Chapter 7 – Bill – July 14th 2033

"Yeah. That's one of Bill's alright." Joel was on his hands and knees, closely observing a device that was planted on the wall. It looked like an old tin can with a bit of string coming out of it. I could only guess as to what it's purpose was. We had been walking for what seemed like hours through the wilderness. We'd climbed through buildings, old wrecks, just to get to Bill's.

"What is it?" Ellie stood behind Joel, keeping back from the tin can. When we met her she looked fairly clean, now she was covered in dirt, and had a few cuts and bruises to show for it.

"It's a nail bomb. Trip the wire? You'll look like pinhead." Joel was still on all fours, still observing the tin can closely.

"Who's pinhead?" Ellie looked bewildered, we'd forget she was born after the outbreak, and only had limited knowledge of what the world was like before the outbreak. Besides, it was a shitty pop culture reference anyway.

"Forget it. Keep low, we can crawl under it. Watch your head Ellie." Joel lay down on his stomach and army crawled underneath the wire. Being careful not to break the string. We all followed him in unison, army crawling underneath the wire. Now that Tess was dead Joel had inherited the role of unelected leader. He was the only person who seemed to know the way.

We emerged in an alleyway which we had no choice but to walk through. There was an arm chair with a skeleton just sitting there. Upon closer observation I saw a hole in the side of it's skull. The poor guy had shot himself in the head. Or was it a woman? I had no idea.

"What did you think happened?" Ellie looked at the skeleton, nobody should have to see this shit, let alone a kid.

"Shot himself in the head. Maybe he was infected. Or maybe he was just scared of living in this world." Quaid informed Ellie, he'd seen the bullet hole to and had come to the same conclusion. He looked at the skeleton, his eyes betraying the sadness inside.

"Doesn't matter now. You forget about it, and you move on." Joel kept walking, and we followed him to a rusty old warehouse. It must have been used to store old farm gear, tractors, combine harvesters, the works. It would have all been gone by now, stripped for parts.

"This it? Doesn't look like much." So far we'd come across nail bombs, and a huge make shift barrier made from old cars, wood, and whatever else this guy could get his hands on. I don't know what I expected in all honesty, maybe a fucking fort. But this was just a rusty warehouse. We walked towards the warehouse and I gestured for Quaid to draw his pistol.

"Joel, stay with the kid. We'll make sure it's safe." Joel nodded.

"You know, I have a name." I ignored Ellie. Me and Quaid were pointing our pistols towards the entrance to the warehouse. We were focused, walking slowly towards the rusty old door. We reached the door, and me and Quaid stood either side of it.

"You breach?" Quaid nodded at me. He stood in front of the door and kicked with as much strength as he could near the handle. However, the plan backfired and he fell flat on his arse. The metal clanged against his boot, it seemed to shake the entire warehouse, I thought it would fall apart but it was surprisingly sturdy.

"Good work there boys. Did you check if there's a lock?" Ellie looked at us with disapproval, she was obviously wondering how two twats like us managed to stay alive this long. To be honest I asked myself the same question, we had a lot of close calls.

"Of course we did there's no padlock!" Quaid shouted back, embarrassed by what had happened. He picked himself up and dusted the dirt of his arse.

"There's a padlock." How had we missed that?

"Fuck. I'll handle it." Quaid pointed his suppressed Walther at the lock and fired two bullets in it for good measure. The lock was old and weak, and fell apart. Me and Quaid walked in the warehouse, pistols at the ready; ready to shoot anything that tried to kill us. However, it was empty. Quaid walked into the warehouse. I'm glad he decided to walk in front of me. A rope wrapped around Quaid's ankle and he was dragged into the air, a fridge suspended him in the air upside down. Caught like a rabbit in a trap.

"Fuck! Son of a bitch!" Quaid was hanging upside down, his hoodie was unzipped and had fallen down, covering his face. His hands were inches from touching the floor. "I can't see anything dude!"

"Ellie, see if you can climb up and get him down from there will ya?" Joel pointed at the fridge.

"Hurry up alright kid?" I couldn't see Quaid's face because of his hoodie, but I assumed his face was red from either embarrassment, or the blood rushing to his head. Probably both.

"Hey gimme a sec okay? Jeez!" Joel squat down and formed a cup with his hands. Ellie ran towards him, and jumped onto his hands. Joel pushed up as hard as he could and boosted her onto the top of the fridge.

A clicking noise echoed through the area.

"Oh. Fuck. Ellie! Get him down from there now!" Clickers! Quaid's lucky we were with him. If one of us was alone we'd more than likely die.

"What? What is it? I can't see shit!" Quaid's face was still covered by his hoodie.

"Shit. Hold 'em off!" Joel drew his pistol and began to open fire on infected that were approaching us, I decided to do the same. Clickers were everywhere. Approaching us from all angles. We were in deep shit. Me and Joel were doing our best to take out as much infected as possible but it didn't seem to do much good, the more we killed the more that seemed to come. It was like trying to put out an oil fire, almost impossible.

"I can't see anything! Ellie! Hurry up!" Quaid was desperately struggling against the rope, trying to get free, but failing.

"I'm trying I'm trying!" Ellie was untying the rope holding the fridge up, doing her best, but the lock was thick and the knot was tight. This Bill guy sure knew how to make good traps. Nail bombs, rope traps, what next? Electric fences? Probably, knowing the way we were fucking going. Suddenly an infected man grabbed onto Quaid, Joel saw what was going on and stopped shooting. He ran towards the infected man and tackled it to the ground, he straddled it and began to lay punch after punch into it's face with strength most people half his age lacked.

"Got it!" Ellie shouted with success. Turns out she'd fucked up big time as it pulled Quaid further into the air.

"Wait? Where am I? Am I higher up? Closer to the floor? What the fuck is going on!" Quaid was still desperately struggling against the rope, attempting to break free.

"Ellie, stay on the fridge!" Joel stood up and continued shooting at the waves on infected coming towards us. I felt something grab onto me from behind. One of the fuckers had grabbed me across my neck with it's right arm while attempting to bite me on the neck. I felt it's hot breath against my neck. The thought of it's teeth sinking into my neck terrified me and luckily enough, my reactions were fast enough to bring up my left arm and push it's head away from me. The zombie fell to the ground and I pointed my pistol at it's head and fired a bullet into it's skull.

"I got it!" Ellie had managed to untie the rope and Quaid fell to the ground. He was about twelve feet in the air so it was quite a fall. He fell onto the ground, his upper back taking most of the impact.

"Ow y'bastard!" Quaid was still on the floor, the rope around his ankle. I turned round to look at him, and a man in a gas mask had cut the rope around his ankle. "Get off your ass and on your feet!" The man helped him up. Quaid ripped off his hoodie and threw it to the ground.

"Bill! Where you going!?" Joel and Ellie ran after Bill and we all followed. We were sprinting through the warehouse out into a courtyard on the otherside.

"God dammitt!" An infected grabbed Bill and with incredible strength and speed he grabbed the infected and threw it over his shoulder. The infected was struggling on the floor, and Bill curb stomped it's head into the ground.

"Which way?" Joel asked Bill. He sounded out of breath, we all were.

"Alright er, we'll cut through! Come on!" We followed Bill as he run past an old articulated lorry.

"Run Ellie!" Joel grabbed Ellie and threw her forward, it might have seemed rude but i'd rather that than be eaten by a fucking dead man.

"Goddamn! I'm going!" Ellie sprinted after Bill.

10 years ago

By the time I had made it back to Marlene's place it was already dark, I estimate 1am. I was covered in blood, a mixture of the corpses, mine, and David's blood. My nose was broken, I was covered in bruises, and I was in agony. Marlene lived in one of the many apartments in the city, what better way to blend in with the people, than by living among them? I knocked on her apartment door, number 207. I heard somebody approach the door, then unhook chains and all sorts of locking devices. It was Quaid who opened the door.

"Jesus. You look like shit dude." Quaid stood there, he was still in his combat gear and looked a lot less worse for wear than me.

"You should see the other guy. Is the car safe?" I placed my left hand on the right side of my rib cage. My ribs felt like they'd be crushed under a car.

"Yeah. It's safe, I took it to the safe house." Quaid put my arm around him so I could lean my weight on him.

"Oh my God. Is your nose broken!? Get him inside!" Marlene looked worried. She was also still wearing her combat gear. Quaid led me inside an sat me down on the sofa. It was old and worn, a lot like myself.

"So. Where's our payment?" I wanted to get straight down to business. It wasn't because I didn't want to waste time, I just wanted to distract myself from the pain.

"You sure you don't want to get yourself fixed first?" Marlene gestured towards my nose.

"I can do that later. Quaid can hold my hand." I chuckled at Quaid.

"Fuck you." Quaid grabbed my nose and forced it back into place.

"Gah! Fuck! You dick!... Feels much better now, thanks." Something had cracked back into place, it wasn't painful anymore.

"You're welcome."

"Well... Here you go." Marlene opened up a chest that she had in the middle of the room. "Two Lee-Enfields with five magazines each, and two bullet proof vests. Used."

"Sweet." Quaid took his bullet proof vest and put it in his back pack. I did the same.

"I have another job for you. If you're interested." Marlene asked me and Quaid. This woman sure had a lot of work.

"What's the job?" Quaid asked, he was always wary about working with Marlene.

"You two used to be fireflies. So you two need to keep this, top, secret."

"Done." I took pride in my secrecy.

"Well... We've been trying to search for a cure for a long time now. Well, we've made some ground breaking progress. It's not a vaccine we can give people right away. It needs time to grow into an immune system, as a persons growing up.

"So that's what the kids for?" I felt anger boiling up inside me. I hated working when it had anything to do with kids.

"Yes." How was Marlene staying so calm?

"I won't do it I refuse."

"To fucking right mate." Quaid agreed with me. I glanced over his direction and saw that he was getting pissed off too. His face was frowning and he was starting to turn ever so slightly red.

"You don't even know the job yet." She knew that we'd already figured it out.

"I know it perfectly well. You want us to inject the kid. Do it yourself!" I stood up from the sofa, pointing at Marlene. I hadn't been this angry in a long time.

"It's not that simple. She needs to be taken somewhere quiet. Just in case it kills her. Her body needs to be, disposed of." She was staying remarkably calm, i'd practically been right in her face.

"You're kidding me. Who's kid is it anyway? Yours?" Quaid's face betrayed both a mixture of confusion, and anger.

"An old friends. I promised I'd look after her." She wasn't as calm any more, she wasn't angry, she was sad.

"You're taking the piss right? I promised to look after Shaun's dog once, I didn't fucking enrol it in a science experiment!" Quaid stood up and walked to the window, looking out over the city. It was raining, if you didn't look to closely it would almost seem peaceful.

"We're so close! A cure! For everybody! No more fear of the infected! Because you can't get infected!" Marlene was shouting back at me. No, she wasn't shouting, she was begigng me to listen. I knew what the Fireflies had been doing, a lot of good people had lost their lives looking for this cure.

We sat there in silence.

"Fine. I'll do it." I couldn't look in Marlene's eyes. This job was one too far.

"This is the most fucked up job, we've ever taken." Quaid knew it was a lesser of two evils, but he didn't like it. None of us did.

"It's good pay. Tell me what you need? I can get it." Marlene's voice was breaking up, I could tell she was on the verge of crying.

"Ammo, that's all we need for now." I kept looking at the raggedy old carpet covering the floor.

"And two new combat knives." Quaid added in. He was right, I can't believe we hadn't got knives already.

"It's settled then. You two can stay the night here. Curfew, the soldiers will see you."

"What are we doing?" Marlene was sat on the sofa, her face in her hands. She looks distraught. It must have been tearing her up inside. I'd been thinking long and hard about it and one person's possible death? Well... It was a lesser evil compared to not making humanity immune from the parasite.

"The right thing. You're doing the right thing." I sat down next to Marlene and put my arm around her shoulder, trying to comfort her. The poor girl had the weight of the world on her shoulders, and well I always was a sucker for a damsel in distress.

"Am I? Really?" Tears were flowing down the side of her cheeks, and something cracked inside me. Something that inspired me to help her.

"You make the hard decisions, the decisions we don't have to make. You make them for all of us and let me tell you sweet heart, I'm grateful I don't have to do what you do. It's for a greater good. IF this works, do you know how many lives will be saved? How many people will be out of danger?"

"And If it doesn't... My best friends daughter dies. Ellie dies." It was a risk we had to take, we all knew it.

"I know you. You're thorough. She'll be fine. You wouldn't be doing this, unless you were certain she'd survive." Marlene was meticulous, she wouldn't do this unless she was sure that Ellie wasn't in any danger.

"Thank you. So how are you holding up these days anyway?" Marlene glanced in my general direction and smiled softly.

"Ah, you know. Same as everybody else. But just look at the world Marlene. We kill other people, we kill those who used to be human. I just come back from the most vile man I have ever met and I am lucky to be alive. Every day I get up, and just focus on whatever it is I have to do to survive, but then I stop. I can't stop thinking about everything that's happened. It's been ten years since the outbreak, ten years since my parents died and I just can't move on from it. The only thing that keeps me going is Quaid, he's the only thing I have in this world." It'd been the first time in a long time that I had opened up and listened to my emotions. It didn't feel to good. I was wondering what Marlene would say? She had an entire organisation to run, the emotions of one man hardly meant anything.

She looked at me, and just kissed me on the cheek. I don't know why, but I kissed her back.

"Quaid's asleep on the floor you know." We both knew where this was going.

"Well... We better be quiet then. I don't think he'd care if we woke him." What happened next? You can imagine.