A/N: I hope whoever is reading this is still enjoying it. It would mean the world if you let me know your thoughts! Thank you!
Chapter Twelve: The Garden
The night was suffocating against the horizon, it had no beginning or end. The fog crowded around the dark house. It seeped in the windows and doorways and crept down the steps into what used to be a garden.
Root had gone into the house first, brave as ever. Ellie slowly followed. Root sniffed the air and pawed at the locked door. She knew there was something in there too.
Ellie brought down the butt of her pistol against the handle until it finally began to crack away from the old wood. It falls leaving a gaping black hole to the darkness beyond. This was her only lead and it had to be worth something. She pushes the door open to a small rickety set of stairs leading down beyond where she could see.
The smell hit and she coughed against it, covering her mouth with her arm. She knew that smell. Decay. Death.
Root traversed the stairs, disappearing quietly into the pitch below. Ellie followed, gripping onto the splintered railing in the hopes the stairs didn't collapse with her on them. The smell was utterly disgusting and she was having a hard time focusing through it. It seemed to burn her nostrils and seep into her clothes. Ellie had her small flashlight on and the beam created shadows where there was none before. It gave the basement life and it seemed like the covered furniture was slowly creeping towards her. There wasn't junk piled around, as she suspected most basements contained. This basement was for something else.
A small lantern light glowed in the corner illuminating the corpses of many that littered the floor. Some were chained to the wall and others just left in piles. Root whines in the background and moves inside, barking once. She looks to a darkened corner where it seemed someone was huddled. Someone alive.
Ellie kept her arm against her nose and held her gun up.
"Hello…" She says and the person in the corner slowly emerges.
It wasn't Joel.
It was an older woman, skinny with graying hair to her shoulders. She's wearing stained jeans and a dark t-shirt. She kept her eyes on Ellie as she stands. She wasn't chained like some of the others.
"Is it my turn?" She asks and she looks…hopeful? Ellie wasn't even going to ask what she meant by that.
"I'm looking for someone." Ellie replies and looks back down at the corpses. Some of them so old that they were skeletons.
"Yes, yes, yes. Follow me." The woman says, as if Ellie was a guest to be shown around and she approaches Ellie, who kept her gun up. Ellie cautiously steps back and the woman runs up the stairs towards the night.
"Wait!" Ellie calls and she runs quickly after her. Root was right on the woman's heels.
Out of the house, the woman runs into that wretched forest. She didn't know where they were going, it was so dark and nothing was familiar. Perhaps she wasn't being very smart, chasing some stranger in the dark but she was desperate. Ellie knocks the brush out of her face as they run on, an aimless sort of panic taking her over.
They finally reach a clearing where the woman finally stops, catching her breath. She looks at Ellie with that strange hopefulness again.
Ellie stands still, afraid she would spook her and Root circles the perimeter. Ellie didn't understand why the woman was living in the basement with the dead or who she was. If it was some kind of trial the woman was put through? Or if this woman was to be trusted, but she didn't have time for that.
Ellie opens her bag and pulls out a can of peaches. The woman's eyes follow it but she says nothing.
"Can you tell me if you saw a friend of mine?" Ellie holds out the can and the woman steps over to her, slowly. She didn't seem afraid; more curious. She takes the can gently from Ellie. "His name is Joel, he.."
The woman interrupts, "Yes."
She opens the can of peaches and begins to eat, like an animal would. Ellie thinks she must have spoken to him, otherwise how else would she know it was him from just his name?
"Okay, that's…that's good. Where did you see him? How was he?" Ellie asks. Her flashlight started flickering, which made the woods the kind of dark that your eyes can't even adjust to.
"The light can't touch him." She replies and Ellie squints at her. The woman drinks from the peach can and it dribbles down her chin messily.
"I don't understand." Ellie says and the woman points into the woods before throwing the can and walking without a word.
"Hold on a second..." Ellie tries but the woman walks on.
Ellie looks to Root who was keeping a close watch on the stranger, her eyes flash in the darkness. They walk on, through a collection of spider webs. Brambles get caught in Ellie's hair and twigs snap at her feet.
"Where are we going?" Ellie asks and keeps her gun at her side.
The woman says nothing, she just walks, as if she knew these woods like the back of her hand. It doesn't sit right with Ellie. Not at all.
After traipsing for far too long in the woods they come across a huge clearing that is in the shape of a circle, purposeful. Out ahead of her, several dozen mounds stretch beyond, like unmarked graves. Beyond the mounds, is a tree with a red ribbon tied around it's trunk. The woman stops and points at the mounds with a small smile, as if she thought this would make Ellie happy. As if she thought this would make sense.
"The light can't touch him." The woman repeats and points. Ellie felt her heart leap into her throat.
"What the fuck do you mean? These are unmarked graves."
"The light can't touch him." She says and Ellie blinks, her hand tightening on her gun. The mounds sit silent, each spaced neatly from the other. This was done over a long period of time, years even.
"What the fuck does that mean? Where is he?" Ellie was losing her last nerve.
The woman points to the ground and says, "they are seeds."
"Where is he? Just tell me where he is." Ellie doesn't even try to hide her desperation and she was starting to shake.
The woman points to the mounds and says, "There. He's there."
"No. No he's not there. That's not…please just tell me where he is." Ellie shakes her head.
The woman looks confused at Ellie's reaction, as if she expected her to be pleased. "He's a seed."
Ellie points the gun at her then but the woman doesn't even flinch, she's unfazed. She would shoot her if she had too.
Who the fuck were these people?
"He's alive! Tell me where he is!" Ellie pleads, she was losing it. She was losing everything.
"Yes. He's there." The woman says and she's smiling again.
"Show me where he is!" Ellie screams and it echoes past the mounds. Her voice is swallowed up by the trees.
The woman spreads her arms out towards the unmarked graves. "I wanted to be a seed too. He's lucky. You'll see."
Ellie steadies her hands, keeping the gun pointed at the deranged woman. "I swear…I'll fucking shoot you if you don't show me!"
The woman looked pleased with herself. Ellie was done. She was done playing whatever kind of sick game this was.
"Which one is he…" Ellie asks, swallowing, hardly able to glance at the mounds of dirt.
"All and none." The woman says and it infuriates Ellie. She walks closer and holds the gun point-blank to the woman's face.
Ellie's voice wavered, "I'm goin—g to count to three."
She sees Root then, sniffing the mounds protruding from the Earth.
"One…"
Root begins pawing at one and then digging. There's a rushing sound in her ears again.
"Two.."
A dark cloud, heavy with rainwater creeps over the top of the trees and Root lifts her head and barks.
"He's alive. Planted but not grown." The woman spits.
That was all the motivation Ellie needed to run towards Root. She fell to her knees in the dirt and she began digging into the mound with her hands. Root dug into the Earth with her. She used whatever was around to carve into the soil. Ellie couldn't say how long this went on for. She couldn't even feel her hands any longer. She was just a machine, digging and digging. She'd dig to the core of the Earth. Luckily, it was shallow enough that she finally hit something wooden and solid. "Joel!" She yells.
There was faint banging coming from inside. Ellie exhales, the relief stung her eyes. "Joel! We got you."
There was a shriek from behind her. The deranged woman charged at Ellie, knocking her to the ground.
"The garden! You've ruined the garden!" The woman cries. She was furious and grabbing at Ellie's throat, viciously. Root snarled, baring her teeth. She pounced, snatching the woman quick, pulling her off Ellie.
Ellie closed her eyes tight, releasing a shaky breath when the woman was silenced.
"We got you…" She repeated in a whisper, towards the ground.
