CYOA Page 159
Sep. 12th, 2013 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lumy12"Straight. I can feel it."
Joel glances at you. "All right, we'll run with your gut this time."
"Why, does yours say something different?" You frown; suddenly you're not so confident in--
"No... it still ain't bein' specific."
Confidence restored! "Follow me, then!"
Your gut feeling doesn't pay off immediately, so you start to doubt it again, until Joel stops you to listen: "You hear that?"
You bite back your standard "hear what?" and wait a moment, fully expecting to hear something, listening hard... and then you end up saying it anyway. "Hear what?"
"Sounded like someone yellin'."
"But not infected?"
"No. A female infected, maybe, but not quite..."
"So... a woman. I don't hear anything."
"It stopped. Let's keep goin'. You were right -- straight it is."
"I'm always right," you stage-whisper to him, making him smirk.
A couple minutes later, you've reached the end of the road, and neither you nor Joel has heard anything else.
"Maybe you jinxed yourself," Joel mutters.
"No... no, see that farmhouse? We just passed the path that leads to it. That's where we're supposed to go."
"Is it now." Joel sounds skeptical.
"You doubt me?" you scoff (although you're not as certain as you were a few minutes ago, either). If this turns out to be nothing, I'll just make shit up about why my gut led us here. Like... maybe this is where I'm supposed to lose my virginity? HA! "I'm telling you. There's something--"
"Danny!" -A woman's voice! Raspy, but intelligible.
You and Joel exchange an alarmed glance. "Is that... his mom?" you wonder out loud.
"Can't think who else it would be. Come on... it came from over here, though. Not your farmhouse."
"Well, I was close."
"Be careful," Joel reminds you.
"Elaine?" you call tentatively to the mystery woman.
"Help! Oh, help me, please!"
Joel doesn't even tell you to be careful as you urge your horse to gallop toward the voice... into the backyard of not-your-house. You pull up on the reins when you're behind the house and still haven't seen the owner of the voice.
"I'm up here!"
"In the tree?!" you say incredulously -- although you can see it's not just a tree, but a treehouse!
"Can you believe it?" Her voice is raspy. "I haven't climbed a tree since I was a young girl. Who am I talking to? You'll have to come closer... I don't see so well anymore."
"I'm Ellie!" You dismount and jog the rest of the way over to the tree. "Joel's here, too!" You glance back over your shoulder and yes, of course he's following.
"Thank goodness." She crawls forward, to the edge of the board she's sitting on. "Is Danny with you?"
"No, sorry... we came looking for him. We thought he'd be at the hospital. With you." With the sky beginning to darken now, you don't have the greatest view, but the woman does not look like a person who should be climbing trees.
"Oh no... where could he be? I'm worried something's happened to him. He's been gone such a long time."
"How long?" asks Joel, right behind you now.
"Since yesterday."
"Yesterday? You were up there overnight?" you marvel.
"Two nights. The infected people... they circled us like sharks, that first night. But they can't climb trees! At least, not this high. They lost interest and dispersed some, the next day... yesterday... so he decided it was time to go get his guns. He tried to go quietly... he tried..."
"But they saw him," Joel surmises.
"They did. And they chased him. He got away, from what I could see... but he never came back. I'm worried sick. I've been hollering, in case he got lost... turned around and whatnot, you know... but..." She doesn't need to finish the sentence.
It doesn't sound good.
"Beg your pardon, ma'am," says Joel -- so polite when he wants to be! -- "but if you don't mind my askin'... how in the hell did you get up there?"
"She climbed," you answer. "Obviously!"
Elaine nods. "I did climb. But not the tree... this." She starts gathering something in her hands. "And you'd be surprised what you can accomplish when a flock of infected is chasing you. Normally, I'd never even be able to climb something like this. Not at my age!"
"A rope ladder -- cool!" you exclaim as she nudges it over the side.
"It saved our lives, that's for sure. Danny noticed this tree when he tried to open the back door... when we first got here. Only I... can't seem to climb down this ladder. I have numbness in my feet, if I don't stimulate them... and my balance... I get dizzy, you see, and when I try to... turn and step--"
"We'll help you!" you assure her.
"Do you have any water up there?" asks Joel.
"No. My thermos is... where we were eating. Around the front."
You didn't notice it in the front yard, but then, you weren't exactly looking real close at the place, either. "Shit... no wonder you sound so hoarse."
"I also haven't taken my meds in two days." She sighs. "Those infected people swooped in so fast... they were chasing someone. In the street. Don't know what happened to him. The horse ran off, the front door wouldn't open... it was awful. Just awful. I'm so so happy to see the two of you!"
Joel's already climbing up the ladder to give her his water canteen -- you didn't want to interrupt her story to whine that you wanted to climb it.
"Joel, scoot over, I'm coming up, too!"
"No -- stay down there for the time bein'."
"Why? Wouldn't it be better for me to be up there and for you to be down here? Like, to catch her if you need to?" Especially considering that she's so weak she can barely lift that canteen, you observe grimly; Joel has to help her hold it.
He seems to be considering this for a moment. But then-- "No. That thing's real rickety." Meaning the ladder.
"My point exactly -- treehouses are for kids, right? You're too big for it. You can't carry her down it... can you?" If it was you he was rescuing, you could do the piggyback thing, but that's not going to work for the poor old woman.
He frowns. "I'll think of some other way."
"Thank you, Joel. I feel stronger already!" Despite all the gulps of water she just took, her voice still sounds hoarse. And the cheerfulness feels a bit forced, although you suppose being rescued after two days of sitting on a board could make a person legitimately cheerful...
"I got it!" you announce. "I go up there and help her get on the ladder, you stand down here and help her get down it."
"Or, maybe we can find a real ladder," Joel suggests -- which sounds like wishful thinking to you.
"I think I can manage to hold on to it, once I'm on," Elaine says, but without much confidence.
"All right, let's try it Ellie's way. Come on up, kiddo."
You grab a rung and start climbing. With all the sway, it certainly doesn't feel like climbing a normal, stable ladder, but it's way easier than climbing a normal rope! "That wasn't exactly rickety," you tell Joel when you reach the top.
He helps pull you up onto the 'floor' (even though you totally don't need any help). "Up here it's real frayed, see?"
"Or you're just a worrywart," you tease him. He shoos you away from the landing spot so he can descend. "He totally is," you add as an aside to Elaine.
"That's probably why he's still alive, Miss Ellie," she remarks, but lightly, and with a smile -- so it doesn't feel like a reproach.
"Listen to her," Joel smirks at you before his head disappears below the board.
"So you guys are ganging up on me, huh? I see how it is," you chuckle.
She chuckles. "We'll have to find something to gang up on him about."
"Yeah. A girl thing -- a woman thing," you amend, figuring it makes more sense to age you up (you're all grown up now anyway!) than age her down. Elaine looks even more fragile up close. You can see the veins through her paper-thin skin; you try not to look creeped out by this. Is this what Joel's going to be like in fifteen, twenty years? ...No, because Joel's not going to get CANCER, you decide.
Helping Elaine onto the ladder isn't as easy as it sounded in your head. The woman's limbs seem to tremble whenever she moves, like she's expending great effort for the simplest of tasks. You realize she's not going to be able to just swing around and plant her feet on a rung by feel, the way you would. She describes the numbness as the pins-and-needles feeling you get when your foot falls asleep, except she can't feel the pins and needles. Which doesn't really make sense to you, but you glean from her words that she can't feel anything in her feet, and it's hard to make them work properly because of it. (You wonder where that feeling got its name, because wouldn't it be enough to say either pins or needles? They're like the same thing, in this instance, so shouldn't just one suffice? But when you asked Joel about it once, he gave a lame non-answer of "that's just what it's called.") The stimulation thing she spoke of earlier is apparently more than just poking them or moving them around or whatever; it's some kind of daily procedure, which she doesn't explain fully because it's irrelevant right now.
Joel is holding the ladder taut at the bottom and at an angle that should make the descent easier. When you have her lying on her stomach with her legs dangling over the edge, you lean over so far that Joel yells at you, but you know what you're doing and you're not going to fall. Worrywart Joel! You position her feet on two different rungs, trying to demonstrate how far she has to move her leg to catch the next rung, but it doesn't give her the confidence to move on her own.
Joel slowly moves toward the tree, straightening the ladder. "I'll come up an' help you, just hold on."
With both of them on the ladder, you see what Joel was concerned about with the rope at the top... "Oh God... hurry up, Joel, this thing might break!"
Joel manages to get an arm around Elaine's waist, so she could actually let go completely, you suppose... but she holds on to the rungs, releasing and re-catching them as he tugs her downward, which you suppose helps Joel out somewhat.
"Hurry!" you urge them pointlessly, but the rope is worrying you. Especially the left side. Can I maybe hold the thing together? you wonder... but you wonder too late! When they're like maybe halfway down, the left side breaks off the top!
"Let go!" Joel urges Elaine. "We'll jump the--"
She doesn't let go, though -- too scared to, you assume? -- and while you're watching them, the other side snaps! You scream as you watch both of them freefall--
But WHEW -- it wasn't that much farther to the ground, and Joel being Joel, knows how to fall to absorb the most impact in the proper places. "Are you all right?!" you call down to them. Neither of them answers you, but Joel is moving around okay, helping the poor old woman sit up and trying to make sure she's okay. "Are you all right?!" you holler again impatiently.
"Yes!" Elaine calls back. "I think so!"
Joel stands up and looks at you. "I'll be sore tomorrow, but nothin's broken. Now... we gotta get you down somehow."
Oh yeah, huh! "Pffff -- I'll just climb down the tree!"
"There's no branches beneath you," Joel points out, as if you hadn't noticed.
"I know but I can just like... shimmy down the trunk, right?"
Joel frowns. "I reckon that's better than you jumpin', but..."
"I got this. Don't worry!"
"Maybe if I can toss the rope up there, you can tie it--"
"I got this!" you repeat.
Of course, Joel has to position himself beneath you, in case you fail at this (...and you're secretly grateful). The tree has a really thick trunk, and crusty bark that flakes off in your hands when you try to grab it. You do manage to get out of the tree house and wrap yourself around the tree like you're giving it a full-body hug, but moving is another story...
"I'll catch you if you let go," says Joel.
"Uh... then you'll really be sore tomorrow!"
"Maybe, maybe not. But if I am, so be it. Just... don't be scared to move, 'cause if you lose your grip, I'm right here."
"Okay... ...."
You do manage to move down a little bit before-- "Aaaaahhhhhhhh!" Your plan was to try to fall straight down the tree, which might give you a rug burn type feeling that probably wouldn't be that bad... but gravity had other ideas.
Joel catches you! Because of course he does. He staggers backward, but doesn't even fall to the ground! "See? No sweat," he says, and you could just twist around and kiss him--
You don't, of course. You have an audience! You thank him, and he gives you a squeeze before letting go and returning to Elaine to help her up.
"Oh! You found the horse!" Elaine apparently only just noticed Mr. Ed's presence. Her face falls, and you know she just lost a little more hope that Danny got away safely. "I'm not sure I can ride, without--"
"Don't worry about that," Joel assures her. He keeps hold of her arm, like she might fall if he doesn't. "You can ride with one of us. You must be starvin' by now."
"I have no appetite these days, actually. But I do eat, because I know I must." She looks between you and Joel. "You're probably wondering why I'm not in the hospital. Yes?"
As focused on rescue as you've been, you sort of forgot to wonder about that! "Because... you're cured?" you guess hopefully.
"Sort of. They say I'm in remission."
"Isn't that the same as cured?"
"Not exactly... but it's a good thing. They say I'm well enough to go home. I sill feel so... weak. And sick to my stomach, some. I'm afraid there may be something else wrong, but... they couldn't find anything. They think I'm just a crotchety old lady, I suppose."
You don't know what 'crotchety' means (and it sounds dirty!), but you can tell from context that it's not good. "So you think they need to run more tests and stuff?"
"I don't know. I am eager to get home... see my grandbabies..."
"We're closer to the hospital than we are to Jackson," says Joel. "I think we should take you back there first. Get you checked out after your... bad couple of days here. Rehydrate you, at least."
Doesn't water do that? you can't help wondering. And you do have enough of it!
"I can't go to either of those places now," she says sadly. "I need to find my Danny boy."
Danny is hardly a boy, but you suppose it's just one of those things... like Joel saying you'll always be his baby girl. "It's pretty dark out now, and it's gonna rain," you point out (you're surprised the storm's held off as long as it has, actually). "We should stop for the night. We'll find Danny tomorrow. Right, Joel?"
"Definitely."
Elaine knits her brow... and starts wringing her bony hands. "I can't... just leave him..."
Please don't cry, you beg her silently.
"It'll be much easier -- an' safer -- to look for him in the daylight." Joel gives you a look that says he's thinking the same thing you are: there's little hope of finding him alive. No weapons, facing a 'flock' of infected, as she described them...
Where did those infected go, though? Maybe Joel's gut was telling him they're nearby, whereas your gut led you to someone who needs your help. Such complementary abilities would totally make you two -- or, your respective guts? -- a good team!
Elaine looks like she wants to say more, but realizes it's futile to argue against both of you, and she definitely needs your help. "We need a place to spend the night, then... and the doors on this house are locked, or don't work..."
"Why don't we go up to that farmhouse? It looks much nicer and bigger than this shitty old house anyway." In fact, you wonder why they didn't just go there in the first place. It's way more... out of the way. But, then again, you and Joel don't always bother straying far off the main path when you're just taking a break.
"So we end up goin' to your farmhouse after all," Joel remarks.
"-Hey, yeah. We have to go there!"
First, Joel searches Mr. Ed's saddlebags and finds Elaine's meds (along with a gun: Danny's chances just got worse). After she takes them -- like, three or four different pills? -- you and Joel both help her mount Joel's horse.
You're charged with leading Mr. Ed. You wish the horse could talk... tell you what happened, and if there was a reason he was waiting at that spot where you found him -- fairly far away from where you are now, but considering how much time has passed? Not that far at all.
And you know the shit happens rule of Outside, but you can't help judging Danny a little. If you don't have the means to fight... but Joel said he was believed to have taken two guns on the trip -- Elaine herself referred to multiple guns -- so what happened to the one not in the bag? Were there just too many infected for it to make a difference? It sounds like there was a horde. But man... if you don't have weapons, then you sure as fuck better not get caught trying to sneak past them, which you assume he tried to do after leaving the safety of the tree house. No one plans on getting caught, of course, but... you just know that wouldn't happen to Joel. (probably not to you, either, but it's better to compare Joel and Danny -- it makes you feel like less of a smug asshole). Also, Joel wouldn't stow his only other gun on his horse; it would be on his person. Extra ammo, too. And while you're thinking about the horse -- why wasn't he hitched enough that he couldn't bolt and ditch them like that? -And really, Danny should have picked a better place to break, considering how frail his companion is... it's a wonder they even made it to that treehouse. If it was me and Joel, I probably would have insisted we eat up there in the treehouse, just for fun, and the infected never would have seen us!
Joel always says it's luck that got you guys across the country, but you know it's more than that. You guys are good at this shit. You want to tell him everything you just thought of that the two of you would have done better... and see the look of pride on his face when you do.
But then you feel bad, because... ultimately, this poor old woman was stuck in a tree for two days, and likely just lost her son. Beat cancer, lose a kid... that's a shitty deal. You should be thinking of helping Elaine, not about how happy you feel when Joel is proud of you.
Well, she's with US now... so I know she's going to be okay.
If you'd like to start another adventure, return to page 1.
Carlos
Date: 2021-03-29 12:48 pm (UTC)Re: Carlos
Date: 2021-03-29 01:03 pm (UTC)