Chapter 3

Memories

"So why'd you do that?" Marcus asked. Ellie had led him to their house after Joel graciously opened it up to the new boy. They were sitting on the back porch as the sky turned a deep purple above them, the boy having shed his coat and gear, all of which had been piled up by the ragged couch in the living room. The only thing he kept on him was the survival knife, which he was passing back and forth with Ellie as they played a game of tic-tac-toe in the dirt. She shrugged.

"Outside this town it kills to trust strange faces. That's not the way I want to live anymore. I'll be cautious, for sure, and you'd be lying to yourself if you thought I wouldn't try to kick your ass if you did anything. But being social never hurt anyone. At least not here, not yet. Besides, some kid about my age shows up out of the blue with no explanation. You've got a story, I can smell it. I love stories."

"Huh…yeah well I can smell one on you too."

"Oh yeah? Well what's it smell like?"

He paused, wiping the game away with his boot before looking at her.

"Tragedy. With a hint of a happy ending, if I smell right. And poor hygiene." He waved his hand in front of his nose.

She rolled her eyes, nodding as she looked up at the sky.

"You could say that. But I asked first, so out with it."

Marcus shifted so he was facing her. He put one leg up, stretching the other out across the dirt. He absent-mindedly puffed out his cheeks, letting the air escape with a pop. He seemed to be deciding what, or how much to say. He gave a slight shake of his head, and began.

"Alright…well, you know where North Carolina is?" She nodded, roughly picturing a map in her head. "That's where I was born. Pretty much crazy town USA. I lived on an old army base. Everybody there decided to stop listening to the government once it all fell apart, and they formed their own little world down there trying to make a modern-day Sparta. It was a bunch of jacked up army dudes so jaded from shooting infected civilians that they started to hate everything instead of protecting it."

He shifted slightly, his voice taking a breathless quality as he got lost in thought.

"Food was never a problem thanks to all the stockpiles the base had. Neither were guns. They had nothing better to do than try to make this little empire in the middle of nowhere. Join or die sort of thing. Survival of the fittest, Darwin knows best. All the women had to pop out kid after kid since we could feed everyone. I was the third kid since the outbreak. Third of twelve by the time I left…but I'm getting ahead of myself. I can hardly remember the faces of my brothers and sisters. I've forgotten a lot of details, and they didn't care enough to try to remind me of them. They just wanted to mould me into a good little killer. Every day was just practice, practice, and practice. If you got it wrong you got –"

He screwed his eyes shut for a moment.

"- Punished. You got punished. At around eleven they plucked me out of my home and tossed me in a group of other kids around my age, gave us rifles, and had us terrorize everyone around us who wasn't one of us."

He started pressing the tip of his finger against the point of his knife, stopping each time when he would wince. Ellie had turned towards him, and sat cross-legged, giving him her full attention.

"So…so I did. What else is a kid supposed to do when that's all they know, right? "

His face darkened in the setting light, and he pressed the tip harder.

"I did bad things Ellie. Bad things… I, you know, I shot people. Old people. Young people. It was such a power trip. They deserved it because they couldn't hurt me back. So fuck em'. That's what I thought. Then one day, one day it was this little camp of people. I think they had come up from Florida. And we just jump them in the middle of the night. I guess I was about fourteen or fifteen. I'm just walking through this tiny war zone, and I hear a scream from this tent, and laughing of a few of my friends. I go through, and they've got this girl…this girl pinned to the ground with a knife through her shoulder. And she's screaming, but not because they're...hurting her. But because…never mind. They look at me and beckon me over to join them. She's staring at me. There's this glint in her eyes. She's screaming, but there's just this look of forgiveness in her eyes. I'd never seen it before – that look. Everyone I killed either went out in a panic like a coward, or swearing and spitting at me. Never any forgiveness."

His voice began to break a little, and he shuddered as a breeze swept through the yard. Ellie bit her lip, her eyes darting from the tip of his knife to his shadowed face.

"Something in me snaps. Maybe I picked a bad time to find my conscience again. I walk over and pull the knife out of her, and just…fucking drive it into one of my friend's throat. You ever hear a man try to breathe with a torn open windpipe? It's all…just this desperate gurgling and wheezing, their chest is heaving and they roll around as they choke on their blood. They just choke longer than you think they could. And as he dying I'm just driving that knife into my other friend's eye over and over. I stand up and she's just laying there, bleeding from the stab and…and from…just staring at me still. Looking up at me with so much sadness, all for my sake. I look back at her and I –"

He started to bleed from his finger, and Ellie moved over to gently pull the blade out of his hand. It shook once it was empty.

"I shot her. Right in the head, and her eyes just went dark. Bang, just like that. I killed the one person I could have saved. I killed her because I couldn't stand that look in her eyes. More people walk in, they think she killed them. I got a fucking pat on the back."

Ellie gently took his hand in hers, not even thinking as she began to trace small patterns against his palm with her other hand. His shuddering stopped, and he let out a deep breath.

"It was never the same after that. I couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't just kill. Try and kill me first? Yeah, sure I'll kill you back. But I can't just hurt anyone anymore. That kind of attitude didn't really fly with them. I took it, for a while. Then…well then something happened, and I just had to get out. I've been keeping track since then. It's been two years since I've run off. I don't really know where I'm going, and I don't know what I'll do when I get there. I'm just trying to help whoever I can. Maybe earn some forgiveness."

He whispered the last sentence, and lapsed into silence. She kept tracing against his skin, bumping over the calluses, until he gently squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, and saw him take a breath, shutting his eyes as his mental walls slid back in place. He opened them, and she saw the pain had vanished. Only a flickering loneliness and quiet resignation shone through in the dying light. He looked down at his hand in hers.

"I don't know what I deserve, but I doubt it's your kindness."

She didn't respond, and just squeezed his hand harder. His shoulders fell, and he looked so much weaker in the darkness. She searched her brain for something to say. All she could think to do was whistle a simple, soothing song Joel had taught her. Marcus rested his head against his drawn up knee, letting her squeeze his hand in her attempt to comfort him. She finished the song, and he lifted his head, gently pulling his hand from between hers. He gave her a pained, sincere smile.

"Thank you Ellie." He cleared his throat, slowly becoming more animated.

"I think you're just about the only person to hear that sob story." He gave a nod, and then glanced at her.

"Your turn. Let's hear your story."

She began to tell it, choosing to leave out her immunity, the entire time running her hand cautiously over the scar under her long shirt. She said only that the fireflies needed to see her. There was a time and a place for revealing secrets like that. That wasn't it.

They talked, and talked late into the night. The warm summer day had long since turned into a cool night, driving them inside and forcing them to sit around the kitchen table and weak gas lamp as they continued to chat. The talk became lighter and carefree. She recited all her jokes, and he laughed at each one, only pausing to ask her what the internet was, to which she gave a shrug and a "fuck if I know". He told her stories of the places he had traveled through. She listened intently, absorbing the stories of the decayed world around them. Suddenly he got up, and held a finger up for her to wait a moment as he disappeared into the living room. He returned with the black rectangle from before, along with a few pieces of paper. He set it down on the table and slid it towards her.

"Now this…I have a theory about what it does. Look, it's got a place for these headphones down here. I think it plays music. I found it going through a city. Memphis, I think it was. And this –"he grabbed the cord that came with it, "this plugs into something. But I don't know what. I bet it has a lot of music on it. I'll get it to work one day."

She pressed the small button on it, but the screen stayed dark. Ellie flipped it around in her hands, studying it. It was cracked and chipped in places, but looked like it might still work. She looked up, and noticed Marcus staring at her with a grin on his face.

"What?" She looked at him quizzically.

"Want to see something awesome?"

She gave a giggle.

"Okay. Only as long as it doesn't involve shedding clothes."

He let out a snort.

"Yeah, well obviously. Here, watch. I learned this from some little old lady outside of Wichita. Did you even know there were any little old ladies left in this world? I didn't."

He began to fold the paper, molding it into something. She watched, her eyes widening as it began to take the shape of a bird. He set it down on the rough table and pushed it towards her. She delicately picked it up, placing it in her hand and bringing it up to eye level.

"That's…that's so cool. Make something else."

She put the bird down as he shrugged and began playing with the second piece of paper. She leaned in, and he placed his hand on her forehead and pushed her back into her seat, wagging a finger at her.

"Ah ah ah, let the professional work."

Ellie crossed her arms and huffed playfully, watching as a flower began to appear out of the folds. With a satisfied hum he placed it next to the bird, leaning back and cocking an eyebrow at her.

"Told you it was awesome."

She moved the chair next to him, and held the flower between two fingers as she examined it. He rested an elbow on the table, and stretched his neck as he watched her study the two paper objects.

"You like them, don't you?"

"I've never seen something like this before. "

"Huh. Want them?"

"I…no shit, can I really have them?"

"Well what do you have to trade?"

Ellie sat back in the chair, scratching her head. He kept teasing her.

"Well, if you don't have anything I can just pull them apart and –"

She leaned forwards, resting a hand on his shoulder as she placed an awkward kiss on his cheek. The edge of her lips brushed his, and she quickly pulled back, her face flush and her eyes wide. He blinked, and then turned towards her. She had no idea why she had done that.

"I – did you…" He cleared his throat once, twice, then looked away from her as he slid both objects towards her. Still blushing she gently scooped them up and held them in each hand. His shoulders heaved once, twice, and a snicker escaped his lips. It turned to chuckling, chuckling to laughing, and Ellie followed suit, till they were both doubled over for air. After a few minutes it quieted down, and Marcus wiped at an eye, letting a chuckle escape his lips every few seconds.

"Damn."

"Yeah, that just happened." Ellie said, flicking some hair out of her eyes as she moved the paper objects to the center of the table. He turned towards her, reclining in his chair.

"You give a guy hope Ellie."

She drummed her fingers on the table, smiling contentedly.

"Hope? That's so crazy man."

He countered.

"Well people are crazy." She rolled her eyes, and he let a grin split his lips before adding.

"I guess I like crazy."

She giggled, then got up and walked over to one of the handmade cabinets she had helped Joel build. She rooted through a drawer, and came back with a weathered deck of cards.

"Ever played go fish?"

He shook his head no, and her smile widened mischievously.

"Well prepare to learn and get your ass kicked buddy."

Deeper in the house Joel got up from the stairs he had been sitting on. He had listened to all the laughter and talking, and had seen her shadow lean in towards the new boy's. Stifling his overprotective urge he turned around and walked back up the stairs, being careful not to put any pressure where the stairs would squeak. He reached his door and turned the handle, pausing to listen, hearing Ellie laugh triumphantly and the boy swear. He shook his head and exhaled slowly, the faintest smile flickering across his lips. Damn kids, he thought. At least she was finally happy. That was all that mattered.