Chapter 1: Return

(Late Summer, Pacific Northwest)

"Ah! Fuck!" Amanda hissed, wrapping her arm in gauze. The soldier's shots had been wild, but one managed to graze her forearm. She had only noticed it much later, being more preoccupied with finding Joel, Ellie, and the others. Especially Ellie. Amanda's shots had been low just before the soldier fired back, and she wasn't sure if she hit the soldier's legs or if she'd hit Ellie. Before she had time to figure it out, the soldier whirled on her and fired, making her dive for cover. Then, a runner had jumped her, almost biting her, and that was how she lost track of everyone else.

She had run for about twenty minutes until she realized she had no plan, no gear. Nothing but the clothes on her back, a replacement set in her backpack, a rifle with two bullets slung over her shoulder, a few tins of food that would last about a day, and a 9mm with about six rounds of ammo tucked into the waistband of her cargo pants. If she was going to take off into the wild, she would need a lot more than that. At the very least, she would need some more food and a compass.

She had returned to Jackson, following the acrid black smoke that was rising into the sky like a massive ebony pillar. When she finally got into town, she immediately registered the trademark clicking that always made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Close listening revealed that there were a number of sources from which the chilling sound came. Amanda had vaguely wondered where they had come from, but it didn't take much to figure out how an army of infected had descended on Jackson. The small fireworks Elizabeth had made brought at least a few dozen infected every day for three weeks straight, so of course a protracted gun battle with numerous explosions and an active tank would draw an even greater number. Amanda had seen it before. Coming back for supplies was a really risky move. But it was even riskier to tromp off into the woods without direction or supplies. She needed her compass, food, and ammo.

It had taken her some time, but she had found a compass. Not her compass, but a working compass was better than none. Unfortunately, her house, which contained her personal food stockpile, had been so overrun that even attempting to go inside would have been suicide. She did score a lucky break when a runner she strangled had gauze in its coat pocket. It was only then that she realized that she'd been shot. She had done a routine check for bites when she saw that her sleeve was soaked in her blood. She removed the jacket to find the wound. Once she figured out it was a bullet wound, she relaxed.

Now, she tied off the gauze and moved to put her jacket back on when she realized that the wet blood would both attract wild animals and chill her before it dried. She didn't want to fight a bear with hypothermia. Now, she also needed a new coat. Her bloody jacket would be better than the thin tank-top she had now, but it would be a while before it would be both safe and useful. Thankfully, the dead runner had been a woman around her height and weight, if a little skinny, and its dark canvas, flannel lined coat was relatively clean and dry. Amanda pulled the coat from the dead runner and put it on. It fit well. And it was even thicker than her old jacket, which was simple, thin polyester and cotton. This was a winter coat, not a windbreaker.

She zipped it up and picked up her rifle. She wanted to get her compass, but sentimental value would only get her killed. However, she reasoned that if she had two, one could get broken and she would have a spare to replace it. She sighed. She should have taken up her dad's offer to teach her how to read a star chart when she had the chance. Now, she had to get his compass. The only thing she had left of him.

She stalked her way through the alleys and back yards, the main street nothing but a minefield of shambling infected, the husks of cars, the burning corpse of the soldier's tank, and the bodies of friends and enemies alike. If she got out of Jackson alive, she would hunt down that soldier prick and make him pay for taking away the home she made for herself here. But first she had to find Ellie, Joel, and the others that mattered to her.

Her heart panged with guilt. She'd made a plan with Joel to draw the tank's fire away while others tried to get away after it fired on the church. She should have told him how she felt about him. She thought that, if things were like they had been before, she could stay with him. Help Ellie grow up. Her dad would have been so proud to see her settling down. But her dad was dead. Joel and Ellie were missing.

She was so lost in thought, she almost stepped into a trip wire attached to a can with a bunch of blades sticking out of it. She saw it just in time and froze, slowly drawing her foot back. She released the breath she didn't know she had been holding. She carefully stepped over the wire and was about to continue on when an idea popped into her head.

She knelt down by the can and gently removed the top. She reached in, found the wire, and disconnected it from the fuse. Now it was inert, but that didn't make her feel any safer.

Joel had taught everyone how to make this kind of IED, as Amanda liked to call it. Everyone else called it a nail bomb. Apparently, Joel had been taught how to make it by some crazy fucker out in the East Coast. The IEDs Amanda generally ran into were simply military explosives attached to fishing line or an old egg timer. If she were lucky, she would run across a good, old fashioned pipe bomb. However, this thing was something else entirely. Joel had taught everyone how easy it was to make one as well as what to look for in terms of materials. It was added to the list of things to look out for while out on scavenging runs. They found the materials everywhere, even in places previously thought picked clean.

However, that was months ago. Those areas were mostly picked clean now and Amanda could use all the help she could get. She stored the explosive in her pack before zipping it up slowly. She shook her pack lightly. Nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was still dead. She put on her pack and continued her hunt for the compass.

She hadn't had time to get her personal items like the others. She had had to go to the doc first to treat her wounds, and then she spent the rest of the time helping construct defenses before taking her place in the rifle line. Her face still hurt where her cheek had been cut. Her missing finger nails still burned, the bandages colored deep red where the gauze touched the wounds. It hurt to move her fingers. But none of it was not as painful as what the soldier had said to her.

"You see this?" he had said, holding up the first nail in front of her face. She had refused to look. He'd grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look, "That used to be yours. Now it's mine. Easy as that. You want to know why? Because you put up a couple of watch towers and a sheet metal fence and call it 'safe.' That's not safe."

He pointed behind him into a thicket of trees, "One of my older guys told me that a buncha people went north when it all started, hoping the infected would all freeze to death when winter came. Then, they'd be 'safe'. Yeah, didn't work out so well for half of 'em. The ones who who froze to death or got eaten by cannibals, anyway. For the rest of 'em, they'd came into spring knowing that winter didn't do shit to combat infected and all their planning was for nothing.

"Then there's these survivalist types, these doomsday preppers. Boobytrap the help out of a street corner, a city block, or a whole fucking town, stake a claim, and pretty much shoot on sight. Killed a few of 'em on our way up here. You know what they had in common with those people who tried to freeze the infected?

"Both of 'em thought that if they did one thing or another, they'd make everything go back to normal," he held up the nail in her face again, "Let me ask you something. When you sneak up on some poor, unsuspecting prick, wrap your arm around his throat, and make him do the chicken, does that strike you as 'normal?' And the fact that you do that day in and day out, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that?"

"Fuck you, it's not normal! That's why we're-"

The back of his hand struck her face, sending her to the ground. Her cheek struck a rock and split the skin, warm blood running down her flesh. Rough hands hauled her back up to her knees.

"Bullshit it isn't normal. It's our fucking life now. If we don't learn how to fight, we die. You and your pals think that with a few 'scouting missions', some barbed wire, watch towers, and electricity, you can return things back to the way they were. That's the problem. They won't. Now now, not ever. Safety isn't real. It's an illusion. A fucking joke."

At first, she had been convinced that Jackson could beat him back, drive out his men and save the town. But, as she now stalked the alleys, hiding from the streets she used to walk down without so much as peeking over her shoulder, she realized that the soldier was right. If safety wasn't possible anymore, then she might as well take what little sentiment she had left.

Amanda broke out of her thoughts when she saw her target. She pressed her back against the fence of the house she had shared with Joel and Ellie. She peeked through the slats, hoping to see what was on the other side. She couldn't see much besides grass and dirt, but she didn't see movement. She crept to the gate and quietly opened it before sliding through. The empty back yard greeted her like an old friend.

She crept to the wall by the sliding glass back door and pressed her shoulder against the siding. She peered around the corner. She saw that the door had been boarded up and that the ground floor windows and doors had also received the same treatment. Maria had wanted it that way for all the houses lined up along the street leading to the church.

Thankfully, Amanda knew a way around. A second floor window had remained open, as the people who boarded the building up had used it to get out. The ladder they had used to climb down still lay in the back yard. She, slung her rifle over her shoulder, picked up the ladder, and leaned it against the wall, placing the top just underneath the open window. She climbed slowly, her fingers throbbing, her heart hammering. She could still hear the infected making noise on the street. She took her time, keeping her hand relaxed and her breathing steady. As long as she kept her cool, she would be fine.

As she stepped up on one of the rungs, it snapped with a screech of metal. Her foot gave way and she nearly fell, catching herself on the sides of the ladder. She heard the collective screech from around the house. The hair on the back of her neck prickled up and her heart beat faster, a chill running through it. Oh, shit. She resumed her climb in earnest, reaching the window frame just as a runner came scrambling over the fence. Oh shit oh shit oh shit! She pulled herself into the window as more runners scaled the fence, pausing just long enough to kick the ladder out and away from her before hauling herself inside. She hit the floor with a thud and got to her feet, reaching over and slamming the window shut. She heard thumping on the walls, the pounding of fists.

Amanda placed her hands on her knees, bent forward, and blew air out of her mouth, trying to calm herself. She may have just trapped herself in a house surrounded by infected with no way out but through them, but panicking about it would do nothing but amp her up even more. She needed to find her things and then make a plan to get out. With the way the house was boarded up, she had maybe an hour before they broke through. People got tired. The infected had almost endless reserves of energy.

She stood back up to get her bearings, mentally counting her breaths to keep calm. She realized where she was. Ellie's room. Ellie's beloved comics lay stacked in order beneath the nightstand. The nightstand's drawer had been left open. The bed had been made neatly in a military style Amanda was familiar with, remembering how her father always made the bed that way, and that she had picked up the habit herself. The nearby closet was empty, ancient coat hangers littering the floor. The drawers of the wardrobe had been pulled open and stripped bare, and the pictures on top of it had been placed face down, probably by Ellie.

Amanda recalled that she'd done the same thing in her bedroom before moving in with Joel. It was unsettling to try to sleep while the faces of the dead and gone see stared, immobile and immortal. Yet Amanda couldn't bring herself to get rid of them, either. Laughing newlyweds, parents with a smiling baby, a young girl with braces, and a family get-together. Amanda couldn't destroy this only glimpse into a past she could only guess at, a past much like hers, one that she could barely remember herself.

The infected pounded on the walls, a shriek from them breaking her train of thought and putting her focus back to the task at hand. She made for the door, taking one last look at the room. Her eyes fell on the comics below the nightstand.

Ellie's gonna want those.

They won't be useful for more than kindling.

I have plenty of room in my backpack.

Room for food, ammo, and supplies.

Amanda stood in the doorway for a few moments.

"Fuck it," she muttered and she walked back over to the nightstand, unslinging her rifle and leaning it against the wall in order to take off her backpack. She knelt down, scooped up the comics, and tucked them into her backpack. Surprisingly, they took up even less room than she thought they would. She stood up, slung the pack and the rifle back over her shoulders, and left the room. A moment later, she stood at the door to Joel's room.

I should have told him I loved him.

She swallowed hard as she pushed the door open slowly. She remembered the first time she ever came in here. It was a lovely, private memory. Afterward, she had brought some things over, but she wasn't sure what she brought. It felt like so long ago. Were things like they were before, she might have waited much longer, for just about everything that happened between them. But then, Joel might also still have his daughter, Sarah, a girl who would have been around Amanda's age by now, if a few years younger.

She examined the room, knowing it well. The wardrobe looked untouched since the outbreak, the framed photos upon it showing a smiling, happily married elderly couple. Joel's bed was made, though not as neatly as Ellie's. The closet door stood open. Like Ellie's room, his place looked ransacked. Amanda could clearly see the two of them, frantically throwing things they needed into their backpacks before rushing out the door.

Hopefully she could find what she was looking for in the remains. She picked through the room meticulously. Unlike Ellie, Joel was entirely practical, completely organized, and reserved. He didn't open up much. She could tell. She had noticed that almost all of his things were always packed and ready to go, his banged up backpack hanging on the wall hook by the front door. She always saw it every time she left to go on scavenging trips or watch duty. Even after he had finally made a home, he was ready to leave at a moment's notice.

If that was true, what the hell did he ransack his room for?

The thought clicked in her mind like a lightbulb in a lamp. She cyphered through the options. Clothing? No. She'd showed them the house their first day back. He had hung up some damp clothing in the closet, but when she came in later, the closet was empty, the clothes no doubt packed away in his deceptively cavernous backpack. Sarah's watch? No, he never took it off. It wasn't his things that he had been looking for. Did Ellie give him something? No, that would have also been in the backpack.

It had to be Amanda's compass. She had only realized she had left it in Joel's room the night before when she went out on patrol. She didn't usually take it with her on patrol, as she knew the area and she preferred for it to be safe at home. Now, she realized she had let herself become complacent, and was kicking herself for it. She'd been in a dozen other settlements that fell, and she had always been prepared for their eventual collapse. Why should Jackson be any different?

Maybe because she was one of the early birds, the settlement having been only few months old when she stumbled upon the gate, completely unaware that a few people had set up shop during the winter. As time went by, it started to feel actually safe, instead of a checkpoint between long stretches of living out in the wilderness. Even though she lived alone. The one thing the world had now that there were a lot less people in it was room to stretch your legs. Amanda was able to live alone in a two-story house like the one in which Joel and Ellie lived. Of course, if things were beginning to crowd up, she was always the first one to offer room, even sleeping on the floor when spacial needs required it. Nicer than sleeping on cold, damp mud every damn day.

The thought that she was returning to that life, possibly permanently, made her shiver. Every time she was forced to leave somewhere, she had a foreboding feeling that something would happen to her before she found the next one. She might get killed. She might get infected. She knew she was getting older at the age of thirty-seven, but she had about ten years to catch up to Joel's current age. She knew she was going to hit menopause anytime soon, and then the other signs of age would follow shortly after. As much as she dreaded those changes, she feared death much more.

Amanda shook her head. The compass wasn't here. Joel had to have it. Now that all her personal items were accounted for, it was time to formulate an escape. She stepped back out into the hallway, making her way to the bathroom, the dull thumping of infected fists outside having almost become white noise. That was dangerous. She needed to focus.

Pop!

Amanda ducked instinctively. That was a gunshot. A far away one, but still a gunshot. The infected outside screeched in uproar at the new sound.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

That was a burst, an automatic weapon. She was sure of it. It was closer. It came from the street side of the house. She made her way back into Joel's room and peeked through the old curtains. A pair of black army jeeps barreled down the street, rolling over the bodies that lay strewn about. A number of runners pursued the jeeps. It was obvious that these were the soldier's rearguard. She ducked back behind the wall, hoping that those in the vehicles wouldn't see her.

Vrooooom!

Screeeeeeech!

Popopopopopopop!

Thunkthunkthunk!

Bullets struck the side of the house as the infected around it screamed and charged at the noise. More gunfire, shrieks, clicking, then shouts. A scream of agony. She peeked out behind the curtain. The infected had swarmed the vehicles, and were pulling someone out through the window, tearing him apart with hands and teeth. She got a quick look at him. What wasn't stained with gushing blood was the dark blue and black of a military uniform and combat armor.

She didn't know whether to curse or cheer. If Amanda was going to slip away, now would be the time to do it. She rushed back to Ellie's room and yanked open the window before peeking out. She saw a pair of shoes disappear over the fence before the runner they belonged to charged toward the street. She surveyed the yard. It was clear. Unfortunately, there wasn't any way down from the window. Except to try to jump out.

There was a problem with that. Normally, she would have leapt immediately, as the yard was a flat landing area. All she would have to do was brace herself. But the ladder she'd kicked down lay just where it could cause trouble. If she landed on it, she'd either twist or break her ankle. If that happened, she'd most likely either suffer a quick, egregiously painful death at the hands of the infected or the soldier's men, or a long, slow, and painful death from infection and starvation. She could miss the ladder if she leapt out far enough, but that was a gamble. Maybe she could find another way out? She immediately shot down the idea. There was no time.

She climbed out of the window and held onto the frame with her hands, positioned like a swimmer at the edge of a pool, ready to push off. She counted to three. You can do this, Amanda.

One.

Two.

Three.

She let go and pushed off. She conserved her momentum by tucking into a ball when her feet hit the ground. She missed the ladder. She got to her feet and ran to the gate, wrenching it open and squeezing through. She sped through the alley and up to the sheet metal fence, prying one of the sheets back before sliding through the hole she made and running into the woods again.

As the gunshots, screams, and shrieks of infected slowly faded away into the distance, her full run slowed to a jog, a walk, and then she stopped, panting, breathless, sweat streaking down her brow as her chest heaved. She placed a palm against a tree and leaned forward, calming down slowly, getting her bearings. She adjusted her baseball cap and stood up.

"Alright. Now, where would I go if I were a teenager running low on supplies?" she muttered to herself as she pulled out the compass she had found. She waited patiently for the needle to swing north. She was pointed west.

"Okay, so Jackson's southeast of here, the dam's east of Jackson, south of Jackson is the national park, and north of Jackson is Ghost Town."

'Ghost Town' was a tiny town a few miles north of Jackson, named such because it had no appearance on any map the residents of Jackson had. Perhaps this was because the 'town' was little more than a gas station, a convenience store, a drug store, and a motel set for tourists of the nearby national park that used to be there. The only sign that once had the name on it had long since been destroyed by a fallen tree. Best anyone could tell, it started with a 'g' and ended in 'town'. Thus came about the name 'Ghost Town'. It was more of a joke than anything. But it was also a good landmark.

However, it wouldn't have been Amanda's first choice as a temporary hideout.

Ghost Town, Jackson, the dam, all were connected to the interstate highway. It was probably the most important landmark they had had. It was the place to meet in the event of a town evacuation, as it was elevated above the valley. The highway remained where many other mountain roads had eroded or fallen away. With Ghost Town simply too closed in by trees, the dam a prime target because of its noise, and the national park miles and miles of wild terrain, the highway, specifically exit 437, was the best meeting spot if Jackson fell.

But Ellie might not know that. Or she could have panicked. Hell, Amanda had been running southwest for twenty minutes before realizing she had to go back, and she'd had to flee towns like Jackson before. However, she knew that Ellie didn't know these woods like she did or have the experience to deal with being thrust suddenly into a survival situation. But Ellie was a fighter. She'd find a way.

During her thoughts, Amanda had looked down at the ground past her compass. It was stained with a bloody footprint. She looked around. Blood trailed from the southeast, and turned north just where Amanda stood. It seemed only the left foot was bloody. She knelt down to examine the track more closely. There was something odd about the track. It looked distorted, as if it were damaged by something. However, all the other tracks looked just like it. The shoe had been damaged, probably, and that caused the bleeding wound. The blood itself was only a few hours old, still a little sticky. There was a lot of it. Whoever owned this shoe was severely injured, probably a casualty of the battle at Jackson. She examined the tread more closely. It appeared to belong to a sneaker, the kind that a teenager would wear. Converse, or a knockoff. She had loved wearing those when she was a teenager.

Oh fuck.

Amanda went pale.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

It was Ellie's footprint.