Chapter 17: A Blast From The Past

A/N- I'd like to thank you all for the support I got since last week. It really helps a lot so let's keep that up! This chapter has a surprise for you all, and I hope you guys like it. Enjoy :)

The Burned Man landed in the pool of Infected and they had no mercy for him as they beat, ripped, and shredded of what was left of his being... His dying scream echoed across Pinewood Park...

"AHHHHHHH!"

The Stalkers had torn the charred skin off of his thighs and face to reveal the exposed tissue and flesh of the man.

"Shit... Goddamn..." Joel slightly regretted his actions as to shooting The Burned Man, but being held at gunpoint by the charred human being certainly quelled some of the guilt. "Ellie!" He then turned his attention back to the hatch that he had to open which would lead him through the ceiling of the boxcar.

"OY! PENDEJO!" Joel turned his head and pointed his gun to a new stranger, with a woman's voice at that. The bold Latina with dark brown eyes who was very physically attractive, long dark hair tied back, wearing clothes to display her figure, tight red shirt and jeans. "Tomaste mi objectivo!" She was speaking quickly in Spanish and realized the old man didn't understand. "Por que... estupido, who the hell do you think you are?!"

"W-what...?" Joel was trying to get a handle on things. First a barbecued man shows up in front of him, now he had this chica yelling at him out of nowhere. "...Who are you?"

"Ay ay ay... gringos." The woman rubbed her eyes as she pulled out a handgun and waved it around nonchalantly as she attempted to explain what happened to Joel. "You just kill my target." She pointed the barrel of the gun down at what remained of The Burned Man. "I was looking for him and you, bang bang, made it impossible for me to shoot him. Entiende? Understand?"

"Oh. Well then that make you some sort of bounty hunter or something?" Joel guessed from what he could comprehend here. He honestly never really got involved with these kinds of people. Then again, it sounded like she was from down South, maybe Arizona or even Mexico, he had no idea what it could be like down there right now. "That guy was babblin' nonsense and already half dead."

"If you must know, when I found him he try to burn himself to escape his fate. Idiota was a freak! And I try to flush him out with this train." The Latina motioned towards the locomotive they were standing on.

"So you blew the damn whistle and brought out the Infected on us." Joel scoffed at her, he might as well shoot this girl now before she got the upper hand on him. She already claimed there was a conflict between them, and he had killed for less. "...That makes you the el estupido one."

She simply yawned at him. "The drawl that comes out of your mouth could put me to sleep, how about we talk about you paying me the bounty you stole from me!"

"I didn't steal from you; he was waving a gun at me." If anything why was he even putting up an argument, wasn't Joel going to shoot this woman and be done with it?

A loud thumping cut that thought short when they both heard the closed hatch next to Joel speak out to them. "Joel? Joel! I hear you! Get this fucking door open!"

"Ah... your name is Joel?" She smirked as the mercenary finally introduced herself. "Hola, mi llamo Olivia... and you owe me a body so..." She tossed her gun behind her and put up her fists in a boxing fight stance. "Fight!"

"What in the hell...?" Joel was almost at a loss for words again. This woman was going to fight him? Him?! Hand-to-hand? The thought of actually punching a woman deterred Joel from this, but he did just think about shooting her a minute ago. He probably had about fifty pounds on her, and she had no weapon. But then again, he still had to be careful as the Stalkers were still roaming around the train. "If that'll make you happy..." He holstered his gun and put up his fists as well.

Olivia smirked as she lunged at him like a cat. "I love a man that listens! YAH!"

And holy crap she was quick. But Joel was able to dodge by stepping back and avoiding the left hook she threw at them. "Lady, you must be real messed up to want a guy to hit ya..."

"What's really 'messed up' is a man with no huevos, I think you need some gringo!" Olivia taunted as she spun around to give a roundhouse kick which Joel was able to block and counter attack.

Olivia smirked as she dodged the burly fist by a few inches and perform a back flip. She landed with catlike finesse to end the quick warm-up. But they soon clashed again to continue their bout.

Joel defended, blocking several attacks, biding his time. As his opponent attempted an axe kick, Joel blocked the descending foot and surprisingly swept his attacker's other foot, dumping her to the ground with a loud clang on the metal. And a swift punch to the throat finished her and he stood, breathing heavily with exertion.

He wasn't exactly proud of that, Joel actually felt bad for her, seeing Olivia gasp for air as she clutched her neck. "Sorry about that Miss... I might have gotten a little carried aw-! OOF!"

Olivia had entangled her strong legs with Joel's, and she made him trip and fall forward, landing right next to her. She quickly got back up and she climbed on top of him as she boldly began pummeling him in the face, right and left, right and left! Joel had enough as he swung them over, rotated, and reversed their positions. He was on top of her now and he inched her towards the edge of the train as he held her down. "You done yet you crazy psycho?!" Joel got in real close to send her the message.

"Fuckin open! Rah!" Ellie busted through the hatch and climbed onto the top of the boxcar. "Joel, I made it! Are you... okay?" The redhead found Joel in a very intimate position with some random Spanish-looking lady. "...uh Joel? What are you doing...?"

"Ellie! I ain't doing nothing!" Joel realized what it had looked like and he was quick to attempt to discern Ellie's mind-in-the-gutter thoughts.

"Get off of me!" Olivia yelled as she kneed Joel in the huevos to which he took the full force of it. Joel grunted and convulsed from the blow, but he kept the woman pinned.

"GET THE HELL OFF OF HER!"

Joel felt big meaty hands grab his back as he was picked off of Olivia and thrown across the boxcar back towards Ellie, her eyes like dinner plates and her mouth gaping open, threatening bugs to fly in there. "Holy shit..."

"Liv, you alright?" The large man extended a hand and offered to pick her up.

Olivia or 'Liv' slapped his hand away and got up on her own. "Took you long enough! This punta nearly killed me and he took my bounty!"

"What them?" He turned to them and his demeanor sagged as he sighed. "Oh fuck me..."

Joel and Ellie addressed him in unison.

"...Bill?!"

"Wait you know those two?" Olivia seemed very surprised that they already meet these acquaintances.

"Unfortunately..." Bill sighed as he holstered his weapon. "Didn't think you'd still be with this little snot Joel." He referred to Ellie who had hopped out of the hatch and on top of the train as well.

"Well I sure didn't miss your fat ass..." Ellie crossed her arms as Joel winced and got back up, standing beside her.

"Look you little shit!" Bill threatened as he grabbed for his machete to which Joel covered Ellie's mouth to silence her.

"It's good to see you too, Bill." Joel appeared indifferent to his presence, but he was glad to find an old face all the way out here. "But I always had the impression that you worked alone? What happened to your town?"

The screaming and bellows of the Infected below the four of them were familiar but they were also discomforting, not the greatest place to catch up. So Bill suggested to them. "Come on, we can talk inside..."

Olivia seemed appalled. "Bill! You're just going to-!"

"They're fine Liv!" He silenced her as he made his way to the first boxcar. "Joel's an old business partner and the girl is... well I don't know what she is..."

Ellie scoffed at his remark. "Haha, fuck you too."

Bill gave a chuckle to that. "Ho-ho-ho sure didn't miss that..." He came to the top hatch of the first boxcar on the train. "Right here." The four of them dropped down inside the boxcar where it was sealed shut and candles burned on all four corners of the interior. There were open vents in the upper areas for fresh air though, and blankets, small piles of food were strewn around the boxcar, similar to the basement of the church back in Bill's old town. "Lance! Up and at'em!"

Suddenly in one of the corners of the boxcar, a pile of blankets stirred and a bright blue-eyed muscled white guy with short black hair and no shirt on sat up from his nap. He still seemed half-asleep. "...Liv? Bill? We moving out?"

"Orale pues! Get a damn shirt on, we apparently have company." Olivia tossed him his ugly red Hawaiian shirt which he caught.

"Pants too? Or can I keep it casual?" Lance joked as he buttoned his shirt and reached for his jeans, already assuming they would say yes. "Who are these guys?"

"And why are we giving them special treatment Bill? Who cares if you know them?" Olivia complained as she cursed under her breath in Spanish. "That guy almost killed me!"

"Hey you started it!" Joel barked back as she got into his face.

She yelled back. "And I'm going to finish it!"

"Everybody calm the fuck down!" Bill separated them and pushed them to opposite sides of the train car. "Liv, you could have waited for me before you went off on your own."

Olivia responded with a dry laugh. "And interrupt your fun? You seemed busy..." Her eyes darted to Lance before she settled back on Bill.

Bill looked about ready to kill her right there with the stare he was giving her, but he settled back down and took a deep breath. "Why don't you and Lance study up on the controls, I'm getting real sick and tired of just driving you two around... I'll tend with our 'guests'."

"Fine!" She hissed as she motioned for Lance to follow her. "Whatever you want Bill."

She left them all with a huff and climbed back up to the ceiling hatch as Lance awkwardly passed by Bill and quietly introduced himself to an almost shocked Ellie and Joel. "Nice to meet you both..."

Joel just shook Lance's hand as Ellie replied. "You too." When Lance turned their back on them, Joel quickly wiped his hand on his jeans. "He wasn't sticky... was he?

"Thank Christ, no." Joel answered with a whisper as Bill turned to them and Lance shut the hatch behind them.

"...You know its times like these where I wish I was by myself again." Bill crossed his arms as he addressed the two of them.

"Why aren't you Bill?" Joel questioned him. "Why in the hell you all the way out here? ...And with those two..."

"Well if you can believe it Joel, a lot can happen in, what is it? More than a year now?" Bill explained to them. "After you two left... I uh... was alone for a long time. And eventually my town ran bone dry... and I just walked, you know how it is."

"Where'd you get the cool-ass train Bill? That's what I wanna know." Ellie piped up from behind Joel.

"I don't got to tell ya anything kid." Bill didn't take too well to the prying from her so he just addressed Joel. "Lance and Liv picked me up back East, and we found this train at a station. I fixed it up and we rode the line to here."

"Alright... fair enough." Joel nodded and he decided maybe it was best that they moved on but first... "You got a nice setup here, but y'know we got a settlement a little ways away from here. You and your friends can join up, live there instead."

"Well, that's real nice of ya Joel but no. I'd rather just leave things the way that they are." Bill began to go around the boxcar taking account of things, and he began muttering to himself as if they weren't even in the room. "...Anything else?"

"We'd like our horse back and..." Joel gave a glance to Ellie then back to Bill. "We could use a hand getting through the Infected, after that we'll leave ya'll alone."

"You're asking me for another favor..." Bill sighed again. "Why am I not surprised? Joel wants his horse back... but that would mean we wouldn't be square no more."

"Come on! Don't be a dick about it!" Ellie complained loudly to him. Things didn't really change that much with Bill after all. "That girl was the one who blew the whistle and brought them on us!"

"She's right Bill." Joel agreed and pressed. "We're low on ammo, and I'd... we'd appreciate it. ...I won't even ask why you three were even after that Jesus-loving crispy critter out here."

"...Alright fine, but if we're gonna to do this, we're gonna to do this smart." Bill walked over to one of the tables in the corner. "You still use nail bombs?"

"Ever since you showed me, saved our lives more than once." Joel was relived to get Bill's help. They were in a bit of a bind, and Tommy would kill him if he lost them another horse.

"Good," Bill gingerly grabbed two already finished nail bombs. "We're gonna need a few, you two get cracking."

Lance, Olivia, Joel, Bill, and Ellie stood atop of the first boxcar and all of them had a nail bomb in each hand. So that was in total: ten shredding machinations of survival. Fun stuff.

"Bombs away!" Lance signaled as he tossed one on a cluster of Infected to which they dumbly approached towards it.

*BOOM!*

"Hasta la vista motherfuckers!" Olivia laughed off as she threw her bombs on two big groups of Stalkers.

*BOOM!* *BOOM!*

"Fuckin' predictable." Bill remarked as he, Joel, and Ellie followed suit and because of all of their efforts the bulk of the raging Infected and been taken out. "...Got a few stragglers."

"I got'em." Olivia volunteered as she pulled out a pistol and emptied part of her clip. The five remaining Stalkers were quickly taken out and they all fell to the ground with no Infected present now. All of her bullets were head-shots...

"Holy shit!" Ellie and Joel were astonished with her accuracy. "That was amazing."

Lance praised. "Yeah, the girl is all bark and a hell of a bite."

"And none of you guys fucking forget it, especially you." She leered at Joel with the intensity of powerful lasers. "You're lucky I didn't use a gun."

"Then why didn't ya?" Joel challenged her as she got up in his face once more. "Would've been quicker."

"I like to get my hands dirty... well, dirtier..." Olivia's tone suddenly dropped and she gave him an up and down inspection of his body. She couldn't be... flirting? But then she gave a hard slap to Joel's face and walked away. "Ciao to both of you."

"She's a real piece of work, huh?" Lance smirked at the scene until he turned to Bill. "Hey we need to get this thing back to the boss and get our payment. Dude doesn't care who shot him, we'll just collect ourselves."

"Sounds good, now..." Bill turned to Joel and Ellie. "Will you two get the hell off my train?"

"Jeez... don't have to be such an asshole. Let's go find Callus II Joel." Ellie motioned for him to follow her as she climbed down off the train. "Hurry up!"

"Wait a sec Ellie, Bill... you uh, sticking around the area?" Joel stated as Lance and Bill gave him confused expressions. "Just saying, Jackson is gonna stay where it is."

"Wait what? There's a camp around here?" Lance's eyebrows rose as he spoke in a surprised tone. "Bill we should check it out!"

"It's got electricity and everything!" Ellie yelled up to them as she still waited for Joel to join her. "...Great place to settle down."

"...We'll think about it." Bill brushed them all off as he headed towards the front of the train. "Got to get our payment first anyway." That was almost in a robotic tone.

"...I'll try and convince both of them to check out Jackson, thanks Joel. Maybe next time we meet up, I'll actually have clothes on." Lance joked as he headed off as well.

"Yeah..." Joel responded as he began to climb off the train and have his feet land on solid ground loaded with the corpses of the Infected. "Take care."

"We will!" They heard Lance call out to them as the train began to move and chug down the tracks.

The locomotive was loud to say the least. How the three of them were able to keep this thing maintained is beyond Joel and Ellie's understanding. As the train picked up speed, it was quickly out of view as it departed from Pinewood Park.

"It's still fucking cool that they have a train." Ellie chirped as he began walking away from the tracks and start their search for Callus II. "You really want Bill in Jackson?"

"Why not? I think he deserves a place where he doesn't need to worry about everything, like back in his old town."

"I guess... and that girl, Olivia, I think she likes you~"

"She tried to kill me... that ain't my type." Joel looked back at the redhead who had a grin stretching from ear to ear. "Let's just find that damn horse and get back home."

"Love can kill."

"Ellie!"

And she just laughed at his expense.

Bill, Lance, and Olivia walked into the dingy office or rather they were escorted by some guards with guns. The office was actually kind of bare in regards to furniture and decorations. The back wall was mostly a window that overlooked the atrium below, and a dusty desk and an old occupied swivel leather chair had its back to them. The guards left the office, leaving the three of them with two other men.

"We did the job. The leader of that freaky cult will no longer be a problem." Bill informed them.

The swivel chair turned around to reveal the identity of their employer to them. And it was...

Commander Devlin...

"Good work. I respect that you didn't question as to why you were tasked to taking him out... good." Devlin nodded to each of them individually. "These guys can get the job done, right Grant?"

"Absolutely, as long as they would follow my orders." Grant agreed as he gave a visual inspection on each of them.

"Wait, whaddya guys mean?" Bill looked from Grant then back at Devlin. "What the hell does he mean?"

The Firefly Commander stood up from his chair to address them. "Well you see Bill, I like to keep records, reports on all contacts made by the Fireflies, and that includes enlisted smugglers..." And then he was handed a manila envelope that Grant gave to him, to which he pulled out a paper from it. "Do you happen to know any smugglers based in Boston by the names of Tess or Joel?"

Bill lied through his teeth, he didn't have to send these guys after a potential neighbor, and Lance had been trying to persuade him since yesterday to all go to Jackson. "No, I can't say that I have."

"Oh that's funny, because Tess mentioned you by name when we gave her an escort mission." Shit, Devlin had called him out. "I mean you have done more than a few favors for each other, do you deny that too? Now this stuff here in my hand, is evidence Bill... evidence that makes you a fucking liar!"

Devlin slammed the file on the desk, and the paper had shown of a photograph, taken by an old camera of Bill, Tess, and Joel doing of what looked like a secretive smuggler's transaction. "We like to do a little research on the people we trust with the fate of fucking humanity!"

"W-what? Calm down sir, what do you mean?" Lance tried to quell the tension and in response Grant silenced him.

"He wasn't talking to you!" Grant yelled at him and Olivia was grumbling Spanish curse words. "Quiet chica!"

"Oh they haven't told you? Well then again they weren't suppose to know either and everything just went to shit from there... So allow me to inform you of my little fucking predicament." Devlin crossed his arms and he continued. "Joel killed our leader and took away our cure."

"Cure?" Bill must have misheard. "Cure for what?"

"The Cordyceps... the parasite!" Devlin growled this at them. "Don't you fucking get it yet?!"

"Joel had the cure? All this time...?" They just saw him yesterday!

The Commander revealed it to them. "It's the little girl, she's immune... Ellie, you meet her? Do not lie to me again!"

"Y-yeah... yeah I meet her..." Bill was still trying to take it all in. That girl, that girl was immune to all of this? And Joel never mentioned it? Then again would he have really believed him?

A cure... and Joel never delivered.

"Then if you want to help us put man's destiny back in his hands... make a real difference... change the world... you're going to get her for us. She knows you so you can get in close... You'll be taking orders from Grant here."

"Do we have a choice?" Olivia angrily questioned.

"No. But I assure you all... you are doing the right thing, for everyone's sake." He declared. "Do we have your compliance?"

"Bill?" Lance piped up to him. "What are we doing?"

"... *sigh* you Fireflies sure can be a pain in the ass..." Bill shook his head as he looked back to his partners who were waiting for his answer and then to the Leader of the Fireflies. "When are we leaving?"

He never particularly liked that little shit anyway...

A/N- What are the odds of this happening? Did you guys expect Bill to be brought back? What do they all have planned for capturing Ellie? Will they succeed or will something else delay them again? BIG drama will happen next chapter and perhaps I'll make it extra long for you guys :) Hours to write, seconds to review! Stay tuned!