CHAPTER TEN:

STOPPING IN THE WOODS

THE WEATHER HAPPENED to be quite okay for the lasting survivors and the infected, the sun high up in the usual bright blue sky as it shined down on them. The white, fluffy-looking clouds were moving in one direction as time continued to go by throughout the new day that had came to the survivors.

About a day or so had gone by since the group of three had got the truck from Bill and Frank's and have been driving in it, the group of three now found themselves stopping at a gas station so they could put some gas in truck before they continued on their way.

With her hands clutching the straps of her backpack, Y/n found herself looking around in the abandoned aisles of the gas station in search of anything that might help her or the other three. Alec could be seen in the aisle over, his boot covered feet padding along the floor before he moved to the aisle she was in.

"Anything good?" He calls out in question.

Y/n shakes her head, crouched down and looking at the bottom shelves. "Picked clean. You?" She grabs an empty bag of chips, crumpling it up before throwing it towards him.

"Nothing."

"Great."

The seventeen year old rises from her crouched position, fixing her bag as she did so. As she began to move down the aisle, Alec slowly trailed behind her. While the girl's eyes looked through the empty shelves, Alec found himself staring at the back of her head.

"You've been quiet since we left Bill and Frank's." Alec couldn't help but say.

The girl just shrugs. "It's been a weird couple of days."

"Yeah." Alec agrees with a nod. "You know, I've been thinking about the letter Bill left for Joel. Makes me wonder what I'd do for the people I love. If I'd be willing to go that far."

"You never have?" Y/n asks.

The nineteen year old shakes his head. "No. Before this, I hadn't seen Ellie since she was about five. I was only nine. Never cared for anyone since." He let his eyes linger on her.

"You know," Y/n scratches her neck nervously, "someone told me once that love makes you dangerous." They look into each other's eyes. "But I think I'd rather be dangerous than alone."

Alec nods. "Yeah, me too." A calm silence overcame them, brown eyes staring into e/c ones, calm smiles on their faces. "Do you ever think... if none of this ever happened, you think you still would've met the people you know now?"

"I don't know. I don't even think I would've been born, to be honest." Y/n mutters, shrugging with a little smile.

"I think I would've found you somehow." Alec tells her.

His words caused the girl's heart to skip a beat. Like before, they let silence overcome them. Unfortunately, that silence was broken by the bathroom door creaking open, followed by Ellie's voice, "You two done flirting?"

Alec glares at his sister. "We weren't flirting."

"Riiiight." She drags the word out. Y/n could only smile at their sibling banter as she moves out of the gas station, the brother and sister right behind her, pushing at one another.

Just feet away from the gas station building, Joel could be seen holding a red bin as he moved around all the abandoned vehicles. He briefly glanced up at the sound of their footsteps coming, crouching down beside an abandoned car to check if there was gas.

"We have to do this every hour?" Ellie questions once they stop beside him.

"Gas breaks down over time. This stuff's almost water. Back in the day, we'd drive ten, twelve hours on one tank. You could go anywhere." Joel tells them.

"So where'd you go?" Alec asks.

Joel shrugs. "Pretty much nowhere."

The youngsters watch in silence as he brings the tube he had been holding to his mouth, blowing air into it. It took a few seconds before gas was going through the other tube after he had stuck it into the hole of the car and the gas was landing in the tank the man had grabbed.

Ellie's brows raise in surprise. "Nice! How does that work?"

"It's a siphon." The man replies, receiving confused looks. "It's when liquid... travels against gravity because pressure--" They immediately saw that he didn't get it himself.

"You don't know." Y/n realizes, a little smile twitching on her lips.

"I know it works." Her father figure insists. When Ellie begins to walk away, he calls out, "No wandering."

"Not by yourself." Alec adds when he notices the annoyed expression on his sister's face.

The fourteen year old stops in her tracks, glancing between the three older people in the group. Leaning against a car, Alec following beside her, only Y/n and Alec noticed the mischievous expression etching on Ellie's face as she digs into her backpack, loudly blaming Joel for what was coming before bringing out a pun book.

"'It doesn't matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationary'." The girl reads off the book, laughing to herself. Both Y/n and Alec tried to hold in their smiles as Joel just stares at Ellie in confusion. Ellie shows them the cover. "'No Pun Intended, Volume Too' by Will Livingston. 'Volume Too'. Look. You get it? 'Too'? Like, t-o-o."

The annoyance in Joel's face was shown instantly as he got up from his knees, grumbling to himself, moving away with his arms crossed as if to avoid the girl. However, Ellie didn't seem affected by this as she excitedly turned to the older kids, who both smiled at her.

"'What did the mermaid wear to her math class'?" She continues, staring at them with a smile as if to anticipate the answer long. "'An algae bra'." Laughter escaped her. "'I stayed up all night, wondering where the sun went, and then it dawned on me'."

"Feel free to wait in the truck." Joel grumbles.

Ellie rolls her eyes. "Okay, but just know, you can't escape Will Livingston. He'll be back." She grabs her bag. "There's nothing you can do to stop him."

Fighting the smile on her face, Y/n wraps her arm around Ellie's shoulders, saying, "Come on, Ellie. I'll listen to your jokes in the truck."

This caused an excited gasp to escape the fourteen year old as she grabs the older girl's hand, practically dragging her to the truck that was just feet away from them. Still leaning against the abandoned car, Alec watched them walk off with a smile.

"They're getting along well." Alec comments when it was just the two of them. Joel doesn't respond, only narrows his eyes on the younger male when he notices Alec's eyes linger on his daughter figure.

The nineteen year old notices seconds later, and he feels his body tense at the suspicious glare settled on the man's face. Clearing his throat, Alec just nervously scratches the back of his neck as he moves to the truck.

Soon enough, the tank was full of gas and Joel was filling up their truck with it. When he entered, Ellie was holding the pun book as she and Y/n sat in the back while Alec at in the passenger's seat like usual, the man getting into the driver's seat so he could continue forward.

The engine of the truck is eventually heard as Joel presses on the gas, driving back onto the road and away from the abandoned gas station. Alec had the map in his lap as his eyes occasionally looked down at the paper, though they kept drifting to the many abandoned vehicle that looked like they had been pushed over to the edges of the road.

"Must've been some truck." Ellie states.

Joel nods. "Yeah, they used to stick big-ass plows on them, and clear the roads for their tanks and such."

The young girl looks at him with wide eyes. "I wanna see a tank."

"You will." Joel insists. "Tanks, choppers, all that stuff. But they'll fight the wrong enemy. Just scattered around now."

Suddenly bored as a sigh escapes past her lips, Ellie found herself digging around in the pockets on the back of the driver and passenger's side chairs. Leaning against the window, Y/n doesn't move her head as she watches the younger girl pick up a music tape, announcing she found something.

She leans through the seats, nudging the older man. "This make you all nostalgic?"

Joel grabs the tape. "This is actually before my time. It's a winner, though."

He was placing the tape into the car, letting it move the rest of the way as Alec moved to turn the volume up. The music from the tape was soon playing through the car while Ellie found herself looking around in the truck in hopes of finding anything.

Head against the window, Y/n felt herself growing tired, opening and closing her eyes slowly. With a side-eye, she watches as Ellie picks up an old magazine from the floor, announcing she found something else. Joel looks at her from the mirror above, trying to see what she had.

Ellie opens it, brows raising at the photos. "It's light on the reading, but it has some interesting pictures." She comments.

Joel's eyes widen, frantically glancing over his shoulder. "No, no, no. Put that back. That's not for kids." Ellie ignores him, turning the magazine the other way for another photo. "Ellie."

The girl's mouth opens wide, her eyes widening at the sight of one picture. "How would he even walk around with that thing?" Curious, Y/n lifts her head up to look at the magazine, only to roll her eyes.

"Please get rid of it." Joel demands in a stern tone.

"Hold your horses. I wanna see what all the fuss is about." Ellie tells him.

Joel had moved to face the road again, failing to notice Ellie trying to fight her smile. Alec was hiding the smirk that twitched on his lips behind his hand, leaning his elbow against the rest in between his seat and Joel's.

"Why are all these pages stuck together?" At Ellie's question, Joel just stutters. "I'm just fucking with ya!" She hit his shoulder with the magazine before moving to the window beside her, opening it up and throwing the magazine out.

No one else said a thing as the drive continued on for a few more hours. Y/n had fallen asleep and woke up to the sound of a finger tickling her nose. When she opened her eyes, she was able to catch Ellie sliding to her side in the back, revealing she had been the one tickling her.

There were a few hours of Joel driving before the said man had decided that it was enough for today. He turned onto a grassy field and drove in the direction of the forest. Once he parked the truck, they were all exiting the vehicle where Joel began cooking up the food they had taken from Bill and Frank's.

As he did that, Y/n was moving some sticks and other things out of the way once she had found a good spot for them to sleep in just beside the truck. Ellie held a stick in her hand, swinging it around lightly as it hit the trees before Alec snatched it out of her hands.

Eventually, they were all sitting together as they ate the food. However, Ellie was the only one stuffing it in her mouth. "Slow down." Alec tells her.

"This is slow." His sister argues. "What am I even eating?"

"That is twenty year old Chef Boyardee ravioli." Joel informs.

"That guy was good." The fourteen year old says with a mouth full of food.

Alec kicks her side. "Quit eating with your mouth full."

The seventeen year old takes another bite of her food while taking a deep breath in of the smell of the forest around her. She found herself taking a glance around, eyes lingering on the tall trees and taking notice how quiet it was, other than the sounds of the nature around them.

"How long we staying out here?" She questions.

"I figure I sleep tonight and drive tomorrow all day, all night, get us to Wyoming by next morning." Joel reveals his plans.

"So can we start a fire? I'm freezing." Ellie mumbles.

"Nope. Bad idea." Alec replies, taking a big bite of his food.

His sister rolls her eyes. "Why? Because infected will see the smoke?"

Joel shakes his head. "No. Fungus isn't that smart. This is too remote for infected, anyway."

"So people?" Y/n concludes with a gulp, receiving a nod.

"So what are they gonna do? Rob us?" Ellie asks in disbelief, brows raised.

"Oh, they'll have way more in mind than that." Joel's comment had Alec tensing, Ellie nodding with raised brows, and Y/n staring at her lap, the two oldest knowing exactly what he meant.

After a little while, the sun had set and the group had finished eating as they placed their sleeping bags on the ground on either sides of the lantern that was on the ground. Y/n placed hers on a side of the lantern where she laid all by herself, immediately moving into her sleeping bag.

Joel had moved so his back was facing the two of them, already ready to fall asleep. Following in suit, Y/n turns to face the lantern as Alec lays down, their heads close together after the three oldest checked the bullets of their guns.

Ellie moved closer to her brother after grabbing her pun book. Alec took a glance down at the pages, a small smile twitching on his lips, the light of Ellie's flashlight shining on the book and the words on the pages letting them see the words printed.

"Joel. Can I ask you a serious question?" Ellie speaks up. Joel nods, glancing over his shoulder in their direction. "Why did the scarecrow get an award?"

"Because he was outstanding in his field." His answer surprised all of them.

Ellie's eyes widen. "You dick! Did you read this?"

"No. Now go to sleep." He tries to fight the smile on his face.

Y/n felt a small smile etch on her face as the surprised expression on the fourteen year old's face slowly fades and she lays back down, shoving the pun book inside of her sleeping bag. The older teenager finds herself staring up at the night sky, counting the stars in hopes of getting rid of the thoughts in her mind.

"Those people you said..." She trails off for a moment, fidgeting with her fingers. "There's no way anyone knows we're here, right? No one's gonna find us."

"No one's gonna find us." Joel repeats in confirmation.

The seventeen year old had no other choice than to agree with his answer, nodding to herself before she turned to fall asleep. Looking up from where she was laying just above him, Alec let himself reach out towards her and gently squeeze her shoulder, their eyes meet in the darkness.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Alec didn't remove his hand. They just stared at each other as Alec gave her a nod. Y/n moved one of her hands up from inside her sleeping bag, resting her hand on his and squeezing back before rolling over and going to sleep.

The girls wouldn't know that Joel would stay up all night to keep watch.

And Alec would join him after not being able to fall asleep.