The Woman Who Didn't Make It
Author's note: I know it's been so long since I last updated this. With the recent buzz about the coronavirus, I think I will be writing more for the time being. This is something that I wanted to cover for a while. I think I will do more for this one, as I have had other ideas for a while to do for this one. Hope you enjoy it!
It was September 20th. Jolie Wu lied on the floor inside Gramma's Kids, a children's clothing store in the Entrance Plaza, wondering what could have happened to her friend Rachel Decker.
She cried. She couldn't believe she just left her friend behind like that to die. She didn't want to do it, but what just happened to her, or what almost happened to her, so many chills ran through her veins.
The two had spent a good amount of time evading and avoiding zombies at the Willamette Parkview Mall, among others who used that place to take refuge from the undead. They were successful as they had lasted for at least nearly a couple of days until they came across some other threats.
"Come on, Jolie." Said Rachel, a young Caucasian woman who had light brown hair in a ponytail. She wore a black turtleneck sweater with blue jeans and black shoes.
"Where are we going?" Jolie said. Jolie was a young Chinese woman who wore a beige vest over a black long-sleeve shirt, as well as brown jeans and black sneakers.
Rachel and Jolie were all the way in the front end of the second floor of the Entrance Plaza. They were close to the security room door. They walked through the hallway. Oddly enough, it was empty, but can zombies get inside? Do they even know how to open a door?
"We're trying to find some place safe, remember?" Rachel said. She faced the door right in front of her. She gripped the doorknob and tried to twist it. "What the hell?"
"What's wrong?" Jolie stood right against the wall.
"The door, it won't open!" Rachel said.
"Maybe it's locked," Jolie said.
Rachel tried to twist the knob. Though the knob twisted a bit, but the door wouldn't budge.
"I can't open it," Rachel said. She then tried to knock on the door. "Come on, let us in!" She yelled. It was no use.
"Shit, we can't get in," Rachel said. "We have to find a place."
"But where will that be?" Jolie said as stood away from the way at this point. "Everywhere we go, there will either be zombies or those weird people in those yellow raincoats. They tried to capture us, remember?"
"I know," Rachel said. "But we have to try, right? What choice do we have?"
Jolie looked right to the floor and then directly at her friend. There was little choice in the matter. They made it this far, there's no turning back now. Out of the two, Jolie was even more scared. Not to say Rachel wasn't, but Jolie was still shaken from having been grabbed by those cult members. One of them even had a knife right to neck. Rachel wanted to help. She even tried to fight one of them off, but then another one grabbed her and tried to take her away.
What saved both of them, however, were gunshots from up above. They didn't know where those shots came from, but the two friends saw that the cult members let them ago. In that very moment, they ran off.
But it wasn't time to reminisce. It was time to look for somewhere to hide.
"You're right, let's go," Jolie said.
Rachel walked away from the door and headed down the hallway to get to the door to the Entrance Plaza. Jolie walked right behind her. It was going to be harder from here on in. After a few days, several zombies had managed to get inside the mall. But they managed to make it through without getting infected with the virus.
The door slowly opened as Rachel peered a bit into the Entrance Plaza.
"What's going on?" Jolie said as she stood behind Rachel.
Rachel slowly poked her head through the crack in the door. Several bodies of zombies were laid out right in front of Jamming Juvenile, as well as near Robsaka Digital.
"Looks safe to me," Rachel said. She slowly opened the door and made a baby step with her left foot as she hung onto the door a bit. It wasn't long until she got out completely. Jolie creeped a bit behind her and quickly turned her head to her left and to her right. She saw that a lot of zombies were laid out on the ground.
"Are we safe?" Jolie said.
"I don't know," Rachel said. "But I have a feeling that someone could have killed them."
They slowly walked through Robsaka Digital. Rachel led the way. The two friends walked right past the display of Wendy's new album, "Love Spurred" and the cardboard cutout of the singer. Rachel then went to a complete stop when she saw what looked like three live men with rifles. They were standing close to Ned's Knicknackery. Jolie was a little far behind her but when she saw her friend stop, she ducked behind a counter with a TV display and a cardboard of Ticky the Fox.
"Why did you stop?" Jolie said. "What do you see?"
Rachel peeked out from the corner. The three men she saw, the oldest one had grayish brown hair, wore glasses, and wore a red vest over a long-sleeve button-down shirt. The other two were much younger, as one of them had an orange skull cap and a blue vest, while the other wore glasses with a green jacket and a blue hat. They were all talking, but Rachel couldn't hear them.
"I think I saw who saved us," Rachel said.
Jolie crawled from behind the counter and then knelt up a tad. She noticed the three guys as well.
"Should we go thank them?" Jolie said.
Rachel peered out a little more. "I don't know. I don't think we should."
"Why not?" Jolie said.
The more Rachel looked on, the more she saw that the older man was talking to the youngest man a certain way. The older man kept on turned his head and pointing a finger in different directions. It almost looked like he was berating that young man. Come to think of it, she started to wonder if those two younger men were the sons of that man.
Could they be the guys who shot those weirdoes from earlier? Rachel thought.
"We got to get going," Rachel said.
Jolie got to her feet and then followed Rachel out into the mall again.
"Let's just walk and then find somewhere to go," Rachel said.
Jolie then took a deep breath. There were more completely dead zombies on the ground. The two just walked as Rachel didn't want to attract any attention. She had a bad feeling about those guys.
But it wasn't long enough, as the moment the two ladies walked right in front of Emerald's, a jewelry store, one the younger men said, "Hey, Dad, I see something over there!"
Then the older man turned around and saw the two ladies. "Thanks, Jack."
The other young man yelled, "Dad, Jack, no! They're not zombies!"
"Shut up, Thomas!" Jack said. "You don't know if they are!"
The father said, "Quiet, you two. Get your guns."
Jolie then saw the three men draw their weapons.
"Rachel!" Jolie yelled.
Rachel quickly looked to her left and her eyes widened. The two friends quickly ran into the nearest store, which was Ladies' Space. It had white walls and an orange color scheme on the posters and on the some of the furniture.
They wasted no time as they quickly hid behind a shelf in the center of the store closest to the service counter. Jolie dropped down to sit on the floor and trembled and breathed very hard. Rachel sat down on the floor next to her. She looked right at her friend, who continued to breathe and shake.
"Jolie, are you okay?" Rachel said.
"They looked like they were going to shoot us!" Jolie said.
"Calm down," Rachel said.
"I can't, they might find us and kill us!" Jolie said.
"They didn't fire anything at us," Rachel said. "One of those guys tried to stop them."
Jolie slowly looked right at her friend. Rachel had a point. They probably thought that they were zombies.
"I think those were the guys who saved us earlier," Rachel said. "If we go out and show ourselves, they'll see that we are people. We can try to talk to them and then maybe they can let us go."
What Rachel said sort of contradicted what she thought before, but because one of them tried to tell the other two men that she and Jolie weren't zombies, it was possible that they could be reasoned with. There was only one way to find out.
The two friends slowly got to their feet. But then, BANG! And then a cracking sound occurred through one of the glass windows of the store. Jolie then looked behind her as a hole was appeared on the wall. In fact, the bullet hole was only a few inches away to her left, even though she was a bit far from the wall. Jolie then wondered if she had been standing at that very moment.
Without warning, Jolie just took off running.
"JOLIE, NO, WAIT!" Rachel yelled.
But it was too late, as Jolie had left the store. She kept running right past The Shoehorn and kept on speeding. A couple of other gunshots were fired. Once she made it past Kathy's Boutique, she realized she was home free, but then a gunshot was fired directly at the right side of Estelle's Fine-Lady Cosmetics. Right in front of her was the escalator.
Oh no, I left Rachel behind! She thought. The gunshots that were fired, it's possible that she didn't make it. But it wasn't time to think about that right now. There was only one thing on her mind.
She went right towards the escalator. Zombies were on both ends. The only other option was to go down through the planters.
She went right beside the escalator that goes down and jumped from one planter to another one below. Once she was down to the third lowest, she jumped right to the tile floor and then quickly made a break for it. It didn't matter where she went. She just wanted to get away from the gunfire. She quickly went inside Gramma's Kids and then dropped the floor. She almost got shot, but what hurt inside the most was that she left her friend behind.
Damn it, Jolie? Why did you leave her?! She then started break down from what just happened. Those three men could have killed Rachel. But how could she know? If she went back out into the mall, she wouldn't be so lucky.
She lied there and then heard more gunshots occur. No matter how much she wanted to see if her one of her closest friends was okay, there was just no way that she would make it in time.
But then suddenly, a couple of men walked into the store. One was an overweight man with a white shirt and shorts; the other was a man with a camera. The man was Frank West. It was then that the gunfire had finally ended.
Jolie looked up and saw the two men.
"Hey, mister, will you help me out?" Jolie said. "My friend Rachel, she…"
"What?" Frank said. "What happened to this Rachel girl?"
Jolie wiped the tears from her eyes a bit. "I was with her upstairs. She got left behind on the second floor in Ladies' Space. I ran, because I heard some gunfire. Those hunters probably got to her."
Frank had a look of slight confusion on his face and then leaned in slightly to look her in the eye and then looked at the other man.
"You said Ladies' Space, right?" Frank said. "I'll go check on her. Wait here, okay?"
He turned to the other man and said, "Wayne, keep an eye on her."
Wayne nodded his head.
Jolie then looked up and saw Frank exit the store. Wait, what if she is alive?
Jolie yelled, "Wait, I want to go, too!" She ran out through the door of the store, with Wayne right behind her. "Take me with you."
Frank saw Jolie and Wayne approach him. "Come on, let's go look for your friend."
Frank had given Wayne a katana to use to help protect himself from zombies. Jolie had run pretty fast to try to catch up to her friend. There was only one thing on her mind right then.
The moment Frank walked in through the doorway of Ladies' Space, Rachel quickly got up from behind the service counter.
"No, get away! I don't know you!" Rachel yelled. "Someone please help me! Jolie, where are you? Jolie!"
The moment Jolie heard Rachel's voice, she sped up a bit and caught up to Frank.
Jolie walked into the store. "Rachel!"
"Jolie!" Rachel yelled, who then smiled as a tear started to trickle a tad from her eye. The two women wasted no time and hugged each other.
Jolie backed up. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have left you behind. I was so scared of getting shot or even eaten by zombies."
Rachel then put her hand on her friend's shoulder. "It's okay, Jolie. You came back for me and that's all that matters."
But Jolie couldn't help but feel bad. She said she was sorry once again.
Frank then cut in. "Any chance I could get you ladies to continue your conversation in a safer place? I'll escort you to the security room. Come on, follow me. I'll talk you there."
"The security room?" Rachel said. "But we tried going in there earlier."
"Long story, I'll explain when we get there," Frank said. "Let's go."
But Frank remembered having been told about an old man who was in an antique store, which happened to very close by. Frank led Wayne, Jolie, and Rachel into Ned's Knicknackery.
Frank had a long talk with an old man named Floyd in there. But it had to take some convincing for the old man to follow Frank. While in there, Rachel had smashed one of the glass cases to take a sword. She wanted to help protect herself and Jolie along the way from zombies.
Frank had carried the old man on his back, while the two ladies and Wayne followed. It was time to get to safety.
It took a bit for them to get there as they had to get through Paradise Plaza and the warehouse to get to the elevator and finally through the air-duct to get into the security room. Frank had noted to all of them that the door was welded shut in case zombies were to try to come in.
But it didn't matter, as they were finally home free.
Rachel and Jolie went inside one of the rooms. Jolie couldn't look at her friend in the eye after what had happened.
"Jolie, please don't feel bad," Rachel said.
Just then, tears started to come out of Jolie's eyes.
"I can't help it," Jolie said as her voice cracked.
Rachel hugged her friend once again. "Listen to me, you came back for me. I know why you ran. You were scared. I was, too. But I managed to keep myself out of sight of those hunters or even zombies. Besides, I was afraid that they got you, too."
Jolie then looked at Rachel in the eye when she heard her say that.
"But it's okay, we're safe," Rachel said. "Everything's going to be okay. Don't worry."
Jolie nodded her head.
Another note: So with this one, because you find Jolie and Rachel at the same time of that psychopath battle with the Hall family, I thought it would be better if they somehow got caught up in that mess. The mission with Floyd also happens at that same time and every time I play it, I always get them at the same time.
Regarding if I would do a chapter on Floyd, I could imagine it being with him reflecting on everything. Just like how I want to do one on Leah, because I included Bill, Burt, and Aaron in the chapters about Bill, as well as the one about Burt and Aaron. For Leah, I could just have it be with her reflecting on what happened, even though that would be depressing, but her whole story was already depressing as it was and that would be the whole point.
Anyway, peace out, you guys.
