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Ellie's knife went through the soldier's leg like a brick through a window: an effortless expression of rage and shattering consequences. She threw herself forward, mind racing. Her knife was gone. She was smaller than him, and he had a gun. All she had was a chicken sandwich. She was going to die the moment Joel stepped aside and let the man shoot her.
Joel didn't step aside.
He howled - a sound she'd never heard a full grown man make - and hit the soldier so they both fell. Joel landed on top of the soldier. Ellie had a second to think, fuck, Joel was dead; then he raised his fist. Ellie had never seen someone punch another person so hard - the soldier's body jerked in time with each thud of Joel's fist against his head. Ellie crept closer to watch. Lightning flashed, and Ellie saw something stringy on Joel's hand, saw glimmers of what was either blood or teeth or something else flying through the air. The soldier's nose was all wrong, twisted and almost sunken into his face. Ellie's smile faded. When had she started smiling? It didn't matter, because her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest.
Joel looked over his shoulder, still crouched. His fist, held close to his chest, was wet with blood. He gasped like these were his last breaths. His eyes caught hers, and for a moment it was like the bombs had just fallen, and they were two ghosts standing in the quiet. Ellie wanted more than she ever had in her life.
That was when Tess started shouting, and the world clicked back into frantic movement again. Tess dragged Ellie along, and when Ellie looked back Joel was moving - but her eyes slid past him. Behind him, just catching the light, was a silhouette of a girl, her hair dry and fluffy, the center of her light shirt being swallowed by black.
Ellie ran.
It was day number six Ellie lost her mind.
She'd heard about that kind of thing, people going crazy from not talking to other people. But shouldn't it have taken longer, especially when they came in to talk to her once a day? It was the same woman always asking her the same questions to see if she were turning. That woman had to be the doctor. There were always people hovering behind her, the people Ellie figured would kill her if she started twitching, her skin turning veiny, growing mushrooms under the surface. (Would the skin peel around each bloom to let it open, or would the blooms just come from the skin, like a pop-up picture book?)
Even though she kind of hated them for not listening or believing her, Ellie started to like the talks. She'd drag it out just so they would stay longer, even though she was pissed and shouted at them half the time. She wasn't going to be nice to them. They'd put a knee in her kidney and had dragged her arm so far behind her back she thought it would break. She wasn't going to be nice because they hadn't given her any comic books, or toys, or anything. Even a pen to write on the walls. But she'd started daydreaming about their lives, and wondering if it was really so bad if she tried to play nice. Maybe they would give her a book if she did.
Now, though - now Ellie wanted anything, absolutely anything, to distract her, but she couldn't stop looking. A shape had melted out from the afternoon shadows. The girl was taller than her - actually had boobs, but they might have been the same age. If not for the bloody red hole in the middle of her t-shirt, Ellie would have been jealous. There was bloody froth on her lips. Ellie curled up over herself, knees to chest and arms over her knees and she pressed her lips to the crook of her elbow, worried someone would come in and see her looking scared, think she was turning, and shoot her before she could do anything. What if she was turning? Ellie scratched at her arm.
"Relax, you're gonna be fine," the girl said, like Ellie was stupid. Every time the girl breathed the bloodstain grew and shrank, like someone rolling a film backwards and playing it all over again. The sun caught the soft, thin strands of hair, so she glowed like a mall full of memories.
Ellie reached for something else to think about - anything else - because she didn't want to cry. "Fuck's it to you?"
Maybe talking to a girl in her head wasn't any better.
The girl came closer, and Ellie flinched. This close, Ellie could smell tangy blood and - gunpowder, she remembered it from school. It made her nose itch, and she stared up at the girl.
"...what are you, the ghost of Christmas past or whatever?"
"Or whatever. My name's Sarah. With an 'h.'" Like she'd read Ellie's mind in time to correct her.
"So, Sarah. Are you here to take me away? Are you what happens to people who turn into monsters?"
She looked thoughtful, shrugging and looking into the sunbeam. The light daubed her face, honey eyes intense. "I guess I'm why someone turned into a monster."
The girl didn't elaborate. The blood was running down her stomach and pants now. Ellie bit her sleeve.
"Hey." The girl knelt, now, leaning forward - Ellie cringed. "What's red and black and white all over?"
"...what?"
"A penguin in a blender."
Ellie couldn't help it - she laughed, half disgusted, and then muffled it into her shirt sleeve. "Gross." The girl smelled strongly, scents Ellie couldn't make out, but the back of her mouth itched, and she was starting to sweat. It reminded Ellie of finding dead rats, their bodies swollen or half-eaten by other rats. She closed her eyes, and pressed her face into her knees.
"I'll be here when you're ready," Sarah said, and disappears.
There was fire everywhere. It was roaring and fast, gorging on the carcass of the cabin. Ellie paced through it - she was terrified, but if she ran he was going to see her. She tried not to look down at herself, but that didn't seem to help - she could still see her right arm, fingers twisted and blackened, the fabric of her shirt melted to the flesh. Hot red burned at the end, a cigarette of flesh and bone.
Ellie came to a doorway and stopped. In the kitchen ahead of her knelt two figures on the ground - lovers? No; the man was a big man: short, curly hair, face hardened with age; in his hands were violence and death and comfort. Under him was a girl - Sarah - with a halo of curly brown hair, slim, and Ellie wondered that she was not dead yet; blood seeped from under her shirt, and her face and lips were mottled, patchy in the orange glow. Sarah fought, her nails ripping red stripes into his wrists and neck, but Joel held on, squeezing with blank determination.
Ellie realized she was holding a machete, and she was suddenly close enough to pass it to Sarah. "You're gonna need this."
With a furious scream, Sarah slashed the blade into Joel's head. Ellie watched as they rolled so Sarah was on top. One, the skin broke. Two, something shiny and yellow, like an overcooked egg yolk. Three, the machete met resistance, four, five, bone chips flew from the cut, a piece embedding itself into Sarah's cheek. Six, Sarah broke through to gray casing - sausage casing, brain casing, and when it pulled away Ellie could see Joel's brain, red like the facepaint Sam wore, dribbling down onto the floor.
When it was done, the two girls stared at each other.
"I don't know," Sarah said. "I guess turnabout is fair play."
Ellie woke up.
"Jesus," Ellie hissed. "Can't you give me a fucking break?"
Sarah-with-an-'h' had haunted Ellie across Boston, Lincoln, and Kansas City. She was always where Joel didn't look, never said anything where he could hear, but even when he was speaking to her, Ellie could feel the girl's ghost; she would leave behind beads and ticket scraps that always smelled like death. Ellie tried leaving them behind, but she always found them in her pockets.
"I'm not trying to bother you," the girl said, blood pooling down one corner of her mouth. In comic books, blood down both corners looked cool - this just looked stupid, like the worst trail of drool imaginable. "I'm warning you."
"Warning me about what?"
"You saw what happened to Sam."
That wasn't an answer, and not one Ellie was interested in thinking about right now. She scowled at Sarah and looked away.
"Stop that."
"Fuck you."
"Stop ignoring this - you need to know the truth!"
"What truth?!" Ellie finally screamed, and the force of it seemed to rend Sarah apart - she dropped to the ground, rotting over a second - her body bloated and deflated, hanging loose on her bones; her gums pulled away from her teeth and turned black. Liquids poured from her eyes (sockets) and ears (holes) and mouth (maw) and pieces of her were stripped away, until Sarah was only bleached bone on the ground.
She heard a gasp and a thump from across the room, where Joel was. He came up with a gun in his hand.
"Ellie?!" The bones were gone.
"...sorry," Ellie said, and she wasn't faking the shiver in her voice. "Bad dream."
Joel paused for a long moment, and Ellie could almost feel him catching his breath. She heard the safety of the gun click off, and he approached. She stared down at her knees.
"You...wanna talk about it?"
Ellie shook her head. Joel shuffled, looking uncomfortable and opening and closing his mouth a few times. She couldn't help smiling, just a little. "You suck at this."
"Gee, thanks." Joel shook his head. "You wanna stay up talking, then? You can tell me some of those awful jokes of yours."
"They're pure genius," Ellie argued back, reaching into her backpack. But instead of a book, her fingers brushed something hard and dry.
It was a finger bone.
Jackson, Wyoming chilled Ellie to the bone.
She wondered from the moment she spied the name over the fireplace, and when Maria let it slip about Joel's daughter, Ellie felt realization take her, and it took everything she had to parry Maria the rest of the haircut. She kept waiting for Sarah to pop out at any moment, but she never truly made herself seen with other people, either, so Ellie just sweated.
Joel's words were bad and the fight was worse; but grotesquely, Ellie couldn't stop thinking about her own death. Deaths that could have happened: she'd seen clickers tear people apart before, the way they beat them without care for their own bones, inhuman ferocity; what if that were her head under their arms, caved in until they ate her? Riley, who had lost her mind, who Ellie had killed with a gun - what if Riley had bitten her throat out? What if the two of them had killed themselves, putting the gun to the back of their heads and pulling? She'd seen it, now, a plume of red mist that burst from the back of the head. What would it feel like? The fireflies would have found them, dead, days later - bodies stiff, or bloating, and Ellie would have turned stranger colors than Riley, but they'd both be there with fungus growing out of their corpses like sunflowers. There were later, more terrible atrocities: Marlene killing her. Joel and Tess killing her. Joel abandoning her when Tess died, and Ellie dying of hunger, the sort of hunger that made you weak. Joel abandoning her when he died, or killing himself. Kathleen, who had so badly wanted to kill Sam and wanted her too; what would she have done? Ellie imagined a knife, slithering through the layers of her skin into her belly, and scooping out the organs to lay aside like precious objects. Joel would just watch - he'd said it himself, he would just watch, he always watched and he never did anything -
That's when she realized, and with a cry, Ellie threw herself out of bed and in front of the bathroom mirror. There was Sarah, staring back at her in desperate fear.
"Get out of my head!" Ellie yelled. "I'm not leaving him! I'm not afraid of him!"
"You need to leave!" Sarah shouted right back, and even though it was a mirror, the blood hit Ellie's face. "You have to!"
"Fuck you! I don't care that you're his daughter! Why does he miss someone who hated him so much?!"
Sarah reeled back, like Ellie had stabbed her, but Ellie didn't care, and shot back every hateful thing she knew. "If you hate him so much, just stay dead! Stop following me! I'm glad you died!"
Something in her brain burst. Ellie gasped, gripping the sink, and she felt the world pitch to one side. Screaming rang in her ears, and she had the vivid mental image of her bowels being perforated by a bullet that ran straight through to the artery in her belly - the way it felt for her while abdomen to fill with blood while she hyperventilated, pained and scared, and Daddy was picking her up and the world lurched -
Ellie woke up on the bathroom floor, a pool of blood under her, and sat up to cry.
When Joel didn't leave her alone, she hugged him tight and thought about another girl, hugging her father.
Years later, after she found the truth and learned to live with it, Ellie left Jackson with everything Sarah Miller had ever given her.
Sarah had stopped appearing, but Ellie felt her presence often, weighing on her spine when she went for horse rides with Joel, or alone in her room at night. The longer she stayed in Jackson, the more Ellie was able to recognize it: resentment, anger and resentment. She could feel it now as she rode Shimmer, swelling in her sternum. In the shadows, she caught flashes of Sarah. Ellie had grown; Sarah had not. What had once been a peer was now a girl, barely pubescent. She didn't scare Ellie anymore.
At a spot in where the light and shade dappled the rocky ground heavily, Ellie found what she was looking for. Sliding off the horse, she gathered the pouch, and crouched in the sun, in front of a shady spot. As if she'd been waiting, Sarah appeared from the gloom. Still the same clothes, still the same bloody petals across her stomach. She looked petulant. The wind stopped blowing.
Ellie didn't waste any time. "I know what you were trying to tell me."
This got the ghost's attention, and Sarah tilted her head. Ellie reached for the pouch, and laid the scraps out, taking her time to spell them right. In order, with the finger joint serving as an exclamation at the end, it all read:
HE CANT SAVE YOU!
"I'm sorry I didn't see it earlier," Ellie said. "I know you were angry at him, and trying to keep me safe."
"Why did you love him so much?" Sarah asked. "He let you down over and over."
"I was away from home, and everyone was deciding everything for me," Ellie pointed out. "I would have loved Bigfoot if I ended up with him for more than a few days.
Sarah laughed with that incredulous look fourteen year olds had, the one that asked, is this really the world? Blood and ichor flew from her mouth and nose, then, the hinge of her jaw slightly too loose, but Ellie didn't mind.
"You could have left him in Jackson, though. He was right. You were taking care of him; he failed you over and over."
"I wish he'd been better," Ellie said. "But I didn't want anyone else. I wanted him, even if he couldn't get it right."
Sarah crossed her arms, staring down at the ground.
"Why did you get to live?" She asked, her voice finally breaking. "Why did he save you and not me?"
Ellie reached out, and when Sarah didn't flinch away, cupped her cheek. It felt just like touching anyone else - human and warm. "He should have saved you and he didn't. He shouldn't have saved me and he did. It's not fair."
Sarah, finally, burst into tears. Ellie shifted to the edge of the shadow, gathered her close and held her. This was a world where monsters lived, predators thrived, and where too many viewed children as expendable unless they had something useful to offer. But it was still a world, a beautiful world, a world in which she had never been allowed to grow up in; and that was cruel, too.
When Sarah was done, she scootedback and looked at Ellie. "What happens now?"
"I think you get to decide that." Ellie took out the small garden shovel she'd borrowed from Maria and began to dig. Sarah watched her with red-rimmed eyes, until Ellie had dug six inches deep. They looked at one another.
"Thanks for trying to help me," Ellie said. Sarah rubbed her eyes and smiled.
Ellie gathered the beads and scraps, and tipped them into the hole. When she looked up, Sarah was gone.
The wind resumed, first rustling the treetops and then Ellie's hair. Shimmer whickered, pawing at the ground in search of treats. Ellie stayed still for a long time.
Her eye caught something ahead, in the twisted shade of a curlleaf tree. Ellie got on her hands and knees to look.
There lie several white-bleached bones, a pink t-shirt, and a beaded necklace.