We walked for a few minutes, most of the time spent listening to Ellie marvel and gawk at the surrounding city as Tess explained everything to her. She had never been outside the quarantine zone before. Lucky kid.
I hung back, walking a few paces ahead of Joel as we trailed behind the other two. We were silent. After our brief moment of civility back in the building, we hadn't uttered a word to each other. My stubbornness forbade me to apologise or reason with him. He was acting like a dick and it wasn't my job to bring it up.
"You ever been out here before?"
I turned my head to the side, slowing down so he could catch up. He side-eyed me as we fell into step, his shoulder almost brushing mine.
I nodded. "Only once." Joel was still watching me expectantly. "I was a kid in FEDRA camp." I mumbled, picturing the disgusted look that was probably on his face. "I wanted to see what was out there and I get why she did too."
I tilted my head towards Ellie, who was staring into a large crater in the middle of the street. Joel sighed. "Why'd you go to FEDRA school?"
"Because my mum and sister were starving and I could get them extra ration cards and shit." I brought my hands up to grasp the straps of my bag, as I tried to stay calm. "My sister was in school and my mum had a back injury so she couldn't work." I turned to Joel who was staring down at his feet. "Life is tough, but it's even tougher when you can't fend for yourself."
We fell into silence as we approached a fallen building, blocking the street. "So, the State House is across there," Tess explained, pointing to the blockage. "It's about a ten minute walk if we could go straight."
I came to a halt beside Ellie and Joel stopped beside me. "So..?"
"Long way or short way?" Joel asked sarcastically, turning to look at Tess.
She met his gaze. "I mean, it's the long way or the we're fuckin' dead way."
"Well," Ellie began, looking up at the looming wreckage. "I vote short way; just based on that limited information."
I chuckled. "I second that."
Joel looked at me scrutinisingly and I met his gaze, quirking an eyebrow curiously. He shook his head, looking past me at Tess. "We'll have to check it from the hotel first."
Tess nodded. "Good." I watched for a moment as Tess and Ellie began to make their way towards the wreckage. Joel stood beside me, a tense expression on his face. I glanced up at him and he reciprocated, gesturing with his gun for me to go first. With a subtle nod, I jogged after the others. Who knew he could be a gentleman?
Tess led the way up onto one of the many crumbling overpasses and we began to pick our way through the conglomerate of abandoned cars and trucks that littered the road. It was reasonably uneventful. Ellie and Tess just kept talking a few paces ahead as I took in the view of the ghost town of a city.
I managed to tune out their conversation for a little while, until Joel and I caught up with them. "Everyone said the open city was crazy," Ellie explained, glancing up at me. "Like, swarms of infected running around everywhere."
From beside me, Joel sighed. "Not exactly like that."
"You know, people like to tell stories," Tess added, walking a few steps ahead of us the rest of us.
I nudged Ellie's shoulder with my elbow. "If anyone at FEDRA says the outside's crawling with infected, they're bullshitting you." Ellie let out a humoured snort. "They're just trying to impress you."
Ellie clicked her tongue thoughtfully. "So, there aren't super-infected that explode fungus spores on you?"
"Shit," Tess mused. "I hope not."
Ellie continued. "Or ones with split-open heads that see in the dark, like bats?"
I bit my lip as Tess turned around to glance at Joel and I. I shook my head. Ellie didn't need to worry about stuff like that right now.
Suddenly, there was a loud screech, and I immediately removed my gun from its holster. We halted, looking around for the source of the noise.
"What was that?" Ellie whispered to me, her voice trembling slightly. I shrugged, my finger on the trigger as I glanced around for any sign of danger.
From beside me, Joel took a step forward, ushering us on. "Let's keep moving."
***
We kept walking until we reached a building Tess called The Hotel. Joel pushed the door open, revealing a flooded lobby; green water, crawling with ducks, frogs and overgrown plants.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Ellie exclaimed, walking to the edge of the stairs, where the water lapped against the ground. She turned back to Joel, Tess and I. "You ever stayed in a place like this?"
"Uh, no," Tess responded with a chuckle. "A little out of our league."
Ellie looked at me. "What about you, Jenna?"
I looked around the decrepit lobby, thinking about what it must of looked like pre-outbreak. It seemed like it used to be a fancy establishment, the waterlogged piano and high windows suggested it appealed to the upper class.
"Once," I answered, my gaze washing over the slimy walls. "My dad went to New York for work once and I went with him." I glanced back down at Ellie, who was watching me with interest. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Joel listening as well. "I was eight—I think. We stayed on the thirtieth floor and I could see the whole city." I smiled fondly at the bittersweet memory. Funny how life existed before the outbreak. It felt like I had lived in the quarantine zone my whole life.
"Jenna?" I looked up at Ellie, my eyes slightly glazed over. "Where is your dad now?"
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I could feel my cheeks burning as Tess turned to look at me as well. "Um..." I glanced over at Joel, whose eyes were dark, as if he already knew the answer. I sighed, taking a deep breath. "I don't know."
"What?" Ellie looked at me in utter confusion and I shook my head, reaching up to dab at one of my eyes, which was threatening to spill a tear.
"He was on a business trip to Kanas City on Outbreak Day." Ellie's eyes widened in shock. "He didn't come back and he didn't radio or anything." My gaze dropped to my shoes. "He's probably dead, but I have no way of knowing when or where."
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Tess, standing beside me. She shot me a sympathetic look and I reciprocated with a weak smile. "I'm sorry," she said, giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "I know how hard it is to not know."
I nodded as Tess let go of me. I was about to thank her for her empathy, when two arms wrapped tightly around my neck. I stumbled back as Ellie threw her arms around me, her feet hanging in the air as she buried her face into my neck. I reached forward, patting her gently on the back, until she dropped to the floor.
"You know," Ellie started, looking up at me. "He might still be alive."
I chuckled humourlessly. "I doubt it, but a nice sentiment." Patting Ellie on the shoulder, I shot her a small smile. "Don't worry about me."
Ellie shot me a final smile, before she walked over to Tess, by the edge of the water. I watched them talk, until I felt a presence beside me. I side-eyed Joel as he stood wordlessly beside me. I didn't know what to say, but luckily, he spoke up first.
"I'm sorry about your dad," he muttered, quiet enough that Ellie and Tess couldn't hear. I tilted my head towards him, shooting him a small smile. "I'm sure that must've been hard for your family."
I nodded. "It was." Wringing my hands together, I prepared to go on. Only one person knew this story and that person was Marlene, but apparently I was about to tell it to a grumpy old smuggler I met less than twenty-four hours ago. "My sister died a few months after she finished FEDRA school." I felt Joel go stiff beside me. "My mum couldn't take it, so..."
"Shit."
I nodded in agreement. "Yeah. It was pretty shit."
I let out a long sigh, readjusting my bag as Joel stared silently at the water. I chewed on the inside of my cheek as he lifted his undamaged hand, quickly patting my shoulder once, before letting it fall to the ground.
"Trust me. I know."
Joel walked past me and began to wade into the water as I was left, struggling to process what had just happened. The man had just said he felt bad for me. He tried to comfort me like an old friend. I shook my head, trying to rearrange the jumbled thoughts so they would make more sense in my brain, but it was futile. My head was full of pieces from different puzzles. They wouldn't fit together, no matter how hard I tried to force them.
"Wait," Ellie called out, causing Joel to stop knee-deep and look at her. "Are we going in there?"
"Yeah," Tess responded when Joel didn't. "We gotta get to the stairwell on the other side."
I took a step forward, stepping into the murky water until it seeped into my shoes. I grimaced at the sensation as I turned ack to Ellie.
"Well, I." I held out a hand to help her in, but she shook her head, "I don't know how to swim."
"Seriously." I turned around to glare at Joel as he poked fun at Ellie.
Ellie shot him a pointed look. "Do you think we have pools in the QZ?"
"No, smart-ass," Joel shot back. "I mean..." He jumped forward, the water only coming up to his mid-thigh as he waded out into the middle of the room. I turned to Ellie, a humoured smile creeping its way onto my face, until I noticed her unimpressed scowl. With a shake of my head, I extended my hand again for her to take. She did, and I helped her wade in after Joel.
Ellie grumbled as I helped her into the water. "I don't know how I was supposed to know that."
"Just let it go," I mused, bumping her shoulder with mine. "He called you smart."
"I called her a smart-ass."
I rolled my eyes as a small smile graced Ellie's lips. "He said smart."
"This is so gross," Ellie exclaimed as we waded through the duck shit-infested water. She wasn't wrong though; it was very gross. But for some reason the smell didn't bother me all that much. I focused on catching up with Joel and tried not to think about it. "Oh, check it out!"
Ellie left my side, quickly making her way over to the reception desk, half submerged in the green muck. I rolled my eyes as she leant over it, ringing the bell, a genuine laugh ringing through the lobby. I glanced over at Joel, who didn't look too impressed, but choose to ignore him. Why couldn't she just be a kid for five minutes?
"Ding, ding! Yes, sir. I would like your finest suite, please," Ellie said in a posh accent as Joel and Tess waded over to stand beside me. "Yes, ma'am," she continued in a deeper voice. "Would you like me to take your luggage?" I smiled at her childish innocence. "Yes, ma'am. Right away ma'am—"
"You're a weird kid," Joel commented from beside me and I sharply jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow.
"You're a weird kid."
Ellie pushed the bell cart to the side, pretending to be the bellboy. I watched her, until suddenly she leapt back in fight, letting out a loud shout. "Oh, fuck!"
I jumped forward as she pressed herself against the piano. Gun aimed at the floating mass in the water, I bent down to examine it. It was a severely decomposed skeleton. "It's nothing," I observed, standing back up. "He's dead,"
"Um, sorry," Ellie apologised as Joel walked up behind me, looking over my shoulder at the skeleton. I waved her off, sticking my foot out to nudge the skull. As soon as I kicked it, it rolled over, floating away. I shuddered.
When I turned around, Joel was helping Ellie to her feet. He hesitantly took her her hand and pulled her up, before immediately recoiling as fast as he could. Ellie seemed to notice, because she immediately walked off , without a word.
"You know, you won't get infected by touching her," I explained passive-aggressively as he wiped his hand on his shirt. "Why can't you accept that this is real?"
"Because it's not," he retorted glaring down at me. "No one is immune. It'll happen eventually and this'll all be for nothing."
I gritted my teeth in frustration, my brows furrowing as Joel stared back at me. I shook my head, letting out a disappointed sigh as I turned to follow Ellie and Tess. "You need to grow up and accept that there are things you don't understand." I stopped, turning to look at him over my shoulder. "And that doesn't mean they aren't real."
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'm trying to post longer chapters, but that means I won't be able to post as often. Hope you understand.
I watch Episode 5 last night and it was undoubtedly the best episode so far! It was amazing and if you haven't seen it yet, YOU MUST! The scene with the infected is the best moment of television I have ever seeing my ENTIRE LIFE!!
Make sure to vote, comment and follow and add this to your library so you know when I update.