On The Road (A L4D2 Fiction) *DISCONTINUED*

Oh, look man! Jimmy Gibbs Jr.!

When I awoke, I found Nick's suit-jacket still covered me. A small smile tugged at the corner of my lips, thinking about the ending of the previous night.
"You awake, Katie?" Ellis asked from above me.
"Yeah, I'm up, I'm up." I replied, pushing myself up off the floor, making sure I grabbed my flannel and that I held onto Nick's jacket.
"Good, we're gonna be rescued today! CEDA will save us!" Ellis exclaimed, clearly excited to be safe again.
I had to agree with his positivity. It would be nice to be safe again. No worries, no zombies.. just normal life.
"If they're even here. Don't get your hopes up." I heard Nick behind me.
"I'm sure we'll find a way out, Nick. Even if CEDA isn't here, there's gotta be a way out." Coach spoke up.
Nick hummed in response, then turned to me.
"Can I have my jacket back?"
I nodded and handed it back to him. I put my flannel over my tank top and decided to take a few of my pain pills, mainly to help with the headache I had (which was probably a result of sleeping on the floor).
"Get ready y'all, Rochelle says we gotta leave soon." Ellis spoke up.
We nodded, and began to prepare. I kept the gun I got at the gun store, loaded up on ammo, and waited for the others to ready themselves. Ellis and I were the first ready.
   "Hey, Katie?"
   I looked over at him.
   "What's up?"
   "Were you with someone before the apocalypse?"
   I didn't answer for a second. The randomness of the question surprised me. I smiled sadly, and nodded.
   "Yeah, I was. He.. he went missing. I don't know where he went, whether he turned or not.. but that was my breaking point, y'know?"
Ellis pat my back in understanding.
"Yeah, I suppose so. I wasn't with nobody, 'ah just hung around with Keith and Dave and all them. Went out partyin' a lot but didn't find a gal interested in me."
"That's surprising for a guy like you. You're pretty cool, and nice to us. Dunno how you were before.. this."
He shrugged, and the rest of the team walked over to us.
"We all ready?" Rochelle asked.
There was a mixture of nods and verbal responses. We left the saferoom soon after. There was an elevator that we used to get downstairs (the stairs were blocked). Through the glass, we could see Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s stock car. At the sight of this, Ellis and Coach began talking about how they could use the car to escape the mall.
"What about CEDA?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
"Sweetie, I think they left us." Rochelle answered.
I nodded sadly, and we reached floor level. I re-loaded my gun, and the doors open. We quickly cleared out the area, and began looking for gas cans that would fill up the gas tank. Hoardes of infected came at us as we tried our best to gather the cans and fill the car. We were split up into two groups: Rochelle and Coach, and Ellis, Nick, and I. Rochelle would gather gas cans while Coach would keep the zombies off her, and Ellis and I would grab a gas can while Nick protected us.
I poured another can of gas into the tank.
"Okay! 5 down! 8 to go! Let's do this guys!" I exclaimed excitedly.
Just then, the ground began to shake. A tank rounded the corner, and was coming straight at me.
"Shit! Tank!! Shoot it! Shoot it!!" Nick yelled out to us.
We fell back as we tried our best to shoot at the thing, and eventually (with minimal damage done to us) it was dead, and we were back to finding gas cans. Another hoarde and tank came and went, and the car was all fueled up.
"Everyone get in the car!" Rochelle yelled out to us.
We did so fairly quickly, with Ellis in the driver's seat, and took off, bursting through the front doors of the mall.
"Goddammit, Ellis! Was that necessary?!" Nick yelled out.
"Nah, but it was fun as fu-"
Rochelle cut him off.
"Ellis! We don't know Katie's stance on swearing yet!"
I smiled at Rochelle and placed a hand on her shoulder from the backseat.
"Rochelle, it's fine. I say it all the time. I'm twenty, not a child, what can you expect?" I explained to her.
She rolled her eyes, and the car went quiet as Ellis drove down the mostly abandoned highway. Though we had planned to drive all the way to New Orleans, we had been stopped a few hours early by a blocked off bridge that needed to be lowered.
Ellis stopped the car and we re-loaded our guns as we got out. When we looked up at the bridge, we noticed something odd.. other humans. Other survivors!