lumy12

Page One Hundred Eighteen

"Uh... do I wanna go looking for trouble? Fuck no!" you reply.

Joel chuckles. "It does seem to have a way of findin' us, don't it? Let's put some distance between us and... that."

"Good idea." You trot the horses for a stretch, both of you glancing over your shoulders perhaps a bit more than usual. "Isn't it weird how people's voices are so different, but infected usually end up sounding pretty much the same?"

"They ain't the same. Males an' females usually sound different."

"Okay, aside from that," you concede. The things are sexless, as far as you're concerned. "That one must've been one of those loud, obnoxious types when she was a real person."

The only other eventful thing of the afternoon -- if it even counts? -- is a light summer shower. Light enough that it almost feels like you're skirting around the raindrops. The sky is all gray to the west, but you're headed more north, towards the blue. Joel says the two of you lucked out there.

You're also lucky enough to find a motel to spend the night in. It has a door that can be bolted from the inside, and you can keep an eye on the horses through the patio door.

It's almost too easy, really; other than that one (legit) encounter with infected, everything's been pretty smooth sailing. ...without the actual sailing part. You joke that you should have done your first trip this way -- well-provisioned, with horses the whole way, nary an obstacle in your path.

"Stay alert," Joel cautions you now as the grass and trees and rocks begin to give way to pavement and buildings.

"Always am," you reply, a touch crossly. "How far into the city is it? And don't say 'not far.' "

"...Well, it ain't that far."

"How far? Less than an hour?"

"Maybe. It's about a hundred blocks, he said. Give or take--"

"A hundred?" One hundred of anything sounds far...

"Just a few miles. Not more than ten."

"...And you think there will be people around?"

"Not necessarily. It's just more likely in a city than in the middle of nowhere, remember?"

You haven't seen anyone in forever. More than twenty-four hours now. But you know he's right. "The people who work at the hospital will live around here," you reason.

"They apparently live in the hospital. There's a floor that's nothin' but non-patient housin'."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. I mean, they must have electricity in there, right? Water? Other cool stuff?"

Joel nods. "More cool stuff than the clinic back home has."

"I can't wait to see it. It's kind of exciting seeing new places again, isn't it? Meeting new people?"

"If you say so."

The shrug in his voice doesn't dampen your enthusiasm. Admittedly, you did see too many new places on your last trip (and you were excited about that, too... at least, on the first half of it). And most of the people you met were trying to kill you. But it's not like that this time!

After what feels like an hour or so, you expect Joel's 'people radar' to start dinging... but he remains quiet. You're constantly scanning the area, and you don't see anyone, but you decide to ask him anyway... "Shouldn't you be feeling like there's people by now? -That's Rosewood up ahead." Your final turn!

Joel doesn't answer your question.

"That must be it down there," you say when you start heading down the last street. You look at Joel: he's frowning, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. "Still nothing?"

"Nothin'. Except a vague feelin' that... we ain't in the right place."

"What do you mean? The city map was very--"

"Maybe the place we're goin' is the right one, we just won't find what we expect to find there."

"You mean Danny."

"I mean everyone who's s'posed to be there."

"All the doctors and everything? Patients?"

"...I'm prob'ly just paranoid."

But you don't think he is; you're kind of getting a creepy feeling yourself. "You're usually right, Joel. At least about this kind of shit," you hastily add the disclaimer so he can't throw it back at you someday when you know you're right.

"We'll find out soon enough."

Every street sign you've seen indicates that you're in the right place (including the actual 'St. John's emergency entrance' one with the arrow, when you reach the intersection in front of the hospital). "Should we find the front way in?" you ask.

"No, we should be able to go... hang on. See that body over there?"

You follow his gaze. "Yeah... so?"

"Why would they leave it right there, that close to the entrance?"

"Uh... I dunno. They haven't gotten around to taking care of it yet?" It's not unusual to see corpses laying around -- you and Joel have seen plenty -- but it's true that most people don't leave them so close to where they live.

"Which would mean it's pretty fresh."

"Yeah... although 'fresh' isn't the word I would use right now..." The body smells ripe as fuck.

"Stay here. I'm--"

"I'm going with you," you tell him firmly.

He doesn't argue too much about this; it takes less than a minute for him to give up and let you have your way.

You leave the horses in the parking lot and proceed on foot -- and you are happy to stay put while Joel examines the corpse more closely. He nudges it with his foot to roll it -- well, him, as it's a man -- over. "Gunshot. Multiple, actually. Not infected. Be real careful..."

The two of you slide the door open, with some difficulty, and Joel goes inside first, shotgun in hand.

You're right behind him. "Fuck..." Two more bodies. A man and a woman. Yeah, I'm getting a VERY bad feeling about this...

The emergency area proves easy to search; the large spaces show nothing obviously out of order... and no corpses.

Joel tenses a little more when you move on to the other half of the floor. "Stay close."
"You think they're still here? Whoever did this?"

"I don' know. We're gonna find out." He starts creeping down the hall, searching room by room.

You shadow Joel for probably less than a minute before getting distracted by your surroundings -- mainly the carnage, but the rest of the shit laying around as well. "I don't think anyone's here. You would've picked it up on your radar."

Joel snorts. "My radar ain't a hundred percent accurate."

"Okay, but... look at all the stuff they left behind. There's protein bars in here. Who wouldn't pick those up?" You snatch them up yourself.

"Not everyone likes 'em as much as you do," Joel replies -- just to be contrary, in your opinion. "But you're right. They've got things here that most hunters don't have access to." He gestures to the toothpaste and soap in one of the little room-adjacent bathrooms.

"Supplies from the military..." If they have any 'feminine hygiene products,' you're totally swiping them. "Unless it was soldiers that did this?"

"I don' know why they would. But anythin's possible."

When you move on to the next room, Joel actually blocks you from entering. "You don' need to come in here."

"Well, now I have to." You duck under his arm and-- oh. Fuck! There's an old man in the bed with his brains splattered on the wall behind him. It's a horrific sight that you... kind of wish you hadn't seen, yet now you're staring. The machines he's hooked up to are still on, which somehow make it sadder... like they don't even realize he's dead so they're still trying in vain to do their job. Joel switches one of them off (the one making the high-pitched whiny noise).

He searches quickly and steers you out of there. "Come on..."

"Who would do that?" you wonder out loud. "Obviously that guy couldn't hurt anybody."

"Maybe someone did it out of kindness."

"...Kindness?!"

"Rather than lettin' him starve to death," Joel explains as he heads into the next room -- which is patient-free.

"Oh, like... cuz they killed all the doctors and stuff, so... yeah. You don't really believe that, do you?"

Joel shrugs. "Maybe it was a crazy person."

"Or a very angry one," you add.

"Or just a plain old asshole."

Yeah... Joel gets the final word on that one.

You search the entire hospital, most of which doesn't appear to have been used or occupied. The place is fucking huge! And you find no trace of Danny. You think you may have found his mother, but any patient still in their bed met the same fate as that poor old man you saw, so it's hard to know for sure. Joel doesn't even remember who she is (was?)... whereas you barely do, although you've never even had a real conversation with the woman, to the best of your recollection.

Joel asks if you're hungry, pointing out the well-stocked cafeteria kitchen (and the electricity is still on, so maybe you could even cook?). You should be hungry, and normally you'd be excited to check out their food, but you feel a little sick to your stomach... as well as completely dejected. Joel understands and says he's not hungry, either. You tell him it's okay if he is, that he could eat while you restock your bags (it's not stealing if everyone's dead, right?), but he still says he's not. He scavenges with you instead.

"So... now what?" you ask him, frowning at a stack of pudding mix boxes.

"Take 'em all," he advises.

"No, I mean--"

"I know what you meant. The jellos, too. They're easy to carry."

"Yeah, but..."

"Dead people don' need to eat," Joel says sensibly.

"Whoever comes along next needs to, though."

"True, but that's most likely gonna be hunters or soldiers. Either way, prob'ly a bunch of assholes. Why should we feed them?"

You snort. "Real nice, Joel. But... yeah. And the government supplies this shit, right? They'll prob'ly come with more?"

"Don' know how that all works here, but sure. Even if they don't bring it all the way here... assumin' they wouldn' just dump it at the train station if no one shows up to get it, they will come an' see what happened, yes."

You shovel four stacks of those little boxes into your bag while Joel grabs some cans from the shelf above your head. "Why didn't whoever did this take anything?" you wonder aloud.

"Maybe they did. Maybe there was twice as much shit here before. Or maybe they couldn't carry that much. Back to your first question... we can investigate a bit, see if we can find anythin'..."

"We already looked everywhere."

"Well, we did an' we didn't. We were just conductin' a safety search, not lookin' at details."

"You think they might've left recorders behind? Like the Fireflies?"

"I doubt it. Unless they want to be found. But Danny might've left a note or somethin', if he had time before he split... if he was even here in the first place. Or -- we could just go home. Tell 'em what happened. Maria can get a message to her military contacts, see if they're aware yet."

"What do you think we should do?" you ask him.

"...I could go either way."

"Maybe we could look for Danny in the city a little before we go?" you suggest. "Just in case he... I dunno... got away but he's hurt or something..."

"Sure."

You also kind of want to look around the hospital some more, though. See if you can figure out what happened, or at least find out if that one patient was indeed Danny's mother.

If you stay to investigate, turn to page 203.

If you'd rather just get the fuck out of there (...theme of the day?), turn to page 208.