A Place To Call Home

Trapped

Ellie and Jesse left the abandoned house, they continued to search the perimeter for Tommy. They checked outside of the hole in the wall and found broken glass, some of the glass looked liked it had been crushed underfoot. There was also some bloody footprints, they had to belong to Tommy since they were the only patrol group in this area unless there were Hunters around these parts. They looked along the street and ventured forward, their riffles aimed ahead of them just in case they needed to act fast. The street was quiet, too quiet for Ellie's liking. They followed the bloody trail halfway down the street and stopped outside of a building, the gate to the front yard was wide open. Jesse noticed some bloody drag marks leading towards the steps outside of a house, he crouched next to them and pointed out some trotter prints. He said it looked like Wild Boar tracks, but there was still no sign of Tommy. Ellie joined his side while she stared at the building, it's windows were boarded up and part of the roof was missing. She had no idea why Tommy would have left the house they were exploring without telling them, it was all very odd.

" Do you think Tommy was hunting it?" Ellie asked. 

" I don't know, we didn't hear any gunshots." Jesse replied, he got to his feet. " May be he stumbled across an injured Boar or something, it would have been an easy hunting target."

" We should check out that house." Ellie said while she pointed towards the building. " Tommy could be inside of it, he could be injured for all we know."

" Okay, we'll do a quick sweep of the house." Jesse said. 

Jesse led the way and Ellie stayed close behind him, they walked up the building's stone pathway together. They stopped when they found bloody hand prints on the front door of the house, they looked fresh. Ellie noticed part of the porches banisters was missing, there was also broken wood everywhere. Ellie moved forward and looked down the alleyway that ran along the side of the house, she soon called for Jesse when she saw a carcass of a Boar halfway down the alleyway.

" It looks fresh, keep your guard up..." Jesse said. 

" You too." Ellie said. 

Ellie and Jesse walked back to back down the alleyway, by doing this both entrances were covered. They checked out the Boar carcass when they reached it, there was so much blood and the whole alleyway smelt of rotting flesh. The poor Boar's insides were hanging out from a massive gash across it's stomach, it looked like someone had torn it apart with their bare hands. Jesse poked the carcass with his riffle, he was surprised to find part of an arm underneath it. The arm wasn't fresh though, it looked like an Infected person's arm. They carried on walking down the alleyway and soon they stumbled upon more bloody footprints, Jesse told Ellie that they were fresh. But there was more than one set of footprints, it looked like someone had been running.

" Do you think Tommy came through this way?" Ellie asked.

" Maybe, let's keep moving." Jesse replied.

Jesse walked ahead of Ellie, but he soon stopped dead in his tracks and pulled Ellie behind a wooden paneled fence. They peered through a hole in the fence and they saw about six Runners in the street ahead of them, they were feasting on something in the middle of the road. Jesse took some binoculars from his backpack and looked through them, he told Ellie that he could see the Runners feeding on another Boar carcass.

" Wait, I see something else!" Jesse said.

Jesse told Ellie that he could see someone hiding up a tree near the Runners, he told her that the person looked like Tommy. She took the binoculars from him and took a look for herself, he was right. Tommy was hiding up a tree, he looked in good health from what Ellie could make out. His riffle was aimed directly at the Runners below the tree, one of the Runners tried to climb the tree but Tommy soon shot it dead. The riffle shots soon alerted two Infected people to his location, this wasn't going to end well for him if he kept firing his riffle.