"Everything gonna be alright baby," - Everything Gonna Be Alright - Big Mama Thornton & Muddy Waters Blues Band, 1966

When I wake up everything is foggy. I blink a few times before rubbing my eyes to try to clear them up. When I open them again, I'm able to see more clearly. Ellie is still tucked into my side, but she's no longer snoring. I run my fingers through her ponytail, trying to get some of the new knots out.

"Morning," she says as I look around.

"Morning, kiddo," my voice is rough with sleep.

"I think I heard a bit of your actual voice," she says.

"Just need to get a bit further out and I can stop this shit." Ellie laughs as she reaches over me. She holds my canteen up to me and I smile down at her as I take it. "Thanks."

I look over to where Joel was last night and see his spot is empty. But his pack is still there.

"He went down to the stream," Ellie says and I groan as I stretch out my legs. They're sore from all the running and walking yesterday. "Hey, Char?"

"Hm?"

"How did you learn how to shoot a gun?"

"It's way too early for this," I say as my fake accent comes back.

"Please?" She looks up at me, her bottom lip is jutted out in a pout and she has the worst puppy dog eyes I've ever seen.

"Fine, damn." She laughs freely this time.

"My dad taught me," I say.

"Really?" She deadpans and I grin. "How old were you?"

"I was nine when I first learned how to shoot."

"That's no fair! I'm fourteen!-"

"And I shot only at a range, with supervision."

"But-"

"Sweetheart," I say gently. "My dad's job in the military was to teach people how to shoot guns. The only times I could be near a gun were when he was around, and he was the one to teach me how to use it."

"Your dad was FEDRA?" Ellie asks and I shake my head.

"He was in the United States Military, the Army, before I was even born."

"Oh," She says, her shoulders relaxing.

"When we're not so low on bullets and not so exposed, I'll teach you."

"Really?"

"I want you to be ready in case anything happens-"

"Don't say that," Ellie says. Her voice sounds so small, my heart breaks. "Just please, don't say that." She forces her way into my lap and wraps her arms around me.

"Oh, kiddo," I whisper as I pull her closer. Tears burn my eyes as I hear Ellie's breath stutter.

"Are you crying?" She asks.

"Maybe," I say as I rest my head on top of hers. "My dad and I had a similar conversation, once. I don't know how you must be feeling right now, Ellie. But I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to live for you."

She nods her head against my neck as I relax back against the tree. I pick up Joel's jacket and wrap it around her. The morning air is still cool. The breeze isn't helping with the chill, either.

"I need to go to the bathroom," she says, but she makes no move to get up.

"Well, not on me you don't." Ellie snickers as she pushes herself up. I see her rub at her eyes as she stands and walks through the trees. I grab Joel's jacket from the ground and curl my legs up to my chest. I drape his jacket over his legs before I rest my head back against the tree.

After not sleeping for over half the night, I fall into the darkness in seconds.

"Nobody made you go along with this plan," Ellie's voice pulls me from sleep. "You needed a truck battery or whatever, and you made a choice. So don't blame me for something that isn't my fault." I fight the urge to hit something. Either Joel or my head against the tree. It doesn't matter at this point.

I'm too tired for this.

"I rest my eyes for five minutes-"

"My ass," Ellie snorts. I open my eyes to see her leaned back against my leg. She's eating something on her own which is good. It's been hard to get her to actually eat this week. "You snore," she turns around.

"You do, too," I say.

"Do not-"

"Do too, now up," I say when I see Joel already has his pack and gun on.

"Well, we know who isn't a morning person," she says under her breath as she stands. I rub my forehead as I stand. The makeup I wear is already making my face itch. But I've got to wear it for a while longer. Until me and Ellie are on our own.

Or, until Joel realizes he's wrapped around Ellie's finger.

I slip my pack on as soon as I stand up and I hold Joel's jacket out for him. He takes it from me and slips it over the bottom of his backpack strap.

"How much longer?" Ellie asks.

"Five hour hike," Joel finally speaks.

Ellie tilts her head to the side, "we can manage that." Joel turns around and starts walking. I look up at the canopy of trees above us and let out a breath.

It's going to be a long day.

"What are you looking out for?" Ellie asks.

"People," Joel says. Ellie turns to me and flinches at the sight of me with my hand on the gun on my hip.

"You too?" She asks.

"People are worse than the infected, kiddo."

"I didn't even know you had a gun there!"

"I have plenty of guns, if I catch you with your hands on one without my permission-"

"I'm grounded for a month," she grumbles as she turns back around to walk by Joel. I look at their backs for a second before shaking my head and walking forward.

"Are Bill and Frank nice?" Ellie asks.

"Frank is," Joel says.

Ellie starts asking Joel more questions and I tune them out. I love Ellie, but her constant questions remind me too much of Aiden when he learned what the word 'why' means.

We start walking towards a building with a fading sign that says Cumberland Farms. I look around for a minute before I realize it's a gas station. Plants have grown up the poles and gas pumps. Weeds pop up from underneath the asphalt.

"You ask a lot of goddamn questions," Joel says and I snort. He turns back to look at me and I raise my hands in surrender.

"You're talking to a teenager." He rolls his eyes as he turns back to the gas station. Ellie walks in behind him, already asking questions again. I wait outside for a couple minutes before I decide to go in, too.

"Do I even want to know?" I ask when I walk in and Joel is searching down an aisle. Ellie is nowhere to be seen.

"Can't go one minute without questions," Joel says under his breath. I just look at him before I start to walk around the gas station away from him.

"You know," I say as I walk over to the Mortal Kombat II arcade machine.

"There's this one character named Mileena who takes off her mask and she has monster teeth, and then she swallows you and barfs out your bones?" Joel says it like he's not even thinking. I snort. Ellie must have given that speech while I was outside.

"Well, I didn't know that. Space Invaders was more of my thing." Joel looks up at me over the aisle, and for once he looks surprised. "What I was going to say was, that when a kid is quiet they're getting into shit they shouldn't be." Joel immediately stiffens and looks to the blue open door in the corner.

"He said it was picked over," Ellie says as she walks out of the back room. I look over to see her with a box of name brand tampons in her hand. "My ass."

"We'll, work on your lying game later, kiddo." Her snaps her head over to look at me and for a second I'm worried she might get whiplash from it. But then I see her cheeks turn a light pink and I have to force myself not to show my amusement.

Instead, I turn around and act like I'm trying to find things. I know this place is probably fully picked over now, and I know that the shelves are barren. I know that there's dust that covers everything. I know that the Earth has started to take over the building.

But it's nice to pretend I'm in a gas station with my family on a road trip.

I know it's not real, but it's nice to pretend.

"Well if you're just going to leave it there-"

"No," Joel cuts Ellie off.

"Did you just ask for a gun again?"

There's too much silence before Ellie speaks.

"No." I look up at the ceiling as I hear Joel leave the gas station.

"I know you want to help, sweetheart-"

"But," Ellie huffs as she walks outside. I follow her as she jogs to catch up to Joel outside.

"But, I don't want you to hurt yourself," I say when I catch up to them. "Did you know before everything went to hell that gun deaths were about to surpass car accidents for the number one cause of death for kids?"

"Really?" Ellie looks over her shoulder at me.

"Really."

"That's dumb," she says before she turns back around and starts pestering Joel with more questions. We walk for a while longer.

"You ever been on one of those?" I hear Ellie ask. I look around the tree line to see what's left of a plane crash. I stare at the crash until I feel a tug on my sleeve.

"What about you?" Ellie asks.

"Hm? No."

"Really?"

"Really. Unless you count walking through the private planes that were set up at Graceland. But, no, I never went up in the air."

"You went to Graceland?" Joel asks, looking from the crash to me.

"Yeah, school trip," I shrug.

"What's Graceland?" Ellie asks and I look over at her in shock. "What?" She squeaks when I don't answer her immediately.

"It was where Elvis lived in Memphis. You tour the house, but there's a lot more there, too. A bunch of different buildings with different displays, a place where you could get a fried peanut butter banana sandwich-"

"Who's Elvis?"

"Lord have mercy," Joel mutters under his breath.

"You really haven't heard an Elvis song?" I ask her and she shrugs. "He was called the King."

"The King?"

"Of Rock N' Roll. Can't Help Falling in Love, Suspicious Minds-"

"Jailhouse Rock, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog-" Joel continues.

"Technically Hound Dog was a cover," I say as we start to walk again. "It was originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton. Elvis was kinda known for taking stuff from black artists."

"Well, that's shitty," Ellie says. We walk in silence for a few minutes before Ellie asks another question.

"Hey Joel, you ever see Elvis in concert?"

I cover my mouth to hide my laughter as Joel lets out an explosive sigh.

Today is going much better than I thought it would.

"If you have to be bit to be infected, then who bit the first person?" Ellie asks. "Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey." I lower my face to hide my smile.

"It wasn't a monkey. I thought you went to school," Joel says when he realizes I'm not going to answer her. They've actually been talking with each other and I don't want to get between them.

"FEDRA school, they don't teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic." Joel waits a few steps before he speaks.

"No one knows for sure, but best guess, Cordyceps mutated," Joel says. I look over to see him looking ahead. Although now, he looks forward. He's not looking around at the fields and trees that surround us, searching for signs of humans.

"And some of it got into the food supply. Probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar."

"But then how did it get all around the world so fast?" Ellie asks.

"There were different brands that were sold everywhere, and even if it wasn't those brands, many were made in the same factories," I say when Joel doesn't speak.

"Bread, cereal," he pauses. "Pancake mix. You eat enough of it, you'll get infected." The pause before he said pancake mix was too long. It's too specific. I look over at him, but I don't say anything.

"Is that why you don't eat the bread of your sandwiches?" Ellie turns to me and I smile down at her.

"Nah, I'm on Atkins." Joel snorts.

"Atkins?" Ellie asks as she looks between us.

"It was a fad diet, I'm not actually on it."

"But you were," she says. "Right? That's how you didn't get infected?"

"No," I shake my head. "We bought our flour and sugar in bulk, it was cheaper that way, so we didn't get food from the bad batch that hit the shelves that Thursday."

"It went out Thursday?" Ellie asks.

"People bought it, ate it that night or Friday morning, by afternoon, evening, they got worse," Joel says as he looks at the ground. "Then, they started bitin'. Friday night, September 26, 2013. And by Monday, everything was gone."

We walk a few more steps before Ellie speaks.

"It makes more sense than monkeys. Thanks." We walk for a few minutes before Joel puts his hand in front of Ellie.

"We'll cut across the woods-"

"Isn't the road easier?" Ellie cuts him off.

"Yeah, it's just, there's stuff up there you shouldn't see."

"Well, now I have to see!" Ellie says as she jogs forward before I can grab onto her backpack straps.

"I don't want you to," Joel says as he follows her. "Ellie!" I look over at him in shock. I think it's the first time he's actually said her name.

"Can it hurt me?"

Joel waits too long to respond.

"No."

"Wrong move," I shake my head and Ellie laughs.

"You're too honest, man!" She calls over her shoulder as she continues to walk ahead of us. Joel makes no move to speed up and I keep at his pace.

"Is it going to hurt her?" I ask.

"Not physically."

"She's too stubborn for her own good," I sigh. We keep walking until we catch up with Ellie, her eyes are focused on a ditch. When I come to stand beside her, I see what she's looking at.

I immediately feel sick. I hear Ellie and Joel speaking in the background, but I can't focus on the words when I look at what's in front of us.

A mass grave.

Skeletons litter the ditch. Some pieces of tattered clothing move with the wind. I see a tiny skeleton and have to turn around. I look out at the field on the other side of the road, but the image of the smallest skeleton is seared in my mind.

It doesn't matter how many times you see something like this.

It never gets easier.

"Told you that you were going to the QZ, and you were," Joel says. "If there was room. If there wasn't," he doesn't finish.

"These people weren't sick?" Ellie asks.

"No, probably not," Joel says.

"Then why kill them?" Ellie asks.

"Can't get sick if you're dead," I say.

"But if they're in small towns, there's less of a chance-" she says.

"They'd run out of resources eventually if they lived, and then they'd make their way towards the closest QZ. Where they'd most likely get killed by the first infected they come across," I say.

"You think this is okay?" Ellie asks.

"No," I say as I look over at her. "It's how my mom died. They got everyone from my neighborhood and put them on a bus."

"But you weren't with her?" Ellie asks and I shake my head.

"She and my dad had an argument about it when we were locked up in the house," I watch a deer in the distance and try to ignore the ache in my chest. "He was former military, he knew what was going on. I think she did, too. She didn't fight him when he hid me in the basement."

"Why would she do that?" Ellie asks. "Why would she leave you behind-"

"No parent wants to see their child die," I say as I pull on her sleeve to get us to walk again. "I hated her when she left, but now, now I understand her."

"You're a mom?" Ellie asks, walking in step with me. I can hear Joel's steady steps behind us and relax a little, knowing that our backs are covered. I wait a few minutes before I finally answer her.

"I was."

Ellie doesn't say anything for a while after that.

"Huh," I say when we come up to a large electric fence. Behind it looks to be an average small town street. It's eerie and comforting at the same time. Eerie in the sense that I know there could be many people I don't know, or no one at all inside. And comforting because it reminds me of my street growing up.

"Stay there," Joel says to us as he turns back to the fence. He types in a code on the keypad before it beeps. And then, the gate opens. Joel holds it open and Ellie walks in immediately. I walk through the gate next. Joel walks through behind me and shuts the gate behind him firmly.

We walk down the street and Ellie's eyes are wide with excitement.

"What's that?" She points towards a white building that's beginning to be covered in green foliage.

"That's a chapel," I say as we continue to walk. Her face scrunches up in confusion, "a church."

"Then why call it a chapel?"

"It's smaller than most churches," I say as we come to the largest house on the street. It's a two story white home with a picket fence. "The American dream."

"What?" Ellie asks.

"A house like this, white picket fence, a couple of kids, it was the symbol of the American dream," I say. I look over at Joel and see him staring at a planter filled with dying flowers.

Joel walks through the gate and we follow him. Down the sidewalk, up the steps. When we get to the door, Joel opens it carefully. At first it's just a hair. But then he opens it fully as he steps inside.

"What the-" I cover Ellie's mouth. I don't know what's going on, but something doesn't feel right.

"Bill?" Joel calls as he starts to walk through the hallway. "Frank?"

No one answers him. We walk into a dining room and Joel stops us.

"You stay here," he says. "Ya hear anything, see anything," he pauses. "Yell."

"What if they're gone?" Ellie asks. Joel doesn't answer her.

"We'll figure it out," I say as I rest my hand on the top of her head. I look at the table in the dining room and feel a pit form in my stomach. The food has started going bad. But it can't be more than a few weeks or a month old at this point.

Two wine glasses and bottles sit on the table.

I see a white sludge at the bottom of the bottles and freeze.

"Don't go into any shut off rooms, alright kiddo?" I ask as I move to follow Joel.

"I'll just stare at the wall," Ellie deadpans. I ignore her snark. She's still a kid. She has all the ideals of wanting to be a hero. But she doesn't know what the cost of that is, and she doesn't know that the heroes she thinks of aren't real.

I walk through the kitchen and don't see anyone.

I slip through the side door and I'm back out in the hallway. I hear Ellie walking around one of the front rooms as I walk up to Joel. His hand is on the door knob as he looks back at me.

"Thought I told you to stay back there."

"I know," I say as I grab his wrist. "Don't go in there."

"Why?" He narrows his eyes down at me.

"They're gone."

"We haven't checked, they could be-"

"Joel," I say as gently as I can. "They put something in their wine. Probably opened a window-"

"Shit," he says and all I can do is nod. I tighten my grip on his wrist for a second before pulling away. I know the last thing he needs is my sympathies.

"Found something," Ellie says as she pokes her head into the hallway.

"If it's a gun-"

"It's not a gun," she rolls her eyes. "Bill left a note."

"You read it?" Joel asks. Ellie and I just look at him. "Right," he nods. I start walking towards Ellie and hear Joel behind me. We walk back into the dining room and Ellie sits at the end of the table away from the wine and food.

"You didn't try to drink the wine, right?" I ask her. Her brow furrows and she shakes her head. I feel my shoulders relax. "Good."

"Why?" She asks.

"They put something in it, some sort of drug."

"That's how they," she trails off as I nod my head.

"What's it say?" Joel asks. He raises his arm and leans on it against the open doorway behind me.

"To whomever, but probably Joel." Ellie starts to read the letter after she moves the key across the dining room table. I look around at the room around us as she reads. I force myself not to laugh when Ellie reads, "hehehehe." She reads it phonetically. It's jarring to know that kids now don't know things from the internet.

It's also the last thing I expect to hear from what looks like a doomsday prepper.

"And God help any motherfuckers who stand in our way."

And that's exactly what I would expect to hear.

"Use them to keep-" Ellie pauses and Joel walks around me to take the letter from her hands. He slips the key off the dining table, too. He turns around and reads the letter, his face stony. He grips it in his hands tightly, so tightly I think he'll rip it. He looks up and then looks back down at the letter before walking out of the room.

"Stay here."

Ellie looks at me for answers but I shake my head.

"Give him some space, alright?" I ask as I start picking up the plates.

"What are you doing?" She asks.

"Cleaning up a little."

"Are we staying here?"

"No."

"Then why are you cleaning?"

"I think Frank wouldn't have liked for this to be the first thing someone sees when they walk into the room," I say as I look down at the plates with food still on them.

"You knew them, too?" Ellie asks and I shake my head.

"No, but there's flowers outside, beautiful paintings throughout the house. I don't think a prepper like Bill would think of those sorts of things."

"But he'd let Frank have them?"

"It sounds like Frank was his purpose," I say as I push my way back to the kitchen. I toss the plates in the trash can before walking back into the dining room. I grab the wine bottles and glasses before walking back through to the kitchen. I throw them away like the plates before I walk over to the sink.

I turn the tap slowly and sigh when water comes out. I wash my hands quickly as I look out of the window. The garage door is open. It wasn't open when we came in. I walk back into the dining room and see Ellie tapping her feet as she looks around the dining room.

"Char?" She asks when I walk in.

"Yeah?"

"We're going to be okay, right?"

"We will," I say gently.

And I'll do everything I can to make sure I didn't just lie to her.