Once she was told she was a light in the darkness, next, a moth to a flame. Drawing the window shut stopped the breeze but not the chill up her spine. Even in the heat of the desert blowing off near the coast, there was that coldness.
A song won’t stop playing in her head. Once she put that guitar down she turned and left and didn’t stop walking for a long while. She isn’t afraid of anything anymore — now she was here — wherever that is… lost in the darkness.
In the woods she killed a few more hunters who came across her. She didn’t even think about it, didn’t even choose to. “Fuckers,” she spat on their corpses, took what was left in their packs. After that she moved on and thought about that for a while, how she never even hesitated anymore, how Abby didn’t kill her immediately, once, twice, then the third time: she offered an out. Then she wondered where the two of them went, that scar kid, and her, alone in the world. Two brittled down souls clawing at each other, clinging on, somehow. Something twisted at her thinking about that and she had to stop walking for a while, threw up on the ground.
For a few days she walked and thought and thought. She didn’t feel human anymore. There were stumps where her fingers used to be and her bones stuck out of her skin harshly. She wandered like an infected, trapped in a body that slowly lost autonomy and reason. Her mind spiralled so quickly these days, snapping into a memory and feeling wounds opening back up, blood her own or someone else’s splattering on the ground. She remembered when her cheeks were fuller and her eyes able to laugh. She hadn’t laughed in months. Not since she was in Santa Barbara, but that was sick laughter, the gasp of irony and death. It was beautiful there, like nothing she’d ever seen: Joel had lived in a place like that, maybe, with his beautiful young daughter in a warm and bright town where the sun beamed down on them both.
She couldn’t remember how many days and nights she got up, walked, slept, and did nothing else. But one day she stopped. Her journey had been so long, so tiring. All of it. She wanted it to stop, her trial to end — get me out of this, she thought. Let me go. Joel, you bastard, you left me, and I lost it all. Every piece of everything.
She missed her life so much it ached. She hated her body, twisted and maimed and not knowing love any longer. It only knew hatred and killing. She missed the people she used to know. They all felt distant and hard to reach, like photos of someone else’s life, like that picture of Joel and Sara. She’d liked that photo — you could almost reach into it, pull out their life together. Her own life was harder to picture. Dina, JJ… they were as clear as anything in her mind, but who she was around them she couldn’t remember. Then there was Tommy, she supposed. He felt bitter, tangy and heavy, but he was alive, somewhere. They shared a pain. They weren’t the same, not at all — but they were still here, all three of them were, and so was her body, her mind, her memories. That had to count for something, under all the sickness and fear. And there was so much of all that.
So one day she turned back and stared at the trees around her and decided: let’s go. She’d been looping in circles around the goddamn place anyway.
She waited in the mountains for a while. She heard infected trawling through the forests and hid in a patrol’s building. Eric came through with an old guy Ellie didn’t know on her fifth day there, and held his rifle up to her face. Lucky he hesitated. When he lowered it his face contorted a bit, like he’d seen a ghost, and went: Ellie?
She supposed she hadn’t been back to jackson in two years. Maybe there wasn’t even a place for her there anymore. But she just shrugged and said, “surprise.”
“You eaten lately?” Eric asked, almost circling her. Like a wolf, but he’s the one scared. “You look… well, you look like shit.”
“I’ve eaten,” she said, then swallowed. She hadn’t talked to someone in a long while; it felt clumsy, foggy. “I, uh. wanted to know if Dina was in town. just checking in.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eric stared at her. “Dina’s in town. Told us… you’d gone. For good.”
Ellie nodded. “I… I didn’t know what I was going to do. After I left. I just… did it.”
The new guy looked baffled, but introduced himself anyway and they both offered her a lift back to town. She didn’t know whether to take it or not at first — but as they talked, she ended up agreeing. Where else to go?
Jackson had grown. There were new buildings there, something she’d never seen before. The wood was clean and the bolts shiny. “We even traded for paint,” Eric told her, over all the questions he didn’t ask. The clean wood and fresh paint gleamed next to the old, and it captured all her attention.
She was taken to Maria, who looked older, wiser, sharper. Like when she was fourteen Maria gave her fresh clothes, offered her a shower. Ellie didn’t say anything to her until she combed through the knots in her scraggly hair, staring at her own alien face in a mirror for the first time in a long, long while. Her eyes were round and startled, mouth pinched into a grim hard line. Her bones looked ready to escape her flesh. She sat down on the floor when she finished and tried to remember how to breathe when it got hard for a moment. And then she stood and decided it was time, for whatever might come at her. She’d faced worse.
Maria was waiting for her when she went downstairs, placed a chicken sandwich on the table without speaking. Ellie ate it all in a minute and a half, then pushed the plate away and stared at the knots twisting in the wooden bench, waiting for Maria to speak. There was so much going around her, them both, it felt sick and heavy. Ellie had to break it.
“I —“
“You came back,” Maria interrupted over her and Ellie bit her tongue. Maria’s face was still turned from her, and she didn’t say anything else.
“I did,” Ellie said slowly.
“Why?” Maria asked. “You didn’t before — and then you left Dina with JJ—“ she cut off. There was more silence then, and Ellie knew she must explain, but there was no explanation.
“It was —“ she started, stopped. How could she put into words, that blind stumbling through Seattle she still dreamt about every waking moment? The feeling of Abby’s bones breaking under her own brittle fingers? That once she held a baby and a woman with those same arms and it was excruciating?
But why else was she here…? To do something, she supposed. Joel would have done something.
“There was all of this …. fucked up, burning rage inside me. I couldn’t escape it. Moving forward was the only purpose I could find… doing something, protecting — trying to protect…”
“You think you were protecting?” Maria asked in disbelief. “By leaving? and killing?”
Ellie grit her teeth — she slammed her hand on the table, the whole one, let the slap ring out through the room and in her own palm. “Goddammit, yes. That is what — there was nothing else I could do, but do that. To find her and make her pay. I couldn’t do a single fucking other thing.”
Maria looked at her now, danger glinting coldly in her eyes. That was not her nature; she wasn’t a killer like her, or Tommy, or Joel. Those people didn’t understand that need. “Protecting is staying, even when it’s the hardest thing to do. It’s building. It’s fixing and staying and trying—“
“I did try!” Ellie jumped up, walked in a circle, pulled at the skin on her arm. “I fucking tried every day, staying in that house, and it was — it was perfect, it was —“
“Dina was devastated when you left,” Maria said coldly. “She wasn’t herself for months after she came back, hoping you’d come back to Jackson, give up that stupid death wish you seem to have—“
“It wasn’t — I would’ve given — it wasn’t fucking easy for me either!” Ellie yelled, she kicked over a stool. “Fuck!”
“Sit down,” Maria said, and she sounded so stern Ellie flipped her off then did, putting her head in her hands. “Look, Ellie, we can go over it all… But what you’ve done is your own — and for Joel, I can… I can always offer you a place here, no matter how us two got along.”
“I don’t—“ Ellie stopped. “I don’t know how to be here without him. And Dina—“
There was a fierce knock at the door. Maria went very still. “Ellie!” bellowed a southern drawl, and for a second her heart went to her throat, the lilt over the ‘e’s like his strong arms around her — “Open up, Maria, I know she’s in there! Ellie!”
“Stay here, please,” Maria said softly, but she sounded scared. Like Ellie might turn around and make a break for it. She went to the door and Ellie stayed where she was, because where else could she go, now?
Tommy came in, leaning and limping on a walking stick even worse than the last time she’d seen him, his face greyer and more wrinkled. Maria kept a large distance between the both of them, looking at the ground like it was sending her strength.
He went over to hug her, as best he could, pulling away quickly and sinking into the sofa with no grace. He talked and talked like an old man on their death bed about how sorry he was for the last time they met — “kept playing over and over in my head, how we left off, you know how it is—“ but she could see the hunger in his eyes, that burning question she knew would never rest until she told him what he needed to hear. So she did. Told him that flame had been extinguished, before she even got there.
“They were rattlers, this fucked up group, only wanted to torture anyone who went against them,” she said, thinking about Seattle and the cult and the wolves. She tried not to loose herself in it. “Abby was already dead by the time I got there. Hung on a pillar and left to starve to death.”
Maria sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, but Tommy just collapsed back onto the couch, his head tilted to the roof as though he’d been given a vision from God. Ellie watched the tears leak out the corners of his eyes.
“She suffered? when she went?” he whispered.
Ellie swallowed. Abby’s skeletal body beneath hers, the waves rushing over them both…
“She did,” she lied, staring right at him, like Joel did to her all that time ago.
When Tommy left all she could think about was that look — like he could die now and it would all be worth it. She wished she could feel like that. She didn’t feel anything at all about Abby anymore — only a slight longing, maybe, that she lived and the boy lived to go far, far away to a tropical island and that she might never have to see either of them again.
I never even loved Tommy like Joel loved me, she thought. But it felt good and wrong and all of it to give him that peace. if only she’d believed Joel. If only Joel hadn’t killed that doctor. If only…
“You alright?” Maria asked her, and Ellie realised she’d been crying quietly, a steady trickle of tears. She wiped them away quickly.
“Guessing you two didn’t make up,” Ellie said instead.
“He changed, after Joel died,” she said quietly. “Got crueller.” Ellie looked at her.
“I thought protecting was about staying,” she said back, but she felt no spite. Just exhaustion.
Maria just shook her head. “You lied to him. Abby wasn’t dead when you got there.”
Ellie licked her lips and snorted. Got to her feet to leave. “Believe what you want to believe, Maria.”
“I know you, Ellie,” Maria said quietly, stepping in front of her. “Like I knew Joel, like I know Tommy. I watched you grow up, I saw how you didn’t trust either of them fully. But you loved them. You love them — so you protect, in the way you know how. What he taught you. I was wrong to say what I said earlier—“
“I don’t need your — bullshit pity,” Ellie snapped, but it was quiet and weak.
“Is she still alive?” Maria asked, and Ellie stared at her.
“I don’t know,” Ellie said honestly, and Maria nodded.
“Ok,” she replied, and her worn hand was hot on Ellie’s cold arm. “OK, Ellie. we’ll never see them again.”
*
Jackson was startlingly the same, apart from the new shining building. It was evening, most of the town at the inn, eating dinner, a few people finishing up work for the day. Joel’s house was still empty, and she remembered the way, but at the last moment she turned and went to his grave instead.
There were fresh flowers there, white and yellow ones. She touched the headstone and weeped for a while, missing him so deeply it opened up like a great black pit that bubbled, turbulent and familiar. She remembered every single moment, but most of all, she remembered the sight of him, how strong he was. The grizzled salt and pepper beard and his scary frown and his damn glass of whiskey knocking down his throat while he sat with his guitar. His voice, as well, that gruffly lilt. When he said “I would do it all again.” She knew now she had never lived in a world where she didn’t forgive him, because God knows what she’d done to protect him, only too late.
After she stopped crying she went back to her little bedroom out the back of Joel’s house. It was every bit the same as she’d left it that morning she’d patrolled with Jesse. She’d only been back once since then to pack it with shit — an old hoodie was still tossed on top of her bed, dust settled across it all. Her books and posters and a stack of drawings of Dina and Joel and dogs and Jesse and everything here, her old life. She’d never known a home like this before, and Joel had been the only one to know that. He was the only one who truly know everything about her, what she was capable of. If he could see what she’d done, he’d probably give her a hug and tell her off — but he’d be mighty proud underneath it all.
When she left Joel she wondered about how big JJ would be. It’d been maybe a year since she’d seen him. His cheeks were probably less chubby now, his body longer. Maybe he could even walk — he’d been trying to, before she’d gone, but his little legs had given in with the weight. His cry had pierced her heart like nothing else — that moment of panic that he was hurt, before dina’s laugh had pulled her back.
And Dina — she surely knew by now she was back. She’d been at Maria’s a while before coming here, and it was a small town.
There’d been plenty of whispers that followed her and Joel when they first got here. She’d felt untouchable, God-like, with him by her side. “Don’t listen to nothing they say ‘bout you,” Joel had told her. “And don’t tell them a damn thing. It’s your business, not theirs.” And she’d agreed — he was right about most things. But maybe that was the whole damn problem.
She stripped the bed of everything, the dusty covers and the pillows and put them in her arms. There was a washing machine in Joel’s house, so she walked outside and stopped in front of the doors. His seat on the porch was so empty; he hadn’t sat there for two years, now. She blinked a lot and forced herself on inside.
The house had always been plain, simple, homely. Just the necessities with a touch of comfort. The sun would stream in through the windows when it shined and a fire would crackle in the hearth in the dark. Ellie knew her way through easily so she went and put some laundry on, flicking on the lights. Then she sat on Joel’s couch and didn’t know what to do with herself.
Her options opened out in front of her: stay, go, start again somewhere else. But she’d never been very good at that; people didn’t like her. She was too snarky, her words never coming out soft and friendly like Dina. Joel was the same — he was like her, an asshole, really. Jesse was like Dina. Someone that people couldn’t help but like. JJ was gonna be the nicest kid that ever lived.
But… Her thoughts looping and tossing themselves around not helping her… If she started somewhere else… no, it would never work. She could try it on her own, like Bill. Maybe she could find him, if he was still alive, and they could be old and miserable together. That would fit her better than whatever was still here – people who hated her, who she didn’t know how to love. It was all so messed up and difficult and it was too hard to find a way out of it.
The washing machine chuffed and chuffed. There were noises outside, but no infected, just animals. Birds and owls or something. People walking to their homes, the places they belonged. She sat there a long while just listening, trying not to think about it all, for however long it took.
knock…. knock…
It was hesitant and quiet, but Ellie knew straight away it was her.
She didn’t get up instantly. Instead she flushed so hot sweat prickled all over her, then icy cold, frozen to her chair like something held her there. And then she stood up quickly — her body felt like liquid — her heart raced in her ears and without any thought at all she was carried forward, forward, wrenching the handle open—
“Oh my God,” Dina cried, and she turned away instantly and heaved over the bannister.
Ellie was breathing so hard and fast she felt she could be sick. Dina, wonderful Dina — her hair was shorter, she looked curvier — she was shaking into her hands and Ellie was frozen. All she could do for minutes, so many long minutes or moments or however long it was, was stare and stare while she tried not to be sick all over this person who’d lived every day in her head for a year, for months.
“You—“ Dina sobbed, finally turning back around and flinching, “God, Ellie — fuck you, you look—“
“Awful, I know,” Ellie croaked, and Dina gave a hysterical little laugh.
“You’re…” Dina shook her head. Her face looked so sad, it ached in Ellie’s chest. “Oh, your hand.”
“This…” Ellie swallowed. It was terrifying, she couldn’t speak, her heart was making her dizzy with want. “Come inside. Please?”
Dina blinked very quickly, straightened. She didn’t say yes or no, but she stayed, that’s all Ellie could ask for. Her eyes were shining black and her hair clipped at her jaw in a sweet bob. Her cheeks were fuller, her boobs bigger, like when she was —
“Are you …” Ellie couldn’t bear to ask, but she had to know.
Dina shook her head. “No,” she whispered. She was calmer now, something steeling over her. Ellie didn’t know whether she was relieved or sad or how she was still standing. The time they hadn’t spent together clawed at her stomach, up to her chest, pulling it tightly closer. It was just time that had changed her, no other reason.
“I only arrived today,” Ellie said desperately instead, because she couldn’t bear for her to go. “I didn’t …. I saw Maria and Tommy, but that’s it. I didn’t know if you were here.”
“Yeah, I’m here,” Dina said quietly, and wiped absently at her eyes. She looked up the old house. “I thought you’d be here.”
“Where… where else could I go?” Ellie asked her, and Dina snorted.
“Anywhere, I guess.” Dina looked at her again and her eyes narrowed and flickered. “Why did you? you know… what I told you.”
Ellie opened her mouth then closed it. They stared at each other for a while; Ellie like a skeleton, shorn and bare, Dina like a myth, the mother, all electricity and anger and beauty.
“I think,” Ellie said finally, “I lost everything. Every sense of… who I am. I’ve forgotten. So I’m here because… I’m trying… to remember. What the point is of all this.”
A slow tear made it’s way down Dina’s face. “Fucking hell, Ellie,” she said softly, and then her arms were around her. It didn’t feel like the music swelling and the world finally making sense, like it did in the beginning, but it was something. There, familiarity, the curtain drawn back in the morning, coffee and whiskey and sandwiches over the smell of gunpowder. Grabbing on to an arm to save both your lives so hard there’s bruises the next day, an ache in your side, the racing of your heart when you see them. The worst pain you’ve ever felt all over again, and again, when you let them down; but this time she can say sorry, sorry, I’m sorry, and say it until she dies, whenever that may be.
She understands Joel now, more than gunning down a city to fill an abyss, more than loving a child that isn’t hers, more than saving an enemy’s life. It’s this—
You forgive the hurt of someone you love. It’s nothing, not a speck of dust on your soul; it’s yourself you never forgive, for hurting them in the first place.
All that can be done now is to try, and protect, again and again and again until she dies, goddammit, no matter if she’s never loved again.