G O O D B O Y

Ellis [Left 4 Dead 2]

Ellis

 When you think of horror movies, what do you see? An axe-wielding maniac, chasing you through a cornfield? Or your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by country, and forced to call a local mechanic shop in hopes your car survives the night while you stay in a motel nearby? Yeah, this isn't that kind of movie. This movie is now my life and my life is now full of the walking undead. I was grouped with four other people, survivors, during an epidemic. Green Flu covered the Americas with its foul stench and horrid gore as people turned from what you'd smile and wave at every day to something you'd describe to your kid as an STD.

 I was stuck in a hotel, I had only been there with a couple of friends celebrating my graduation that happened a couple of weeks ago. Glad I passed through college with a degree in a world that now no longer needs it. When I woke up this morning I was met with fire and an empty room, I had to run through the building to get away from the fire, to see if anyone else was there too. I was met with torn flesh and broken skulls when I exited my room, I panicked and booked it to the roof, hearing a chopper over yonder I figured I'd be able to get to the roof in time for them to see me.

 As I ran and ran I heard others, humans, not these god-forsaken souls that seemed diseased. I finally make it to the top to see four other people standing in front of me, waving and shouting at the passing chopper. "Shit!" I exclaimed to myself, mostly, and froze. I watch as all four survivors turn around in alert, ready to through hands with the first threat they see, but all they say was me, standing in the doorway wringing my hands because of the thick tension of mistrust. I shuffled in place awkwardly before pulling my hand up to wave, "Hi." I mumbled, glancing to my left and seeing at least 4 to 5 medkits, a couple of guns and other melee weapons, and an ample amount of ammo.

 I sigh in relief at the sight of a medkit, not so much the weapons. "You trapped here too, huh?" I hear a voice call to me, gaining my attention I figure it was the woman of the group as the voice sounded feminine. I nod and reach my hand out, "I was here with a group of other college kids but they were..." I don't finish my sentence as I watch everyone's eyes lowered in sorrow. No one else liked this situation and I assume didn't grieve about the many outcomes this flu brought to our lives. I clear my throat and walk towards the weapons and health kits, picking up an axe and a kit and popping ammo in my pocket, just in case.

 Everyone else follows suit, picking up a weapon, a medkit, and ammo. One of the men, a black fat man in coach clothing, leads the way back out, the rest of us looking at each other before following after him. "We gotta get outta here. Down these here stairs!" He calls to us, heading down to a door at the bottom of the staircase. I head up to the door, hand on the doorknob ready to turn. I look at everyone else to see if they're ready and I push the door open to reveal infected, walking about, not understanding that the building is burning or that they're even dead at this point. I gasp softly at the sight, it was so gross and sad too, I almost wanted to puke. A man clad in a white suit with a blue button-up under it walks ahead, shooting down the wandering, lifeless, walking corpses. I flinch and soon feel a hand on my shoulder as I'm met with the face of the woman who spoke to me first.

 Her face held a look of sorrow and sympathy as she too understood the pain of watching the inhumane display of getting rid of these poor people. I sighed and followed the group through the building and down to the elevators. We faced fires and mods of zombies, and soon a single working elevator. "'Ey, there's a workin' elevator 'ere!" The southern boy calls to us as we were looking for anything helpful. We all clambered into the elevator and hit the Floor 1 button. As the elevator starts moving the black man starts talking.

 "Since we're all stuck together might as well get to know each other. Name's Coach." He chuckled. "I'm Rochelle, nice to meet you." The woman is calm and sweet with a soft southern hint to her voice. "Nick, that's all you need to know." The man in white was pretty rude and petty throughout the entire time you knew him, you didn't care to know anything more about him anyway. The southern boy spoke up, "I'm Ellis! What 'bout you?" I feel eyes on me now, everyone had addressed themselves and I've stayed silent this whole time. "[Name], my name is [Name]," I replied softly, clutching my axe in my hands. Everyone else nodded and looked away, all but one. Ellis continued to stare at me with that cute boyish smile on his face.

 Rochelle noticed my uneasiness and nudged Ellis with her elbow, silently telling him to quit his shenanigans. For a while, the elevator was filled with silence, the whirring of the elevator being pulled down to the first floor filling our ears. Eventually, it stopped and the speaker in the elevator emitted a 'ding' noise. Ellis approached the doors as they didn't open at first causing him to look back at us with his hands lodged between the small gap of the doors, "Y'all get ready, this is gonna be loud!" He proceeded to pull the two doors open, wide enough for everyone to slip through with ease as we heard a hoard of zombies roar in aggravation.

 I slipped past Ellis, squeezing up against him a bit as he held the elevator door open, running to a gun on the floor just in front of the elevator. I pick it up and load it up with ammo, aiming it at the hoard of running undead coming toward us. As I pull the trigger I see Ellis next to me, doing the same thing and looking good at it too. I look forward as my aim slips a bit and finally, the hoard is cleared and we rush past the extra dead corpses out to a safe house, coughing and covering our faces while we run. In the safe house, I settle down next to the counter of guns, melees, medkits, and ammo, needing a minute to process everything emotionally and mentally.

 Ro sits next to me, tilting her head at my concerned and worried face. "Hey, you alright?" - "No, not necessarily."

 "I get it. We all will get our time to process this stuff, if you need a minute we can stay for a while to let you settle just a bit." She offers me a warm smile to which I smile back, nodding and hugging her. "Thanks, Ro." She pats my back and let's go, leaving me to talk to Coach, Ellis, and Nick. I presume she's informing them of my emotional situation as Nick and Ellis glance at me, Coach nods and pulls a chair out to sit in while they wait. Nick's face contorts into an emotion I can only describe as annoyance and disgust but Ellis smiles and approaches me, sitting next to me as Rochelle did a minute ago.

 "Ro says you need a minute, everything alright?" His tone is soft and sweet, quiet as opposed to the tone I heard him use minutes ago to warn us of danger. I nod and rest my head on his shoulder instinctively. "Yeah, I just... So much has happened in 12 hours, it's insane to think about and what's worse is that I don't know if my family is even okay." I sniffle, shaking my head as I feel warm tears roll down my cheeks. The thought of my Nona, my mother, and my brother suffering during this apocalypse was enough to break me. I lifted my head from his shoulder and turned to look away, hiding my gross soot-covered face as it only got worse as the soot and my tears mixed. It was like wearing mascara, dark dirty lines streaked my cheeks and I hated anyone seeing me like this.

 Ellis, however, pulled me into a tight hug, covering my face with his chest and wrapping his arms around my head, hushing me while I quickly let out soft sobs into his chest. "I get it, I do. I'm sorry this all happened, darlin', truly. If it means anything I'll help you find them." He mumbles, his lips next to my ear as he lowers an arm to speak to me. His tone is now low, just above a whisper but quiet enough to keep the others from listening to us. I hiccuped and nodded, hugging him back and sputtering out a 'thank you'.

 After I finished my little emotional fit I cleaned my face off and readied up for our next round of the undead. Ellis, next to me, grabs onto my hand, holding it tight as the safe house door opens to our next level of bullshit.

 He became my safe haven.

+*+*-=-=-=-=-=*+*+

Word count; 1606 words excluding the final message.

I know I've been on hiatus for a while but I'm trying to get back into the groove of writing and have a lot of drafts open for spicy content. Enjoy this soft Ellis fic as an apology, thank you for your patience.