Chapter 5 up, finally. Please enjoy.


Chapter 5

"Push," Nick said, the words coming out in a grunt from the effort of holding the doors.

"I am fucking pushing," Ellie hissed out between gritted teeth.

She braced the entire weight of her body against the wood. The doors shook violently, and Ellie felt her feet slide backwards on the dusty floor. Even though they were dead and most of their muscles had atrophied long ago, the sheer number of the stalkers more than made up for it. So much so that it took the combined effort of both Ellie and Nick to hold the doors shut.

"We can't keep this up forever," Ellie grunted as she took a new footing to recapture the ground she had lost.

"I know," Nick said, his voice strained. "We need something to block the door with."

Ellie cast her eyes around the room looking for something that was both big and heavy enough to do the job. The small shed they had taken cover in was far from empty. There were several shelves covered with boxes and buckets, a table with one chair, a small metal tank, two barrels and three crates. Out of all of these objects, only the barrels, the crates and the tank looked like they could potentially fill the roll. One of the barrels was broken, so that one was out, and the other one was connected with a metal hose to the tank. Ellie didn't know how much the tank weighed but she was sure as hell she wouldn't be able to lift it and carry it to the door, which sucked since it was the closest of the alternatives.

"Those crates over there might work." Ellie said and nodded in their direction. "Can you hold them back alone?"

"I can handle it. Go! Hurry!"

Ellie let go of the door and ran to the far side of the shed where the crates were. She grabbed hold of the nearest one but found that it was so heavy that she could hardly even lift the thing off the ground and even when she did, she couldn't take more than two very short steps before her muscles started to protest and she had to put the crate down again.

Realizing that trying to carry the thing would take too long, Ellie changed tactic. Bracing her left shoulder and right hand against one side of the crate, she pushed it along the ground as fast as she could until she reached the steps. She tried to lift the crate up the first step, but only managed to strain her back in the effort. Several ominous creaks came from the doors hinges and Ellie heard Nick let out another grunt of effort. Nick wouldn't be able to hold the dead back alone for much longer. They needed to barricade those doors with that crate now.

Ellie wracked her brain and looked around franticly for anything that she could use to buy them enough time for Nick to leave the doors and lift the crate. It took her a few seconds, then she saw it. Abandoning the crate, Ellie rushed to the far side of the shed again and grabbed a broken plank from the floor. She rushed back, leapt the two stone steps and slid the plank into the handles of the doors.

"I can't lift it up the steps, it's too heavy for me," she said, so loud that it was almost a shout. "You'll have to do it."

Nick threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the crate and then back at the door and Ellie's makeshift barred. The plank wasn't very thick, nor did it look very durable. On its own, it would never be able to stop the dead from breaking through.

"You can't lift that thing, but you think you can hold the doors on your own?" he said and nodded at the doors.

"I don't know," Ellie answered truthfully. She had no idea if she was strong enough to hold the stalkers back even with the help of the plank, but she would damn well try.

"That's reassuring," Nick said dryly.

"We don't have much choice," She said and braced herself against the doors in preparation to take the full brunt of the undead. "Now get moving!"

Nick let go of the door and Ellie immediately heard the plank starting to break under the pressure and felt her feets slide backwards. In front of her the double doors slowly opened. At first it was only a small crack, but it quickly widened enough so that Ellie could see several pairs of milky white eyes staring in at her from the sockets of dry dead faces. Their mouths hanging wide open, showing yellow black rotten teeth. The rasping growls that had previously been muffled by the doors, flooded into the shed like water from a burst dam and brought with it the horrible stench of putrefaction.

Ellie gritted her teeth and straining every muscle in her body, she managed to shove the doors almost completely shut again. A loud bang next to her almost made her jump, it was quickly followed by the scraping sound of wood on stone. Ellie felt the pressure from the other side of the doors ease as Nick shoved the crate against them. Ellie slowly and cautiously stepped away from the doors. The dead still violently pushed and shoved themselves against the other side, but thankfully the crate refused to move from the spot. In unison, Ellie and Nick let out sighs of relief and exhaustion.

"That was to close," she said. She unslung her bow and rifle and let them drop to the ground. She leaned her back against the wall next to the doors and slowly slid down it until she sat on the floor. It felt like the muscles in her arms and back was on fire and her hands were shaking from the strain of holding the doors. "Way to fucking close."

"Yeah," Nick agreed as he slumped into the only chair in the shed and leaned his left arm on the small folding table next to it. He both sounded and looked exhausted.

They sat like that for almost a minute just catching their breaths. With their lives no longer in immediate danger, Ellie asked the thing that she hadn't been able to stop thinking about ever since they had fled the river side. "Do you think Pete and Clem got away?"

Nick seemed to think about the question a few seconds to long for Ellie's liking before he answered. "Yeah, I'm sure they're alright. Pete's a hard bastard and Clem's tough as nails. If anyone could make it out of there, it's them."

Ellie guessed that Nick said those words to reassure himself just as much as Ellie. His words were comforting though, and she felt a lot better from hearing them. It also helped enormously that there was truth in his words. Clem was tough, there was no doubts about that. She had survived Atlanta, Macon, the St John's farm, Savannah and much more. And even after all those horrors, she was still alive, unbitten – if you didn't count the dog bite – and sane.

"Yeah, yeah I think your right. So, what do we do now?"

"Hell if I know," Nick answered her with a shrug.

"Well, I'm gonna have a look around. See if I can find something that can help us get out of this mess," Ellie said and slowly stood up, the muscles in her back still hurting.

"Knock yourself out," Nick said and leaned back in his chair.

Once on her feets, Ellie took a few steps inwards so that she could take a closer look at the interior of the shed and hopefully find another way out. Unlike the shed by the cabin, this one had walls made of stone, so she wouldn't find any makeshift repair job to kick a hole through and crawl out. Even if she had found a bad section of wall to make a hole in, she wouldn't be able to get out that way, since the shed was surrounded on three sides by packed earth so high that it reached the windows.

She looked up at the cracked window above the tank. The sky outside had started to turn to the beautiful orange red color of dusk. "It'll be dark in an hour or two. If the others are out looking for us, they'll never find us in the darkness," she thought somberly. The window didn't look like it could be opened and smashing their way through it was out of the question, it would make too much noise. "We'd be set upon before we even made it out." As if to emphasize her thought, the legs of a stalker shambled past the window.

"It's a still," Nick said from behind her.

"What?" Ellie looked over her shoulder at him, unsure of what he was talking about.

"The thing in front of you, it's a still," he said, nodding at the tank.

Whiles Ellie had been staring at the window, Nick must have thought that she had been looking at the still and wondered what it was. Ellie turned her gaze to the metal tank, she hadn't even considered what the thing was for or what it was doing here, now however she was curious.

"What's it for? Purifying water?"

"You use it to make moonshine."

"Make what?"

"Moonshine," Nick repeated. "Homemade booze. You know, the stuff that makes you drunk."

"Alright, alright I get it! It makes alcohol."

"Made alcohol," Nick corrected. "That rig ain't even fit to piss in now."

"Yeah, let's hope we won't have to do that," Ellie said to herself under her breath. She turned back to face Nick. "How do you know what it is anyways?" she asked curiously.

"My dad used to have one, until I accidently broke it. Man, he was so pissed when he found out. He would have slapped me senseless if Mom and Pete hadn't been there to stop him."

Nick's story about his dad reminded Ellie of Pete's brief description of the man, a piece of shit who was never around. "Pete told me your dad wasn't a nice guy."

Nick nodded. "He wasn't. He was hardly ever home and when he was, he was usually drunk as hell. Most of the time he would ignore me except for when he wanted me to fetch him another beer and then he would insult me for taking too long," Nick said bitterly.

Ellie could sympathize with him and it struck her that they had that in common, since she too felt bitter towards her own father for abandoning her and her mother. Between the two of them though, Nick had probably had it worse. Being neglected and abused by your father sounded more horrible to Ellie than being abandoned before birth. But Nick had had something Ellie hadn't. He had had his mother and uncle to support him, he had had a family.

"Your dad sounds like an asshole."

"Yeah, he was."

"But even so, I think you're a lucky guy, Nick."

"I don't feel very lucky," Nick said, still sounding bitter.

"You had your mom and Pete. I've always wanted an uncle like Pete. When I was younger, I used to dream that one day an uncle or an aunt would come and take me away from the orphanage." She rubbed her right eye with the palm of her hand. "Stupid, right?"

Nick shook his head. "I don't think it's stupid at all," he said sympathetically. "I used to wish I had a better dad. But you shouldn't wish to have Pete as your uncle. He can be a real asshole if you don't live up to his standards."

"He's an asshole because he cares about you."

"Yeah, right," Nick snorted sarcastically.

"It's true," Ellie said emphatically. "After you stormed off, he told us about your dad and how he was never around. He said it fell to him to raise you right and keep you in line. That he couldn't be the nice uncle he wanted to be. That sometimes you have to play a role, even if the ones you love hate you for it."

Nick stared at her in disbelief. "He…said that?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, he did. He loves you like a son Nick. He's being hard on you because he wants to toughen you up. He wants you to be able to take care of yourself and survive in case he...in case you got separated."

Nick stared down at the floor. "He…never told me that. Why didn't he tell me?" His voice was barely above a whisper. Ellie wasn't sure if he was talking to her or to himself, so she said nothing.

Silence descended between the two of them. The only sound that could be heard was the rattling of the doors, but even that was subsiding and would soon fall completely quiet when the last stalker forgot why it was trying to get in. That was one of the few good things about stalkers, they had very short memory spans. If a door held, they would eventually forget why they were trying to break it down. Both fortunately and unfortunately however, they were also slow on the uptake. Even if there wasn't anything for them to eat in the area, they would still linger there for hours, sometimes even days or weeks.

Ellie hadn't brought any water with her and neither had Nick, and the only food they had was the three cans they had found in the backpack by the river. With those meager supplies they couldn't afford to wait days let alone weeks for the stalkers to move on. Ellie bit her lower lip. With them trapped in here and with Carver's group combing the area and killing anyone they come across, they were in a really bad position. If they stayed here too long, he would find them and then they'd be fucked. They needed to get back to the others and warn them, then get the hell out of dodge before Carver or one of his men found the cabin.

Nick was still staring at the ground, lost in thought. Ellie saw no reason to disturb him, she had after all dropped quite a bombshell on him. She looked around for anything else that could perhaps be useful for getting them out of there and her eyes landed on the crates. In her haste to block the doors, Ellie hadn't noticed that the crates were marked with black letters forming the word apples. They may have contained apples at some point in time, but Ellie doubted that was still the case. Most likely they were full of broken junk.

She walked over and opened the lid to the nearest crate. Her nose instantly wrinkled, and she almost gagged at the stench of decay emanating from the inside. The crate had contained apples alright, or something organic anyways that had long since rotted. With a noise of disgust Ellie closed the lid with a snap. She didn't bother checking the other crate but moved on to search the shelves. The search went quickly, and in every box and bucket she looked into, she found only worthless junk. When she reached the last shelf, she had to move a piece of plywood that was covering most of the lower part out of the way. To Ellie's surprise, instead of boxes and buckets, the shelves were full of brown glass jars, each of them labeled with different dates. Ellie picked up one of the jars and inspected the label. "Almost four years old." She shook the jar experimentally and was rewarded with the sound of liquid sloshing around inside.

"Found something?" Nick asked.

Ellie looked over her shoulder and found him staring at her with mild interest. She shrugged, walked over and handed him the jar she was holding. Nick stared at the label with a raised eyebrow, then he opened the lid with a twist and sniffed the content. His lips formed into a broad smile. Before Ellie could ask why he was smiling, Nick took a swig from the jar. He grimaced and slapped the table with his left hand.

"Whisky," he said, the smile returned to his face and he took another mouthful from the jar.

"You shouldn't drink that. The stuff has been here for more than four years," Ellie warned. She stared at him in incredulity, he had seen the dating on the jar, so why the hell was he drinking from it?

Nick lowered the jar from his mouth with a contented sigh. "It a bit stronger than normal whisky, but it tastes fine to me," Nick replied and took another swig.

"Even so, you need to be sober and clear headed for when enough of the stalkers lose interest and leave so that we can make a run for it," Ellie said, pointing at the doors that had finally fallen silent. The dead may not be trying to pound their way in anymore, but Ellie knew that they hadn't left, they were still shuffling around out there looking for something to eat.

"It's almost dark outside," Nick observed and pointed at the windows. "So, if we want to leave, we'll have to wait until sunrise when we can actually see where we're going." Ellie looked out the window above Nick and saw that he was right, it was rapidly getting darker outside. "Don't worry," Nick said, drawing her attention back to him. "I'm only going to drink this one jar, nothing more. It won't get me drunk enough to stop me from fighting in the morning." He raised the jug in his hand in a toast and drank the last of its content. "Until then, we should rest, get some sleep. I don't know about you, but I'm bone tired."

"Not tired enough that you can't drink," Ellie thought sourly.

But with no alternative exit in sight and with Nick drinking himself into insobriety, Ellie saw nothing else to do but wait. She moved over and sat down in the corner by the doors. It was only now when she relaxed the muscles in her body and leaned her heavy head against the cool wall that she felt how exhausted she was from the day's events. She closed her eyes and let out a snort at the irony of her situation. After she and Clem had joined the group this morning, Ellie had thought that she would spend the night sleeping inside the warm cabin, but instead she was stuck in another damn shed.

"This suck," was the last thought she had before she drifted off to sleep.

The stalker forced Riley backwards and to the side until her back hit the railing hard. Riley let out a grunt of pain and Ellie saw to her horror the gun fall from her friend's hand and hit the floor with a clatter.

"Ellie! Help!" Riley cried out in terror. She had hardly even uttered the words when the railing behind her gave way with a loud grinding noise and the two combatants fell over the edge.

"RILEY!"

Fear induced adrenaline gave power to her muscles. With a mighty cry of effort, she pried the dead stalkers hands loose and rolled it off her. Half crawling, half stumbling, Ellie hurried over to the edge and looked down. To her immense relief, she saw Riley lying on top of the scaffolding with the railing under her. The stalker was nowhere to be seen; it had probably fallen down into the mass below.

"Riley!" Ellie called down to her and silently prayed that her friend wasn't badly hurt. With the help of her right hand, Riley slowly sat up. Her face was twisted into a grimace and she let out a hiss of pain. "Riley are yo-" Ellie started to say but the rest of her words stuck in her throat.

Riley was cradling her left hand against her stomach and her white shirt was quickly turning red around it. Ellie felt her heart nearly stop in her chest and her body go numb when she saw that a chunk of flesh was missing from between Riley's left thumb and index finger.

"No…no…this…this isn't happening. This can't be happening. She can't be bitten, not Riley." Even as Ellie denied the damming proof in front of her eyes, she felt a pit of despair open inside her chest. In a few hours, one or several of the symptoms of infection would start to show. Dizziness, fatigue, fever, delirium, chills, nausea, pale skin or any of the others. There was so many of them, but they all eventually led to the same end. Riley had been infected and there was nothing Ellie could do to save her. Or was there?

"No," Ellie thought as a memory flashed through her mind. Its content steeled her resolve and she fought back against the despair that was threatening to swallow her. "Riley is not dead yet. The bite is fresh. There is still a chance."

Yes, there was still a chance to save her, a slim chance but a chance nonetheless. She had heard a few people who had managed to sneak out of the QZ say that if you could cut off the infected flesh before it could spread, there was a chance the victim could still survive. She didn't know of anyone who had ever tried it. More often than not, the bite wound was an hour old or more before the victim could get back to the safety of the QZ to operate and by then the symptoms had already started to show. Once that happened there was only one thing to do.

Killing one of your friends with a shot in the head was hard but a quick and merciful end. Trying to save said friend's life by mutilating them and hearing them scream in pain whiles blood sprayed out of the body part you had just cut into or amputated was a lot harder. But if it would save Riley's life then Ellie would gladly bear that trauma.

Riley was staring down at her bleeding hand. When she looked up Ellie saw the same hopelessness and utter despair on her friend's face that she herself had just felt. Ellie laid down on her stomach and reached down with her hand and called out, "Riley, get up and take my hand." Riley looked at the proffered hand and then down at her own wounded one. Blood was flowing freely from the wound and Riley did nothing to try to stop it. She just stared at it as if in a daze. "Riley, come on!" Ellie roared down at her.

Her shout snapped Riley out of her daze, and she looked up at her. She didn't move but kept staring at Ellie as if seeing her for the first time. Ellie was about to shout again to get her moving when Riley slowly and unsteadily got to her feets, using the wall as support. Ellie noticed that she was favoring her right leg. Riley stood still like that for several seconds just staring down at herself and catching her breath. The scaffolding shook and tilted slightly under her, making Riley fall onto her side with a cry of pain. Ellie saw that the scaffolding couldn't take much more punishment.

"Come on, get up! hurry!" she shouted, hearing the fear and desperation in her own voice. Slower than before and with much more difficulty, Riley got back on her feets. She looked up at Ellie and with teeth gritted in pain, she jumped with her right hand outstretched. Their fingers closed around each other's wrists. The sudden added weight of Riley jerked the muscles in Ellie's arm and shoulder painfully, but even so, she cried out, "gotcha!" in triumph.

Both of them gripped the other's wrists so hard that their nails dug into the skin. Ellie could see the fear in Riley's eyes that one of them would lose their grip and she would fall and this time not get up. "I won't let you go," Ellie thought. She pressed the palm of her left hand against the cool floor. Gritting her teeth, she slowly with great effort pushed herself up so that she was sitting on her knees, dragging Riley up enough in the process so that she could get her left forearm over the edge and use it to help pull herself up. Riley had just made it over the edge when the scaffolding finally toppled over onto the mass of stalkers below with a mighty crash.

Ellie couldn't care less about the dead being crushed below; all her attention was on Riley. The moment her friend had made it up, Ellie pulled her into a bone crushing hug. She closed her eyes and pressed her face against Riley's neck. Riley's skin was clammy to the touch with sweat and Ellie could feel the other girl's heart hammering inside her chest. Although her nose had become increasingly numb to it over the past few weeks, but at such close proximity Ellie couldn't help but smell the stench of sweat, blood and rotten meat that had soaked into Riley's clothes. She smelled like a rotten pile of garbage. Ellie knew her own clothes smelled no better.

"Ouch, you're crushing my ribs," Riley hissed.

"Sorry," Ellie said, her voice full of emotion and her eyes threatening to spill tears. She lightened her grip on Riley but did not let go. "You're gonna make it through this Riley. I swear, you're gonna live."

Ellie had barely thought the thought before she felt Riley slowly dissolve like mist in her arms. Panicking, she opened her eyes and found that she was no longer sitting on her knees on the second floor overlooking a mass of dead people. She was standing up in what looked like a breakroom. Before her Riley was lying on her back on an old black leather couch with a pillow under her head. Riley's rich brown skin now had a sickly hue to it and her eyes that had been so alert before was now heavy lidded with fatigue. Riley's left hand was wrapped up in bandages and was lying on her stomach, the white fabric dark red with dried blood between the thumb and index finger.

Ellie had cut off as much of the flesh around the bite wound as she could with her switch knife. With so many muscles cut away, Ellie was sure that Riley wouldn't be able to use her thumb to grip anything ever again. Riley had screamed into the pillow she had been biting down on and cried the entire time until she passed out from the pain. Ellie had continued the bloody work and bandaged up the wound as best she could, crying silently the entire time. With all the crying she had done, Ellie thought her tears had all dried up by now. The tears that was forming in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks now proved that she had been wrong.

Riley let out a series of coughs, then took a long wheezing breath. She looked so weak and frail as she lay there, so different from the strong witty girl Ellie had grown so fond of. "Ellie," Riley's voice came out in a hoarse whisper, her breathing deep and labored. "I don't feel so good. I'm cold all ov-" Whatever else she had been about to say was interrupted by a coughing fit.

Ellie crouched down and took Riley's good hand in hers and squeezed it gently. "You just lost a lot of blood. You'll get better," Ellie said encouragingly, but the word's sounded hollow even to her own ears.

Riley coughed up a gob of red yellow phlegm that stuck itself to the corner of her mouth. Ellie quickly wiped it off with a piece of cloth. Riley gave her a weak and barely perceivable shake of the head. "No, I won't. It didn't work, I can feel it. I'm gonna be dead soon and we both know what's gonna happen then. Ellie, you know what you have to do."

Riley's words made Ellie's heart stop in her chest and the pit of despair that had threatened to swallow her earlier opened up again and this time there was no steeling of resolve or last hope of salvation to stop it. Riley was going to die. Ellie had never felt like a bigger failure in all her life then she did at that moment. All the blood Ellie had spilled, all the pain and suffering she had inflicted on Riley in her attempt to save her life had been for nothing. And now Riley wanted her to end it all. It was too much.

The faces of all the people Ellie had had to mercy kill or seen die since this whole horrible hell had started flashed before her eyes. They had haunted her every night she had gone to sleep and the thought that one day Riley's face would be added to the others had been one of her worst nightmares. A nightmare that was now coming true. She felt tears fill her eyes and spill over down her cheeks. She felt like she couldn't breathe, a lump had formed in her throat and she gasped for air between sobs.

"I…I can't. I can't do it. Don't ask this of me, please," Ellie pleaded; her voice so thick with emotion that the words were barely understandable.

"I'm not a big fan of it either. I'd rather just wait it out. You know…fight to the bitter end," Riley said, her voice breaking with emotion and tears forming in her eyes. "But after that I'll turn and try to eat you. It's probably better that you pull the trigger now when your life isn't at stake. I wish I didn't have to ask this of you. I would do it myself, but I'm too weak. I can't move my arms or pull the trigger even if you help me aim." She looked up at Ellie with imploring eyes. "Ellie…please…I don't want to die with the uncertainty that you might not have what it takes to shoot me before I come back and bite you."

Riley opened her mouth to say something more but all that came out was a series of wet coughs followed shortly by bloody saliva. The sight of it broke Ellie's heart. She knew she couldn't let Riley die like this, slowly wasting away. Ending her life would be a mercy…and it would be quick and painless. Even so, Ellie found it hard to utter the word.

"Okay…. I'll do it," Ellie finally managed to choke out after several failed attempts. She squeezed Riley's hand tighter.

"Thank you," Riley said and squeezed back; her hand so weak that Ellie barely felt it.

Ellie took a deep breath to calm and prepare herself for what she had to do. She felt more conscious of the gun in the back of her pants now than the first time she had ever put it there. She reached back and pulled it out. It was probably her imagination, but it felt a lot heavier in her hand now then it usually did. With her entire body heaving with sobs and tears blurring her vision, Ellie raised the gun with shaking hands and aimed it at the center of Riley's forehead.

"I…I love you," Ellie managed to choke out between sobs. It was cliché as all hell, but Ellie didn't care, she had to say it.

"I love you to," Riley closed her tear-filled eyes and smiled.

Ellie felt her resolve crumble at the sight. Riley looked so serene, like a sleeping angel. No, she had to do it, she couldn't let Riley suffer anymore. Ellie turned her head away and closed her eyes. She did not want the moment the bullet tore its way through Riley's head burned into her mind. She tightened her finger on the trigger and squeezed.

Crash.

Ellie jerked awake, her heart hammering against her ribcage and she felt cold sweat down her back. It took her a second to remember where she was, when she did, her tired and tear-filled eyes instantly darted towards the door, expecting to see it being smashed in by the dead. But the doors were undamaged, the crate was still blocking them and did not seem to have been budged so much as an inch from where Nick had put it down. Ellie heard another crash and this time she was awake enough to identify it for what it was and where it was coming from. Someone was breaking glass against the stone wall on the far side of the shed.

"What the hell are you doing Nick?" she thought, feeling her anger rise.

Wiping her eyes, she stood up and thanks to the moonlight shining in through the windows, had no problem navigating her way to the back of the shed. By the time she got there, he had already smashed another glass jar. Nick was sitting with his back to the wall next to the shelves that held the homemade whisky. With a brooding expression on his face, Nick was staring at the opposite wall that was now marked by three large dark whisky stains. He was so fixated on the wall that he didn't even seem to notice that Ellie was there. He slowly and a little unsteadily reached out and grabbed another jar.

"Don't do it Nick."

Nick looked at the jar in his hand and for a second Ellie thought he would listen to her, but then he hurled the jar against the wall. Like the ones before it, it shattered and left another dark wet stain next to the others. Glass and whisky flew in all directions and Ellie felt some of the glass fragments hit her on her legs and back, but not with any real force that could hurt her.

"The fuck Nick!" Ellie snapped. Nick ignored her and picked up another jar and raised it above his head. With three quick steps, Ellie was at his side and grabbed his wrist before he could throw it. "Are you insane?!" She snatched the jar from his surprisingly unresisting hand and took a step back from him. He stank of whisky.

"One jar my ass, your drunk!" she said accusingly and glared down at him. He didn't answer her, he didn't seem to care that she was angry, he just stared at the stains on the opposite wall. "What the hell is wrong with you? We're knee deep in shit here and you're making it worse with all that noise," she hissed. When Nick once again kept his silence, Ellie let out a frustrated growl. She felt the urge to kick him, but she restrained herself from doing so. Other than making her feel better, it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Shaking her head, she turned to go back to the doors.

"I had to kill my mom," Nick said so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

His confession stopped Ellie dead in her tracks, she turned around and stared at him in shock. She had thought that the stalker killed his mother and that the group had stopped her from coming back or put her down shortly after she had. She had not expected that they had killed her before the bite did, she hadn't even considered the possibility that Nick had been the one to do it. Having to put down the reanimated corpse of your mother was bad enough but having to kill her whiles she was still alive was even worse.

"I'm gonna be dead soon and we both know what's gonna happen then. Ellie, you know what you have to do." Riley's voice echoed inside her head and the feeling of sympathy she had felt for him back at the cabin returned.

"It sounds weird when I say it out loud, huh?" Nick said. He looked up at her, his expression one of grief. She wished that she could say yes that it was a weird thing to say. But it wasn't weird at all. Since the outbreak, how many parents had had to kill their children? How many brothers and sisters had had to kill their siblings? How many sons and daughters had had to kill their parents?

"No," Ellie answered quietly. She walked up and sat down next to him, putting the jar on the ground between them. "I don't think it sounds weird at all. Most people have probably had to kill someone close to them since this whole mess started. I have anyways. So, I think I know how you feel…" her voice broke slightly, "and it sucks." Nick didn't say anything in response to her words but gave her a sideways look that Ellie interpreted as him wanting her to continue. "You remembered how I said that I mercy killed a lot of people?" Nick nodded. "One of them was my best friend. She and I were…very close."

"Like sisters?" Nick asked. Ellie hesitated for half a second before she answered with a nod. Nick thankfully didn't seem to notice her slight hesitation, or if he did, he ignored it. "It's the same with Luke and me. He's like the brother I never had. We used to do all kinds of stupid shit together."

"Like what?" Ellie asked. Glad for the chance to change to another topic that could distract her from the thought of Riley.

"Drinking booze, jumping across rooftops, stealing my dad's car, breaking into school. That kind of stuff."

"Why the hell would you want to break into school for?"

"To use the internet. We didn't have it at home at the time."

"So, what were you surfing for?" Ellie asked, her lips forming a sly smile. She was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

"Just stuff," Nick said with a nonchalant shrug.

"Like porn?"

"What…how…Why the hell would you even think that?" Nick sputtered.

"Jackpot." Ellie grinned, took a deep breath and then sang out, "The internet is for porn! The internet is for porn! Why do you think the net was born? Porn! Porn! Porn!" Ellie would have continued and sung the rest of the song, but the dumbfounded look on Nick's face made her breakout into laughter. Nick joined her a second later and the two spent a few blissful seconds just laughing.

Nick's joviality left just as quickly as it had come, and he was again melancholic. "Luke always used to push me to do things I wouldn't have done otherwise. I didn't want to go into business with him. I remember when he sold me on it. His big plan. Some fucking plan. A case of beer in he just said, "Nick we're burning daylight." And that was that. After six month we were flat broke. But I didn't care. We were having fun." Nick hung his head and stared at the ground. "I wish I could be like him. Wish I could just keep moving all the time. But I'm just not…built that way." Nick sighed, and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Everyone I grew up with. It all…happened to them and now it's going to happen to us. We're so fucked. This whole world is fucked."

"Were not dead yet Nick! We'll get out of this," Ellie said, trying to sound confident and lift his spirit. It didn't work.

"That's a load of bullshit. We're as good as dead. Trapped in here with hardly any food and only alcohol to drink. Even if you're right and we make it out of here, what's the point? We'll just march to some new place and someone will die. It's never going to stop. It'll be our turn eventually."

There was a horrible truth in what Nick was saying. No matter what they did, someday, somehow, they were going to die and unless their brains had been destroyed, they would rise again as stalkers. The image of herself as a rotting corpse attacking Clementine and feasting on her flesh flashed before her eyes. The thought was so horrible that it made Ellie shudder and she felt physically ill. She was so distracted by the thought that she didn't notice that Nick picked up the jar that she had set down between them until he twisted off the lid with a pop and held it out to her.

"Want a drink?" he asked.

His gesture took Ellie aback and she hesitated. It had been several hours since she last drank anything however, so she was getting very thirsty and it wouldn't be the first time she had tasted alcohol. "Why the hell not?" she thought and took the proffered jar.

Nick picked up another jar from the shelf and opened it. He clinked his jar against Ellie's. "To the people we've lost. May they be in a better place than this," he toasted and the two drank.

Before she took her first gulp, Ellie had been certain that she could handle the homemade whisky, after all, she had tasted Winston's whisky back in the Boston QZ. This whisky however, turned out to be the bigger meaner brother to that one. The instant the liquid touched her tongue it started to burn painfully and when she tried to swallow it, she jerked forward and started to cough violently, spraying the lower parts of her pants and shoes with whisky.

"Oh god fucking shit." Her mouth and throat felt like they were on fire, it felt like she had tried to drink acid. Nick laughed and slapped her a few times on the back. "How the hell can you drink this stuff!" Ellie managed to wheeze out between coughs.

"It grows on you," Nick answered with a chuckle and took a deep draft from his jar. He let out a sigh after he had swallowed and stared down at the jar in his hand. After a few seconds of silence that Ellie used to get her coughing under control, Nick said, "listen. We've been here almost half a day now. They're not gonna find us out here. You should go. Make a run for it."

"You mean we should make a run for it."

Nick shook his head. "I'm staying here. I'll only slow you down, get in your way or fuck it up some other way. I always fuck it up. I'll stay here and finish these." He gestured to the seven still full jars remaining on the shelf.

"If you're not going then I'm staying to. I'm not leaving you here alone to drink yourself to death."

"Yeah, you are. I'm not leaving. I'm drunk and tired. Ha! drunk tired." He let out a short humorless chuckle.

"This is not funny Nick," Ellie said reproachfully.

"Suppose not." Nick shrugged. "You're still going though. Find Luke and the rest. Their good people, they'll take care of you…and Clementine, if she's still alive."

"She's alive, I'm sure of it and so is Pete. Which is why you're coming with me. Pete is family, so is Luke and the others. You can't just give up on them like this, you don't abandon family. There are a million ways I could've died before today Nick. And a million ways I can die before tomorrow. Even knowing that, I don't give up. I fight for every second I get to spend with the people I care about. Whether it's two minutes, or two days doesn't matter. I don't give up and neither should you."

Nick stared at her dumbfounded for several seconds before he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache. "Ah fuck it. Your right. If Pete was here, he'd kick my ass for being an idiot," he said the last part in a whisper to himself. He downed the last of his whisky and placed the jar on the floor and got unsteadily to his feets. He swayed alarmingly and for half a heartbeat, Ellie thought he was going to fall over, but he grabbed hold of the shelf and steadied himself. "Let's go," he said and headed for the doors.

The thought of trying to silently kill all the stalkers outside with her bow had crossed Ellie's mind. But since she only had five arrows and no idea how many stalkers there were out there, she had quickly scrapped that idea. "Let's try to be quiet and sneak our way past them. If they spot us we run like hell or else they'll just swarm us like they did down by the river," Ellie said when they had reached the doors. She picked up her weapons and quickly reloaded the rifle with the ammo they had found. She had considered giving the rifle to Nick, but in the state he was in now he would probably not be able to hit the broadside of a barn let alone a stalkers head.

Nick seemed to think about her words for a few seconds before he answered with a nod. The whisky was slowing down his thought processes and Ellie was starting to wonder if she had done the right thing in convincing him to come along, but quickly shook the doubt out of her mind. Pete and the others would not be happy with her if she left him behind.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Wait," Nick said as he slung on his backpack. "If we get separated…the cabin is only about half a mile from here. You can't miss it."

Ellie nodded but said, "If we stay close together that won't happen."

She pushed the crate away from the doors and opened one of them a crack and looked out into the night. In truth it wasn't night anymore, but early morning. In the distance she could see the first rays of daylight shining in between the trees. She could also see four stalkers, but they were too far away to be an immediate threat to them. She looked around the small clearing for a few more seconds but saw no more stalkers, they were probably standing out of view or had wandered back into the forest. "It looks like we almost have a clear run to the tree line," she whispered. They opened the door and sneaked out.

Ellie had been right, there were a lot more than just the four stalkers. Scattered around the clearing on either side of them were several more stalkers. Ellie tried to keep a wary eye on them as she and Nick slowly walked forwards, but that was impossible. Fortunately, they seemed to be in a docile state at the moment. Most of them was just standing still on the spot or shuffling a few steps. But Ellie knew that wouldn't last. As soon as they caught a whiff of their smell or saw them, they would become aggressive as all hell.

"Hopefully. We'll be able to -"

"FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"

Ellie spun on her heel just in time to see Nick punch a stalker in the head, sending it crashing to the ground. Ellie mentally cursed herself for not hearing the damn thing approach them. In the next second, every single stalker within ear shout of Nick's voice turned as one and with a unified growl of hunger headed straight towards them. It was only then that Nick seemed to realize that he had drawn their attention.

"Oh shit…" Nick said.

"RUN!" Ellie shouted. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled to get him moving and the two of them bolted towards the tree line. Ellie had to weaved in and out between the converging stalkers, constantly changing direction for when several of them blocked their path. At one point she had no choice but push one into another to clear a path. Nick was right behind her the entire time. The adrenaline rush seemed to have burned away the alcohol in his blood for he was no longer unsteady on his feets. A pair of rotten grey hands reached out from Ellie's left and tried to grab her, she sidestepped them and kept running. There was only one stalker left between them and the tree line now.

"We're gonna make it." The strap of Ellie's rifle suddenly yanked her backwards so hard that she crashed to the ground. "What the fuck happened?" Ellie thought as she coughed and tried to get the air that had been knocked out of her back into her lungs.

Someone grabbed hold of her jacket and pulled hard. Ellie turned her head and stared into the corpse pale sunken face of what had once been a woman. The right side of the woman's face had been caved in by a blunt object and the eye was dangling uselessly from the socket. She… no, it, let out a hungry growl and opened its mouth wide to sink its black brown teeth into Ellie's shoulder.

"FUCK OFF!" Ellie heard Nick shout right before his foot collided with the stalkers face. The head snapped to the side with an audible crack and then fell limply to the ground where Nick's foot stamped down on it with such force that the skull was crushed into a bloody pulp.

"Thanks," Ellie said when he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feets. Nick gave her a quick sharp nod and pushed her lightly to get her moving again.

The last stalker between them and the forest was right in front of them now. Ellie – for reasons she didn't even know herself – jump kicked it in the chest rather than running around it. The stalker was younger and fresher than the others so rather than fall to the ground like Ellie thought it would, it simply staggered backwards. It never got the chance to recover however before Nick's fist did what Ellie's kick couldn't. The downed stalker reached out its arms to grab them but by then they were already past it.

When Ellie finally reached the tree line, she felt her heart skipped a beat with joy at the sight of the empty forest. There was not a single walking dead as far as her eyes could see. She looked back over her shoulder and saw all the stalkers they had passed or knocked down giving chase with rasping cries of hunger. They would never catch up to them. They had made it; they were in the clear. "So long fuckers!" Ellie shouted back at them with a laugh of relief as she and Nick charged deeper into the forest in the direction of the trail that would lead them back to the cabin.


I hope you liked this chapter because I don't. More precise, I don't like how Riley's death scene turned out. This chapter would have been out back in april if that death scene hadn't given me so much trouble, I suck at writing romance. in the end I just gave up and well, you see the result.

Anyway, I'm going to go back and spell check the first two chapters so if you see any updates in the next couple of week but no new chapters you know why.