CHAPTER NINE

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          THE ABANDONED CONVENIENCE STORE WAS COMPLETELY OVERGROWN WITH FERNS AND IVY THAT SLID UP THE WALLS LIKE A SERPENT. The concrete below their feet had cracks in them, weeds sprouting from between the crevices. They flattened with each step they took, silencing the sounds of their shoes on the road.

The slight breeze that surrounded the three of them felt comfortable and Lucia brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes. They manoeuvred their way around a fallen utility pole as they neared the store, the wires crunching beneath their feet.

"Cumberland Farms." read Ellie aloud, following behind the smuggler. On the left side stood a corroded truck, and she peered at in in wonder. The girl had never driven a car before, and she had to refrain herself from stalking toward it. Yes, she had seen plenty of cars but she had never peeked inside one long enough to satisfy her curiosity.

"Hang back for a minute." said Joel, briefly turning his head to look at the girl. "I gotta grab some stuff I stashed.

"Stashed?" Ellie quirked a brow, ignoring his wishes as she caught up with him. "Why do you have stuff stashed here?"

"You ask a lot of goddamn questions." 

"Yes, I do." agreed Ellie nonchalantly. Lucia slid her tongue along her teeth as she hid a grin and entered the store last. "So, you're gonna answer me or what?"

The only source of light that illuminated the room was the beam of sunlight trailing in through the broken window, the rest was boarded up with wooden planks, as if that had any effect on keeping things from outside out. The ivy that grew on the stone walls outside had found their way inside, peeking through small holes in the roof.

It was dusty and it smelled wet, from twenty years of water damage. The shelves had been scavenged, leaving nothing but rotten planks. It was an absolute mess, no doubt having housed multiple people before from the looks of it. 

'admittance spikes at area hospitals'

The brunette read the words on the old newspaper before kicking it to the side. Joel peered at her for moment, having heard the rustle of the papers before going off to the side as he explained, "We hide supplies on routes incase we find ourselves short on gear, which I currently am 'cause-"

Ellie who had been listening caught sight of an arcade machine behind the counter. Her eyes were wide, smile overtaking her features as she stalked toward it. "No way!" The teen played with the controls, muttering Mortal Kombat to herself. "You ever play this one? I had a friend who knew everything about this game. There's this one character Mileena who takes of her mask -"

"Has monster teeth and swallows you whole and barfs out your bones." finished Lucia, smiling at the game fondly.

The teen snapped her head to the side as she watched the brunette in shock, even Joel gave her a grimace. "You played this?"

"No," Lucia uttered, shrugging her shoulders. "well, I tried once. Wasn't very good at it. My brother used to be obsessed with this game. Played it every chance he got. Had his entire room full of Mileena and Scorpion posters."

"What I wouldn't do to see that." Ellie was impressed and a little jealous. "When I get my own room, one I don't have to share like at FEDRA school I am going to do the same thing. Any poster I can find will be hung right above my bed."

Something clattered behind the two as Joel shuffled through the isle, kicking stuff around with a deep frown on his face. "You forgot where you put your stuff?"

"No," Joel stated, meeting her eyes and Lucia raised a brow at him. "i'm just zeroing in on it. It's been a couple of years."

"Well," said Ellie, giving one of the broken controls one last tug before ambling around the small store. "i'm gonna take a look around, see if there's anything good."

"Trust me," huffed Joel, not bothering to glance her way as he continued to search for his supplies. "It's all been picked over already."

"Maybe, maybe not." shrugged Ellie, picking up another news clipping before letting it drop to the tiled floor below. The door to the backroom stood ajar and she paused for a moment. "Is there anything bad in here?"

"Just you."

"Ah," Ellie mocked. "getting funnier."

The girl disappeared from their sight and Lucia began to rummage through some stacked boxes wordlessly. The smuggler was right, there was not one useful thing in this damned store. Empty water bottles and food cans, a dirty pillow and sleeping bag from the last person inside and so many goddamn newspapers.

Fuck. Joel kicked at one of the shelves, obviously seething as he rubbed at his salt and pepper beard.

"Do you even remember in what area of the store you stashed your supplies?" wondered Lucia, walking through the isle next to where he stood. He shot her a murderous glare and she held up her hands, rolling her eyes in return. "Calm down, Texas."

"Don't call me that." he glowered.

"Look tough guy," she began, arms folded across her chest as she leaned against the ivy covered wall, facing his isle. "I get that you're pissed. I really do. I am not too pleased to be here either, both our plans got fucked. Can we at least pretend to tolerate the situation until we've dropped off Ellie? Your attitude is giving me whiplash."

His glare only intensified at the first part of her words, as if it was permanently etched upon his handsome face. The remnants of kindness from that morning had all been wiped away as he looked down his nose and at her face. Lucia hadn't been thrilled to go in the first place, not since Marlene came to her apartment and disrupted her bloody bath, but there wasn't anything anyone could do to change that now.

After a long moment he blinked, glare slowly dispersing as he tried to keep his face neutral. Joel was a very stubborn man, didn't like change and sure as hell didn't enjoy their current state of affairs. He was like Lucia in that way, but she was far better at adapting than he was.

"I can do that." he grumbled, voice steady.

"Okay," nodded Lucia. "we're on the same page then."

There was a crash coming from the office room where Ellie had gone off to, metal against metal and Lucia tore her gaze away from the man in front of her. "Everything alright, kid?"

"Yep!" she echoed, falling silent after her confirmation.

"It's stashed around here somewhere." voiced Joel, regaining her attention and cocking his head toward the isle he was in. "I wasn't the one who hid it, got told it should be right here."

The brunette helped him search, overturning everything she could get her hands on until she found the supplies they needed. Her back was toward him but she could feel the intense burn of his eyes on the back of her head every now and then and she took in a sharp breath. Lucia kicked away another stack of newspapers and the floor gave in slightly beneath her weight.

Joel was at her side in an instance, crouching down as he cleared the papers from the slightly damp ground. The woman handed him her stiletto knife and he took it with a single incline of his head, prying the tiles off of the floor.

The smuggler heaved the dark green container from the hole in the ground with relief and pried the lock open. Lucia bend down beside him as he slid her knife back toward her. There weren't many supplies inside, but enough to last them a couple of days. Some bullets, a few bars and a small handgun.

"No rifle ammo?" she raised a brow as she searched through the contents.

"Very hard to come by." he nodded, pushing a pack of bullets into her hand. His fingers were cold as they brushed her own, leaving a trail of goosebumps up her cotton covered arms. "Keep 'em close. I haven't been in this area for a while."

"Thanks," Lucia slid them into the front pocket of her backpack. There were still some bullets in the chamber of her gun, so she left it at that. "I'm going to check on Ellie."

Joel furrowed his brows, grimacing as he glanced at the back room. "Ellie?" The teenager didn't respond, it had been quiet for a while and he and Lucia got to their feet. "Ellie?" Again, there was no answer and Joel took a step forward and tried again, more firmly this time. "Ellie?"

Before either Joel or Lucia could enter, the teen stalked out with a grin on her face, holding a box of tampons between her fingers. "Picked over, my ass."

Joel quickly averted his gaze as he went back to his supplies. Ellie waved the box at Lucia in triumph, happy they'd gotten some more products for their week of hell every month. The box could last both of them another month, it was a pretty large one.

"Good find." praised Lucia, as Ellie put it inside her backpack. 

"Right?" Ellie agreed, throwing her bag over her shoulder before asking. "What are you doing?"

Joel had placed his rifle in the hole in the ground, beside the green container as he closed the hole back up. "There's not much ammo out there for this thing. Makes it mostly useless."

Ellie stepped forward, crouching down as she tried to keep him from closing it completely. "If you're just gonna leave it there ..."

Joel smacked the palm of his hand against one of the tiles and it fell back into place. The smuggler got to his feet, shaking his head firmly. "No."

"But -" she turned to Lucia.

"No, kid."

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IT WOULD BE ANOTHER HOUR BEFORE THE THREE OF THEM WOULD REACH LINCOLN, FRANK AND BILL'S TOWN. Apparently when the evacuations happened, Bill managed to stay behind undetected and in the years that followed he had barricaded the town in a little quarantine zone of itself.

"Holy shit." Ellie rushed out as she skidded to a halt a few feet in front of them. Up on the hill were the remnants of the crashed plane and the teen couldn't hide her excitement. "You ever fly in one of those?"

"Few times, sure." shrugged Lucia, taking in the scene somewhat bored.

"So lucky." gushed Ellie, green eyes not straying from the aircraft.

"Didn't feel like it at the time." began Joel, peering at her for a moment before he looked back at the plane. It had split into three parts and he wondered if the people inside had felt the crash, felt the fear in their veins or if they were already infected. "You get shoved in a middle seat, pay twelve bucks for a sandwich."

"Dude," Ellie beamed, trying to keep herself from hitting his arm. "you got to go up into the sky."

"Yeah, well, so did they."

"Grim." muttered the teen as the three of them began to move down the path. Ellie glanced back every now and then to get another look at it and asked, "So everything came crashing down in one day?"

"Pretty much." confirmed Joel.

"How?" she wondered, swinging her arms by her side. "I mean, no one was infected with Cordyceps, everybody's fine, eating in restaurants and flying in planes. And then, all at one? How did it even start? If you had to get bit to get infected, then who bit the first person? Was it a monkey? I bet it was a monkey!"

"It wasn't a monkey." Lucia pulled a face as she asked, "I thought you went to school?"

"FEDRA school," Ellie declared. "They teach us how their shitty government failed to prevent a pandemic."

Joel took in a sharp breath 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 all 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 of Friday morning. Day goes on, they started to get sick. Afternoon, evening, they got worse. Then they started bitin'."

"Friday night September twenty-sixth, two thousand and three." uttered Lucia, able to see the memories of that traumatising night very clearly. "By Monday, everything was gone."

Ellie kept her mouth for a few minutes, letting their words sink in. The girl hadn't been born yet, and she had never known the fear that outbreak day brought with itself. Of course, she knew fear, but nothing could prepare someone for their entire lives to be ripped away to nothing. "That makes more sense than monkeys. Thanks."

"Sure," shrugged Joel, and held out his hand to stop the teen in her tracks. Ellie bumped into him, mind still reeling with the story of the outbreak.

"What?" asked Lucia, on edge as her eyes scanned the surrounding area, half expecting a horde of infected to charge their way. This was still unknown territory for her and she had to rely on the smuggler to keep them safe.

"We'll cut across the woods here." Joel cocked his head to their right and toward the tree line. They were surrounded by woodlands but the path was clear in front of them.

"Isn't the road easier?" she furrowed her brows. "It's not far, right?"

"Yeah, it's just -" he pulled his lip between his teeth, trying to find the words. "there's stuff up there Ellie shouldn't see."

"Well, now I have to see." she mimicked, turning on her heels to walk backwards.

"I don't want you to." Joel grumbled, shaking his head at the girl as she spun on her heel to turn her back. "Serious. Ellie."

"Can it hurt me?"

"No..."

"You're too honest, man." she grinned. "Should have said axe murderer."

The teen stalked off, slight skip in her step as she wanted to see whatever it was he didn't want her to see. Menace. Lucia had zero experience with children, always avoided them like the plague. Their fingers were sticky, their mouths never stopped moving and they never listened to a single thing you asked. Though Ellie was older, the brunette had no clue on how to keep her in line.

Ellie truly had a mind of her own.

"What's out there?" asked Lucia, walking lazily beside the smuggler.

"Uh," he uttered, giving her a side glance. "bodies."

"Bodies?" she echoed, brow raised as she met his gaze. The crease between his brows had become more prominent as he pulled a face. "How many are we talking about?"

"A lot of them."

Ellie was way ahead of them, but Lucia could still see her clearly and the lands surrounding them were empty enough that if there was someone out there she and Joel could easily spot them before anyone could get to her. How Ellie still had so much energy, Lucia didn't know. The woman was thirsty and hungry and the first thing she was going to do once she reached the town was fill her bottle with water and down it.

"Whatever it was," called Ellie, glancing around. "think it's gone."

The girl came to a sudden halt, eyes on the left side of the road. It took Lucia a few seconds to stand beside her, peering down into the ditch. It was littered with skeletons, still wearing their clothes. It was a damn massacre.

Joel clenched his jaw, seeing the devastated look on the teens face. "About a week after outbreak day, soldiers went through the countryside, evacuated small towns. Told you you were goin' to a QZ, and you were, if there was room. If there wasn't..."

"These people weren't sick?" she muttered, unreadable expression on her pale face.

"No, probably not."

"Why kill them?" wondered Lucia, eyes falling on the small skeleton at her feet. "Why not just leave them be?"

"Dead people can't be infected."

THANK YOU FOR 1K VOTES! Means a lot to me. This isn't my best chapter but not much happened, I am excited for the next chapter! Not sure if i am gonna do bill from the game or the show. thoughts? 

ALSO if anyone is good with sign off gives i'd pay a kidney for one of joel and lucia. of course i will give you all the credit <3