Chapter 37: Gentle Snow

The science lab was mostly trashed from years of neglect, and as we walked through it, I became increasingly worried. There was not a soul to be seen, and the realization that we definitely should've seen someone by now seemed to lodge itself in my mind. I tried not to show my worry to Ellie; I knew how important this was to her. I put on a brave face, held her hand, and carried on.

"Yoohoo!" Ellie shouted into the deserted rooms, her voice echoing off the walls. "Fireflies? Cure for mankind over here! Anyone?" I could tell that she was becoming discouraged despite my efforts to keep calm, but I was determined to be positive, if only for her sake.

"Let's keep it down until we figure out what's going on," Joel said, and either he was actually feeling optimistic about all this, or he was feeling the exact same way I was about it, and doing a damn good job as masking it. I bet on the latter.

I had to give the lab some credit where it was due, however. The deeper we went into the bowels of the building, the cleaner it became, even if there was a giant maple tree sticking into the side of the building, showering every surface with orange leaves. It looked like someone had at least been here somewhat recently. We found some papers, and huge binders filled with papers, and began to sift through them.

"I don't understand any of this," I said, closing the binder I was looking through.

"Yeah, nothing useful over here either," Ellie stood from where she'd been looking through an old box.

"Ain't nothin' here but a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo," Joel said, putting down a clipboard.

"I don't get it," Ellie sighed.

"Looks like they all just packed up and left in a hurry," Joel said, deciding it was time to stop the charade.

I wasn't willing to just yet, "don't worry, Ellie. There's gotta be–" I was cut off by a loud crashing sound coming from the floor above us, the sound coming down through a nearby staircase.

"Maybe not everyone left," Ellie said, a new wave of optimism sounding in her voice. I was right there with her, although there was a small amount of nerves along with them.

"Stay close," Joel said, on guard. Although there could be someone up there, it could also be an infected. I quickly pulled out the shortie from my backpack, feeling like somewhat of a traitor by leaving my revolver in the back of my pants, but I really wanted to test it out, and I could always go back to the revolver if I didn't like it.

On the floor above us, we didn't see the source of the crashing immediately. We just came to a bunch of empty rooms and halls, devoid of anything by scattered desks.

"There are no bodies," I pointed out, glad that at least I could relax a little bit, and put away the shortie.

"That's good, right?" Ellie asked, now trying to keep herself optimistic.

"If we find out where they went," Joel stated solemnly.

I shook my head, a bit irritated at him. I took Ellie's hand and said, "we'll figure this out." She smiled in response.

We walked through the building, picking up stray supplies as we went. There were hallways covered in plastic to simulate some kind of quarantine area, but still we didn't find any people. We did, however, find the source of the noise we'd hurt in the floor below us. We came to a closed door, which was the only way we could progress. Joel opened it up, and inside we discovered a monkey in the middle of the floor, searching through an empty trash can. It screeched when it saw us, and scurried off through a nearby window with a few others, making a large amount of noise as it went. It must've scared Joel because he said, "Jesus" when he saw it.

"Well, at least it ain't Clickers," he added.

"Yeah," Ellie said sadly, kicking the abandoned trashcan to the side. "No Fireflies either. Maybe in all that research, they turned into fucking monkeys."

"Yeah, maybe," I tried to be funny. "They always were into monkey business."

Ellie laughed genuinely for the first time since we'd entered the building. God, I loved that sound. "That was pretty good," she said, surprising me by walking over and kissing me tenderly on the cheek. "That one should be in the pun book I have."

I giggled, "I love you." I was a sucker for compliments.

"I love you too."

"Just keep looking, you two," Joel interrupted. "We'll find someone."

Our moment over, we continued to search the rooms. All were empty, but we saw some promising evidence that they were still here. There were x-rays of an infected brain and various instruments. I tried to keep Ellie's spirits up with these findings, and it was only when we reached some offices that things turned for the worst. We entered one of the last offices in the very back of the building. The air was dark and musty, and there was a skeletal body wearing a Firefly jacket sitting in a chair by a window. That would explain the smell. We finally find someone, and he was dead. There was a recorder placed on a table beside the body, and Joel went over to pick it up while Ellie and I found surfaces to sit on. Joel pressed play.

"If you're looking for the Fireflies, they've all left," a scratchy voice on the recorder said.

"Yeah, no shit," Ellie said. My heart sank; I couldn't even respond to her.

"I'm dead," the voice continued. "Or I will be soon. Got me some time to reflect." Joel began to skip through the recording since it was clear that it was a long one. "…been years that felt like we were…fucking thing was a giant waste of ti…not gonna do this anymore…looking for the others, they've all returned to Saint Mary's Hospital in Salt Lake City." Here, Joel stopped skipping.

"You'll find them there," the recording said. Ellie and I looked up at Joel. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but that was definitely where we needed to go.

"Still trying to save the world," the recording said. "Good luck with that." It ended.

"Do you know where that is?" Ellie asked Joel.

"I know the city," he answered.

"Is it far?" I asked.

"It ain't close. I mean on horseback…" He suddenly stopped and looked out the window, obviously seeing something.

"What?" I asked. There was a flashlight shining down from outside, up to us.

"Fireflies?" Ellie asked.

"Get down!" Joel pushed each of us down to the ground by our shoulders as a bullet from outside shot through the air, and through the window, shattering glass as it went. These were no Fireflies.

"Who the fuck are these guys?" Ellie asked.

"It don't matter," Joel said, nearly grunting. "We know where to go. Let's get the hell outta here."

As we ran back the way we came, the three of us formed a tight unit. When we finally came into contact with the other group of men, I finally got the chance to use the shortie, but I wasn't very impressed.

"Goddammit, this weapon fucking sucks!" I said after having to waste several bullets due to the shit recoil.

"I should've warned you about the recoil," Joel responded in-between shots of his own.

"It's super nasty though, Kara," Ellie said, meaning it as a compliment. I had to admit that she was right. With the right hit, guts went flying with this thing. Still, ducking behind a desk, I quickly put it away, and took out my revolver, the weapon that'd gotten me this far, and things went much smoother after that…until it happened. We were in the main area of the science lab, walking around a walkway with a railing overlooking several stories down to what once was a sitting area. Ellie and I were moving quickly behind Joel, acting as a kind of back up for him. We didn't even think to look in front of him, behind closed doors. One of the doors leading down the way we'd come was closed, and we didn't think much about it until a man burst through it, and slammed right into Joel, bending him over backwards over the railing, holding both hands over his neck.

"Joel!" Ellie and I shouted, but we couldn't focus on him just then. More men had come out of the woodworks, and we were dealing with them. Besides, Joel was a strong man. I knew that he could get out of that, only he didn't. It was like a nightmare. Ellie and I quickly dispatched the men that were coming at us, and then we turned to help Joel, who was mostly out of the grip of his holder anyway, but then suddenly, the glass railing gave way beneath them, and the two men crashed down to the first floor with shattering glass. We didn't see what happened to the other man, but Joel had crashed right onto a metal rod, and it was sticking out through his side, protruding through his body, while blood began to pool around him.

He was still alive and moving slightly, and luckily, there was a large amount of cables tied together to form a kind of rope leading to where Joel was. Ellie and I climbed down using it, our adrenaline pumping. All I kept thinking was, "this isn't happening. This can't be happening."

"Oh man," Ellie kept saying. We jumped the last few feet to the floor, and ran over to him. Up close, we could see that the rod missed his spine by mere inches, but this was still going to be nasty.

I was trying not to be hysterical, seeing him that way, and thankfully, Ellie did most of the talking to him. "What do you want us to do?" Ellie asked.

"I'm gonna need you to pull…" he grunted, pain searing in his voice.

"Okay," I finally said, pulling myself together, willing to do anything he asked of me. I lost Tess already, I was not going to lose him too. Ellie and I grabbed his arms, and counted to three before pulling him up with all our might, with Joel letting out a blood curdling scream as we did. We were successful, however. He was off the rod, and bending over onto the floor, blood still flecking the ground. Joel was not a man to show his pain; I couldn't imagine what he was going through.

"Just get to the damn horse," Joel said, not out of anger, but out of pain.

He was having trouble walking on his own, so I draped his left arm over my shoulder, and held onto his waist with my right hand so I could help him walk, and shoot if necessary. Ellie went on ahead of us, marking a clear path for us to walk. Joel and I limped as fast as we could, and I could hear how difficult breathing was becoming for him. All the while, I just kept talking to him, my heart racing, telling his we were going to make it, and that he wasn't allowed to go anywhere without us. I couldn't see his face, but I could tell that he was listening, and I wondered if he was getting a kick out of this.

Although I was talking, I was keeping my eyes peeled for danger, and also on Ellie, since she was putting herself mostly as risk by going ahead of us.

"There's the exit," Ellie said at one point. "Almost there." Indeed, we had about fifty feet left to go.

"Behind you," Joel tried to say to Ellie, but neither of us could understand him.

"What?" Ellie and I both asked, pausing for a moment, and looking at him.

"Behind you!" Joel tried to pull out his gun, looking toward the men coming down to us from a nearby staircase. I didn't let him, though, and eased him onto the floor as quickly as I could, pulling out my own gun, and Ellie and I both firing. The men mentioned something about us having guns, and to kill us, but I wasn't listening. Everyone I loved was in danger; this was something I never wanted to happen, but I could protect them. I noticed Ellie, and how skillfully she was now using her pistol. I wasn't surprised though. This was survival mode for us now, and we had to pull out all the stops we had.

We took care of the men quickly, and Ellie helped me pick him up off the floor, and we continued on as we had until we reached the outside and the horses. All three of us were covered in blood at that point, but we still managed to help Joel onto Callus, and Ellie hopped on up behind him to keep him steady. I quickly hopped on Gypsy's back, and the three of us raced away from the science lab, and away from the university.

A snow was beginning to fall, and as the distance between us and the university widened, we slowed our pace until the horses were walking. "I think we're safe," Ellie said, and as if on cue, Joel leaned to the side, and fell off of Callus, as if finally letting himself go.

"Joel!" I cried, stopping Gypsy just as Ellie stopped Callus. The two of us ran to his side, and tried talking to him, though he was clearly unconscious.

"Get up, get up!" Ellie said, pulling on his arms.

"Please!" I cradled his head in my lap, trying to coax him while tears spilled down my cheeks.

"You gotta tell us what to do!" Ellie added, still pulling on his arms. We both spoke and pulled and prodded, but it was no use. Our world came crashing down around us in the form of a gentle snow.

Author's Note: Hey everyone! Another season COMPLETE! Thank you to everyone for sticking with the story so far, and you should feel very excited because the good parts are just getting started! Don't forget to leave a review! ~Amanda