Ellie brought the gun up when her head game became interrupted. She saw lips moving but it took a second for her brain to catch up with everything. Ellie had to shake her head to try and get her senses back. She had definitely felt better than today. When she did, that a ringing in her ears was still in full force, but she heard Joey feeling her back and sides saying, “Did you get hit? Ellie, are you okay, is everything alright? You didn’t have a heart attack did you? please say something Ellie.”
Ellie walked forward and gave Joey a hug. She said, “I’m alright, Joey...I just get sick of having to fight these things. I want them gone, but I don’t think that we need to be the ones doing the shooting. Like for all of them...there has to be an easier way.”
Joey smiled saying, “There is, and we are getting what we need so that we don’t have to shoot all of them. We won’t have to do anything but get them to breathe it in or whatever it is that it does. I can’t wait until they are gone. It’ll be great.”
“Yeah, can you imagine all the things we will be able to do?”
They were definitely thinking of different things. Joey whispered, “We can go into all them closed grocery stores. If we get lucky some of the freezers might still be working. We could get pizzas, ice cream, chicken nuggets...I think I’m getting dizzy.”
Yassa was going to ask him if he needed meds and realized he was being a dick because the kid didn’t take meds. He did get a little too excited about food, and he knew that there was a good chance that his adrenaline going back to normal levels might be the reason he was starting to come down. “Just take it easy for a minute and get your shit back together,” Yassa instructed.
The group listened, wondering if there’d be any more to deal with. The Turned running full bore typically wasn’t a big issue, because when it came down to it, so long as they had a lead on them, then it meant as loud as they were that they would give a little hint they were on the way. Being destructive in their path was one of the only ways they ever knew they were coming unless they were growling and screaming as they moved.
Joey looked at the door, trying to decide what he was looking at. It didn’t take the young man long to figure out that what he saw at first seemed to be the mecca of bottles. Joey said, “Ellie...Ellie, I think that we found something. I think we found something.”
“Yeah, we found a bunch of effing…”
Joey spun her around, which for Joey to interrupt someone or even be rude was unheard of. He picked up Ellie, which in turn shut her up and set her in front of the door, putting his hands on each side of her head. He said, for a second time, “I think we found something...something good, really good.”
When she saw hundreds of bottles inside of the room, she opened the door, walking in, feeling like she was in a trance. It was all that she could do to not start crying. Things going well was not something which she could say happened regularly. She wasn’t complaining, she’d made it further and been more successful, which basically meant not dying, not becoming one of the Turned which of course was exactly the absolute last thing anyone wanted to have happen. A million times over she’d thought about it and never once thought she’d be interested in knowing what the other side was like. Ellie whispered, “It has got to be here...there’s no way that there is this much stuff here and there isn’t what we need.”
Yassa said, “Well maybe we should go in there and see what it has to offer. I mean, maybe he can make what he needs out of this stuff if it isn’t here. I don’t know if we can leave any of it behind.”
Ellie said, “We know where it is, right? I mean, we can come back with a damn tank and get everyone and everything that we need. I don’t know how smart it would be for us to get weighed down.”
“Yeah but we do have these things called…”
“Yassa, you should get it, right, they run out of bullets. I’m aware of guns, and…”
Joey cut Ellie off saying, “Mr. Yassa, Ellie, I think maybe we should go in and start looking and then maybe you guys could fight with each other once we get back to the Humvee and are safe? I feel like we are wasting time...that is precious.”
Joey smiled awkwardly holding up the list and trying to divert attention away from himself. Ellie nodded, not saying anything else before pulling her own list and within minutes unknowingly would have the remaining items that they needed. Kya and Joe stood in the doorway both of them looking like they’d been through Hell...because they had. Kya didn’t know how to say anything not awkward and said, “Don’t shoot, we're humans.
