002: glove upon a drum
The rough terrain of the road as Bill tried to maneuver around the potholes littering the pavement jerked Joey awake. It had stopped raining at that point, the morning sun seeping through the sunroof and piercing the small cut that was on her cheekbone. Her throat was dry and no matter how many times she moved her tongue around in her mouth it felt as though she was swallowing sandpaper. Bill looked at her stirring in the rearview mirror and readjusted his hands on the steering wheel. He reached forward for the canister of water and threw it back to her. She was so hungry it hurt to swallow the water, and her neck strained as she sat up. "Don't drink all of it, kid," he ordered beckoning his hand to give it back to her. A stream or two dribbled down her chin as she gave it back. "Sorry,"
Bill took a swig and pushed it back into his bag - it was obvious he had been drinking it on the interstate. He pulled out of an exit. "How far away are we?"
"We're in Los Banos right now. 'Bout an hour and a half drive to San Jose. We're almost outta gas though, and it's about a day's trip on foot ━ and we're most likely not going to find any gas, but we can try," he answered, pulling into the desolate city ━ and Joey saw a sign. Welcome to the Historic Los Banos, At the Crossroads of California. She cringed. It was a ghost town now. They came to a literal cross road, with two streets diverging at the end of the interstate, completely riddled with cars. Joey crawled up to the front seat. "Oh no . . . no, no no," Bill muttered to himself. There was already grass growing from the cracks in the concrete, and every car was piled atop each other. Joey scrunch her face up in confusion, but let out a yawn. "Now what?" she asked, and he sighed heavily and obviously which made Joey retreat back into her seat. Long As I Can See the Light played off the stereo, as the CD played on repeat for the duration of their trip. Bill glanced back at the end of the interstate, contemplating whether to go back and take another route instead of cutting through the city, or to go the diversion to the right and make it an extra scenic trip. "Screw it," he muttered, putting the truck into drive and steering right.
Joey looked out the windows at the many buildings as they passed by. A few rotters remained outside, and she tried to imagine what they looked like before they turned. Brown hair, maybe a delicate tan, perhaps a few freckles from the exposure to the California sun. Were they always that skinny? Or was their skin deteriorating faster than others?
She never realized the importance of people in a city like this, or in any place. The physical presence of living people is what gave a city, a town, a country life. With the absence of people, it was scary. Despite it being the morning it felt as though the night was creeping behind them at all times, waiting to take over. When it did turn to evening, the crickets and other creatures of the night didn't sing their soulful tunes. Darkness set in fast and not even the moon could relish their craving for something alive.
She didn't even realize a man, alive, stumbling in front of their truck until Bill slammed on the breaks, her getting jerked forward. "Easy,"
She nearly gasped at the sight of him. He was distraught, bloody (whether it was his own or someone else's, she didn't know) and he was clutching at his abdomen, pleading for help. "Holy shit," she breathed, "Are we gonna help him?"
"Put your seatbelt on, Joey," Bill ordered, and she looked between him and the man frantically. The guy was still groaning and pleading, now limping toward them. "W ━ Well what about the guy?" she asked as she clicked her seatbelt into place, and Bill shook his head, reaching for the gear. "He ain't even hurt," he laid on the gas pedal, and Joey reached to grab onto the handle above the window. The guy released his hold on his abdomen and reached for his pistol, shooting into the windshield. "Go, go!" he cried, as other men appeared from behind the cars and ambushed the truck. Joey screamed, other hand reaching to grab the bar above the glove department, getting thrown back as they hit the man in front of them. The others chased them, throwing bricks and shooting at the car, to which Bill had to swerve away from their rapid gunfire. Another psycho came running up to the passenger side window, and slammed a shovel into the window, shattering the glass and sending the shards into Joey's face. She would've been dead had she not leaned towards the center console and protected her head.
"What the actual fuck is going on!" she screamed, reaching for something to hold onto, before she looked to her right ━ a giant bus was headed straight toward them, and crashed into the side of her car, before they skidded into one of the stores aligning the streets strip. Her vision was blurry as she felt some blood dripping from her head into her eyes. Bill frantically collected himself and looked at her with worry. "Shit!" she slurred out, reaching up her hand to cease the wound.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," she pleaded, breathless, wincing as she tried to lift her head up. It felt as though her brain was filling up with water and she had to balance out the water weight, head swaying left and right. There were a few cuts from the shards of glass on her forearms, which led rivers of crimson down to her hands. Her right eye was starting to get filled with blood from when she hit her head, and Joey had to clamp her eye shut a few times to get it out, but it only seemed to make it worse.
"Then get out, now," Bill pleaded, unbuckling his seat belt and reached over to do the same to hers. Once she was free from the constraint, Joey reached to push the truck door open, but her arm was immediately caught by one of the men that had ambushed them. "Come here you little shit!" he growled, grasping her arm and seizing her out of the car. If it weren't for Bill grabbing chaotically at her feet, she would have been rotter bait ━ but he kept a firm grip as she frantically tried to keep her legs in the car, despite grasping at straws. "Let go of me you mother fucker!" she clawed at his arms, legs, anything she could reach, but another man had snuck up behind Bill and slammed his head down on the center console, which prompted him to let go of her. Joey shrieked, flinging her body around in the man's grip. "Shit! Bill!"
The man that grabbed Bill had thrown him out of the truck at that point, onto the dingy ground of the shop they had crashed into, pulling him up onto his feet and bashing his head through a window. A sharp, taunting piece of gas still stood straight up despite the destruction, and the man then tried to force Bill's neck down onto it. But, Bill pushed his elbow back into the man's face, and then forced his neck down onto the glass without warning. By the time he turned around to hear Joey's frantic cries, the man had cracked her across the face, and she fell to the ground with a hmph.
Bill saw red, before he ran up to the man, "I'll show you, I'll show you . . ." he muttered to himself, before kicking the guys face and slamming his face down twice on the nearby pile of bricks and ash. Joey, meanwhile, was hunched over on all fours, coughing up the blood that formed from the hit to her bottom lip ━ and trying to coax the burning pain in her neck from nearly being suffocated. He pulled her up by the arm.
"Jesus fuck . . . what the actual living fuck is wrong with these assholes?" she cursed, Bill dragging her back over to the truck. "Calm down, catch your breath," he urged, grabbing their bags from the back of the truck and loading them on while handing her her backpack. The song still played from the stereo.
"We're leaving," he coughed, and Joey tried to wipe away some of the blood that was all over her at this point. Some of it had clotted up, but the cuts on her arms had reopened when Bill grabbed her. It was still hard for her to talk, a bruise forming over her neck. She could see Bill was bleeding, too, but the adrenaline of the situation made them hardly feel a thing. Joey saw from the corner of her eye someone peeking up from behind an abandoned car, and she saw it was a woman with her hair haphazardly placed everywhere aiming a gun at Bill's head. "Get down!" Joey yelled, ducking near the front of the truck as the bullet shattered one of the windows. Bill dodged behind one of the fallen shelves, and frantically searched his bag for bullets to reload his gun. "Stay down, Joey!"
Joey kept her head below the front of the car, heartbeat corresponding with the array of bullets ricocheting everywhere she looked. Bill was still placed behind the toppled over shelf, the sound of bullets clinking against the metal filling up his ears. He waited for when the others were reloading their guns to take the chance and shoot at the pair that had emerged, sending them to the ground writhing in pain. Nevertheless, it seemed as though the odds were not in their favor, as one more of the hunters crept around from the outside of the building to shoot their shot. Bill stood up and shot the guy two times in the shoulder before he was down on the ground with the others, and another bullet to the head. Joey flinched at the toppling amount of bodies on the ground - some that she wasn't sure was from Bill, rotters, or others. Whatever way they died, she didn't want to stick around long enough for it to happen to them.
"Alright . . . I think that's the last of 'em. You okay?" Bill yelled out to Joey, who was standing up from behind the car when the gun fire seized. Her clothes were soaked with blood and the vision in her one eye was dwindling from blood. "Uh . . . can you fucking see?" she snapped, hand pressed against the side of the car, trying to refocus herself before they continued on. Bill turned around. "Shit, what the fuck?"
Joey flinched at the pain in her head, as it pounded in her ears. "I'll be fine until . . . until we can find somewhere safe,"
Bill sighed, grabbing at her arm to keep her straight up. Her vision was still blurring in her one eye. "Good, because we need to get the hell out of here . . . through here," he beckoned, pointing to the opposite store that's open. There were cars lined up against a cement wall that must've been put up by the military a few months prior. To think a city had already been overrun by savages made her skin crawl. Bill crouched down to open up a door that stood as their exit, and tried to take off the chains that kept it on the ground. It was heavy, and he was only able to lift it halfway before he couldn't pull it up all the way. "Alright, go, go," and Joey crouched down to run through. "Try to see if you can find something to prop it open with," he ordered, but when Joey reached the other side, her stomach did flips in the least comforting way possible. There were human bodies, dismembered ━ some were cooked and placed in plastic bags, while others hung from the ceiling as if they were pigs. She swallowed the bile that crept up her throat. "There's uh . . . there's some pretty gnarly stuff in here," she whispered, pinching her nose at the putrid smell. Bill grunted from the other side of the door. "Joey!"
"Shit, sorry, right," she shook her head, as if to rid herself of the image even as it was right in front of her. Looking around, there was a chain that was made to open the door, so she hiked one foot up on the bottom of it to keep herself steady before pulling. It creaked up, and she had to keep pulling hard for it to get high enough for Bill to crawl through. They placed the door carefully on the ground before moving on. "Check this out . . . fucking disgusting," she whined, eyes still fixated on the corpses around her. The smell was suffocated and the idea of them becoming one of them made her want to vomit even more than the blood drying and caking all over her skin. She found herself staring, long, at the bodies in front of her. Bill hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. "Hey . . . let's get outta here, alright? We lived. We're good,"
Joey furrowed her brows, still staring at everything. "This is a lot of people who didn't make it," she whispered, looking at how those same people's clothes, bags, and other items were still hung somewhere about the room. They were people one instant and were now meat for the cannibalistic hunters that were coming after them ━ and this could've been them. He squeezed her shoulder even more. "You look like shit, we'll find food and water to wash up, once we get the fuck out of this city, okay?" he laughed, which earned a small chuckle from her, and he pushed open the door to their left. It led them outside again, to a staircase up the side of the building that would give them a clear view of the city. There was a large yellow bridge that wasn't far from where they stood. "That's our ticket out of here," Bill pointed, and Joey nodded ━ even though she was feeling slight dread for what was to come. They had almost died, and if they got to San Jose and there was nothing there, she'd feel entirely responsible. And by the looks of the cities they had passed through, a possible quarantine zone in one of the bigger sections of the state didn't seem entirely reliable. "Alright, yeah. Not too bad," she smiled, following him off the stairs and through a cement barrier that had been blown to pieces. Remnants of the military's former presence was still scattered about the city, as Joey could see, and it made her chest hurt to think that everything had fallen to pieces so quickly. It was almost sickening, like a bad dream she couldn't wake up from - and it filled her head with sawdust.
When her feet hit the ground, a wave of nausea hit her head. She tumbled onto all fours ━ she didn't realize how badly she was hit until she had maneuvered beyond just walking. Bill kneeled at her side to help her up. "Steady, kiddo . . . you good to walk to the bridge?" he asked, gripping her forearm and bringing her to her feet. Joey still clung onto him a bit longer to steady herself. "My head . . . shit. You got any more water?" the blood that seeped into her eye was making her vision disappear. Not to mention she was so beyond fatigued it felt as though she was wading through water.
"Cmon, we only have a little ways to go, we can make it before any of those guys and their friends come back for round two, alright?" he still gripped at her arm, which was clotting from the cuts of glass. Her head, however, had seemed to still cause her to lose a great deal of blood. She held onto Bill to try and soldier on, but her legs shook and she fell to the ground again. "Fuck," she hissed, trying to fight back the tears of both pain and embarrassment, although Bill didn't seem to notice. He tore out the bit of water they had left and a handful of nuts that had been crushed during the crash. "Here . . . eat and drink slow . . . I'll carry you,"
Joey pushed him away as he tried to lift her, stuffing the peanuts in her mouth and taking two large swigs of water before pouring a bit into her eye. Part of her felt like a burden and an idiot if she succumbed to him carrying her not even a mile to the bridge when she was fine on her own. She wanted to prove that she didn't need his help, but the more she tried to do so, the more obviously she did need his help.
Her grunt of pain as she pushed herself off the ground proved to be from the overbearing pain in her head, which seemed to be filled with flies as she cradled it in her hands, Bill sighing as she gave him the water back. "You need to rest. Let me carry you, at least until we get to the bridge,"
"No! I'm fine, alright?"
"Joey ━"
"I said I was fucking fine!"
Bill threw the empty container of water at the ground at her feet as she limped away. "Ow!" she stated, entirely lying about the bottle even coming anywhere near her. They stared at each other to see who would crumble first. Neither did, instead Joey turned around and kept walking, leaving the canister on the ground. "Do you even know where you're going?" he called out after her, and she simply replied with just pointing at the bridge.
The pair carried on, Joey always ten feet in front of Bill, and her stomach hurt. She had been so hungry that her body was physically rejecting the food. It only took a waft of a rotter's stench for her to release the minimal contains of her stomach into a nearby, rusting garbage can. She wanted to cry just by doing so, and so did Bill, but she couldn't help herself. She was so tired of walking and walking that she was tempted to just sit in the middle of the road and let herself be mauled. "You still want to walk?" Bill teased, but Joey just grabbed her knife and turned around to point it at him. "Shut the fuck up before I cut your fucking tongue out," she threatened, wavering slightly as her feet grappled for the ground, and she stumbled around. Bill looked at her, exhausted, with sweat beading on his forehead. He tried to walk around her but she would stumble into his path to stop him. Joey didn't intend to be comical, but Bill was struggling to hold back his laughter. "Put the knife away. You're not going to cut my tongue out,"
"Don't underestimate me,"
He rolled his eyes, sticking out one arm. "You're tired, hungry, and hurt. Let me carry you, at least to the bridge," he offered, visibly worn by their constant battle for significance. Joey didn't want to seem weak, and Bill didn't want to come off as too overbearing, but they were both failing in that arena. "I'm not your daughter," Joey grunted, which caused Bill to stop in his steps to help her. His eyes widened and face went pale, and Joey stopped her steps as well once she realized the weight of what she had said. They had both agreed not to talk about Ellie at all, under any circumstance. In that regard, they wouldn't talk about her family either. She chewed at her bottom lip and pushed her knife back into her pants as Bill pushed past her. "Fine, walk yourself, and try to keep up," he ordered, putting a bit of a skip in his step to advance further than her. Joey attempted to jog and catch up with him, but resorted to walking speedily. "Bill! Come on, that's not what I meant ━ I didn't mean it in that way . . . Bill!" she called out after him, one arm leaning against some of the walls of the buildings to keep her stood up. He didn't seem to notice until she finally caught up to him, but he had pulled her down behind a car. They heard voices of what seemed like other guys apart of the hunters they had encountered earlier. Joey noticed how there weren't any women, which only made her more scared. But, she'd never admit that.
"Shit, how many of these guys are there?" she winced, as Bill placed a finger against his lips. She shut up quickly. He had his hand clutched on his gun, as some of the guys were busy taking down rotters that had wandered into the perimeter. Bill pointed to a building, that was only about twenty feet away, and gestured for them to try and sneak in there to avoid having to kill any more of them and get away from them purely on stealth. Joey shook her head frantically, afraid that she might pass out or fall over from her injuries (and pure lack of energy) but when they actually executed it, the adrenaline of the situation was able to wake her up and forget about her pounding headache. Her palms were sweating and shaking slightly. They had reached an old building, its windows smashed in, alongside a massive water puddle in the ground that seemed to go about a foot deep. Joey presumed there was a busted pipe that blew up beneath the concrete, but she wasn't entirely sure ━ but Bill climbed up a ladder that ascended them to the upper floor, and told Joey to stay back until he scoped it out and made sure it was safe. She didn't have time to protest, but instead hid behind a toppled over vending machine until he called her up.
But, it wasn't long before he tried to reach the top and one of the hunters kicked his feet, Bill landing straight on his back in the water, and Joey tried to make her way out from behind the vending machine, but Bill put his hand out to stop her. It wasn't until the hunter pushed Bill's head underwater to drown him, and Bill struggled against his restraint to grab the pistol beside him, that Joey emerged and snatched it from him, shooting the man in the head. Her heart stammered against her chest as Bill popped his head above the surface of the water, nose bleeding and soaking wet. Joey nearly fell back onto the ground as she stared at the man's dead body. It wasn't the first person she had killed, but it never seemed to get easier. Her heart was heavy in her throat. "Shit," she heaved, pressing the heel of her palm to her forehead. Bill looked frantically around before taking the gun from Joey. "I told you to stay there," he whispered, moving to put his backpack on and picking up the items that had fallen out. Joey swallowed thickly. "Uhm ━ are you blind? I just saved your fucking life, man!"
He shook his head, grabbing her by the arm. "I had it handled. You shot a fucking gun, the whole place is going to be on our ass!" he yelled, pushing her towards the ladder, to which she put her hands up in surrender before climbing up. "You fucking kidding me? How about a little gratitude, I don't know, maybe a thank you?" she retorted, until they heard footsteps arriving, and gunshots being whizzed in their direction, ricocheting off the objects in the area. "Shit, shit! Why are we always getting fucking shot at!" she cried, climbing up the ladder as quickly as she could, with Bill pushing at her legs. "You know, pushing at my legs isn't going to make me go any faster you idiot,"
They finally made it to the higher floor, as the walls seemed to be bashed in from military fire trying to blow up the cities, and they ran through the building to the other side. Joey could see the bridge from the window, and they finagled through to the tiny, foot length width expansion on the side of the building. Presumably, the hunters had stolen the military tanks and weapons, for tanks with barbed wire wrapped around the sides and profanity sprayed all over it drove through the area. Her hands splayed on the brick, and she tried hard not to look at the ground. They seemed to have lost the people that had been chasing them throughout the building.
"They can't see us up here. Just move slow. The bridge isn't far ━ it goes right of the Joaquin River. We'll follow the river until we get to San Jose," he whispered, and Joey nodded, body pressed right alongside the building as they slowly moved around it. She tried to keep her eyes on the bridge, her body feeling like pins and needles expanding throughout her body. One misstep and she would fall and break her legs, and probably die. Or be left to die. She wasn't exactly sure what Bill would do, but she liked to think he would try to save her. At least, she hoped he would, because no matter how miserable she was, Joey didn't exactly want to die. She was too egocentric.
There was a landing and a staircase to the alleyway below, and with Bill's instruction to stay low, they made their way through a path between buildings, before Bill scoped out the streets and waved her through. They had gotten to the bridge entrance, where there were cement dividers and crashed cars everywhere, blocking their way onto the bridge. "They're there!" someone had called out, and soon enough the bullets came flying towards them once more, and Bill pushed Joey towards the bridge. "Go, run!"
There were an array of obstacles they had to jump over, bullets whizzed past them, and one grazed Bill in the leg as he fell to the ground. "Bill!" Joey yelled out, and he waved at her. "Keep going!" and he struggled to get to his feet before attempting to run. They had maneuvered through buses and trucks that littered the bridge until they got to the part of the bridge that had been blown to pieces, and they couldn't get to the other side. Joey pressed her hands to her head. "Shit! We're dead, we're fucking dead," she screamed, crouching down and peering at the water below. It moved rapidly. "We gotta jump,"
"No fucking way. We've still got ammo, no?"
Joey scrunched her face. "You fucking kidding? They're gonna kill us, we've got to jump," Bill shook his head frantically and wiped the sweat off of his forehead, until the tank that was firing at them made an appearance again. "Shit!" they both called out, and Joey looked below. "We have to!"
"No! We don't. Not with my leg, or your state, you can't even swim -"
"I can swim!"
"We can't!" he yelled out, but Joey already made her decision. "You can keep me afloat!" before jumping in. Bill yelled out for her before jumping in to go after her, with close to no hesitation. The water was rough against the morning sun.
authors note: yalll i didn't really like this chapter ... BUT LOTS OF ACTION OK!!! and i promise this is going to be the last chapter where i like ..... take a lot from the the last of us .... and the next one will be less action packed so i won't have to put you guys through my AWFUL ABILITY of writing action scenes LMAOOOO but yeah.
also a bit of a disclaimer ..... i am going to extend the years a bit???? during the actual plot of the show?? bc according to like multiple resources between the fall of the prison and the end of the all out war spanned over FOUR MONTHS??? HELP??? soooo yeah. it's going to go over a bit more time just for my sanity LMAOOO but hope you guys liked this :(