I have to admit, this chapter started out boring. No spark to it. (Kinda literally.) I did tweek it a little, by bringing in a new face, that just help Joel and Ellie on the first step of dealing with their issues. (At least beyond screaming at each other.) Let me know what you think. Not much else to say, so thank you for reading, and all that. Enjoy!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Déjà Vu or Bête Noire?

It started at five o'clock sharp in the afternoon, with a cry of "the fucking little bitch bit me!"

The posse of cannibals on guard chasing after a small figure racing for the door, who slammed it shut and jammed a chair under the doorknob. Ran up and up the stairs, until the figure couldn't get any higher. Grabbed the rope stolen from a careless cannibal. Tied to a pipe attached to the wall by one of those very people playing guard. The little figure tossed the rope over the edge of the shooter's nest balcony. Climbed down. Ran as if infected were already bearing down on the scared little one.

All barbed wire was cut away from the blockades. The university was a maze, and the frightened little one took advantage of that. Hiding under anything the captors would run by without sparing even a moment to glance under. Running, fearing, desperate to get away.

Until at last there was hope. A gap in the wall near the dorms. The gates were open, but the guards liked to gather there of a night time. The little one scrambled through the gap, ran across the devastated office space. Up some stairs, found a corridor with a big gaping hole in the floor. Spore choked the air. Voices came from the office the frightened little one just left. Letting out a scared yelp, the escaped captive had no choice but to jump.

The place was blacker than a moonless cloudy night out in the forest. Feeling around, little fingers found something that had promise; a bottle. Crawling low of the floor that was throttled by cordyceps fungus and veins, the little one found the common room. Occasionally bumping into furniture. At the vending machine, there was light—quiet literally. A small little novelty flashlight, with the bighorns logo on it, but it worked. The beam wasn't all that great, but enough to see two dead clickers and a charred up bloater in the corridor.

Who could have done this? thought the little one, who found the door.

Turning the door handle didn't help. Nor pushing it. Kicking. Frantically trying to push it. Something kept the door shut, and it was too big for someone so small to open. The little one's heart plummeted. Numerous clickers flooded down from the giant hole in the ceiling.

Joel and Ellie knew none of this. Even though they were technically not all that far away, they were both asleep in their little safe house of sorts.

"Remind me why we are doing this again?" said Ellie, holstering her pistol. Her backpack was packed, and they had already procured some flamethrowers from around the campus.

Joel came out the can, deciding it was best to take a dump before heading out. "'Cause, they let their guard down at night. Huddled around a fire. Last thing we need is them on our ass, as we hightail it out of here. All we need to do is get rid of those spores, then we're gone." Joel stopped at the doorway, watching Ellie pack a few bits of food they had found in his rucksack.

"We'll go up the mountains," Ellie decided.

"Is that a fact?" Joel replied.

"Well, yeah," Ellie said, like it was totally obvious. "I killed like a million of those things up there." Exaggeration, but not far off. "We burn that place to the ground, all the infected in the area would run to it. Kill them all in one go."

"Sounds like a plan," Joel said.

"I do have one stipulation."

Joel looked to her, intrigued.

"Since we are going everywhere we know there are infected, I'll go to those suburbs with the shooter. Walk through those sewers, and kill every one of those fucking things. I don't want to go to Pittsburgh."

"Seems fair," Joel admitted. "I only saw infected in one place too flooded to be of any use. Since we're throwing around requests, I can't go back to Salt Lake. Not near those fireflies. Not after what they did to you, me… Tess. Used us, just to get you there…"

"And they didn't even want me," Ellie concluded, glumly. He was glad she said it, that was for sure.

Their terms agreed, Joel and Ellie slipped out of the dorm, kept low to avoid their shadows being seen through the windows. Some cannibals were down in the yard, around a barrel fire, telling what sounded like ghost stories, with an infected twist.

"Shut it, will ya? Infected don't do that…"

"What is this chicken shit talking about? Tell me the story."

Whoever told the story in the first place was happy to oblige, in an overly suspenseful voice. "Military trucks going towards Boston. Alone on the open road…"

The first one cut in with, "Up near Salem, there is supposed to be some mad bitch pulling over military trucks. Claims to be infected, and kills the drivers. Just like that."

"That ain't scary," said the second.

"It is, when I tell it," the third complained. "They call her the infected siren…"

Joel slipped on his gasmask, rolling his eyes. The men were fucking idiots. He reached the door. Opened it. Waited a moment, as the people down below exchanged a few words.

"Seen any sign of it yet?" said one of them.

"Nah. Fucking little monster got away. It's out here somewhere."

"We ain't leaving without it."

Joel got this weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't describe it. The way those men were talking… he felt angry. Seething with hatred for them. How could they go from joking about some woman, to talking so horrible about something described as 'little'? Before he even knew what he was doing, he pulled a shrapnel bomb out of his rucksack, stepped out onto the steps, and hurled it at them. The bomb went off like a hornet's nest, killing all three of them instantaneously.

"Jesus, Joel, you didn't have to do that…" said Ellie, absolutely gob smacked at his brutal killing of three men who could have been innocent bystanders.

"I'm not even going to try to explain it," he told her, his voice echoing because of the mask.

They could have searched for the big hole in the floor, but they figured they better make it easy for a quick getaway, if their burning of cordyceps flowers went horribly wrong. Heaving the vending machine seemed like a good idea over a year ago, even though he had killed all the infected lurking around in there. Now he had to force the damn thing out the way.

Ellie's hand landed on Joel's shoulder, pulling him back from opening the door. "Joel, listen," she whispered right into his ear.

He obliged her. Clicking noises, of at least half a dozen clickers. A little sob, roars of clickers, then a thud of something colliding with a wall. All the clickers dashing towards that, then returning to their usual pattern.

"Someone is in there," Ellie whispered.

Oh, fuck… Joel doing something that seemed like a good idea, had trapped someone down here. Ellie crept in first. Instead of using the flamethrower, she opted for a simple shotgun. What better time than to practice the moves Joel told her? Near a desk half covered in fungus, a clicker stood in slumber. She climbed up on the desk, and stabbed the fucking thing in the throat, and let if fall to the floor—now permanently dead.

One down, she mentally told herself. Slipped into the common room, and saw something small hiding under the pool table; a very little girl. A de-activated shrapnel bomb at her feet. Her tights were torn but not bloody. She reached up into the ball collector—the glass was broken away, grabbed a ball, and flung it at Joel, thinking he was a clicker. Joel narrowly dodged it, his hand raised, quickly hiding behind the other side of the pool table, to avoid swarming clickers.

The moment Ellie got close to the little girl, the frightened little one saw her chance.

She lunged at Ellie, snatching the shotgun from her stunned hands—Ellie was too busy trying to figure out if she was a runner or not. Ellie landed flat on her ass. The gun tucked under one arm, the girl ran towards the door at the far end, threw a ball into the dorms. An explosion boomed in the dorm, alerting two clickers, and killing two of them. Another bomb followed after the two, and finished them off. The fifth and last one charged at the girl, and received the blast of a shotgun at close range, blasting it right back out the common room again.

Shit! How the fuck did a kid so small know how to do that? It took months before Ellie felt competent enough to take on a hoard of infected.

Apparently, the little girl wasn't finished. She turned the gun on Ellie—who was too busy looking down the business end of a shotgun barrel to notice anything that the beam of her torch had landed on.

Joel had. He saw everything. A golden haired little girl who appeared to be about six—half of her hair had fallen out of the hood during the kerfuffle. Wearing a dress now dirty and a tad on the tatty side. Her tights… they were tattered alright. On the calf of her right leg was an infected bite, and it certainly wasn't new.

"Who are you? Did those men send you?!" Her voice sounded far too sweet and cute to be in anyway threatening. The only part about her in anyway threatening was the double barrel pump-shot gun she had pointed right at Ellie's face.

"No! No one sent me… we came because we wanted to," Ellie insisted.

"Ellie, look!" Joel said, pointing at the girl's leg.

Sure, from his angle, Joel could see it, but Ellie couldn't. The girl spun around, pointing the gun at Joel instead. Yep, now Ellie saw it.

"Who are you? And why are you wearing a mask…" She spun back around to Ellie. "And you're not!"

"I'm infected… like you."

"I'm not infected," the girl told her, matter-of-factly.

"You're safe," Joel told the little girl, trying to defuse the situation. "We ain't with those people. I'm guessing they were after you. They are dead."

The girl lowered the gun, interest swimming in her blue eyes. "All of them?"

"Well, three of them."

The girl lowered the gun entirely.

"Can I get up now?" Ellie asked. Not that she gave anyone any chance to say no. She heaved herself up off the floor.

They decided it best to take the little girl out of this place, and find her something to eat and drink before they set about their task. She claimed it was daylight when she got away from her captors, and it wasn't daylight any more. They lead her back up the stairs, closing the door back off, in case any of the cannibals or her captor fell in. Those bastards deserved to turn.

In the dorm, Joel had surrendered his bed. Allowed the little girl to sleep on it. She had stayed awake long enough to tell them her name—Annalisa Rebecca Hyde—hear Joel and Ellie's names, gorge herself with canned peaches so quick she nearly choked, drink a whole cup of rain water, and go off to sleep.

Joel and Ellie went outside to the corridor to talk.

"What do we do, Joel? We can't run off up the mountain with her."

"Maybe we can," Joel muttered.

"We can't. You remember her as well as I do. She was with three other people. They probably miss her, and she must miss them."

"What if they are dead?" Joel fired at her.

He had a point, and Ellie had to face it. They couldn't leave her to fend for herself. She was capable with a gun, and throwing bombs, but she couldn't possibly survive out there. Ellie wouldn't be able to live with herself knowing someone so young died because of her.

"Okay, how about this; we ask her where she last saw them. We go there. If her family isn't there, she comes with us," Ellie offered.

"Alright. Agreed."

Joel ducked just in time to avoid the beam of a flashlight, and dragged Ellie down with him. A bunch of men seemed cheerful, at the sight of the mangled bodies commenting they will eat well tonight.

Ellie couldn't stop herself from whispering a "sick fuckers" comment.

Once they were gone, Ellie headed into the dorm. Annalisa was curled up into a small little ball, clinging to a corner of the blanket. Having a suspicion she had found the bear's owner, Ellie opened her backpack, pulled out the old teddy bear—no longer dirty—and tucked it in. Annalisa's arms went around the bear's torso, like a muscle memory. Her cheek resting on its head. During their journey from Wyoming, Ellie had washed it in the first burst of rain they came across, and replaced the moldy old stuffing from some destroyed toys from a store. She had to sacrifice one of her backpack patches to seal it up.

Ellie climbed up on her bunk, and settled down to sleep.

As for Joel, well, it wasn't the first time he had to bed down on the floor for the night. He took his rucksack off, and set it down on the table. Laying down on the floor, and went straight out. His alarm clock wasn't birds, infected, or even hunters. The giggle of a little girl. He raised his weary head, seeing Annalisa sat cross-legged on top of the desk, shaking the bobble-head toy, laughing every time its head wobbled. Apparently, Joel's rucksack wasn't entirely shut, she saw the toy on the top, and wanted to play with it. She was adamant that she hadn't touched anything else. Her hood was down, and her golden hair dangling past her shoulders. For a headband, she had a folded up pink bandana.

Once the three of them had eaten, the portions were tiny because they had to ration between three, Ellie got the ball rolling trying to figure out who the hell this girl was.

"Who taught you how to fire a gun?" Ellie asked.

Still playing with the bobble-head, Annalisa replied, "Tessa."

Joel did a double take. Too many things were lining up, but he had to piece it all together, before he started throwing around his own desperation for a crazy idea to come true.

Ellie glanced at Joel, insinuating the name hadn't gone over her head either. "Okay, who taught you how to make and throw those bombs?"

"Uncle Boom. He knows everything about blowing stuff up."

"Who taught you how to keep infected away?"

"Tessa."

Joel had to cut in. Too much was lining up. The gun, distracting infected, the bandana for fuck sake. He had to ask. The name was one letter away. "The same Tessa that taught you to fire a gun?"

"Nope! The Tessa that shares my blood."

"How many Tessas do you know?" Joel asked.

Annalisa held up two fingers. "One who killed the thing that bit me. One who shares my blood."

"What does the Tessa who showed you how to shoot look like?"

"Um…" She looked Ellie. "Little bigger than you!" She pulled all her hair back, to create a high ponytail. "Yellow. Not like mine. Lighter. Not yellow. Like brown, but not dark. Like my daddy's hair."

"Damn," Joel muttered. Just wishful thinking on his part. Yet again. Desperation to escape the constant heartache, had forced him to think she could be alive.

At nightfall, none of the cannibals came back. Joel stayed in the dorm with Annalisa, talking to her. She had practically forced him to play with her. Giving him her teddy bear, and making him be judges, for her making the bobble-head do tricks by throwing it in the air. Both Ellie and Joel had agreed she might as well keep it, since she loved it so much.

He tried to ask her about her family. All she remembered was a large lake, that was entirely frozen over, and a really big house that wasn't really a house. Gates were locked. Ellie recognized it. She figured it could be the ski lodge she had attempted to lose his men, while she fled through.

"You practice those tricks, and I'll come judge in a couple of minutes," said Joel, getting up. His legs were already half asleep. "I'll get Ellie to come in. All three of us can be judges."

That pleased Annalisa. She was a good kid. Far too sweet and naïve to have come from this world. Had she told him she was a time traveler from the old pre-cordyceps days, he might just have believed it too.

Ellie stood in the corridor, looking up at the stars. Silently, Joel stood beside her, taking in the view of the stars. Like blue velvet sprinkled in diamonds.

"Tomorrow for sure," Ellie muttered.

"Agreed. Maybe the kid can help out."

"She is eight years old, and she can take out five clickers all by herself."

"How did you know she is eight? She looks six to me."

"I asked her. How does it happen, Joel? In Jackson, kids like her were playing stupid games, and collecting things."

"If we do our job, then that won't be much of a problem any longer."

"Can we really make them all extinct?"

"Not exactly. Maybe we will have to tell a few people along the way how to get rid of the spores, and word will spread."

"Sounds good." Ellie gazed up at the stars, wondering why they were so bright. Why she could see them out in the unclaimed parts of America, but not in places like Jackson with street lights, and so on. "Leaving does have its advantages."

"That it does," Joel agreed. "Can't deny the view."

Ellie smiled, tilting her head and resting it against his arm. "Joel?"

"Ellie?"

"Thank you."