Chapter 13: A Stick and a Hard Place
A/N- I know this isn't the best title but there are several stick references I'll be making. So I'm 'sticking to it'.
"Fuck! Oh fuck!" Ellie was snapping her scope from the wolf to a fully exposed Commander Devlin.
What should Ellie do...?
"Goddamit Joel!" Ellie snapped back to Pepper the Wolf who was being punched in the nose by Joel violently.
"ARGH! GET OFF!" Joel shouted as the beast sunk deeper into his arm.
That was when Ellie fired Carter's sniper rifle, and the damn recoil from the gun was so bad, it really knocked the girl on her ass. "Shit!"
Almost instantaneously, the animal that was on top of Joel yelped when a mess of blood and gore appeared as did as hole in the canine's head, and the wolf released its grip and Joel rolled out from under her.
Devlin was alarmed by the sniper fire to say the least as he took cover behind a nearby tree and peered around to look at the cabin for any more shots. "Ellie I'm sure?! Or was that Carter?! Come on out so we can figure this fuckin' thing out!"
Joel pushed the body of Pepper off to the side and made a break for it for his backpack that was chock-full of weapons and only a few yards away of where he disarmed himself. But then the Commander spun back around and fired his gun at the old man, forcing him to take cover by another tree defenseless besides the cover of a wooden trunk. Devlin however kept him pinned there...
Ellie got back up and grabbed the sniper rifle again, she aimed the cross-hairs at the Commander and fired, only to find out that the clip was empty! "No! Shit! Carter where's the extra ammo?!"
And Carter was still passed out from blood loss... but she noticed something glinted in his hand...
Grant then came back up from below the hill to join the party, but he seemed to be in a panic. "Devlin we got Infected coming this way, NOW!"
*Grooooah!* *Click* *Click* *Groooooah!*
"What?!" Devlin exclaimed in disbelief, but then he commanded all of the Fireflies and Bandits who kept watch over Tommy, Maria, and an unconscious Rylan. "All of you! Kill those damn monsters and keep them at bay! It's time to finish this, right now!"
Devlin marched towards Joel, gun in hand as Grant and the rest of the men aimed their weapons at the incoming herd of Runners and Clickers. Now with all of them distracted, Tommy whispered over to his wife. "Maria honey, can you reach my hands? Try to untie them."
"I'll try." Maria nodded as she leaned over to him to the bindings around his wrists.
Joel clutched his bleeding and aching arm and looked around his cover to see that there was chaos afoot. But then the butt of a revolver met his face as Devlin quickly advanced on him, wanting to make him fight and suffer before he died.
Joel stared down the end of a gun barrel until he swatted away his arm and kicked him right between the legs. Devlin recoiled and keeled over from the pain but retaliated with an uppercut with his left fist into Joel's chin and tried to aim his gun at him again. But Joel used both hands to try to control the gun and he forced it up into the air. Both of the men's strength found their way on the trigger and they fired the gun.
*BANG* *BANG* *BANG*
And then the gun clicked, signaling that it no more bullets to offer. And Joel locked a death glare with Devlin as he head-butted the Commander with all of his might and immediately tacked him to the ground! Joel had punched Devlin, right and left, right and left! But the Commander of the Fireflies found an opening between Joel's punches, and he swung his weight and spun themselves around, reversing their positions with himself on top.
"You son of a bitch!" He growled as he began pummeling him. "JUST FUCKIN DIE!"
Devlin's hands then slammed away Joel's injured and struggling arms and they wrapped around the old man's throat. Devlin gritted his teeth as he held dominance over his prey and he squeezed tighter and tighter around Joel's neck. He was gasping for air, powerless and without a weapon to defend for himself...
*BANG*
"AHH! ACK!"
Ellie had found one extra bullet in Carter's hand and fired it into Devlin's back...
Devlin had slackened his grip and he began to slump over from the impact and Joel took the golden opportunity. So he gave a powerful punch across his face and he rolled off of him as well, incapacitated and reached and clutched for his back ribs in agony. "Little Brother! We gotta go! C'mon!"
"I got it!" Maria exclaimed as she undid the knot around Tommy's wrists which unbound them and he quickly untied her wrists. "Joel!"
"Help me with him!" Tommy told her as Maria and him picked up a limp Rylan and slung him on his back.
*Click* *Click* *Groooaaghh?* *Grooah!*
Maria and Tommy were now free, but the sounds of men screaming filled the air as Clickers began to bite and devour some of the gunmen behind them. Grant then looked back and saw that Commander Devlin was on the ground and the hostages were free and making a break for the cabin. "NO! Keeping shooting!"
Joel then picked up his backpack and joined Tommy, Maria, and a still unconscious Rylan and made their way back on the wooden porch. "Get inside!"
Tommy looked back at the oncoming Infected that was about to engulf them. "Holy shit!"
They all quickly filed inside the cabin as the herd of Infected became louder and louder. Ellie had shut the window shutters and they grouped together around the dining table, and she addressed them. "Everyone alright?"
"The kid's still outta it." Tommy motioned to Rylan still on his back. "Who's he?"
Joel ignored his brother's comment on Carter and brought them back to the reality of this precarious situation. "Never mind that, we gotta get out here, now!"
"Are you kidding?! It's a cluster-fuck out there, how are we..." She trailed off but then her face lit up. "Wait a second, I got an idea!"
Joel barked at her. "Ellie we don't have time for this!"
"We need a distraction to get away from the Infected and cover our asses. So..." The redhead reached inside her backpack and pulled out the five sticks of dynamite she picked up from the mine. "This'll work, right?"
"Oh my god, Ellie where did you get those?!" Maria exclaimed.
Admittedly, Joel could see the logic in Ellie's explosive plan, but that's the thing, it was explosive. And even worse, this was dynamite, they needed to get far enough away so that they wouldn't be affected by the blast, but who would stay behind to light the fuse?
The Infected growled and roared as they began to bang and slam themselves into the front of the cabin. Glass began to shatter and the hinges of the door began to gave way under the repeated abuse of the fungal predators. If they were going to do something, they had to do it now!
"...I'll do it."
They all turned to the willing volunteer who sat at the table, his hand covering his red-stained shirt. And Carter repeated himself through another croak. "I'll do it."
"You'd be doing some good here, old man." Joel agreed with him.
"Carter... y-you..." But Ellie stopped herself. Of course she felt guilty that another person was going to die because of the their circumstances, but the thing was all of them were not going to argue with him about this. None of them knew this dying old man for more than a day and yet...
"It's alright Ellie..." Carter coughed as he extended his hand and reached in his pocket and surprisingly pulled out a single cigarette. "I don't think I can walk on my own, and you already got your boy there to worry about. ...One thing I was honest about ya'll... this was my daddy's cabin, and I'm old enough to know this is how I want it to end, right here... besides... I'd just slow ya down anyway..."
Maria then went up to this old man she never met before, a stranger willing to sacrifice for her and the people she cared for. "Thank you, thank you so much."
"Don't mention it." Carter grinned through his pain. "Now, anybody got a light?"
"Ellie, wrap the sticks and fuses together." Joel ordered as he pulled out a set of matches and lit Carter's cigarette. "We gonna make a run for it out the back door. Ready?"
Tommy, Maria, and Ellie confirmed with a nod or 'yeah'. No time to collect more supplies from the cabin, they had to get the hell out of dodge. Joel gave his matches to Carter, and Ellie gave him the bomb he was suppose to light. "Now go on, get out of here!"
"Thank you..."
"It's okay..."
Ellie left him to his own devices and she joined her group by the back door, all of them except Tommy had a gun drawn waiting to charge on out of there. The Infected suddenly broke half the door down, and Runners were clawing their way in and roaring at their potential victims. "Let's go!"
Their group swung open the back door and stormed out of the compromised cabin. However, Carter remained calm and he breathed in his cigarette deeply as he lit another match to light the combined fuses of the bomb. He tossed the bomb on the floor and took another toke of his 'cancer stick'. Not really concerned about his health at this point...
The old cowboy smirked. "End of the line huh? Hmph..."
Runners and Clickers had barged through all the front entrances of the cabin and soon it began to fill up. The monsters lunged at a peaceful Carter as the sparks along the fuses disappeared into the dynamite...
*Grrooah?*
...
*BOOM!*
The group looked back from the mountain path they were on to see the cabin engulfed in the explosion and then be consumed by red and orange flames. They all looked on in awe as the log cabin was already beginning to loose its form and the wood that made up its walls and roof turned black as the fire drew all of the Runners to the sounds of its cackling of the flames and brightness of the explosion.
Ellie looked on at the carnage of the structure and she heard the screams of the Infected as a good number of them were burning to death. She seemed frozen, almost unable to realize what just happened until Joel brought her back. "Ellie? ...We got to go."
She nodded. "Okay."
And they kept moving... It was like Tess all over again...
...
The five of them kept running and soon the running turned into climbing as they went higher and higher up the mountain. They were all exhausted from the hours of excruciating travel. They wanted, no needed, to get as much distance as possible from the blown up cabin and the Fireflies. It got cold though and the sun had already set as the night began to take them once more. They had to find some shelter.
"Hey look at that." Maria pointed at what looked like a small shack just off the trail on the side of the mountain. It had a small antenna on top and it looked abandoned. "Might be a good place to spend the night."
"Sounds good. Argh!" Joel winced as he coddled his left arm from the bite mark. "Damn dog..."
"Is Rylan still sleeping?" Ellie inquired to Tommy who still carried him. "He's been out for a while."
"Out like a damn light..." Tommy sighed. "Let's just stay in that shack there. Think we could all use some rest."
"I'll check it out." Maria offered as she pulled out her gun and approached the small door, but Ellie came up behind her and pulled out her pistol as well.
"I got your back."
Maria nodded to her and then Joel as the three of them opened the door and walked into the windowless building. Everything was silent as they traversed the one room shack, and the floor was made of cement. It only had two cots in the corner of the room, some electronic equipment, some empty cabinets, and an old wooden stove.
"Clear!" Maria told the rest of them. "Looks like whoever was here, left a while ago."
"Good we can rest here for the night and figure things out in the mornin'." Joel stated as he closed the door behind them. "Try to get that stove working for some warmth."
"Your arm okay?" Ellie asked in concern. "I know you cleaned it and bandaged it but-!"
"I'm fine, Ellie." Joel responded and pointed towards one of the cots. "Tommy, put the boy down over there."
"Right..." Tommy panted as he flopped Rylan off him and onto the bed. "Honey, can you check on his eye?"
"I can take a look." Maria replied as she went over to Rylan and Tommy came back to address Ellie and Joel.
"So what are you thinkin, little brother?" Joel questioned as he gingerly crossed his arms. "Could they still be following us?"
"Well, the way I see it, them Bandits and Fireflies were steamrolled by them Infected. Joel..." Tommy suddenly spoke in a more serious tone. "...Did you kill Devlin?"
"I shot him..." Ellie chimed in. "I know I got him when he was on top of Joel."
"Ain't no way he got out of that." Joel declared with confidence. "You saw it yourself they were almost on top of us."
"Maybe... probably. I don't know..." Tommy shrugged his shoulders, unsure of the Commander's fate. "But what I think we should do is go on back around the long way and get back to Jackson, take back our home."
"Sounds good." Joel then looked back to Maria then to Ellie. They were all tired of running away. "We'll head out in the morning. Tommy, I want to be sure about this place so let's scout out the surrounding area, make sure nothing wakes us up in our sleep."
"Alright." He agreed with his elder brother as the two of them exited the shack.
"Ellie!" Maria called her over to the cot. "He's awake."
"Oh my god, Rylan. Are you okay?" Ellie was by his side in mere seconds as he began to stir and only able to open his right eye.
"Oh... fuck. Ellie?" Rylan groaned as he turned his head to her. "...Am I still pretty?"
She chuckled at that, relived that his sense of humor wasn't affected. "You look like shit."
Rylan's face was stained with his own blood, and his left eyelid remained shut with no eyeball to keep it open. But Maria was kind enough to get some white bandages and gently wrap the gaze around his head to hide the mutilation. "I feel like shit..."
"There are bruises around your throat and stomach too. So, you're going to stay here and not move a muscle." Maria ordered in a motherly tone. "You're going to hurt like hell the next few days."
"Great... *sigh* oh shit! Claire!" He shot himself up only to wince in pain some more. "Ow!"
"What did I just say?" Maria pushed him back down. "Settle yourself down now."
"She's dead Rylan... they uh... sent us her, her head." Ellie sadly informed him to which his eyebrows raised at that.
"Oh no... h-her head?!" Rylan stared at her wide-eyed. "Jesus, then they... they ate the rest of her..."
"What?!" Both girls exclaimed at that.
"They eat people too?! Those fuckin' animals!" Ellie cursed the bandits and specifically the Grant character.
Maria had her cheeks puffed out as she covered her mouth, and with all of her might she held back the vomit and swallowed it. She weirdly enough had been throwing up a lot since they were hostages of the Fireflies and Devlin... maybe it was because of that, no... "You two stay her... I-I need to check on Tommy and Joel. Just... behave." It was as good an order as any.
Rylan and Ellie watched as Maria excused herself from the shack to find the Texan brothers, leaving the two teens by themselves, and Rylan's eye looked downcast as he realized that he almost died today, and he had to tell somebody what happened to him.
So he said so matter-of-factually and so off-topic, "...I had to kill my mom..." His remaining brown eye seemed so cold. "She wasn't even Infected..."
Ellie was shocked to say the least as she took in one of the revelations of Rylan's past, and his mother's fate, matricide. "W-what?"
"I want you to know what happened to me Ellie... before I came to Jackson. ...I'm ready now." He firmly told her. "Please..."
"Rylan... what the fuck did you? What happened to you?"
He sighed as he began his story. "It all started with this guy we elected in our old town... I'll never forget his name...
Ellie's entire body froze, unable to move a muscle, and her mind wandered back to the dark recesses of her mind as she heard him mutter this man's name.
"...David..."
A/N- Rylan's history will finally be revealed next chapter! And do you think Devlin or Grant survived the Infected onslaught? Will the group find more friends or foes on their trip back? And what's wrong with Maria...? *hint*
Find out next time, stay tuned for Chapter 14: Our Dark Pasts