Reviews:
NoOneInParticular17:
Well, of course. I had to give him some kind of weakness, since, in a post apocalyptic world like this one, bullets are no doubt difficult to come by even for the government, useable missiles even more so, and fighting him at close range would be suicide. Also, I didn't want the monsters to be the only threat
SpectorChris:
I kind of explained that a couple chapters back, but I realized that I could have explained it a bit more, so just for people that might be confused as well, I've added more of an explanation to this chapter, but it's basically a nickname. As for your suggestion about making him different, I do have some things coming up. They'll likely be in the next couple of chapters. As for your request about, as you put it, dragging some enemies from the grave, well, anyone that's dead at the end of either of the games will stay dead, but enemies that managed to survive, however, like Rooks, will likely make an appearance. Also, I'll have a couple allies appear in the chapters ahead. I'm working on ways to strengthen the bonds thing, but that sort of thing tends to give me trouble sometimes, but I'll do my best. I also explained part of the reason why he wants to go to NYC when they left Tommy's place, but there will be another reason explained in this chapter. Finally, I'm glad you're like the story and I hope that continues.
A/N: Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.
Chapter 4:
The Dangers of Spelunking
Three hours after their escape from Denver, the road got too narrow along with being cluttered with rubble and vehicles, so Joel, Alan, and Ellie had to abandon their car. For good measure, they pushed the car off the road into the woods. They continued to follow the road, keeping an eye out for the infected or Blackwatch.
The path had eventually led them to a mountain road which is when Alan spoke, "Okay, we should be far enough that Blackwatch should have difficulties tracking us."
"Do you detect any of the infected nearby?" Joel asked.
"No. In fact, I don't detect any humanoids nearby," Alan said.
"Well, that's good at least," Joel said.
"So, uh, Alan, you never really finished explaining the whole 'baby sister' thing," Ellie said.
"I didn't? Huh, yeah, I guess you're right. I could have explained it a little more," Alan said before continuing his explanation from earlier, "Well, you remember how I said my dad was a big fan of that actor I mentioned? John Wayne?" Ellie nodded in response. "Well, he gave me a middle name that is the same name as one of his most famous character, Rooster Cogburn, the main character of one of his and eventually my favorite movies, True Grit. Anyway, in the movie, Rooster is charged with looking over this young girl while they travel through a dangerous land. Because the girl acts so much like a sister rather than a client, he called her 'baby sister.' So, I just kinda do it too," Alan said, finishing his explanation. (A/N: Interesting fact: I read once that the character Rooster Cogburn was actually the inspiration for Joel. Don't see it? Reread Alan's description of the movie True Grit a few sentences past and then describe the story of the Last of Us.)
"Oh, okay," Ellie said, slipping her pack off and pulling a book out, "Alright, enough of this serious stuff. Time for some jokes."
Joel sighed in surrender while Alan looked at him in confusion, due to his reaction.
"Alright, let 'er rip, Baby Sister," Alan said, waving for her to start.
"Okay! Joel, don't give away the answers," Ellie said.
"Fine," Joel muttered.
"A book just fell on my head…I only have my shelf to blame," Ellie said, making both her and Alan laugh at the cheesy joke, "Okay here's another one: I used to be addicted to soap, but I'm clean now." Another bout of laughter from the two occurred as Ellie turned the page, "Okay, I've got a question for ya: What happened to the comedian when he committed a crime?"
"He was pun-ished," Alan said, finishing her joke.
"Aw, you heard that one before!" Ellie groaned.
"Yeah, my sister used to love those jokes when we were little."
"I didn't know you had a sister," Joel said, looking at the Evolved.
"Yeah, she's actually another reason that I want to head back home to New York City. The last time I saw her was when she was there working as a nurse. I'm hoping that, in addition to finding out Blackwatch's secrets, I'll find some information about her whereabouts."
"What's your sister like?" Ellie asked.
"Hmm, now that I think about it, she's a lot like you, baby sister. She didn't take crap from anyone, but at the same time she always believed in doing what's right, which is what led to her job choice of becoming a nurse." Alan noticed Joel flinched when he said his sister's profession. "What?"
"It's just that…well, the hospitals were hit the hardest in the initial outbreak. There's a good chance that she's…" Joel either couldn't or wouldn't finish the sentence.
"Dead. Yeah, I know that's a good possibility, but I don't see much reason worrying about what might be the case until I get the facts," Alan said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Jeez, Joel, just shit on his parade, why don't ya?" Ellie grumbled.
"He deserved to know, Ellie," Joel said.
"It's alright, Baby Sister," Alan said, "He was just saying what needed to be said."
"Whatever," Ellie said, pouting.
The group then stopped when Alan did, saying "Crap."
Ellie and Joel realized where they found themselves: at the mouth of a long and dark tunnel. When they saw this, the two shared Alan's sentiment, since they knew as well as anyone else in this world that going into the dark always meant trouble.
"Do you see anything, Alan?" Joel asked.
"Nothing in range of my sight, but in a thin tunnel that might not mean much."
"How far can you see body heat?"
"Through walls I can only see about a few feet, but through open space, about a hundred yards," Alan explained, "We should take it slow with me in the lead, so I can spot any infected hiding in the shadows."
With their agreement, the trio walked into the darkness of the tunnel that used to be part of the highway that they'd been following. Alan was keeping an eye on the shadows while they walked. They passed abandoned or destroyed vehicles, most rusted beyond usage. Luckily, they didn't find any infected in the area as they continued their way through the darkness. They found some bits and pieces that Joel could use to make some nail bombs. Unfortunately, their luck did not last long.
After they'd been walking for about fifteen minutes, Ellie accidently knocked a large rock into a hole, making a loud crash that echoed through the tunnel. Then, the trio heard a sound that made the blood in the veins of the only two in the group that actually consider themselves human to freeze solid.
"Clickers!" the girl whispered worryingly, "What do we do, Joel?"
The elder man looked around, "I don't know. Alan, how many are there?"
The third member of the group stepped forward and stared into the blackness, where the sound was coming from. The other two members knew that, while they couldn't see a thing, Alan would be able to see the infected creatures as if they were in broad daylight.
After a few seconds of staring, Alan rubbed his dark hair hidden by his grey hood and sighed, "There's a shit ton of 'em. Clickers and runners and they're heading this way. I count around thirty of the ugly fuckers."
"Shit, what'll we do, Joel?" the girl asked.
"I don't know, Ellie," Joel said, looking around, "We don't have nearly enough ammo to take them on and I don't see a way we can sneak around."
"I see what we can do," Alan said, pointing at an abandoned bus, "You two take the ladder on the back and get on the roof of the bus. When you do, lie down as flat as you can and keep quiet. I'll take care of these creeps."
"You sure you can take that many?" Joel asked.
"Guess we'll find out," Alan said, "Now hurry up."
The two others quickly and quietly did as Alan told them to. Once they were on top of the bus, Alan, with seemingly no effort, ripped the ladder off. Almost the instant that he did this, the first of the runners burst out of the darkness. Alan's arms writhed in black tendrils, breaking down and reforming into large claws with the metallic blades glittering in the darkness.
"Let's see how much these cordyceps-infected fucks like a little taste of the Blacklight virus!" he yelled as he charged at the infected hordes.
He carved through five of them, slicing them in half with his claws. He grabbed one of the infected by the head with his massive hand before throwing it at a group of runners with the momentum of a cannonball, splattering another handful of them. Alan spun in a circle slashing through a group that surrounded him. Tendrils flowed over his arms to turn them into a type that Ellie and Joel hadn't seen before. His arms both turned into massive blades.
"I've been wanting to try out my dual-sword arms," Alan said as he charged into another swarm of infected, slashing through them like scythe through wheat. He slaughtered his way through the infected numbers.
A few of the infected managed to sink their teeth into his arms, legs, or shoulders in between some of his attacks, taking chunks out of his body, only to be healed a few seconds afterwards. He spun on the tips of his toes to slash through another group of the infected. Then, he changed his arms again this time into black hands similar to the claws, though the claws were a little shorter. This time when he swiped his arm, it extended to three times its length to slice through the rest of them.
"Okay, guys, but I think that's the last of them," Alan said, calling to Joel and Ellie, who made their way back down from the roof of the bus.
"You alright, Alan?" Joel asked, referring to the bites that he suffered.
"Yeah, I should be alright, though it does kind of feel like my body's on fire."
"You going to be okay?" Ellie asked.
"Sure, compared to actually being set on fire, this facsimile isn't much," Alan said in a matter-of-fact tone.
"You've…actually been set on fire?" Ellie asked, astonished.
"A couple times actually. Blackwatch wanted to compare my healing ability to some other guy they'd captured. Never really found out the name of whoever it was, just that they had a real problem with whoever it was."
"Well, that…sucks."
"Yeah, but being set on fire isn't the worst that they did to me. Eventually, nerve endings get burned away and it stops hurting. It was the dismembering that was the worst or maybe that was the disemboweling," Alan said before shrugging, "Eh, either way none of 'em were exactly fun."
Ellie was getting a little green at Alan's words, not that he noticed in the darkness. Even Joel was getting pale from hearing what Blackwatch did to the Evolved when he was in their custody.
"L-let's get going," Joel said, leading them through the darkness.
They eventually reached a section of the tunnel that was collapsed. They looked around to see if they could find another way out and, after a few seconds of searching, Joel called out that he found something, pushing some debris out of the way of what looked like a service door. The door was rusted shut, so it was extremely difficult to open, but a hard kick from Alan slammed it open a little bit harder than they would have liked.
The three flinched when the door slammed open with a loud bang.
"Oops," Alan muttered, embarrassed.
Ellie and Joel used the flashlights to light the way while Alan used his thermal vision to scout ahead. They followed the narrow hallway through another door to reach a large area. What they found there surprised the trio. The large room was filled with moss and dust covered personal items. Curtains closed off certain areas that were seemingly used to cut off different living areas for people, judging from the beds and homemade shelves. There was even an area that looked like it was used for a nursery. The story of the people that had lived there was told by the abandoned belongings, the desiccated corpses (ones that were too eaten to turn), and the bloodstains marking the ground and the walls.
"Think any of them made it?" Ellie asked.
"It's possible, Baby Sister," Alan said before pointing around, "It looks like there are multiple ways out, so unless the infected completely surrounded the room, which I doubt since no one would be stupid enough to let their situation get that bad, they'd have a way to get out even if the infected swarmed in from the others. Besides, look around. There aren't nearly as many abandoned weapons as there should be and judging from the bloodstains, it doesn't look like any of them were picked up unless it was right after their users fell, meaning some very likely at least made it out of this room."
"Wow, I never would have noticed that," Ellie said, impressed, "You're really smart."
"Like I said, you eat enough Blackwatch scientists, you tend to pick up a thing or two."
"Not bad," Joel said, "We should look around to see if we can find anything of use in here."
There was a surprisingly good haul in regards to ammo and salvage. Ellie found some handgun ammo and arrows. Joel grabbed some more ammo for their rifles and more arrows. Alan only found a bit of salvage that they could use to create some items to help them.
While he was rifling through some scraps, he found a scrap of paper that seemed to be a journal entry. It read:
Day 3:
We were hoping to drive our cars through these tunnels after fleeing Denver, but as it turns out that the tunnels have collapsed, so that little plan went down the crapper. Luckily, we found this little alcove in the tunnels that could serve as a safe place for our group. Hopefully, those guys we left back in Denver won't find us here. They really scared the rest of us. It was obvious that they were seriously bad news.
The supplies we have should last us a good while. Hope we can find a bit more ammo pretty soon, otherwise we might not do too well against a horde of the infected. Beyond that, I'm pretty hopeful about our chances.
'Guess it was just false hope,' Alan thought, putting the sheet back down.
He looked over to see Joel and Ellie were still looking around the room for supplies. Ellie saw the paper in his hand and made her way over to him.
"What's up, Alan? What'cha find?" Ellie asked, which Alan answered by handing the journal entry to her, "Damn, guess they were worried about those hunters that were wiped out by the soldiers."
"Guess so," Alan said, as he picked up another journal entry. Ellie stood next to him as they read the second entry:
Day 47:
We've managed to find a secret way into the city, so we can avoid the guys we left behind. Not to mention that we've had more people join our group, which helped our supply reserves. Some people have found it a little unnerving to live in these tunnels surrounded by rust, moss, and darkness, but we have managed to keep the escape routes clear of any of the infected.
I am a bit worried about the infected. There seems to be more with each passing day, though the numbers aren't that overwhelming. Not yet anyway. We've been lucky thus far to not lose anybody, though Steve did twist his ankle when he was surprised by one of those clickers. There has been talk of leaving the area before the numbers get too large for us to handle, but where could we go? The cars are out of gas, so we'd have to carry all of our supplies on our backs. Not exactly the best of plans. Hopefully we'll think of something.
"Well, they knew something was happening, so they probably managed to get most of the people away before all this happened. Right?" Ellie asked, looking hopeful at Alan.
"There's a good chance, yes, Baby Sister," Alan said, smiling at her. Alan had quickly come to like Ellie for reasons like that. She worked to see the bright side of things despite the situation. Most people from the New York outbreak just kind of gave up or acted more like Joel and just accepted it, but not Ellie, no, from the beginning, Alan saw that wasn't her style. She wanted to believe that things could work out, that the things she's only seen in pictures could come back into the world.
"I think that we've found as much as we're going to in here," Joel said, "We should get moving."
"Agreed," Alan said, looking around at the different doors before asking, "So, which one do you think we should use?"
"I'd go with that one," Joel said, pointing to one of the doors.
"Why?" Ellie asked, confused at her guardian's choice.
"There's dried blood on door, so I'd guess when the shit hit the fan, someone injured headed through there in the hopes of escaping," Joel explained.
"Sounds good," Alan said as they headed to the door. The Evolved led the two humans to the door, which he pried open with his inhuman strength. The hall was pretty much the same as the living area, empty and covered in rust, dust, and moss.
They followed it to another large room with just one small problem: the door out was on the other side of the room with a majority of the room being flooded with the water being so deep that it would be well over their heads if they tried to walk through.
"Well, shit," Alan muttered under his breath, just loud enough for his companions to hear.
"What's the matter?" Ellie asked.
"The Blacklight virus and water don't exactly get along. I go into the water and my body will start freaking out. I can't shapeshift and I sink like a rock. Not really fun," Alan said.
"Damn, I was hoping that we'd gotten out of these sort of situations when I taught you how to swim," Joel said to Ellie.
"Eh, it's not that big of a deal," Alan said, shifting his arms to whipfist and looking at his companions, "Hold on."
The two humans wrapped their arms around his neck before he used his arms to latch onto the wall of the opposite side of the flooded room, which he used to pull the three of them across the flooded room.
"Whoa, that's…uh," Joel said, realizing what he was about to say, making both Ellie and Alan smile giddily.
"Go on, Joel. Say it, you know you want to. Say it's 'handy.' Come to the Pun Side," Alan said, still smiling.
"Yeah, that's not going to happen," Joel said, looking away from them.
"Is he always this much of a killjoy?" Alan jokingly asked Ellie.
"Pretty much," Ellie said, still smiling.
"Whatever, just help me move this guy out of the way," Joel said, gesturing to an infected person that had grown to be rooted to the wall, thereby blocking the door.
"Sure," Alan said, before noticing a piece of paper on the ground next to the body. Judging by the bloodstains on it, he assumed it belonged to the dead man.
"What did you find?" Joel asked, moving over to him.
"Looks like another journal entry. The last one done by this guy, apparently," Alan said before reading it:
Day 62:
It's all gone to shit. Some dumbass actually came back bitten and didn't tell anyone, which, as one would expect, caused the shit to hit the fan when he turned. A bunch of people got infected before we managed to get the others out of there. The rest of us stayed behind to try and cover their escape. I was one of the last to leave. Ended up getting bitten by the dumbass that started all of this. It feels like my skin's melting off my bones. My joints are aching and I'm just so tired.
I managed to avoid getting eaten, but the path that I took is getting flooded from a broken pipe. I can't go any further. I just want to rest. I'll just stay here for a few…more…min-
"Damn, tough luck for that guy," Ellie said.
"Yeah," Alan said, "So, we should probably get that door open."
Suddenly, there was a loud splash with something bursting out of the water. Alan didn't have time to react before it grabbed him and dragged him into the water. As soon as he was submerged, the Blacklight virus that made up his body began to react, tendrils growing out his body and squirming as if trying to reach out of the water. The infected that had grabbed the Evolved sank its teeth into his neck, letting the blood flow.
"Fuck!" Joel shouted as he pulled out a shiv and dove into the water, remembering what Alan said about his powers not working when he was underwater.
He swam down to the two wrestling in the water, getting his first look at the infected. It looked similar to a clicker, but its fungal growths grew between its fingers to form fins and its legs were fused together to form larger fins. He hurried into the fight between monsters. He wrapped his left arm around the infected's neck to pry its teeth out of Alan before driving his shiv into its head and twisting, killing it. He then grabbed Alan and pulled him to the surface.
"Thanks," Alan coughed, spitting out the last bit of the water.
"No problem," Joel said, taking deep inhales of air.
"What the fuck was that anyway?" Ellie asked.
"I was hoping you guys could tell me," Alan said, standing back up.
"I've never see an infected like that before," Joel said, "It was almost as if it had adapted to being in water, but I've never even heard of something like that."
"Fuck, this is bad. How did something like that happen?"
The group was silent for a while before Alan spoke up, "If you think about it, the answer's obvious. The virus is changing, evolving."
"You think so?" Joel asked.
"Well, I first had my suspicions when I heard how Baby sister was immune and now I'm certain. This infection is adapting to humanity learning to fight it."
"We should warn somebody about this!" Ellie insisted.
"And who would we tell?" Joel asked, "No one would believe us without proof, of which we've only got the growth around your brain, Ellie, and once we tell anyone that, they will want to carve you up just like the Fireflies did."
"Sorry, Baby Sister, but Joel's right," Alan said as he helped Joel rip the infected off of the door, "It's probably best for us to keep it a secret for now. Besides, people would likely figure it out before long anyway."
With that, Alan pulled his leg back, bending it against his chest before kicking the door hard, sending it flying off of the hinges.
The trio followed the now healed Evolved through the hall, eventually leading back outside, finding themselves on a trail.
"Ah, nice fresh air!" Alan said, taking a deep breath of the woodland air.
"Yeah, it's always nice to be outside after being trapped in tunnels like that!" Ellie agreed, stretching her arms out, liking the more open area after being cooped up in the tunnels.
"We should keep moving," Joel said, moving down the trail before Alan stopped him, his smile now gone.
"What's the matter?" Joel asked to which Alan just pointed at a nearby park map sign.
Ellie's and Joel's eyes widened when they saw what he was really pointing at. The map was marked with the symbol of the Fireflies.
A/N: And there's chapter 4! Please remember to review with any comments, question, concerns, or constructive criticism that you might have.