I woke up to the sound of someone pounding on my door, as I got up I decided to wear what I wore yesterday as I made my way down the stairs and opened the door. I saw Tommy standing there.
"Yes, Tommy?" I ask.
"It's time for the trip." Tommy says, as I nod.
"Alright, I'll swing by Ellie and Joel's to see if Ellie can go." I say, as Tommy nods.
"Alright, I'll see you at the gate." Tommy says, as he heads off as I close my door and walk to my garage and open the door, as I turn my attention to my bike. I get on and start it up I had made some modifications to the engine to make it quieter, as I started it and made my way out of my garage as I closed it behind me and relocked it. I rode to Ellie and Joel's house, I haven't met Joel personally, so I assume he's like Tommy.
I pull up in front of their house as Ellie comes out and stops in front of my bike with her backpack over her shoulder, as we looked at each other.
"So, did Joel give you permission to go with?" I ask, as she looks away for a brief second.
"No, he didn't." Ellie sighs, as I look at her.
"So, you're just deciding to go, even though he said no." I say.
"Yes, I am." Ellie says.
"No, you won't Ellie." I say.
"But- "
"No Ellie." I say, as she looks away for a brief second with a mischievous smirk.
"You promised." Ellie says smirk never leaving her face, as I look at her with a confused look on my face.
"Promised what?" I ask.
"To give me a ride on your motorcycle." Ellie says, as I think it over.
"Fine, but if you get in trouble I'm not responsible." I say, as Ellie gets on my bike and wraps her arms around my stomach.
"I'm fine with that." Ellie says, as I turn on my bike as we head off to meet Tommy at the gate.
I pulled up at the gate I saw Tommy, and a couple of others on horseback. One I recognized as Jim as he saw me he gave a wave.
"Hey Jack." Jim says with a smile on his face, as I return the smile and the wave.
"Hey Jim." I say as tommy clears his throat, as I look up at him.
"Well I see you already met Jim, this is John his brother." Tommy says, as he points to john to which he nods his head towards me, which I returned as Tommy turns his attention to Ellie.
"Did Joel give you permission to tag along?" Tommy asked, as Ellie looked at me for a brief second as I nodded.
"Yeah, he did." Ellie lied, as Tommy narrowed his eyes suspiciously before relaxing.
"Alright, as long as he trusts you." Tommy says as he turns to me and looks at my bike.
"I hope your bike doesn't make too much noise." He says, as I shake my head.
"No, I modified it so the engine is quieter, so it shouldn't be a problem." I say as Tommy nods his head, and, tosses me a walkie talkie as I grab it I slip it onto my belt.
"So, where are we going?" I ask, as Tommy radios for the gate to be opened, as he placed the radio back on his belt.
"Edmonton; it's a relatively big town they may have supplies like medicine, guns and ammo, and food" Tommy says, as we begin moving out of the gate and towards Edmonton with the gate closing behind us.
"I know the Town." I say, as Tommy looks at me.
"How?" He asks as I turn my head away not really in the mood to talk about it. I just decided to ask a question.
"So, how far away is Edmonton anyway?" I ask, as I keep my bike at a similar speed as their horses.
"It's just a couple of hours from here, so we can take it easy for now." Tommy says, as he turns his attention back to the road.
Two hours later
We finally arrived at Edmonton as we all rode down to the city center, as Tommy and the others get off their horses and tie them up, as I park my bike close to the horses. I turn it off and take the keys out as I grab three large duffels for any supplies we find, and I sling them over my shoulder as me and Ellie made our way over to Tommy and the others.
"Okay, we need to decide who's going where." Tommy says, as he looks at me and Ellie.
"You two have any ideas?" He asked, as I nod my head.
"Ellie and I will take the Police station, a couple of Grocery stores, and a couple of Pharmacies; there are bound to be weapons and ammo, food, and medicine granted if it hasn't been looted yet." I say, as Tommy nods.
"Alright, the rest of us will spread out, and gather what we can we'll meet back here in an hour." Tommy says as we all nod, as we separate with me and Ellie heading towards the Police station.
As we were walking Ellie decided to talk.
"You said you know this town. How?" Ellie asked, as I smile.
"I have or had a few relatives who lived here." I say as we keep walking, as we were just a few feet from the Station.
"Had?" Ellie questions as I give her a sad smile, as she realizes what I meant.
"Oh, sorry." She says, as she looks away and holds her arm.
"it's alright, I know I couldn't stop anything if I tried. Come on." I say, as we walk through the doors to see a very bloody lobby with several bodies around.
"What happened here?" Ellie asked, as I look at her.
"The same thing that happened around the country, death." I say as I check the desk I found a pistol and a box of ammo in one drawer, as well as a roll of tape and a pair of scissors. I quickly put together a shiv that I quickly placed in my backpack along with the box of ammo, but I put the gun in the duffle then I remembered I brought something.
"Hey Ellie, you got your gun, right?" I ask, as she nodded.
"Toss it over here, I got something for it." I say as she looks at me with a confused look on her face but tossed it over none the less, as I caught it and pulled the silencer out of my pack, as I placed it securely on her gun before tossing it back to her.
"What the hell is this?" Ellie asks pointing to the silencer.
"It's called a silencer it almost muffles all the noise the gun would make if it didn't have it, and as a bonus say you come face to face with an infected and you fire at it the shot is quieter, so you kill the infected, but you don't attract any others." I say.
"That's fucking cool." Ellie says as she re holsters her pistol as we make our way further into the station, as we stop in the hallway outside a door marked 'armory' as I try the nob I find its open. I push the door in as Ellie and I walk through only to see the weapons gone.
"Damn it. They're all gone." Ellie yells in frustration, as I just smile at her.
"Not necessarily this is a big station, and I know for a fact that this place holds several more caches." I say as Ellie looks at me in surprise, as I scrounge a few items from the room, but nothing really of use as I walk out the door and to the stairwell with Ellie following the whole time, as we get to the bottom of the stairs we reach another door as Ellie rushes ahead and tries to push the door open, and failing as I just laugh as she stops pushing then turns and glares at me.
"I'd like to see you try to get the door open." Ellie says with an angry tone, as I just smirk.
"Okay." I say as I walk up to the badge scanner and take the badge and scan it, as I put it in my pocket as I grab the handle and turn it as I push the door open. I walked in not missing a chance to see Ellie's glare increase as I turn to face her.
"That's why you always look for a key card." I say as I see her stick out her tongue at me, as I just smile as she follows me in we see the walls filled with weapons, from automatic rifles to pistols. I walk over to a wall and set down the duffels, as I begin filling it with the guns and the ammo. I instruct Ellie to do the same.
After a few minutes the room is completely bare of any guns and ammo, as I sling the now full duffle over my shoulder as I grab the two empty ones.
"The second one is for food and medicine." I say as Ellie nods as we make our way out of the cache, and out of the station as I toss the card, as we make our way towards the Supermarket.
"Well at least these weapons won't make their way into the hands of hunters." Ellie says, as I nod.
"Well I fear the first room did, or it was just looters from the city." I say as we walk into the store we each grab an abandoned shopping cart, as we make our way through the isles as we reach the front of the store both of our carts nearly full. I set down one of the duffels as we took the food from our carts and put it in completely filling the bag with a few medicinal items thrown in. I slung the second full bag over my shoulder as we walked the relatively short distance to the Pharmacies, as we entered through the doors we once again grabbed carts and made our ways through the aisles, we met back at the medicine pick up as we loaded the third duffle but only managing to fill it halfway.
I looked back at the locked door of the Pharmacy, as I looked back to Ellie she seemed to get the same idea.
"How do we get in?" Ellie asked, as I quickly looked around I saw a set of keys I get up and walk to the counter to grab them, as I grabbed them I walked over to the locked door. When I inserted the keys, I heard a loud crashing noise on the other side. I looked to Ellie.
"You heard that, right?" I ask as she nodded her head, as I set the other two duffels down next to Ellie as I walked over to the door. I pulled out my pistol with the silencer as I turn the key as quietly as possible, as I look at Ellie.
"Stay here." I say, as she opens her mouth.
"Ellie please I need you to stay with the supplies; this shouldn't take long." I say, as she finally nods, as I slowly push the door open I hear her whisper, as I hear clicking noises.
"Be careful Jack." I hear Ellie whisper as I pushed the door in further, as I walked in I hid behind a shelf as I tuned my hearing. I see two infected and by the clicking noises ones a clicker, and the other a normal infected. I move from the shelf as I made my way around the clicker to the normal infected, as I grabbed onto them and started to strangle him, as he eventually stopped moving. I set them on the ground quietly as I made my way behind the clicker as I pulled out my shiv, I jumped and grabbed the clicker as it started struggling I stabbed it in the neck as it made pained gurgling noises, as it stopped moving as I dropped the clicker.
"Ellie grab the bags and come in coast is clear." I say, as Ellie walks in with the bags, as she sets them on the floor.
"Alright Ellie, lets fill up the duffle with the meds in here." I say as we get to work as the Pharmacy was now empty, and the duffle full. I sling the three duffels over my shoulder, as we walked out of the pharmacy and back onto the streets I turn to Ellie.
"Okay, now that we hit all the places we needed to go, how about you choose where we go we still have 20 minutes left." I say, as Ellie puts her finger to her chin in mock thought.
"Well when we got here we passed a movie store, I wouldn't mind checking out." Ellie says, as I nod.
"Alright, let's get going." I say as we walk along the long-abandoned sidewalk, as we saw the movie store I saw it was next to a Gas station.
"Hey Ellie, is it alright if we go to the Gas station next, it probably wouldn't hurt to get some gas for my bike." I say, as Ellie nods.
"Alright." She says as we walk into the store, as Ellie looks around I take my time looking in my looking. I found a large bag I could use, before Ellie called my name.
"Hey Jack, what's this?" Ellie asks, as I walk over to her.
"What'd you find?" I ask as I stop right next to her, as she shows me the DVD.
"What is this?" Ellie asks, as I can't help, but smile.
"Well I'll be, that's a cartoon I haven't seen since I was nine." I say as Ellie looks at me
"It's a children's show called Spongebob Squarepants, it's about this yellow sea sponge that goes around having adventures with his friends." I say as Ellie looks at it for a second, before putting it in her backpack. (the spongebob thing, is for my little cousin who is nine.)
"Do you have a way I could watch this?" Ellie asks, as I rub my beard in contemplation.
"I think I have a DVD player back at the house." I say, as I feel Ellie give me a hug then letting me go, before turning to me.
"Thanks, Jack." Ellie says, as I give her a smile.
"No problem, come on lets head to the Gas station, before heading back to the horses and my bike." I say as we walk out of the store and to the Gas station inside. I found several medium sized cans already filled. I took out the large bag I found in the video store and I grabbed the cans and put them in as me and Ellie walked away towards the city center.
We apparently arrived first because Tommy, Jim and his brother weren't there yet, and I heard nothing over the radio, so Ellie and I made our way to my bike as we carefully situated the three duffels, so Ellie could still sit comfortably, as I situated the gas cans in my saddle bags on the sides. I positioned myself on my bike and I helped Ellie do the same.
Eventually Tommy, Jim and John come walking towards us with duffels over their shoulders, as they get on their horses.
"Did you guys find anything?" I ask, as all three nod.
"About half a bag full. How about you two?" Tommy askes.
"Three full duffels from the Police station that still had a full weapons cache, the store having just enough food to fill the second bag, and the Pharmacy was enough to fill half the bag, we had to go into the back to fill it up the rest of the way." I say, as Tommy nods.
"Any trouble?" Jim asks, as I shake my head.
"No, not unless you count the two infected in the Pharmacy." I say, as I see them start to take out their weapons.
"Easy, they were taken care of." I say as they relaxed and put their weapons away.
"Anything else?" John asks, as I nod.
"Ellie found something to watch, and I found several full medium sized gas cans for my bike." I say as they nod, as they tie their duffels to their horses as Tommy turns to me.
"Jack when we get back I want you to drop Ellie off, and return to your place and count how much stuff we got on this trip. We'll go hunting tomorrow." Tommy says, as I nod.
"And you can take a portion as well." He says as I nod again as I start my bike, as they ride out first and I follow.
Two hours later
we arrive back at the Settlement as Tommy radios ahead for them to open the gate, as we ride inside, and we stop by Tommy and Marias' house. They get off their horses, as they had me their duffels as I have Ellie carefully attach them, as I help her get back on I turn to Tommy.
"I'll give you the list of what we got either later today or tomorrow tommy, just come by when you want it." I say as he nods before they get back onto their horses and ride back to the stables, before calling out.
"Don't mind my brother; Jack he's just a little over protective of Ellie." Tommy yells, as I look at him with a look of confusion.
'Okay that's weird.' I think as I drive to Joel and Ellies house, as I stop in front of the walkway Ellie gets off.
"Hey Ellie, if you ever need it don't be afraid to pop by my place if you need a place to stay for the night." I say, as I see her smile.
"Thanks Jack, I may just need it." Ellie says referring to the probably long scolding, and possible grounding from Joel.
"No problem Ellie, I'll see you later." I say as she waves as I drive off towards my house, as I park in the driveway as I turned off my bike. I unlocked the garage door and walked my bike in and parking it in the corner, before untying the five duffels and the bag filled with gas, as I grabbed the gas cans and placed them behind the counter as I walked back and grabbed the five duffels. I walked into my house as I cleared off the table as I set the duffels in the chairs, as I went through each of them.
By the end of it I separated them into piles, the weapons pile we collected at least 180 guns and 80 boxes of ammo from the Police station. I took several automatic rifles and pistols as well as several boxes of ammunition for each, for the food we collected 100 cans of food I took 20 cans, and for medicine we collected 186 boxes and bottles of medicine a wide variety such as the much-needed penicillin and anti-biotics. I took eight items of the medicine and made at least 18 health packs, as I placed the rest back in the duffels to be collected later or tomorrow when I heard a knock on my door, as I walk over and open my door I see Ellie.
I couldn't stop the smirk that appeared on my face.
"I guess you got in trouble?" I ask as she nods not looking at me, as I move aside to let her in as she walks in and sits on the couch. After a few minutes I sat next to her as she finally looks at me.
"That offer to sleep here still open?" Ellie asked as I nod my head.
"Of course, do you want to talk about it?" I ask, as she nods.
"In a way you were right about me getting into trouble, and you not being held responsible. I got one serious scolding for an hour then he told me I was grounded, I stormed out telling him to go to hell." Ellie says, as I let out a breath.
"Tommy was right, Joel is slightly over protective. Ellie he was just worried about you, if he was your dad he'd be doing the exact same thing, worrying because he cares about you." I say, as she releases a sigh, and gives me a smile.
"Thanks Jack. Should I apologize to him?" Ellie asks, as I nod.
"Tomorrow, give you and him sometime to cool down." I say, as she nods.
"Hey, want to know how much stuff we got?" I ask, as Ellie immediately jumps up.
"Hell, yeah I do." She yells, as I laugh.
"Okay for the weapons we got 180 guns and 80 boxes of ammo, for food we got 100 cans, and medicine we got 186 bottles and boxes of medicine and gauze, and I already took my share." I say, as Ellie nods.
"You want me to show you your room." I ask as Ellie nods as I get up from the couch and I gesture her to follow me, as we got to the top of the stairs. I opened the door to her temporary room as she walked in and took off her backpack, as she set it on the dresser as she opened it and took out the movie she took today.
"Hey, do you think we could watch this?" Ellie asks, as I think for a few seconds.
"I think a DVD player is attached to my tv that I got a while back." I say as Ellie pushes past me and rushes own stairs as I slowly walk down the stairs. I see her already with the tv on and sitting on the couch. I see the movie starting as I dim the lights and grab a blanket as I walk over and sit on the couch, as I put the blanket over us as the movie starts.
After a couple hours I saw it was dark out I turned my attention back to the movie as I felt something slump against my shoulder. I look to see its Ellie asleep on my shoulder, I grab the tv remote and I turn off the tv and movie, as I pull the blanket off us. I carefully pull Ellie off as I stand up and I carefully pick Ellie up, and carry her upstairs as I walk into her room. I gently set her down on the bed as I pull the blanket over her as I walk to the door.
"Goodnight, Ellie." I whisper, as I walk out while closing the door.
"Goodnight, Jack." Ellie says as I close the door fully with a smile on my face, as I make my way to my room as I get into bed and fall into a deep sleep.
