Long Way Back
Amber sunlight streams between the pinewood barn slats as another hard day of work in Jackson draws to a close. Ellie hefts the worn leather toolbag onto the plywood workbench and dumps off a pair of ratty garden gloves, auburn hair clinging to her sweating temples, freckled cheeks flushed with exhaustion. She takes a swig of warm water from a canteen at her hip, leaning against the workbench and admiring Jackson's thirteen horses, all cozied up in their winter stalls.
Catching her breath, Ellie sets the canteen aside and approaches the stall nearest to her. A grey mare nickers and nudges Ellie over the gate. Ellie chuckles and raises her palm, fitting it perfectly over the velvety nose.
"You've already had your dessert, Callisto," Ellie replies. The mare snorts, and Ellie rolls her eyes, doubling-back to the workbench. She swings open a cabinet underneath and pulls out a single apple from the concealed bushel. She palms it up before Callisto, who eagerly chomps and licks it in four bites. Ellie strokes the white star between her eyes. "Goodnight, you goofball."
One by one, she bids goodnight to each horse, patting their flank or knocking on their gate as she strolls down the dirt path back to the front of the barn. The routine was also a way to check that each stall was locked. A chestnut colt she'd named Ganymede had a reputation for trying to unlock their gate and spotting the efforts for a third time, she'd consulted one of Jackson's welders for a "horse-proof" lock, lest she find the colt investigating the same cupboard she kept the apples in the next morning.
Ellie slings a soiled flannel over her shoulder and hits the lights. She kicks the bricks holding the doors open aside, reaching high over her head for the heavy drawbar to latch the barn closed. Finally, she twists a fat, rusty padlock and pockets the even rustier key. Another day down.
She trudges home alone, every muscle aching from an arduous day of mucking hay, clearing cobwebs, sealing cracks, and ensuring that each of Jackson's horses have enough feed for the winter. She waves to Grace, the horses' main caretaker, checking on her from the window. Grace was by no means elderly, but her very passion for horseback riding and too many falls left her with a grumpy, dislocated hip that made daily chores difficult. Ellie was simply thankful for the opportunity to bring the herd out to the sagebrush prairies, the closest it seemed she could get to a world without walls.
All around her, Jackson was settling in for the night. Mothers called children from their porches or rang iron bells, dam workers set down their hard hats and picked up a bottle of whiskey, and the patrol crew shifted to the next batch of hours, swapping rumors and checking firearm cartridges. None of this would change when winter hit, but it would happen earlier, the sun sinking lower and lower behind the mountains as the day drew to a close.
Ellie retires to a small cabin on the other side of town. Towering spruce trees shower the aluminium roof with amber needles and separate it from the other homes, plumes of grey smoke already billowing from their stone-muddled chimneys. Her steps are heavy and lazy up the wooden porch stairs, pushing her weight into the door, home at last.
"Hey, Joel," she says with a great deal of effort. She collapses into a chair at a round dining table, head down on its cool, flat surface. She could fall asleep right there.
"Hey, Ellie," he replies, busy chopping carrots on a wooden cutting board. He picks it up and scrapes it into the cast iron pot on an electric stove. "How's things?"
"Ugh. Can't talk. Need food."
Joel chuckles at her suffering and tosses the cutting board into the sink. "That bad?"
Ellie groans.
"I know all about them long days. Trust me. Construction boss used to want me comin' in before sunrise and wouldn't let me leave darn 'til midnight."
He scoops two mismatching ceramic bowls full of a dark, meaty stew, complete with bent metal spoons. Ellie's share is set on the table in front of her.
"Hope you like it," he remarks. "It's, uh, one of Gloria's recipes."
"Don't care. Hungry." Ellie picks up her spoon, about to dig in, when she catches Joel glaring at her arm. The hair prickles on the back of her neck. "What?"
Joel shakes his head and pokes at his food. "Nothing."
Ellie's brow furrows. "Joel…"
"Look, Ellie, we've… We've been over this." He glances out the window, covered by thin patchwork curtains, as if expecting someone to be pressing their nose against the glass. His voice lowers, serious and calm. "You can't be walking around town with a scar like that."
Ellie rests her elbows on the table. The bite wound, though faded, is still ugly, reddened, and visible to the naked eye. She clenches her jaw.
"It's fine. Nobody noticed at the stalls, and it was dark by the time I was walking home."
"You need to be more careful."
"I don't see what the big deal is. I'm immune, not contagious."
Joel grunts and digs at his food. "We don't know that."
Ellie's spoon clanks against her bowl's rim. "I'm not hungry anymore."
"Ellie…"
"It's fine, Joel, it's fine." She dismisses with a wave of her hand. "But when you start to feel like the town freak, let me know so I can ignore you."
"You know that ain't true," he replies sternly. "But for now, it needs to stay a secret. If people found out you were infected…"
"It'd be bad. Yeah, I know. But if I could just tell one person…"
"No," Joel snaps, his own spoon clanking in his bowl as his fist clenches. "I won't square off with a whole fucking town. Do you understand me? I'm trying to protect you."
Ellie crosses her arms and mutters something under her breath.
Joel looks at her. "What?"
"I said," Ellie replies with a sharp glare, "I don't need protection."
"Yeah? Well you're getting it, whether you want it or not." He picks up his spoon again, shaking his head, clearly wanting to drop the subject altogether.
Ellie sits there, ignoring her food.
Joel fixes her with an apprehensive frown. "You need to eat."
"Not as much as I need a sledgehammer."
"Sledgehammer? Now, what do you need that for?"
"To bust this ball and chain you've got on me," Ellie snarks back, propping her foot up on the table. "I just want a little freedom. That's all."
"You have plenty of freedom. Moreso than other kids your age."
"Other sixteen year olds don't have a curfew."
"Other sixteen year olds ain't infected."
Ellie bristles, her chair scraping the uneven floorboards as she stands. Joel straightens as she heads upstairs.
"Ellie, come back. No need to fight."
"That was a low blow, Joel, and you know it."
He stands and follows her to the foot of the steep, narrow staircase. It's his turn to cross his arms. "Have you even thought about what happens if someone finds out? This whole town will flip its goddamn lid."
"Gee, way to apologize." She stomps further up the stairs and stops midway. "Why should I give a shit if people know?"
"Because right now, we are good. We are safe," Joel bites back, voice rising with his temper. "You tellin' everyone you're infected? Who knows what'll happen. They might kick you out or they might kill you. Folks were friendly enough to take us in, but a lynch mob don't listen to reason. We're keepin' this quiet."
Ellie rolls her eyes. "Oh, bullshit!"
"'Scuse me?"
"This isn't about me. You're making this all about you! You've got everything you've ever wanted and you're too chicken to tell everybody the truth about me. Well, you know what? There's one thing here you don't have."
The vein in Joel's temple pulses. Her question lingers in the air, but he already knows the answer. He lowers his head, shadows gathering under his worn eyes, like a bull ready to charge. "Don't…"
"A daughter, Joel," Ellie spits. "You don't have a daughter, and even if you did, you wouldn't know how to fucking raise one!"
"Ellie!" he shouts back, coarse and thunderous, face red. Ellie throws up her hands, more indifferent than defeated, turning her back and tromping up the stairs. "That's right, you go to your-"
She slams the bedroom door.
Joel growls, hands on his hips, shaking his head at where she once had been. "Lord have mercy. Fucking teenagers…"
Upstairs, slamming the door hadn't been enough. The fury bubbles up inside Ellie's chest and she spikes the soiled flannel over her shoulder to the floor. She kicks the dresser, shaking the cracked mirror on top of it, an odd assortment of trinkets toppling over. Finally, she collapses backwards on the firm rubber mattress, wooden bed frame creaking and shuddering. She glares at a spot in the ceiling where the wood panel curls into a knot, replaying the argument in her mind and not regretting a single word of it.
She was exhausted and angry and now, disgusted. She sits up, nostrils flaring. All day, she had been looking forward to coming home and maybe reading a book, but that clearly was no longer happening. She wants absolutely nothing to do with being here at all.
She notices a crumpled piece of paper on the floor, having fluttered loose from where she threw her flannel. She picks it up and smoothes the sweaty creases to unfurl a note written in purple ink.
Bonfire. Tonight. North of the old mill.
It doesn't take long for Ellie to make a decision. She pockets the note, buttons up a new flannel, tugs on her sneakers, and unlatches the bedroom's only window. She's halfway through the frame when she moves back in and pulls open the first drawer of the night stand. She checks the magazine of lightweight Beretta pistol, flicks the safety, and tucks it in the back of her waistband. Only then, does she slip out the window into the cool, autumn evening.
Ellie skirts over the aluminum roof and drops the ten feet down, the spruce needles muffling her sound. She ducks immediately and presses herself to the siding, Joel's shadow passing by the yellow light of the kitchen window. He has no idea she's gone. Good.
With most Jackson residents indoors, the night brings a great hush over the town. Ellie keeps away from the main roads, packed with earth and gravel, slinking around Joel's cabin and over to the next one. Voices from the patrolmen up on the wall float on the breeze, drifting between the sagebrush and tall bunchgrasses. Their backs face her, more concerned with keeping things out than in.
She had heard rumors about there being certain "vulnerabilities" in the wall; beams that knocked loose at just the right angle to fit through or greasy-palmed patrolmen that would simply look the other way. But the easiest, least noticeable path was around Grace's house.
The caretaker's curtains are drawn. Ellie doesn't doubt that Grace is already passed out in her armchair. She creeps around the back porch to the barn, pressing up against the wooden slats she had meticulously patched and spackled all day, the horses chuffing and snoring inside. They're oblivious to her as she crosses the full length of the barn to the pasture gates.
Normally, these were triple-checked at the end of the day to be locked and secured, as they were a notable passage between Jackson and the wilderness. Lucky for her, she was privy to the location of the keys, and knew they were in the nearest fence post, hidden in a hollowed-out center. She undoes the padlock wrapped in chains with a soft click, parting the gates enough to slip on through. She would be back before morning.
The vast meadow of Jackson Hole yawns before her. Ellie crouches, checking the wall for a patrolman, and spotting them at the other end of the settlement. She stands, shoulders relaxing, and sets off with an easy gait for the abandoned sawmill, tucked between the meadow's edge and an evergreen forest.
At last, she was free. With every step, Joel fell further and further behind, a strange satisfaction taking root. She could do this without him and didn't need his protection. Of that much, she was certain.
Wood smoke intermingles with the crisp sweetness of autumn leaves. The sawmill is dusty and quiet as Ellie passes it, a gradual slope rising behind it, enclosing her in a dense pine forest. By the light of the moon dappled between the boughs she makes out a winding trail, marked by wayward stones and stick paths. It wasn't the first time Jackson's youth would sneak to the woods, and from the looks of it, it wasn't going to be the last.
Many twists and turns soon reveal a towering bonfire, bright orange scattering the shadows of trees in all directions. She catches silhouettes dancing, wrestling, and embracing by firelight, recognizing only a few faces in the dark. They tilt their heads in greeting she approaches, a silent acknowledgement. She doesn't know them, but they know her.
Ellie snags a mason jar of moonshine stolen from the mess hall and finds a spot leaning against one of the hefty boulders situated around the bonfire. She chews on her lips, now tingling, a complete fly on the wall to the small crowd singing and gossiping the night away.
Who knows who and who knows what are the center of every teenager's world. Ellie watches them sneak into the seclusion of the bushes or make out in the broad firelight. One boy shoves another for kissing "his" girl, when she was the one to kiss the other guy first. It's all wildly trivial for an otherwise calm autumn evening.
Ellie smirks and just swigs her drink. She doesn't get hammered like some of her peers, who almost stumble into the bonfire, or slur her words so hard no one can understand what she's saying. No, she drinks enough to relax the tension in her shoulders and feel the warmth spread in her chest, but still feels the pistol tucked in her waistband. Crazy nights like these make people forget what monsters reside beyond Jackson's walls.
Sometimes, she would like to forget, too. And so her eyes linger on the way they walk and talk, hypnotised by the naive frivolity unfolding in front of her. She thinks about mimicking them, striking up a conversation on the fly or maybe cracking some bad puns, but it never feels right.
She's not shy, but even when she was younger, Riley was the one to always be making friends.
A tall silhouette approaches her, and a boy turns to lean against the boulder with her, cheering his mason jar to hers.
"Hey. How're you likin' the party?" he asks.
She shrugs. "It's okay."
"Okay?" he snorts. "Man, Ellie. Don't be such a riot."
Her smirk widens with the sarcasm. "I'm having the time of my life, Jesse. Really. Every single moment has all led up to this."
"All right, all right, no need to be melodramatic." But he laughs, shaking his head. He pauses, first glancing at Ellie, and and then to the group on the other side of the fire. He clears his throat. "So. What do you think of her?"
His question bumps her out of what could have been a spell. "Who?"
Jesse discreetly points with his glass at the girl at the center of the group's attention. She's easily the newest face, but it's one that all of Jackson already knows: Dina Woodward.
She had shown up on a late September evening, right when the sun was setting and the leaves were beginning to change color. Everything about her had a radiance. Maybe it was her olive skin or the bright patterns on her clothes, her choices based more on expression than practicality, an archaic concept in the post-apocalypse. The people of Jackson took to her instantly, inviting her to their family meals and welcoming her to sing in their church hymns. And Dina was more than happy to help in return, already picking vegetables from the communal gardens or thread weaving with Jackson's elderly few. She had become the town's favorite pupil overnight.
Again, Ellie shrugs but switches her stare into the bottom of her empty glass. Her cheeks are hot and she's not sure what from. She blames the booze.
"I dunno. I don't really know her."
"But she's great, right?"
"I mean, yeah, if you're… into that."
"Into what?" He frowns.
"New girls?" She was grasping at straws, struggling to come up with an opinion that hadn't even formed yet. Well, that wasn't true, she did have an opinion, but…
Jesse laughs regardless. "Make fun of me all you want, Ellie, but I'm asking her out."
"Oh."
"What, does that bother you or something?"
Ellie opens her mouth to respond, but doesn't. She slowly slides of the rock and to her feet, straightening.
"Ellie? What's going on?" Jesse asks. He follows her gaze over his shoulder. "Oh, shit."
In the midst of dancing and laughing, someone had brought out an acoustic guitar. The steady strumming rose above their voices, the bonfire, and the whole party altogether, echoing into the night.
Jesse sets his empty glass on the boulder. "I'll handle this."
He marches through the gathering crowd about to join in on a song. He snatches the guitar by the neck.
"What the hell, man?"
"You're going to get us killed, that's what," Jesse seethes in a low, terse tone. He towers over a younger boy with an intimidating glower.
The boy jumps to his feet, pushing his face into Jesse's. "Doesn't mean you can just take my shit. No one's seen a Clicker in months. They're gone. Chill the fuck out."
Jesse's lips remain a tight, straight line. When the boy makes a grab for the guitar, he jerks it out of the way and chucks it into the bonfire.
"You asshole! You'll fucking pay for that!"
The boy launches at Jesse with a furious, drunken cry.
The small crowd swarms around them like crows egging on clashing bulls, one of them sure to kill the other and hoping for scraps.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
But Jesse is tougher and stronger, swatting away the hits and shoving him back. Jesse punches him in the nose and the boy's head knocks back, blood spurting freely down his front. Jesse follows through with a punch to the gut.
"Fuck you, man," the boy blubbers, clutching his nose as he staggers backwards. "Fuck you."
The crowd diminishes with a few disappointed groans and booing, unsurprised at Jesse's victory. He ignores them, wiping his knuckles on his jeans, and returning to Ellie with a smug grin.
"Stupid kids. I told the others we shouldn't invite them." He grabs his empty mason jar from the rock. "Hey, I'm out. You want another?"
Ellie glances down into her glass, also empty. She shouldn't, but...
"Sure," she chirps. "One more can't hurt."
He mock salutes her and strolls over to the crate of moonshine, the crackling bonfire and teenage murmurs resuming. The mason jars rattle and clink as he rummages through them for a full one, when something long, low, and awful moans from deep inside the forest.
A rhythmic thumping like horse hooves thunder over the lively chatter. One by one, voices wane at the sound, heads turning every which way to find its source, a slew of panicked whispers circling through the crowd.
Ellie's skin prickles, her adrenaline from before now hammering blood in her ears, every muscle tightening. No. This isn't happening. It couldn't.
"INFECTED!" A girl screams in sheer terror, and all hell breaks loose.
Ellie can't see which way they are coming from until they surge from the shadows, a guttural caterwaul crescendoing over the horrified scream of her peers. The Infected, a whole pack of them, reach out with pale, blistering arms and broken fingernails at the crowd, scattering in every direction. Ellie pulls the pistol from her waistband and points at the Runner coming straight for her, pinning a bullet to the shoulder and a quick second to the neck, cutting it down with an animalistic squeal. It collapses to the autumn leaves and still twitches as Ellie sprints past it.
She spots Jesse squaring off against two Runners. He brings his knuckles to lips, boxer-style, and jabs the first one right in the teeth, pivoting quickly and punching the second before it can touch him. But the first one whips back and Ellie chucks her moonshine at it, the glass shattering on impact.
"Over here, motherfucker!" she roars, and Jesse lunges for its neck, snapping it with a sickening crackle of bone and sinew. In the same moment, Ellie snatches the neck of the guitar out of the firepit, crashing it over the Runner's head. Embers explode on impact and she inhales the burning flesh and fungus, hitting it again and again until the wood breaks and it crumples over in a smoky, bloody mess.
Jesse looks her dead in the eye. "You need to get out of here."
"So do you. C'mon!" She turns, the high-pitched croaking of Clickers approaching, slower and ganglier than the Runners.
The woods are a dark, twisting labyrinth, the familiar dirt path lost in the leaves and shadows. Ellie runs, trying to keep step with Jesse, his longer legs bounding past her, leaping over fallen trees with ease. Her lungs burn as she sucks in the frigid autumn air. A stitch swells at her side, but she doesn't slow, a Clicker literally on her heels.
"Watch out!"
She barely hears Jesse shout ahead of her before he dodges to the left. Ellie skids behind him. Her sneakers slip on the muddied leaves, ankle twisting and losing balance, and she tumbles down a steep ravine in the opposite direction. The forest spirals around her in varying shades of black and blue, hands flailing for anything to grab onto, barreling over roots and stones. She finally crashes to the bottom with a solid thud, icy water seeping through her flannel, everything still spinning.
"Fuck," she groans. Her whole skeleton screams in protest as she pushes herself up, but she has to get on her feet, has to get away from the Clicker galloping down the hill after her, alien face splayed open and snarling. She stumbles on her twisted ankle as searing pain shoots up her whole leg.
Suddenly, the Clicker veers away from Ellie, lured by another body on the ground. A girl screams, throwing fistfuls of dirt and stone like buckshot, backpedaling on the ground. Ellie tears herself from the stream, roaring at her own body and clenching her switchblade, sprinting after it.
The Clicker swoops in on the girl as Ellie grapples it from behind, her weight the only thing holding it back.
"Run! Go, get out of here!"
The Clicker barks and howls, thrashing in her grasp, claws tearing at her arm. Ellie reaches around and drives her knife into the Clicker's chest, puncturing its lungs and its throat, hot, oily blood splurting out with every stab. It crackles and sucks in dying breaths, but it still thrashes, bucking Ellie off.
She hits the ground on her back, thrusting her knife up with both hands and driving true into the Clicker's fungal cartilage, right between where its eyes should be. The blade pulses as if she had stabbed it in the heart, not the brain. Saliva drips warm and viscous from its jaws, whimpering and wounded, the incandescent glow of its eyes and fungal frills fading as it falls.
Ellie shoves the dead body off her, lying flat on her back, the night sky seeming to slow its spinning above her. Someone calls out to her but she can't hear them, a persistent ringing in her ears. A slim hand reaches down to her and suddenly, it's Dina Woodward tugging her back to her feet.
"C'mon, this way!" Dina shouts, pulling at her wrist, and all senses kick into high gear once again. A Runner flails downhill, bellowing at its find and panting rapidly. Feeling floods back into her hands as Ellie snatches her pistol and firing point-blank at the Runner. A bullet punches into its shoulder, enough to make it stumble but not fall. Ellie pivots and sprints behind Dina, dodging trees and bounding over rocks, the night stealing the very breath from her lungs.
"Where are we going?" Ellie yells. Dina's ponytail whips behind her as she makes another sharp turn.
"Shortcut!" Dina calls over her shoulder, skidding underneath a fallen tree. "Watch it!"
Ellie drops to her knees, dirt and leaves biting into her skin, sliding under the tree. A Clicker on her heels impales itself on the sharp branches and screams in agony, other Runners using its carcass to vault over.
"Almost there!"
Sweat stings Ellie's eyes, but she, too, can see the white glow of Jackson's spotlights, coming closer with every winded stride. She musters up a burst of speed, legs burning, when she nearly crashes into Dina, peering over the ledge of a seven foot gap.
"Fuck, oh, fuck," Dina panics.
"We can make it."
"What, there's no-"
Ellie glances behind her, Infected swarming right for them, and there's no second option. She backpedals. With a running start, she launches over the gap, stumbling briefly upon landing. Dina still doesn't move.
"Come on! You got this!" Ellie shouts at her.
"No, I… I can't!"
"Jump!"
"I-"
A Clicker shrieks and Dina hurls over the ledge. Unlike Ellie, she falls short, crying out as she clings to dangling tree roots and kicking at the earth for footholds. Ellie reaches over the edge.
"Take my hand!"
Dina reaches, but the moment their fingers touch, a Runner throws itself across the gap at Dina, catching her by the ankles. Ellie points her pistol past the flailing girl and shoots, the Runner's head knocking back with a spray of dark blood.
"Pull me up! Hurry!"
"I've got you!"
Ellie lays her pistol down and yanks Dina up with both arms, shifting her weight to the back to fully help her over the ledge. Both girls scramble backwards, terrified and out of breath, watching the dozens of Infected pace and yowl, unable to reach them.
"Keep moving," Ellie says, pushing up again. "Where's this shortcut?"
"I… I don't know… I…"
Ellie's heart sinks, glancing up at a full moon instead of Jackson's spotlights. She doesn't dwell on it. "Let's put as much distance between us and those things."
"Okay."
The tortured howls of the Infected fade as they run until they can't anymore, limp legs taking them down into a ravine not unlike the one they just came from. Tall, yellowing grasses sprout between the spaces of cottonwood trees, and a tangle of willows hunch over a small stream. When all is silent aside from their labored breathing and the stream's babble, Ellie asks, "Has that ever happened before?"
Dina, doubled over with her hands on her knees, shakes her head. "No. At least, I don't think so. This is actually my first one…"
Something between a scoff and a grunt gets caught in Ellie's throat. First time or not, there was nothing careful about running around in the woods outside of Jackson. She knew that. Joel was going to be furious.
"It's Ellie, right?" Dina says. "Thank you."
Ellie's pounding heart only starts to slow as she sucks the blood from her split lip. "Yeah. And you… You don't need to thank me."
"Hey, it's because of you I'm alive. Taking down Clickers like that? Hard-fucking-core."
"It was nothing."
"Huh. Hardcore and modest. I like that. I'm Dina, by the way."
Ellie's cheeks flush. "I know. I mean… Everyone knows you."
To say that Dina was one of the most popular girls in Jackson was an understatement. She was welcomed and adored everywhere she went. None of that mattered out in the wilderness.
Ellie scans the top of the ravine they came from, waiting for the telltale click or groan of Infected, but nothing comes. "Okay. I think we're safe. Do you know where we are?"
Dina's smile fades. She gazes up at the same ridge, and then across the stream, over her shoulder, and back to Ellie's face. "Uh… No."
"None of this looks familiar?"
"Not really…"
Ellie closes her eyes and exhales. Frustration wells in her chest. "Fuck."
"But we can get out of here, right?"
"Yeah," Ellie replies before she can stop herself, because it's not a question; it's a fact. They have to get back to Jackson.
"How?"
This time, Ellie doesn't answer right away. She rests on a large rock jutting out over the stream, unlacing her shoes and massaging her twisted ankle. It throbs under her grimy fingers, but it's no worse pain than getting scratched, stabbed, or shot, all scars now hidden with a new layer of skin. She's nowhere near as beat up as Joel is, but she's not as resilient, either. He would know what to do.
"The river," she announces, looking upstream at Dina, who kicks stones into the water. "We can follow this stream to the river. And then we can follow that to the Dam."
"Why not just go back the way we came?" Dina replies, hesitating. "It would be easier, wouldn't it?"
"Easier to get killed or infected."
"Oh. Right. Duh."
"The sound of the water will help cover our voices in case…" She doesn't need to finish, the thought too chilling to be said aloud. "I mean, unless you have any other ideas?"
Dina shakes her head and grimaces. "I wish. Honestly, I'm not… I'm not very good at survival stuff."
"We'll be okay," Ellie says, more to convince herself than anyone else. Crawling through dank, flooded sewer pipes? Sure. Scrambling across collapsing rooftops with barbed wire below? Okay. But the wilderness… The wilderness was something else, a tightness gripping the place between Ellie's shoulders, an instinctual fear of the dark and unknown.
It was going to be a long way back to Jackson.
Author's Note: Hey folks, hope you enjoyed the first chapter of Long Way Back! This has been a work in progress since last October, and is currently being beta'd by the lovely crusader_blue over on Reddit. HUGE shoutout to /r/fanfiction over there, too. They're a really lovely community. Thank you for reading and stay tuned for the next chapter!