Last of Us: Miles to Go

by IgnusDei

Ten years have passed since that fateful day, when Joel Miller chose Ellie's life over the world entire. Since that time, in spite of the Cordyceps still running rampant across the world, the settlement of Jackson, Wyoming had endured... only now, it finds itself under a one-man siege by a mysterious attacker. Ellie takes on the task of ending his reign of terror.

2. The Wilds of Wyoming, Part 1

LAST OF US 2: MILES TO GO

CHAPTER 2: THE WILDS OF WYOMING, PART 1

---

This fanfic was made with the support of 27 patrons, with special thanks going to Kalaong, CMY187, and ShadowrunnerNex!

---

The logic behind the zones on a Ranger's map was based on a question: How fast can we reach you by horse when you call for aid? With a speed of around eighty eight kilometers per hour, that meant a minute, if you were about a kilometer and a half away. Those were the green zones, three kilometer wide areas centered around a militia outpost with horses. While Jackson itself was the most obvious one, the militia had another stronghold at the Jackson Lake electric dam, around thirty five kilometers away from Jackson Hole. Teton Village was another, a half-way point between Jackson and the dam, though the militia had only ever managed to secure one building there against Infected attacks. These three cores served as the heart of the yellow zones, and every other zones beyond.

The yellow zones were any area a horse-riding ranger could reach in a reasonable amount of time, around five to ten minutes away from inside a green zone. That was very far on a clear road or a plain, but Wyoming was also packed with forests that grew denser every year, with hilly if not downright mountainous terrain marred by the occasional canyon and cliff. Rather than simple circles, yellow zones were asymmetrical blobs on the map.

Further beyond that was the Orange Zone. Zone singular, as at that point the areas around Jackson, Teton Village and the Dam merged into one. If you could call for help in this area, your only hope of rescue came from a passing Ranger, and there were no guarantees they could reach you in time, or if they even still had their horses, or their radios. Things were dangerous in the Orange Zone, after all. With patrols so spread out, Bandit camps and Infected Nests were an ever-present danger. Ellie had personally cleared several nests by herself, and she knew other Ranger teams had done as well, but it almost seemed that they weren't making a dent in their infestation problem.

And beyond the orange, was the red zone, better known to all of Jackson as 'America'. In the red zone, all bets were off. You were on your own to face all the dangers a post-outbreak world could throw at you... and that was how Ellie liked it. In fact, she was one of the few Rangers with the audacity and skill it took to go out there. Heck, against militia regs, she often camped out there on her own, sometimes for weeks.

In hindsight, she thought, that's probably why Tommy thinks I'm suicidal.

Of course, she couldn't go there now, on account of having a recruit in tow.

Ellie and Preston were riding their horses in the Orange zone, in the mountainous areas northwest of Jackson. For the past few hours, they had been checking on the hidden supply cache set up across the Orange zone. That far out, Rangers often needed to resupply, usually on ammo. With bullets being practically money in other parts of America, Ranger supply caches were little goldmines for scavengers, bandits, and the occasional band of hungry, desperate people. It was often hard to tell them apart down the iron sights of a rifle, or even a scope, much to Ellie's chagrin.

She turned on her radio. "Miller to home base, I've got a situation at Cache Baker, over."

"Home base to Miller," said Tommy over the radio, "reading you loud and clear, please report, over."

"We might have burglary in progress," she said, looking down the scope of her hunting rifle. Cache Baker wasn't the most well hidden of the Jackson Rangers' supply caches, as it wasn't particularly out of the way, but it had been fairly well camouflaged. "The door's wide open, over."

"Got eyes on the perp? Over."

"Nope," she focused her hearing, but couldn't perceive anyone moving inside. If someone was doing any looting, they were awfully quiet about it. "No ears, either. Over."

"Alright, move in carefully, over."

"Roger that. Miller out." She turned to Preston, and whispered: "We're going in quiet, follow me."

"Will do," said Preston. The two began skulking along two hundred meters towards the cave entrance, wary of any traps or ambushed. When they arrived at the entrance, Ellie examined the thick wooden door: it had been painted a rocky gray, then festooned with branches, leaves, and various bits of lichen to keep greedy eyes at bay. If that hadn't done the trick, the thick padlock should barred the way to scavengers... unless they had a set of lockpicks, or a copy of the key required to open it.

Preston was the one to notice the intact padlock on the ground, still locked, the metal loop grasping at the hasps that had been screwed on the thick wood door.

Ellie went in first, crouch walking, pistol in hand. The cave was small, and did not go deep into the stone of the cliff. Though it was dark, there weren't many hiding places, so clearing the area took seconds. She focused her hearing again: no heartbeats. "Clear," she declared, letting a sigh of relief.

"Clear," confirmed Preston, after he had examined his side of the cave. He was a bit disappointed - he had hoped to take out at least one clicker today.

Ellie found the lamp suspended on the cave's ceiling, and pulled the switch. Powered by a yacht battery, the lamp bathed the place the area in light, fully revealing stashes of ammo, supplies, and a couple of workbenches. "Even the guns are still in their carousels," said Ellie. "But someone was here, though, definitely."

"Had to have used a horse," commented Preston, "if the padlock is anything to go by."

Ellie shook her head. "No horse tracks."

"...Prybar?"

Ellie shook her head again. "No prybar marks." She examined the door, and saw that the holes where the screws had held the hasps against the wood had been torn outward. "Someone just grasped the padlock and pulled."

"...You'd have to be strong as a gorilla to pull that off," said Preston, scowling.

"Let's see what our gorilla took," said Ellie, picking up a clipboard with inventory sheets clipped on. Normally, when Rangers took something out of a cache, they updated the manifest and signed off. Ellie had expected to spend a few hours comparing the cave's inventory against the manifest. She had not, however, expected the thief to sign off on what he stole.

Which was exactly what Alan Strang had done.

"Motherfucker," cursed Ellie, awed by the man's audacity.

"What?" asked Preston.

"Alan Strang stole a box of hollow-point .45 Auto ammo, a box of 12 gauge magnum, and three incendiary grenades."

"How do you know it's Alan Strang?" he asked, and Ellie showed him the man's signature. "Motherf—" he stopped himself from swearing. "Balls on that guy."

"Yeah," Ellie said, putting down the manifest on the workbench, checking it for anything amiss. Some tools weren't where they were meant to be, so she moved them back into their proper place. Out of habit, she pulled her Beretta out of her holster, took out the magazine, pulled the slide—

—on his Colt M1911, catching the ejected .45 round. Strang double checked the chamber and barrel, then put the cleaning rod in. Minutes passed in silence as he cleaned, and when his maintenance routine was done he tested the new modular flashlight unit he had just fitted under the barrel - it worked! Glad that the Light In The Dark was once again true to its name, he holstered it. This would be useful in the times ahead.

Now on to Pratchet. He admired shotgun in his hand for a moment. Zack had been so meticulous about personalizing his Triple Crown, with its sawed off barrels and grip, chrome finish and tactically useless engravings. "It's not useless!" he'd whine. "It looks cool!" There would be no modifying, not today, just maintenance on its three barrels. He opened the breach, took out the three shells, then—

—Ellie shook her head, and holstered her gun after reloading it. "He did some weapon maintenance here," she said out loud, taking out one of the larger cleaning rods out of the set. She sniffed it - the scent of solvent was still fresh on the bristles.

"What about the armor bench?" asked Preston, pointing at the other work bench, filled with leather kits, needles and heavy duty thread. Some rangers used it to fix damage to their leather armor.

"Doesn't look disturbed," said Ellie. "Don't think he uses our leather armor, though." Ellie snorted: 'Armor' was exaggerating a bit - those pads couldn't stop bullets, no matter how thick. Against clicker bites, though, they saved lives, and Jessie — a fellow ranger — swore by them. Ellie, however, preferred to keep the weight to a minimum, relying on her quickness and guile to not get caught in a clicker's grasp. "Alright, we've seen all there is to see, here. You good on ammo?"

"Haven't used any," said Preston.

"Fill up an extra magazine for your Ruger anyways," ordered Ellie. "You never know when you might need it."

"...Understood," said Preston, who obeyed without question. The truth was that after a decade of scavenging, Jackson's rangers couldn't rely on 'on-site procurement' for ammo. If you ran out, you were out, and those kitchen drawers wouldn't have a conveniently placed box of rifle ammo. Same for the infected. Years of septic irritation had caused them to tear off their clothes, which meant no more pockets to loot. Ellie had learned that new lesson the hard way. Never again.

They went back outside, and Ellie radioed home base once again, reporting what she had found.

"Motherfucker!" cursed Tommy, when Ellie told him about the manifest. "That's it? He didn't steal anything else? Over."

"Didn't take a full inventory," replied Ellie. "But I'm guessing he didn't take more than he wanted. Cache is still full of 9mm rounds, and that's practically gold out in the Wilds. Over."

"And the MREs?"

"Untouched," replied Ellie, her breath hanging in the air. Damn it was cold. "I'm guessing he can forage on his own." Still, Ellie couldn't help but wonder why he wouldn't take any - it would have saved him a lot of trouble.

"Curiouser and curiouser," said Tommy. "I'm thinking he's about to attack again, and soon."

"Nice of him letting us know, huh? Wanna guess what his next target is?"

"God, I hope it's a deer. Graham's .45 hollow point hand loads? They ravage a person."

"I'd hope so, since they kick like a mule," commented Ellie. She'd made the mistake of trying out a hand cannon loaded with some, and the recoil had nearly knocked her over. Looking around, she noticed something in the snow, and she knelt down to get a better look at it. "Hey! Got some foot prints, here! Size twelve hiking boots, looks like."

"He left tracks, too?!"

"And they're still fresh, headed north. I could hunt him down, if you want, maybe find his hideout?"

"Oh, no, this has trap written all over it, now, and you've got a recruit to take care of and... wait, could you hold on a minute?"

"Can do."

A few minutes passed in silence, as Tommy spoke to someone on another channel, until: "Ellie? Forget the other caches for now, I need you at the Red Fort ASAP."

---

The Red Fort was a small castle overlooking Highway 191, named as such for the reddish hue of its sandstone walls. Its position, along with its very sturdy construction, made it both an ideal early warning station and a sturdy fort against any Infected hordes that came along the road. And come along the road they had, numerous times, and each time, the Museum had held on long enough for the cavalry to arrive, with minimal losses to its garrison of twenty militia men. Serving there was almost as much an honor as becoming a Ranger, for as much honor one could find in an organization as young as the Jackson Militia, anyway.

Ellie and Preston rode their horses past Old-World relics, statues of black bronze placed along the driveways and parking spots around the Fort to catch the eyes of Old-World passers-by and visitors. Preston eyed the metal totems warily, while Ellie admired the life-sized statues of four does, led by a mighty stag standing atop a rock.

"Oh, it's beautiful," said Cat...

...She had said, so long ago.

Ellie found herself staring at the neck of her horse, pushing back the memories of her.

They reached the entrance on foot, and waiting for them at there was the Ranger in charge of this place. He was a tall, Korean man, clad in a full suit of leather armor bound together by various holsters, The badge of the Jackson Rangers was sewn on his left breast, along with Lieutenant's chevrons on his shoulders. This was Jin-sun Kim, or as Ellie preferred to call him:

"Jesse!" she exclaimed, pulling him into a short, but warm hug.

"Ellie!" Jesse smiled, patting her back before letting do. He turned to Preston, and offered his hand for a clasp between good friends. "Preston!" he said, giving the young ranger's new emblem a tap. "Finally got your wings, eh?"

"Never any doubt, sir!" said Preston, who took a moment to properly salute a superior officer, before clasping back. "Gonna make you proud, mark my words."

"How's the family?" asked Ellie.

"JJ's doing great," he replied, his face lighting up as he mentioned his son. "I swear he gets taller every day. Dina..." his face became neutral at the mention of his wife, hinting at some troubles on that front. "...is being Dina."

"Right," said Ellie, getting the hint. "Enough said." Ellie had suspected that Dina wouldn't adjust to the monotony of married life very well, but still hoped that she'd stick around Jessie. The man deserves some happiness, she thought.

Jesse motioned the two rangers to follow him into the fort. "I take it Tommy briefed you, already?"

"He gave us the short and sweet of it on the radio," replied Ellie, nearly jogging to keep up with Jessie's strides.

"Good," said Jessie. "The parents are waiting inside."

"This wasn't some old revolutionary fort, was it?" asked Preston, after taking three steps inside the place. It was his first time ever being here.

"Probably not," said Ellie. "Before the Outbreak, this used to be a museum."

"Figured as much," said Preston. "Too roomy."

And it was indeed too spacious - military installations were usually designed with efficiency in mind, and in spite of having been renovated to accommodate the garrison, the Red Fort still had plenty of open space. Plenty of space, in fact, for the voices of an arguing couple to carry from the second floor.

Also, military buildings didn't have bronze sculptures of animals in their entrance halls. Usually.

"Were there paintings?" asked Preston, curious. "I mean, there had to be paintings."

"Plenty," said Ellie. "Walls were covered with 'em." She gestured at the walls. They were empty.

Preston frowned. "What happened to them?"

"Scavenged," said Ellie. "Frames made for good firewood, canvas was cut to up make patches and the like."

"Some of the smaller statues got taken to the Workshop to make bullets," added Jesse.

"Damn shame," muttered Preston.

"I know," replied Ellie, depressed. She remembered how Cat had wept for these paintings, even though she had never seen them. Ellie had, though, back when she and Joel had scouted the place for potential salvage. The team Tommy had sent was made up of people of Ellie's generation, born post-Outbreak, and to them the contents of the National Museum of Wildlife Art was just a bunch of wasteful 'Old World Garbage', fit only to be cut apart for their base materials. Ellie hadn't understood the damage they had done back then, until Cat had come into her life.

They went up the stairs, and approached Jesse's office. A man and a woman were in front of the door, arguing. Civilians, by the look of them.

"Sookie, let's just go home!" said the man. He had the bearing of a lumberjack. "My friends will—"

"Your friends have been trying to catch him for weeks!" his wife yelled back. She looked like she hadn't slept or ate for days, and she was clearly upset.

Jesse came up to them, and cleared is throat. "Sookie, Jack? This is Ellie Miller and Preston Garvey. Tommy assigned them to find your daughters."

"Oh thank God!" cried Sookie. Ellie had gained a reputation for helping lost folk find their way back home, and to a desperate mother like Sookie, that was a ray of hope as bright as the sun. She grasped Ellie's hands, and shook them vigorously. "Thank you, thank you, I knew Tommy wouldn't let us down! If anyone can save them from the Poacher, it's you!"

Ellie's eyes widened in shock - that wasn't in the 'short and sweet', and judging by Jesse's expression, that wasn't in the long version, either. "Wait, hold on, what?"

Jesse invited them to his office.

---

After sitting her down in front of his desk and serving her some ginger tea, Jesse got Sookie to calm down and explain the situation:

Jack and Sookie St-James lived in, and operated, a windmill half a kilometer north of the Red Fort. A family-run operation, the St-James' windmill took advantage of Wyoming's windy climate to grind up wheat into floor, and recharge a few yacht batteries while they were at it, easing some of the workload of the dam. Three generations lived there: the grand-parents, the parents, and the children... and three days ago, Sookie and Jack's two daughters - Millie and Cindy, had disappeared.

Ellie, not one to mince words, asked: "Why the fuck are we finding about this just now?"

To which Jack replied, meekly: "I had friends looking into it, didn't think we'd need to bother you or the Sheriff..."

"And those friends are?"

"Hunters, from the Lodge."

Ellie groaned, then began to shout. "Seriously? What the FUCK were you thinking, asshole? Your daughters grew some antlers, or what?"

"Hey!" Jack crossed his arms, indignantly. "All I see you Rangers do is eating our food and going out camping! The Lodge has got three times your numbers AND they're getting shit done!"

"They haven't found shit, so far!" yelled Sookie, angry and upset.

"Everyone, please..." Jesse calmed Sookie down again, and got her to finish her story: According to her, Cindy had been talking to a stranger in the woods some time before the girls disappeared, and Sookie had caught a glimpse of him, long enough for his appearance to stick inside her brain. The red leather hooded jacket had been the most memorable part.

Strang, thought Ellie.

Sookie, having heard of the Poacher's description from Jack, put two and two together, and was now utterly convinced the psychotic Elk killer had her two daughters, and Jack's so-called friends had 'turned up bupkis' while their quarry 'constantly and violently trolled them', as she put it. After days of that, Sookie finally understood that calling on the Rangers would be her daughters' only hope of being rescued.

---

Ellie and Preston rode their horses up the bare hill to the St-James homestead, with Sookie and Jack following close behind on their own nags. It was a brief ride, even on a canter, but the sound of gunshots coming from the house prompted the rangers to hurry. Within seconds of galloping they had arrived to see the elder St-James holding off a band of crazed people with his shotgun. The house was well barricaded and fenced off, but the attackers were desperate for a meal. Ellie scowled - they were definitely Infected, but they weren't sprouting.

Runners.

"Time to earn our pay!" yelled Ellie as her horse leapt over the fence. She drew her Beretta, and set her horse to a gallop. Her hand was steady as she aimed her pistol at the nearest Infected and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit it right between the eyes, and its brains exploded out of the back of its skull. "Yee-haw!" she cried out victoriously, even as she took aim at the next infected in line.

"I got your back!" shouted Preston as he slowed his horse down and readied his Ruger, aiming it at the furthest Runner. Three bullets into its heart, and it stopped hammering at the St-James's door. With Ellie drawing their ire, Preston could pick the Infected off one by one, and thanks to Ellie, he had the ammo to do it, too. Sookie and Jack tried to help, but they weren't as well trained as Preston, or as experienced as Ellie.

They had just killed half of them when things started going wrong.

"Watch out!" yelled Grandpa St-James. "One of them is on top of the mill!"

Ellie looked up, and indeed, there was hanging from a perch near the top of the windmill like a monkey. Said perch was seven or eight stories high. "How the fuck did it even get there?!"

No sooner had Ellie spoken these words that the Infected on top of the mill screeched, then leapt from its perch, arced at least fifty meters, and landed right on top of Ellie, sending them both rolling into the snow and the Beretta clattering against a wall.

Ellie got back on her feet, just in time to ready her hunting knife and face off against the Runner that had leapt at her.

"Miller!" shouted Preston, even as a group of runners got dangerously close to the St-James. Jack managed to take one out with his revolver, but spent all six of its bullets doing so.

"I got this one!" Ellie yelled back. "Protect the St-James!" Her opponent took a few wild swings at the Ranger, but Ellie was quick, and she ducked and dodged around its wide blows easily, waiting for an opening. Her foe screamed in rage, and began to use its legs to attack. It performed a straight kick, faster than its punches, and Ellie narrowly got out the way of that, too. Its bare foot's heel, however, put a dent in the wooden wall behind Ellie. A few more of those, and the house would be breached. Finally, Ellie's opportunity came, and the knife found its way inside the Infected's skull, in that sweet spot in the temple. Free to recover her gun and rejoin the fight, Ellie perforated infected skull after infected skull, by knife or gun. When it was all over, thirty of the Infected lay dead around the St-James' property.

Let's see the Elk Hunters do better, thought Ellie as she caught her horse and calmed it down. Preston, meanwhile, got off his mount, and moved in to examine the Runner that had leapt down from the tall mill... from a distance, and with his glock aimed at its chest, just to be safe. Ellie, also curious, knelt besides the creature's corpse to examine it up close, knife in hand.

"What the hell is that?" asked Preston. "That ain't no ordinary Runner."

"No, it's not," said Ellie, as she proceeded to cut the Runner's pants apart, revealing its legs. The muscles looked like they were about to burst out of its skin, and in some places, they did, on account of the flesh-coloured fungal blooms building up here and there along the veins. "Holy shit. That... that is new."

"You've never seen this before?" asked Preston.

Ellie shook her head.

"Does that mean...?" Preston didn't want to ask, fearing the answer even as he beheld it. "Does that mean the Infected are evolving?"

Ellie took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Looks like it, yeah," Ellie muttered as she thought about what to call this thing. "...Let's call 'em Leapers." Might as well go with the obvious, she thought. "From here on in, I mean."

"Understood," Preston nodded, affixing his bayonet on his Ruger, in preparation for what needed to be done. "Do you think there's more of these things?"

"I hope not," she said, getting up. "Otherwise Tommy is going to have to rethink our defenses to take Infected that can leap over fences into account."

They proceeded to stab the bodies one by one, making doubly sure they were deader than dead. Even Ellie's headshot victims were not spared this treatment. After all, having just seen a new kind of Infected, who was to say that the Cordyceps Brain Infection couldn't re-animate the dead? Stab the heart, then the brain, repeat. As she performed this ritual, Ellie took a few moments to investigate the bodies. Runners (and Leapers, probably) were early stages of infections, which meant that these poor souls had been infected at least two days ago, or weeks at most. They were all dressed alike, and equipped for a long trip on foot. No guns, nor bullets, not even in their holsters.

After ensuring the Infected were all dead, Ellie gave the all-clear, and the elder St-James came out to thank the two Rangers for their timely arrival. "Now see there?" said Grandpa, grinning, as his son and daughter-in-law approached. "That's what real professionals can do!"

"Yeah, real professional letting a whole band of Runners through this deep into Jackson Hole!" replied Jack, bitterly glaring at Ellie.

For that, Grandpa St-James smacked Jack in the head. Ellie, however, wasn't paying attention - after despoiling the bodies of anything useful, she had come across the infected corpse of a young man, practically Wiggins' twin brother. She found his diary in his backpack, and judging by the later entries, he was part of a group that had escaped from Puyallup and had wandered for years before hearing news of a safe, thriving community in Wyoming, and had made the trek east from Washington to Wyoming in the hopes of reaching Jackson. The writing got more and more demented the closer the entry dates approached the current date, until it became nonsense. There was no indication they had encountered any Rangers or even Elk Hunters out there, but then again, the wilds of wyoming were vast, and their woods were dark and deep.

"Miller," said Preston, after rummaging through a young woman's rucksack. "Found something, here." He showed Ellie a cloth bag, filled with a trail mix of dried mushrooms. Most of the contents were harmless — Pearl Oysters, Chanterelles — but Preston had quickly spotted the long shape and distinct color of a Cordyceps mushroom.

"...Fuck," muttered Ellie. Ellie double-checked the journal, and true enough, the woman had shared the bounty with the rest of the group. "They weren't attacked. They just... ate the wrong mushrooms."

After a moment, Ellie got on the radio and reported the encounter, along with her findings.

She could imagine Tommy on the other line, taking a double shot of Whiskey. It was turning out to be that kind of day.

---

The grateful St-James turned out to be hospitable folk, with Grandpa St-James inviting them inside their sturdy log cabin and Grandma St-James going so far as to offer them tea and biscuits. Ellie and Preston politely declined on account of that potato roast from earlier today, and the pressing need for Ellie to go and find their missing girls. Questioning the Elder St-James hadn't revealed anything that the younger ones had not already told her, except perhaps that the two girls had been playing in the woods up north for weeks, sometimes even by themselves.

"No offense, but that wasn't wise," said Preston. Ellie was thinking the same thing.

"Well, we did give Millie a loaded gun," said Grandma St-James. "We're not stupid. And those woods? For the past year? Safe as this house."

"No bandits," supplied Grandpa St-James. "No Infected, neither, not even a big mean animal."

"Especially not since the Elk Hunters purged that den of wolves," said Jack, his tone full of admiration.

"After a while we just kinda thought of the forest as our backyard," said Sookie. "It... it wasn't smart, I know, but the girls loved to go there, and I... I just couldn't bear to tell them no."

"Me neither, sweetie," said Grandma, gently putting her hand on Sookie's shoulder.

---

Jack opened the door to the girl's room. "Nothing's been touched since they vanished," he said, as Ellie entered, followed by Sookie.

It wasn't a very large space, but the girls had shared it just fine for years. Cindy's side of the room was kind of bare, but still decorated with cartoon animals. Atop her bed was a quilt decorated with cartoon animals. Dolls, princesses made of sackcloth with hair made of wool, sat by a pillow with a white cat sewn onto it. She had a few books in her bookshelf. Storybooks, mostly, with one of them laying on the desk, open to a page with a blonde boy with a scarf talking to a fox.

Millie's side of the room, on the other hand, was shockingly typical of a teenage girl, its walls painted with loud shades of pink, and decorated with posters of boys bands and — much to Ellie's surprise — of the Dawn of the Wolf franchise. Her bed was a tangle of white sheets and cushions. Her bookshelf was filled with young adult novels, the ones filled with melodramatic love stories that bordered on horrible abuse. Vinyl albums lay about, waiting to be returned to another shelf by a record player. Atop her desk was her diary, held fast by a tiny brass lock.

Suddenly, a whine emerged from a basket by Cindy's bed, catching Ellie's attention. She knelt it and peered inside, and found a white puppy inside. "Aw, poor thing," cooed Ellie, upon seeing the wooden splint holding its fractured front leg together. She couldn't stop herself from picking it up and cradling the adorable little creature as if it was a baby.

"That's Mononoke," said Sookie, smiling sadly. "Cindy found her all alone in the woods a couple of months ago." As she spoke, Sookie found what she had been looking for, a picture of both Cindy and Millie, celebrating the latter's birthday.

"Poor thing," said Ellie. She gently touched Mononoke's injured paw. "Good thing Cindy knew first aid, right?" she said to Sookie, then, to Mononoke: "Right? Hm?" Ellie had held her close to her face, and had her herself a lick to her face. Ellie giggled, and her mood brightened.

"Ah, no, she doesn't," said Sookie, handing Ellie the picture. "I never got around to teaching her how to use a kit."

Ellie put Mononoke back in her basket, and took the frame image. Her reflection on the glass over powered the picture on account of the light coming through the window, and so she shifted it to get a better look. She was shocked then, when she found the monochrome image of her younger self staring back at her with a smile, lit by the light of fifteen candles on her birthday cake. But it wasn't her, of course, it was Millie, with Cindy smiling next to her... but the resemblance was uncanny, as they shared the same skin tone, and the hair...

"Their hair?" Ellie asked. "Same colour as yours?" she pointed at Sookie's auburn hair.

"Same, yes," replied Sookie.

Take the bleach out of my hair and I could be mistaken for their older sister, thought Ellie.

Something about that made her skin crawl, but she suppressed the sensation — there was work to do.

She took another good look at the girl's faces, and handed back the picture. "Thanks. Is it alright if I have a look?"

Sookie assumed a closer look at the room. "If it helps..."

Ellie nodded, and took that as permission to take Millie's diary and destroy the cheap brass lock with her knife.

Sookie's eyes widened. "What? What are you doing?!"

The Ranger looked confused. "Looking into her journal. For clues?"

"That's private!" Sookie almost yelled.

"Oh, huh..." it occurred then to Ellie that, when it came to personal diaries, she had never been particularly respectful on the 'personal' part, usually because the original owners were long, long dead. But Millie wasn't dead, or at least, Sookie hoped she wasn't. "Ah, sorry, but there might be a clue to whereabouts in there. I mean, it's not likely, but... anything might help, right?"

Sookie crossed her arms, and glared at Ellie for a bit, but quickly relented. "If it helps..." she muttered.

Ellie paged through the recent entries... and tried not to cringe. Millie's concerns had been typical of her age: the cuteness of boys she met at the square, finding a new romantic movie or book at the market, what dresses to wear on Victory Day—

—"ARE YOU TERRIFIED OF ME YET, YOU CUNT?!" screamed Ellie. Victory Day. It had been for her, all of it, and yet—

—she shook her head, pushing the flash of memory away. I'm not a monster. The journal's contents were bizarre to Elly, and she marveled at how how quickly that piece of the old world bullshit had come back once survival had become less of a concern... but that didn't matter, not right now. Ellie looked for any entries concerning any trips to the forest, and found quite a few, much to her surprise. What would a girl like Millie want to do in the forest, anyway?

Turned out, it was a wild man. Her Wild Man. As she accompanied Cindy on one of her adventures into the woods, Millie had caught a glimpse of a tall, strong looking man bathing in the woods. She had peeped at him from afar, and had gotten quite a long, long look at him, if her detailed description of his body were anything to go by. Since then, entry after entry in her journal detailed elaborate, Harlequin novel quality fantasies involving him sweeping her off her feet and whisking her away from the hell that was her existence of living in this house.

Oh yeah, thought Ellie sarcastically, looking around the room. Truly, this is hell.

Ellie continued on, and after a few more entries filled with fiction, it was clear Millie's 'Wild Man' was not interested in her, and after dedicated an entry to how much she hated him and her parents and that stupid little dog, Millie shifted her attention to someone else: A 'Stag Prince' that came to her dreams with promises of — and Ellie tried not to roll her eyes at this again — taking her away from her wooden prison. She described him as handsome bearded man that 'looked like Jesus', clad in a fine white robe and a crown of black wood fashioned into the shape of antlers. Normally, Ellie would dismiss this just another of Millie's fantasies, but the recurrence of the Stag Prince in her dreams was a little odd.

The last entry was worrying. "Tonight is the night. My Prince will come for me, and we will be wed, and I will bear him his child, and we will live happily ever after. Amen."

"It... looks like she eloped with someone," said Ellie, as she gave Millie's open diary to Sookie. "Someone named the Stag King?"

Sookie read the relevant entries, and shook her head. "She'd have... she's have stolen some supplies for a trip! Guns, ammo, food. Nothing's missing! Nothing!"

"There's no 'Stag King', but the Poacher's real. You saw him, Sookie! Had his knife out, and he would have gutted Cindy if you hadn't shot at him and scared him away!" He turned to Ellie. "Quit wasting time! Get the fuck out of my house do your fucking job! Go!" Jack became more and more livid... but it was an anger born of fear. "GO! And while you're at it, take that disgusting little mutt with you, since you love it so much!" He brusquely grabbed Mononoke, and shoved it into Ellie's arms before pushing her out of the room.

---

"What a jackass," said Preston, as the St-James' door slammed shut behind him.

"No kidding," said Ellie, Mononoke in her arms.

As they approached their horses, the Corpse Disposal Team sent by Tommy arrived on the scene, their horses pulling a cart to transport the Leaper Ellie had flagged for an autopsy. Amongst other things they carried were body bags, plastic containers, jars of hydrofluoric acid... and in case of emergencies, homemade flamethrowers based on the one Joel brought back from the University, a decade ago.

Speaking of Joel, just ahead of them was the Sheriff himself. "Ellie!" he greeted, as he stopped his horse and dismounted. "Hard at work, I see!"

"Joel!" Ellie's face brightened. "Hi! What are you doing here?"

"Town's quieted down, some, and I wanted to take a look at that ah, 'Leaper' you mentioned over the radio. You ain't hurt?"

"I'm fine." She tilted her head at Preston. "This is Garvey. I'm showing him the ropes."

"Oh, we met," said Joel, who shook Preston's hand anyways. "Good to see you, kid."

"Sheriff," greeted Preston.

Joel noticed the puppy in Ellie's arms. "And who's this wittle adowable little ball of cuteness, hm?"

"Mononoke," said Ellie, repressing a giggle.

"Oh, after the princess?" asked Joel, reaching out for the pup.

"Wouldn't know," replied Ellie, as she gladly handed her over to him. Nothing like a puppy to get past that gruff exterior and bring out the silly dad underneath. Mononoke, however, whined sadly.

"Aw, poor thing," muttered Joel, cradling Mononoke in his arms. "Now who would be so cruel to break your paw, hm?"

"She belongs to Cindy," said Ellie. "Guess she misses her something fierce."

"I'll just bring her back into the house, then."

"Oh, don't bother," said Preston. "Jack St-James foisted her on us. Seemed to be glad to be rid of her, too."

"Well that's odd," said Joel. "Dogs being so rare around here, I figured he'd try to sell her."

"Rare? Come on, dogs aren't..." Ellie quirked her eyebrow, and double-checked her memory. "Huh, no, there aren't a whole lot of dogs around here, now that I think about it. How come?"

"I honestly have no idea..." replied Joel. "Filoni was besides himself with grief about it..."

"Filoni?" asked Preston.

"Our dog breeder," said Ellie.

"Never heard of him," Preston shrugged.

"That's because he was always out in the woods," said Joel. "Tried to catch some wolves for breedin' and domesticatin' and, uh... We assume them wolves weren't as affectionate as he was to them, seeing as he's been missing for months. Damn shame, too. We all could use some domesticated wolfhounds. Besides being good for trackin' and huntin'..." he looked meaningfully at Ellie. "...They're good for therapy, too." He turned his attention back to Mononoke. "Isn't that right, girl?"

Ellie ignored that. "Do Elk Hunters use hounds for their hunting?"

Joel's eyes looked up as he considered the question. "Nope. You'd think they'd have use for them, but then again, dogs have been rare in Wyoming for the past five years."

"Not canines," said Preston. "According to Jack, Hunters purged a whole den of wolves just last year."

Joel frowned. "Now that's dumb," he said. "Would have been better to capture them."

Ellie smirked. "Think they ate them?"

"I hope not," replied Preston and Joel in unison. Both being from Boston, neither of them had fond memories of the city's hot dogs, quote unquote.

"Probably sold their pelts, though," added Joel. "Might have to look into that. Now, I've got some questions to ask the St-James, so, ah..." he nodded at Mononoke. "What am I supposed to do with her?"

"Well," Ellie began, "I can't exactly take her with me in the Wilds." She shrugged. "Guess you're stuck with her for now."

Joel frowned "...You realize that my job necessitates me looking harsh and mean? Can't exactly do that with a puppy in my arms lickin' my beard. Like right now."

Ellie looked at the puppy, who had already moved on to nibbling Joel's beard. "...I'm sure you'll manage, somehow."

Joel sighed. "Fine, but we're going to have to find a home for it eventually. Something to think about when you get back, yeah?"

---

"No wonder their parents let them play in these woods," said Preston, as his horse moved between the trees. "It's peaceful, here."

Ellie had to agree, though she didn't understand why. These woods didn't seem any different than any other in the Wilds, was they were just as likely to be eaten by clickers as anywhere else... but whatever it was that warned Ellie of danger — instinct, or something else — was oddly silent at the moment. "Looks better in the spring," she found herself saying. "Lots more greenery and rays of sunlight."

Preston smiled. "I'll bet."

"By the by... that was some good shooting back there. You hardly ever missed."

"Thanks."

"It's a good thing I had you take an extra mag, though. You went through it like I go through candy."

"Second rule of surviving the Infected: Double Tap. And there's no point in being stingy with bullets now that we've got a supply, right?"

"Waste not, want not," said Ellie, quoting Joel. "One bullet in the head is usually enough."

Preston chuckled. "Yeah, well, we can't all be crack shots like you, Miller. So? What are we looking for?"

"Anything at all, really. Although, Millie wrote that she saw someone bathe in here."

"What, in a pond, or something?"

"Maybe. Millie wasn't specific about that."

"Doubt we'll find one up here on the Saddle Butte. You sure that someone didn't bathe in the Snake River?"

"Nah, too far from here. Anyways, I'm hoping that someone still frequents that bathing spot. Could be he knows where the girls went."

160,000 square meters of forest. It was an impressive number, but the area was actually pretty small, and it didn't take long to find what they were looking for.

"Well I'll be damned," said Preston. "A hot springs? All the way here?" Preston was puzzled: one usually found springs around Thermopolis, a hundred and fifty kilometers east of Jackson.

Ellie dismounted, and approached the small pool of water. On account of the heat, the immediate area was bereft of snow, though the dirt was damp. Ellie put her hand over the stream of vapor rising up into the sky. "Not too hot, either. This is the place."

Without thinking, she put her whole hand in the hot water, and allowed the heat to travel through her blood. Almost immediately, she felt less sluggish, and far more awake. This feels nice, she thought, before withdrawing her hand. She regretted that immediately, as the cold winter air robbed her of that life-giving heat. She was sorely tempted to take a dip — compelled, even — but she reminded herself that she had a job to do. She turned to Preston, who had just come down from his horse. "Let's have a look around - find anything out of the ordinary."

"What, like that?" he said, pointing at the Japanese stone lantern right by the pool. "What is that, native American?"

Ellie examined the piece of sculpted rock. "Doubt it," she said. "Looks more..." she could vaguely recall the photo books Cat showed her. "...Asian? I think? And besides, it's brand new."

"How do you know?" asked Preston.

"No moss growth," Ellie replied.

"Oh! Good catch," he said, genuinely impressed.

They kept on combing the area for clues, and quickly found several sets of shoe prints in the dirt, along with a couple of well-trodden paths leading northeast and south, a few moist bubblegum wrappers, wood shavings by the trunk of an ancient tree, and a discarded, black and blue elastic hair tie. Finding nothing else, Ellie decided to use this paint a vivid mental fresco in her mind, based on what she had discovered so far. She closed her eyes, allowed the sounds of winter birds and rustling branches to fade away...

... and she opened her eyes, willing time to wind itself back. Flake by flake, the snow rose into the sky, vanishing amidst rays of sunlight piercing the foliage, exposing the dark greens and bark browns of the surrounding pines. Then, the ambient light faded into a blue gloom, and the sunlight narrowed into beam of white light, theatrically illuminating the scene from above. Motes of fungus floating in the air caught the light, like fireflies in the night. Three Human figures, statues made of air and shadow and white mycelium, had formed. The first one, about Ellie's size and shape, sat on the stony edge of the pool, immersing its ankles in the hot water. Another, smaller figure stood in the pool, a bundle of mycelium in its arms. The third one, far, far larger than the last two, sat against the trunk of the ancient tree, his two hands fused together.

She approached the first figure, and became one with it, body and soul. As she merged with it, the mycelium turned to mold, then flesh, then color, then fabric, becoming a whole person: Millie.

"I am Millie," she said out loud. "I am NOT a little girl anymore," she said, scornfully. "...but I'm not a woman yet," she whimpers, sorrowfully. "Still, I want what a woman wants, and right now I want him." She looks at the large figure. "I've put on..."—

— Ellie went through Millie's closet, and found a —

"...A two-piece fuchsia bathing suit with a floral print, just for him. I found it. I never dreamed I'd ever get to use it. It shows off my hips. He'll see. He'll see me... He doesn't. He doesn't see me at all... Why won't he see me?"

"Miller?" said Preston, intruding in her fresco. The sound of his voice caused it to vibrate, and threatened to collapse it.

"Shush," Ellie replied.

Ellie stopped being Millie, and left the girl's form behind, complete and colorful. She moved on to the second form, and became... "...Cindy. I am Cindy, I'm still just a kid. I love animals, because people scare me most of all. I'm wearing all my clothes... Millie's got the only bathing suit. I'm going to be soaked when we get home, but it's alright." She looked down - Mononoke's head was pressed against her collar bone. "I'm here for her. He said spring waters help make the hurt go away, and I want her to heal." She looks around. "The woods are scary, too. Full, of scary things..." She looked at the large figure. "Like him, but I'm not scared of him." She smiled. "He makes me feel safe."

Ellis stopped being Cindy, and left the girl's form behind. She moved on to the third form, sitting against the tree, and became...

Wait...

"Who am I?"

She recalled the shoe prints. The large ones here were a match for the ones found elsewhere, by the cache.

"I am Alan Strang..." She said. Only she wasn't being Strang. She was still outside of him, kneeling before him, watching up close as the mycelium of his form turned black. His face gained details and definition, but hardly any colour, except the maroon of his eyes, glinting red. And how could she be Alan Strang? That wasn't his real name, after all. How could she become him if she did not know that simplest of truth of who he was? Still, she tried, and she growled: "These are my woods." She turned to the girls. "These are my guests..." She looked down at his hands. A piece of wood, and a knife.

"What are you making?" asked Cindy, long ago.

— Ellie looked at one of figurines on Cindy's desk, and found a wooden carving of —

"A cat," said Strang.

cat.

Cat.

Caitríona.

And with that word — That NAME — Alan's form became clearer, and Ellie could assume his perspective. Suddenly, an entire world opened up to her, a world of scents, the world as perceived by Strang. And she could smell everything around her! The dirt, the trees, the water — they all had a scent! The girls had scents, too. Multiple ones, in fact, series of notes that were unique to them and only them, like fingerprints or DNA. And she, not Alan, but she, had caught their scent before, not in their room, before long before that... but where?

And besides them, Alan and Ellie could smell something else. Something different. Something not quite human. The light from above dimmed, the gloom intensified, a backdrop for the shadows of trees to loom over them.

And amidst all these shadows, the curves of antlers grew atop a pair of green eyes, that stared hungrily at Ellie.

tHeRE yOU ARe

"Miller!" shouted Preston, his hand on her shoulder, pulling out of her own mind. It was gone. It was all gone.

What the fuck, Preston? That was what she had wanted to say, but something was preventing her expelling the air out of her mouth and forming the words.

"Miller, calm down..." said Preston, firmly and reassuringly.

I am calm, damn it! Ellie would have yelled. I just.. I just. Oh fuck, I'm hyperventilating.

"Calm down, and hold your breath for as long as you can, okay?" He put a hand on her shoulder, keeping her steady.

She nodded vigorously, then held her breath as long as she could, only to gasp in and suck in too much air again. She was losing control of herself, and she though that unless she took back control of herself she might die.

Then, the tingling in her head happened again, as the thing inside her brain took control. Ellie's breath became properly regulated once more, and the sensation of panic, fear, and the memories that caused them, had been pushed aside with a rush of endorphins with a soupçon of oxytocin. She had felt this before, long ago, the first time she had killed a man to save Joel's life. Once the adrenaline had worn off, the fact that she had ended another human being's life had begun to creep into her awareness. She had felt sick, thought she was going to puke... and then the feeling had been washed away, never to come back. After that day, killing had been... easy. Very easy.

At this particular moment, she could kill Preston — slit his throat — and go home and sleep like an angel.

Are you terrified of me, yet, you CUNT?

"You okay?" asked Preston.

Ellie gulped, and nodded quickly. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay."

"What was that back there?" he asked, concerned. "You were zoned out, but talking to yourself."

"I ah... I have a very good imagination," she explained. "Too good. Comes with the low, low price of panic attacks." That wasn't quite true: Her vivid imagination had been a source of solace growing up... but after the journey to Salt Lake City, an empathy disorder had crept into it. She wondered, often, if something had happened to her while she had been put under, if some mad Firefly scientist had put something else in her, but Joel had sworn that he had gotten to her before the Fireflies had begun cutting. Of course, he had sworn a lot of things, and some of them might even have been true. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Really! Just... gimme a moment, okay?"

"What was that earlier? About you being Alan Strang?"

How do I put this in a way that doesn't make me sound crazy? "Strang was here. See those bootprints? Same as the ones we found at Cache Baker."

"Yeah, I can see that, but the girls?"

"Again, shoe prints: Women's size 7.5 for Millie and size 4.5 for Cindy. Bare footprints are theirs, too. They bathed here."

Preston nodded... then frowned. "Wait, what was Strang doing here with the two girls?"

"Babysitting them."

"What? Really?"

"Yeah," she pointed at the trunk. "He was sitting there, clearly bored. Hence the the whittling."

"Yeah, okay... but why bother? It's a pretty shallow pool, not much risk there."

"Bathe too long in a hot spring that hot? You might lose consciousness. If your head goes under, you guaranteed to drown."

"Hm, is that right?

"Yeah, and besides, I think that..."

"What, Ellie?"

Ellie moved towards the spot where the antlers had grown in her mental fresco, and quickly found the telltale signs someone had been there - broken branches, and more footprints, in a perfect hiding spot within line of sight of the hot spring. "See those? Someone else was stalking those girls."

---

They followed the foot path northeast on foot, leading their horses by the reins. With the way so narrow, and fraught with low branches, riding was out of the question.

With no danger around, and their destination nowhere in sight, Preston decided to kill some time and chat a bit.

"So?" he began. "Visit the hot springs often?

"No," said Ellie. "That was my first time seeing one."

"Hm? So how did you know so much about them?"

"Someone..." Ellie began to stammer. "Someone told me about them. Showed me some ah... some books. They had pictures."

"Someone? Who?"

"Ah..." Ellie sighed, and became painfully aware of her wedding ring. "...Nobody. Just... nobody."

"Right," he said, awkwardly.

She decided to change the subject. "Who taught you how to shoot?"

"...My pops," Preston replied. Ellie noted the pause before he spoke. Preston smiled, fondly recalling a memory. "We used some old muskets we found in a museum in Concord..."

"Concord?" asked Ellie.

"Town in Massachusetts," answered Preston. "Close to Boston. Anyways, there was this museum, and it had these old muskets on display, from the Revolution. Old relics, left untouched by looters because they figured they couldn't possibly work after all this time."

"But... they did?"

"Amazingly, yeah!" he laughed. "Well, not without some fixing, of course, courtesy of my dad. The man fancied himself a tinker, but it didn't take much to make these things dangerous again," he snickered. "It was weird. We came across a lot more advanced stuff in our travels, and it had all broken down into uselessness... but those hundred-years old Brown Bess guns still worked."

"Brown Bess... are those breech loaders?"

"Nah, muzzle-loaders."

"Must have been a bitch to reload."

"No kidding. I learned to make each shot count."

"Can't imagine it was much good against the Infected with such a bad rate of fire."

"True, but against bandits who think you're harmless? Pretty damned useful. Of course, I traded up to the first semi-auto I could find with no regrets." He paused, thinking. "By the way, we've got one hell of an inventory. Never thought I'd ever get a Ruger in such good condition."

"Yeah, Graham makes fantastic replicas."

He glanced over his shoulder, eyeing his long gun. "This is a replica?"

"Pretty good, right? He even copies the branding and numbering... though he adds his initials at the end."

"And my Glock? Is that a replica, too?"

"Nah, Joel and I came across an old army cache full of them a few years back. We got an overabundance of those. Graham prefers making older guns anyways."

"Ah yeah, I remember. You two were some real go-getters back then."

"...Geez, you sound a little bitter about it."

"Bitter? Nah... But I was a little jealous. How old were you back then? Fifteen?"

"Sixteen, actually."

"Sixteen and out there for days, checking every dangerous little nook in Jackson Hole for supplies, practically a Ranger already. That's damned impressive."

Ellie chuckled. "You brown-nosing me for a promotion, Garvey?"

"Maybe." He smiled. "Is it working?"

"Nope!"

Preston let out a gentle laugh. "...Oh well, worth a shot, right? Still, I meant what I said."

"And what were you doing back then? Watchtower duty?"

"Nah, I wasn't militia back then, just doing odd jobs here and there while Tommy decided if I could be trusted... or as he put it, one of those 'assholes with bullshit wolfpack morals'."

Ellie nodded. 'Wolfpack' was Tommy's term for a small groups of people (usually related by blood) more than willing to fuck everyone else over to survive. After that first wave of immigrants, Jackson had been plagued by them, and Joel turned out to be pretty good at sniffing out violent plots to abscond with Jackson's food and supplies and putting a stop to them. That's how he got to be Sheriff.

"I've been on both sides," she recalled him saying once. That experience paid off.

Bigby and his family had been one such group, and a particularly morally myopic one at that. Ellie had earned their enmity when the eldest son refused to come quietly after being caught red-handed trying to set fire to the school, and had gotten an earful of their moaning and crying for killing their precious, precious boy, even as they tried to exact revenge. Ellie had no sympathy for them, and had turned out to be the better killer, alongside Joel. Bigby and his spawn had been buried in an unmarked grave, and both Joel and Ellie went on to sleep soundly that night.

"Took a while before I could join up," continued Preston, "Took a while longer before I could join the Rangers proper, but here I am."

"All that waiting must have been a bitch, huh?"

"Maybe, but it's all good. Best be careful who you entrust a bounty of guns and ammo to, huh?"

"Doesn't stop some people. Half my career was built an chasing down rogue militia." It was also the reason why she got so good at tracking people.

"And speaking of chasing down rogues... this Strang guy? What's his deal?"

"I'm honestly not sure," said Ellie. "Can't be all that bad a guy if he keeps a close watch on girls that wander into his woods, right?"

---

"I take it back," said Ellie, gazing upon maggot-infested corpses hung from the trees like holiday decorations. They had been... transformed, to put it delicately, as much as anything can by transformed with a knife and hatchet. Their backs had been cut open, all the better to tear out their ribs at the spine, splaying them out like wings. With such ease of access to the lungs, whoever did this had not resisted the urge to pull out them out drape them over the shoulders of these unfortunate souls. "Strang's a fucking psycho and he needs to be stopped," Ellie continued, and waited for Preston to say something, but the only thing that came out of his mouth was his half-digested lunch, as he vomited on the roots of a nearby tree.

He was hunched over, maintaining his balance with a hand on the tree's trunk. Ellie patted him on the back, hoping it would ease his horror-induced nausea. "There, there, easy now."

"Oh God... oh GOD."

"First time?"

Preston's eyes widened in shock. "FIRST Time?! You've seen this shit before?!"

"Well... no. But I did once see a man's face get ripped open by a Bloater, compared to that..." She glanced up at one of the corpses. "Well, this is still really gnarly... but hey! Silver-lining? We didn't watch it happen."

Preston looked up at Ellie with relief, seeing the silver lining, but then horror took hold again, as he fully processed Ellie's words. Quickly, Ellie realized what was happening, could see the gears spinning in Preston's head. "Stop!" she commanded, but it was too late: he was already imagining Strang savagely butchering these people alive, their agonized screams dulled by his limited imagination... Still, it was enough for the vomiting to begin again. Ellie could do nothing but keep patting him on the back.

As Preston began to retch, Ellie looked around the cul-de-sac, a circle of worn, cracked asphalt that branched off into driveways leading into the vast lawns of six large homes, each one around two to three stories high, the kind that, according to Tommy, were typically built by wealthy middle-class families that wanted to be as far away from non-whites as possible. Indeed, that little clump of houses was extremely isolated, being kilometers away from Jackson, on top of a hill, with the road leading up to it eroded by time, and the surrounding area overtaken by forests. The houses, lacking all maintenance for three decades, were not doing too well, with their walls crawling with vines, mold, and cracks... but were still standing, and with a little work, could be habitable if one didn't mind being surrounded by a forest potentially infested by the infected.

But there was one house, a Gothic revival monstrosity out of a horror film, that stood proudly in spite of its age, its only visible damage being a hole in the roof, but in spite of damage relative to its neighbours, this house, Ellie could tell, was far older than any other in the area, maybe even older than Old Jackson itself.

The retching stopped. "Got your shit back together?" asked Ellie. Her tone wasn't harsh.

"Yeah," replied Preston. He took another look at one of the hanged corpses, winced, gasped, winced again, then stood fully upright. "Yeah, I'm gonna be okay." Ellie could sense that it wasn't true, that he wasn't going to be okay for at least a month. But as long as she was there, leading the way, he would hold it together for just as long, come what may.

"...I'm gonna have a look at one of the bodies, okay?"

Preston nodded.

Ellie and Preston walked up to the corpse that had been hung the lowest, hoping to examine it without touching it. The first thing they noticed as they approached was the smell, that sickly sweet combination of shit, blood, rancid meat and various olfactory notes Ellie had never sensed before. She checked on Preston: the cadaverine and putrecine gasses didn't bother him so much. Funny, that. Ellie, on the other hand, found her composure tested: her newfound olfactory sensitivity made every breath a trial.

They stopped just short of the puddle of purge fluids, forced out by the build up of gasses of decomposing intestines.

"Yep," said Ellie. "That's the bloat stage, alright."

Preston tried to recall the details of that stage from his memories of Biology class. "Takes 3 to 5 days for that stage to kick in, right?"

Ellie nodded, then squinted at the corpse's clothes. "Hm, jacket looks familiar," she focused on the patch on the shoulder. It was stained with various fluids, and difficult to make out, but... "Shit."

"What?"

"That's one of the Elk Hunters," she said, pointing at the emblem sewn on the corpse's jacket.

"Huh, and they're all wearing the same jacket, so... shit, that's six dead hunters?"

"The Lodge is REALLY not going to like this. Six of theirs, dead, so close to home?" she sighed. "Bean is gonna want a pound of flesh out of the Rangers, that's for sure."

"Bean?"

"Alexander Bean, he's the leader of the Lodge."

Preston shook his head. "Don't think I've ever met him..."

"You'd have remembered if you did," Ellie pursed her lips, as if she had just eaten a piece of sour candy. "The man's so fucking fat he can barely get out of his chair. He's practically fused with it." Ellie couldn't hide her disgust for the man, earning herself a sidelong glance from Preston. "Anyways, let's see what else I can find..." She started scanning the corpse with her eyes, starting with top, and snickered. "The fuck is that?"

"A man bun," said Preston. Had it not been for the smells, he'd have joined her in mocking it.

"Right, right... okay, so, hispanic male, about... a hundred and seventy-five centimeters tall? Cause of death... hm..."

"Isn't it obvious?" he pointed at the ribs, carved into wings.

"Hm... I'm gonna say slashed throat."

Preston squinted at the man's throat, and saw the maggots infesting a gash in it.

Ellie could imagine Calhoun's words echo in her head. Brutal. Efficient. For a split second the thing inside her head cranked up her melatonin levels, and she could clearly see Strang's blurry figure kill the Elk Hunter's with a single hatchet strike to the head. It had been brutal, efficient... but a bit cruel, too. "Can't imagine the bleeding out and choking was pleasant, but... at least it looks like all this..." she traced a circle around the corpse with her index finger, at the carnage. "...Yeah, this guy was dead long before Strang started chopping at his back."

"That's a relief," he said, and Ellie could tell he felt better already. "Still, murder is murder."

Ellie nodded, then proceeded to examine the lungs, draped over the man's shoulders. "Something weird about the lungs, like the color is off..."

"Wanna bring down the body? Do a field autopsy?"

"Are you a trained pathologist?"

"Errrr... no?"

"Neither am I."

"Do we even have a pathologist on call?"

"Nope. I mean, we've got Doc, but he's a general practitioner, and a hell of a pharmacist... but he can't do an autopsy worth a damn." Ellie examined the man's boots. "Hm... interesting. Same brand."

"Strang's brand?"

"No, whoever was stalking those girls. Not the same size, though, so it probably wasn't him."

"Hm... hold on a second..." Preston went to examine the other corpses' boots, and quickly returned. "Yeah, looks like they all shop at the same shoe store, or something."

Ellie nodded. "They found a warehouse a while back, full of outdoorsman's gear. Makes sense they'd favour one shoe brand."

"Interesting, yeah? Want know what I think happened?"

"Shoot."

"Okay, so one of the Hunters goes out looking for game, comes across the hot springs while Millie and Cindy are there. Strang, being an overprotective violent psycho, assumes the worst and kills him. Then, his friends come looking for him, kills them too, puts these up as a warning. Things escalate with the mutilated Elk, and there we are. What do you think?"

"Plausible... but there's a couple of holes."

"Such as?"

"Hunters tend to travel in groups of three or more, never alone, not to mention there were no signs of a struggle at the spot. In fact... I don't think Strang noticed him, which is weird. He ought to have smelled him."

"Huh? Why's that?"

"Er..." Crap, Ellie thought. Don't mention the super smell. He'll think you're crazy. "Elk Hunters tend to smell pretty bad, you know?"

"Oh, yeah, no kidding. Do they ever bathe?"

"If they're anything like Packer, they probably think it would wash away their..." she made finger quotes. "...musky animal magnetism. Anyways, you might have the gist of it, but... I dunno, I don't think he killed them over one dead peeping tom, and as for the mutilation... yeah, those make for good scarecrows, but I think he really, REALLY hated their guts, too." Ellie sighed. With no training in pathology, there wasn't much point continuing examining the corpse. Still, she couldn't help but wonder aloud. "Why did Strang kill you, amigo?"

"Amor..." croaked the corpse.

Ellie's eyes widened, then she relaxed. It was her imagination acting up again. She imagined herself shrugging, and asking: "Love? For who?"

"Love for Her," rattled the corpse. She imagined he'd have an accent. Spanish, of course. "Everything he does is for her... all the evil, all the good, and everything beyond..."

"Her being... who?" asked Ellie

No response.

"Answer me, carcass."

The corpse smiled, and where teeth should be, maggots wriggled. He nodded at the dark, Gothic house. "Go. Go and see Her. A piece of her awaits at the top, peregrina. Maybe then you'll understand. Maybe then you'll remember..."

"Thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome," he sneered. "Rinche."

Well, that was confusing, thought Ellie as she shook the fantasy away.

"Miller, think we should call it in?" asked Preston.

"No, not yet. I want to have a look at Strang's hideout first," she said, pointing at the dark house. Of course, she should have radioed the Sheriff right away, but she wanted the spare the old man the grisly sight of the hanged men for as long as possible.

---

The old door creaked loudly as it was gently pushed open, alerting the insects and vermin both of Ellie's coming as she stepped out of the vestibule, with her mask on and her handgun held close to the chest, aimed down the main hall.

"Hello," she called out. "Anyone here?"

Ellie's voice echoed in the hall. No response.

"Millie? Cindy? Are you here? I'm with the Rangers! Your parents are worried sick about you! Come on out!"

Her voice resonated in the walls. No response.

She strained her ears, focused her hearing, looking for a heartbeat. She heard the creaking of the settling house, the skittering of rats, and crawling of insects, but still... no response.

"I don't think they're here," said Preston behind her, his Glock in both hands, the barrel pointing up to avoid friendly fire. His tone betrayed his disappointment.

"No, they're not," said Ellie. "Still, worth a shot."

They stepped into the main hall. While the old house was hardly a manor, it was still pretty large, large enough for an entire family and the in-laws to live comfortably without bumping into each other. The walls were made of tarnished white plaster, framed by dark wood that had their luster restored by a coat of varnish only a year old. New bulbs had been fitted into the lamps, the same kind Hogan used to set the Mood at the Silver Dollar. Ellie found the light switch, and flipped it. No power. No matter: there was still plenty of daylight coming through the baroque windows, enough to diffuse throughout the house. Ellie took a quick look around: for a house in the middle of the wilds, this house's interior looked very good, but it felt creepy, for some reason. The black mold infesting every corner didn't help.

"I swear, if there's a zombie around the corner..." Preston muttered under his breath, as the two began to secure the first floor.

"Clear," said Ellie, having just finished checking the living room. Zombie. Hogan had said that before, but Ellie hadn't bothered to ask about it. "The fuck's a zombie?"

"Basically, the Infected, but without the mushrooms," he snorted, amused. "What, you never saw a George Romero movie?"

Ellie shook her head "Nope."

"...Yeah, makes sense. Figure Dawn of the Dead will never get shown at the theater, might conjure up some bad memories."

"Why?"

"Well... you see, Romero predicted something like the Outbreak all the way back in 1978, and built his career making movies about it."

"Really? People liked watching people get eaten by swarms of clickers?"

"Not clickers, but... yeah. They really did. Romero spawned a whole genre of these movies. Video games, too."

"That's just sick."

"I guess it is, huh?" And so, on that awkward note, the conversation ended.

---

They proceeded to the kitchen, where they found the larder. "Wow," said Preston, after opening it. "That's a LOT salted pork."

"How much are we talking about?"

"Enough to feed a whole family for a couple of months. There's bacon, too and..." he shone a flashlight on a cloth sack. "Yep, a bag of potatoes."

"Just need some beer and we've got a perfectly balanced canadian diet," joked Ellie.

"Some mushrooms, too. All Oysters, though, so no worries."

"Good to hear," said Ellie, as she examined the kitchen. It had been kept thoroughly clean, although traces of the black mold ubiquitous to this place were still here and there. Something nevertheless smelled rotten, though, and she only found the source of the stench after opening the black iron door of the wood stove. "Well, well, well."

"What?" asked Preston, slicing off a piece of meat for himself for later.

"There's a potato roast in there," said Ellie. "The same kind Rose served us except... bleagh, with about five days' worth of rot on it. If you had any doubts this was Alan's place, you can put them to rest."

---

Stepping into the dining room, the first thing Ellie noticed was the warm tones of the place. Much like the Silver Dollar, whoever had built this place had favored oaks and pines for the large table, the six chairs surrounding it, and the cabinets lining the walls. Black iron oil lamps - new ones, by the look of them - were suspended above the table by chains, and Ellie could easily imagine them bathing the area in their warm glow. The panes of glass on the cabinets had, somehow, endured the test of time, and preserved several fine articles of china that would have fetched a high price at some fair in the Old World. Some of these plates had been set on the table: someone had expected guests for dinner, it seemed, the same dinner that was rotting in the oven.

On the floor by the table, they found some sheets of paper on the floor, along with some colored pencils, their tips cut into points by what had to have been a knife. Said sheets had been scribbled upon by a bored child, looking to kill time and not express anything in particular.

Preston muttered in horror: "Oh, no. Cindy must have been here."

"Yeah, probably."

"Means she saw the..." he glanced at window, to the outside, and thought of the hanged men. "...oh, the poor girl."

"I think she was okay," said Ellie, calmly. As she spoke, Preston picked up a coloring book on the table. "Think about it - those things aren't even a week old, and she's been coming here for months. She probably didn't visit when those things got put up."

"I doubt it," he said, paging through the book.

"Oh, really? What makes you say that?"

Preston handed the book to Ellie. "Do these look like the product of a healthy, not at all traumatized mind to you?"

Ellie set the book on the table and went over the pages, keeping her pistol in one hand. It seemed Cindy's favorite subject to draw was a big black wolf with big nasty teeth and big red eyes. Cindy wasn't talented, but somehow the wolf still seemed... perturbing. The drawings of Mononoke - or what Ellie assumed was Mononoke - were oddly adorable. Adorable got back to disturbing with the next page: Mononoke, surrounded by other white dogs lying in puddles of red crayon and black jagged lines, with Xs marking their eyes.

Page after page, a story unfolded: An army of green eyed stick figure men, killing dogs with jagged tools.

An auburn-haired girl, reaching out for a puppy, surrounded by jagged lines and little drops of red.

The girl with the puppy in her arms, running. Green-eyes and rows of red triangles — grinning mouths — in the dark, following them.

The girl and the puppy, surrounded by grinning, green eyed shadows.

A green-eyed shadow, with crowned with antlers.

The big bad wolf, snarling, leaping onto the shadows.

Shadows, with green Xs for eyes.

The wolf's maw, its fangs squeezing red out of the screaming shadows.

Red.

Red.

Red.

Teeth.

Wolf.

Alan.

"Poor kid," muttered Ellie. "Must have seem some shit. Had to work through it."

Preston nodded. "No kidding."

"Although... I'm not seeing any stick figures with bone wings, so..."

"Does it matter?" Preston almost snapped.

Ellie scowled at him. "It might." She pocketed the book. "Let's keep going."

The Rangers entered the workshop, what should have been a garage, had cars been a thing when the house was built. Lacking any windows, the room was pitch black. Ellie reached for the light switch, hoping that this room would be powered somehow. No such luck. "We have got to find the fuse box in this place," said Ellie, annoyed.

"In the meantime," said Preston, reaching for his flashlight. "Let there be light." He thumbed the switch, and the cone of light brought him relief: he had expected this place to be Alan's kill room, and thought they would find the two girls strung up on hooks, their backs opened. Instead, they found the workshop to be just that, a workshop. The walls were lined with wooden shelves filled with fairly modern sundries, a bounty of screws, nails, nuts, bolts, and their required tools. Besides that, there were various woodworking tools, all of which were old-fashioned and hand powered. Ellie quickly noted that none of this hardware was optimal for gun maintenance, explaining why Alan had done his at a Ranger cache.

Truly, the most out of the ordinary thing that caught their eye was on the workbench.

"Are those bear traps?" Preston said, aiming his flashlight at them.

"Claw traps, actually," said Ellie, remembering Joel teaching her about those. He had been very insistent on calling them that, seeing as he was a trained outdoorsman. And indeed, on the workbench sat two dozen claw traps made out of parts you'd find at a scrapyard, made non-functional by a well placed-blow of a hammer or a subtle twist of a screwdriver. "They're too small for bears, obviously."

"Right, obviously. Too crappy to have come from the workshop. Strang must have made those... right?"

Ellie walked up to the workbench, and got a closer look. Turned out, there were even more claw traps — each one a unique combination of springs and jagged metal — under the table. Ellie shone her light on the ones on the tabletop, and whether by instinct or deduction, she wound up touching the most important one, that one had blood on its teeth. Her melatonin spiked, longer than the last time...

I am being Cindy. I am small, tiny, cold, and scared. The woods are dark, so very dark. Only the full moon guides me. My hands are small, and weak, but I keep trying. Trying to pull the metal mouth apart, just wide enough... just wide enough, please! It's so small, and whimpers, and it's scared and cold and the bad men are coming please god give me strength I just want to save something I don't wanna die Mommy help

Ellie let out a small gasp, and composed herself. "No, these aren't his." Ellie pursed her lips, pondering. "Didn't Jack St-James mention something about the Hunter's Lodge purging a den of wolves last year?"

"Yeah, so?" said Preston, keeping watch over the door behind them.

Ellie took out the coloring book, and flipped the page back to the drawing of Mononoke howling in the center of a circle of dead dogs. The jagged lines... so much like the teeth of the claw traps. "I'm thinking these were part of that," she said, nodding at the devices. "And that Alan's been disarming and removing them."

"Why would he do that?"

"These are his woods... Guess he didn't like the Lodge spreading traps all over them."

"They shouldn't be spreading traps at all... isn't there a law against that?"

"Probably but..." Ellie scowled. "...As long as the Lodge provides Jackson with meat, they tend to get a free pass on a lot of bullshit."

Preston frowned. "I don't like it... no one should be above the law. Not even us."

---

The first floor cleared, they decided to move to the basement.

"Masks on..." said Ellie, covering her face with a Mira Safety CM-6M Full Face Respirator, favoring it due to it not obstructing her vision. It was standard operating procedure for the Rangers - if you were going somewhere that was likely to be dark and humid — a perfect breeding ground for cordyceps and its spores — you put your mask on, and you kept it on until you were somewhere very dry. Ellie glanced at Preston as he put on his M40 and double-checked the seal. To him, this was a lifesaving, preventative measure. To her, it was a masquerade: she hadn't needed to wear something like this for a decade, except to pretend she was like other people. Of course, Joel had told her there were other things to worry about besides spores, like his homemade smoke grenades. Gas Masks are useful for those too.

"Ready," said Preston.

Ellie opened the door and stepped down the stairs, her ears picking up her footsteps, Preston's, and the buzzing of flies. The light didn't catch any spores hanging in the air, a good sign there were no infected bodies.

Except there were. twenty of them, in fact, all clickers, some lying prone on the ground, and some sitting against the walls, and yet, in spite of being there for what had to be months... there weren't any spores, at all. The bodies weren't even sprouting. They were, however, covered in some kind of lumpy pale goo.

"The hell is that gunk?" asked Preston.

Ellie knelt down the nearest dead clicker and examined it, and rapidly concluded what it was covered in. "It's cheese."

A pause.

"I'm sorry," Preston began. "But what."

"It's cheese," Ellie repeated herself. "God's honest truth," she began to snicker. "It's cheese."

"...The clickers are covered in cheese," stated Preston.

Ellie burst out laughing.

"Miller, that's not funny."

"Yes it is," giggled Ellie. "I mean, you don't hear that every day! Say it again, come on."

"No!"

"That's an order, Ranger!" She almost sang, grinning.

Preston sighed. "...The clickers are covered in cheese."

Ellie had another good laugh at that, and Preston had to wait until she was done to get another word in. "Why cheese, though?" he asked. "Some kind of sick joke?"

"Maybe he was making a tasty snack?" Elle giggled some more.

"Miller, come on..."

"Fine, fine..." she said, before cogitating on things a bit. "Look around you: no spores. I'm guessing the milk stops the fungus from spreading somehow." Ellie looked around the basement, and found a small tank connected to a spray gun via a rubber tube. "I think Corpse Disposal could use that info. If there's anything we've got in good supply, it's milk."

"Assuming Strang doesn't come after our cows, next." Preston kept scanning the room with his flashlight, and found the fuse box. "There it is. Think this place is connected to the power grid?"

"Worth a shot..." Ellie popped the box open, examined the fuses, and flipped the primary switch. Preston tried turning on the lights, but to no avail.

"Damn," he said.

Ellie shrugged. "Power line must have snapped long ago. Oh well."

---

As they climbed to the upper levels, something bugged Ellie. "So, Zombies?" she began.

"What about them?" Preston responded.

"What's the difference?" she asked. Then, she added: "Between them and the Infected, I mean?"

"Fundamentally? Not much. The devil's in the details, though."

"Go on."

"The key difference there? The infected are alive, while zombies are dead... or undead."

"What, like vampires?"

"Kinda, which means that unlike the infected, zombies are much harder to kill." Preston quickly shook his head. "I-I mean, harder to put down."

Ellie stopped just short of the stairwell leading to the second floor. "How so?"

"Well, you shoot a zombie in the chest, or even..." Preston tapped his chest. "...the heart? It keeps going."

"So do the infected."

"Yeah, but that's because of the adrenaline. Shoot an infected in the heart and it's doomed, even if it manages to get you in the end. Zombies? Blow the heart away and it'll keep on being a threat for years. Shoot the knees? It'll keep on crawling. Heck, chop off its head, and it'll keep trying to bite you."

"So how did they kill them? In the movies?"

"Depends on the movie, but typically? You gotta damage or destroy the brain." Preston raised an eyebrow. "Why are you so interested all of a sudden?"

"Just making conversation," replied Ellie. "Why were old-world folk so fascinated with these zombies, anyways?"

"I... I honestly have no idea. Speaking for myself though? I think they're kind of fun."

Ellie scowled at him. "Yeah, cause re-living last Tuesday sounds like sooo much fuuun."

"Doesn't Sheriff Miller love to watch westerns? From what I heard, shooting folks is his tuesday, but that doesn't seem to take any enjoyment from watching the Dollars Trilogy."

"Well, that's not the same thing, that's..."

"Yes? What?"

"It's not real bandits and sheriffs. It's a fantasy."

"And so are zombies. They're not real, either, and that's what makes zombies fun to watch."

Ellie didn't seem convinced. As they walked up the stairs, Preston decided to continue: "In their defense, people who loved zombie movies? They were the ones more likely to survive the outbreak."

"You're shitting me."

"No, really! Think about it: Infected behaved a lot like zombies, so when they started attacking folks, zombie film fans were savvy enough to react appropriately, by keeping their distance, avoiding getting bitten, and most importantly of all..."

"...The double tap," said Ellie, realizing.

"Exactly. Or better yet, shooting the brain outright."

"Kinda like our boy Strang," commented Ellie. "Lots of those bodies downstairs only had the one wound to the head." Deep hatchet cuts, she noted, along with the occasional stab wound to the base of the neck. "Hard to pull off, that," she said, speaking from experience. She and Joel had gotten up close and personal with bandits and infected before, and the opportunity of dealing a decisive blow to the head rarely came up.

"Strang loves it close and personal, huh?"

"Looks like. If we ever encounter him..."

"Keep our distance, got it. And Miller? Can I say one last thing in defense of the zombie genre?" Preston's nostrils flared, as a deep breath passed through them. Things were about to get a bit personal, Ellie sensed.

"Do tell," she prodded him.

"After my pops died? From a clicker attack? Playing Dead Rising got really cathartic. Hell, I got an achievement for just mowing zombies down in some pretty hilarious ways."

"So... old-worlders liked watching zombies getting mowed down because it brought them... relief?"

"Probably."

"From what, though? What'd they need catharsis for? They had everything they could have possibly wanted. Hell, they had so much food some women had to make an effort NOT to eat it."

"...Maybe the old world wasn't what it's cracked up to be."

Those words were sobering to Ellie. She remembered Marlene, one of the leaders of the fireflies, as well as her adoptive — and all too absent — mother. Whenever they spoke, Marlene had often painted a picture of old world America that was almost utopian, worth fighting for. Worth killing for. Worth blowing yourself up for.

Worth chopping you up for.

And for what? thought Ellie, ruefully. Paradise, or another kind of hell? The kind where watching the horror of a fake Outbreak made people feel good? Was that worth killing me in my sleep for?

"Miller?" asked Preston, worried. "Are you zoning out again?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, sorry. No, I was just lost in thought." She glanced at the stairs, and took a step up towards the second floor. "Let's go up."

"Hold on." Preston stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, as he turned his head to peer down the hall. "I think there's a conservatory past the kitchen. Might be worth a look?"

Ellie agreed, thinking it good to be thorough. Whatever waited for her up there could wait.

---

If the conservatory had ever been greenhouse or a sun room, Ellie couldn't spot any evidence supporting it. Instead, the place had been converted into an art studio. The afternoon sun, visible through the glass walls, cast its light on Strang's failures, amateurish attempts at sculpting wood and stone into various shapes. The myriad tools necessary for the crafts — Saws, chisels, mallets — were neatly organized on various tables, while Strang's successes in mastering woodworking and stoneworking had been given places on honor on barebones shelves of wrought iron. Ellie removed her gas mask, taking in the scent of old wood shavings hanging in the air.

"Hellooo there," she said, as her gaze fell on a small prototype for the stone lantern at the hot springs, sitting on top of the central table. Besides it was a magazine, opened to an article on orientalist architecture.

The kind that she loved. The kind that she dreamed of.

Ellie shook her head. No. "Looks like Strang's the one who sculpted that lantern," she said. "And he's got a fetish for Chinese stuff."

"Think that's Chinese, too?" said Preston, pointing outside, at the corpses, hidden from view. "Some kind of ritual?"

"Probably," Ellie shrugged, not knowing how wrong she was.

Out of habit, the two of them looked for anything useful — ammo, old rags, fuel, scissors, anything — and Preston had thought he had hit the jackpot with a large plastic toolbox, out of the ordinary in this place, on account of its modernity relative to everything else. He set it on a table, and opened it, and instead found little plastic figurines, little ships set on square bases, with x-shaped wings. "The hell are those?"

"Looks familiar," said Ellie, peering over Preston shoulder at the contents of the box, as the man examined a larger game piece, a saucer with mandibles in front. There was a huge stack of cards in the corner of the box, while cardboard dials and templates shared space on the tray with dice painted both green and red. "Oh yeah, I remember. Filoni was really, really into this series about... I dunno, some kind of future where people went out into space with a Sasquatch to seek out new life or something." Ellie shrugged. "Tried to get me into it too, but..."

"But what?"

"I thought nothing could be better than Savage Starlight, so I told him off. Kinda feel bad about that, now."

They found a note on the tray. It read: 'Challenge Accepted ;)', with 'D' as the signature.

There was another toolbox, and out of curiosity Ellie opened that one. "Yep, more game pieces."

"Same as these?" said Preston, shaking the saucer between his fingers.

"Not quite," said Ellie, pulling another ship. This one was a saucer too, but with three large tubes. "These are all made out of wood, and they're not painted." Inside this particular box were tokens and templates, imitations of the other box's contents. "I think he used the plastic ones as a base for these."

"Do you think Filoni was here?" asked Preston.

"I doubt it," said Ellie. "What could Filoni possibly want with some axe-crazy psycho?"

---

They found Filoni's grave in the backyard.

"Motherfucker," Ellie cursed.

"You sure it's him?"

"Well, between the name on the gravestone," she pointed at Filoni's full name on said stone tablet, "And his favorite hat nailed to it, odds are that yeah, it's his grave alright."

"Maybe we should dig it up?" said Preston. "Make sure?"

"Yeah, let's."

They found a couple of shovels in the backyard's tool shed, and together, within hours, they reached Filoni's corpse three feet into the dirt. The worms had already devoured most of the man's flesh, but his clothes still bore the insignia of the Jackson Rangers on the shoulder, and his name tag on the chest. Ellie sighed. "Well, that's one mystery solved, I guess."

"Strang's gonna pay for this," Preston growled. "Nobody kills one of us and gets away with it."

"Yeah..." said Ellie, half-heartedly, her gaze fixed on Filoni's skeleton.

"...This is the part where you tell me I'm wrong, right?"

"Maybe?" said Ellie, as she jumped into the grave for a better look. "Gimme a moment."

"I'll keep watch while you work your, ah... your magic?"

Ellie dug around the grave with her hands, hoping to find any clue at all as to how Filoni had died. She found besides him, much to her surprise, his weapons: a Mauser C96 pistol and a custom AR15 Commando, treasured on account of being the only ones to exist in all of Wyoming. His backpack was in there, too, and contained all his ammo, supplies. "That's... weird."

"What?" asked Preston, scanning the area for incoming trouble."

"If Alan killed him, it wasn't to take his stuff. Look!"

"...Huh. Well, why did he kill him then?"

Ellie took a closer look at the remains. She quickly noted some damage to the ribs, and her eyes zeroed in on it. "Looks like... something grazed the bone, here, close to the heart."

"Knife mark?"

"Maybe... not sure, though. Hold on..." Ellie's quickly found something else amiss, fractures on the skull, all leading towards the left eye socket. Without thinking, she stuck her finger in it. "There's... a hole."

"Well, duh. The optic nerve needs to reach the brain somehow."

"Har, har," Ellie shot back. "No, I mean there's another, bigger hole in there. I think it's an entry wound."

"Really? Think the bullet's still in there?"

"Only one way to find out..." Ellie muttered, as she grabbed Filoni's skull with both hands. "Sorry, David," she said, and pulled.

The skull made a rattling sound.

"Hello there," Ellie said, a slight smile on her face. She managed to fish out the slug without further damaging the skull, and held it close to her dominant eye, and quickly identified it. ".243 Winchester. Strang didn't kill him."

"What makes you say that?"

Before Ellie could answer, she felt another surge of hyperphantasia coming on, and in the blink of an eye her mind flashed back in time to Alan's brutal bar brawl, then how she imagined Alan killing those clickers, or those Hunters. Quick, efficient, brutal. "It's not his style," she said. "He likes it up close, remember? And this slug's from a long gun."

Preston nodded. "And if he'd used a gun..." He thought back to the ammo Alan stole from the cache. ".45 hollow points or 12-gauge pellets would have done a lot more damage than this."

Ellie nodded in approval. He was learning. Good. "And he would have broken some bones, while he was at it. And besides that... look around you." She gestured at her surrounding, and at the gravestone. "This... is respect, Garvey. Maybe even—"

"Amor," croaked the corpse.

"—Love. The others hanging out there? That's hate. Pure hate."

With nothing else to find, Ellie followed Ranger protocol, and despoiled Filoni's body of anything useful... oddly enough, she felt a little awful about it. She had looted corpses before, but this was the first time she looted a grave. Alan... had actually gone through the trouble of honoring Filoni's corpse, and she had ruined that. She suppressed her guilt as he handed the guns to Preston, and carried the backpack out of the grave. She rummaged through it, and found Filoni's journal. She skimmed through it - the pages were so dense with tiny letters, it would take a while to go over. Another time, she thought.

She glanced at the gravestone, at the hat nailed to it, and thought that perhaps Filoni would have liked someone to keep on wearing that stupid thing. "Want it?" Ellie asked Preston.

"Uh... sure?"

Quickly, Ellie grasped the nail's head between the two middle knuckles of her dominant hand, and pulled it out of the stone, taking the hat with it. The metal pike made a little thump as it hit the ground, and Ellie handed the hat to Preston.

The junior Ranger examined it closely: It was a well-worn, dark brown leather cowboy hat, with a wide brim bent on the side. The band was dark grey, and bore the insignia of the Jackson Rangers. Preston hesitated to put it on, and Ellie sensed some guilt radiating from him, no doubt for considering putting on a dead man's hat.

"Come on," insisted Ellie. "He'd want a young Ranger to have it."

Preston looked up. "Hm? Oh! Err, yeah. I guess..." Preston exhaled, and put the hat on. "How do I look?"

Ellie pursed her lips, then smiled. "It suits you, actually."

"I dunno, I think it doesn't match my outfit."

"Eh, we'll get you a matching long coat at the next supply cache."

"Good idea... it's getting a little cold." He looked down at the open grave. "Are we... maybe we ought to have a moment of silence, or something?"

"...Sure," said Ellie. She usually saved that kind of sentimentality for the funerals, but seeing as Filoni apparently already had one... "Yeah, let's do that."

Respectfully, Preston bowed his head, hat in hand, and paid his respects to Filoni.

Or he tried to. All he could think about was Ellie pulling out that nail like it was nothing.

---

After putting the extra gear and ammo in their horse's saddlebags, the two Rangers re-entered the house and proceeded to the second floor. There, they found a few bedrooms, only one of which looked like it had ever been slept in recently. The rest had nothing of interest.

Inside the bathroom, they found a large open medkit, fully stocked with first aid supplies, including splints.

"Huh," said Ellie. "Mononoke has a splint like that, perfectly cut."

"So?" said Preston. "These splints are standard on any medkit, even newer ones."

Ellie rummaged through the medkit, and found a roll of bandage. "It's been used."

Preston could see where Ellie was going with this. "Yeah, no, Strang doesn't strike me as the type to fix puppies' paws."

"Strang didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would give a stranger a proper burial, either."

"Good point."

Something else caught her eye: on the edge of the bathtub was a book... or what was left of it. Ellie picked it up, and read the title: "City of Thieves," then she looked at the author's name: "David Benioff," she said. "Most of the pages are missing..."

Preston caught her eyeing the toilet. "Yeah, three guesses as to what he thought of the book."

---

On the third level there was but one door, and both Ellie and Preston were starting to feel a little apprehensive - between the savagely mutilated corpses outside, the many dead clickers in the basement, and the dead Ranger in the backyard, neither of the two Rangers knew what to expect, and since the third floor was fairly dark, so too had their expectations darkened. The creaking of the floor at their every footstep had not helped alleviate the mood.

"This is it, isn't it?" asked Preston. "I... we're going to find their dead bodies strung up in here, aren't we?"

"Probably," said Ellie, taking a deep breath as she grasped the door knob with one hand and kept her Beretta in the other. "Ready?"

Preston took a deep breath, preparing himself for the worst. "Yep."

Slowly, Ellie turned the knob, and the hinges of the door groaned as it was slowly pushed open, and both Ellie and Preston widened their eyes at the sight that awaited them...

...For just then, the Golden hour struck, turning the light of the sun orange and gold, bathing the room in a gentle flame that made the room's contents all the more beautiful... for there were no dead girls, no mutilated corpses, no dead mutants, no rotten food, just drawings, just dedications of time and effort to the things the artists loved above all.

What had once been the house's study had been converted into an Art room, and all that remained of its original purpose was a lone bookshelf filled with instruction manuals and art albums, and a large, comfy, quilted leather chair. Everything else had been moved somewhere, making plenty of room for a drafting table and leaving the walls bare to hang portraits and landscapes, some made by crayons, others by pencils. One of the walls had been painted black a perfect backdrop for Cindy's masterpiece, a vision of paradise, rendered in colorful wax chalk: flowers, birds, trees, swirling suns, puppies and rainbows, it had everything Cindy could have ever wanted in life, and in the center of it all she was surrounded by her favourite people: Millie and Filoni were recognizable by a dress and a cowboy hat, respectively, while the dark figure with the red eyes had to be Alan. This was all made with the skill you'd expect from a child, but it was clearly far better than the skill demonstrated in the colouring book they had found. Either Cindy had been coming here for a long time, or she had a very good teacher.

On the opposite wall were drawings done in a completely different style, arranged in grids, done on a much higher skill level on might expect from a twenty-something art student. At the center of the grid was a row of monochrome, photorealistic portraits, done in pencil, made with Amor, as the corpse outside would have put it. The first two were portraits of a man and woman, easily in their mid-40's. The first was that of a creole man, with sharp features and gaunt cheeks, but with slight smile enhancing a gentle look in his eyes. That warm look was matched by his neighbour, a pale woman of Nordic-French descent. He eyes were warmer, her smile was brighter, and it was clear the artist loved her right back, judging by the care and effort he put into rendering her long, wavy locks of hair. Ellie could swear the light of the golden hour loved this drawing the most, and wondered if the beam of sunlight that shone upon it was the product of her hyperactive imagination. She rubbed her eyes... and the beam no longer seemed so bright.

Words had been written on the lower right corner of those drawings, in what Ellie could only perceive as squiggles... at first, but she quickly deciphered out the letters. On the first two:

Papa.

Maman.

"...I have no idea what those words mean," said Ellie, after a moment. "Are those... names?"

Preston chimed in: "Pretty sure Papa is the long word for Pa, which means dad. Logically, Maman is... mama? Mama, I suppose."

"So why not just spell Mama?" asked Ellie. "Why add that extra N?"

Preston shrugged. "I dunno."

Ellie focused on 'Maman' for a bit, feeling somewhat... nostalgic? No, not quite that, but she had seen that woman before, of that she was certain, but when? The memory... it escaped her, and not even the thing in her head could dig it out for her to examine properly.

Her gaze fell on the other portraits. They where those of young people, aged between fifteen and eighteen years of age. The first of these was that of a handsome young man, the eldest of the bunch, his skin tone a bit darker than Preston. His chiseled jaw was clean shaven, his hair had been cut short, military style, and from the angle of the shot... it was clear to her that the artist looked up to the man a great deal. His squiggles spelled out Noah. That was a name, obviously. His name was Noah. He dreamed of a better world.

The second portrait was that of a young woman, second eldest, of Japanese and Russian descent. She was gorgeous: her hair was short and wavy, her jawline was a perfect curve, her lips were full, and her large bedroom eyes had been lovingly rendered. Her name was Yuki. She was the last thing they never saw.

The third portrait was that another young man, portly, with apples for cheeks and big silly grin on his face. His hair was close-shaved too, but it was clear from his smooth baby face that facial hair had been a distant dream. His name was Zack. He would never let any of us go hungry.

"Shut up about potatoes," muttered Ellie. "God."

"What?" replied Preston.

"Hm? Sorry, talking to myself."

The fourth portrait belonged to a teenage girl about Millie's age. If Yuki was the gorgeous one, then this Irish girl had to be the pretty one of the group. Her smile was shy, embarrassed. Her hair was long, but bound together in lovely braids. There was a longing in her eyes, a longing for him. Her name was Lilly, and she didn't want any of us hurt.

The fifth portrait was that of a bespectacled Scottish boy about Lilly's age, gaunt and skinny and scared. His name was Finn, and he was a coward. But for us, he would always find a lion in his heart.

"Who are these people?" asked Preston. "Why are their portraits up there?"

"They... they were his friends, I think. And this is a memorial to them all."

"You mean..."

A single tear streamed down Ellie's cheek. "They're all dead. They were so beautiful, and I loved them all, and he..."

"Miller?" Preston was getting worried. "Is it happening again?"

Ellie shook her head, and wiped her tear. "No, it's okay, I got it under control." She sniffed.

Preston put a hand on her shoulder. "Look, don't empathize or sympathize with Strang too much, okay? Look outside, and don't forget that he did that." He paused. "This place looks clear, and I think we've seen all that we need to see. I'm gonna call this in and... and request we come home early, alright?"

"Hey," she began to protest, pulling away from his hand. "It's not that bad, Not yet, warned a voice in her mind, the hanged man's voice...

---

Ellie sat at the desk, feeling melancholic as the light of the golden hour waned. She could barely hear Preston outside, reporting to Tommy over the radio about their recent findings... and Ellie's erratic behavior, no doubt. She didn't care all that much.

Something was bothering her: they had searched every room of this place, but they hadn't found Her, as the hanged man put it. They had found images of a few women, yes, but Ellie had expected an actual person, or even just a corpse. Who was She, anyways, this woman that Alan Strang was doing all this for?

Ellie rubbed her eyes. You were talking to a corpse, the reasonable part of her mind told her. You're clearly insane. There is no Her. There is no She. There never was. You made it all up. Strang does what he does because he's a mad dog that you have to put down. Go home. Get some real sleep. Get your head on straight, and get back to hunting.

"Okay," Ellie replied out loud. She took a deep breath, bracing herself to face the rest of the day, got up, and stepped outside of the room.

It was then that, with a nonchalant glance upwards, that she noticed the attic door on the ceiling.

"Goddamn it," she cursed under her breath. It was amazing how these things were easy to miss on account of simply not looking up. Out of habit, she reached up to pull the cord to bring down the ladder... only to find it wasn't there. Its hook, however, was quite out of reach for someone of her average stature.

I had taken a couple of jumps, but Ellie's crooked finger wrapped itself around the hook, and her weight pulled down the door, allowing the ladder to extend out of it like a tongue out of a mouth. She was instantly struck by its smell: the ladder was made of wood far fresher than anything else in this house, of that she was certain. Touching it, she then knew it had been sanded smooth instead of varnished. She rubbed her fingers with her thumb, wiping away traces of black mold.

"What is this crap?" she wondered aloud, then dismissed the question from her thoughts as she went up the attic.

And that's when she saw Her.

TO BE CONTINUED