Ellie and I were both conflicted with our next route. Getting up to the helicopter looks like it was gonna be a bit tricky. However, it was our only chance of ever finding any medicine and stitches to help Joel. Who knows how much longer he can hold out for.
"Oh… How the hell do we get up there?" Ellie says, looking up at the helicopter with a hand over her eyes. I started to think of how to make it up there. It wouldn't be easy. "Well, we can't exactly boost each other up there. It's far too tall for us to reach." I point out, just seeing how high that helicopter was from us.
"Yeah, you're right about that." Ellie sighed before turning to look at me, "Let's look around the area. Maybe we'll find a way." "Right. I'll look over here." I tell her, walking off to the right.
The area I was searching looked like a hospital wing for other survivors who had been here long before Ellie and I. It had tarps being held up to signify walls, a few tables that had some old stuff that wouldn't seem useful to us. And even a stretcher that had a severed hand strapped to it.
"Jesus…" I say, seeing the rotting hand. It looked like it had been cut off a person's hand. "What'd you find?" Ellie asks, jogging up to me. She then saw what I saw and gave the same reaction as me. Before walking off, I find a note laying on the floor. I picked it up and held it gently in my hands so we could both read it.
"With supplies running low, Private Eugene Ellis and I entered the loading dock in hopes of procuring additional rations. We were caught off guard when a group of roughly half a dozen Stage 2s attacked us.
We neutralized the threat but not before Ellis was bitten.
After a long heated debate - where Private Ellis tried taking his own life - I incapacitated him. I then took it upon myself to break protocol. I isolated the infection with a tourniquet. I gathered and cleaned a surgical saw from the abandoned triage. I injected Private Ellis with morphine before amputating his arm several inches above the bite. I'm confident that once the private regains consciousness he'll be clear of the Cordyceps Infection. Captain Regen Francis"
"Shit…" Ellie said with sadness. "That's fucking awful." I say, putting the note in my messenger bag. "Yeah it is." Ellie replied. I can't even begin to imagine having to cut off someone's limb like that. It makes me glad that Ellie's immune because I wouldn't even have the heart to bring pain to the only other person that I love. But at the same time, it would only hurt them if I didn't.
"C'mon, I found a way up to the helicopter." Ellie said, taking me by the hand. She led me to a gated doorway that would be our way up there. "Aw fuck yes. Great find." I say, satisfied. She tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge. "Agh, of course. Locked by the fuckin' military." I say in partial frustration. "Yeah, really. There's gotta be a way to get this on." Ellie replied, her eyes trailing from the door to a long cable attached to it.
"Follow the cables. Right, Joel?" Ellie said, starting to follow the cables. "Yeah, the source of the power has to be down there." I say, following close behind her. We follow the cables through a set of opened double doors and into a dark corridor with some boxes in it.
"Jesus, I have an uneasy feeling." I say, feeling my body shiver. My entire body gave one huge jerk because of a chill running up my spine. "Yeah, I do too." Ellie says, pulling out her pistol. I do the same and hold it in my right hand a bit tightly.
We jumped over a box and were immediately scared by a damn cat, who just happened to jump from the inside of a box. "Oh god! Fucking cat." Ellie groaned. We took a right turn, which was another long corridor. At the end of it was water.
"Hey, look." I say, seeing another set of double doors. "Good call." Ellie nodded, going to the door. We both tried opening it however, something was blocking it. "Well shit. Guess we'll have to take the long route." Ellie says, moving away from the door. "Right. I really thought that would get us somewhere. I don't want to go in the water." I say, jogging behind her. "Well, you're not the only one but it looks like we don't have a choice." Ellie replied.
The second we made contact with the water, I let out a yelp. It was so cold. "Oh my god that's freezing." Ellie shivered, jumping over an obstacle. "Oooh thank god it's not deep." I say, holding my arms up above the waist deep in water.
I jumped over the obstacle with her and was met with a second heart attack by that same damn cat. "Fucking hell! If that cat scares us one more time, I'm gonna shoot him and make him our dinner." I growl, irritated. "Oh man. I'm right there with ya. Looks like it's trying to kill us." Ellie agrees with me.
The next area we came into looked like a loading dock with at least three trucks in it. There was still water covering the whole floor that had gone down to our knees. It didn't take us long to find a generator that could be the source of the power that would help us move on. We make our way up to where the generator is and Ellie tries to turn it on.
"Here we go. End of the line." she says, taking a hold of the cord and giving it a pull. But it didn't do anything. "The hell? What's going on with it?" I ask, walking up to it. "Let's have a look here." Ellie replied, opening the cap and taking a peek inside. "It's outta juice." she said to me. "Well damn it. Looks like we gotta find some gas. There could be some in these trucks." I say, finding one of those gas containers sitting by a fence.
I let Ellie hold the jerry can while I held the hose that was with it. When we jumped into the water, the sound of stalkers echoed through the loading dock. "Oh shit! Stalkers!" Ellie says, pulling out her loaded pistol. "On your right!" I yell, seeing a stalker ambushing Ellie. She didn't have time to shoot it and was grabbed by it.
Instantly, I take my knife out and go to stab the fucker in its eye. "Get the hell away from her, you fucker!" I yell, driving my knife deep into its eye in order to kill it. I pull my knife out and it falls dead into the water. "Thanks." Ellie said, holding her pistol out. "No problem." I replied, facing the other way so I could shoot more.
"I got you covered." Ellie says, ready to fight against more. "Right, and I've got yours." I reply, partly looking at her. Just then, at least 4 more make their appearance. Luckily for us, we were able to gun them down.
I was grabbed a couple of times by two of them however, Ellie saves me by either putting a bullet into it's fungi covered head or she stabbed the hell out of it. Afterwards, we went to find ourselves some fuel so we could get to the next area. We've gotten no luck with two out of the three trucks in here.
"Ah, jackpot." Ellie said, sniffing the opened gas tank. "Three times a charm as they say." I say, handing her the siphoning hose. "Hell yes. Now, how is this done?" Ellie asks, putting the hose in the filled gas tank. "Looks like you gotta siphon it out." I reply, my hands on my knees to observe.
She does just that by trying to suck out some of the gas, which she immediately spits out in disgust. "Guessing it doesn't taste that good." I say, chuckling a bit. "Ugh, no it doesn't. Be happy you're not doing this." she groans, letting the gas fill up the jerry can.
Once it was filled up, we made our way back over to the generator so we could fill it up. Ellie fills it up as full as it would get and tosses the jerry can aside. "Alright. That should work." she said, taking a hold of the power cord. "Fire it up." I say, feeling accomplished. She pulls it at least three times and the generator begins to run.
"Fuck yes!" Ellie says, giving me a double high five. "Now we're finally getting somewhere." I say, accepting her high five. Our celebration was short lived by two more stalkers making their way over to us.
"Oh fuck!" we say in sync. We thought that we were fucked but a cord from the ceiling ended up falling into the water, electrocuting both infected at the same time. The water was now dangerous to walk in because we'd be fried instantly. "Let's make a note about the water." I say. "Yeah, don't touch electric water." Ellie adds, going to the fenced off ladder that would take us up.
She opens the gate and goes up a ladder and I follow behind her. We were on a ventilation system which would lead us to another set of open doors. Staying crouched, we follow the vents to the other side of the room.
However, I end up taking the wrong step and slide off the vent. "Shit! Ellie, help!" I cried, hanging off the edge so I was dangling above the electrified water. She immediately turned around and helped me back up.
"Holy shit, are you okay?" she asks me. "Other than nearly falling to my death, I'm fine." I say out of breath. She sighed in relief. I would hate to have to leave her like that. We finish our descent to the other side.
When we made it, we were met with two more doors that looked like they could lift upwards. "Shit, the doors over there. But how will we make it?" I ask, unable to find us a way through. "Maybe we can use these doors to help us across." Ellie says, looking at the doors. "Ah okay. Now that the power is running, we can get them open." I reply, going to the door on the left. Ellie goes to the one on the right.
Both doors opened with ease and it showed us what was inside. "Do you think that they're stable enough?" I ask. "Yeah, maybe. Let's try it out." Ellie replies, climbing on a box. She tried to walk on the door but it immediately closed and she fell to the floor.
"Oh shit!" I exclaim, coming to her aid. "Ow… son of a bitch." she groaned. "You okay?" I asked, helping her to her feet. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. But it looks like we'll need something to hold it up." she replied, dusting off her jacket. I nod in agreement and walk into the left door while Ellie opened up the right one again.
We put a huge palette that was on wheels underneath the door which held it up perfectly. The two of us climbed up to a second thing of air ducts so we could reach another set of double doors that would take us to the next area. "Talk about team work there." I say, landing beside Ellie. "Fuck yeah. Now, let's get to that helicopter." Ellie replies with enthusiasm.
I open the door to the next area and the two of us immediately hear more infected on the other side. "Fuck, do you hear that?" Ellie whispered, crouching down. "Yeah, sounds like a lot of them." I replied, crouching with her. Ellie suggests that we should see how many there are before we fight them.
I nod at this and slowly crouch walk into the next store, which looked like a pet store. Carefully, I turned a corner and saw a single runner by small cages, hunched over while making those weird moaning noises. Luckily, he didn't see us.
From what we could hear, there were at least 7 or 8 infected in the store. We make our way back to the loading dock to keep out of sight. "Okay, there's at least eight of them. Let's use our knives to take them out." Ellie said to me quietly.
"Good plan. And if things go haywire…" I say, pulling out my knife. "We shoot them in the head." Ellie replies, rescuing the conversation. We give each other a thumbs up before putting our plan into action. I make a head motion towards the doorway to let Ellie know to go first. She nods and goes forward as quietly as she could.
Ellie stabs the first runner in the head stealthily and crouches back down just as a clicker was stumbling its way in here. I waited until the clicker had its back turned towards us and took the opportunity to strike. I stabbed it in the back at least 4 times before it fell dead.
I find a couple of items sitting on the shelves and grab them. Ellie makes her way over to me and we both hide inside of a small room so we could listen to the infected whereabouts. Ellie quickly crafts a nail bomb and holds it in her hand.
I nod and watch as she tosses it over the window sill. The noise got the infected attention and it immediately exploded upon contact. I peeked over and saw that it took out at least four of them, leaving at least three left.
We would stealthily take them out. Quietly, we went into the pet store. There were three runners who were hunched over with their backs turned towards us. One by one, we take them out with our knives.
"Alright. Let's look around." Ellie says, standing back up. "Right." I replied, walking around the store to see if there was anything useful. Luckily, there was. I picked up half a bottle of alcohol, a pair of scissors, and some bandages. "Ellie, did you find anything?" I ask, walking to another sliding door.
"Yeah, a bandage and a box of ammo." she answers, jogging over to me. "Sweet. How many are there?" I ask. "Um, about 5 or 6." she answers, giving me three of the bullets. I refill my gun and she refills hers. Looks like we both made off with some good shit.
Ellie opens the gated door partly so I could go under. Once I was, I took ahold of the door so she could get under.
We were now back in the snow covered courtyard that we first started in. "Here we are again." Ellie says, starting to jog forward. "Now we'll be able to get to the helicopter." I tell her. Just then, there was clicking coming from the other side of the courtyard.
"Goddammit, where the hell are they coming from?" Ellie scowls quietly, crouching down. More clickers walked out from behind a wall. Luckily, there were only two of them so it wouldn't be that much of an issue.
I pulled out a molotov that I happened to make a while back so it would be easier to kill them. Ellie picks up a stray bottle and throws it to the middle of the courtyard, instantly grabbing the clicker's attention. Once they were in a group, I tossed the lit molotov as hard as I could and it hit one of the clickers, immediately catching on fire.
The other was quickly caught on fire. It takes them about a few seconds before they both die. "Whoo. That was close." I say, standing up. "You got that right." Ellie replies. We both jog to the power operated gated door.
"This door better fucking work." Ellie says, pressing the button again. It made a noise, indicating that it had opened. "Oh fuck yeah!" We say in sync, giving each other a high five yet again.
Once it was open, we jogged up the broken escalator so we were on the next floor. There was a small tent with some left over stuff in it. We decided to search through it and find nothing but a recorder that had a few blood stains on it. Ellie holds it and presses the play button. Out came a woman's voice.
"Well Ellis? I found a couple recorders. Maybe we can, you know, document this whole thing. It gives me an excuse to talk, even if it is to myself. You hit me pretty hard the other night. Not gonna lie, that shit still stings. I was trying to feed you. You actually accused me of stealing your food. You got any idea how hungry I am? I mean, I know it's the fever talking, but… I left you, you know? Hell, I even managed to get a good ten miles out before turning back around. It's like you say. We sleep together, we eat together, we shit together. This unit is a family, so no, no. I'm not going anywhere. God, just let him pull through. This thing is stupid."
The recording ended and there was no sound but the wind again. Sounds to me that guy who had his arm amputated was still infected and nothing could be done to save him. He went crazy on this woman and things went to shit from that point on.
Hopefully, it doesn't come to that with Joel, Ellie, and I. It's a scary thought that I don't want to think about. Afterwards, we turn around and head towards the helicopter. There was glass that was frozen over. It was our only way to get in the helicopter.
"I'll go first. You follow behind me." Ellie says as she looks at me. "Okay. Right behind you. Please be careful." I remind her. "You too." she repeats, climbing onto the glass. It instantly began to crack underneath our feet.
"Oh fuck… okay be cool. Just be cool." Ellie nervously says, carefully walking across the glass. We make it to the entrance and have no choice but to jump into it. "Okay, I'll go first and I'll catch you." Ellie tells me. "Okay." I replied, keeping my arms up a little so I didn't lose my balance.
She makes a jump into the helicopter and turns around to catch me. Once I made it, we both felt the helicopter starting to give way from the loose ledge. "Oh shit!" Ellie exclaims, sliding down to the other side. "Ellie!" I cry, grabbing onto the seat of the chopper. It settled down and I let out a scared breath.
"Whoa, you okay?" she asks me, pulling herself up. "Oh… yeah. Yeah I'm good. You?" I ask, shaking a bit. "I'm fine." she replied, helping me up. Just then, the very item we were looking for was in fact sitting there by the passenger seat.
We crawl to it and Ellie takes it in her lap. "Oh please be in here. Please be here." she begs, opening the first aid kit. Our hearts leaped with joy and relief when we saw that everything we needed to save Joel was in here. "Oh fuck yes. We did it." I say with a sigh.
We hug each other tightly in happiness before she hugs the kit close to her chest. "We're not letting you go… we're not letting you go." she said, closing her eyes. I close my eyes and lean against Ellie's shoulder. Thank god we finally found what we needed. Now we can save Joel's life.