CHAPTER FIVE
“IT SAYS... TIGER”
RUMMAGING WAS WHAT WOKE UP a dazed and confused Noah that morning, and she tried to ignore it at first, but soon it became absolutely unbearable. She huffed and flung the blanket off of her, turning over to sit up and look into the room. Slowly her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room, but once they did, she found her brother pushing and pulling open and closed the drawers on the dresser on the opposite wall. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, and watched him silently for a second, seeing him pull out two pistols from the bottom drawer.
“What the hell are you doing?” Noah hissed, her voice croaky, still thinking she was asleep.
Aidan’s head snapped around in surprise, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face once he realized he’d been caught. “Oh, uh, nothing. Just go back to sleep, Tiger.”
“Are you kidding?” Noah frowned, turning herself so her feet hit the carpeted floor, ready to get up if he tried to run from her questions. Not even the stupid nickname was going to solve this situation, whatever the situation was. “You just took out two pistols, and you expect me to ‘go back to sleep’?”
“What? What pistols?” Aidan tried to hide it still.
Noah groaned at his stubbornness, getting up and pulling them from behind his back. She swung the two from each of her fingers. “These fucking pistols, Aidan. What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s really nothing,” Aidan assured her, grabbing back the pistols to stuff in a backpack that was sitting in front of him. He stood upright, shrugging it over his shoulder. “I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going?” Noah continued to question, growing more awake by the second. Aidan just went and walked out the bedroom into the living room, the sun barely peeking out from behind the skyscraper to the east. “Hey, you can’t just leave at five in the fucking morning and expect me to be all cool about it.”
“Well, you weren’t supposed to know,” Aidan told her matter-of-factly, spinning briefly to look at her with a cocky shrug, and then went back to walking forwards.
“That doesn’t make it any better!” Noah complained, running ahead and stopping him in his tracks. Aidan looked mildly surprised, but mostly because she hadn’t done it sooner. “Tell me what you’re doing. You know I won’t let you leave until you do.”
“I know that, but I’m also bigger and stronger than you,” Aidan said, unfazed. “So—” He grabbed her round the waist, picked her up and placed her back behind him. “I can just do that.”
“Aidan, I swear to God—!” Noah began, but then she noticed the kitchen. She slowly turned her head towards it, seeing every single cupboard opened, only one lonely can sitting at the back of the highest one in the corner. She looked back at Aidan. “Where did the kitchen go!?”
“What do you mean? It’s— It’s right there,” Aidan defended himself, gesturing to the counters, tapping them for good measure. “See? All in good working order.”
“The food isn’t!” Noah shouted. “Where did it go!?”
“See… I don’t… know,” Aidan responded, as if trying to work out if he should actually answer. Instead, he began to turn back towards the front door. “Well, I’ve really got to go—”
Noah was more angry than asleep now. She grabbed the back of his backpack, pulling on it until it came right off his shoulder. Aidan stumbled, trying to keep his balance, but his cool expression faded once he saw the contents of his backpack strewn all over the floor.
Two pistols, six boxes of ammo, a couple pairs of socks and every single can or packet of food that they had in the kitchen cupboards the night before.
“Aidan, you better tell me what you’re doing right now, or I might actually kill you,” Noah threatened, glaring at him as he ducked to shove everything back into the bag.
“It really doesn’t concern you, Noah,” Aidan said, sounding more irritated now that knew he wasn’t going to get away that easily. “It’s some Firefly thing, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Then help me understand!” Noah threw her hands up. “I don’t even have to understand. Just tell me before you leave me here alone with one can of food, no can opener, and nothing to defend myself with.”
“Well, you have the can opener to defend yourself with,” Aidan countered, but looked up to see Noah’s eyes glaring daggers into him. “Okay, but seriously, there’s a pistol in my top drawer and some bullets under my pillow. See? Not leaving you completely defenseless.”
“Oh, right, thank you so much,” Noah said, sarcasm dripping from every word. To say her brain was utterly mixed up right now was an understatement. She was still barely awake, but she was awake enough to know that if her brother didn’t tell her what he was doing right this minute, he would never leave the apartment again. “Aidan, where… are you… going?”
Aidan let out a sigh as he pushed the last of his stuff into his back, picking it up and putting it back on his shoulder. He made a couple steps towards the door again, but Noah did the same towards him and he realized he had to give her a little bit of information.
“The Fireflies need to make a deal with this guy in the QZ,” he started, leaning his hand on the doorknob as he did so. “He’s called Robert and he can smuggle things in and out of the walls. I’m going to go and meet him and some of his guys before the deal’s meant to be made just to lay out some ground rules. Hopefully, I’ll be in there, make the deal, watch over it and then I’ll be back in three days. If all goes to plan.”
“And if things don’t go to plan?” Noah asked, still trying to register all of that.
“Some Fireflies will come and talk to you,” Aidan said, carefully placing his hand on his sister’s shoulder, giving her a reassuring look. “They’ll explain everything else, but I really can’t tell you anymore because not even I know.”
“If you don’t come back in three days, what will have happened to you?” Noah said, but she could already tell what his answer would be. And even Aidan knew she knew already, because he just gave her a knowing look. “Aidan, why? Why are you doing this?”
“We’re not having this conversation again, Noah,” Aidan huffed, his shoulders slumping, his hand dropping from her shoulder and being tucked away in his jeans pocket. “I am a part of the Fireflies now. Nothing is going to change that.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking, why?” She was honestly just stalling. She didn’t want him to leave. She didn’t want to just be left alone in this apartment that she had grown to hate.
“Because I want to make a change, Noah. I want this world to be more than what FEDRA is doing to it. I want to be the thing that changes the damn world.”
“Aidan, is that really a good enough reason to just leave me here?” Noah asked. She regretted it immediately, and it wasn’t because she didn’t like the question, it was because she didn’t like the answer.
“Is leaving you here for three days because you’re old enough to look after yourself so I can go change the world a good enough reason? Yeah, I think it is,” Aidan admitted, and he didn’t look a single bit apologetic.
“And what if you don’t come back in three days?” Noah demanded, biting down on her lip to stop it from quivering. “Is it still good enough?”
“I think it is,” Aidan said quietly.
Noah’s heart sank. But honestly she shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course Aidan would always put the Fireflies ahead of her. She was his stupid little sister, and the Fireflies are what was going to ‘change the world’. How could she even compete, right?
“I’m not going to cover for you,” Noah told him, shoving him in the chest. He staggered back and he hit the door with a thump, but he clenched his jaw, pretending it didn’t sting. Because it probably didn’t hurt him at all that his sister was on the verge of hating him. “I’m not covering for you for FEDRA. Not when they come knocking to find out where you are for work. They can go and hunt you for all I care. I mean, that’s the price for saving the world, right?”
“Noah, please,” Aidan tried.
“No. No, no, you can’t ‘please’,” Noah spat, ignoring with all she worth the tears that were pricking her eyes. “If you go out there and die, that is your own damn fault, you hear me? I won’t care if it happens. I won’t! Because I’ve cared too much every time you’ve done it before!”
“Noah, God!” Aidan exclaimed, raising his voice louder than he had ever done. It frightened Noah, the unfamiliarity of it all, so much so that she flinched backwards. “You’re so in the control of those FEDRA teachers at your school, it’s crazy! And you’re the only person in this family who doesn’t see it. Mom and Dad saw it! No wonder they kept you out of every conversation they had about the Fireflies! They were afraid you’d snitch, because that’s just who you are!”
“I’m fucking not!” Noah retorted, her forehead creasing, trying to block out what he was saying.
“You are! You’re just so deep in bullshit, you can’t see it!” Aidan argued. He took a deep breath, and he saw the tear that trailed down his sister’s cheek. Noah could see him start to calm down. “I’m leaving, okay? Snitch on me all you want. I just won’t come back.”
And Noah stayed silent that time. Maybe it was because she wanted him to leave then, she wanted to never see his face in front of her again. But it hit her, finally, when that door closed, that she was utterly, completely alone. And in a matter of ten minutes, she had lost her brother.
“Noah, you’re shivering,” Ellie announced, scaring the girl out of her own thoughts. Noah turned around from where she had been leaning on a tree, seeing the brunette curled up at the bottom of a trunk, Joel’s jacket wrapped around her knees.
Noah ignored her for a minute. She had no idea what she was doing anymore. Twice now, her plan to get to her brother had gone out the window, and the second time it had gone out the window along with someone that Noah couldn’t deny she had gotten used to being around. She had seriously underestimated how hard this would be, how far her brother would go just to get away from his first life. She didn’t even know if that’s what he meant to do.
“I’m fine,” Noah finally replied, not even looking at her. She was staring off into the distance, watching the small stream that trickled in from the river where Joel had headed off to refill their flask. Frogs croaked from their hidden positions, and it confused Noah how people used to just go on walks in the woods for fun. They weren’t hunting, or searching, or trying to fight for their lives. They were just… living.
“You’ll get hypothermia,” Ellie told her, her voice tuneful.
Noah looked at her. “Do you even know what that is?”
“Ignoring the fact that I didn’t know who Darwin was, I do know other things,” Ellie defended herself, and she grabbed Joel’s jacket from her knees, holding it up to her. “Just have it.”
“No. Keep it,” Noah shook her head, tucking her hands in her brother’s jacket. Despite the hate she was feeling for him at that moment, she missed him. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, I’ll just let you freeze, then,” Ellie mumbled to herself, sarcastically, draping the jacket back around her knees and nustling herself further into her faded green jacket.
There was a breaking of twigs and Noah and Ellie’s heads turned to see Joel coming back up from the river, and Noah immediately noticed that he was using his left hand to carry the flask. He had messed up his other hand again back when they were still in Boston. Joel cast a brief glance in their direction as well, but otherwise, completely ignored them and went up to his backpack, attaching the flask back to it.
“You want your jacket back?” Ellie asked into the silence after a few seconds. She took a look up at Noah, before motioning to pick up the jacket from her knees again. “It seems neither of us want it right now despite how fucking freezing it is.”
He didn’t answer, keeping silent like he’d done since the State House. Noah couldn’t blame him, but it was getting harder and harder to just ignore Ellie’s constant questions that didn’t seem to have an end. And soon enough, Noah knew Ellie would start turning to her for answers instead.
Joel rummaged in his pack, pulling out the brown paper that held the last bits of their food. He opened it up, taking one piece and chewing on it. Noah watched him look into the contents of the pack again and upon seeing the distant look on his face, she knew that that was their last one. And then he tossed it in the direction of her and Ellie.
Ellie’s expression was less than thankful, but she took the food anyway, chewing on one piece before offering the paper up to Noah. The red-head looked at it for a second, but her stomach flipped, and she really didn’t think she could handle even a little bit. She didn’t know what it was, but there was something in her body — maybe guilt — that told her she shouldn’t. Not yet.
“I’m fine,” she repeated again.
Ellie’s mouth slacked a little, but she recovered back into her irritated look. She took back the food, keeping it for herself. “Fine. You can die of starvation as well as the cold.”
Noah ignored her, and Ellie was used to that. Joel looked between the two of them, and a flicker of something crossed his face. Noah supposed it was just the mention of death. Tess obviously meant a lot to him, despite the fact he never actually showed it. That was the issue with sudden events, they never give you enough time for a proper conclusion.
“I’ve never been in the woods,” Ellie started to speak. For a while on their journey, Noah thought she’d gotten good at just tuning everyone out, but she was utterly wrong. Now voices were all she heard, whether they were from the people next to her, or the people she couldn’t get out of her head. “More bugs than I thought.” Nothing from Joel or Noah. “Look, I’ve been thinking about—”
“I don’t want your sorries,” Joel interjected, knowing what was coming. It had been on the tip of Ellie’s tongue since they had got out of Boston, and each of them knew that. Joel was just thankful that Noah had kept to herself and not joined in on the pity party.
“I wasn’t gonna say I’m sorry,” Ellie argued. Noah turned her head around, because if she couldn’t block the real voices out, they were better than listening to the dead ones. “I was gonna say that I’ve been thinking about what happened. Nobody made you or Tess take me and Noah. Nobody made you go along with these plans. You needed a truck battery or whatever, and you made a choice. So don’t blame me or Noah for something that isn’t our fault. Because even though Noah’s been pretty much radio silence since, the guilt is fucking obvious.”
Noah took a deep breath after her speech, and Joel’s eyes wandered slowly from Ellie to the red-head. He studied her with an expression she couldn’t break, and Noah didn’t think she wanted to. The fact that Ellie had summed up all her feelings into one sentence was bad enough, she didn’t need pity from the person that she had just been pitying a second ago.
The moment passed and Noah turned away from the other two, grabbing her backpack and shrugging it onto her shoulder. She could feel the ache in her arm growing from where she’d killed that infected back in the museum, but she was ignoring it. It was just a bruise, and she knew people who had gotten a lot worse than that. Including the infected she had killed to get it.
Joel and Ellie had followed Noah’s lead on grabbing their stuff, ready to move after camping in the small clearing that night. Noah missed her bed more than anything, despite all lumpiness and broken springs, it was better than uneven dirt and sharp rocks. She had heard about something called camping before, something people did before the outbreak for fun — just like walks in the woods — but now you camp to live. It was better than losing to exhaustion on some random, backass road in the country.
“How much longer?” Ellie sighed as Noah stiffly walked up next to her, trying her hardest to not adjust her backpack off her shoulder. Yeah, that bruise hurts.
“Five hour hike,” Joel told her, plainly.
“Let’s go then,” Noah decided for the two of them, knowing that if they were going to get anywhere, they needed to start now. She didn’t even know where she was headed anymore, the trail of her brother was pretty much gone, and now it was just her with two people she had met by complete accident on the way. One being a grumpy old man and the other being a girl immune to infection. God, this had really gone off the rails.
Forest floor soon turned to tarmac and the sun was higher up in the sky, letting Noah’s body stop shivering and causing her hair to stick to her face with sweat. They had walked for at least an hour or two, and while Noah’s legs were pretty much turning to jelly with the speed at which she was walking, she was all too happy to keep going. They were heading towards Bill and Frank’s, they have some sort of protected society that only consists of them. Noah was mostly set on the plan because they’ll be able to get some supplies, more food and clean water, maybe some new clothes. Also a car.
It seemed Joel knew where he was going, he was leading the way. Noah had no problem keeping up, but for a while, Ellie lagged behind. She definitely wasn’t used to walking that much, Noah had noticed, but she made up for it with snark. The snark was usually aimed at Joel, and Noah found it quite entertaining, despite the situation they were all stuck in.
“You’ve gone this way a lot?” Ellie asked Joel, jogging a little to finally catch up. She wandered happily alongside Noah, and Joel glanced at the two of them. “No infected?”
“Not often, no,” Joel responded.
“What are you looking out for?” Ellie questioned. Noah had noticed it too. His eyes kept getting distracted by dark shadows in trees and burrows on the sides of the road.
“People,” he said grimly.
“Bill and Frank, can we trust them?” Noah spoke up. She needed to know the lay of the land.
“We’re not going to tell them anything they don’t need to know,” Joel said at first, but after a second, he added, “But if it comes down to it, Frank’s gonna be more trustworthy than Bill.”
“What’s wrong with Bill?” Ellie continued on for Noah.
“He’s not trusting,” Joel said.
“How’d you get that scar on your head?” Ellie kept going. It was one of those times that Noah could tell just by the look on Joel’s face, he was utterly exhausted. Ellie didn’t see that. “What? Is it something lame? Like you fell down the stairs or something?”
“I didn’t fall down any stairs,” Joel grunted.
“Okay, so what then?”
“Someone shot at me and missed,” Joel responded vaguely.
“See, that’s cool,” Ellie reasoned. “You shoot back?”
“Yeah.”
“You get him?”
“No, I missed, too. It happens more often than you think.”
“‘Cause you suck at shooting or, like, in general?” Ellie asked.
Joel stared down at her for a second. “In general.”
There was a bit of silence, and Noah kept her head low, trying to focus down on her boots that kept kicking up rocks as they took each step. In doing that, she missed Noah’s eyes gazing from her pistol on her belt — Joel had gifted her a holster silently a couple miles back — and then Joel’s series of guns.
“You know, seeing as it’s just the three of us, I was thinking I should pro—” Ellie began, making Noah raise her head up from the road.
“No,” Joel told her, knowing exactly what she was asking.
“Can I share—” she tried again, going to gesture at Noah’s gun.
“No,” Noah concluded, shutting her down just as Joel had done.
Ellie looked considerably done with their dismissive tones, but she didn’t argue about it.
The road started to swerve off on the left side, and there was a building with an old, wrecked car out front. Both had been long taken over by nature, but it was refreshing to see some kind of landmark where there had only been vegetation for a while. If anything went wrong, they at least had someplace they could head back to get back on track. But hopefully that wouldn’t be the case since Joel supposedly knew where he was going.
“Cumberland Farms,” Ellie announced, seeming as happy as Noah to see some kind of human-made structure. Although she was better at showing it than Noah.
“Hang back a minute. I gotta grab some stuff I stashed,” Joel said as he continued to turn the corner, heading towards the building. Ellie started to slow, but Noah still followed him. Without looking back, Joel added, “Both of you.”
Noah ignored him and then so did Ellie, both carrying on towards the building after him.
“Stashed?” Ellie questioned after giving Noah an unappreciated smug sneer. “Why do you have stuff stashed here?”
“You ask a lot of goddamn questions,” Joel shook his head, stating the obvious.
“Yes, I do,” Ellie agreed with him.
They got to the door of the old store, and Joel forced it open. Despite him telling the two girls to stay put, they followed him, and he didn’t seem to either care or want to argue about it. So he just let them tag along.
“So, are you gonna answer me or not?” Ellie demanded.
Joel sighed as he walked inside, eyes wary. “We hid supplies on routes in case we found ourselves short on gear, which I currently am. Noah, there’s some—”
Before Joel could finish his sentence, Ellie hurriedly shoved her way past Noah, making the red-head pause for a second, irritated. “No way!”
Noah got over her previous annoyance, following slowly after Ellie to where there was an old arcade machine. She hadn’t ever seen one in real life before, only heard about it from her parents and some comic books and stuff. Mortal Kombat II was labeled at the top, the entirety of the machine covered in descriptions of characters and the art of the game.
“You ever play this one?” Ellie asked, seeing Noah wander up beside her.
“We didn’t have them in our district,” Noah shrugged, tracing her finger down one of the scratches on the screen. Some of the game still burned into it. “We had the movie theater, it didn’t really have the best films on though.”
“Oh, shit. You were the movie district,” Ellie nodded, as if everything made sense now. “I heard some crazy shit happened over there. Mostly Firefly stuff.”
“Yeah, that’s why it’s nicknamed the Firefly district,” Noah said, matter-of-factly.
“Well, you missed out big time,” Ellie informed her, making Noah raise an eyebrow to get her to continue. “So, I had a friend who knew everything about this game. There’s this one character named Mileena who takes off her mask and she has monster teeth and then she swallows you whole and barfs out your bones.” Ellie messed about with the joystick, before stepping back, taking it all in. “Oh, man. You really missed out.”
“Yeah, sounds like it,” Noah sighed, but shrugged, shaking it off quickly. The possibility of having a somewhat normal childhood was nothing to dwell on. “It doesn’t really matter. I didn’t go out much anyway, not unless it was for school or rations.”
“Why not?” Ellie asked, leaning her elbows onto the machine, chin on her palm.
“Going out in the Firefly District, you’re either gonna die or watch someone else die,” Noah told her grimly. “It was better to stay indoors, mind your own business and do your work.”
“Huh,” Ellie wondered aloud, averting her eyes. Noah walked away, going over to Joel, although she stopped when she noticed him still looking all over the place. Ellie noticed it too. “You forgot where you put your stuff.”
“No, I’m just zeroing in on it,” Joel defended himself. “It’s been a couple of years.”
“Okay, well, I’m gonna… take a look around, see if there’s anything good,” Ellie said.
“You think there’ll be anything left?” Noah asked her, unconvinced.
“We won’t know until we try,” Ellie sing-songed, walking over to a doorway that led into the back of the story, pausing before going in. “Is there anything bad in here?”
Joel and Noah looked over from where Joel had previously been trying to break through a shelf. “Just you.”
“Ah, getting funnier,” Ellie mumbled, walking through and disappearing from view.
“You’ve really got to touch up on your jokes,” Noah said to Joel, watching him still struggling to find his stuff. He paused once more, giving her a slight glare before getting back to work.
“How do you put up with her?” he asked through grunts of annoyance.
“Ignoring her is a good tactic,” Noah informed, leaning back on the opposite shelf. “She loses interest if you don’t interact, you know.”
“Now that is the advice for bullies,” Joel corrected her.
“I’ve dealt with a lotta bullies, and that advice doesn’t solve shit,” Noah grumbled, crossing her arms. Too many memories of graffitied lockers and getting her head dunked in toilets.
“Who the hell bullied you and got away with it?” Joel questioned, looking mildly confused.
“Some girls in my school,” Noah replied, scratching the back of her neck. She hadn’t exactly talked out loud about them to anyone, except… Well, Aidan. “It was nothing really. I just got on their nerves because of some things that happened with my brother.”
“I am still not entirely sure why you’re going after him,” Joel confessed.
“It doesn’t matter,” Noah assured him. She turned round, looking at where Joel was still messing with the shelf. “You’ve really lost these supplies, huh?”
“No, I haven’t—” Joel was about to argue, but the two of them heard a thump from the other room. The man sighed and Noah pursed her lips, knowing that Ellie was going to get up to something on her own. “You all right back there?”
“Yep!” Ellie yelled back.
Noah rolled her eyes and turned back, and something on the floor caught her eyes. Just through the leaves, a small bit of the floor was higher up by an inch than the rest of the tiles. There were some scratches at the side of it, old ones, as if someone had taken a knife to try and pry it open.
“Hey, I think I found your stash,” Noah said, making Joel look away from the doorway Ellie had walked through. The red-head pointed down to the floor and the man looked disappointed in himself, but kneeled down and started to try and pry the tile away anyway. “Earlier you were going to say something to me, what was it?”
“This…” Joel grunted as he hauled out a heavy-looking, metal box. He swung open the lid and held up a box of bullets, passing it over to her. “Remember to keep the—”
“Bullets for emergencies, yeah,” Noah nodded, grabbing the box and shoving it into the side pocket of her backpack for later. “Thanks.”
A comfortable silence settled between them and Joel went back to rummaging through his old supplies while Noah took her time to look towards the door where Ellie had walked through. It had been unsettlingly quiet from her direction, and since the red-head could barely see into the other room, her nerves started to rise quickly.
“It’s been a little too quiet,” Noah announced slowly, and Joel looked up, his rummaging stopping and sending them into utter silence. He followed her eyeline to the door and hesitantly brought himself back up to his full height. When Noah tried to take a step forward, Joel held out his arm, shaking his head at her and taking the lead.
“Ellie?” he called out. There was a couple seconds of waiting, but they still didn’t get an answer. Joel took a couple steps forward, still keeping his arm out behind him to stop Noah from following after. “Ellie?”
All of a sudden, the other girl appeared out of the darkness, her arms laden with three different boxes. She looked between Joel and Noah’s concerned expressions, responding with a confused one. “I told you: We won’t know until we try. Here you go.”
She tossed over one of the boxes in her hand, and Noah fumbled to catch it. She turned it over and realized it was tampons. She was actually thankful. “Okay, I have to admit… Good find.”
“Wow, never heard that from you before,” Ellie smiled, looking overly happy with herself. Noah shoved the tampons into her backpack as Ellie then pulled out the third box from her arms. “And look, I found cookies.”
“What kind?” Noah asked, mildly curious.
“Um…” Ellie scanned the box, before finding the words: “Raisin.”
“Yeah, you can keep that to yourself,” Noah grimaced. “Should have found chocolate chip.”
“I would if I could pick and choose,” Ellie shrugged, still shoving both the box of her own tampons into her bag and the box of the cookies.
Joel stared between the two girls for a moment, something flickering in his eyes. Noah looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. “Come on, we should get going.”
“Yeah,” Joel agreed, clearing his throat and walking round the shelf to where his metal box was still left open on the floor. He closed it up again, locking it and carefully slid it back under the floor. He then also shoved his assault rifle inside with it, much to the annoyance of Ellie.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“There’s not much ammo out there for this thing,” Joel shrugged, not seeing Ellie’s expression as he dragged the tile back over the stash. “Makes it mostly useless.”
“Well, if you’re just gonna leave it there,” Ellie reasoned, taking a step forward.
Joel dropped the tile down and stood back up, giving her a stern look. “No.”
Ellie’s face fell and she looked over at Noah, trying to get her help, but the red-head just shrugged, knowing she wouldn’t make a difference even if she wanted to try. Joel started to head out of the store with Noah following after. Ellie only began to move once she had sighed and rolled her eyes.
Noah was definitely not shivering anymore. She had her jacket off around her waist, her hair sticking to her face with sweat, making her want to flick it away every time it stuck in front of her eyes. The heat of the day had started to slow their pace, not wanting to waste more energy than they had to for the last couple hours of the journey. The road ahead started to blur in Noah’s sights and she had to squint to see anything clear enough, but even though she was still tripping over any pothole that turned up in front of her.
There was a sudden break in the trees by the side of the road, and since there hadn’t been much else than branches and tarmac to look at on the journey, Noah took a glance. And she was completely shocked about what she could see. And so was Ellie.
“Holy shit,” the girl behind her breathed out, tugging on Noah’s sleeve to stop her beside her. Ellie knew Noah was just as clueless about what was out there in the world, and she knew that she’d be just as interested. Joel was then forced to stop as well.
Up on the hill in the distance, just in a haze, there was a decaying wreckage of a plane, its body sunk into the earth as if it was supposed to be there. Like it grew from a seed, sprouting wings, a head and a tail. There was nothing left among the debris, that was clear, but it was still a slightly eerie feeling to be so close to where so many people had met their graves. They probably didn’t even know what was happening, how the rest of the world was going up in flames at the same time as they flew right above it.
“You fly in one of those?” Ellie asked.
“Few times, sure,” Joel shrugged.
“What was it like?” Noah questioned, angling her head to get a better look through the haze. “I heard about this thing called First Class. It was, like, for rich people. Did you go into First Class?”
Joel nearly let out a humorless chuckle. “No. Caught a glimpse of it a few times though.”
“Still… So lucky,” Ellie breathed out, still tugging on Noah’s sleeve a couple times. Noah wasn’t sure why, she wasn’t pointing anything out, she was just tugging.
“Didn’t feel like it back then,” Joel admitted, turning his head to the girls, an excited wonder on both their faces — despite how much Noah tried to hide it. “Get shoved into a middle seat, pay twelve bucks for a sandwich.”
“Dude, you got to go up in the sky,” Ellie interjected.
“That’s pretty cool,” Noah told him, grinning only slightly.
Joel didn’t smile. “Yeah, well, so did they.”
He turned on his heel and continued walking. Noah’s smile dropped, and she frowned, taking one last look at the plane before walking off herself, pulling her sleeve out of Ellie’s grasp.
“Grim,” Noah heard Ellie mutter behind her, and she just ignored her, desperately trying to ignore how her clothes were sticking to her skin. “So everything came crashing down in one day?”
“Pretty much,” Joel answered as they all carried on walking down the road. The grass had started growing into the tarmac, making the path smaller and smaller.
“How?” Ellie questioned. “I mean, no one was infected with Cordyceps, everybody’s fine, eating in restaurants and flying in planes. And then, all at once? How did it even start? If you have to get bit to be infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey.” She looked over at Noah, with a smug look. “Because Darwin.”
“Eh…” Noah tilted her head, shrugging. “Sort of. You’re getting there.”
“It wasn’t a monkey,” Joel corrected them before they could get any further. “I thought you went to school.”
“You really don’t get it, Joel,” Noah shook her head, chuckling. “School isn’t like how it was before. They teach us drills and gun safety, a couple history, literature and math lessons here and there. But their failure to prevent the deaths of millions across the world was not something they like to share on a whim.”
Joel took a moment to consider this before explaining. “No one knows for sure, but, best guess, Cordyceps mutated. And some of it got into the food supply. Probably a basic ingredient like flour or sugar. There were certain brands of food that were sold everywhere, all across the country, across the world. Bread, cereal… pancake mix. You eat enough of it, it’ll get you infected. So the tainted food all hits the store shelves around the same time, Thursday. People bought it, ate some Thursday night or Friday morning. Day goes on, they started to get sick. Afternoon, evening, they got worse. Then they started bitin’. Friday night, September 26, 2003.”
He took a quick glance at the two girls, but they had their full attention on him. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and continued.
“And by Monday, everything was gone.”
There was a little bit of silence as Noah and Ellie didn’t know what to say. They just kept walking towards the sun, the country dazing past them on either side.
“It makes more sense than monkeys,” Ellie admitted. “Thanks.”
Joel shook his head, practically saying it was nothing. But Noah could tell it wasn’t just nothing. “Sure.”
All of a sudden, Joel stopped the two girls in their path, holding out his arm.
“What’s wrong?” Noah questioned, looking around her for what he had seen.
“We’ll cut across the woods here,” he said, easing her wariness quickly.
“Isn’t the road easier?” Ellie reasoned.
“Yeah, it’s just…” Joel sighed. “There’s stuff up there the two of you shouldn’t see.”
“Well, now we have to see,” Ellie smirked, reaching to grab Noah’s sleeve.
“I don’t want you to.” Ellie ignored him, dragging Noah behind her. “Seriously. You two. Noah. Ellie.”
“Well, can it hurt us?” Noah asked, with a brief look back, just managing to catch up with the other girl, not letting herself be dragged anymore. Ellie’s hand still held on tight to her sleeve.
“No,” Joel replied, noticing that was making them want to see it more.
“You’re too honest, man,” Ellie commented, making Joel scowl. “Should’ve said ax murderer.”
“She’s kind of right,” Noah shrugged, innocently.
“And that’s when you know I’m really right,” Ellie laughed, but it soon died down as they kept walking down the road, nothing appearing in front of them. “Whatever it was, think it’s gone.”
“Ellie… Ellie, wait,” Noah tapped her arm gently, slowing down in her steps as she stared down into a ditch by the side of the road. Ellie felt her stand still and stopped beside her, following her eyeline to where lines of skeletons pierced through the soil, glinting in the sunlight. Patches of clothes were attached to pieces of their bodies, waving in the breeze, like a flag of surrender.
Joel wandered up behind the two girls, averting his eyes away from the ditch as they looked up at him. “About a week after Outbreak Day, soldiers went through the countryside, evacuated the small towns. Told you you were goin’ to a QZ, and you were, if there was room. If there wasn’t.”
They all stared down at the ditch. Noah swallowed, hating how she had been so happy to come and see it just a few minutes ago.
“These people weren’t sick?” Ellie asked.
“No, probably not,” Joel said solemnly.
“My mom used to have nightmares about it,” Noah began, remembering the stories she had heard from her brother. He had heard their mom and dad talking about it one night, and, of course, he couldn’t keep it to himself. “My parents were from Arizona initially, but they got moved to the Boston QZ after they found out my mom was a doctor. Boston didn’t have a lot of trained professionals at the time and FEDRA didn’t mind uprooting people for the sake of it. When they were on their way to Boston in one of FEDRA’s trucks, they made a few friends who were also being picked up, but as news got around that the QZs were filling up too quickly to expand, people were… shot. My parents watched their friends get shot in a row just a few miles outside of the Boston QZ. They were so close to a home, but they never reached it. And that was FEDRA’s fault.”
“But why kill them?” Ellie said, and Noah finally noticed that Ellie was still playing with the end of her jacket sleeve, twisting the threads between her fingers. It seemed when she couldn’t play with her own sleeves, she played with other people’s. “Why not leave ‘em be?”
“Dead people can’t be infected,” Joel told her grimly.
After five long hours of walking, a fence finally appeared through the haze, and Ellie took off running towards it. Joel went to run after, but Noah saved him the trouble, just shaking her at him. It was too hot and too late in the day to argue.
“Were you expecting any less?” Noah sighed as they continued to walk their way towards the town of Lincoln. “She’s been asking ‘are we nearly there yet?’ for the last half an hour.”
Joel grunted, knowing she was right.
It wasn’t long before they were standing in front of the eight-foot, barbed-wire fence with Ellie, a gate apparent in the middle with an electronic keypad nailed to the pole by its side. Ellie was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet to touch every number, but Joel held out his arm to both her and Noah.
“Stay back,” he said and then reached up to the keypad, pressing in number after number. Beeps followed after every press, and then an extra long one finished it, alerting them that the gate was now unlocked. Joel pushed it to make sure before opening it all the way, holding it for Ellie and Noah, who wandered in with a look of wonder on their faces.
An eerie silence blanketed the town that was supposed to be lived in by two men. Leaves scattered the streets, fallen from their branches long ago, and some were pushed up into the gutters, as if swept there a while back. A small church and a yard were on one corner, and Joel led them right past it, walking up to the front path of a neatly sat, white house.
Its yard was unmowed, the grass a little above their ankles, and the yellow flowers that sat on one post of the wooden fence were starting to rot. Noah couldn’t hide the look of concern on her face. She had expected a nice welcome if anything, a hot meal, possibly a cozy bed for the night. But there was only silence and an ominous look of loneliness.
Joel seemed to have gotten the same idea as he steps became slower as they walked up to the front door, carefully opening it. He seemed confused when it came loose from the frame so easily, like it should have been locked tight. But instead they walked right into a home that looked lived-in, homely and at ease with itself. It was just as silent as the rest of the town, maybe more so, because this was the place where the only population left lived.
“What the fuck?” Ellie mumbled, peering her head around through either archway, starting to get the same idea that Noah and Joel had figured out already.
“It shouldn’t be this… quiet,” Noah agreed, for some reason trying to keep her own voice quiet too. Like this was a place to respect and treat with patience.
“Bill?” Joel called out, obviously not feeling the same as Noah. There was no response to his voice, and the possibility that there was actually nobody here at all was becoming very, very real. “Frank?” Again, no response at all. Joel’s face grew firm, turning to the two girls. “You stay there. You hear anything, you see anything, yell.”
He went to walk towards the back of the house, but Noah asked, “What if they’re not here?”
Joel seemed to want to answer, he tried to answer, but in the end he couldn’t. He pulled his gun out of his holster and disappeared further into the home, leaving Noah and Ellie by themselves in the neatly decorated foyer. But, of course, neither Noah nor Ellie listened to Joel’s orders.
Ellie was the first to wander into the other room, walking right up to a piano. Noah turned to the other wall as she heard a couple notes being played, but she ignored them, staring up at some paintings of a man. She was guessing it was Bill, only because the name Frank was signed neatly at the bottom of each one, like a signature.
“You know how to play this?” Ellie asked from behind her, pressing down on one of the keys to make an awful sound in their ears. She backed away after that.
“No, but my dad did,” Noah said, still staring at the paintings.
“Was he any good?” Ellie questioned.
Noah shrugged. “I don’t think there were any pianos in the QZ to play.”
For once, there was no response from Ellie and that made Noah turn around from the paintings. She found her staring down at a small glass coffee table, a couple plant pots dotted around the corners and a few burnt out candles. But there, at the side, was two letters, a key atop one.
The top one said ‘To whomever, but probably Joel’. Ellie picked them both up, and then looked at the bottom one, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.
“What?” Noah asked, not having seen the bottom letter. “What does it say?”
“It says… Tiger,” Ellie read, and Noah’s heart started to beat faster. “Why would someone be writing to a tiger? That’s fucking stupid.”
“What did you say?” Noah asked again, wanting to make totally sure before she fell into a trap of hope she couldn’t escape from. Because this couldn’t be him. It just couldn’t. Could it?
“Yeah, I know. Someone’s trying to write to a tiger,” Ellie sighed, exasperated. “I guess people really did start to go mad after Outbreak Day.”
“No, Ellie—” Noah didn’t have time to correct her. She snatched the letter from her and wandered through a door at the side of the room. It led right into a bathroom, and she kicked the door shut behind her. Sitting down onto the lid of the toilet, she felt her hands start to shake as she moved to rip open the envelope.
There was a loud knock on the door that made Noah jump, head snapping up to the handle trying to turn, but thinking better of it. Then Ellie’s voice could be heard, “Red? You alright?”
“I’m… fine,” Noah stammered at the same rate of her heart. She tried to come up with an excuse, staring round the room before realizing there was one right in front of her. “I’m just— I’m just going to the bathroom.”
“Jesus, sorry,” Ellie’s voice sighed, it growing more distant as she seemed to walk away. “If you wanted to use the bathroom, you could have just said.”
Noah waited until she was sure Ellie was definitely gone from the other room before finally ripping open the letter as quickly as possible. She really had no time to waste. She pulled out the sheet of paper from inside, scanning the bottom just to make sure. And she saw the name. His name. From Aidan. It was really from him. He had been here.
To Tiger,
I don’t know if you’ll find this, but knowing you, you will. It’s been a week and a bit since I left our apartment, so I’m pretty sure you probably know something’s a bit off. From the way I left, I don’t know if a Firefly actually came to tell you anything about why I disappeared, so that probably meant you went off to figure it out yourself. You always wanted an adventure. I didn’t mean to give you one, but I guess it can be a late birthday present.
The deal went sour is basically what happened. Robert’s guys are ones for some neighborly favors, I guess. I don’t see why that meant they needed to run me out of the QZ, but here we are. It's been a long journey since then, the city was pretty awful. I got a couple infected on my ass just as I got outside the borders, and they’ve been following just behind me for a while now. I haven’t been able to sleep just yet. I’m running out of food. Luckily, I’ve kept my bullets spare.
You’re probably wondering how I even know about this place, huh? I remembered it from a while back. I think mom and dad were doing some trading with these guys for some time, at least when times got really bad in the QZ. They took a few trips every now and then — explains all those weeks they ‘went on romantic getaways in other districts’. But I remembered them leaving a sheet of paper on the table one time, it was a couple numbers. I guess it stuck with me because it got me through the gate, and the infected got bored after a while.
I wandered around a bit when I first got here. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find. More infected? That this deal went sour too? I don’t know. But there wasn’t much in most of the houses, not until I got to this one. Obviously it was Bill and Frank’s house, but there was no one here when I opened the door. I didn’t know what to do… until I found that other letter. I left it on top of this one. It said ‘to whomever’, I didn’t want to pry, but I guessed I fell into the category of ‘whomever’. Their dead, Noah. I suppose I should have guessed that from the beginning. Something about wanting to save the world makes you have a stupid amount of hope.
They seemed to be at peace when it happened. That’s the best way you can try to go nowadays, and from the way they described it, they were happy in the end. If I’m supposed to go, I want that too. I want that type of peace. But usually you want what you can’t have. But there’s that hope again, it’s always there.
Anyway, I need to write this letter quickly. I’m too far from the QZ now to go back, I can’t go back. Robert’s guys won’t like that, and it won’t be too long before they snitch to FEDRA about me being a Firefly. I’ll be wanted, and then I’ll be hanged or shot. I don’t like the sound of either of them very much, so I’ve got to keep going. I’ve found a map and I’m heading towards Kansas City. It’s not far from my calculations, but I never actually finished school, so who knows.
If you’re still following me, that’s where I’m heading. Or headed. Depends when you find this letter, or if you ever do. I have hope you’ll find me, Tiger. I think that once you set your mind on something, you won’t stop until you finish it. You’ll find me. Just keep following.
From Aidan.
Noah could almost laugh. She felt like it. God, the boy was an idiot. But he was alive. He was alive at least a couple days ago. She just needs to keep following and she’d find him sooner or later. He had to slow down at some point, he had to sleep, had to let down his guard. He couldn’t be completely perfect at surviving all the time. Everyone loses it at least once. It just happened that Noah had lost it a couple times now.
She wiped a tear that had slipped down her cheek, feeling way too happy to even think about those bad times back at the start. She opened up the bathroom door again, walking out from the room with the piano and ending up in the dining room, holding up the letter with a smile.
“So, my brother’s still alive and he’s heading to Kansa—” She trailed off as Ellie and Joel’s heads looked at her with solemn expressions. And then she remembered what else had been in her brother’s letter, and slowly lowered her arm, bowing her head. “Sorry.”
“I was just relaying some rules the two of you need to follow if you’re gonna join me on this journey,” Joel told her sternly and she nodded, giving him an expectant look. He started over. “Rule one, neither of you bring up Tess. Ever. Matter of fact, we can just keep our histories to ourselves. Rule two, Ellie, you don’t tell anyone about your… condition. They see that bite mark, they won’t think it through. They’ll just shoot you. Rule three, you do what I say when I say it. We clear?”
“Yes,” they both said at the same time.
“Repeat it,” he ordered.
“What you say goes,” Ellie said.
“You’re in charge,” Noah agreed, despite how she hated to admit it.
Joel took a moment, but he seemed pleased with their answers. “Okay.” He took a deep breath before looking over at Noah. “What were you saying about your brother?”
“He’s heading towards Kansas City,” Noah spoke again, holding out the letter for Joel to take. He squinted down to quickly scan the words. “He was here only a couple days ago. Just to hide from some infected, that’s it. But it means he’s still alive.”
“You just keep getting luckier,” Joel mumbled, passing the letter back over. “Kansas City’s on our way. Most likely he’s going the same direction as we are. Towards Wyoming.”
“Great,” Ellie smiled mildly. “So what now?”
“We grab what we can,” Joel decided.
The bunker under the house was filled with supplies. Noah was in awe at the lit up wall of guns, ammo lining the shelves. TV screens were set up in two rows of three, showing the outside of the fences where it looked like traps were set for possible infected or enemies. There was a small, low volume tune playing around the walls, coming from a speaker by the security screens.
“Ho–ly shit,” Ellie breathed out, turning around on one foot as she walked into the corner where the walls of guns were. “This guy was a genius.” Joel wandered up to the desk with the computers, pressing a button and stopping the tune. “Why was the music on?”
“If he didn’t reset the countdown every few weeks, this playlist would run over the radio,” Joel explained, a pained expression on his face.
Noah came up beside him, seeing the name of the song. “Huh. ‘80s.”
Joel pursed his lips, but didn’t argue. “Both of you, go get some cans from over there. Nothin’ dented or swollen.”
Noah began to go over to the food storage, but turned around upon realizing Ellie wasn’t following. Instead, she found the girl with her finger tracing the barrel of a shotgun.
“Dude,” she began.
“No,” Joel interjected before she could even request anything.
Ellie looked up at the sheer amount of them. “There’s a wall of them.” Joel looked up from the TV screens on the desk, glaring at her with a pointed expression.
Noah watched the girl’s face fall, and she didn’t know if it was because of her new sunny disposition, but she felt a little nudge of sympathy. She sighed, “Hey, Ellie.” The brunette’s head lifted almost immediately. “Grab some of those hunting knives.”
“Um… Why?” Ellie questioned, but moved over to where they were lined up on a panel. She scanned her eyes over them for a second before grabbing one with a sleek, mahogany handle and a curved end.
“I’m going to guess you didn’t get to the melee part of the FEDRA course, did you?” Noah questioned as they both wandered back to where the food was stocked.
“Nope. Left before that,” Ellie said glumly, rattling one can and deciding it was good enough and grabbing a backpack from the side to shove it in.
“Well, I’ll teach you,” Noah shrugged, the other girl’s head raising once again. There was an excited expression on her face, and the red-head felt her heart race. “Nothing too serious. But I promise, you’ll have no need for a gun by the time we’re done.”
“Okay,” Ellie agreed quickly, not even taking a breath. She took a moment to take another can off the shelf, dumping into the backpack. “But I do want a gun.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” Noah retorted, giving her a small grin.
“This is slightly freaky, you know,” Ellie admitted, sending the red-head raised eyebrows of concern. “You being happy. I’m more used to you being grumpy and sarcastic.”
“I can be both,” Noah informed her, grabbing her own can from the shelf. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”
“What?”
“Nevermind.”
They spent half an hour digging through Bill and Frank’s supplies, Joel finding some old boxes of clothes for Noah and Ellie, while he took some of Bill’s stuff for himself. They wandered back down into the bunker after a while to finish off digging through the cans and pots of food. Ellie got bored pretty easily, turning to the tap by the window, messing with the knob for a second before she gasped as water actually started to pour out.
“They have hot water!” she called, waving her hand under the water with a wide smile back at Noah and Joel. They had both raised their heads from where they were packing up supplies, sharing the same look of bemusement. “I’m takin’ a shower. And then you’re both showering.” She started to wander out to the doorway into the backyard. “Because seriously. Phew.”
They both shared a look of confusion, but they didn’t seem to have a choice. That became more clear as Noah heard her name being called through the house by Ellie, alerting her that it was her time to finally wash. She made her way upstairs, getting a towel tossed on her head from the landing above as she did.
“Dude, it’s amazing,” Ellie told her, looking down at her as she dried her hair with a towel. And then she wandered off into another room, going to get dressed.
Noah sighed with exasperation before continuing up the stairs, entering the bathroom. She got into the shower, and immediately felt relief as she was able to wash off the sweat and dirt from the last couple days. She managed to wash and dry in a couple minutes, looking into the mirror as she brushed her teeth. She could see the bruise on her shoulder from the museum, but it seemed to be healing, slowly but surely. It was sort of nice, she had to admit.
She got dressed into some new jeans, a white shirt, and a red zip-up. She kept her old boots, not wanting to swap them out for any sneakers. And then Joel went up to shower, and Noah began to wander her way round the house again, looking for anything else that might be worth taking. She did in fact find something good; an empty diary and a pen. She guessed she could get into writing again, she had had to leave her old one back at the apartment.
Noah wandered her way into the dining room. “Hey, look what I—” Ellie stopped in her tracks of trying to open up her rucksack, a pistol resting in her palm. Noah lowered the diary back to her side, and Ellie stared up at her with a pleading expression. “It’s fine. I won’t tell him.”
“I really do like this happy version of you,” Ellie emphasized, stuffing the pistol into her backpack just as Joel’s footsteps could be heard on the steps. Noah moved herself next to Ellie, the two of theirs’ faces falling into disbelief as Joel turned up… clean.
“Well, don’t you look pretty,” Ellie teased.
“You styled your hair, didn’t you?” Noah chuckled, pointing up where it was slicked back in a perfect angle towards the back of his head.
“Shut up,” Joel mumbled to them both, tossing two bottles in either of their directions. Noah barely caught it with one hand, finding it to be deodorant and smiling happily, tucking the diary and pen under her arm to put it on.
“Nice,” Ellie commented, putting it on as well.
The car was a newly-painted, four-seat pick-up. It was blue with a white streak down either side, and unluckily for Noah, she was last into the garage. Ellie was already jumping into the passenger seat, and, of course, Joel was driving.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Noah mumbled to herself as she reluctantly pulled herself into the backseat, taking Ellie’s bag and putting it down by her feet with her own and Joel’s.
In the front, Ellie started to mess with everyone that she was able to touch, looking at everything in awe. She leaned out the open window as Noah pulled herself to lean into the front, watching as the brunette pushed the wing mirror inwards, and Noah’s confused expression and Joel’s exasperated expression came into view.
“It’s your first time in a car?” Joel questioned with a tone of exhaustion.
“It’s like a spaceship,” Ellie smiled, pressing some buttons on the radio.
“No, it’s like a piece of shit Chevy S10, but it’ll get us there, I think,” Joel corrected with a little bit of bitterness, but Noah could tell he was thankful.
“What is a… Chevy?” Noah asked with squinted eyes, trying to pronounce it like he did. Joel turned round to look at her, but she just shrugged, placing her hand down on the back of Ellie’s chair, leaning on her shoulder. Ellie looked up from the radio, staring at the side of Noah’s face with a panicked expression. “It sounds weird.”
“It’s what you’re sitting in,” Joel responded with a small sigh. He moved back around, pulling the seatbelt on around him and into the plug. He then looked over at the two girls, seeing Ellie still staring at Noah and Noah looking mildly bored. “Seatbelts.”
They both just stared at him.
He closed his eyes briefly, but moved over in his seat again, using both his hands to pull Ellie and Noah’s seatbelt from around them, pushing them into their hands. “Seatbelt.”
“So cool,” Ellie whispered.
Noah tugged on the seatbelt a couple times just for fun before plugging it in like the other two. Joel checked on her quickly through the rearview mirror, but only pursed his lips upon seeing her looking just as in awe as Ellie.
He pulled the car out of park, and started to drive and Noah stared out one of her windows, confused as to how the world was moving so much quicker than when she was walking. There was a soft click from the front and her attention was drawn elsewhere, finding Ellie pulling out a cassette from the glove box.
“Is it good?” Noah asked, hoping it wasn’t ‘80s.
“I don’t know,” Ellie hummed, trying to hold it up to the last of the sunlight to see better.
“Would you leave it?” Joel complained, having a hard time focusing on driving when they were both encouraging each other to mess with the car. They both didn’t listen.
“Put it in and check,” Noah said, gesturing to the gap in the radio which was a perfect size for it.
Ellie complied.
“Put it back,” Joel continued to try. “Ellie. Don’t listen to Noah. Ellie.”
Ellie did it anyway, pressing play and Noah leaned in to listen. Instead some real old tune started to come out the speakers, it sounded all crackly and the words kept breaking.
“Huh. Maybe ‘80s would’ve been better,” Noah mumbled under her breath.
Ellie seemed to agree because she leaned forward to turn it off, but Joel’s hand stopped her, shaking his head. “No, leave it. Leave it. This is good. This is Linda Ronstadt. Do you two know who Linda Ronstadt is?”
“Why would we?”
“You know we don’t know who Linda Ronstadt is.”
Joel drove up to the gate and stopped for a moment, listening to the music. “Oh, man.”
“Eh,” Ellie shrugged, leaning back in her seat. “It’s better than nothing.”
“I don’t know,” Noah frowned, looking out the front window. “I think the birds sound nice.”
Joel shook his head with a nearly silent chuckle, taking the remote for the gate from his side and pressing the button to the gate. It opened with a creak and he started to drive forward, heading back towards the open country and Kansas City.
Author's Note
Sorry if the updates are slow, i've got exams at the moment and i completely forgot about them. Hopefully, i'll be able to get the next chapter out by the weekend.
Next chapter you'll be getting some more Noah and Joel and Noah starting to get a little closer to Ellie :)