After Joel hopped down to the ground level, Enid looked behind her and saw a lone bow and about 9 arrows. "Oh sweet," she whispered with a smile. She walked back over to Ellie and stayed crouched.
"Check it out. I got my own weapon," Enid said, bringing the bow up and getting an arrow. "Where'd you find that?" Ellie asked. "Behind you. Joel totally missed it," Enid said, looking above them.
"What're you thinking?" Ellie asked curiously. "I'm gonna get a better vantage point, and get them from up there," Enid answered. "Okay, see you on the other side," Ellie said with a smile. "Catch you on the flip side," Enid replied.
She climbed up to the next level of the lookout and got down under the wall of the look-out. She held up the bow, aiming the arrow at an unsuspecting hunter. She let go of the arrow, letting the arrow fly across the air and into the hunter's neck. It killed him instantly.
Joel alerted them by throwing a lit molotov at a small group of them. They were talking about how some tourists took out their whole crew. The tourists being Joel, Ellie, and Enid.
One guy charged at Joel with a lead pipe, but Ellie shoots him down. "Good job kiddos," Joel praised, impressed that they were able to hold their own. One of the hunters saw Enid and aimed his gun at her, but Enid fired another arrow at him and fired, shooting him in the head, and he fell dead on the ground.
Another saw Enid kill his friend, and took aim with a molotov. Ellie was quick to shoot the bottle, making it explode in the hunter's hand. The hunter was covered in flames and burned to death. "Nice shot, El!" Enid called out.
"You're welcome! Man, it's just like being in the QZ all over again!" Ellie replied. "We had them differently though," Enid said, taking aim of another hunter.
They kept going until all the hunters were taken down. There was nothing but silence now that they were all dead. "Alright, you two come on down!" Joel called from a coffee shop.
Enid lowers the bow and jumps down to where Ellie was. "Nice shootin', Tex. Maybe this'll change Joel's mind about not letting you have a gun," Enid said. Ellie nodded and they both jumped down to meet up with Joel.
As they walked to him, Joel took one of the bandit's guns, which was a pistol. "How'd I do?" Ellie asked as Joel took the rifle from her hands. He takes the bow and arrows from Enid and hooks it up to his backpack.
"How about something... a little more your size?" Joel said, handing Ellie the pistol. Before she could take it, Joel reeled it back a little. "It's for emergencies only," he said as he looked over at Enid, "That goes for you too,"
"Okay," Ellie said, taking the pistol. She looked it over for a minute before putting it up in the back of her jeans. Ellie then looks at Enid. "You're officially an american citizen now," she said with a smile.
Having a gun in America officially meant you were apart of it, at least that's what they knew back before everything went to shit. "Now, the safety is on. Do you know how to switch it off?" Joel asked Ellie.
He didn't need to ask Enid because he knew that hers was already off. "I do," Ellie said, walking around the now empty parking lot. Enid followed behind her, cracking her knuckles. "Just... you gotta respect it, this is not-" Joel said before Ellie cut him off.
"Joel, we'll be careful," she said. "Alright," Joel said, climbing onto a van that was parked on the side of an office building to get to the upper floor.
"Wow, guess you did impress him," Enid said with a smirk. "I'll say. He might've thought we'd have a heart attack of having one," Ellie replied.
The girls walk passed two trucks that had been turned into cooking areas. There were cooked rats on the grills. That was crazy how that's what these assholes had to eat just to stay alive. To their left, was another one of those gates.
Luckily, it was already open so they wouldn't have to go through the trouble in getting it open. Joel had seen it and made his way over to them. Inside of the gate was a garage.
The way out of there was over a wall. Luckily, it wasn't tall enough to require something to be next to it so they could get over it. They climb over it and hear that same truck from earlier just outside of the window.
"Run!" somebody yelled. "Shit, get down!" Joel exclaimed, crouching down underneath a window. Ellie and Enid hide with him. They couldn't see what was going on, but they could hear it clearly.
Two people, a man and a woman, were running from the truck before they were shot down in the back. "Joel, we have to help them," Enid said in a whisper. "No, we can't," Joel whispered.
He knew that they couldn't do anything to help those people now. They'd be shot by that truck if they came into the trucks' view.
"Been busy a couple of days, huh?" one hunter asked his friend. "Yeah, whatever man," the second hunter sighed as he looked over the fresh corpses of those two people.
After they didn't find anything, they hopped back in the truck and drove away. "Oh man..." Ellie gasped, looking a little pale. The trio stood back up and saw the two dead corpses laying mere inches from the window.
"There ain't nothing we coulda done," Joel said. "God... these fuckers are crazy. There was even a dead guy on the hood of their truck," Enid said, swallowing hard to keep from throwing up.
"Let's get to the bridge," Joel instructed, walking through another door. Enid and Ellie follow him up a couple of flights of stairs. Making it to the upper floor, the hear the voices of two hunters.
They drop down to stay hidden. "At least they got that couple," one hunter said, his voice echoing off the empty walls. They were walking closer to the trio and Joel pulled out his bow and arrow to take them out quietly.
"Now we gotta get that pick-up truck trio," the second hunter answered. They were talking about Joel, Ellie, and Enid for sure. They were hunting them. "There could've been an army in that truck. How the fuck did they wipe out the entire crew over there?" his friend asked as he came around the corner.
He was holding up a shotgun. Joel took him out with an arrow to the head. His friend walks out of the office in front of them and took him out with another arrow. The trio stand up when they learned it was clear.
They walked through the office building and exit it from a giant hole in the wall, using a van to break their fall. They hop down to the road, seeing they were in downtown Pittsburgh.
Grass grew from the road, cars were littered on the road abandoned and burned. There was even an abandoned tank sitting in the middle of four-way crossroad. Many hunters were walking around, meaning they had to be careful.
It turned into a shooting spree between the hunters and the trio. It grew quiet again once all the hunters were dead. "That was too damn close," Joel said, catching his breath.
"To the edge of the universe and back. Endure and survive," Ellie said. "And a hero and a half. The big heros of this battle," Enid added, reloading her pistol before putting back in her jeans.
"Excuse me?" Joel asked flabberghasted. "It's a quote from Savage Starlight," Enid corrected. "Yeah, it's what the hero says after a big battle," Ellie added with a smile.
"Endure and survive?" Joel whispered to himself. "It's pretty fitting," Enid said, walking over to a ladder. It was lifted off of the ground so they'd have to pull it down. "Hey, we get pull this ladder down," she said, pointing up at the ladder.
Joel walked over to the ladder. "I got this one," Enid said. She ran towards Joel and used one foot to jump off of him to get to the ladder. She jumped up and grabbed it with both hands, pulling it down for them.
"Whoa, impressive," Joel said, standing back up and stretching his back out. "Where'd you learn to do that, Enid?" Ellie asked. "A little something that I learned while I was in the Fireflies," Enid answered.
"Can you teach me how to do that?" Ellie asked her, eager to learn. "Hmm, I don't know if I should. You'd fall on your ass, as if it wasn't flat enough already," Enid replied with a smug grin.
"Hey! I will shoot you for that!" Ellie argued, giving her friend a shove. Joel rubbed his forehead in annoyance at their bickering. "Will you two stop and climb the damn ladder already?" he said in exasperation.
They climb up with Joel behind them, walk across a fire escape to get to the other side. Much to their good fortune, the bridge was much closer to them now. They could be there by tonight.
They are in front of another orphanage, which was all-too-familiar for Ellie and Enid. On the other building in front of it, another one of those posters was hanging on the wall. It was a poster for, "Dawn of the Wolf Pt 2,"
"Hey, look. There's another one," Ellie said, jogging up to it. Enid jogged over to the poster and looked up at it. "Man, these posters are everywhere. Isn't this the fifth one we saw?" she asked.
Joel walked up to them and saw the poster too. "I saw this right before the outbreak," he commented. "Really? Does he totally gut her by the end?" Ellie asked with a chuckle. "Nobody gets gutted. It's just a dumb teen movie," he scoffed with a shoulder shrug.
"Who dragged you to it then?" Enid asked inquisitively. Joel was reminded of something from his past and he sighed, turning away from it. "I don't know. Let's just stay focused, alright?" he sighed.
Joel started jogging towards an alleyway. "Let's go through here," he said. The girls started to follow him down the alleyway. Before they make it to the street, they heard the rumbling of that truck from it.
"Agh, it's that fucking truck," Ellie groaned. "Great, it's back," Enid said with an eye roll. "Stay low," Joel whispered, crouching down. They stealthily move through the alleyway and onto the street. Sure enough, that truck was sitting in the middle of the street, waiting for anybody to pass by it so they could shoot them.
To their luck, the truck didn't see them as they crossed the street and into the next building. As soon as they make it in, the truck drove up next to them and started firing bullets at them. It kept on chasing them
"Jesus! What the fuck are they shooting at us with?!" Ellie shouted. "Some kind of military turret, stay down!" Joel shouted over the loud gun fire. They go through the building and make it into another alleyway.
The truck didn't let up and drove around in the alleyway, still firing at them. After taking down two hunters, they turn a corner and bolt inside of another building.
Joel shut the door quickly. "Let's go upstairs," Joel said, jogging up some metal stairs. Ellie and Enid follow behind him, hearts pounding in their ears.
They hopped out of a window of the third floor and start moving across the wall. "I think we lost them," Joel said, hopping inside another window of an apartment. Ellie and Enid had their pistols out just in case they needed them.
After searching through it, they hop out of the window and move along the wall. In the street, the truck pulled up in the alleyway. It was still looking for them.
"Oh, shit," Ellie gasped. Enid felt her heart jump into her throat in fear that the truck would see them. "Don't worry, they can't see us," Joel assured.
Joel makes it to another open window at the very end of the building. Joel jumped in through the window, only to be grabbed by an african american man from behind. He put Joel in a choke hold, and Joel pushed the man back into a wall with a loud thud.
Ellie and Enid jump through the window and see what was going on. Ellie charged at the man with her knife drawn. She managed to cut him on the arm, but was knocked into Enid's making them fall over onto the floor.
"What the fuck?" the man gasped at seeing the two girls. Joel saw the man was distracted enough to flip him over Joels' shoulder. Joel threw the man onto the floor and started punching him as hard as he could.
Ellie and Enid jump to their feet and saw something Joel didn't. An african american kid around their age holding a gun. "Joel, wait!" Enid shouted. "Joel, stop!" Ellie yelled when Joel didn't let up.
Joel does stop and looks up at them. "Look," Ellie said, pointing at the kid holding the gun. Ellie and Enid held their hands up and backed away a little bit. "Leave him alone," the kid demanded, aiming the gun at Joel's head.
"Easy, son. Just take it easy," Joel said, slowly getting up. The man looked over at the kid and held his hand out. "It's alright. They're not the bad guys. Lower the gun," he said.
The kid lowers the gun after learning that they weren't a threat. The man sits up and rubbed his face of where Joel punched him repeatedly. "Man, you hit hard," he commented. "Well, just an instinct, I guess," Enid said with a shrug.
"Yeah, well, I was trying to kill you," Joel said, standing back up. The man stands up and looked at the trio. "Yeah, I thought you were one of them too. Until I saw them," he said, pointing at Ellie and Enid.
"In case you didn't notice, they don't keep kids around. Survival of the fittest," he said, walking over to the kid to get something from his bag. He took the gun from the kid and puts it in his back pocket.
He wrapped his arm and looked up at the trio. "I'm Henry. This is Sam. I think I caught your name is Joel?" he asked. "Ellie," Ellie said. "Enid," Enid introduced.
"How many are with you?" Joel asked Henry. "They're all dead," Sam declared. Henry glanced down at him with narrowed eyes. "Hey, we don't know that," he scolded.
"There was more of us. But, somebody had the brilliant idea to enter the city. Look for supplies. Those fuckers ambushed us. Scattered us. Now it's all about getting out of this shithole," Henry explained.
"How about we help each other?" Ellie suggested. "Ellie-" Joel started, not approving of the idea. "Safety in numbers and all that," Enid added, seeing that it was a good idea.
"They're right. We could help you three out. There's a hideout that's not far from here. We'll be safer if we chat there," Henry agreed. Joel looks at Ellie and Enid for a moment before looking back at Henry. "Alright, take us there," Joel said.