"Joel, drive!"
"I am!"
"Faster!"
She heard the unnatural grunt moments before she saw the red-rusted car soar into the air and crash into the building to their left, completely tearing through the face of the housing and sending fractured masonry careering into the road in front of them.
"Fuck!" She heard herself scream.
"Relax!" Joel countered.
She felt her body spin around, an otherworldly experience when the mind is swimming in a hormone and the body acts seemingly of its own accord. She felt herself stand, and for once, not experience the feeling of unbalance despite the van swerving unexpectedly to avoid countless obstacles. It was fight or flight, and she knew she was more than ready to put a third of the horrific behemoths down.
Almost as soon as she had stood, her eyes detected movement, and saw a huge and lumbering shape burst through an eighteen-wheeler down the street and emerge from the other side. Her ears squirmed as a gut-wrenching screech pierced them and penetrated her body, as she felt the all too familiar caress of fear wash over her.
She saw it plough forward, its horrendous bulk seemingly unaffected by physics and it still maintaining inhuman speed. The mammoth infected was slowly falling behind them, as the heavily steel-plated van barraged along the street, its engine stuttering and struggling underneath the weight of the armour on its sides and the freight in its back.
She felt a jolt, and added fear as death passed closely by her and she almost fell out of the open back of the van, as the strengthened vehicle careered directly into a decrepit car and tore straight through the middle.
She experienced the same feeling as she was suddenly yanked backwards by a large, immensely strong hand, and she felt herself being slammed into the floor. She had expected to feel immense pain at the impact, but was left with a dull confusion as her brain refused to compute the fall and instead remained transfixed on the pursuing giant, adrenaline clouding the areas of her vision that weren't vital to her survival.
She remained laying down, and yanked her head up sharply to see Blufor standing in front of her, his legs splayed and the assault rifle he was holding firing, the pops of the gun dull against her eardrums. She made her eyes focus downrange, and compensate for the swerve of the van, to observe the plumes of yellow-stained crimson blood exploding out of the front of the beast. She knew, despite trying to convince herself otherwise, that the peppering of the gun would only enrage it further – such was so in the evidence of its head, what remained destroyed by Adam's revolver. The beast was still alive and she hadn't gotten the gun back.
It was lost, just as he was.
She became aware of her mind scrapping those thoughts and emotions, and bringing the ones that were more vital to her primary attention. She saw the assault rifle loose another volley, hearing the sounds explode dully in her ears. She saw the beast rear, pause, and then begin its pursuit again. Even if it wasn't dead, they had gained another ten meters distance away from it.
Then, she heard a mechanical sputtering and a muffled curse that could only mean one thing.
She felt friction grip the vain, and heard a shrieking screech as the axles of the van stopped turning, ran on momentum, and then drew to a halt.
"Shit." Blufor cursed, loading another magazine into the assault rifle.
"Why have we stopped?" The blonde-haired girl in the back of the van piped up.
"Good question!" Blufor shouted over his shoulder, not giving the girl the courtesy of turning around. Ellie ignored her completely.
She saw a car fly to the right and crash into an old butchery, swatted out of the way like a child's toy as the huge beast hurtled towards them, screaming the entire time, the noise gurgling out of it's destroyed throat.
"Guys...?" The girl said again, more quietly, fear evident in her voice.
"Joel?" Ellie shouted, not in any particular direction.
"Fuck, stupid fucking thing," she heard from the drivers cab. "C'mon goddamnit!"
She saw another car fly, then a second, then a third. The beast continued speeding down the street toward them, the screeching and shouting getting louder with every passing second. It got so close that she could see the thick, black holes in the mess that was its skull signifying .44 rounds, the orifices staring back at her. She felt her hands tighten as if she were bracing the hilt of the Magnum, but only found thin air. Fear gripped her like a vice for the first time in a long while.
The engine fluttered as it tried to start, but the van remained still.
"Joel?" This time, it was Blufor who raised his voice.
The beast was at most twenty meters away from them.
"Goddamnit!" She heard Joel shout, accompanied by the muffled thwacks of his hands hitting the dashboard. "Shit, shit, shit!" She heard again, with consecutive fist-falls on the plastic surface.
"Joel!" Blufor screamed, raising the assault rifle. She could barely hear his cry over the din of the behemoth as it approached.
"Fucking drive!" Joel screamed, his voice louder than she'd ever heard it. She heard him hit the dashboard again.
She heard the engine strain again, and then sputter into life. The van kicked immediately into third and was suddenly moving, and she slipped another foot towards the open doors. She saw Blufor stumble, but retain his balance.
The beast was right upon them. She could smell its stench, feel the heat and rage in it as it ran after them. It lunged towards them, launched itself off of the asphalt, and she was suddenly barraged by sunlight as a huge and grotesque hand tore through the side of the van, ripping the roof and the majority of the right wall away from the rest of the vehicle.
Blufor had hit the deck, and luckily avoided the torn-steel blades as they had sliced through the air above him and were ripped away from the body of the van. She diverted her attention from him to the beast, who had landed hard into the road, and was now returning to its feet and beginning the pursuit again.
She heard the van struggle and screech, its engine whining under the strain and its speed remaining steady. She knew that it wasn't fast enough to outrun the behemoth.
It had bared down on them again, and was quickly making up the distance between them.
She felt the engine rear and heard the axles cry in pain as Joel threw the van around a right-hand turn, temporarily throwing the beast's composure and forcing it to pause and regain its bearings. She saw it swerve behind them, uproot a traffic light from the ground and hurl it their way. She ducked, and it flew over her head, smashing into the cab of the van and spiralling into the street.
The beast was mere feet away from them now. Blufor scrabbled for the assault rifle in front of him, took hold of the gun, and threw himself backwards to land beside her. She saw his raise the weapon, and aim at the beast. It leaped again, the din of its roars and those of the engine creating a queer and eerie symphony as it flew towards them, almost in slow motion.
She heard a dull pop emanate from behind her, and briefly witnessed a peculiar green object pass far too closely to her head and strike the beast centre-mass. Her ears were almost blown out as the object exploded, showering the beast in fire and them in burnt blood. The huge corpse fell like dead-weight to the floor, burning and smouldering, silent. They pulled away slowly, and left it in the dust and ash.
She sat there for a moment in disbelief, and then turned her head around.
The blonde girl sat there, shivering, a large metal tube with a trigger lying over her shoulder. Ellie glanced to the girl's right, and saw three more woodland-green objects lying on the floor of the truck, next to her. She noticed yellow writing on the side of them. The dutiful figures read 'RPG-7V2'.
Her eyes met the girl's pristine grey-white ones again. Neither of them said anything.
She registered Blufor standing behind her, and saw him move towards the cab in her peripheral. She heard three dull knocks on what metal remained, and noted a small door slide open.
"Tango down." Blufor spoke into the hole. "Drive a bit further and pull the truck up somewhere."
She heard Joel reply, but couldn't discern the words. It must've been enough for Blufor, though – he moved away from the cab, and the door slid shut. She saw him lean his back on what exterior wall remained, and slide down it until he was sitting. His head hung low, between his knees, his expression concealed by the earth-brown beard that was slowly getting longer.
She sat where she was, leaning on her hands and her backpack, and gazed up at the sky – it was mid afternoon, and bright white clouds spiralled elegantly in the blueness above. Part of her loved the sky, and was immensely grateful that it had been the one thing unaffected by the apocalypse; it provided a beautiful reprieve in a very ugly world.
"You seen one of those before?" The girl asked, shattering her idyllic thoughts and frustrating her slightly.
"Yeah." Ellie replied curtly. "Two. Why?"
"No reason." The girl answered, and then looked away.
She sat there for a moment in silence, and then her typical curiosity overpowered the fatigue left after coming down off of an adrenaline rush.
"What's that?" She gestured to the tube the girl was holding. "What did you kill it with?"
"RPG-7V2." The girl replied idly.
"I don't have a damn clue what that means."
"It's a rocket launcher."
Ellie cracked a grin. "Shit, a real rocket launcher?"
"Yeah."
"Fucking. Awesome."
This time, the girl smiled. Her teeth were almost as white as her eyes, and almost as perfect. She glanced down at the floor briefly, chuckled, and then met Ellie's gaze again.
"What's your name?" She asked courteously, those stunning eyes looking her over.
"Ellie." She replied, saying only what she needed to say. She felt a strange yet pleasant feeling rise in her gut. "What about you?"
"My friends call me Rider."
The statement took Ellie somewhat by surprise.
"Ain't that... a boy's name?"
"Yeah." The girl replied, shifting the RPG from her shoulder to her arms. "They say I'm a bit of a tomboy."
"Why do they say that?" Eliie asked, probing for information.
The girl chuckled, her silver eyes lighting up.
"I don't look like the kinda girl whose into pink frilly dresses and dolls, do I?"
Ellie chuckled in reply.
"No, you don't." She admitted. "I hate that shit too, don't worry."
"Of course you do." Rider replied. "Why else would you be travelling with guys like him?" She gestured to Blufor, who said nothing, and kept his head staring wearily at the floor of the van at it sputtered along.
"Anyway." She heard Rider begin again, continuing the conversation. "You said you'd seen two of those things before?"
"Yeah." Ellie replied, shuddering at the memories she possessed of the beasts. "Both at a power plant a ways away from here. One of them... almost got me."
"Shit, yeah." Rider continued. "You gotta be careful with those things. Big bastards are as tough as nails and a lot deadlier."
Ellie made herself glance at Blufor, who met her eyes with a knowing expression and nodded, but didn't speak.
"You're right." She replied to Rider. "Bullets don't seem to do shit to them."
"Nope." Rider answered, and gestured with the RPG tube. "You need something a lot bigger than 7.62 to take one of those out. Something anti-personnel would do the trick. Or fire. Fire kills most things."
"That's how we got the second one." Ellie admitted. Upon a new train of thought, she asked:
"You know where they came from?"
She saw Rider shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine. Truth is, we don't have any idea. Our guys have taken to calling them a lot of names, but Titans are the most popular. They're the main reason we're here."
"That doesn't seem like a good reason to go somewhere."
"It's not, but where there are Titans, there are red-rings."
Ellie squirmed at the thought of Pyotr's cult, and of the man himself. If the Mercs Rider was with were after them too, they may have enough common ground to get Adam back...
… or not. She lost all hope when her mind replayed the images of Adam, Joel and Blufor efficiently slaughtering the men at the road-block.
She hadn't even thought to apologise about killing all of Rider's friends.
"You and your guys are after the red-rings too? Holy fuck, your guys... we killed them, or most of them." She felt tears welling in her eyes, and forced them back. "I'm so sorry."
She heard Rider huff, and watched her as she broke her gaze away from Ellie and moved it to the floor.
"Don't be." She replied. "I'll admit, they didn't deserve to die, but they were all jackasses... they walked out when Rat had tried to change things, claiming that they didn't approve and that Rat was full of shit. Jack - my boyfriend that is - just took me with him when they decided to leave. I don't know if he made it. Not sure I care."
Ellie's heart dropped at the thought that she was responsible for separating the pair, as well as perhaps indirectly responsible for Rider's boyfriend's death.
Part of her felt another feeling as well – was it jealousy?
She heard Blufor pipe up.
"Whose this 'Rat'?" He asked, his voice quiet and tired, but still carrying its usual to-the-point conviction.
"Our leader." Rider replied. "Well... our leader at the moment, anyway. Our real leader, Dove, was captured by the red-rings a few days back. We don't know what's become of her."
Ellie directed her attention to Blufor.
"There's our common enemy."
She saw him nod in response.
"I agree." He spoke. "How was she captured?" He asked Rider.
"Red-rings ambushed her and a larger group of ours on a supply run. We got a few bases around the city, but our largest one is in the hospital on 27th. A lot of men need a lot of food. We didn't get our shipment that day – a lot of people went without dinner."
"Is Rat planning a counter-attack?"
"He'd love to." Rider responded, laying the rocket tube down on the floor of the truck and rustling her blonde locks as she did so. "But he doesn't have the faintest idea where they are."
She saw Blufor's body heave with exasperation and return to a slump.
"There goes that, then."
"Yeah." Rider replied. "Sorry."
Ellie still wasn't satisfied with the conversation. If she got the right information, she was adamant that she could save both Adam and Amber in one fell swoop.
"How many of them are here?"
Rider met her gaze.
"Four." She spoke. "Four of them."
She saw Blufor's head dart up again, and a bewildered expression plaster his rugged, chiselled face.
"Four, seriously? You can't handle four guys?"
"Trust me... they're not your usual guys. All of them are trained. All of them are merciless. All of them are fucking crazy."
"Who are they?" Ellie inquired.
"One of Pyotr's best squads. There were five to begin with – they had captured Dove initially, before she came to us. Dove killed the fifth, got free, and had been with us for a month or so before they got the drop on her again."
"I mean, who are the people?"
"Oh." Rider replied, drawing in a deep breath and scraping the dirt out from beneath her nails. "Well... I only know so much, you see. Talk amongst the field guys, mainly. Three men and one woman, I've heard. The woman is some shaved-head racist type, Caucasian of course, but aside from that, I don't know anything. Their leader is a guy named Happy Sal, but he's the type to skin people and leave them out for the infected. I only know that, because he did the very same to Rat. There's a big guy, who I don't know anything about, and no one'sseen him for a while, so who knows what's going on there."
"And the fourth guy?" Blufor asked.
"Scariest fucker of them all. They call him Ghost – he's an assassin, apparently. I saw him once. He wears a burlap sack with a skull on it and never talks, only stands there. He's killed more of our guys than any of them, and we never know he's done it until we find the corpse days later."
"Sounds like a fucking nightmare." Ellie admitted, her thoughts trying to envisage what Ghost's face would look like beneath the sack.
"It is." Rider replied.
The conversation died at that, and the three sat in silence in the ruined back of the van for a while, as they trundled past countless run-down storefronts and office complexes.
She was still baffled by the city that they were in – now, like when they first got here, there was not a single infected in sight, and it may as well have been as if the city had been constructed and no-one had ever lived in it; there weren't even any cars where they were now, they had all been congested along the main highway, presumably where they had been left as the citizens had fled the city.
She tried to imagine what her life would be like if she had been born and died before all of this had happened – she would have a lived a routine life, woken up every morning at 7am, groggily scoffed cereal, kissed her parents good-bye and headed to school amongst other kids her age, with the most intense of pressures being her homework assignment or that boy from 12th grade that she couldn't stop looking at. She would've gone on a date with him, gotten married, had children, and have passed away in her death bed with her family at her side, without a care in the world.
However she approached it, it always seemed forced. Fake. Like imagining yourself as a character in a movie or a book. Instead of living a normal life, she was stuck in this horrific dystopia... she certainly didn't like it, but she was more than used to running a lot and not eating very often.
The thing that broke her heart the most was the people – not them dying, nor the violence, but how they treated one another – in times like these, she believed that everyone should be working together to make something new, something beautiful... instead, there were always arguments, and betrayals, and murders.
She didn't think that Rider would be one of those people, though. Sure, she was rugged, and a little curt, but everyone was nowadays. The sentimental and soft people weren't the ones who survived, especially not for as long as she and Joel had. All she was looking for were people who were decent human beings, and not the savage animals that a lot of other had seemingly degenerated into.
She gazed up at the sky again, the blue cutting swathes through the tops of the apartment buildings and high-rises. They were drawing out of the central city now, and into the housing estates.
She found herself glancing at Rider more than once during the journey. They met eyes once, and she looked away sharply, that weird feeling rising in her gut again.
A short while after, she felt elation at the sight of green, as the van pulled into a large, overgrown park, and came to a sudden halt. The engine wheezed, coughed, and died. She heard a door open, and a few moments later, saw Joel round the side of the van and jump into the back. She was about to greet him, but was cut off as his body embraced her and held her tightly.
"Thank God you're alright." He said, his voice muffled against her jacket. "We ain't never getting into a shave that close again, mark my words."
She felt him draw back from the embrace, and watched him turn to Blufor.
"Thanks, for keeping her safe."
"Don't mention it." The squad-mate replied, a genuine tone of gratitude in his voice, and a pinch of pleasant surprise.
"Nice spot." Blufor spoke.
"Better than most, yeah." Joel agreed. "The van's kaput. We ain't going anywhere with that thing – hell, I don't even know if I'd want to."
"I sure don't." Rider commented from the back.
Ellie saw Joel turn around, and that characteristic suspicious expression distort his face and stare at Rider.
"And who might you be?"
"That's Rider." Ellie spoke, quickly trying to dissuade Joel's suspicions. "She's cool. She killed that Titan with an RPG."
She heard Joel huff sarcastically.
"So, what? We're calling 'em Titans now?"
Blufor grunted and stood in her peripheral.
"I'll admit," He began, "It does have a ring to it."
The squad-mate hopped down from the van, prepped his rifle, and began moving off.
"It ain't our main concern at the moment."
"No, I agree." Blufor said, raising his hands. "Our main concern is to get Adam back and-"
"Now wait just a goddamn minute." Joel interjected. "He behaved like jackass and got himself captured. That's his fault. Ellie and I have one main concern, and that is to leave."
She saw Blufor round on Joel, suddenly angry, and speak straight into his face.
"Leave?" He began. "He saved your goddamn life, and when he's in trouble, you're just gonna leave?"
"He almost killed me. Don't you try to deny that."
"I'm not going to. I agree, his behavior has been... different, recently. Angrier." Blufor sighed. "But it's beside the point. He needs rescuing, and so does Amber. We're not leaving until we have both of them. Understood?"
Joel moved further toward Blufor.
"You think you got a shit tonne of brains, don't you, son?"
"More than you."
"You're putting Ellie at risk!" Joel shouted in his face. "You're putting her at risk for him, and its goddamn selfish. I won't have it."
She watched Blufor stand there in silence for a few moments. He said nothing, and moved away, collecting the assault rifle as he walked, and strode off into the bushes.
"I'm on reconnaissance." He said as he slipped behind shrubs and vanished from view. She saw Joel move off in the opposite direction, back toward the gate of the park, and lean up against a crumbling stone pillar, gazing out into the street.
She sat back down, and slumped in defeat.
"Shit..."
"Hey." Rider spoke gently from behind her. "Don't be sad. Men fight like that all the time. It's no sweat."
"Yeah, but... they're fighting more than usual. We lost one of our guys at your road-block, your guys took him."
"The huge ginger guy? Yeah, I saw."
"I don't have any idea how we're gonna get him back without getting killed."
"Listen..." Rider began. "It might be a gamble, but... there's a chance they took him back to Rat." She saw Rider pull a small, black walkie-talkie out of her jacket pocket. "I can try to raise him on the radio."
"Thanks." Ellie spoke, accepting the offer. She gestured behind herself, toward Joel. "I better go see if he's alright."
"Okay." Rider smiled warmly at her. "I'll let you know if I have any luck."
Ellie moved towards the edge of the van's bed, and hopped down onto the grass, the hard soil below jarring her feet slightly. She made herself walk quickly, towards the gate, with urgency in her steps. She reached Joel in moments, and stood beside him, in silence. After a few moments, she weaved her arm through his and around his back, and hugged him.
He huffed gently, almost happily.
"And what's that for?" She heard him say.
"Looking out for me." She replied. "I've never had anyone who's cared about me so much."
She thought she saw him smile slightly through his ragged beard.
"In a world like this, the word 'care' ain't used too often, but... yeah, I do. You got a future, unlike me, or Blufor, or Adam, it... it ain't right to have gotten you mixed up in all this. War is for old men, and it don't matter when they die."
She felt him ruffle her hair.
"You, though, you do matter. You're gonna have a life, maybe even kids, and you ain't gonna die in some city to no infected or no red-rings... I'm gonna make damn sure of that."
"Thanks Joel." She muttered appreciatively, just enjoying the feeling of his embrace.
"Don't sweat it." He replied.
"I... I love you." She heard herself say. The words sounded good in her head, but she almost winced at how stupid they sounded spoken.
Joel paused for a moment, then replied.
"I love you too, kiddo." He looked at her, and smiled warmly, the lines on his face temporarily changing to those of genuine happiness.
"Ellie!" She heard Rider shout from behind. "Ellie, get the guys, I got something!"
"Let's go." She spoke softly to Joel, who followed directly in her wake back over to the van. She deftly hopped up onto the bed, helped Joel onto it as well, and moved over to where Rider was sitting, the radio nestled in her hand and crackling. Moments later, she saw Blufor appear around the other side of the van.
"We're clear here." He spoke. "What've you got?"
"The signal is bad," Rider admitted, "but I think I raised Rat."
She saw the blonde-haired girl draw the radio to her ear, press a button on the side of the device and speak into it.
"Rider to Rat, Rider to Rat, Two-Four. Come in Rat. Rat?"
The radio fizzled and crackled. She winced at the loud pop it made as it peaked, and saw Rider quickly draw it away from her ear.
"C'mon, stupid fucking thing. Rat, you there?"
"Rider, that you?" A voice spoke. "Shit, I was hoping you'd be okay."
"I'm fine." Rider replied, into the device. "I'm with some new people, they just got here. I got separated from Jack, we got caught up in a road-block he tried to set up."
"I know." The voice on the radio replied. "His sorry ass crawled its way back here about an hour ago. Said you were hit by infected and red-rings."
"Negative on the red-rings, Rat." She saw Rider pause for a moment. "They didn't bring a prisoner back with them, did they?"
"Yeah, they did. Didn't know who he was, so I let them have him. I told them to keep him alive, but I don't know what they'll have done to him."
She witnessed Rider tense as she realised who their prisoner was.
"He's a friend of the people I'm with, and he can help you find Dove. Tell them to let him go."
"All right, I'll get on it. Where are you?"
"West side of town, I think. Residential area."
"Okay. Can you get to the Hospital Base? It should only be a few miles. I'll meet you there."
"Can do."
"All right. Just be careful making your way over here, the city's been more active than usual. We don't know if we're gonna-"
She heard the radio peak, and winced at the loud burst of static that followed it.
"Rat?" Rider spoke. "Rat, are you there? Rat?"
"Rider!" The radio replied, crackling. "We're under - don't come here, they're – it's not safe, I won't risk – shit -"
She sat there for a moment as the radio died and returned to silence.
"I've lost him." Rider spoke.
"That sure didn't sound good." She felt Blufor didn't need to add such an obvious comment.
"Shit!" The blonde-haired girl swore under her breath.
"The hospital?" She heard Joel forcefully inquire, the focused survivor re-appearing.
"Yeah, our main base." Rider offered. "It's over in Pinewood Parade, where all the rich types used to live. A lot of shit's been going on there recently, though."
"What do you mean?"
"The subway comes up a couple blocks from it. Weird shit started pouring out of there a while ago. Titans, and others."
"Yeah." Joel admitted. "That's where we found our one."
"I don't know about anyone else, but I'm not too keen to see one again." Ellie spoke, not to anyone in particular.
"Don't worry. The hospital building itself isn't that defensible, but the catacombs beneath are practically impenetrable. Rat will meet us there, and we'll decide what to do afterward."
"Save Adam." Blufor offered.
She turned to Joel to see him grimace slightly, turning the prospect over in his mind. She saw him heave, and heard him sigh loudly.
"Joel." She spoke. "Please."
He stood there in silence for a moment, looking her over with some degree of displeasure.
"Fine." He said bluntly, picking up a rusted, red fire axe from the back of the van. "Best we get moving before it gets dark." He turned to Rider. "Which way?"
She saw the blonde girl gesture forward, vaguely down the main street.
"The main road takes us across the canal. The hospital is on the other side, a couple of blocks away."
"Well, Ol' Rustbucket isn't going anywhere." Blufor slapped the rump of the heavily damaged van. "I got point."
She let the squad-mate pass, his huge and thickly muscled arms cradling the assault rifle that was smaller than most – it was an unusual design, and also oddly clean – the magazine sat behind the trigger, and when she saw Blufor slide the bolt back to load one in, it slid back swiftly and with ease, and didn't jam like Adam's old one had, nor like the ones they'd acquired from the Eagle's Nest. She started to sense there was some form of contraband going on with the Mercs – they had a heavy and modern armament.
That in itself frightened her. The Mercs had the most advanced equipment she'd ever seen – more so than the Military down south - and they were losing.
She had been so enthralled in her thoughts that she hadn't paid attention to their surroundings; they had exited the park, leaving the van to be overgrown by foliage, and moved into the street – the city here was eerie, and unusual. Where in most places you saw destruction and dilapidation, everything in her vision was almost pristine. The houses stood, whilst damp and rotting slightly, in their completion; there was a complete absence of cars, and no debris on the roadway – there was nothing out of place at all, apart from the absence of human life.
She found her thoughts drifting back to Evelynn. By her counting, it had been almost a week since they'd left her behind. It was probably more than that, she knew. Whether the black-haired scientist had survived this long on her own or whether she had been slaughtered by red-rings... she didn't know. The not-knowing was what was eating away at her insides. She felt she could empathize with Adam on that front.
She had chosen to walk in the rear, behind the others; they had passed and intersection and headed straight, avoiding the housing entirely and walking in the centre of the street. The sun was still present, but the day had grown cooler. It was pleasant now, where it had been unusually hot before. The light descended from the sky and painted odd shadows along the cracked asphalt of the road.
She found herself looking at Rider again. The girl wasn't much older than her – a few years her elder – around eighteen or nineteen, perhaps. As she watched her walk, she saw the youth in her step and the energy that she carried despite the depressing life she knew she led. Where the men were beginning to hunch over from exhaustion or fear or both, she stood tall, the sun reflecting off of her yellow-blond hair, which fell in swathes down to her lower back. Her body was strong, and her hips wide and well-curved – despite her insisting she didn't do much field work, Ellie had no doubt she was misleading them. One didn't get a physique like that from scrubbing clothes or cooking. Whenever Ellie noticed that about her, it made her feel funny again.
She made herself focus on more important things.
They peeled left, down a side street, and after a few moments, emerged onto a street much larger than the one they had started on. It had four huge lanes on either side, the white paint that separated them faded and cracked, but still visible. She marvelled at the thought of it being packed with gleaming, rumbling cars, filled with ordinary people on the way to ordinary places.
She glanced around the neighbourhood, continuing to soak in the ambience of the area.
"Oh, shit..." The comment from Rider pulled her straight out of her sight-seeing.
Ellie walked swiftly up to where the teen had collapsed onto her knees, and stood closely to her.
"What's up?" She asked casually.
Joel had arrived next to her.
"Not the bridge." He pointed forwards to the large structure spanning the water. "Look."
Sure enough, the entire centre of the bridge had collapsed, and the concrete fallen away into the canal – steel girders remained bridging the gap, but they were brown with rust, and looked as if they would splinter under the tiniest weight.
"We sure as hell aren't going that way." She heard Joel utter quietly.
She stood there for a few moments alongside the other two, probing for any other means to cross the canal. She thought of building a raft, but dismissed the idea when she noticed the sheer concrete walls that descended downwards and separated the housing from the water.
Blufor finally arrived next to them.
"I hate to be the one to point this out, but..."
She saw him direct his gun-barrel toward a staircase in the side of the street, that descended downwards. Above it was a sign that read 'Platinum Heights Station.'
"There's always the subway."
She felt Rider sigh and heard Joel mouth 'goddamnit' under his breath.
"It doesn't look like we have another option." Rider admitted to the other three. "It's getting dark, and if we're underground, we should be safer."
She saw Joel turn to the eighteen year old.
"Should be?"
"When I say should, I mean there will probably be less infected down there than up here. Maybe."
The old man sighed. "I hate cities."
They stood there together, no one wanting to take point.
Eventually Joel gave in.
"Ugh, fine... c'mon." He gestured to the others. "The sooner begun the sooner done."
They motioned towards the staircase, which was much like the one they had entered earlier that day – it descended downward one flight into a dark and obscured station, of which plumes of yellow-green spores emanated out from within.
She moved forward first, drawing her penknife and placing her right foot gently on the first step. She heard the plastic rustling as Blufor drew his mask over his head, and noticed shortly afterward that Rider had done the same.
While Blufor's mask concealed his face entirely save two eye-holes, Rider's mask was a front-panel perspex with a filter attached to the bottom. Her nose and mouth were obscured, but her vivid eyes were still very visible through the protective plastic.
They wore an expression of surprise.
"Don't you two need masks as well?" She inquired.
"Long story." Joel uttered, breathing deeply and beginning to move down the stairs into the abyss. "Tell you later."
Ellie followed closely behind Joel, her heart rising high in her throat as her pupils dilated to take in as much light as possible. A beam of fluorescent, white light cut through the air beside her, and Blufor's flash light combed the room for anything of suspicion.
The station here was much larger than the other one – it didn't cater particularly to grandiose as she expected Pinewood Parade's would, but it was larger and somewhat airier than the one they had entered in the business district. Large, marbled pillars came into her view, supporting the roof as they had been for untold decades. The tracks lay just to their right, rusted and splintering, but steadfast. There were two lines here, and they both moved off into a large, black hole in the wall a ways ahead. Blufor's flash light couldn't even begin to penetrate the dark of the tunnel.
She thought she saw someone.
"Who's there?" She asked to the darkness.
Joel looked at her inquisitively.
"There ain't no one there." He spoke.
She dismissed the thought as impossible.
She observed what she could of the station in greater detail – there was nothing particularly interesting about this place, other than its size – there were a few shops along the sides of either platform with their wares still sitting lifelessly on the shelves, never to be bought. The toilet complex nearby had plants growing out from under the damp-ridden door, and she gagged at the thought of what might lay within.
"Found something." Blufor hollered from behind her.
She reconvened with the others, and they crowded around a framed picture on the wall, shrouded in a thick and dense layer of dust. She saw Blufor's gloved hand scrape over the glass, wiping away the filth and revealing the picture underneath.
"A map." She said.
"Yeah." Rider responded. "A subway map. Shows us where we are in accordance to the other stations."
She gestured to the largest of the red dots connected by thin black lines.
"We're here." She spoke. "Platinum Heights. Pinewood Parade is the largest station in the city, here."
She watched as Rider traced her finger along a line, through another dot, and rested on a third.
"It's not the deepest, though, so we should be okay."
"Why does depth matter?" Blufor asked.
"The two deepest stations lie under the prison and the University. We don't know for sure, but we think that's where all the shit is seeping from."
"Avoid Prison and University." Joel spoke. "Got it."
Rider turned, and raised her right hand towards the tunnel.
"Shall we?"
Ellie took point this time, and with apprehension rising in her gut, made her way towards the orifice. It opened up before her, and in moments she was completely enthralled in darkness, spare the one ray of light that came from the torch on the underside of Blufor's gun.
As they left the station, she thought she sensed movement behind her.
"You okay?" Rider asked through her mask, her voice muffled.
"Yeah." She shivered all over. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Conversation slowly gave way to tension. They walked for what seemed like an age in dead silence, the sounds of footfalls and masked breathing being the only things audible. She tried to identify the footsteps as she walked along... there were hers, of course. Rider's were soft and swift, and steadily paced. She heard heavier ones, and tied them to Joel, and noticed after listening for a while that Blufor had a bad habit of dragging his feet when he walked. Every now and again, she heard an off-step that didn't match any of them.
Relief washed over her as they emerged into the next station. This one was as minimalist as the business district, albeit much more dilapidated. They entered the station and jumped onto the left-hand platform, and began looking around. She turned to her right, and noticed a large crack that split the entirety of the right-hand wall, with scattered marble and tiles strewn all over the floor.
Without thinking, she took Blufor's flashlight from the underside of his gun with a dull click, and shone it straight into the crevice.
She saw the plumes of fungus just before the screeching started, and damp footsteps echoed throughout the station. Her heart dropped in realization.
"Shit!" She heard shouted from behind her.
"Stalkers!" Blufor shouted as well, his assault rifle firing providing even more noise in the confined space.
She swivelled around as quickly as she could, and jumped back up onto the platform where the two men were. She felt a grotesque hand clamp around her calf, and she replied by doubling back and sending her penknife straight through the top of the infected's scalp. It tumbled away, onto the tracks.
Rider wasn't with her.
She hurriedly looked around the station, past the dozen or so infected being shot down, trying to find her friend. She angled the flash light around the other platform, and found Rider, pinned and struggling. Without thinking, her legs threw her down into the tracks and her body heaved her onto the other platform.
"Ellie!" She heard shouted from behind her. The word fell deaf on her ears.
She sped across the platform, narrowly missing the infected still sprawling out of the gap, and threw the force of her body into the one pinning Rider, knocking it off and landing on top of it. It stunk and shrieked as she stabbed it once, and again, and again until it lay still.
"Thanks." Rider spoke as she rose, out of breath from the brawl.
"No problem." She countered, moving to help the girl up.
The volume of the shrieking doubled in size, and she became aware of infected pouring out of the tunnel they had come from as well as the crevice in the wall. She heard the peppering of gunfire, the wet slicing of an axe, and the shout of men. There was a sea of walking corpses separating her and Rider from the men.
"Ellie!" She heard Blufor shout between assault rifle bursts. "Go, go now!"
She didn't want to. Every muscle in her body wanted her to return and protect Joel.
A massive roar sounded in the Platinum Heights station, echoing down the tunnel to where they stood.
"Run, dammit!" Blufor screamed at her.
She didn't need to be told again. Her legs obeyed her, and she slipped her arm into Rider's in a swift movement and jumped into the tracks with the older girl. They ran as fast as they could, away from the melee, into the orifice laid in front of them.
They weren't the only ones who did.
For the whole time, she heard screeches and yelps behind her, accompanying her and Rider as they fled. Emotions raged inside of her, all contributing to the massive wad of fear that was residing in her gut. They had just left Joel and Blufor behind...
She realised they had drawn too far away from the station to hear the gunshots of Blufor's rifle. Either that, or he had stopped shooting.
Her legs ached and strained, her knees cried out in pain and her heart beat ferociously in her chest, but she refused to stop for her own benefit nor for Rider's. She breathed so heavily she was light headed, and could tell as much from the elder girl as the filters on her mask heaved with the extra effort. She heard breathing from behind her as well... steady, but measured. The breaths of another human, not an infected. She hoped that maybe Joel or Blufor had caught up with them.
They ran together in the darkness, tripping over washers and planks on the floor of the track. Once, Rider went down completely, and they wasted valuable seconds getting her back on her feet and to a swifter speed. She could feel death bearing down on her from behind, accompanied by the shrill cries of the infected that followed them.
They burst into Pinewood Parade station, panting and exhausted. She could feel the enormity of the place around her, but had no time to sit and enjoy the architecture. She gathered Rider in her arms, and pushed the elder girl up onto the left platform.
There was a staircase not too far away from them, leading upwards... she could see the last light of day.
She motioned towards the exit, trying to speed the limping girl along, when a collection of infected crashed into them, screaming. One clawed and clawed at her, and she was forced backwards by it, into the wall. It spat and squelched in her face, its rotten teeth drawing close to her, each gnash barely missing her neck.
An unusual, silver, arrow-like projectile burst through the infected's deformed face, coming to a stop just before her nose. The beast collapsed to the floor.
She saw another silver dart fly from the distance, finding its mark in the side of another infected's head, causing it to spiral around and collapse into the tracks, and relinquish its grip on Rider.
The other infected noticed their comrades beginning to fall, and diverted their attention to the shadowed figure who had launched the arrows. They approached the figure in droves, only to be weaved around and efficiently put down by a variety of advanced hand-to-hand manoeuvres. In mere moments, she could see a large build-up of infected corpses at the figure's feet, and the only screeching and spluttering she heard was well away, back down the tunnel.
Warily, she shone the flash light at the figure, hoping to see Blufor's browned beard or Joel's heavy scowl.
The light illuminated the figure's head, and a brown burlap sack stared back at her. The empty eyes of the skull dyed into it filled her with a dread more intense than any infected. Surely enough, she saw a red circle emblazoned on the vest on his torso.
She heard a piercing scream from Rider, and running on fear, quickly crossed the platform and raised the elder girl from the floor. They ran together, away from the frightening figure, towards the only thing that she could be sure of – the fading orange light of the evening.
The figure was following them, and sprinting – she could feel him rapidly drawing closer, but was even more alarmed by the lack of heavy, booted footfalls. There was no doubt in her mind that the movement she'd seen before the infected attack was him. She took the stairs two at a time, leaving Rider to her own devices, and heaved in the fresher air as she scaled the climb. It felt good to breathe in cooler, purer air, and that granted her a little comfort from the pressure behind her. Rider, surprisingly, had kept pace well. She was right behind Ellie when they emerged at the top of the station, ran through the foyer past countless rotten benches and vending machines, and burst out into the street.
A single, black SUV was parked in the street outside, directly facing them. The high-powered headlights burned her eyes that never got the chance to re-adapt to the sudden influx of light, and she fell to the pavement with Rider falling next to her, blinded.
Another figure stood in front of the lights, silhouetted in a shooting stance, wielding what appeared to be a massive machine gun.
She looked behind her, back into the station, and her heart sank at the terrifying sight of the crudely-drawn skull-sack man. The pursuer raised his weapon at the silhouetted figure – a queer thing, she saw – with four chambers, each of which was loaded with a long, gleaming silver dart.
He drew the hammer of the strange weapon back to fire, but it was stolen from his hands as the machine gun banged once and a bullet smacked into the gun's body, sending it spiralling across the atrium. The skull-sack wearing figure raised his hands to head height.
"Go." The silhouetted man shouted. "Go, now!"
Their pursuer relented the chase, doubled around, and darted back down into the subway station, vanishing into the darkness as he descended the steps. Ellie collapsed backwards, her chest heaving, and lay next to the elder girl, breathing heavily. She looked at Rider, and Rider looked back, those beautiful silver eyes swimming in adrenaline.
The man from the SUV arrived by her quickly, dropped the machine gun, grasped one of her hands firmly and pulled her up to meet his face.
"Ellie, are you okay?" She heard Adam ask her, a rugged auburn beard starting to obscure his jawline. He had a black eye, and gashes on his face, but they had been well cleaned and treated.
"Y-yeah." She stammered, somewhat consumed by disbelief. "Yeah, I... I'm okay."
"Time for us to go." It gave her immense comfort to hear the familiar Scottish tones in his voice. His arm moved underneath her back to hoist her up.
"Her, help her." Ellie managed. Adam did as bid, relinquishing his grip on her and scooping Rider off of the floor. The elder girl had passed out from the ordeal, and was lying limply in the Watcher's arms as they strode back towards the SUV, its engine humming idly. The last light of day was setting over the horizon, and she saw the sun disappear behind the abandoned houses.
Adam threw the back door of the SUV open, stuffed Rider into the car, and motioned for Ellie to enter as well. She entered, sat down on the leather-lined seats and watched him close the door and move to the front. He got in, shut his door hard, and gestured to the driver to move off. They swivelled around, and began moving steadily away from Pinewood Parade station, the engine easily switching between gears and humming gently as it accelerated.
"The fuck was that?" The driver asked bluntly. "Was that-"
"Ghost?" Adam replied, glancing toward him. "Yeah."
"Crazy son of a bitch." The driver cursed, shaking his head.
"He... he saved us." Ellie began. "From the infected, in the subway."
"Girl, he isn't the sort to save people. Ever." The driver commented, glancing at her in the mirror.
"Give it a rest, Rat." Adam spat. "The girl's had enough for one day. She can tell us all about it when we get back."
"Yeah..." Ellie said quietly, leaning her head back into the headrest of the seat. The aches and pains in her body slowly began to seep away as she gazed out of the window, into the gradually darkening cityscape.
She glanced over to Rider, who was sleeping on the two seats next to her, her chest slowly rising and falling. She truly was beautiful.