Firefly

Fifty-Four

A/N: Okay, so this chapter is Ellie pov and I am going for the games version Left Behind for this. The next chapter will be a flashback to her and Riley. I felt it was important to put this in this story. Chapter 56 will probably be a mix of Ellie and yn pov.

Ellie

Yn and I got Joel onto one of the sleeping bags, using a rope to tie it to one of the horses. I could tell she was holding in the pain by the look on her face. We had to find shelter. The later it got, the colder it got. Yn was still bleeding where that fucker stabbed her in the shoulder. She would also need first aid supplies and that was one thing we didn't have. "There's a mall up ahead. We can take shelter there for the night." I looked up to where yn was pointing and nodded my head.

When we made it to the mall yn found a way inside and we led the horses into one of the stores closer to the entrance. It was the only one that had enough room for them. "We need to find a first aid kit. I can go out and search the mall stores. There has to be something around who, right?" I was checking how much ammo I had Left In my gun. "You're not going out there alone," yn said, kneeling beside An unconscious Joel. She lifted up his shirt revealing the wound. It was deep enough that he needed stitches and would need medicine so it wouldn't get infected.

Yn took the flannel she was wearing under her coat off and ripped it into strips, tying them together, and using a piece to place over the wound. Then she tied that around his waist to help slow the bleeding. "What about you?" I asked. She shrugged, still looking down at Joel. "I'll be fine." She said, sitting back onto the floor. "Let's just rest here for a little while then we'll go search the mall." I didn't argue and sat down, propping myself up against an empty shelf. We sat in silence and I watched yn slowly fall asleep. When I was sure she was sleeping, I got up and headed out into the mall.

I only intended to look in the shops on the ground floor where we were, but a lot of the stores were locked or boarded up. It looks like they tried to make this a safe haven for people. Parts of the mall were also barricaded and blocked off. I walked the whole bottom floor before turning around and heading up the escalators to the second floor. I walked to the end and was relieved to see a pharmacy around the corner. The other side of the mall was blocked off from where I stood.

The gate to the pharmacy was opened halfway so I slid under it, my knife in hand. I pulled my backpack off and grabbed my flashlight, clicking it on. The small beam of light illuminated the disheveled shelves in front of me. Everything was in chaos and the shelves were bare. I carefully walked down the aisles, lifting broken shelves to check the bottles under them, but every bottle was empty. "What did you do, take the pills and leave the bottle?"

I huffed and walked back to the front of the store where the counter was. There's a door that leads to the back where I assume they would have kept extra medication and things. Looking through the small window I saw a first aid kit laying in the middle of the floor. "Jackpot." My hand landed on the door knob but I was left disappointed when it was locked. "Damnit." Turning around I went to the counter and started looking in the draws and around the register. "There has to be a key here somewhere." While looking around on the floor and bottom shelves a piece of paper caught my eyes.

PLEASE READ!

PHARMACIST WENT CRAZY AND ATTACKED ME. I HIT HIM PRETTY HARD HE'S UNCONSCIOUS. I LOCKED HIM IN THE AMERICAN PRINCESS STORE NEXT DOOR.

PLEASE GET HIM HELP COMBINATION:

35-30-31

"The pharmacists. Maybe he has the key."

Stepping around the counter and ducking under the gate and back out into the mall. The American Princess shop was just right next door. After looking and listening to make sure there weren't any infected close by I knelt down. There was a lock on the bottom of the gate. I glanced at the paper and quickly put the combination in. Feeling the lock click open I pushed the door up just enough to slip under. This store was darker than the pharmacy and when I clicked my light on spores surrounded me, floating in the air while the Cordyceps took over everything. There was definitely someone in here.

I stepped around the vines of fungus, careful not to step on them. I still remember what happened at the capitol building when Joel killed that infected guy. How hundreds of them came sprinting straight for us. When I found the pharmacist he was surrounded by it, slumped against the shelves. I crouched down in front of him and reached out to check his pockets. "Please be dead." I felt in the front breast pocket of his once white jacket and both the key and pictures. It was him with some girl before the outbreak I guessed. I didn't think much of it, wanting to get back to the pharmacy.

When I got back to the front I stopped, crouching behind a shelf. An infected slowly passed by and from the sounds it was making, it sounded like it was a clicker. After it passed I slipped under the door, staying crouched down while following it, careful not to make any noise. My knife in hand raised up slowly, snuck up on it, and jumped on its back, sinking the blade into its temple before it could shrike and alert any other infected.

When I was sure it was dead I made my way from the locked door, unlocking it, and rushing to the first aid kit. I was left disappointed when I opened it. "Fucking great!" I kicked it across the room in frustration that it was empty. The window to this room was busted out and led to the other side of the mall though, giving me more shops to explore. When I jumped through It, snow covered everything.

The roof had collapsed in and the source of it gave me a little more hope of finding something. A medevac helicopter teetered on the edge of the baloney on top of steel beams just on the other side. "There has to be a first aid kit in that helicopter. I just need to get over there." I looked around for a way I could get there. The easiest way was blocked and the other way was destroyed. There was a camera store that I could go through to get to the other side though. The only problem was that the roof was caved in over top of it and was filled with snow. I would need to be careful going through it.