A few hours passed into the evening, slowly it got dark, the night was creeping up on the two as Joel drove them down the interstate highway.
"Oh, man." Ellie exclaimed as she sat up in the back seat.
"Hey, what happened to sleeping?" Joel glanced shortly into the rearview mirror.
Ellie leaned over the passenger side seat as she held up a comic. "Okay, I know it doesn't look like it, but this here is not a bad read." She flipped the comic to the end and pointed disapprovingly at the boxed text in the bottom corner. "Only one problem. Right there. 'To be continued!'" I hate cliffhangers."
Joel raised an eyebrow, "Where did you get that?"
"Uhh, back at Bill's. I mean all this stuff was just lying there." She smirked and put the comic down on her seat.
Joel felt he had to ask, "What else did you get?"
"Well..." She rummaged through her backpack, proffering Joel a cassette. "Here. This make you all nostalgic?"
He chuckled, quickly rolling his eyes, "Y'know, this is actually before my time. That is a winner though." He took it playing the country music in the truck player. "Oh, man..." He sighed in nostalgia.
"Well, better than nothing." Ellie smiled and went through her bag once more. "Oh, I'm sure "your friend" will be missing this tonight." She takes out a porno mag shaking it around.
"Mm-hmm." Joel kept his eyes on the road, not regarding what she had in her possession.
"Light on the reading, but it's got some interesting photos." Ellie joked around and flipped through the magazine.
Joel looked back, catching a glimpse of what she had, "Now, Ellie, that ain't for kids."
"Whoa. How...how the hell would he even walk around with that thing?" Ellie turned the magazine in a portrait fashion, allowing the fold-in to hang out.
"Get rid of that. Just-" He got awkward, reaching behind him to grab the magazine.
"Hold your horses. I wanna see what all the fuss is about." Ellie moved to where he couldn't reach. Pausing abruptly with a believably confused look on her face. "Oh...why are these all stuck together?"
"Um..." Joel looked at her, seemingly slightly flushed.
Ellie starts to laugh and closed the magazine, "I'm just fucking with you." She throws it out the window and climbs into the passenger seat. "Bye-bye, dude." She smiled turning up the music that was playing. "You know what? This isn't that bad."
"Why don't you try and get some sleep, alright?" He glance over to Ellie realizing it would be hours before they reached the city.
"Pft - I'm not even tired." Ellie placed her arm on the passenger side door, leverage to rest her head while she waited with Joel. After many dark hours later, Ellie's sound asleep as they arrive on Pittsburgh's highway. The sun had already came up, was some time before noon.
Unfortunately, things weren't looking up for the two of them, the freeway is clogged up with abandoned cars. They'd have to take a detour, taking hours out of their day if they went.
"Oh, no, no, no, no. Well, perfect." Joel hit the top of the steering wheel in frustration, only causing Ellie to wake up.
She took in the site before her, "Now what?"
"Screw it." Joel huffed and continues down the turnpike and stops when a man approaches their truck.
"Easy." Ellie called out when Joel hit the brake a tad too hard.
The man held his abdomen as he limped toward the car, "Please...help..."
"Holy shit... Are we going to help him?"
"Put your seatbelt on, Ellie." Joel tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he glaring at the man coming towards them.
"Help me..."
"What about the guy?" Ellie did as she was told and stared in shock.
"Oh, he ain't even hurt." Joel hit the gas pedal, driving forward quickly.
"Oh, fuck! Go, go, go!" The man called out, standing up properly and begun to shoot at Joel and Ellie.
Joel guns it as the faker's buddies all start shooting. He rams into the faker and he is thrown into the windshield before rolling off and being left in the dirt.
Ellie glances to their right and watches as a bus slides down an incline, "Jesus. Oh, not good!" It collides into the passenger side of the truck and sends it in a different direction.
"Hold on!" Joel called out, bracing and holding Ellie back with his arm as they crashed into a convienience store.
Down the road, perpendicular to the blocked in area, a girl was scrounging around. She stopped everything she was doing and head over to the noise. She whistled for her companions and ran to a blockage of vehicles. She could hear hunters on the other side running around and trying to get at someone. Unlike the previous night, she wasn't able to save anyone the hunters had gone after. Today was a new day, for she could try again. She glanced over to her right and mantled the vehicle to reach the fire escape. She pulled herself up and climb up two flights of stairs so she had ample view over the blocked in gas station. Unfortunately there was no easy way to case the area, she had to be directly over everyone.
She smirked and glanced to the bridge girders that were above her. She grabbed a box of ammo, filling the mag to her hunting rifle as quick as she could. She slung the rifle over her shoulder as she stood on the railing of the fire escape.
"Do or die..." She chuckled to herself before leaping up and forward to the closest girder. Her hands caught to her surprise, she had never expected to make the distance. She used her might to pull herself onto the beam. She huffed and warily make her way to cross some beams to get a vantage point over the station.
Back in the wrecked store, Joel glanced to Ellie as he gained his bearings.
"I'm okay. I'm okay." She nodded towards him.
"Then get out quick."
A hunter comes over and grabs Ellie. "C'mere, you!"
"Shit!" Joel called out having slightly difficulty with undoing his seatbelt.
"Let go of me, you chicken-shit! Joel!" Ellie flailed her arms and tried to kick and reach for things. Joel held on while he could, but to no avail, she was dragged away. He was also pulled out of the car.
"Joel!"
Joel, still disoriented was dragged away from Ellie, near a broken down freezer section, glass all over the floor. The hunter threw him into the only unbroken freezer door, it shattered and he tried to shove Joel into a large piece of glass. Joel reached out placing his hands on either side of the door and resisted being pushed down. Finally a safe distance from the shard of glass Joel reached around and elbowed the hunter in the face, throwing him into the glass, ultimately slitting his throat. Joel turned back to the ruckus behind him. The hunter was attempting to restrain Ellie, she bit into his arm and pulled away from him. He grabbed onto her and shoved her into the floor angry as ever. The hunter pressed his hands onto Ellie's throat as she threw punches up at his arms.
"I'll show you. I'll show you."
"Get off of me!" She struggled to get the words out, the man keeping air from reaching her lungs. Joel knocks the would-be strangler off, kneeing him in the face. He picks the guy off the ground to repetitively smash his head into a brick wall.
"Motherfucker." Ellie spat out.
"Come on." Joel ran back to the truck getting their bags out, tossing Ellie's to her.
"What's wrong with these guys?" Ellie asked, frustration evident.
"Catch your breath. We're leaving." Joel spoke quickly as he threw on his bag.
"'Kay... " She attempted to catch her breath while placing her bag on, only to catch a glimpse of more men coming, now armed with guns. "Watch out!"
Gunfire filled the air, which then cued the onlooking girl to duck down and prep her rifle, already putting a bullet into the chamber. She took her arm and slipped it through the gap in the girder so she had a way to stay up.
"Shit! Stay down!" He pulled Ellie down behind some shelves with him as three hunters entered the store.
"This motherfucker's dangerous. He killed all of them."
"Shit. Spread out."
"Damn. This tourist got some scrap in him."
Joel crept around the shelves, quietly taking down the closest hunter. Unfortunately the sniper atop the bus saw him through the window and began firing at him, alerting the other hunters.
The girl took the opportunity to kill the sniper while Joel and Ellie took out the remaining men in the store. She peered behind the bus the sniper laid atop and caught another wave of reinforcements attempting to climb over. She fired three more shots, taking down one with each bullet. Still her presence was concealed. Joel ran out of the store and didn't hesitate to kill the last few of the reinforcements. One crept up behind him with a bat, the girl shot him down. Joel was taken aback and looked into her direction. Only seeing the light reflect off the scope, Joel fired his pistol towards the support beam, causing the girl to quickly release her hold on the girder and jump down. Soon as she landed, she rolled into it, concealed by the pile of cars.
She glanced to Cas and Pib shaking her head.
"I just helped them and they fired at me...frankly I'm no bad guy. We have to connect with them. Strength in numbers and all." She listened for any hints where the two are headed.
"Alright...I think that's the last of 'em. You OK?" Joel looked to Ellie, huffing in relief.
"Yeah. I guess so." Ellie kicked at the dirt and started walking around.
"Good, 'cause we need to get the hell out of here." Joel began looting the dead bodies and glanced to her, "You know the drill. Look around, see if there is anything we can use."
"Roger that." She replied, seeing a heavy looking garage door, "Hey - maybe we can go through here."
"Well, we sure as hell ain't going back the other way." Joel squat down and began to lift the door, " Aggh...c'mon...Alright, go. See if you can get it propped open with somethin'."
Ellie crawled underneath the door, she stood up and stared at the stricken sight before her, "Um... There's some pretty gnarly stuff in here."
"Ellie!" Joel winced.
"Right." Ellie moved to the side of the door placing all of her weight on the chain. "Okay, go."
Joel ducks into the gas station's garage. Slowly beginning to lower the door shut. "Okay, I got it, I got it, I got it."
"Look." Ellie barely dared to speak over a whisper. There are dead tourists and their possessions laying around the room, with blood staining the floor.
"Fucking hunters. See, this could've been us." Joel huffed as he began to scrounge around.
"Man, that is a lot of people that didn't make it." Ellie spoke, with her voice still small.
"I knew I should've turned the damn truck around."
"We lived." Ellie glanced to him, slightly worried still.
"Just barely. C'mon, let's get outta here." Joel ushered her through a door that lead to a stairway.
She lagged behind as they made their way up the stairs, "How did you know?"
"Know what?" He knew what she was getting at.
"About the ambush..."
"I've been on both sides." Joel gave a quick, seemingly cold glance to her before continuing forward.
"Oh...So, ah, you kill a lot of innocent people?" Ellie prodded, dying to know if she was safe with this stranger.
Joel sighed, trying to escape the question.
"I'll take that as a yes." Ellie huffed.
"Take it however you want." Joel shook his head and entered a small damp room, littered with candles, trash and mattresses.
"I guess this is where the assholes sleep. I mean slept." Ellie went quiet again, shortly scrounging around and exiting the room.
Outside, they find more rotting bodies, burned to a crisp in a pile against a wall.
"Oh, I don't think these guys were infected." Ellie walked away from the corpses, grossed out by the lasting smell of decomposition, no matter how old the bodies were, an off smell remained.
"It don't matter. Let's just keep moving." Joel ushered her to the ledge so they could move on.
Ellie jumps down ahead of Joel. And slowly makes her way down to street level.
"Hey, Ellie, slow down. Wait for me." Joel called out, his voice low.
"What? I'm right here." Ellie looked back at Joel, slightly annoyed by how often he pestered her.
"How 'bout you let me go first? And keep your voice down." Joel walked away from her, gathering some supplies left on the ground, they seemingly were everywhere they looked.
"Okay." She huffed and kicked at the ground, going off in the opposite direction. They start walking up the street and Ellie starts whistling.
"I'm whistling." She laughed out, both ecstatic and amused.
"Oh, good. Something else you can annoy me with." Joel spoke under his breath and continued walking.
Ellie caught wind of what he said and smirked as she in turn spoke under her breath, "That's awesome." She approached a vehicle, finding an old corpse hanging out of a car.
"What happened here? Your fellow hunters do this?" Ellie smirked as she stared at Joel jokingly.
Joel scoffed, smiling on the inside, "Cute. And no, my money's on the military."
Ellie cocked her head to the side in a confused manner, "Why would they mow down all these people?"
"Can't let everyone in."
"So they killed them?" Ellie was consumed in shock, expectant of a different answer.
"And dead people don't get infected. You sacrifice the few to save the many." Joel turned to start walking away, not wanting to continue to look at it.
"It's kinda shitty." Ellie's emotions escaped her face, feeling disappointed that humanity came down to killing others like so.
"Yeah." Joel huffed and slowly continued up the street, weaving around the debris and abandoned vehicles. A gunshot filled the air, causing a flock of crows fly away.
"What was that?" Ellie glanced around, startled.
"I don't know. Ellie, get down." Joel pulled her towards a car, covering her with his body as he peered through the broken windows.
Three hunters climbed up onto the bus ahead of them.
The first one was laughing, "Where did you learn to shoot?"
"Man, screw you." The other shoved past his ally, hopping down from the bus onto the street where Joel and Ellie resided.
"You had an entire flock and hit nothing." The first hunter continued to laugh and followed closely.
"I'm about to hit you."
"Wow...yeah, you're really upset. Well...if you want some lessons, I'm more than willing to help you out." He contained his laugh and attempted to be serious.
"Yeah, whatever."
The other hunter spoke up once he dropped down from the bus, "Where the hell are those guys? They're supposed to be here."
"They're on the highway shift. Wouldn't be surprised if they caught another batch of tourists." The first hunter glanced to his friend and continued walking down the street.
"Spot's a goldmine. Lucky bastards."
"See if there's anything you can forage while we wait for them." The other hunter suggested finding boredom quite quickly.
"Ain't nothin' here. There's never anything here. Let's keep going." The leader responded.
The third scoffed, brushing past his allies, "Screw this. I ain't waiting any longer. Let's go see what those assholes are up to."
"They pull this crap every time. I swear to god, if they're holding out on us again..."
"Yeah. And you'll do what?" The leader patronized his friend once more.
"You'll see."
"Yeah, I will see." He laughed and ran to catch up with the hunter ahead of the two of them, the remaining one didn't hesitate to keep up either.
After they had left Joel gave the all clear and left the hiding place.
Ellie walked around seeing a car contiguous to the bus, "Hey, we can climb the bus right here." She stopped Joel in his tracks as he went to mantle the car, "Okay, we need to lighten the mood. Ready? "It doesn't matter how much you push the envelope - it'll still be stationary."
"What is that?" Joel gave Ellie a weird look.
His curiosity caused Ellie to smiled brightly, "A joke book. No Pun Intended: Volume Too by Will Livingston."
"Let's keep going." Joel went to mantle the car, only to be stopped again.
Ellie shook her head in return and continued to read the book, "What did the Confederate soldiers use to eat off of? Civil ware."
"Uh-huh." Joel skeptically went with it.
"What did they use to drink with? Cups. Dixie cups...I walked into my sister's room and tripped on a bra. It was a booby-trap... A book just fell on my head. I only have myself to blame." Ellie cracked up, "Oh wait, I said it wrong. Hold on, let me read it again... A book just fell on my head...I only have my shelf to blame; Heh...ruined it. What is the leading cause of divorce in long-term marriages? A stalemate."
"That's awful."
"You're awful." Ellie smirked and put the book back into her bag.
"Do you even understand what that means?" Joel humored the actual joke.
"Nope and it doesn't matter. Alright, I'm done...for now." Ellie smiled and climbed onto the bus using the car that Joel was so anxious to get past.
Ellie stares into the afternoon sky, greeted by the bridge peeking out from the buildings in the distance, "That bridge looks pretty far."
"We'll get there." Joel spoke in one breath as he hopped down into the checkpoint.
"Whoa. It's strange seeing a checkpoint with no soldiers." Ellie glanced around, passing by a few corpses, slightly used to seeing them scattered around by now. She stopped in place, backtracking to the bodies one more, above them read "GIVE US OUR RATIONS" in red paint. She stared at it intently for a moment longer, only to disregard her thoughts once Joel spoke up.
"This is what most zones look like. This place has been abandoned for awhile now." He slowly moved forward and stopped in his tracks.
Joel heard some commotion up ahead, he proceeded through the turnstiles shortly taking cover behind a barricade. Two hunters were on watch ahead having a small conversation.
"Oh...I'm so fucking tired. We were up all night chasing this tourist." The first one began to complain.
The second hunter glanced to him shocked slightly, "Oh, you were part of that? I heard about this."
"Yeah, this one chick, she would just not give up. I've never seen anyone with so much fuckin' energy. It took a couple of minutes to snuff everyone else and fucking five hours to hunt her ass down." He shook his head, slightly still in awe.
"Jesus. Sometimes you gotta earn your keep."
"Yeah, I guess. We were about to give up when she started shooting at us. Which I thought was stupid, because she coulda' got away. I had two other guys keep her busy. She killed one. I took out my rifle, lined up her little head in the crosshairs, and pow. That was that or so I thought. She pulled Bernie into a human shield and I ended up killing his stupid ass. Next thing I knew, this big ass leopard was trying to get at me, so I booked it!" The guy rested his shotgun against his shoulder and kicked at the dirt.
"Damn. Maybe you shoulda kept her. Y'know, made her one of us." The second guy suggested.
"No, no way. That girl - she'd a killed us all in our sleep." The hunter paused and thought for a moment, "You remember Mikey right?"
"Yeah what about him?"
"Talked to the boss a day or two ago, and he dealt with something just like it... a tourist slaughtered his entire Bronx Camp. And get this, it was a batshit crazy chick with a leopard. What's even freakier, she got infected to help too, like she's one of them or something."
The second hunter started laughing, "Yea fucking right. Like that's even possible. You had me there." He pat his friend on the back and looked over to the other guards that were pacing around, "Back to work then."
Slowly the group of hunters split off from each other, moving to patrol their sectors of the area. After a grueling half-hour passed Joel dispatched the some odd twelve hunters quick and quiet.
"That was too damn close." He huffed as he began searching the remaining few bodies.
"The edge of the universe and back. Endure and survive." Ellie didn't realize she verbalized her thoughts.
"Excuse me?"
"Savage Starlight. That comic I've been reading? It's what the hero says after a big battle." Ellie's face brightened, she loved the comics she would come across.
"Endure and survive?" Joel raised an eyebrow, giving a questionable look.
"Yeah."
"Okay." He responded with a slow and confused nod, only to turn his attention to looting the rest of the book store.
"Man, look at all these books." Ellie laughed, "I wish I had more room in my backpack."
"So you're a reader, huh?" Joel looked to her as he picked a storeroom lock.
"Well, when I'm not running away from hunters or infected? Yeah, I read all the time." An idea crossed her mind, causing her to rummage through her bag, "Okay, it's time to lighten the mood. 'Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.' Knead."
"I get it." Joel focused on the lock, though he listened closely to Ellie, deep down admiring her youth.
"'A moon rock tastes better than an earthly rock...because it's meteor.' Oh man, that made me hungry..." Ellie took a pause then scanned the page, "'A backwards poet writes inverse.'"
Joel huffed as he finally opened the door to the storeroom, "Do you even get that?"
"Of course not." She smiled and continued, "'I used to be addicted to soap, but I'm clean now.'"
"Alright, I've actually never heard that one." Joel released a chuckle, for what seemed the first Ellie heard in their time being together.
Her smiled brightened as she put her joke book away, "That's it...that's all I got. Now what?"
Joel nodded towards the exit upon coming back out of the storeroom. "Let's go."
Shortly after they left, the girl tracking them came upon the same checkpoint. As she picked Pib up to help him onto the bus, Cas was already up top, hair stood on end, a low growl filling the air.
"What's wrong girl?" She spoke softly as she pulled herself onto the bus. She watched as Cas slowly moved off of the bus into the quarantine zone.
The girl followed closely, with Pib in her arms as she climbed down. She placed him down on the ground as soon as she got her footing.
She drew her sword from the sheath in her bag and followed Cas through the turnstiles into the zone. Cas moved ahead quickly, there was a faint metallic smell in the air. Blood.
There were dead bodies scattered across the area, the girl glanced around, knowing there must be more. She stared at the dead intently, they weren't killed by infected, they should be turning already. She made her way around, inspecting every few bodies she came across. It was a repetitive set of wounds, if one wasn't stabbed, they were shot. If one wasn't shot, they were beaten by a bat. If they weren't beaten they were choked out. It was an abnormal cycle, something she wasn't familiar with. Upon entering a ransacked book store she came across another set of bodies. After further inspection she finally noticed the pattern. Each of the men that were stabbed or choked out, they were stealth kills. The beatings and gun shots were in retrospect to a not so lucky stealth kill.
The girl placed her sword on the ground and touched the pool of blood, it was barely cold. She smirked, knowing she was in fact on someone's trail, she hoped it was the right people however.
Cas released a low growl and stalked over to one of the bodies, the girl followed, prodding it lightly with the sheath of her sword. She pushed the man over and he was huffing in a state of panic. Anyone could tell from the markings on him, he was suffering, dying slowly from his previous encounter.
His eyes widened as soon as he took in the sight, his mind barely hesitant to recognize Cas and the girl. He mumbled trying to form words.
"You're looking like shit, sure you want to waste your breath?" The girl grabbed her sword and crouched near the guy. He reached out for her, causing Cas to growl and her to step away.
"I tried killing you...you and that fucking leopard." He managed to mutter as he choked on his own blood.
"You tried, and now look at you, someone came after you for me. Makes my job easier..." She got quiet only to look at him with determination, a haunting stare. "Who killed all of your friends here? Hmm?"
"I don't...I don't know."
"You don't know? Or maybe you don't want to say..." She took a long look at the sword in her hand before looking back to the hunter.
"I don't know, was some...some guy...yea...some crazy ass guy."
"That all?" She narrowed her stare, cocking her head as she looked at him.
"He was with a girl, his daughter probably!" The hunter turned to his side, seemingly coughing up a lung. "Do me a favor and kill me."
"Kill you?"
"Please...I can't take this anymore...I'm the last one left, I just can't take it." He stuck out his hand, placing it on her sword.
The girl hesitated, only to step away from him and stand up.
"What?! Where are you going?"
"Going to find those two."
"Without putting me out of my misery?!" He spat blood onto her boots.
She slid her sword into the sheath and gave another crazed look, "You tried to kill me, least I can do is let you continue to suffer." She whistled, Cas and Pib were immediately by her side. As she head towards the exit the remaining hunter screamed out profanity in aims to get her to kill him, but to no avail. He was of no importance to her, the girl can hold a grudge, for good reasons as well.