CYOA Page 49
Here goes nothing, you think grimly. Who knows what she'll do if she knows you're lying! You clear your throat. "Yeah, um... he's... alive," you say slowly. Maybe you don't need to say anything more than that? You feel the tell-tale rush of blood to your face... shit...
"Thank God!" the woman gasps, clearly relieved. "How did he seem? Is he okay?"
You clear your throat yet again. "Uh..."
A smoother liar than you takes over. "He's in pretty bad shape. We gave him some water... wasn't much we could do for him. He didn't wanna come with us. Said he was waitin' for his wife. If you wanna run along now, I swear we won't shoot you in the back."
Even from a fair distance away, you think you see her eyes mist up. She simply turns and runs, a faint "thank you" tossed back over her shoulder like an afterthought when she's like ten seconds down the road.
"Guess she took the 'run along' literally," Joel remarks.
You sigh. "I feel bad. She's gonna find him... you think she'll know it was us? Yeah, of course she will, huh. Not like anyone else was around."
Joel shrugs. "Who knows. Someone else could've come along after us. It don' matter what she thinks. We'll have many hours, many miles in between us; she can't run like that for long, an' it's the complete opposite direction of where we're goin'. Ain't like she'll be comin' after us. Plus, she knows he was bad off before she left him, or she wouldn't've left him to find help."
"Yeah... but still. She'll know we lied. I feel bad that she's going to... we should've just left the guy alive."
"We had no way of knowin'," Joel says sensibly.
But you don't feel like being sensible. "Still! It's not like he was infected. You know-- infected-infected. That's really the only time anyone-- and they should be turning, too. Not just bitten."
Joel brings his horse up alongside yours but facing the opposite way, so you're pretty much face to face. "I know why you feel that way. But killin' is also mercy when--"
"Fuck mercy! Joel, what if we left the guy, and she comes back, and maybe it's too late to save him, but he's still alive, and he knows she's there with him... she can tell him she loves him, and maybe he'd even be able to tell her..."
"He was pretty far gone for that."
"Maybe, but sometimes people get all lucid at the end, remember? Remember Naidene? She hadn't said anything that made sense in days and then at the end she looked her kids right in the eye and told them each to be good."
Joel reaches for your hand. "Don' know if that constitutes proof, but--"
"It was the same thing! Not an infection, but something like that -- something that scrambled her brains." You're glad you have Joel's hand to idly play with while you're thinking about this shit.
"You can't beat yourself up for this -- you didn't even want to shoot him, remember? It's on me."
"I let you do it. I was an accomplice." You slowly trace Joel's fingers with your index finger.
"You know why I did it? Hey. Look at me."
You reluctantly look up.
" 'Cause I've seen infections like that before. Once they take hold... you saw how bad he looked -- he'd had it for a while. I could tell he only had maybe a couple hours left in him at most, an' he'd just be layin' there, writhin' in pain. He would've been dead by now, an' she's nowhere near him yet. We did the right thing."
"You really think so?"
"I do."
He looks so sincere that you do feel comforted by his words. You even forget that you were just thinking about what a smooth liar he is. "Okay."
Joel tugs on your hand, making you slide a little toward him -- which makes you giggle in spite of yourself. You kick your feet out of the stirrups and try to work out how to climb into his lap from this angle -- which makes Joel laugh, too. He takes hold of you under the arms and pulls you over, but it's still awkward to get your knee over his saddle without kicking anyone (horse or rider).
When you're straddling him comfortably with your arms around his neck, his arms wrapped around you, your lips joined... then your tongues... you forget about the woman for a while.
...Okay, so not a while, because Joel only allows this for maybe sixty seconds. "We can't do this Outside. Too dangerous."
"Hey, you're the one who pulled me into your lap," you protest.
"Only 'cause you were gonna fall on your face if I didn't," he retorts.
"Well, you started it by pulling on my hand."
"'You started it,' " Joel mocks you in a high-pitched voice. "Very mature."
"I didn't say it like that," you snicker. You lean your forehead against his. "You're lucky I love you."
"I know I am." He gives you a quick kiss, then starts trying to move you, but you resist.
You grin. "Someday we'll have sex like this, right?" you say in a conspiratorial whisper, as if anyone can hear you.
"Like this? On a horse?"
"Mmhmm."
"Never done that before."
"Oh good, then we're definitely doing it," you declare. Joel is sooooo old that it's hard for you to find firsts to do with him!
Joel chuckles. "I ain't committin' to that. Seems awkward as hell. Not to mention dangerous. C'mon, now..."
Joel can't actually pick you up and place you in your saddle from this angle, nor can you climb over very easily yourself, so he helps you to the ground and you remount from there. You praise your horse for being a good sport and patiently waiting there for you to finish with Joel.
Thankfully, you and Joel don't encounter any more humans (of any variety) for the rest of the day. You find a decent house to spend the night in, and both of you sleep better than you did the night before. You're glad that Joel's 'no fooling around Outside' rule (which, to be honest, he's been fairly lenient on) doesn't apply to snuggling. Overnight snuggling in particular. You truly believe you wouldn't be able to sleep with Joel in one room and you in another... so close and yet so far. You wonder how you ever managed to do it before (never mind that you weren't in love with him before).
You get a nice early start in the morning, and Joel estimates you'll arrive at the hospital maybe by lunch time. Your stomach thinks it's lunchtime by mid-morning, but you tell it to shut up; it's become accustomed to you eating a bit more at home. Shortly after that, though, Joel announces that you're really close... and you can tell by the roadside signs that you're about to enter the city. Joel doesn't want to head straight in from the highway; he says you can cut through the surrounding woods, heading west, until you can actually see the hospital in the distance, then enter the city with fewer streets to navigate. And you have to agree with Joel that cities suck compared to the countryside in terms of the number of potential threats, as well as the ability to spot them ahead of time.
You keep your binoculars handy and keep periodically checking for the hospital; allegedly it towers over its neighboring buildings. And just when you're starting to doubt the mapmaker who guided you this way... "Joel, I see it! Look!" You pass him the binoculars. "That has to be it, right?"
"Looks like." He hands the binoculars back to you. "So let's go down-- wait."
"Wait?" You're practically bouncing with excitement at being so close... even though there's no guarantee you'll even find Danny there.
"You hear that?"
Uh-oh... You strain your ears, but of course, you hear nothing. "I hear wind."
"Over that way..."
Oh! You actually do hear something this time! "Infected... fuck."
"But it sounds like it's comin' from... underground, somehow."
"Yeah... it definitely sounds weird. Should we go check it out, you think?"
Joel nods. "Let's tie the horses over here... if there's only a few of 'em we can kill them easier on foot anyhow." And horses sometimes freak out if they hear those awful infected noises, or if you shoot a gun while riding them. These two seem to have pretty good temperaments for that kind of shit, but you never know.
You and Joel move slowly in the direction of the underground Runner-like noises, guns drawn. It doesn't take long before you find the source: a giant hole in the ground! You and Joel peer over the edge of it and see two runners, who go bat shit when they see you -- but they're so far down there they can't get to you.
"Damn... that must be twenty or thirty feet down," Joel observes.
"How the fuck did that happen?"
"It's gotta be man-made. Not just with shovels, either."
"Weird. Why would someone do that? Just in case some stupid Runner happens to walk by and fall in? And I didn't know they were that stupid... I mean, Clickers at least can't see, so they have an excuse..."
"Look at all the loose brush around here... an' down in the hole, too. Someone covered it... it's a trap."
"...Huh. Pretty clever. So then what... they come check the trap eventually and kill them?"
"I s'pose so."
The odds of infected strolling over this particular spot seem rather slim to you; it's not like it's down some corridor or street with limited direction options -- it's the wide-open forest. Maybe they used bait? You wonder if there are more such traps... "I think we better get to the street, like... right away."
"Agreed." Joel seems to follow your train of thought on this. "This ain't noted on the map, so maybe it's just the one... an' no one else stumbled across it."
"We should note it on our map, then. Right?"
"Sure. Except I wasn't countin' how many streets over we are. Were you?"
"Well, no..."
"Maybe on the way back, then. Even a general note is better than nothin'." He drops a kiss on top of your head. "So, do you wanna shoot these ones, or leave 'em be? I'll let you decide this time. Mercy or no mercy."
You roll your eyes at him.
If you kill the Runners (no sense letting those things live), turn to page 93.
If you leave them alone (not like they can hurt anyone down there), turn to page 96.