christmas, we should spend Christmas day in the light" Turner explains all of the points and it excites me.
After he finishes his speech Luke puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me forward to the front where Turner was waiting for us.
"Its a bit cold out here, we can go inside" Turner gestures for us to step inside and sit in his office. I liked the idea of being out of the cold so I wasn't planning on complaining.
Me and Luke both sat in the same chairs we sat in a few days ago. Turner sat down and there wasn't any guards in the room, if this was Carver we would have guns pointed at our heads at this point.
"So are you settling in well?" Turner asks as he adjusts himself in the chair and leans his elbows on the desk in front of him.
"Just perfect sir. Thank you so much for this" Luke says we a smile.
"No problem Luke, I'm just showing the hospitality people need in times like this"
"So how long has Wellington been around?" Luke questions.
"A year or so, it got passed on like a ghost story all across the country, we have people trying to get here everyday and we try to welcome as many as we can. Some however we have had to throw out due to unseen circumstances but other than that we have a full community and we wish to build on it." Turner explains.
"Unseen circumstances?" I ask in confusion
"People not willing to obey to the rules we have built and set here. This isn't a Nazi camp, we don't kill people or make they obey tough rules but everyone must play a role here and accept that if we ever want to survive."
"I understand sir" Luke says.
"So you too look scruffy in them clothes, we can get you some new stuff if you want. Just a small variation. We also have the shower rooms if you need, it is the rivers water but its better than nothing." Turner smiles and hands me and Luke a bar of soap each.
"Thanks, y'all are all too nice" Luke laughs.
"We will rebuild the society we created, in a few years this place will reach all across Ohio. We will have houses and electricity, music and TV. Everything we had but better. That's what Wellingtons for, redemption. Now go speak to the laundry girls about clothes. We can get you some more furniture in your room to make it more homely when the collectors get back with more. That's a suggestion Luke, become a collector and grab some loot for all of us, you don't have to but its a large help, it's how we survive. Longest you'll be out is 20 days, if you're longer you're probably dead" Turner explains with his fist on the table. He laughs at his comment, Luke replies with an uneasy smile.
"Whatever y'all need I'll be here to help" Luke explains. I look at him and give him a sad look. I wasn't ready to let him go outside without me by his side, it didn't seem right. We were a team.
"Now scoot and get a shower and new clothes" Turner laughs pointing towards the door and showing us out.
We walk down the concrete stairs and end up in the courtyard and head towards the sign that said laundry.
"You don't want to become a collector do you?" I ask Luke nervously.
"We got to do what we got to do, I don't know yet Clem" Luke puts his hands in his pockets. Its weird to see him without his machete sheath on his back but he took that off when we got here, it was in our room.
When we reach the laundry room a large woman was waiting by the door.
"You two must be the newbies" the woman says.
"Yeah...I'm Luke this is Clementine" he reaches his hand out to shake it.
"Siblings?" She asks.
"I guess you could say that" Luke pats the top of my head and I smile at him.
"Well I'm Pam. I spend most of my days scrubbing blood stained clothes" she chuckles at her own comment and me and Luke give each other an uneasy smile.
"So we're looking to get some new clothes, sort of been in the same ones for a hell of a long time" Luke laughs as he shows Pam his tatty brown sweater. She gives him a disgusted look.
"Honey that is gross, come inside and I'll see what we have. We have plenty." We all enter the small wooden shed to be presented shelf's of clothing, some have names attached.
"So we have all of these clothes, we tag them with your name and you just give them to me and Ruth to clean. But we also have unowned clothes which are all in these drawers" she points to a large chest of drawers and me and Luke walk over to it.
"So what do we take?" Luke asks with his hands on the drawer.
"Take a T-shirt or two, pants and underwear. Whatever you need. If you take a shower you can get dressed in the new clothes and bring us your old ones to wash" she gives us a warm smile and me and Luke begin to hunt through the drawers of clothes.
We both get out of the individual cubicles of the wooden shower and we were both wearing our new clothes. I laughed as Luke came out in baggy jeans a white long sleeve t-shirts with a normal T-shirt over the top.
"You look like...Nick" I say by accident.
"Yeah, well....is that a good thing?" He rubs the back of his neck nervously, making himself look more like Nick than it should of.
"Nick won't like you taking his style" I laugh
"Well, he'll just have to deal with it" Luke smiled at the sky and looked at me who was wearing some sort of jeans and a hoodie with a smiley face on the front.
"Cool Nirvana" Luke laughs as he points to my jumper.
"Nirvana?" I look confused as I see the smiley face on my jumper.
"Its a band, Kurt Cobain? Dave Grohl?"
I look at him blankly having no idea what he was talking about.
"Did you even listen to music before all of this? And Avril Lavigne doesn't count" he smiles, trying not to laugh.
I look at him embarrassed and Luke keels over with laughter.