Chapter 10

Reflections

6 Years Later…

I sat on the cold, cracked asphalt of an old road, leaning against a rusted and forgotten pick-up in the middle of nowhere. I had no idea where I was or how long I had been out there. I stared out into the distance, watching the sunrise over a rotted field of dead corn. The suns ray's hit my eyes, causing me to squint. I lowered my gaze to the lifeless corpse lying beside me. Around him, other bodies rested in contorted positions, grotesquely twisted and broken. They had attacked me while I walked down that long, seemingly unending road.

I looked back at the sky and sunrise after my eyes had adjusted. I stared blankly in that same position the entire night, thinking upon my actions. Something I never did. Normally I would justify my actions using survival as an excuse. However, that night, I sat and pondered my meaningless existence and soon came to realize one thing.

I was an animal.

They came upon me out of nowhere, silently. Before I even had time to react, they grabbed hold of me and shined a bright light in my face, blinding me in the darkness. They started beating me. Over and over. When they stopped, just for a moment, I struck. I threw a punch forcefully upward, sending the broken nose of one of the attackers into their brain. I could see dark blobs of movement just enough too mediocrely predict their movements. I pulled a hunting knife from under my old, raggedy shirt and plunged it into the throat of one of the unarmed men. The gargling of blood and sound of suffocation filled my ears, giving me confirmation that said attacker had been dealt with.

The bright light shined in my face again, sending pangs of discomfort through my head and eyes. While disoriented, I was grabbed in a bear hug from the front. I couldn't move my arms, and I couldn't escape. This person was larger than me, and I couldn't overpower them. I heard a raspy voice making noise that sounded like laughter, but more closely represented the sound of a cackling child. The sound of a knife being unsheathed echoed, and I decided it was time to do something. I looked at the person holding me, and in clear view, their neck was outstretched, simply asking to be taken advantage of…

I opened my mouth and bit.

I lingered for only a moment and then ripped away a large chunk of flesh. The hold on me loosened and soon became nonexistent. The raspy voice soon replaced its incessant laughter with that of a coward's plea of forgiveness. I heard the knife drop and the person shuffle their feet, fall to the ground and backup against a creaking structure. I stood above them for several seconds. Hearing them beg for mercy. When my eyes finally adjusted, I looked into the orbs of the skinny, mangy looking man in front of me. Old and weak. I knelt down, picked up his knife, and walked closer towards him. He started screaming. Crying for help that would never come.

When I ceased his outcries of agony, I wiped my face with the sleeve of my left arm. Blood stained the torn flannel shirt. I sat down next to the old man's writhing body, a large knife still protruding from his neck, and looked ahead. Not paying any attention to the commotion beside me. It was early morning, the sun had not even begun to rise. I sat there for several hours, not thinking, and then thinking, then not thinking. Rinse and repeat.

After the sun had crept up behind the field and brought me out of my trance, I stood and began rummaging through the belongings of the dead men. Nothing. Just like the many times before. Maybe that was why they were attacking people on the roads. They had nothing, but they figured someone had to have something. So they would take it. I used to call them hunters. Now I call them survivors. The same as I call myself. Anyone I met on the roads I either avoided or killed, out of either self-defense or the necessity of survival. If they had something I needed, I would take it. Simple as that.

I opened the door to the pickup behind me and began searching through it, knowing well I would find something of value. I reached for my hunting knife to cut the cloth from the seats, but found my knife was not there. I looked down and yanked the knife out of the raspy-voiced man's neck, causing him to slump over. The material from the seats, I found, worked wonders as protection from infected. The instinct of most people is to put their arms up in defense. Their attempts would be fruitless as most times they would still get bit. I walked to my pack that had been taken from me, reached inside and pulled out a half-used roll of duct tape. I wrapped the cloth around my forearms and shins and taped the cloth to the upper sleeves of my shirt and my jeans to ensure they would not simply fall off. The snug fit was a sign I had wrapped it properly. I dropped the duct tape back into my pack and slung the pack over my shoulder.

I walked back to the truck and searched it once more, this time under seats, in glove compartments, and on top of visors. In the center console, under a large pile of old envelopes and tissue paper, I found a revolver. The thing was still a shiny silver. That truck must've been sitting there since the outbreak had first started. I popped open the cartridge. Loaded. I reached to the empty holster on my belt, unclipped the leather flap and slid the firearm in place. It had been months since I had even seen a gun. Of course, it had also been months since I had seen another living person, so a gun wasn't really necessary.

Out in the wilderness, it was oddly peaceful. The winter was harsh and nature was sometimes cruel, but the solitariness of it was what attracted me to it. I had been alone for over 2 years, and I liked it that way. An old friend once said, "The only thing a partner is good for, is getting you killed." Or something like that. They were right, though. Without having to worry about anyone else, it made my survival a hell of a lot easier.

However, not having someone around was starting to wear on my psyche. With no one to talk to, I resorted to talking to myself, telling stories about how things used to be and the events of that day's hunt. Without any means of upkeep, I grew rather haggard-looking, as well. When I closed the rusty door with a loud creak, I caught a glimpse of myself in the dusty old window for the first time in a long time. My now mostly gray hair was nearly touching my shoulders and hanging in my eyes. My beard, drooping just below my neck, was stained with blood and dirt. Spots of dried blood speckled across my face in random placement, and wrinkles were much more prominent. I was getting old, and oddly looked forward to one day not having to fight anymore.

I turned away from my reflection and continued on down that long empty road.

I looked down as I walked, no real destination, no real purpose for walking. Just walking. My gaze fell upon my old boots. The toe of the shoe had curled upward from the extensive use, and the heel of the soles were starting to come off, hanging lower than the rest of my boot. My jeans were torn and bloodied. Patches of duct tape were scattered all over the article of clothing, barely holding it together.

I lifted my hands. My nine fingers were covered in crusty blood, and dirt packed itself under my finger nails. I had lost one of my middle fingers in a confrontation similar to the one I had only hours before. A small group ambushed me. I struggled, so they cut off my finger with an old pocket knife. Unfortunately for them, I didn't stop fighting and threw the excess blood into the eyes of their pack leader while launching my head backwards and into the nose of the survivor restraining me. Obviously, I made it out, and they didn't.

I lifted my head back to the road and stopped in my tracks. An old park ranger station stood on the side of the road, overrun with green plants and overgrowth. I contemplated my next move and quickly ran into the woods to the right side of the road. I made a wide loop around the building, scoping the place out, before coming back to it. It stood on red brick and broken glass. I peered into one of the windows and saw the typical look of a makeshift shelter. Old mattresses were placed sporadically throughout the one large room, with a small fire pit and pot in the middle. The place was empty, which I saw as either an opportunity or a trap. My gut told me to trust the latter assumption, but my empty stomach told me to take the chance.

I opened the unlocked door to the station and tentatively stepped inside, scanning the room. I held my gun out in front of me with my knife crossed just under it. Nothing. The place was empty. I closed the door behind me, propped an old metal chair against the door, and holstered my gun while still keeping hold of the knife. Old duffle bags lied slumping on the floor at the head of each mattress. Broken lamps and blank-covered books lied next to the mattresses, as well. I didn't have to read them to know what they said. They all documented the "game" that the owners had caught. The number of shoes one person had, to the quality of the shirt another was wearing. Old cubicle walls laid on the ground in heaps. Some were used to board up the windows, while others were used to create the fire pit. The ceiling boasted large moldy holes where water damage had settled in. What a great place to set up camp.

I checked every drawer of every old desk, every trashcan, every duffle bag, but found only the most miniscule of items. Some had half-eaten cans of rotten baked beans, while some had broken pocket knives. Some even had pictures of what I assumed were loved ones. I recognized some of the men in these pictures. They were the ones I killed earlier. The pictures portrayed them like ordinary people, but their actions spoke differently. I stood up to leave the station empty-handed, when I stepped on a small rug. The creaking sound originating from under it intrigued me. I shifted my weight on one foot and found that the floor felt slightly loose. I grabbed a corner of the rug and unveiled a small cellar door with a lock binding the two doors together. I took out my knife and jammed it between the door and rusty lock. After several seconds of pushing, the lock gave way, causing me to lose my balance and fall over. I sat back up and lifted the doors.

The doors landed on either side of the open hole with a loud thud. I peered into the darkness of the cellar, pondering what I would possibly find down there. I stood up, walked back outside and checked the perimeter of the station, making doubly sure that what I was stumbling into wouldn't be some sort of horrific trap. When I determined that the outside was clear, I ventured back into the building and started down into the cellar. The familiar rumble of a generator reverberated up the stairs of the hidden room. That meant power. The familiar smell of decay filled my nose, as well. I continued to walk down the stairs with my hand firmly sliding up and down the wall, looking for a source of power, when I eventually found it. I flipped the switch up and artificial light lit up the small room the stairs ended on. Just as I had thought, the cellar would not hold anything I would want to see.

Inside the room were cages. The kinds of cages one would see at an old dog shelter. The cages, however, weren't the important things to note. What was held inside the cages was something worth noting, however. Inside, held the dead and still decaying bodies of men, women, and children. Many bodies were lying bloated and stiff, some on top of one another. The smell hit me all at once and caused me to throw up. That smell being contained down here for so long was too much, even for me. Blood puddled in certain places and bile and bodily fluids ran freely from the corpses that piled inside the cages. It was a horrible sight.

I turned my gaze to focus on the small wooden table that supported a tiny container. I walked over and popped the lid off. Inside were more photos, but not the photos of happy people like the ones I had found upstairs. Instead, these photos were taken of people at a distance. Some were of people walking on the road, like I had been, and some depicted people in the woods. I turned to look upon the dead once more. I recognized the people in the photos as the ones lying dead in the cages. I felt my stomach tighten when I flipped through another photo and saw a semi-familiar face.

Me.

My photo depicted me sitting at a small fire in the middle of the day, eating a small container of baby food. I dropped that photo to the ground to see another one of me. This time, I was crawling into a hole in a tree that I thought was safely out of the prying eyes of both infected and normal people alike. Every photo had a date written on the back. Mine was 3 days before I was attacked. I felt my breathe begin to catch as the last photo of the entire stack became visible. The photo showed a healthy size group of people walking down the road, around 8 of them. Military looking, all sporting assault rifles and a familiar insignia on the arm. Both men and women mixed into the group. But two familiar faces caught my eye, and caused me to drop my knife. I fell to my knees and felt the urge to scream. I opened my mouth to speak for the first time in what felt like forever. In a hoarse and dry tone, one word escaped my lips:

"Ellie?"

AN: Well, I haven't done one of these in a while. I appreciate you guys still reading and seemingly enjoying these chapters! If you have any feedback you'd like to give me, or anything that bothers you in the story so far, message me or write a review and I'll be more than happy to either message you back or mention your concerns in the next authors note. For those of you possibly wondering about the ending in the last chapter, don't worry. It will be addressed soon enough. I am having a ton of fun writing these and I hope you enjoy reading them. Anyway, I should have the next chapter up in a week. Maybe before depending on if I get enough time. Thanks!