Hey y'all! Finally got round to updating this! Thanks to Clara the Wolf for the lovely review and for encouraging me to carry on with this! Really appreciate it!

Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

Cold Stream
Chapter 2: Lost and Found

Ellis weakly groaned as he slowly opened his eyes. First thing he felt was the pain. Damn, there was so much of it! With a great amount of effort, he tried to sit up, but immediately fell back on the ground, clutching his chest and left arm.

"Damn, I think I really hurt somethin'," he groaned. He then realized that he was sopping wet. "Wait a minute, why am I so wet?"

He slowly turned his head and realized that he was half-submerged in a river. He groaned again, this time in frustration.

"I gotta get outta this water and find the others."

Clutching his injured arm and chest, he tried to get up again. After a few attempts, he eventually managed to get up and limp out of the river. That was when he realized how injured he really was.

His left arm was bent at an odd angle, and his chest was burning with white hot pain. He had hit his head so badly, that it was bleeding. He probably had a concussion, too, as he was feeling very nauseous and dizzy, and he also couldn't remember much about what had happened. He had other wounds, too, and was losing a lot of blood at an alarming rate.

"Best be findin' me a health kit," he groaned.

Suddenly, he heard something. It sounded like a yell. Ellis strained his ears and listened. He heard it again, and it was indeed a yell.

"Guys?" he murmured, stumbling in the direction of the yelling. But he didn't get far. He only got a few feet before collapsing on the ground and falling unconscious once more.

"Ellis!" Rochelle yelled. "Where are you?"

"Damn it, Rochelle, would you shut it?" Nick hissed. "Last thing we need is to attract the zombies!"

"I hate to say it, but Nick's right," Coach agreed. "Also, we don't know what kind of shape the young'un could be in. He could be too far away to hear us, he could be unconscious, or…"

"Don't say it, Coach," Rochelle said.

"I'm not normally the one to be optimistic," Coach rolled his eyes at this, "but the kid's tough," Nick added. "You mustn't give up on him, Coach."

"I'm not givin' up on the boy, I'm jus' bein' realistic," Coach responded. "Anyway, let's just look for him, and not yell to give away our position. Okay, Rochelle?"

He turned to Rochelle, who had gone very quiet. She was looking in another direction.

"Ro?" Nick asked.

"I thought I heard something…" she murmured.

"What?" Coach asked.

"Like, something falling, I think," she replied.

"Probably something in the trees," Nick pointed out.

"I don't think so, I think we should check it out," Rochelle responded.

"Might as well," Coach said. "Ya never know unless ya look."

As Rochelle led the way, they all started talking about the crash.

"One thing I don't get is how Overalls wasn't in the same area as us when we all regained consciousness," Nick said. "I mean, we were all holding onto each other when we crashed. How is it possible that he probably ended up in a completely different place?"

Coach instantly looked guilty. Rochelle noticed.

"Coach, what happened?" she asked.

Coach rubbed the back of his head and sighed.

"Before we hit the ground, you two were knocked out first by hitting your heads hard against the wall behind ya. Suddenly, the chopper tipped again, this time forward. I grabbed onto a nearby chair and kept a hold on you two. Ellis grabbed onto another chair. But I was losing my grip on ya, Nick. Then, the helicopter gave another violent lurch and you were thrown outta my grip. Ellis noticed this and let go of his chair to get a hold of ya. But once he did, he wasn't quick enough to grab onto another chair…"

He trailed off.

"Then how come I was in the same place as you and Rochelle, Coach?" Nick asked.

"Well…in a desperate attempt, he grabbed onto the last chair's seatbelt, but it wasn't strong enough to bear the weight of two full grown men. As it started to break, he quickly pushed ya up to me. I grabbed hold of ya again and reached out my other hand towards him. He reached out towards me. But just before I could grab onto him, the belt snapped and he…fell through the open door…"

He trailed off again. Rochelle patted his shoulder.

"It wasn't your fault, Coach," she said. Nick nodded in agreement, too shocked to speak. He couldn't believe that Ellis did that to save him. But then again, the kid did say that he would do anything if it meant they would be safe.

The team soon reached where Rochelle thought the noise had come from. They found a blood trail.

"Hey, look," Rochelle said. "There's blood in the water, too. And there's some more wreckage from the helicopter. So unless there's another survivor out here, I'll have to say that this blood belongs to Ellis."

"If that's Ellis' blood, the young'un is losing a lot of it," Coach said worriedly.

"Too much of it, if you ask me," Nick added, a small hint of concern in his voice.

They slowly followed the blood trail, all anxious of what they might find. When they reached the end, they all froze in their tracks, hands flying up to their mouths.

There, lying on the ground in a bloody heap in front of them, was Ellis.

Rochelle immediately ran over and put two fingers against Ellis' neck to search for a pulse. She sighed in relief and concern when she found a weak one. She turned to the other two.

"He's still alive, but only just," she told them.

"We've gotta get him someplace warm and dry," Coach said.

"Well, there's no safe house nearby, so what are we gonna do?" Nick asked.

"We can travel a bit downriver and see if there's a place we can stay in," Coach suggested.

"I guess it's our only option," Rochelle responded.

Coach bent down to pick up Ellis, and they all started their trek downriver.

Bet you didn't expect that, huh? But then again, to me, Ellis is that type of guy :)

Just saw the movie The Zookeeper. OMG was it funny! Saw it was made by Columbia Pictures, so when I saw their logo, all I could think was 'When the hell are they going to tell us more about the Zombieland sequel!'

Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter! School's starting agin soon, so I'll try to update as much as I can! R&R please! :D

Until next time
D-ZombieDragon