For the first time in many nights, Ellie sleeps well, and without dreams. Blue morning light seeps through the plywood cracks of the window as she awakens, rousing her from Dina's warm embrace on the couch.
"Hmm?" Dina mumbles. Her arms tighten around Ellie's waist as she pulls away. "Hmph."
"It's okay," Ellie whispers, laying the quilted blanket back over her. "I'll be right back."
Ellie pads softly over the worn floorboards, wool socks dampening the sound. She bends down to tie her sneakers on, her ribs no longer swelling, feeling strong again. Retrieving the recurve bow from its case and the slim quiver of fiberglass arrows, she squeezes through the bookcase blockade into the crisp, autumn air of a new day.
She doesn't plan to go far, knowing it would be wise to keep the cabin in sight. Pale sunlight streaks between Douglas fir and blue spruce. Zig-zags of indigo shadow chase the frosty ground, shimmering like glass shards. Clouds of yesterday linger in a lavender sky. They crawl south, sweeping cold wind with them, ushering in alpine winter. Soon, Ellie knew, the mountains would freeze, with blankets of heavy snow to follow.
Traveling through the mountains in winter was near impossible. Even though she and Joel had managed it once before, she wasn't anywhere near ready to do it again. Last time, at least, they had a horse.
"Thanks for everything, Callus," she says, paying homage to the noble mustang, her most faithful companion throughout that dreadful winter. The winter they passed through the Rockies, the winter she almost lost Joel, the winter that still assaulted her in the form of nightmares, punishing like the snowy, subzero winds…
Snapping twigs pull her from the depths of the dark memory. She freezes, holding her breath and listening hard. A rabbit escapes out of the corner of her eye and she knocks an arrow into her bow, tiptoeing to where it had once been.
The rabbit makes a trail, grey fur wicking the frost off the blades of grass, hiding behind a tree and then a boulder. Ellie keeps her distance, sneaking downwind. For a moment, she loses sight of her quarry, the fur blending into the dense, dead foliage.
She draws the arrow, awakening stiff back and shoulder muscles, taking aim. A blur of movement enters her vision and she releases, spearing the rabbit through the neck. The broadhead sinks into the earth in a pool of blood.
Ellie exhales. The forest is quiet, oblivious to the death of some small, irrelevant creature. The trees were as silent as they had been in the near-extinction of the human race; nature had no qualms about killing, and neither should she. She tears the broadhead clean from the rabbit's flesh with a soft rip.
She lays the limp rabbit flat on its side and finds a softball-sized boulder to dig a shallow hole in. She flicks out her knife, poking at the rabbit's thin, grey hide, and tearing it open to reveal the pink, sticky muscle inside. It was a process that took her far too long to figure out, but after her first winter with Joel, she had mastered the art of field dressing. Rabbits and squirrels had been their only source of nutrition through the cold, snowy winter months, and it looked like it might be that way for her and Dina.
Ellie frowns at the thought. How much further would they need to go? With the addition of Rachel and Liam to their party, they would need twice as many resources, and possibly double the travel time. She had no doubt it would be snowing soon.
A sharp prickling slowly raises on the back of her neck, subtle like the shifting breeze. It's enough to make Ellie pause, one hand full of fur and blood, and the other reaching for her bow laying next to her in the snow. Ever so slowly, she turns, holding in a cold breath and ready for a fight.
She's not alone.
A wolf. Black as sin with burning, orange eyes, stares at her from the pine trees.
Ellie closes her eyes, swallowing. It could be a hallucination. But she opens them, and the wolf is still there. She thinks it might have even taken a step closer. Slowly, she rises, knife still in hand, her pistol left back at the cabin. She could take down Clickers. Could she take down a wolf? She was pretty sure they hunted together in packs like Stalkers. Were more wolves lurking around her, hidden within the forest?
But then, its attention flickers and its nose twitches as it looks towards the rabbit. It strikes Ellie how skinny the wolf is, its head too big for its frame, the outline of its ribs almost visible in the rising sunlight.
Ever so slowly, Ellie picks up the half-cleaned rabbit, rising cautiously to her feet. She's not sure if it's watching her or the rabbit more, creeping forward, mouth parting with excitement. Famished saliva drips from black jowls and yellow teeth. The charcoal ruff of its neck swells, orange eyes watching her with the intensity of a wildfire.
"You want this?" she says, the wolf's ears flicking at the sound of her voice. "You can have it, but don't follow us."
She was losing it. Wolves were wild beasts that made no bargains with humans, and yet here she was. The wolf takes a small step towards her and she throws the wolf's feet, retreating just in case it jumps out at her instead, heart racing and knife brandished before her.
The wolf picks up the whole rabbit in its jaws, blinks its orange eyes once at her, and vanishes into the dark forest whence it came.
Ellie waits, unsure if it would come back, and then hightails it back to the safety of the cabin. She wipes her bloodied hands on her jeans and stows her knife away, squeezing through the bookcase blockade back inside.
Dina looks up from the kitchen. "You're back! And… you're covered in blood again."
"Sorry," Ellie replies, doing her best to wipe the blood now off of her jeans. "I was hunting."
"Catch anything?" Rachel asks, also in the kitchen.
"Uh, sorta. But not really." Somehow, omitting her encounter with the wolf felt less dangerous than lying and saying she ran into Infected or more Hunters. Thankfully, Dina and Rachel drop the subject, turning instead to the faded map laid out on the table. Ellie joins them as Liam sits in a chair and pokes at a sad pile of raisins for breakfast. "So… What's this?"
"This," Rachel says, pointing her index finger at the map, "is how we're getting the hell outta here."
Her finger jabs at a red triangle. Alongside it reads Elkhorn Campground. "If we follow the service road, it'll take us out of the woods and onto the highway. After that, the road will split. I'm thinking this one will bypass your compound."
"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Dina asks, casting a concerned glance at Liam.
Rachel sighs, folding up the map and promptly zippering it away into one of her backpack's pockets.
"I appreciate the offer, ladies, but I'm on a tight schedule. Where that road splits is where I'll be seeing the last of you."
"Oh… All right." Dina rubs Liam's hair with a disappointed frown. She heads into the living room and Ellie follows her. She sits down on the couch, tying on her shoes next to the fireplace. Without looking up, she slowly shakes her head. "I wish they would come with."
"They'll be okay," Ellie reassures her, despite her own misgivings. If anything were to happen to Rachel, Liam would surely be dead. When she looks over her shoulder at them, Liam struggles to tie his own shoes. Rachel kneels down in front of him and does it for him with a small smile.
In less than twenty minutes, the four of them are back out on the service road, winding further and further downhill. Ellie pauses, watching a pale, grey plume of smoke rise between the trees where the campground used to be.
"Hey," Dina says, doubling-back uphill for her, noticing her lingering. "Everything okay?"
Ellie quickly turns away and keeps moving, as not to draw any more attention to the charred campground. She didn't need Dina worried. "Yeah. I'm fine."
Up ahead, Liam chases the little chipmunks that cross their path. Ellie is surprised when he almost catches one, sneaking up on it from behind as it munches on a pine seed, but then it skitters away into the leaf litter.
"You know what I could go for?" Dina asks.
"What?" Ellie replies.
"Pancakes." Dina closes her eyes and inhales, as if she could take in the warm, sweet aroma of a hot breakfast in the mess hall. "Can you imagine it? A big fluffy stack o' flapjacks, slathered with butter and dripping in maple syrup."
Ellie's mouth waters. "Well, Dina, pancakes are great and all, but they ain't got nothing on waffles."
"Waffles?" Dina balks, nose wrinkling. "Ellie, everyone knows pancakes are the superior breakfast of choice."
"Nope. Totally team waffles on this one."
"But everyone knows a waffle is just a square pancake!"
"Or maybe pancakes are round waffles."
"Hey, Rachel!" Dina calls up ahead. "Pancakes or waffles?"
Rachel pauses, shrugs, and replies, "Neither. French toast."
"Aww man," Ellie complains, smacking her forehead. "I totally forgot about that one."
"Me too," Dina says. "I guess that settles it, then."
She smirks and Ellie clears her throat. They push forward into the morning, the golden sun rising and the shadows fading with it. The songbirds finish their melodies and are replaced by the familiar rush of wind, rustling through the trees. A gale powers through the canopy and a shower of autumn leaves pinwheel down like falling rain. Ellie smiles, watching as Dina and Liam dance in them.
"You should have been on Broadway," Ellie remarks, unable to take her eyes off of Dina as she twirls in a spot of sunlight. "You're really good."
Dina flashes her a grin, spinning again. "You know… I'd probably be better with a partner."
Ellie grimaces, thinking of how graceful Dina was to the slow song last night, and how she was… not. "I think I'll need a little more practice."
"Then it's a good thing you've got a teacher, huh?" Dina raises a smart brow at her. "Don't worry. I can teach you all the styles I know."
"There are different styles?"
"Oh, totally! There's ballet, ballroom, tango…" Dina lists off a bunch of different dancing styles Ellie would never remember, her knowledge of human culture deeper than anyone else her age; it was as if she had been born before the Outbreak.
Somewhere between highlighting the differences between traditional, contemporary, and modern dance, Ellie asks, "How do you know all of this stuff?"
"The world before we were born was beautiful, Ellie," Dina replies with a wistful look to the sky, not unlike the one she'd made when dreaming of pancakes. "One day, everyone that was alive back then will be dead. Why should the world they knew die with them? Nobody's writing books, making up songs, or dancing anymore. We're all just trying to survive, but… I want to be known for more than that. It's my responsibility to carry down the knowledge of our grandparents and pass it on to our kids, so they can do the same when we're old."
"Wow," Ellie says softly. "I never really thought about it that way. That's kinda cool."
"So, you don't think I'm like… a total nerd?"
"You're a fan of Savage Starlight. Of course you're a nerd."
"Hey, I only saw the movie," Dina teases right back. She pokes Ellie in the arm. "You're the one that's read all the comic books."
"Because Dr. Daniela Star is awesome!"
"Oh, Ellie." Dina laughs and then sighs. "You are so lame."
She squeezes Ellie's hand, even though Ellie doesn't remember when she'd first grabbed it. She doesn't let go as the path narrows, reclaimed by the forest, awash with dead leaves and pine needles. Ellie spots a pair of deer tracks in the mud, taking a moment to stoop over them.
"Do you think it's the same herd?" Dina asks, peering into the woods for any sign of them, but if they are there, they are well-hidden.
"Maybe," Ellie replies, but when she looks into the woods, she searches for something else: a moving shadow between the trees, a flash of orange eyes, or the chuff of white breath from the wolf that had found her that morning. Her neck still prickles at the way the wolf had looked at her, starving and wary. Giving it the rabbit would have been enough, wouldn't it? What was the likelihood of a wolf following them? Would it go back to its pack? The forest was enormous, shrouded in mixed timberland, the trees nearly indistinguishable from one another in the far distance. The wolf could have been hiding anywhere and looking straight at her, and she easily could have missed it.
Wolf or no wolf, they had to keep moving. Down every hill and around every bend, though, it almost felt as if they were making no progress at all, their path still narrow and crowded with tall trees. It made cities like Boston and Pittsburgh look like pinpricks on the Earth's surface, passing through their concrete streets in a matter of hours, whereas the heart of the Grand Tetons would take days. Yet, she was thankful for the winding path beneath her feet, drawn and carved by someone long ago. People had been here. They could lead her back to humanity. The parts of her she hated, the savage instincts and drive it took to endure and survive, could be tucked away again.
Mostly, Ellie figured, she could pretend to be the average girl fumbling to navigate adulthood. Not someone… else.
Up ahead, Rachel stops. What used to be a wooden bridge was now mostly washed away to a deep, slow-moving stream almost twenty feet across. She tests one of the structural two-by-fours cemented at the base of the bridge, soft with grey and green mold but still holding strong.
"We can still shimmy across," she declares as Ellie and Dina catch up, Liam between them. "Then, we'll break for lunch."
Rachel picks Liam up and lifts him on her shoulders, as if it was something she had done hundreds of times before. Both Ellie and Dina hesitate, looking at the stream below.
"Why is it always bridges?" Dina groans, shuffling in front, and still not letting go of Ellie's hand. She lets out an exasperated sigh over the chuckling and gulping of the stream. "I can't wait until we're back."
"If it makes you feel any better…" Ellie says slowly, shimmying along behind, eyes fixed on her toes and the dark water below, murky and unable to see the bottom. She watches sticks and dead leaves swirl down into the eddies like tiny whirlpools. If the stream was any bigger, like a river, she knew she wouldn't have been able to get out of it. "I can't swim."
"Wait. Seriously? First, you clearly can't dance, but you can't swim? I thought they woulda taught you in military school."
"It mighta been for the older kids." Ellie shrugs. "Besides, the place was more of a slave orphanage than a school. I think I still have blisters from scrubbing bathroom floors."
"Gross!"
"Yeah, I got into a trouble a lot. I mean, most of it was because of Riley, but still."
"You, trouble? Never," Dina mocks. She turns back to look at Ellie for a moment before continuing forward. "But hey, I'd probably get into trouble too if I was being cooped up at some strict military school. Even growing up in the Zone, my parents were always pissed when our basketball would go over the fence into the next quarantined district. But we had to go get it because it was our only one, you know?"
"Totally. Riley and I got so much stuff confiscated. Baseballs, marbles, even this really cool light-up yoyo one time…" Ellie trails off as they reach the other side of the bridge unscathed, and surprisingly calm.
"I wish I had met you when I was younger," Dina says, reaching into the ranger's messenger bag on Ellie's shoulder. She plucks a piece of stale, dried fruit taken from the campground the day before. "Riley, too."
"Yeah," Ellie replies with a nod, the sentiment sweeter than the dried apricot from the bag. "Me too."
The rest of their break is spent listening to the afternoon sounds of the forest; squirrels chittering, birds flapping between the trees, and the omnipresent stirring of cool wind. While munching on a pruned cherry, Ellie notices Dina's gaze fall to Liam again, sitting on the ground and eating more raisins. He was thin for a kid, cheeks and fingers dirty from playing in the leaves, baseball cap askew. He rests against Rachel's leg as she chews on a piece of gum, not eating, constantly vigilant. But even as she scans the woods around them, Rachel pauses, licks her finger, and smudges away the dirt on his cheeks.
"Eww, mom!" Liam fusses, throwing his arms up.
"You're dirty," Rachel remarks, licking her finger again.
"So?"
"So it's either this, or you can take a bath in the river."
Liam vehemently shakes his head. "No, the river's cold!"
"Then let me wipe your face, okay?"
Liam pouts, but allows her to wipe away the rest of the dirt from his nose and cheeks. Somehow, Ellie finds his frustration endearing.
"Hey, Liam," she calls. "Wanna see something cool?"
His wide blue eyes look up in wonder as she digs into the bag of dried fruit. Rachel stiffens, lips pursing, as if prepared to tell her to cut it out. Dina nibbles on a banana chip, watching her out of the corner of her eye.
Ellie rests another cherry on her thumb like a quarter, flicks it into the air, leans back, and catches it in her mouth.
"Whoa!" Liam exclaims. "Do it again, do it again!"
Rachel is not amused, brow heavy. "Maybe you should wait until we're somewhere safe before you try anymore carnival tricks."
It's not a suggestion. Ellie withdraws, putting the dried papaya back in the bag.
"Sorry," she mutters. Nothing she did, said, or could do ever felt like enough for Rachel, and it showed.
Dina leans over and whispers, "For what it's worth… I thought it was pretty cool."
"Thanks."
Twenty minutes later, they were back on the trail, winding down from the mountain. At long last, the thick spruce trees relinquish their grasp, the mountains parting for the iconic valley of Jackson Hole. They all stop, hands resting on the rusty guardrail, momentarily awestruck by the sweeping view of one million identical golden aspen trees. The city of Jackson proper, with its shingled roofs and dated country ranches, waits for them down below.
"Ellie, we're...we're so close," Dina says, trembling with excitement. "We're almost home."
Home. The word pulls at a place in Ellie's chest. She smiles, but standing there, with their backs to the wild, a different kind of doubt bubbles to the surface. She didn't want this to end. They had been thrown together in sheer happenstance, but the moment Dina had pulled her up off the ground, it felt more like fate. They would be bound to each other in a way that no one else in Jackson would ever understand.
Ellie knew it was selfish, but Jackson was its own little world. Whatever happened to either of them when they returned wasn't up to her.
"That's your town?" Rachel scoffs, unimpressed.
"No," Ellie replies. "The settlement's over the river, up there, by the dam." She points across the valley, where a thin, grey line cuts between the yellow trees, running parallel with the silvery shine of running water. "We'll have to cut through the town."
Rachel frowns, clearly displeased. She glares at the town below them, no doubt inhabited by a less favorable crowd, and difficult to get by. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, lips pursed, and growls, "Fuck it. We'll see if we can pass through quietly."
She holds her hand out to Liam. "Let's go, kiddo."
Dina walks next to Ellie. "Think we'll see Maria?"
"If we're lucky," Ellie replies, throat knotting with worry. Both of them knew that every once in a while, Maria or Tommy would lead a group of men and women down into Jackson proper for supplies, but it was not without its bandits, looters, hunters, and anyone else that could feel like killing them. Infected were rumored to show up, too. A part of Ellie wishes she had told Dina about the strange, whistling people she had seen yesterday, silently praying that they weren't going to be in the town. Somehow, even armed with a bow and a shotgun, gut instinct told her that it wouldn't be enough to take them down.
She tries not to think of how many more of them could be out there as the service road ends in a bare wheat field, long harvested of any fruiting crops. Over several flat acres, a dilapidated barn rests on the corner of the lot. Crows perch on a rusted tractor and at least three old classic cars of a bygone era sit on the overgrown lawn.
They pass under a large cottonwood tree, two frayed ropes dangling down from a low, thick branch, as if they once supported a child's swing. Ellie casts a cursory glance at the farmhouse ranch, the white aluminum siding chipped and peeling from decades of unpredictable mountain weather. She's not sure if she's relieved or suspicious that the windows are dark and the house seemingly empty.
"See anyone?" Rachel asks, shotgun now off her shoulder and ready.
"No," Ellie replies, scanning the windows of another abandoned house. Threadbare curtains hang still and dusty. She keeps her eyes peeled for the glint of a sniper scope, legs tense and ready to duck. Like the Pittsburgh suburbs, long driveways branch out in either direction to vacant houses, mailboxes bashed and crooked. It would be the perfect place for a sniper to lay low.
Or for Clickers to hide, she thinks, debating if it would be wiser to reach for her knife or her pistol.
The gravel road evens out to cracked, worn pavement and sun-bleached storefronts flank either side of them. Like the houses, they are dark and dusty, the letters faded from their signs and paper flyers fluttering in the soft breeze. The temperature begins to drop with the setting sun, hidden behind the clouds, draining what was once a lovely town of all color. They pass an old diner with wooden boards shielding the windows, criss-crossed over shattered glass.
The road curves like an inward spiral to the center of the town. Over a yellowing lawn with a rusting black fountain sits a small church. Dim firelight glows through stained glass windows, and a plume of smoke rises out of a hole in the roof.
"I don't like this," Rachel mutters as they press into a brick wall. She looks down at Liam and then to Dina. "You two stay here. Ellie and I will check it out."
Before following, Ellie passes her pistol to Dina. "Just in case anything happens."
"Got it." Dina nods, exhaling, the gun heavy in her palm. "Stay by me, Liam."
Ellie moves around them in the alley and crouches with Rachel behind a park bench. "Hold up."
"What is it?"
"I knew a guy back in the city that also lived in a church. He boobytrapped the hell out of it."
If there's a tripwire, neither of them can see it. Ellie knocks an arrow into her bow, rising slowly and pulling it back, breath shaking. Stay calm. Stay calm.
She waits for only a moment more and lets the arrow fly. It sails in a low arc no higher than her head and down into the yellow lawn with a muffled thud.
"Okay. I think we're good."
"Good. So if I blow up, I can blame you."
Ellie looks around at the deserted surroundings. "If there was anyone here, that would have triggered them."
"Right. Let's get a move on before they change their minds."
Ellie and Rachel keep their heads low as they sprint across the lawn and up the church's cracking cement steps. They take cover behind a decorative banister, locking eyes with Dina and Liam in the same alleyway they had left them in, watching with bated breath.
Rachel cocks her shotgun and hefts the copper knocker with one hand. The weathered oak door creaks open, having never been locked. Before it even swings all the way open, Ellie coughs as the first wave of acrid smoke hits her nose. Her insides clench and she grits her teeth, cringing with one hand on her ribs, and pulls her shirt over her face. Rachel wheezes and does the same, tying a bandanna around her mouth and nose, squinting into the hazy smoke.
They squeeze inside, but don't get far. Pale light streams down the center of the church like an aisle. Dark blood smears the floorboards.
"Jesus fucking Christ," Rachel swears in disbelief, voice ragged. "Fucking animals."
Three bodies are piled on top of each other in the center of the room, faces slack or blown to pieces. The fetid, metallic odor stings in the back of Ellie's throat as she fights down a bubble of pure disgust.
Rachel stops ahead of her. "Ellie… Look."
A man, stripped naked, is crucifixed to the cross on the church altar. Sliced at the torso and disemboweled, syrupy blood drips onto black, smoldering embers, his feet bound by ragged coils of rope to the cross. Talll, sinister flames char the wet and smoky wood, plumes of hot smoke billowing out through a small hole in the roof, charring and melting the moldy shingles, but not quite catching.
Of all the human atrocities she had seen, none of them were quite like this.
"Fuck…" is all Ellie can say, withholding a gag as she approaches the bloody altar of scorched flesh and burning hair, squinting in the smoke and heat. "Any guess who did this?"
Rachel wrinkles her nose and curls her lip. "Not Hunters. And definitely not Infected."
"What about those people in the campground?"
"Maybe. They burned that, so…" Rachel muses. "But why… Why like this?"
Ellie can't even make out the man's face, beaten into bloody, grotesque pulp. A Clicker could have ripped it off and she would not have known the difference. She winces when she sees his arms also strapped to the cross. Broken bones raise but do not break his purplish, bruised skin.
She had seen bodies butchered, corpses burned, and soldiers lynched, but never without reason. When people would starve, they caved to their basic needs and killed each other for meat. When people died, Cordyceps would spread its spores unless a match was lit. And the military had a way of pissing everybody off, including Ellie herself at times. Never had she come across a man that had been killed with such horror and malice.
Ellie's head spins. Her hand trembles and every breath she takes comes out short and ragged. She can't look at the gruesome display any longer, turning back for the door. "I feel sick."
Rachel says something, but Ellie doesn't hear it. She steps outside, snow flurries swirling around her, but all she smells is the burning corpse, singeing the hairs in her nose. Her knees want to buckle under her as she descends the cement staircase and trudges, stiff-legged, back to Dina and Liam, unsure if she's going to vomit or pass out.
Dina notices her condition immediately. "Ellie. Ellie, what's wrong? What happened in there?"
Ellie tries to speak, but she can't.
"You're shaking," Dina says, catching her by the shoulders before she trips, steadying her firm. "Calm down. Deep breaths. It's going to be alright."
Ellie swallows, inhaling, trying to choke down her rapidly beating heart. She closes her eyes and all she can see is the man splayed out on the altar.
"Look at me," Dina commands. "Listen to me, Ellie. Just look at me."
Dina moves her hands to Ellie's temples, pressing enough to feel her veins pulsing wildly underneath her freckled skin, sweaty and grimy with ash. Ellie gasps, panicking and blinking away the tears from her eyes, still stinging from the smoke. Out of the corner of her eye, Liam huddles against the brick wall with his eyes squeezed shut.
"Ellie," Dina says again, pulling Ellie's gaze back on her. She inhales and then exhales, long and slow. She repeats it once, twice, and Ellie finds herself mimicking her, breathing together.
Finally, her heartbeat slows and speech returns to Ellie's stuttering lips. "Dina?"
"Yeah?"
"We're getting back to Jackson." Ellie straightens, regaining control, and never breaking eye contact. "Tonight."