Ellie lays her knife and pistol out in front of her. Alongside them, she sets down two bobby pins, an old yellow Bic lighter, and a lined piece of paper folded into quarters. Dina's name is scrawled in pencil on the front of it. Their combined inventory isn't much, but it's a start.
Ellie picks up the lighter, shakes what little fuel is inside of it, and flicks the rusty button on top. She tries it two more times before an orange flame pops out. She releases the button and sets it aside, taking her knife and pistol back. The rest belongs to Dina.
"Let's get some firewood," Ellie says.
"Shouldn't we, like… like try and find the river or something?" Dina replies. She blows her shivering hands and glances up at the top of the ravine.
"No. We won't be able to see anything in the dark, anyways. If we can get up somewhere high, we can figure out which direction to go."
It is, after all, how she and Joel managed to trek across major cities. The path there didn't matter as much as a general direction did.
Ellie ties her sneaker back on, the pain of her twisted ankle subsiding into a dull throbbing that fades with use. She finds softball-sized rocks nestled along the stream's shore and arranges them in a tight circle. The woods rush with noise as she scrounges for kindling, snapping sticks in half and peeling bark from birch trees, placing it all in the center of the stone circle.
In no less than fifteen minutes, Ellie brings a warm fire to life, a relief to her numb fingers. Dina sits on a pile of dead leaves with her arms around her knees.
"Do you think they're dead?" she asks.
Ellie shakes her head and stares into the fire. "I dunno."
"Shit. This is… This bad." Dina rests her forehead on her knees, groaning. "We were so stupid."
"Look, you couldn't have known a Clicker pack was coming for us," Ellie replies. She breaks a stick in half and chucks it into the fire. "None of us could have."
"Yeah… And now everyone's dead."
"Maybe not. We won't really know until we get back."
Everyone in Jackson came from somewhere; scattered souls all over the broken country sought peace within the settlement's walls, and escape the terror outside of them. Ellie had listened to their stories about dead families and loved ones lost to the infection or otherwise around midnight campfires and sullen poker tables. After a while, all of their hardships blended together. They fought their way to Jackson and bore their own scars, physical or otherwise. They were tougher than they looked.
"So," Dina says with a decisive tone. "Tell me all about the great, brave Ellie."
The change in topic catches Ellie off-guard. "What?" She picks absentmindedly at the mud crusted on her sneaker. She should have worn her boots. "Oh, uh… I'm not that interesting."
"Mhm, bullshit. Okay, how about this: We turn it into a game."
Ellie raises an intrigued brow. It had been a long time since she had played a game with anyone that wasn't looking to drink. Though, Dina's sly grin does make her wish she could summon a jar of moonshine.
"Okay. Sure. What is it?"
"All right. We'll each ask each other a question, and we both answer. No repeats, and no one word answers. If you can't answer-" Dina drags her index finger along her throat and gags. "You're out."
Ellie's eyes narrow, but she can't fight the smile playing at her lips. "Easy enough. So how do you win?"
"You try to stump the other person."
"All right," Ellie replies with an inhale, summoning wit and courage. "Hit me."
Dina hums to herself, soft and berceuse. Ellie silently wonders if it's a song from long ago, like the ones Joel knew. She doesn't doubt that Dina would make a good singer, too.
"Ooh, I got it!" Dina snaps her fingers. "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"
Ellie doesn't answer right away, but then she replies, "So, have you seen those pictures where people are all smiling and laughing with each other? They're usually on a beach or in a field, I think. Sometimes there's a lady with an umbrella even though it's not really raining. I think I'd want to go there."
"I don't know if that's actually a place, but… I'll allow it," Dina remarks. "I would love to go to New York. Before the outbreak, of course. I think in an alternate reality, I'd be on Broadway. Your turn."
Ellie swallows. She suddenly wants to ask a thousand questions, but any one of them could bite her back. So, she skirts around them instead with, "What's your favorite color?"
"Green." She says it without missing a beat. "How about yours?"
"Well… When I was a kid, it used to be orange."
"What? Orange? Nobody likes orange!"
"I was a weird kid. Still kinda am."
"I don't think you're weird."
Ellie scoffs and shakes her head.
"They just don't know you." Dina shrugs. "And… I'd like to know you. The real Ellie. What's she like? And why did she save me?"
Suddenly, the words Ellie wants to say get caught somewhere in her throat. She looks away and shrugs. "I lose."
Dina purses her lips.
Ellie sighs. "Look, I… I don't actually know, okay? I mean, I don't even really know you."
"You said you knew my name," Dina reminds her. "If it was someone else, would you still save them?"
"Probably. I mean, yeah, of course I would."
"And if you didn't know them?"
"Sure. Why not."
"But you don't know why?"
"You know what?" Ellie begins, her voice rising with her temper. "No. This is stupid. I'm done playing. We should get some rest so we can get a move on when sunrise comes."
Dina's smile falls. "What if I turned back? Would you come to save me then?"
A tightness knots in Ellie's throat. It could choke her, tears from buried memories blurring Dina's stubborn gaze and flames together. She blinks the tears back, glare softening, jaw clenched. Riley. Tess. Sam and Henry...
"I would have saved everyone if I could."
She doesn't wait to see if Dina's expression changes. Ellie pushes herself off the rock, kneeling next to the stream. No matter how hard she washes or scrubs her hands, nothing could clean their blood from her knuckles or dirt from her fingernails. She cups the cold water and splashes it on her face, feeling too hot. She runs it through her hair, clumps of it sticking together with blood and mud. She only pauses when a pair of skinny-jeaned legs block the light of the moon.
"I couldn't save them, you know," Dina says softly. She hugs one elbow with her opposite hand. "My family. That's why they're not in Jackson with me. Everyone thinks I'm great, but the truth is… I'm not. I'm a coward. If it was you and not me back there, Ellie, I… I don't think I would have saved you. I don't think I could have. I'm not like you."
Dina lays her hand on Ellie's shoulder. Ellie flinches and Dina recoils with her hand midair.
"Sorry," Ellie sputters, pulse picking up pace. She had known Dina was there, but it was something else that startled her. It was the same reason her hands shook when she wasn't cold and why she couldn't sleep when she needed to, almost constantly anxious.
"It's… okay," Dina replies, shifting her weight from foot to foot. She points at Ellie's right hand. "I've seen that before, y'know. All the soldiers have it."
"You were a soldier?"
"Psh, no. Not the slightest. But my dad was, and my mom was a nurse. When I was old enough to push a crash cart, I was always helping out at the hospital."
"Oh," is all Ellie finds she can respond with. Thinking about the last hospital she had been in made her queasy.
Dina kneels next to her. "May I see?"
She holds out both of her palms to her. Ellie hesitates, searching Dina's rich, umber eyes for anything but kindness. Ellie bites her lips and hides her hands in her pockets, thumbs hitching on her belt loops. A bad feeling wells in her stomach.
As much as she wanted to tell other people she was infected, it wasn't easy. Joel and Tess had only found out because a soldier had scanned her. She never told Sam or Henry. A part of her kept hoping that if she told someone, she would be liberated from an awful truth. If Dina moved her sleeve at all, she would see the horrid, mutilated yellow scar tissue.
"Maybe another time. I'll be okay. Really."
"It doesn't hurt."
Again, Ellie hesitates, shoulders stiffening. "Thanks, but… I'll be fine. We should get some sleep, anyways."
Dina fixes her with a long, forlorn stare. She then stands, exhaling with her cheeks puffed out, returning to the place she had been sitting before. "You're one tough cookie."
Dina bends the tall grasses underneath her slender frame, pulling her arms up beneath her cheek like a pillow. She rests on her side with her back to Ellie and the dwindling campfire.
"Goodnight, Ellie."
Ellie sits with her back against the boulder. She pulls out her pistol, checking the magazine. Six bullets between them and the infected, if they returned. Not counting any bears, wolves, or lions they decided to prowl near. From here on out, every shot would have to count. Just like before.
She closes her eyes, but she already knows she won't sleep.
"Goodnight, Dina."
.
Somewhere between midnight and dawn, the fire low and the sky dark, Ellie dreams.
She dreams of Joel driving and her riding shotgun in Bill's pickup. Steady rain showers flare through golden sunlight and dark clouds, falling onto the windshield glass. They cruise through the forested mountain valleys. A rusted green sign flashes by: 90 miles to Salt Lake City.
When Ellie looks at her lap, she's in a hospital gown. "What the hell am I wearing?"
"Just take it easy…" Joel rumbles next to her, one fist on the steering wheel. "Drugs are still wearing off. How're you feelin'?"
She knows that's not what he said when she actually woke up from the hospital. He told her how the Fireflies don't need her anymore.
When she glances in the rearview, the face of the Infected ranger snarls back at her. He bends her backwards over the tower railing. It's not real. None of it is.
"Fine," Ellie replies. She looks away and back to the winding road ahead. They pass another sign: 242 miles to Pittsburgh.
"You were out for some time," Joel continues. "I musta listened to the whole tape three times over before you came to."
He gestures at the truck's tape deck. A tinny, folksy theme twangs through the blown speakers.
"I like this song," Ellie says, even though she's pretty sure it's different from the one that was actually in Bill's truck.
"You do, huh?"
He turns up the dial. Like the landmarks on the ranger's map and the cities they passed through, the words and old melody blend together. Joel knows them. His voice is surprisingly warm and mellow, like the sunlight striking the windshield.
"There is a house in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun..."
Four and a half minutes later, the tape deck clicks and the music ends. 120 miles to Jackson.
"Where are we going?" Ellie asks.
"Let's see where this takes us," Joel replies, as it seems he had said a thousand times before.
The dream is almost like a memory, but everything is wrong and out of place.
"You need to be careful," Joel says. He tilts his head at her window and when she looks, Dina sits across the bonfire pit, laughing with her circle of new friends. They drink moonshine from the mason jars and when Ellie looks down at her lap, she also has a jar, literally appearing out of thin air. She takes an experimental sip. It tastes just like it did on the night of the bonfire, spreading warm across her shoulders and down her throat, but there's something else, too… Maybe lilac?
Ellie inwardly kicks herself. "Yeah. That was stupid. I didn't even want to go."
But, if she didn't go, Dina wouldn't still be alive.
Joel shakes his head. "Not what I mean, Ellie."
He eases onto the brakes, whistling from the wet and rust as they come to a stop. A tawny-colored doe strides through blooming mountain flowers and crosses the road, her white chest shining like fresh snow.
"Well, would you look at that?" Joel murmurs. The doe's ears flick towards them, frozen in place, marbled black eyes watching patiently. "She's a beauty, ain't she?"
Like the country song, the sight of the doe is oddly calming. Ellie breathes a little easier. "Yeah… She is."
Neither of them see the wolf pounce from the side of the road. Its teeth dig into the doe's haunches, splattering the pavement with bright red blood, tearing it down in a single strike. A throaty cry echoes from the doe as it strains against the wolf's claws, hooves scraping on the pavement, when a savage snarl rips into its jugular and silences it completely. Hungry jaws crunch on tender marrow and swallows chunks of red, glistening meat.
Joel sighs. He cautiously angles the truck around the slaughter. When they drive past, Ellie sees no wolf and deer. Orange eyes, like the bonfire, burn back at her. It's her reflection, bloodied knife poised over Dina's dead body. Her arms are littered in bite marks. Infected.
"You need to be careful, baby girl."
.
Morning comes between silvery mists and ochre leaves. Sharp sunlight rouses Ellie from a stiff slump, still holding her pistol in her lap. She yawns, rubbing her eyes, swollen from lack of sleep. Dozing for ten minutes here and there throughout the night did not do her any favors.
Dina, however, slumbers on, oblivious to the finches and warblers singing their morning melodies. Ellie sits there, resting against the rock with the odd pinpricks and bumps that only count as comfort in the wilderness, wondering if she should wake Dina at all. Calm settles in her chest. If she's not careful, she could drift off to sleep as well.
So, Ellie pushes herself up with a pointed groan, stretching her arms above her head and popping the kinks in her neck. The hairs on her arms raise in the morning coolness, soon to lift with the fog for another beautiful autumn day. She swings them back and forth, getting her blood moving in anticipation for a long day ahead of them.
"Hey," she calls. "Rise and shine."
"No…" Dina moans, both of her hands covering her face. "Five more minutes… Ugh. I can't wait to be in my own bed again."
Suddenly, Dina bolts up with a shriek, brushing her hands over herself and swatting away bits and pieces of leaf litter. "Ahh! Shit, shit, shit!"
Ellie freezes, one hand reaching for her knife and the other for her pistol, on edge and frantically scanning the yellow forest. "What is it? Infected?"
"No," Dina replies, smacking her leg hard. "Fucking spider. I hate spiders."
Ellie's hands slowly retreat back to her sides with an accompanied eye roll. "Hate to break it to you, but they were probably crawling all over you while you were asleep."
Dina's eyes grow wide. She hugs herself. "No… No way, I don't believe you."
"You've probably eaten some, too, and didn't know it."
"Okay, now you're just fucking with me."
Ellie smirks, kicking the stones around the dead campfire inwards, snuffing out any trace of smoke. Safe to say, no Infected or wild creatures had snuck up on them while they slept, but she knew it would only be a brief reprieve until the following night. They couldn't go back the way they came, and the creek, widening in berth as they followed the stony shore, curved like a snake between the Teton foothills. It was going to be hours, maybe miles, until they reached the dam.
Yet, as the sun climbs higher and brightens the cloudless sky into perfect blue, Ellie's lungs filled with the cool, crisp freedom that only fall could bring. The crunch of dead leaves underfoot, the swaying of tall grasses at her side, and the birds flitting between the cottonwoods was all she had begged, bargained, and pleaded with Joel to see. More than once, they came upon a statue-esque white heron, prowling the clear waters for the giveaway gleam of trout. Herds of deer gallop between the trees with chattering squirrels to follow. Everything in nature had a place and a purpose.
"Hey, Ellie! Slow down, I think I found something," Dina calls from behind her. Ellie pauses, surprised at the sudden distance between them, engrossed with the feeling that only comes with bold freedom.
She doubles-back, jogging towards Dina, waiting beneath a lumbering cottonwood. The umbrella-like canopy rises over their heads and bends to the water as if to drink. "What's up?"
"It's over here."
Dina wades through the grass and around the dark trunk of the tree, so thick that she vanishes on the other side. Dina shoves away a whole season's worth of dead leaves from atop something old, rickety, and manmade. Ellie pitches in, clearing the last of the leaves from a splintering plywood chest, the yellow logo on top long faded to a murky, circular stencil.
Dina looks at her with raised brows. "What do you think it is? Kinda looks like the Fireflies, doesn't it?"
"Maybe," Ellie replies, apprehensive. She doesn't want to put too much thought into it, any mention of the Fireflies filling her with a cold, strange dread. The grasses reveal a thick, rusty padlock.
"Well crap," Dina remarks.
Ellie crouches further, digging through the leaf litter until her fingernails scrape against something rough and solid. She hefts a half-broken brick in hand. "No big. But you're gonna wanna stand back for this."
Dina takes three wide steps behind her. Ellie aims and chucks the brick at the padlock, the metal clanking and cracking, dropping to the ground.
"Fuck yeah!" she exclaims, beaming. "The Brick Master still has it."
"Brick Master?" Dina echoes with a stifled giggle.
"It's an old championship title."
Ellie hauls the lid open, coughing at the dust cloud that follows it, the hinges whining from disuse. Both peer inside, shoulders touching, and when Ellie turns her head she catches the faintest hint of lilac. They won't be in bloom until next spring.
"This… kinda sucks," Dina says, reaching into the chest. She pulls out a ratty paperback novel, torn and soiled, flipping it over to read the cover. "A Sparrow's Death by… Oh, you can't read it. Hey, there's a note in here."
Dina opens and flattens the water-stained book against her leg, creasing its spine to keep it in place. Ellie investigates the rest of the chest, discovering a pine cone the size of a football and a handful of pyrite nuggets, likely pulled straight from the creekbed.
"Joey," Dina reads from the inside flap. "I'm sorry. This is the last cache before the ridge… And all I have is this dumb book to show for it. Maybe you can use it for kindling. You're a smart kid. - Mike."
Dina closes the book, but it pops back open. "Do you think he made it?"
Ellie doubted it. No one that took the time to leave a note or record a message ever seemed to make it.
She wasn't sure what she had expected to find inside the chest, but a part of her had hoped for something more. A can of expired beans or corn would have been nice. Her stomach growls, remembering the bowl of beef stew Joel had made. She should have eaten it. Regret burns a hole where food should be. But… No. No, she didn't regret it, because despite everything they had been through together, Joel thought she couldn't take care of herself. He could have the whole damn stew to himself. It probably didn't taste good, anyways. Joel sucked at cooking.
Dina keeps pace alongside her. "So… How'd you end up in Jackson?"
Ellie trudges along, kicking stones as she goes. It's a common question, but she struggles with the details. "It's… kind of a long story. Originally, though, I'm from the Boston QZ."
"Boston? Damn, that's… far."
The journey across the broken nation was almost two years ago. Bits and pieces stick out - Tess revealing the bite on her neck, Bill cutting down his partner's corpse, Sam turning and Henry pointing the gun at himself, David reaching for a butcher's knife - while the rest fades to background noise.
"Well, so is wherever you're from," Ellie weakly retorts, as if needing to travel far was something to defend, her hands shoved in her pockets. "Uh… Where are you from, anyways?"
"Los Angeles QZ," Dina crows with pride, not missing a beat. "Born and raised since 2019."
Ellie stops. "Hey, we're the same age."
"Really? When's your birthday?"
"Uh… I don't actually know."
"What!" Dina exclaims, like it's the most ridiculous thing she's ever heard. "How in the world do you not know your birthday? That's like… That's like not knowing that the sky is blue, or that rain is wet, or…"
"I grew up at the Boston Military Prep School." Ellie pushes forward and shrugs.
Dina's face drops. Only those without families wound up in military schools, raised to become soldiers and ultimately, more fodder for the Infected "Oh. I'm sorry. Now I feel like an ass."
"Eh, it's not really a big deal. You can't really miss someone if you don't know them, can you?"
"You've never tried looking for your parents?"
Ellie hauls herself over a toppled cottonwood, the bark rotting with mold and moss, sneakers thudding in the leaves on the other side. "Why bother? They're probably dead."
Dina is slower to climb over, stumbling when she lands. "I always thought that one guy was your dad."
"Joel? Pfft. He might act like he's my dad, but he's not. He's more like my personal prison warden. He's probably freaking out I'm not home yet."
"Gloria probably is, too."
"The mess hall lady?"
"Yeah. She takes care of me and a couple of other kids. But, just between you and me? She might not notice I'm gone at all."
"Well, if she doesn't notice, somebody will. Everybody likes you."
"Mmm. I guess so."
This surprises Ellie. She can't name a single person in Jackson who doesn't turn their head when Dina walks by, herself included. Come to think of it, every time she had, Ellie would make herself busy or try way too hard not to stare. Dina as her sole companion now did not help. She keeps her eyes locked ahead.
Across the stream, a shallow cliff juts out over cottonwood ravine. Through the ponderosa pines and sagging spruce trees, Ellie spies a wooden scaffolding with a square building at the top, looking over the entire valley. A rickety staircase climbs up to the top, a tattered flag hanging sadly from the metal lightning rod at the shingled roof's apex. Sunlight glares off drawn and dirty windows.
Ellie hops across the stream's many stepping stones. "We'll probably be able to spot the river from up there."
A worn dirt trail takes them up and around the other side of the cliff. Ellie pauses at an old sign, the white paint chipped and the words Cottonwood Tower carved into it. She cranes her neck up at the tower, one hundred feet in the air, its view from the top easily the best vantage point in the whole valley. The staircase wraps around the frame twice before spilling out to a narrow deck and into the cabin.
"Are we really going up there?" Dina asks, still standing by the Cottonwood Tower sign.
Ellie tests the first step, dark with mold and rot. It bows, but does not break. "I mean, you can go first if you really want to."
"No way," Dina shakes her head. "I don't wanna die today. You go first."
"You sure?"
"Look, I'm afraid... of heights. There. I said it." Dina crosses her arms and roots herself to the ground.
"What if…" Ellie begins, offering her hand before she can catch up with her words. She lets it hang awkwardly before rubbing her nose and wringing her hands together.
"What if… what?" Dina implores, closing the distance between them.
"Actually... Nevermind. It's stupid, anyways." Ellie says all very quickly, turning away. She wasn't sure why she felt a sudden need to hold Dina's hand, but it wasn't the right moment. Shaking off her thoughts, Ellie moves to the first step. "Just follow me. If this thing does go down… Looks like I'll fall first."
The staircase shudders underneath them with every step. Ellie guesses it must have been years since anyone went up or down them.
A board on the third flight breaks.
"Shit!" Ellie exclaims, stumbling back and watching it clatter into pieces on the ground below. "Jesus. Hey, uh, watch your step."
"Fuck off," Dina growls behind her five steps below her. She clings to the railing, even if it's as rotten as the rest of the staircase.
The stairs are narrow and steep. Ellie tests the next step with her toes before placing her full weight on it. Like all of the other steps, it bends, but it holds.
Unlike the staircase, the deck leading to the cabin is surprisingly sturdy. A wooden railing is the only thing that bars them from the ground below.
When Dina finally ascends the landing, she scowls at Ellie. "I hate you so much right now."
"Hey, you made it."
"Yeah, but we still have to get down." Dina sighs and stands next to her. "At least the view is nice."
Copper and evergreen forests carpet the tumultuous horizon. It's nothing but trees, rock, and sky in every direction. A silvery ribbon glimmers through the lowlands and vanishes behind a mountain already packed with crisp, white snow.
Ellie points at it. "I think that's the river."
"That looks… far."
"We can make it. It shouldn't take more than a few hours."
"Ugh. I think my blisters have blisters."
She's not wrong. Sneakers were not Ellie's first choice for wilderness hiking, her feet swelling and toes crammed together, feeling every pebble underneath the thin, rubber soles. She was used to it, at least, calluses hardening where her skin chafed against cloth innards.
"Let's take a break. We can see if there's anything useful inside."
Ellie pulls at the cabin's screen door and it shrieks with disuse, practically falling off of its rusty hinges. She tries the doorknob, but it doesn't give. She knocks her shoulder against it.
"Hey," she calls to Dina, still enamored by the breathtaking view. "Help me get this open?"
Dina nods and places herself opposite of Ellie, so that they face each other. "On three?"
"On three," Ellie confirms. "One… Two… Three!"
The girls jam their weight hard against the door and it splinters open with a loud crash. A hysterical screech wretches from inside the dusty interior and a Stalker surges for Ellie's throat. She throws her hands up to its chest as it tackles her backwards, tripping over her own feet, bracing herself against the deck railing. It snarls close to her face, chomping its jaws like a Clicker. One orange eye leaking blood and zips wildly around in its socket, broken fingernails digging into her shoulders.
"Fuck… you!" She snarls at it, unable to reach for her knife. The railing squeals beneath her and the support beams crack. She wrestles against it, but it's too strong.
There's a hollow clanking sound and the Stalker whirls around, only to be bashed in the face with the bottom of Dina's handheld fire extinguisher. She pulls back and smashes its face again and again until she straddles it down into a mess of blood and bone. When it finally stops reaching for her, she chucks the fire extinguisher aside.
"Holy shit," Dina says, staggering away from her kill. "I… I got him."
Ellie rubs the new bruise on her back. "That makes us even, right?"
"Not by a long shot," Dina replies, panting. "But… Damn. I've never done anything like that before."
"It's a good thing you did."
Ellie kneels over the dead Stalker. The green cap on what remains of his fungus-ridden scalp is twisted over a scraggly mop of blonde hair. She studies the green and yellow emblem sewn into his canvas jacket.
"US Forest Service," she reads aloud. "Department of Agriculture."
"What does that mean? He's a fed? Military?"
Ellie doesn't answer. She notes the way the skin hangs from his skeleton, and not because of the infection. She flicks out her switchblade and gingerly lifts up the collar of his bloodstained uniform. The bite on his shoulder is badly bandaged and grey with sprouting fungus. She wrinkles her nose at the smell and puts her knife away.
"I don't think so," she finally replies. "I think he was living here alone until he got bit. Who knows for how long."
Dina grimaces. "Poor guy."
Like almost every other former living space, the inside of the cabin is a musty, clustered wreck. Ellie's sneakers thump over the remains of the cabin door, bumping with each step on the wooden floor. Dina investigates in the other direction, pulling apart the dust-laden curtains and wrenching open a window. Ellie inhales, the cool breeze a breath of fresh life, and sunlight fills the room.
A twin bed, already made, sits with a navy blue quilt in the corner next to a bookcase, one that she guessed housed all of the books and magazines now on the floor. A handmade desk of two wooden stumps and a single plank of plywood sits on the other side of it.
Ellie pauses and picks up a flimsy photograph tacked on the corkboard sitting on top of the desk. A man with blonde hair holds a scruffy dog in one arm with his other around a woman's shoulders, her smile wide as she flashes the camera the diamond ring on her finger. They're in some colorful downtown area that probably no longer exists. Ellie frowns, recognizing the man as the dead Stalker on the porch behind her, and flips the photograph over.
In shaky, blue pen, she reads: September 1993. Love you, sweetheart.
Ellie lays the photograph on the desk, face-down. Next to it, she catches a hurried note on yellow Rite-in-the-Rain paper stained in blood. It's not the same handwriting: I pray to God I told that kid the right directions. My hands are shaking. I'm losing it. I gave him everything I could before…. Before I did something terrible to him. Someone out there needs to know what is happening. This isn't some goddamn Rocky Mountain Fever… This is something else. Fuck. Everything…. Everything hurts so bad...
She pries open a small tool cabinet under the desk. She picks up the bright orange flare gun with two shots taped into the handle, a package of stale chewing gum, and a sealed water 's not much, but it's better than nothing. She stuffs it into the canvas bag slung on the back of the desk's wooden chair and takes it for herself.
Dina, meanwhile, digs into the standing wardrobe. She pulls an olive ranger jacket off the hanger. She turns to Ellie, chin high and proud. "Hey, what do you think?"
Ellie turns. "Pretty grood."
Dina stifles a giggle. "Grood?"
Ellie's cheeks burns and suddenly, she's stuttering again. "Good. Great." She tries to shrug it off. "You know. Grood."
Dina smirks, satisfied with her response, and crosses to a pedestal at the center of the room. She cranks at one of the two levers on the side. A thick ream of paper rolls with it. "I think it's a map of some kind. Can you find where we are?"
"I can try," Ellie replies.
Compared to Joel, her map-reading skills were less than stellar. Joel knew roads, cities, and landmarks; she recognized things as they came. After a while, everything just blended together and she knew what areas were okay, and which ones to avoid. There was Jackson City in the far corner of the map, but the Jackson they knew was somewhere deeper in what used to be called the Bridger-Teton National Forest, unmarked on a yellowing quadrant map that was well over fifteen years old.
Thankfully, the ranger that had lived in the cabin had put a big black X of where they now stood. Faded pencil marked the nearby trails: Fireweed Trail - 0.4 miles, Wolf Den Walk - 6.6 miles, and Aspen Trail - 1.2 miles. He also jotted down findings along the way, including an entire area crossed out in red pen that read Do Not Enter!
"So… Where are we?" Dina asks, craning closer to see. Again, Ellie catches a whiff of lilac and it makes her have to concentrate twice as hard on what Dina is saying.
Ellie leans closer into the map, and finally spots what she's been looking for. She points with her index finger at the slightly-thicker blue line snaking its way down the map. "That's the river. But… I'm not sure where exactly the Dam is. Or town."
"Wait, that's not it?" Dina points at the clearly labeled Jackson .
"No. That's where Maria's team scavenges for supplies. It's always full of bandits, according to Joel. The settlement's somewhere up the river, here…"
Dina groans and plops onto the bed, sinking her head into her heads. "Fuuuuuuck. This sucks so much. I just wanna go home."
Ellie wouldn't quite call Jackson home, but it's close enough. "Me too."
Giving up on the map, Ellie stoops down to a pair of blue cabinets, the paint chipped and peeling. She opens one of the doors and finds expired food cans.
"At least we won't go hungry," she says, tossing a can of peaches at Dina.
"Yet."
Ellie opens the door to the pipe stove. It looks as if it hasn't been cleaned out in a decade, charred bits and ash trickling out between the hinges and to the scratched floorboards. Ellie flicks out her knife, shoveling out the ashes with the flattened edge. When there's enough room for a new fire, Ellie crumples up the quadrant map and holds the yellow Bic lighter to it.
When the flame catches, Ellie smashes the flimsy stool next to the map's pedestal, ripping the stained seat and chucking it inside. It's enough for a short fire.
Ellie closes the grate and wipes the only pot on the counter with the inside of her flannel. Soon enough, she is splitting a hot pot of chicken noodle soup and eating peaches straight out of the can.
"You really know what you're doing, don't you?" Dina says quietly. She stirs the soup with the only spoon they could find, the steam rising in the brisk autumn air. "I wish I knew what you know. How do you do it?"
Ellie slurps the last peach directly from the can and into her mouth. It's a weird, slimy, and overly sweet lump. She sets the empty can next to her on the desk.
"I don't know," she replies, her throat tightening. "It's just what I do. It's what I've always done. People never wanted to help me, so… I helped myself."
Dina laughs softly and shakes her head. "That blows my mind, because all I've ever done is help other people."
Ellie watches as her smile fades, eyes casting down to the floor, as if weighing something heavy on her mind. Ellie opens her mouth, about to ask, but a male voice shouting outside the tower cuts her off.
"Hey, Hugo! I know you're up there. C'mon down so we can have a little chat!"
Dina freezes and Ellie pulls her pistol out. Whatever Dina wanted to say was going to have to wait.
"Hunters?" Dina whispers in a panic, looking back and forth between Ellie and their only exit. "How did they know we were here?"
Ellie could smack herself. "Oh, fuck me. The smoke from the stove."
"What are we gonna do?"
"Stay close and keep quiet."
They abandon their meals and hunker beneath the windowsills, dirty curtains still fluttering with dust above their heads. Outside, chickadees twitter amongst two other distinctly male voices.
"Hugo! Hey man, no need to get pissy. Don't make us come up there!"
"Yeah! All's we wanna do is talk."
Boots below stomp up the rickety staircase. Dina draws a sharp breath and Ellie holds her pistol firm, shoulder pressing into the wood-grained wall, trying to make herself as small as possible.
"Fuck this guy. How long do we really need to keep him around?"
"Boss wants him alive. Says he's good at finding shit in the woods or something."
"Yeah, well when was the last time we saw any of that supplies? Been weeks since he traded us anything. Winter's coming."
"Son of a bitch!" yells one of the hunters, all three now just outside the window on the balcony, stumbling across Hugo's dead body. "He fucking turned."
"A while ago, by the looks of it."
"So who killed Hugo?"
Their shadows grow in the open doorway and their rifles cock. One of them carrying a crowbar lifts it off his back and grips it tight in his hands.
Dina leans over Ellie's shoulder, breath brushing past her ear. "Can you take them?"
"I'll try. If I can't, you run. Got it?" Ellie whispers back.
All three hunters walk into the cabin, missing the girls immediately to their left. Ever so slowly, Ellie creeps up behind the man with the crowbar.
"No one's here. Where do you think they-"
"Behind you!"
Ellie springs, one arm latching around the man's throat, choking him and shoving her pistol at his temple. The other two hunters jump back, rifles pointing at her as her finger cradles the trigger.
"Let go of me, you bitch!" snarls the hunter in her grip, and as his two companions hesitate she cracks the butt of her pistol against his skull. He drops, the crowbar clattering to the floor, and in one swift movement Ellie ducks, dodging a blast from each rifle, picking up the crowbar and swinging it with one hand at each of the hunters. She smacks one underneath the chin and another in the arm, pivoting away as they yelp and stumble backwards. In their confusion, Ellie bolts for the door, shoving Dina out with her.
"Run!" Ellie shouts at her, the hunters recovering and reloading their rifles. She clears the corner onto the balcony as another round shatters the windows, glass exploding over her shoulder. They pound down the rotting staircase, the entire scaffolding shaking at their weight, ready to topple at any moment.
"Get those fucking girls!"
"Faster, Dina!" Ellie cries, another shot whizzing past her ear and splintering the handrail, wooden chunks flying.
"I'm trying, I'm try-oh, fuck!"
The board on the third flight breaks and both girls crash to the platform below. Dina tumbles onto her back and Ellie lands sideways on her, sharp pain jarring into her shoulders, the fall more shocking than the rifles firing and collapsing staircase now above them.
"You okay?" Dina asks, crawling out from underneath her.
"Go," Ellie croaks, rolling over and pointing her pistol at the gap. She squeezes the trigger and a bullet punches into a hunter's boot on the ledge, about to jump down after them, his blood spraying and a furious cry ripping from his throat.
"Fucking shit! She shot me in the foot!"
"Get it together! After them!"
The hunters drop onto the second flight with them and the girls flee, Ellie firing a blind shot over her shoulder, missing but forcing them to flinch. Dina races ahead of her and Ellie skips the last six steps, landing on her feet in the soft grass, her free hand grabbing Dina's. They needed to stick together.
"This way!" she commands, veering to the right, away from the trail they came but not towards the river, either.
"They're headed for the trees!"
"Shoot them!"
Rifles bark and bite into the cloistered aspen trees, shielding them, the hunters stopping at the edge with barrels pointed between white-striped trunks. Ellie and Dina trip over the gnarled roots, a massive tangle swallowing up the entire forest floor, holding tight to each other as the angry shouts of the hunters eventually falls away.
"Aren't we going after them?" is the last Ellie hears as she hikes her knees up and over the increasing terrain.
"No. Let's regroup with the others. Those girls are fucking dead in there anyways."
Finally, they can stop. Dina leans against an aspen tree. Ellie doubles over with her hands on her knees.
"Jesus, you can run," Ellie comments, her throat thick with heavy breaths. Her head pounds and her legs are suddenly wobbly and confused.
Dina smirks between gasps. "It's the one thing I'm good at."
Ellie nods. "We have to get back to Jackson."
She stows her pistol away in the back of her jeans. Four bullets, now, between them and the rest of the world. Her right hand trembles once more.
Dina catches her, looking concerned. "Are you sure you don't want-"
"I'm fine," Ellie snaps. She steadies it with her other hand and clenches it into a fist. Not now. "Let's find our way out of here."
Like before, Dina concedes with a forlorn gaze, but says nothing. She picks up the canvas bag from the ground. It's more supplies than they had before, but somehow, it also feels like less. The white trees weave an intricate, ghostly maze all around them, their thick golden canopy blocking out the sun and blue sky, clouding them in shadow.
Dread fills Ellie's chest. They're now lost much, much more than before.
Author's Note: This has also been cross-posted over on Archive of Our Own if you prefer their formatting. Thank you for reading!