All Good Things...
"For fucks sake" I groaned
"Thanks for the warning on the other side guys!" Ellie muttered sarcastically.
"So where's this tower?" Joel asked
"We're close" Henry answered "C'mon. Let's go"
So we were off.
I hung at the back of the group near Ellie. "How you holding up?" I asked her.
"I'm alright" was her answer "Hey Joel!" she called over to her guardian a few feet ahead "While we were split up, I killed a couple of Infected by myself. You proud?"
Joel grunted something like "Yeah" in reply, I couldn't tell very well.
"Hey, look at that!" Henry called. It was the radio tower. I could see it now in the distance. If I was right (and I usually am, not to brag) it was probably on the other side of the village-town-suburb-whatever we were currently in.
"What I'd tell you, huh?" Henry smiled
"Let's find a way around to it" Joel, ladies and gentlemen. All business, he was.
We decided to search some houses along the way. The first house we ducked into we decided that splitting up would save time. I checked upstairs, and I found an old note but not much else. I came down to find Ellie and Sam chatting on the sofa.
"How did you guys end up together" the boy asked.
"Oh... I..." Ellie had to contemplate on how to answer, "A friend of mine, Marlene, asked Joel to take me to the Fireflies"
"You seem to get along pretty well" Sam noted
"Yeah, well we had a rocky start. Now I kinda boss him around" Ellie chuckled "Ain't that right Joel!"
Joel was in the kitchen, and seemed to ignore her.
"And what about you" Sam asked me "How do figure into this?"
"I tried to kill Ellie" I answered plainly "She tried to kill me. We compromised"
"We met back in the city" Ellie elaborated "I was seperated from Joel, and I ran into him. We attacked each other, but neither of us really wanted to kill the other. So he offers to help me find Joel, and well, we've been stuck with him since"
"Wow" I said "When you put it like that it sounds like we've not been together for long"
"Only a couple days" Joel said, walking past us.
"Really. Shit" I felt kind of stunned.
We stopped outside another house. This one was too well fortified to break into, even after all these years, but it was the writing on the wall that caught our attention.
"Will shoot on sight" Sam read aloud.
"Sound like friendly people" I joked.
"First few months after the outbreak, they had a lot of looting" Henry explained "Everybody got real paranoid. You remember any of that Joel?"
"Everyone barricaded themselves in their homes" Joel said "Then supplies started running low. That's when you saw what people are really capable of"
With those cheery memories, we trudged on, stopping at another house. This one was easy to get into, what with an entire section of wall having fallen away. We searched the kitchen, where I found a pair of scissors, which I pocketed for later.
"I was only five when the cordyceps hit" Henry announced "My memory's pretty hazy, but remember living in a neighborhood just like this one"
"What do you remember?" Ellie asked
"Uh, barbecues. My parents, they would throw these crazy big barbecues and invite a ton of people. You know, I remember the smell more than anything"
I wasn't quite sure what a barbecue was, but I decided not to pry. Seemed like a nice memory anyway.
We moved further down the street, where there was this weird multicoloured van in the way.
"What's this?"
"This is an ice cream truck" said Sam.
"A what?" Ellie seemed just as confused as I was.
"Henry told me about these. They'd sell ice cream out of the truck" he explained
"Seriously?"
"No way. Joel?" Ellie looked to the old man for clarification.
"It's true" Joel chuckled "This thing would drive around and play loud creepy music and kids would come running out to buy ice cream"
I was speechless. The idea sounded so foreign to me. Ice cream was almost non-existent nowadays. The idea that you could just walk out and buy some was just so... so alien.
"You people lived in a strange time" Ellie spoke what I was thinking.
My eyes landed on a pair of scuffling dogs further down the road "Hey look"
"Aww, doggies" Ellie cooed.
"You're gonna wanna stay clear of those Ellie" Joel warned her "It ain't like in the zone. Those are wild"
The dogs ran at the sight of us anyway. A shame though, I knida liked animals. You know, when they're not out for my blood, like a certain mosquito on the back of my neck... got it.
We headed into another abandoned home, its front door hanging wide open. Henry and Joel went to search the house, while Sam, Ellie and I took a moment to breath in the living room.
"Darts" Ellie somwhat-offered somewhat-stated. She had found an old dartboard hanging on the wall, complete with a few darts.
"Okay" Sam was in.
I decided to stand back and enjoy the show.
Sam threw first. It was a bad shot. "Damn it"
"My turn" Ellie nudged him aside. Her shot was mildly better.
"Boosh. I am a natural" she bragged
"Luck" Sam grumbled, going for another shot.
"No, it wasn't" Ellie argued.
"It was luck" the boy insisted. He threw his dart. It was better than last time. He smiled with a confident chuckle.
"Alright, get outta here. You're getting cocky" Ellie threw her second dart. Needless to say, it wasn't very good.
"Fuck"
"Horrible"
"Alright, It's a tie" Ellie announced
"Uh, no" Sam complained "No, you clearly got destroyed"
"How did I clearly get destroyed. That's practically a tie!"
I decided I'd seen enough. I walked up beside Ellie, skillfully pulled her knife from her pocket and, with the flick of a wrist, embedded it into the dartboard. It wasn't quite a bullseye, but it was much better than what they had managed.
"Bitch please" I smirked at their speechless faces.
"That was cool" Ellie admitted.
Sam walked away "Lucky shot" he grumbled. He was clearly a sore loser.
Joel came back not long after that, so we left and came to a dead end. On the wall was a familiar looking piece of grafitti. A Firefly logo.
"Fireflies were here" Henry noted.
"Yeah, by the looks of it" Joel agreed
"How're we gonna find them?" Henry asked.
"I knew a guy. My brother actually. He was a Firefly" Joel replied "Last I heard he was in Wyoming. We get there, we find him, we find the Fireflies. Whaddya say, you in?"
"Sounds like good plan, man" Henry agreed.
Personally, I thought the plan was pish. I mean, so much could go wrong with such a vague idea. Find one man in a massive state, if he was even still there. And how about how we were going to get there. We were barely out of Pittsburgh.
"Long way to Wyoming" I stated
"Gotta try it" Ellie insisted.
We decided we had to move on by cutting back through the houses, Joel and Henry in the lead, discussing potential ways to Wyoming. I looked at Ellie, she was fishing around in her back for something. Whatever it was, a big cheesy grin grew on her face as she whipped it out. It was a small book.
"Okay!" she announced "You're killing me with your downer talk. It's joke book time!"
"Dafuck?" I blurted.
"Just go with it" Joel sighed. He suddenly looked very tired.
"You wanna hear a joke about pizza?" Ellie read "Nevermind, it was too cheesy"
"I don't get it" Me and Sam said nearly unamimously.
"Yeah, me neither" Ellie shrugged before moving onto her next joke. "What did the green grape say to the purple grape? Breathe, you idiot!"
I'll admit I chuckled at that one, but I also had to shake my head.
"I've got one for you" Sam offered.
"Alright, let's hear it" I said.
"Why can't your nose be twelve inches long?"
"I don't know, why?" Ellie asked
"Your nose?" I repeated, seriously pondering the question.
"Because... then it would be a foot" Sam smiled.
"That's so dumb" Ellie laughed "I love it"
Sam smile grew even wider at that.
So we managed to get past this block, cutting through the other houses, we jumped down a ledge onto the next street when a loud CRACK kicked up the dirt in front of us.
"Shit!" Joel hissed "Sniper"
We took cover behind the nearest car, which could fortunately hide us all. My brain was immediately running scenarios and plans, not many of them looking good.
"We need to kill that bastard" I spoke plainly.
"Y'all stay here" Joel ordered.
"What?" I demanded
"No!" Ellie whined, almost simultaneously with me.
"Before you start," Joel interuppted "I need you guys to keep him busy. I'm gonna go around and see if I can't get the angle on him"
"That's your plan?" I questioned "Leave us for the fucking bait?"
"You got a better plan kid?" Joel argued.
"Yeah, actually. I'll go get the guy. I'm much better at this sneaky shit"
"You won't be able to use the rifle once he's dead though"
Fair point. I decided to not argue any further.
"Fine" I settled with saying that aloud.
So Joel snuck off, and within seconds I couldn't see him any more. The four of us were left like sitting ducks, firing blind shots at whatever direction bullets seemed to be coming from.
Eventually, Hunters came up from behind us, and our current cover wouldn't suffice, so we had to run. Fortunately Joel seemed to have gained control of the sniper at this point, because the Hunters started to drop like flies when they stuck their heads out of cover.
One did manage to sneak up on us though. Joel, Ellie and Henry must've not seen him. I saw him however. He tried to vault over the hood of the car we were hiding behind when I threw a brick at him. It struck him in the shoulder, stunning him long enough to wrap my arms around him. There was a sickening crunch as I slammed his head against the car. One dead Hunter, free of charge.
"Watch out!" Ellie cried, and I had to duck as she fired a round bewteen a Hunter's eyes. I nodded a thank you, and we got back to work.
Eventually the Hunters pulled back, where their secret weapon revealed itself. That fucking humvee.
"Everybody down!" I yelled, as the monster opened fire. Whoever was driving that beast was taunting us, but I could barely hear them over the sounds of the bullets banging against our vehicular cover.
"Kenneth, look out!" I heard Henry cry. I looked up to see a molotov sailing towards me, I rolled away, the spot where I just was now a singed mess of grass and dirt.
A Hunter was about to toss another, when a well-placed shot from Joel killed the man instantly, the still lit molotov falling back into the tank. The humvee burned from the inside-out, speeding into the side of a building. A single body dived out, his charcoaled body writhing in agony. I stomped on his head, and it cracked like a melon. He was dead.
"Shit!" exclaimed Ellie "That was intense!"
"You're telling me" I responded
"You good Sam?" Henry calls
"Yeah!"
Ellie looked towards the end house, throwing a thumbs up "Thanks Joel"
A for a moment, everything was good.
Then the Infected showed up.
A Runner and a Clicker charged at us from around the corner. In the moment it took us to register what was happening, Henry and Sam had been tackled to the ground.
I ran at the Clicker pinning Sam, and with a kick I sent the humanoid monstrosity sprawling, jamming my scissors into its neck. I dragged Sam to his feet.
"Sam!" Henry was hysterical "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine" Sam reassured him.
The wails of oncoming Infected spurred us to start running. We made a beeline for the house Joel was in, and slammed the door behind us.
"That's not gonna hold!" I told Joel as he came stomping down the stairs.
"Anybody hurt?" he asked in response. Everyone was fine.
"Alright, I think it's time we quit this place. C'mon!" the old man said. We ran out the back door, and we didn't stop until we came to the radio tower.
By then the sun was setting, so we decided to set up camp for the night. I managed to get a fire going, and soon, we were bonding like friends. Jesus, it's been ages since I told a campfire story.
"Shut the hell up" Henry said, an massive grin across his face.
"Dead serious" Joel assured him. He was telling a story back from the old pre-cordyceps days. "It was Tommy's birthday. That's all he wanted to do. Just rent two Harleys and drive cross country"
I was guessing a Harley was some kind of motorcycle. Henry was listening with the look of a child.
"Oh man" Henry sighed "I could die happy if I could just ride one around the block. What was it like?"
Joel seemed to think for moment, "It was good. It was real good"
"Good?" Henry looked incredulous. "Can you believe this guy?" he looked over his shoulder to look at me and Ellie "C'mon man, give me details. Describe it"
Ellie got to her feet "Okay, you guys clearly need some alone time"
"No no, Ellie. This isn't any regular motorcycle. Okay?" Henry stressed. "You get on that bad boy, you feel that engine. Nothing like it"
"Oh yeah? How would you know?" I smirked.
Henry smiled back "I've seen it in my dreams" He pointed in arms outwards "Vroom vroom!"
I laughed at that. Ellie decided she wanted to check up on Sam. He had decided to sit in the next room and check inventory.
Henry's smile faded "I don't think anyone from our group is gonna show up"
I could have told him that from the start, but right now didn't feel like the best time to say that.
"Yeah" Joel gave a weary sigh.
"Worst part about it all... explaining it to Sam" Henry muttered.
I decided to take my leave as well. "Sam'll understand" I say as I went for the door "He's smarter than you think"
Moving into the next room, I found Ellie and Sam in a seemingly serious conversation as well. They stopped to look at me as I came into the room.
"What you guys talking about?" I asked them
"What are you scared of?" Sam asked me. He was over by the window, looking over a view of the countryside.
I kind of wanted to laugh off his question, brag about how I wasn't scared of anything, the usual bravado. But something in Sam's eyes made me honest.
"Lots of things" I admitted "The dark. Heights. The Infected. Dying. Stuff like that"
"Yeah" Sam sighed.
"What about you?" Ellie asked the young boy.
"Those things out there" I guessed he was talking about the Infected. Ellie seemed to think the same thing, given how she nodded like she understood.
"What if the people are still inside?" Sam asked us "What if they're in there, without any control of their body. I'm scared of that happening to me"
"Hey" Ellie started "You're part of a team now. We're gonna help each other out"
"Trust me" I assured "They may look like people, but the person themselves... they're not there anymore. You know what I mean?"
"Henry says they've "moved on"" he says "That they're with their families. Like in heaven. You guys think any of that's true"
"I try not to think about it" I tell him honestly "You never really know, so why bother, am I right?"
"I... go back and forth" Ellie admitted "I mean, I'd like to believe it but..."
"But you don't" Sam finished.
"I guess not" she shrugged.
"Yeah" Sam sighed "Me neither" I couldn't put my finger on it, but he seemed so... tired, Iguessed.
Ellie made a sudden noise like she just got an static shock or something, and she rummaged in her bag for something. "All this serious talk, I almost forgot"
She pulled out the old action figure that she had pocketed in Pittsburgh. The one that Sam had wanted but Henry wouldn't let him keep.
I smiled. She was a nice girl.
"There" she puts it on the table next to Sam "If he doesn't know about it, he can't take it away" she says with a smile.
She turned to the door "I'm pooped. See ya tomorrow"
I give Sam a small nod, and leave to go sleep myself. I found a nice, relatively clean spot near the fire, Ellie choosing to rest her head on my stomach.
"You know, if you're going to keep this up, I might charge you" I joked.
"Shut up and go to sleep" she smiled back.
I did actually manage to sleep that night. When I woke up it actually seemed like I had managed to sleep in as well. Ellie was just starting to stir as well.
"Morning" Joel smiled at us, or whatever passed as a smile off that man.
Henry was cooking something. It smelled fantastic.
"Damn. That smells good" There goes Ellie, voicing my thoughts again.
"Thought I'd let the young couple sleep in" the man joked.
"Shut up" I smiled. I cursed at the feeling of warmth in my face. I knew Henry was joking but... I mean I won't deny I thought Ellie was cute... but no. Just no.
Ellie clambered to her feet, "Where's Sam?" she asked.
"I let him sleep in for once" Henry replied, gesturing to the other room.
"Oh" she sounded almost disappointed
"Hey" I spoke up, "If you want him to join us, go wake him up" I smiled. Ellie looked at Henry, who shrugged, and off she went.
I squatted down to look at the meal "What is it?"
The answer was lost in the sound of Ellie's scream.
She came barreling through the door, knocked to the ground by something. Shit, it was Sam! But the sounds weren't his. Those weren't his eyes.
"He's turning!" I yell. Joel goes for his gun. I charged at Sam, but Henry let off a shot from his gun, cutting a groove into my shinbone. I fell to the ground with a curse.
"That's my fucking brother!" he shouts, pointing the gun at Joel, who still hadn't gotten his.
Pain flared in my leg, I could barely stand. I stared at Ellie, struggling to keep the Infected boy off of her, I saw history flashing in front of my eyes. I stared a Joel, my eyes pleading. Save her!
"Screw it" he muttered, and dashed for his gun. Henry fired, but not at him, but at Sam. A clean headshot straight through his infected skull. Ellie shoved his limp body off with a grunt.
"Ellie" Joel and I scrambled towards her "Are you okay?" She nodded.
"Thank God" I sighed with relief.
"Sam?" came Henry's voice. It sounded so small, so broken.
"Oh no" I breathed. I'd seen this all before. It couldn't happen again. Not again.
"Sam?" Henry was on the verge of tears now.
Joel moved towards him, arms oustretched. "Henry" his voice calm.
Ellie moved to get up, but I grabbed her arm "Stay back"
"Henry" Joel repeated, moving ever closer to the sobbing, hysterical wreck "I'm gonna get that gun from you, okay?"
Henry looked at him, and pointed his gun at him. Joel froze.
"It's your fault" he sobbed
"This isn't anyone's fault, Henry" I pleaded.
It didn't matter. The man was inconsolable, broken beyond repair.
He yelled, bleary eyes staring, focusing on nothing "This is all your fault!"
The barrel flew to his temple. BANG! Henry fell dead at our feet.
That shot seemed to echo on for hours.
