"What the hell?"
Riley stopped in her tracks, sticking her arm out.
Ellie, staring at the ground, grunted at the sudden halt and angrily jolted her head up, "whoa, what the f-"
She was suddenly cut off by Riley's clammy hand over her mouth.
She shifted her eyes to where Riley's were glued. A staggering figure twitched as it let out horrifying moans as if it were being torn apart from the inside. The dark and overgrown hall cascaded a demonic shadow on the stumbling character's back.
Riley motioned to Ellie, holding her index to her lips as she slowly backed away, increasing the pressure of her arm across Ellie's chest.
The two quietly shrank away into the shadows. Ellie felt her heart gasping for air as her legs stiffened with each backward shuffle. She had never seen an infected in real life- she only heard stories about them.
They made it about 30 feet away without being noticed. The thing still reared up to shriek while clutching its head in intervals.
CLANK.
The pair froze in terror as the mocking laughter of a rolling bottle wandered away from Riley's heel.
The infected lurched around and gave a wild howl, rushing to the petrified girls.
"RUN!" commanded Riley, jerking the sleeve of Ellie's jacket.
Blinded with adrenaline, Ellie got only a distorted glimpse of the threat thrashing in a scattered path towards the two before frantically spinning around.
She could hear the wild slobber and jumbled speech of the infected gaining on them. They were going to die.
They rounded a corner and slammed into a set of locked doors.
"FUCK!" Riley desperately hammered on the rusted levers to no avail.
Ellie glanced behind to see the advancing shadow grow on the wall adjacent to them. As Riley continued to curse and bang on the blocked path, Ellie frantically observed their surroundings for a way out.
"In here!" She dove into an open door to a janitor's closet, holding her hand out to Riley.
Before Ellie could grasp Riley, a violent set of mutilated, bloody hands captured hold of Riley's shoulders and threw her to the ground.
She let out an agonizing scream as a set of broken, jagged teeth clamped down on the back of her shoulder.
Ellie mindlessly grabbed a mop beside her and struck the infected's head. "Over here, chicken shit!" she made wild motions with her arms to draw the infected away. She began running back down the hall, still calling out taunts.
She got in another good hit before the mop snapped in half and she was left defenseless. She threw her arms up in defense as the creature overpowered her, plummeting her to the floor. She shrieked as its bite ripped through the flesh of her forearm. Her vision blurred from her exhaustion and her panic.
In a mystified consciousness, the world slowed in freeze frames with no definite lines. She prepared herself for the final blow, watching as the dreadful, humanity-ridden eyes came mere inches from her own.
But as she watched them approach in slow motion, they glazed over with an invisible film. She could not name the phenomenon, but it was the best way she could describe it.
The infected toppled over to the side, motionless. Ellie took in deep breathes as she did not have weight on her lungs anymore.
"Ellie! You alright? Hey-" Riley came into view with her arm crossed over her chest to keep pressure on her wound.
"Yeah…" she sluggishly propped herself up, looking at the corpse. Half of the mop was speared through the back of its head.
Reality hit her in a sudden wave as she caught sight of her bloodied arm.
"Oh man." She scrambled back against the wall, "oh, shit."
She sat there, staring in disbelief at the bite. Riley took a seat next to her, letting a small grunt out as she leaned back.
A few minutes of silence went by, Ellie sat examining her forearm as Riley stared into space, still keeping pressure on hers.
Riley let out a resigned sigh, "well… this sucks." She tilted her head toward Ellie, attempting to give a sarcastic smile.
Ellie only nodded in agreement.
Another pause of silence.
"I'm, uh…" Riley weakly cleared her throat and closed her eyes, "I'm sorry." She met Ellie's gaze once again and swallowed.
"This wasn't supposed to happen." Her voice quavered.
"I know…" Ellie let out a feeble breath.
"Well, I was saving these for later-"Riley reached into her pocket, "But, I think we might as well…" She opened her hand to reveal two artificially colored capsules of some sort.
Ellie gave a small scoff, "The fuck are those?"
"I don't know, they were in this machine thingy. I snagged 'em when you weren't looking. There was a name on the glass part of it… 'Mike' I think. 'Mike' and something else, but it was torn off. I think it's edible, but I'm not positive."
"Doesn't really matter at this point, does it?" Ellie smiled, a morbid glint in her eye.
"Guess not", Riley handed the green colored object to Ellie.
"cheers." They said in unison.
At first it tasted like nothing, just a hard, smooth rock. Ellie tried to bite into it, but the solid outer layer fought her teeth.
"Jeez, what are these things?" she said, rolling the mysterious "food" around in her mouth.
"Well they may not be eatable, I guess."
"wait…" Ellie managed to dent the shell. A hint of citrus flavored sugar danced along her tongue. She bit into it again, making the cavity a bit deeper. She tried to free her jaw from the tacky, almost tar like substance within. After a few jaw-wrenching attempts, she freed her back molars.
"bleh-" She spit the crushed candy onto the floor, "Holy shit, that's disgusting."
Riley only answered with a billowy laugh, "yeah I didn't even try to bite it."
Ellie chuckled a bit, but soon faded to a sullen silence.
"Now what?" she looked to Riley.
"okay…" Riley scooted around to face Ellie, "This is going to sound so fucking cheesy, but just bear with me."
She paused to compose herself.
"Let's just be… poetic?" Ellie raised her brow, Riley did not let this deter her, "you know, let's lose our minds together and not make this shittier than it needs to be."
Ellie twiddled her thumbs, slowly nodding her head, "Wow… that really was fucking cheesy…" she grinned.
Riley tilted her head, waiting for an answer.
"alright." Ellie decided.
They sat talking to one another about the past world. What was it like to eat ice cream? What was ice cream? What was pizza, or really anything except canned and preserved food? Perhaps life was easier back then in some ways, but what kind of problems existed? There had to be some sort of discrepancies. They continued to ponder about the old world into the early hours of the morning.
At a short hiatus in their conversation, Riley gave a small huff as she stoically admitted, "hey kid, I have to ask you a favor… I got bit before you, and I'm not feeling too hot so… Chances are I'm going to turn before you. When I do, make sure I don't rip you apart-" she tossed the other half of the broken mop to Ellie.
With wide, astonished eyes, Ellie slowly grasped the spear.
"I can't-"
"Yes you can." Riley sternly interrupted.
"That's… that's fucking insane. No way!" She threw the weapon across the floor.
"Ellie. Please. This isn't any easier for me to ask." She spoke through clenched teeth, tears rattling her valiant eyes.
"No."
"Just fucking-… I don't want the last thing I see to be me killing you. PLEASE. I am begging you as a best friend."
Ellie only gave a troubled shake of her head and brought her knees to her chest.
A solid hour passed without a word between the two.
Riley was the first to break it.
With a solemn tone she started, "You are my first and only best friend. Before you came around, I had no one. No parents, no one to look after me. Hell, I didn't have anyone who gave a shit about me. Every kid I knew was too afraid of getting caught to live a little. No one wanted to go explore and sneak around. So, I was bored, sad, and alone for most of the time… Then one day, I saw a girl getting decked by an asshole over a Walkman. I helped her out and never regretted it since." She looked over at Ellie and gave a genuine smile of gratitude.
"That's the best damn story I've ever heard." Ellie chuckled softly.
They stayed in their places periodically striking up conversations and telling painfully stupid jokes, all the while, Riley's condition began to deteriorate, however, she did her best to keep it from Ellie's knowledge.
She began to tremor and shake uncontrollably and her usually dark complexion began to fade to chalkier shade. Dark circles swallowed her eyes as a layer of sweat covered her face.
"Okay." Ellie randomly said within a short pause of conversing.
"What?" Riley's brow puckered. A look of realization swept over her features followed by one of thanks.
"You're my best friend too." Ellie smiled with saddened eyes.
"Damn right I am."