Chapter 8 – 4x4 – July 14th 2033

Present day

"Ow! What the fuck!" I felt a blunt force hit the back of my head and I was knocked to the ground. I had no idea what it was but I soon realized that it must have been Bill. I'd fallen to my knees and was on all fours. Bill grabbed my right arm and handcuffed me to an old pipe.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Ellie ran towards Bill in an attempt to push him down but Bill was much stronger and much more experienced than her, and it was easy for him to grab her by the wrist and handcuff her next to me. I just wanted to know how he had so many handcuffs.

"Ellie! Alright Bill just calm down okay?" Joel tried to calm down Bill but to no avail. Bill had drew his pistol, what looked like a Glock 19, and pointed it at Joel and Quaid.

"Joel, by the Brit and the kid. Now. You? Stay there." Joel kept his hands behind his head as Joel was marched over towards us. What was this guy gonna do? I was helpless, I didn't like being tied up. Bill handcuffed Joel next to us. Bill turned round to look at Quaid but he was already one step ahead. Quaid ran towards Bill and grabbed him by the wrist and neck in an attempt to remove the gun and slam him to the ground. Bill pushed back against Quaid and they were locked in combat. The two of them were struggling for control of the glock. Somebody caught the trigger of the pistol and multiple bullets were fired towards our direction.

"Ellie! Get down!" Joel covered Ellies head with his free hand in order to provide her some minor protection. I ducked down, just as a bullet skimmed past my arm, narrowly missing my hand. A few more inches and the bullet would had taken off one of my fingers. The gun was still in bills hand, but instead of more bullets it simply clicked, the gun was empty. Bill clenched his right hand and threw a right hook towards Quaid's temple who was knocked back. He grabbed Quaid by the back of the head and threw and overhand right to the back of Quaid's head as he was knocked to the ground.

"Quaid! Argh! Fuck!" I noticed that the bullet that had narrowly missed me had shot the handcuffs linking my hand to the pipe. I pulled with as much strength as I could muster against the hand cuffs and managed to break free.

"Bill come on! Calm down!" Joel was shouting at Bill, a mixture of anger and pleading as he was trying to reason with Bill.

"Calm down? You bring two Brits, a kid, and a swarm of infected! Forgive me for not being calm!" Joel turned Quaid around and climbed on top of him as he threw punch after punch into Quaid's face.

"Why do you all hate us for being from England!?" I ran towards Bill, I grabbed him by the neck and threw my weight into him, pushing him against the wall. I used my left hand to pin his neck up against the wall and I threw a punch into the right side of his rib cage. He was struggling to breath as I threw another underhand punch into his stomach. I attempted a third punch, this time to his head, but he intercepted my fist, and and threw me to the floor with sheer strength. He was much stronger than I anticipated.

I was momentarily stunned as I saw his boot getting closer and closer to my face as he was attempting to curb stomp me. I grabbed him by the ankle at the last second and twisted. He shouted in pain, the hyper extension of his ankle forcing him to floor. He had fallen on his face, I climbed on his back and grabbed the back of his head, I then smashed his face off the ground with as much force as I could. I picked his head back up for a second attempt but he managed to using his legs to gain an advantage, he flipped me on my back and he was now on top of me, he began to punch me in the face, right hook after left hook. I began to feel light headed as punch after punch brought me closer to being the end. I attempt to intercept his fists but he grabbed me by the wrist and dislocated the joint. I screamed in agony as the pain shot through my entire arm. Quaid regained his bearings and tackled Bill off me. He picked up Bill and threw him into the wall and lay punch after punch into Bill. I ran towards Quaid and helped him repay the favour, I saw Bill attempted to counter one of Quaids punches but I was fast enough to grab his arm with my functioning hand, and slammed it against the wall, pinning him down. Quaid continued to lay into him, punching him again and again in the head with speed and power that would make Mike Tyson proud.

"God dammit! Stop!" Joel tugged against the handcuffs desperately trying to break free from the restraints.

"Wait! You're gonna kill him!" Ellie was pleading with us to stop.

"I think he's dead." I gestured for Quaid to stop, his fists were cut and bloody from the ruthless attack on Bill. Quaid stopped punching Bill, and he dropped to the floor, motionless.

"You stupid son of a bitch! He was our only way!" Joel tugged at the handcuffs, he looked like he wanted to kill us, and with both me and Quaid still tired from the fight with Bill, we'd have been no match for him. Even with full strength and both of us, I still think Joel would have killed both of us with ease.

"He tried to kill us!" I shouted back, we needed Joel on our side if we were going to pull this off.

"He was just going to check you for bites!" Ellie retorted, how could she say that? She went to attack Bill too!

"He could've just asked, the dip shit!" I couldn't believe how stupid they were both being.

"Oh yeah because every bodies so fucking honest. He was a good man!" He didn't seem like a good man.

"And now he's a dead man, we don't take any chances." Quaid starred at Bills corpse, we had both killed our fair share of people. We haven't had any choice, but you still remember every person you've killed. It's ugly, it's the worst thing in the world.

"Son of a bitch. Now what?" Joel stopped tugging at the handcuffs, accepting the reality of the situation.

"Well... Looks like we don't have a choice. Quaid? The hummers not far from here right?" He was lost in thought, still staring at Bill's corpse.

"It's about half hour walk." Quaid said, he looked towards Joel.

"What do you mean hummer? A 4x4?" Joel looked annoyed, obviously pissed off that we hadn't used the hummer originally.

"Yeah. We didn't wanna use it. It might be a one way trip for the damn thing and cars aren't easy to get hold off." Quaid retorted.

"Just take off these damn cuffs, and get us to the car." Ellie glanced towards Bill's body, he had the keys.

Ten years ago

"Is she asleep?" Quaid and I had been walking through Boston towards the West tunnel. We had set off from Marlene's early hours in the morning. We had both slept light. Well, Quaid has slept, I hadn't for obvious reasons.

"Yeah. Out cold." Quaid was carrying Ellie, she was so small and fragile. It felt wrong to inject her with this... Venom.

"Are we seriously going to do this?" Quaid looked at me, his expression betraying both his sadness and anger at the situation.

"We have to. How many lives can we save if we do this?" I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me.

"She's a little girl though dude. She could die." Quaid was right, but one little girl could save all of us.

"One life to save countless." It was a lesser of two evils.

"It's still one too many."

We'd taken her to the west tunnel of the Boston quarantine zone, it was long since abandoned, unused. Nobody bothered to come in from the west side now so there was no use for the tunnel, a good place for just in case the serum killed her. We entered a long abandoned building, the trap door was in the first room. It was devoid of all life and objects except for an old messy sofa that was covering the trap door. I pushed the sofa out of the way and bent down to open the trap door.

"Be careful down there. It's not been used in years."

I took out my flash flight and my suppressed Walther, holding the torch in my left hand and my pistol in my right hand. I shined the torch into the tunnel and glanced in each corner: nothing.

"Wish me luck." I jumped down into the tunnel and was immediately greeted with the stench of rotting carcass. I glanced in each direction of the tunnel, it was empty apart from a few old wooden crates and a rotting corpse. It looked like it must have been there for a long time as it was almost a skeleton by now.

"It's clear. Lower her down." Quaid leant down and handed me Ellie, she was still fast asleep. Best do this while she was asleep to avoid any problems. Quaid turned on his torch and jumped down as well, pistol in hand.

"You ready?" Quaid handed me the serum, it was in a small hyperdermic needle.

"Be ready, just in case." I inserted the needle slowly into Ellie's neck. She seemed to flinch slightly as I injected the experimental drug but she did not awaken.

Then.

Ellie awoken and started to scream, her eyes rolled in the back of her head and she was shaking violently.

"Shit! Fuck! Pin her down!" Quaid held down her arms so she didn't hurt herself. She was having a fucking seizure!

"What do we do!? What do we fucking do!?" Quaid was panicking, she was still shaking violently.

"How the fuck do I know!? We don't even know what's in this shit!" Blood started to froth from her mouth.

"You're the one who went to Uni!"

"Yeah! For one day! Then the fucking apocalypse happened!" I had no idea what to do. Ellie stopped shaking, and I checked her pulse.

"Shit. We need to do CPR." Her pulse was very weak and with CPR I was confident we could save her. What else could we do in this situation?

"CPR?" Really? Quaid didn't know what CPR was?

"Fuck. You know, Vinnie Jones and all that! What was the tune again?"

"Staying alive by the Bee Gees wasn't it?" Oh so you remember the song!

"Fuck sake. I'll do it." I leant over and started chest compressions.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

"Check her pulse!" Quaid placed his fingers on the underside of her neck and

"It's still weak."

I tried again. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Ellie's eyes opened and she started to sit up.

"Hey there kiddo stay down, relax." Quaid comforted her, he was always better with kids than me.

"Where am I? Where's Marlene?" She had tears in her eyes, they were swelling up red and she looked confused and terrified.

"We're taking you to her now. You're gonna be okay."

"Please, take me back. I want Marlene." She was so young and innocent. It was lucky that the serum had worked.

Present Day

"Looks like shit." Ellie's comments on the hummer were... Appreciated. Admittedly the old girl had seen better days. The once shiny black finish was now old and dull. The outer bodywork was covered in scratches, dents and bullet holes from years of abuse. There was no longer a wind shield or a rear wind shield, bullets had destroyed them a long time ago. The abandoned garage was empty apart from a large metal table with various tools and a few jugs of fuel.

"Fuck you. She's never let us down yet. Where did you hide the keys?" I looked towards Quaid, he had put the car here ten years ago after we finished smuggling Ellie into the quarantine zone.

"I um... Don't remember." Quaid was looking around, a look of confusion across his face.

"What do you mean you don't remember!?" How the fuck could you forget something like that?

"We haven't used it for ten years! You used to lose your keys all the time!" Quaid started searching around the room looking for the keys.

"So!? You're supposed to put them somewhere you remember! This is post apocalypse not a trip to the fucking post office!" I started to look under tools, desperately looking for the keys. No keys? No car.

"You two Brits are idiots. Search around, they gotta be round here some where." Joel and Ellie started to look around searching for the keys.

"Dude... They're in the ignition." Quaid opened the car door and climbed in the passenger seat.

"You left them... In the ignition." I sighed as I climbed in the back seat.

"How in the hell are you two still alive?" Joel climbed in the drivers seat and Ellie climbed in the back with me.

"You just don't get it do you kid?"

"I'm a slow learner."