Everyone from Camp Dodge watched the door in hesitation. They were milliseconds away from squeezing the trigger hard enough to send an endless supply of bullets into the Turned. The group would be perfectly able to drop magazines and reload in a second of time. The loudest and most satisfying thud that any of them had ever heard echoed on the inside. Ellie let out a breath once the echo dissipated and went away. She had to take an extra one so she didn’t pass out. She still felt like she was half dizzy from the blast and thought it might not be the most responsible thing in the world to be pointing an automatic rifle in any direction where humans were in the vicinity of everyone else.
Joey was as surprised as anyone and walked up to the door putting a cautious hand up next to it. He looked back, curious, and Pete said, “It’s powered by a magnet. We rigged it up when all this was first going down as the people eaters spread out further away from here in search of food I would guess. But after that was when we slowly gathered supplies and resources and all the food that we could and locked this thing down. Once in a while we see a new video on the internet having to do with these things. We keep watching diligently. If someone comes our way then we want to be ready to leave.”
The girl said, “We should try and keep it down. My name’s Bethany; you can call me Beth or Bethany, whatever floats your boat. You’ve already met Pete.”
Joey was looking all around the hallway when she was going to ask what he needed before Ellie, who definitely knew Joey, said, “There is no boat, Joey, it's a figure of speech. Don’t worry about it.”
The girl smiled and said, “So I didn’t think you would be this young.”
“How old should I be?” Ellie asked.
“I don’t know. I thought that you would be older.”
“I’m not that old, sorry, I guess? What do you think we are here for exactly?”
“Duh, to save us, I mean that is why you are here, right? Why else would you be here?” Beth asked.
“Not to save you or anyone, for that matter. We already have enough people to take care of where we live.”
“Wait are you telling us that you came for something else?”
Ellie shrugged and pulled out the copy of her own list. She said, “When you were gathering things from around the campus did you happen to get anything that is on that list?”
“Oh, I get it now, I mean none of you really look the type, except maybe him,” Bethany said pointing over to Yassa, who looked the part and was the only one who got what she was implying but didn’t care.
Joe said, “And what part do we not look like”
“Meth cookers, right? I mean that’s what you are here for. You just don’t look like you take a sample for yourself.”
Joe walked forward, letting the rifle sling down off his shoulder. Pete, who was unaware of course, who he was talking to and didn’t know that drug dealers were the second most hated criminal. His first was any crime, of any type against babies, children and teens. But right now, he was walking forward without a question of what he wanted to do. The boy, Pete, looked around him, hoping to God that he wasn’t going to be what this large, angry, and violent looking man was headed for.
Pete shook his head no and Bethany yelled, “I’m sorry for Pete. He’s smart, but it doesn’t go any further than that, zero street smarts, borderline stupid.”
Joe dead lifted the boy up, slamming him against the door. The teen’s feet dangled off the ground a foot in the air. Joe wasn’t even trying to hold back at this point. Joe said, “Look, you little shit, I really appreciate you guys opening the door. But you don’t know the shit day that I’ve had. We rolled up in a three doored Humvee. You know why? They don’t come that way. We had one of those things tear off the door and rip a fucking teenager out of the car after tearing into his neck. Once we get here, we can’t seem to pick the right door to save our fucking lives.”
Pete wasn’t smart enough to shut up. But what he said made absolute sense. Pete whispered, “That’s why we put chains on the doors. We are pretty impressed that you were still alive in the first place. I'm sorry I assumed anything.”
Bethany gripped onto his bicep, pulling it away from Pete’s shoulder and letting him fall awkwardly down to the ground. She said, “He’s right, we tricked them into that building, but it doesn’t matter, they just keep coming. We decided it was best to lock down this place and we haven’t really left since then. We kind of hate this place at this point.”
Joe let his other hand off of Pete and took a step back, making sure he was out of reach of this annoying ass kid. He didn’t want to feel bad if he lost his shit again and went back after him if things continued looking like this. Ellie said, “It is the cure. Something that potentially could end all of this, that could get everything done. That could give everyone their lives back. We aren’t drug bakers or cooks or whatever you think.”
“We’ve seen these things running around without arms, hobbling with legs. You name it, we’ve seen it,” Bethany said, not knowing that they hadn’t really seen shit. Ellie had seen everything
