Author's Note:
Due to a number of unforseen complications, I have restricted my posting schedule to once a week every Friday. This is so I can take the time to write, edit, and then publish longer, more complete chapters.
Chapter 7: Windy City (Part 3)
"Radio me in three hours," Fredricks called to them as Ellie and Joel hopped out of the Humvee, "Otherwise I'll come looking for corpses!" he laughed as he pulled away. That truck, plus Fredricks' attitude, reminded Ellie of the truck in Pittsburgh, sans the gruesome 'warning' on the hood.
"I fucking hate that guy," Ellie said after he'd driven off.
"I know, but we ain't got the luxury of good company."
Joel started walking down the street, Ellie right behind him. They'd gone all but two steps when they heard it.
Click! Click! Click!
Joel grabbed Ellie by the shoulder and both pinned themselves against the front wall of the closest building they could find. The door beside them opened and a clicker shambled down the stoop and toward the street. More doors opened and more clickers came out onto the street, maybe a dozen or more, filling the air with their sounds. Ellie's heart hammered in her chest. She stood absolutely still, back pressed against the wall as much as she could, fearing her short, panicked breathing would alert them. She slowly turned her head to look at Joel. His eyes radiated the fear she felt.
"Why did they come out?" Ellie whispered.
"Truck drew 'em out. I got an idea," he whispered, "We are gonna shuffle slowly down to the corner and then we're gonna get inside somewhere, hole up, and get a real plan."
"There's so fucking many!" she hissed back.
"Just stay calm and follow my lead."
Joel bent down gradually until his fingers closed around a bottle. He stood back up and stepped forward, each movement so slow it was almost imperceptible until he was in a position to throw. The clickers continued to snap, snarl, and click along the street, waving their arms in front of them, searching for the truck that was no longer there. Joel let the bottle fly.
CRASH!
It went right through an open window across the street. The clickers shrieked and stormed the building, savagely swinging their arms about. Joel grabbed Ellie and both of them sped around the corner. Joel looked around and saw a hole in the wall to their right. He jumped up into it and reached down to Ellie. She jumped up and grabbed his hand and he pulled her in. They both lay on the wooden floor, panting, the clicking down the street reaching a fever pitch.
"Holy shit," Ellie breathed a sigh of relief, "That was too close."
"We ain't out of the woods yet."
Ellie got up and looked around. They were in a bedroom, decorated with flowery wallpaper that was smothered in posters of movies and bands. A Dawn of the Wolf poster caught her eye. It was next to a framed poster of four, slender young men with the words "Halican Drops" on the bottom, above their heads were what she assumed were their names, written in permanent marker. The bed was made with flowery sheets, a number of cute stuffed animals seated around the pillow, and a mobile hung from the ceiling fan. Ellie remembered the words Joel had said about the movie poster in Pittsburgh.
"It was a dumb teen movie."
"Who dragged you to see it?"
"It don't matter. Let's just stay focused, alright?"
Ellie spoke, gesturing to the Halican Drops poster, "So, what's up with this poster?"
Joel had got to his feet, "That's a band, Ellie."
"Yeah, I know, but what's up with the scribbles above their heads?"
"That'd be signatures, Ellie. Sometimes, bands would wait after a concert and you could get stuff signed by 'em. T-shirts, posters, hats, that kinda stuff."
"Did you see this band?"
Joel flinched, "Got drug to see it, more like," he muttered, fiddling with his watch without even looking at it.
"Is this the mystery person who dragged you to see Dawn of the Wolf?"
Joel looked away, his expression hardening, "Let's get goin'," he quickly ducked out of the room, leaving Ellie bewildered. That watch had been broken the day she had met him, for a long time by the looks of it, and yet he never took it off. Ever. And any time she tried to press for information about it, or for information about the person who took him to 'dumb teen' things, he changed the subject to the task at hand.
She sighed, gave up, and followed after him. They made their way downstairs to the dining room below and sat down across from each other. Joel pulled out a map that Fredricks had given him. It was marked with the dropoff and rendezvous point and their destination. Joel poured over the map, brow knitted in concentration. He finally spoke after a prolonged silence.
"Here's my idea. We're only a few blocks from the depot, so we shimmy down the street, goin' nice and slow, and then when we get to the depot, we'll get in, do what we need to do, and get out."
"Okay."
Joel slowly approached the door that they'd observed on the map. He pulled out his bow, his signal for Ellie to draw her switchblade for stealth. He slowly peeked inside and then went in, ushering Ellie in before closing the door quietly. The two of them split up and searched the depot. Once Ellie was sure they were in the clear, she said, "There's nothing in this dump. What a gyp."
"Well, let's take stock, all the same," Joel muttered, returning his bow to his pack before pulling out a notepad and a pencil.
It was an old, abandoned garage occupied by a single truck, some equipment shelves, and a small office in the back. The office had nothing inside it save for a broken pair of scissors and pipes on the wall, which Joel used to fashion a weapon. On one side of the depot were large numbers of what Ellie thought were giant bullets, but then she remembered prep school at the Boston QZ and that these were ammunition for heavy artillery or tanks. The other side of the depot had a .50 caliber machine gun that sat alone on a rack. The inside of the truck revealed nothing save for ancient cigarette butts and a complete lack of fuel for it. Joel wrote everything down on the notepad and made his way toward the door. Ellie was seriously concerned.
"Is he gonna kill us?"
"Well, he said he'd let us go if we wrote a complete inventory. I've done that, so if he has issue with my findin's, he can come here his damn self."
"He's gonna kill us," Ellie sighed.
Joel popped the door open, "Come on, kiddo. We'll get out of this one way or another."
As he came forward, Ellie heard that clicking noise. That telltale shriek as the clicker sensed movement. Joel slammed the door back shut and the clicker that was on the other side began to mercilessly pound on the metal door.
"Back that way! Back that way!"
Ellie ran to the other door on the far side of the depot and wrenched it open. The alley was clear on both sides.
"We're clear!"
"Let's haul ass, come on!"
The pair of them ran to the corner. Joel peeked around then grabbed her. They ran back up the street toward the rendezvous point that was blocks away, followed by clicking, howls, and shrieks. Joel pulled out the hand-held radio the soldier's men had given him.
"This is the outsider recon team, we're heading for the rendezvous point but we're bein' chased by infected! We need immediate extraction!" he repeated the words that they'd told him.
"Roger that, we're coming in hot," came Fredricks' voice, "Standby for pick up."
Ellie's feet slammed on the pavement as she ran, hearing bare feet slapping the ground behind her, shrieks and clicks coming from all around. It was getting closer. She drew her pistol and fired over her shoulder. Joel did the same with his. They continued running, and quickly got to a point a block away from the rendezvous point. Ellie saw that the Humvee was nowhere to be found.
"Where the fuck's the truck?!"
As if called by her words, the Humvee came screaming around the corner. It spun so its passenger side doors faced the two of them. Ellie ran for the back seat as Joel ran for the front. She wrenched the door open, dove in, and was face to face with the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. She ducked.
BANG!
The shot rang in her ears. He was yelling something, but she couldn't tell what. She felt the truck begin to move. She suddenly realized she wasn't dead and looked. She saw that a clicker was hanging onto the door, snapping its jaws and reaching inside. The man who had held the weapon that had almost killed her was fumbling for shogun shells as the truck started to pull forward. Ellie lifted her foot and kicked the clicker in the face, knocking it loose, before grabbing the door handle and slamming it shut. The tires of the truck screeched as it peeled away, infected chasing after it as it roared down the street to safety.
"Holy shit! That was intense!" Ellie panted, leaning against the seat, buckling in.
"You said it," came Joel's breathy reply as he tossed the hand-held radio back to the man who sat beside Ellie. Fredricks, in the driver's seat, looked back at the man.
"You almost blew her head off, you fucking moron!" Fredrick's snarled.
"Sorry, they were coming for me!"
"They were coming for me, too, but I didn't stick a gun in this guy's face!"
"Hey, man, I ain't drivin'!"
Fredricks pulled the truck to a stop, "How about you apologize to the girl before I haul you out of this truck and kick your scrawny little ass?"
The man sighed, "I'm sorry I nearly blew your head off."
"Good," Fredricks said as he put the truck in gear and resumed driving, "I'm surprised I'm even asking this, but did you at least hit the fucking thing?"
"No."
"The fuck you mean, 'no'?"
"I missed, dammit!"
"It's a shotgun, how the fuck did you miss at point blank range with buckshot? Did you shoot the roof?"
"I was loaded with slugs!"
"Are you fucking kidding me? Next time, shake your damn shells before putting them in your gun or, you know, look."
They drove in silence, and then a few moments later, Fredricks pulled out his radio, "This is Fredricks. We have the ORT, returning to base, all parties accounted for."
Ellie gave the man in the back seat a confused look, "Stands for 'outsider recon team'," he muttered.
The soldier's voice crackled over the radio, "Does the ORT have the package?"
Joel waved the notepad at Fredricks.
"Yes, sir."
"Good. Send them to my office, but execute possible bite protocol on the old man."
"Roger that."
He turned to Joel, "Lift up your shirt and roll up your sleeves."
"He isn't bit," Ellie said, "I swear."
Fredricks ignored her. Joel did as he was told. No bites.
"Good. We'll be back in a couple of minutes, just sit tight."
I was originally intending to skip this scene in it's entirety, but I very quickly realized that a paragraph or two explanation as to what happened not only defeated the tension from the soldier's threat and the dangerous situation Ellie and Joel were about to be put in, but also cheapened the next chapter as a result.
Special shout out to the people who have viewed, reviewed, favorited, and followed this fic! You guys are awesome and I appreciate your support and your comments.
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