Till The End of The Line

~Two~

My throat felt as if it was closing and my eyes burned with unshed tears. It was a little boys room. Littered with toys and comics that have been collecting dust from the years passed. There was a journal in the seat of the window that was open. My attention was drawn to the words. Once I picked up the journal and read the first page, my heart broke and I felt sick to my stomach. This little boy had no clue what was about to happen. All the dates lead up until the end, meaning they never returned.

Tears burned at the rim of my eyes, making me blink furiously. Joel turned to look at me, almost like he wanted to check on me but I kept my focus on looking around. "I think that's everything, let's head back downstairs and keep it moving." I sniffled as I headed to the top of the stairs. Joel gave me a small nod as he kept close behind me.

When leaving the house, school buses littered the abandoned school grounds. Infected making their way around, looking for the next thing to prey on. One by one we took the runners out, making sure not to draw too much attention and keep it as quiet as possible. I took a step behind one of the buses and loud crunch sounded from underneath my feet, causing the last few runners to draw their attention towards us and begin sprinting. "Son of a bitch." I mumbled, pulling out my machete.

Their loud screams grew closer and my stomach began to knot, but I wouldn't let that show on my face. One came straight for me and the other went for Bill and Ellie. Aiming for their head, I swung and clipped their chest. The runner let out a guttural scream before trying to charge me again, but was quickly stopped when a metal pipe crashed into the side of its head, making it fall to the ground finally done for.

I looked over and Joel was wiping the blood off the pipe onto his jeans. "Thank you." The words came breathlessly out of my mouth, but the moment we made eye contact I looked towards the ground. He let out a grunt, instead of using his words, and walked over to the last runner that went after Bill and Ellie. Well then, asshole can't even accept that.

"That was a hell of a lot easier than I thought it would be. They must be holed up somewhere." Bill stated, looking around at the multiple bodies. No fucking shit.

"Yeah, let's not stand here and test our luck. How do we get in?" Joel asked, keeping Ellie close to his side.

Walking around the buses we found one closest to the school. "Someone left a ladder up on that bus, give me a boost!" Ellie shouts, standing at the back doors of the vehicle. Joel and I jog over there to help, almost avoiding eye contact with each other. Placing a foot in each of our hands we pushed her to the roof.

"Don't get yourself killed!" Bill shouts, a serious tone that was laced with humor. I shot him a glare over my shoulder, watching him shrug it off. Must he always yell his words? Why can't he talk like a normal human? It's like he wants infected to find us.

"Thanks Bill." Ellie mumbled, dropping the ladder on the side of the bus. One by one we made our way up. Joel was last, behind me, being cautious that I didn't fall backwards onto him. He kept his hand on the small of my back to keep me upright. The warmth of his hand sent tingles down my spine and I didn't know what to make up of the feeling.

"We're okay, we just need to get to the hood of the truck!" With Bills words, we took of sprinting to the back of the building. As we got closer, sounds of runner screams and clickers sounded too close for us to fuck around. "Shit! You hear that? Their coming, move it!" We take off, running by the blocked off doors and making it to a side window that was slightly cracked.

Joel pulled it open and pushed Ellie and I in first. "You two get in now!" Joel yelled, guiding us in the small window. Bill and Joel filed in afterwards, shutting and barricading the window the best of their ability.

Bill ran to the hood of the truck, struggling to open it at first. Joel and I used all our body weight to try and get the metal rack pushed into the door to keep the infected from getting in.

"Please tell me your done!" Joel yelled, using all his strength to keep us safe. With that sentence, Bill was able to open the hood, but I could tell it wasn't good from the look on his face.

"It's empty. Fucking empty!" My heart dropped at his angry words. 

"What?" Joel yells, running to the hood, leaving Ellie and I to use our body weight to keep the doors shut. Even that wasn't enough, the infected kept pounding, threatening to snap the doors open.

"Guys! " Ellie moved so I could pull the heavy work rack in front of the door, blocking the handles. "We need you to hurry the hell up!"

"Where? Where do we go?" Joel yelled, looking for a way to get us out of here without being thid herd of infected's food.

"Anywhere but here!" Bill took off to the double doors that led to the hallway.

"Alright ladies, haul ass! Come on!" Joel grabbed onto Ellie and I's arms and pulled us to follow behind. Slamming the door shut as they finally broke through our make shift barrier, Joel and I slid a large metal pipe into the handles. Definitely won't hold them off, but it buys us some more time. "Okay, y'all stay close to me. I'm gonna get us out of here." I could feel my heart beating into my throat, this is the craziest shit I've dealt with in a long ass time.

"Be my guest." Bill huffed, in the process of still trying to catch his breath. A clicker paced up and down the hallway while a couple of runners kept in the small foyer.

"Alright kid, I'm gonna grab the runners, I need you to be as quiet as possible and grab that clicker there." Joel whispered to me as he neared the corner of the cement block we had crouched behind. Instead of asking any questions, I simply nodded and grasped onto my machete handle. I followed close behind him and waited until he snuck up behind the runner for me to finally grab the clicker. As Joel wrapped his arms around the runner's throat, I quickly grabbed the clicker and brought my machete up to its throat, quickly slitting it. The clicker dropped from my grasp with a gurgling screech. 

"Alright, we can get through this way. Just got to get through these fuckers." Joel grumbled, as we made our way into the old science lab. Ellie had clutched onto my shirt, giving me a sheepish smile when I glanced back at her. Smiling back at her, we made it behind a table and kept quiet. Another clicker stood in our way of getting out of this hell hole.

Joel went to sneak up on it, but I stopped him when an idea struck me. I grabbed an empty bottle with some amber liquid sitting inside. "Take and throw this at it. Make it a little faster." I lit some cloth on fire and shoved it inside, handing it to Joel.

"Good thinking there, kid." He gave a small smile, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. I fought the urge to roll my eyes again at that damned nickname, but was able to contain myself. My attention was brought back to the screeching as the bottle exploded and set the clicker ablaze. 

"Holy shit." Ellie stared in amazement, a glimmer of a smile on her lips. Once the screams died down and the fire had settled, we made our way to another hallway that was eerily empty. "Where are they?" Ellie looked between Joel and I, waiting for an answer that we couldn't give. 

"I-i don't know, but if it's really empty, we better haul ass now before we give them anymore time to catch up to us." With that, I took off down the hall to the double doors at the end.

"Son of a bitch!" I heard Joel growl as the rest of them followed in pursuit behind me. I was beginning to push on the doors, but there was something barricading them on the other side, preventing them from budging.

"Joel, Bill, give me a hand." I grunted, using all my body weight to try and pry the doors open. They came running up, pushing their bodies against the doors to help. Finally, on the third push, the door flew open and we fell into an old gymnasium. "There's more coming, barricade the doors!" Joel and Bill pushed the medal barricade back, keeping the leftover infected out just a bit longer. 

Suddenly, a large bang came from the other side of the gym, causing us all to look for the source of the commotion. "That doesn't sound good." Joel grumbled as the other doors flew open.