Wow, it feels like so long since I published on here. I just finished finals and it feels so good to be writing for fun again! I hope you guys enjoy this next installment of LTWDNC. As always, I love feedback, constructive criticism, all that good stuff. Enjoy!
Tommy sat on the 20 foot security wall looking out over the dense forest. Joel and Ellie had left that afternoon and it was well past 7:00 at this point. He knew he shouldn't worry; they had been through much worse than whatever they could find at that boat-house.
Although, he supposed he couldn't know that for sure.
Earlier the day before, when the scout party came back saying they had seen a ranch with a boat-house, crawling with clickers, Tommy had wanted to send a team out immediately. But the agriculture/economic side of the committee thought it would waste too many resources and not reap enough to make it worthwhile.
Over the years, Jackson had grown larger and stronger, and in the beginning it could only make Tommy's heart swell with pride. But, as more people came into the town, the less practical it seemed to have him as the sole leader—so, as more people with more skill-sets came in, he got together the ones that seemed to have the best instincts and skill-sets to keep the town safe, although he quickly discovered this wasn't as easy as he had hoped.
The main reason being, a lot of the people who had skills in the conservation and brains aspect had run from other towns, or quarantine zones and had little-to-no experience dealing with clickers and bandits and didn't think that nearly as many resources should be kept for battle as for food, lumbar and the like. On the other hand, the people that did have combat experience wanted all resources on weapons and nothing else, and they usually weren't the easiest to get along with and would attack the brainy people when they would suggest venturing out to find more towns. What usually ended up happening was Tommy would keep primarily "brainy" people on the committee, plus himself, Marie, Joel, and Ellie.
The brainy people didn't like Joel and Ellie on the committee, cause they thought Joel was too volatile and Ellie, too young. That is, until they saw the two of them put their heads together and come up with a strategy to move cars and down trees in a way that would send a band of infected right in the path of a group of bandits coming a little too close to Jackson. Honestly, when the two of them got together they could come up with combat strategies that'd impress Robert E. Lee. Which, as sick as it made him feel, was one of the reasons Tommy was getting so worried that they hadn't come back. Joel and Ellie were the only ones in the town with real survival experience that were still able to exist with other humans.
"Shit, Joel. Dontchu' let those committee people say 'I told you so'," Tommy said to the crisp night air. It was the end of summer, and the days were still hot and muggy, but the nights took on the chilly shadow of the hard days ahead. He got up to circulate the wall and see if any of the other watchers had seen anything when he heard a squeaky voice call his name.
"Tommy, Mr. Tommy, sir, I've seen them, sir! Ellie and Joel who went out this morning, they've come back in through the east perimeter, they should be here soon, sir."
Tommy slumped back into the plastic lawn chair and ran a hand through his greasy hair, "I need a bath," he laughed to himself with a smile on his face.
"Thanks for the update, Sammy," Tommy yelled down. "how did they look?"
"They were both walking on their own, but they weren't talking very much sir, or at all. Is that normal?"
No, it certainly was not normal. Ellie was always bugging Joel about something and Joel was always giving back his halfhearted responses. If they were silent that either meant one of em' was pissed, or both of em' were sad. Oh well, if the supply run was a dud at least they got back home.
"I'm sure it's perfectly normal, Sammy; thanks for spotting em'. How bout you end your shift early and go on home, I bet that'd make your mamma real happy."
"Are you sure you won't need me, sir? They might need help bringing supplies into the camp."
Joey Schindler was a 15 year-old boy who wanted, more than anything, to be 50 year-old man. He would take extra shifts guarding the perimeter, stay from 5:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night and take as many scout patrols on the inner perimeter as Tommy would let him. The problem was he had real bad asthma and'd fall down wheezing after 20 yards of running. Because of this, Tommy would never let him go on searches or scavenges. But he had real heart, and Tommy hoped that, as he got older, the asthma would go away.
Right now though, that's what he wanted Sammy himself to do; he idolized Joel like a messiah and, from the description he gave, Tommy could tell Joel would not be in the mood to be idolized.
"We'll be fine. Go on now, you've done plenty today."
Sammy opened his mouth to say more, but then closed it and forced a smile before walking back through the gate.
Tommy looked out over the treeline; he could just make out the silhouette of two people walking out of the trees, staring straight ahead and walking four feet apart.
Oh boy, he thought, as he headed down the ladder to greet them.
It took Tommy all of two minutes to get to and down a ladder and out the main gate, right as Joel and Ellie were almost to the wall.
"Well, you two sure are a sight for sore eyes," Tommy said, trying to gauge just how bad the blood was between the two.
Joel looked like he was trying to chuckle, but it came out as more of a sigh. Ellie just looked at him. That's when he noticed that her arms were hanging limply by her side, not in their usual place on the straps of her backpack.
"You're hands okay, Ellie?"
"My hands aren't a problem . . ." Ellie said and she shrugged her backpack to the ground and used her foot to kick the flap up, exposing the cans and sacks of food inside.
" . . . The problem is you got a gold-mine under your nose and, now that we've cleared all the infected, if you don't get it now, either another pack of infected is gonna surround it, or a pack of bandits is gonna steal it. So I suggest you and Joel go to your testosterone group, have your little jerk-off session, and send out a scout party to get the rest of the supplies."
Seemingly satisfied with her impression, Ellie began walking towards the gate, still not having looked at Joel once. Tommy blinked for moment, looked at Joel, and then turned in Ellie's direction, surprised.
"The boat-house was a hit? You found supplies there?" He called to her back. She turned to answer, but Joel spoke first.
"Enough to last through some of the winter, if we use it sparingly." This was the first thing he had said since they got back and, for a moment, Tommy thought maybe things weren't so bad between him and Ellie.
"Well, that's fantastic!" He said, "man, here I thought you guys were all upset cause you hadn't found nothing."
Ellie scoffed, and turned back around to walk into Jackson.
"You better be going to see doc, Ellie," Joel called after her.
She halted mid-step, then turned around, displaying her hands in front of her like a game of patty-cake.
"Where the fuck-else do you think I'd be going?"
"Whoa, Ellie," Tommy interjected, glancing back at Joel, a knowing look dawning on his face. "Did you get bit?" Joel answered for her, "she sure as hell did, and it wasn't for lack of trying."
Ellie's head lowered, and she looked at him through dark eyelashes.
"Would you stop making it sound like I stuck my goddamn finger in it's mouth!"
"Is that not whatchu' did?"
Tommy was standing beside Joel looking at Ellie, trying to decide if he should try to defuse the situation as Ellie started towards Joel with the purposeful walk she saves for outnumbered bandits. And in that situation, she usually has a gun.
He tried putting himself a couple of feet in front of Joel and in between the two, but Ellie darted around him and shoved Joel as hard at she could with the back of her hands, causing him to stumble back a small ways.
"I did it to keep you alive, you Son Of a Bitch! Look— " Ellie shoved her hands in his face, letting him see the deep gash from where the glass went in and came out in her left palm, and the small scratches and cuts on her right.
"— there's no infection, nothing's growing . . ."
She awkwardly maneuvered his hand to her forehead.
" . . . I don't have a fever. I knew even if I did get bitten I'd be ok-"
Joel snatched his hand away from her forehead, but remained standing just a bit too close so she had to look up to meet his eyes.
"That's the problem right there, is you don't 'know' anything about it. No one does. We don't know if it's permanent, we don't know if it's just slower in you, we don't know how it works—"
"And who's fucking fault do you think that is?!"
Tommy's eyes fell closed, while Joel's were wide; he took a couple of steps back.
"Is that what this is about, Ellie? Salt Lake City?"
Ellie stared at him for a long time as her eyes became hard and distant.
"You know what else we don't know about this thing?" She said in a hollow voice, lifting her right arm to display the first bite she ever got.
"We don't know if it could have saved all mankind."
Joel looked around, chuckling, and sauntered back a couple of steps.
"What was I supposed to do?" He asked, "stand outside the hospital for the next hour, two hours; knowing that at some point you had taken your last breath, not even knowing when. Is that what I shoulda' done? If it had been me, is that what you woulda' done?"
Ellie scoffed, looking around at the trees.
"I don't know . . . I hope so," she said, "I hope I would have, if not for all fucking mankind's sake, I hope I'd do it so you wouldn't have to wake up every morning feeling like I do."
For a while Ellie thought no one would say anything, then Tommy softly asked, "How do you feel in the morning, Ellie?"
She didn't respond for some time, and when she did, even though it was in response to Tommy, she said it looking at Joel.
"I feel like every breath I take, and every night I sleep, I'm taking it from someone else."
Joel looked at her for a long time, and he felt very, very old.
"You're the reason I feel this way, Joel. And I hate you for it," she said. "I always will."
For just a moment her eyes grew wide, and her lips parted slightly; she looked like she was fourteen again. Then, she straightened up, returned her eyes to their natural, dark, acceptance, turned, walked to the Jackson gate and disappeared inside.
The two men stared after her, neither making a sound. It was 9:00, the stars were out and the wind was chilly. It stirred the trees and the grass, and the walls of Jackson moaned and creaked slightly, but in a way that meant they were settled and sturdy, not about to fall down. They would last through the winter.
Tommy put his hand on Joel's shoulder, but he couldn't smile. Then, he started heading for the gate and bent down to pick up the backpack Ellie had left.
"Wait," Joel said, his gruff voice seeming to be softened with the breeze. "Leave it. I'll get it."
Tommy nodded, then went through the door, forcing himself not to look back.
Joel looked down at the backpack. She'd had this one for two years, but it looked like it had been used for 20, even though it was new when he gave it to her. Well, as new as anything could be. He remembered finding it in the storage room of an old department store when he was on a run with the people from Jackson. He had made Ellie stay in the town because she had twisted her ankle when he was teaching her how to play baseball. When he walked into her room with the new backpack she tried not to look excited, because she was still mad at him for making her stay. But when he left the room he peeked through the key-hole and saw her exploring the new pockets and zippers, seeing how all of her supplies would fit. She had been fifteen, and it seemed so easy to make things up to her then. That was before she had figured out he had lied. Or, at least it was before she told him she knew.
He looked down at the backpack again, and thought about kicking it; he thought about leaving it. If he did, with the food inside, it would be carried of and torn to shreds by raccoons and coyotes. He picked it up and dusted it off, then carried it with him back inside the walls of Jackson, telling the guard to lock the gate behind him.
