JOEL

Ellie tugged hard on Joel's arm, pulling him closer to the door. He glanced back, regretting it fast: the skinny, taught limbs flailing, grey sagging skin, bulbous heads he had no want to see. The only noise more fearful than their clicking and screams was their footsteps. That told Joel they knew you were there, and that they were coming for him, and for the people he needed to keep safe.

The door was still far up. Nick was leading the charge, his brother just behind him. They'd probably gone through so much training, and Joel had too, real life training, but he was getting old. Ellie would've been able to keep up with them if she hadn't been concerned with Joel, he knew that, he was holding her back. If the clickers got him, they would get her. Because she'd stop, even just for a second, in grief or duty, she'd stop for him. He considered running the opposite way. Saving her.

It wouldn't work. She'd follow.

"Ellie!" Joel shouted. "You gotta go!" His legs were aflame, filled with acid, a sharp stitch tearing through his chest.

"It's not far!" she said.

"It is! You've gotta—"

A woman's heavy voice: "GET DOWN."

Nick slammed to the ground, diving, looking around with wide eyes to make sure his brother was doing the same. They all fell one at a time, but Joel was slow. And if Joel was slow, Ellie was slow. An outpour of six hunters with rifles poured out, letting loose a spray into the infected. They released high, pained cries, but they all fell.

Joel's chest pounded, like his heart threatening to bust out his chest. His body was still in exhausted agony, though the cold cement of the floor was some respite.

Ellie had one bullet in her shoulder and another in her healthy wrist. Her eyes looked dizzy, her body weak. Already she was struggling to hold herself upright.

"Has anyone been bitten?" the woman asked.

Joel ignored to her, scrambled to Ellie's side. "Ellie. Ellie, you alright? This isn't so bad. We get you out of here and you'll be alright. The bullets didn't hit anything vital." From the grounded, he snarled at the woman. "Why the fuck didn't you wait? They weren't that close. A few damn more seconds!"

"I can't take the risks you need me to take," she said. "I'm sorry the girl was hurt."

Nick came over. He actually looked stricken. "Let's get her up. Quick. More of 'em might come."

"We flooded the third and fourth sectors. We found the source of the infected. A stray found its way in through an unlocked door." Did Joel imagine her eyes lingering on him? "There's an exit through the basement, but I need guns in this sector."

"How many?" Nick asked. One of the soldiers handed him a fresh rifle, which he lifted one-handed to inspect.

"How many can you spare?"

"I need someone to get these two out. They're… danger prone."

"Alright," the woman said. "Mark, you'll be on extraction for this pair. Nick, I need you here. I'm sorry but I need you here."

Nick's assault rifle produced a series of fast clicks, like before this had every happened, it sounded like a slot machine swirling to life. Joel had been to Vegas twice. Once before the world ended, and again after. The new city of Vegas was a dangerous place, though he doubted he'd ever see it again; hunters with a taste for theatricality. Vegas had left a lot of blood on Joel's hands.

The woman, still unidentified, disappeared with five men and Nick, who didn't say a word to either of the pair. He placed a hand, and then withdraw it just as fast, on his brother's shoulder.

"I'll see you soon," he said.

Ellie, Joel, and Mark continued through the warehouse into a series of dank corridors, which smelled thick and sour.

"Sure would appreciate my t-shirt pulled over my nose right about now," Ellie said. "This does not smell good."

"You holding up?" Joel asked. She had shrugged an offer of physical support. By Mark's light Joel could only make out the smallest bits of her wounds. He wouldn't even have known they were there, was he not concerned, and paying attention. Something akin to a hangover had settled in for Joel, but he was beyond caring about physical discomfort. A good bed became impossible to find half a decade after the infection, and by now it was all but worthless. Joel could soldier through.

Mark's paced slowed, but he kept his torch aimed directly ahead. Filthy water began to rise around them, though less than ankle deep. They meandered mostly in silence for twenty minutes, and then came to a locked door. The lock mechanism was large, round, in the centre of the door like a submarine.

"Alright," Mark said, and slung his rifle over his back. He inspected the lock for a good while. "We open this, there's no way back. Triggers the door on the other side of this corridor." He aimed a finger back down the way they came, into the dark. "You guys armed?"

Joel had a handgun and Ellie had her knife, but Mark didn't seem to think that sufficient defence. "Take this," he said, and handed Ellie a pistol. Joel's revolver would pack a thicker punch, but Ellie needed to be able to move. Joel could handle himself. Ellie had bullets inside her.

"Let's get this over with," Joel said.

Joel helped him rotate the cold, heavy metal. A lever clanked inside, and they all heard the door slide shut on the other side. Joel and Ellie shared a long look, and he pushed open the door.

Inside a swarm of clickers launched at them. Mark unleashed a spray of bullets, dazzling them. "Run!"

There was nowhere to run.

But they broke into a sprint, or as fast a sprint as Ellie could manage, back towards the door. He was behind her at all times, and Mark behind him. Short, punctuated bursts of bullets told Joel that the boy was well trained. The sound staggers them,

"There," Ellie said. "The window!"

She shot an unsteady gun at a rectangular section of a window. It was several feet above the ground, above Joel, but he could lift her. Her aimed his handgun and loosed a bullet into a clickers head. Their screams were so loud as they sprinted towards them. Six, seven. Mark didn't have enough bullets.

"Get the girl out!" he said.

Joel handed over his gun to the soldier and hoisted Ellie. He grabbed her by the waist in an attempt to minimise injury, but she had to pull herself through the window. He heard her screams, mingled in with the clickers.

"Joel, come on," she said. "Hurry."

Mark fell to the clickers.

Joel tried to lift himself up, and with Ellie's help he might have managed it. She would pull him to safety and they'd run off into the dark, afraid, but survivors—they had each other's backs. But Ellie was wounded and could not aid him. And although he tried hard to pull himself up, he didn't have the strength, didn't have the will, not even to do it for her.

"Run," was the last word he managed to say before he started to scream.