They stood before another locked gate. Annoyingly enough, it was blocked off from the other side, a pipe had been wedged into the handles, which prevent anyone from entering the street.

"Damn. It's jammed," Joel grunted, wiping his mouth.

Maeve peered at their destination, the street, through the chain-link fence with a half-frown. She tried to rack her brain for any clue of getting passed the obstacle. She could climb it, but Joel would crumple that idea up real fast.

"Here, boost me up!" Ellie said suddenly.

It took a mere second to realize what she meant. The gate didn't have wire at the top, and someone could easily climb over it to unjam the door.

"Yeah, nice try, toe fungus. Not happening."

The sisters glared at TJ, telepathically cursing him to step on sharp rocks barefoot, and during the night so he wouldn't be able to see them.

"TJ's right," Joel said before a fight could break out. "That's not such a good idea."

Ellie scoffed with a slight attitude. "Well, I can't boost you up. How else are we gonna open it?"

"Just do it," Maeve encouraged bluntly. "She's the lightest out of all of us. She can open it, no problem. Agile and quick."

"Alright, alright," The older man grumbled and readied himself to boost Ellie up. "Gimme your foot. Now just open it. Nothing else."

"Sure thing," the girl put her left foot in his hand and catapulted toward the top of the fence.

"Careful, Ellie," Maeve said, eyeing her sibling as she climbed the rest of the way and dropped herself off on the other side.

"Okay," She landed in a bent position, and then straightened herself after a second. She turned to the door and grabbed the pipe. "Ah, let's see. Ta-da~"

With the pipe removed, they were free to enter the street.

"Beautiful!" Maeve hip bumped Ellie the second she was out. "You are a ninja."

"Oh, that would be fucking awesome." Ellie beamed, her mind swirling about endless fantasies about being a ninja.

"Good job, kid," Joel briefly praised the younger girl.

"Thank you." She bowed dramatically and dropped the pipe with a metallic clatter.

TJ scooped the pipe up, shut the gate behind them, and stuck the piece back into the handle. If anything wanted through, they'd have a hell of a time doing so.

Maeve didn't mention the action. If anything, she agreed with it. It was safer that way.

"So..." Maeve began. "Let's say we a car from this buddy of yours. Then what?"

"Well, then we go find Tommy," Joel replied.

"Marlene said he's your brother?"

"More importantly he was a Firefly. He'd know where to take y'all."

"Oh, okay." Maeve hummed.

"He lives far from here, which is why we need the car."

Makes sense, Maeve guessed. But, other than the military trucks, she hadn't seen any other working motorized vehicles at all.

"And what if your friend can't fix one up?"

"Well, I guess we'll walk." TJ said.

The older girl couldn't help but groan. If this Tommy guy lived far, she'd rather not walk all that way. Her legs would probably break off if she was forced to walk another mile. She could already feel the strain on her hamstrings, and the soles of her feet were beginning to ache.

They ventured down the street, looking around to see what they could find.

"Mandatory evacuation," Ellie read off a large sign that stood in the middle of the street, her brows furrowed in confusion. "Evacuate to where?"

"Where do you think?" TJ leered at the sign. "Quarantine zones. Joel said some got a head's up when the infection showed up, while others didn't."

Maeve frowned at that. Did that mean whatever government they had back then deliberately withheld information about the Cordyceps until it was too late? Did the rich and more "important" figures of the old world get the first dibs on the better sides of the QZ's or something?

It didn't set well with her. It wasn't fair. Then again, nothing was ever fair.

"Must be hard," Ellie hummed softly. "Just leaving all your stuff behind like that."

"That ain't the hard part," Joel's voice was hard, almost agonized.

She was definitely one to pry, but maybe she would hold her questions for another time.

"Oh neat o!"

Ellie suddenly beelined for an old pizzeria, having seeming seen something through one of the broken windows. It caused the group to bustle after her.

"What is it, Ellie?" Maeve inquired, but her question was answered by what she saw Ellie fiddling with.

An old arcade machine with familiar art on the sides of it, a game her sister and Riley used to geek out about all the time. Angel Knives. Or was that the name of the character Riley gushed about? Anyway, the machine looked unplayable now, the screen being busted out and all.

"What, you play this before?" Joel began to look around, figuring he could search high and low while they were there.

Ellie jiggled the controls, tapping the buttons as she sighed. "Nah. But I had a friend that knew everything about this game," she turned around to the face the adult while he shuffled behind the counter, "apparently, there's this character called Angel Knives who'd...what was it? Oh, yeah—she'd punch a hole through your stomach before kicking your head off."

TJ seemed a little interested in the game, but it vanished just as quickly.

"I was never a big fan of these things," Joel commented, returning to the front of the pizzeria.

"I wish I could play it," Ellie looked at the machine wistfully.

"Maybe the Fireflies will entertain you," TJ shrugged and trudged out of the building.

Maeve chuckled when Ellie crossed her fingers with her eyes closed, making that silent wish of hers. She then led her sister out of the pizzeria, the warmth of the sun engulfed her again.

"What are the chances of you being immune too?"

The older girl looked at TJ, her eyebrows pressed together. "I'm not too eager to find that out."

Ellie snickered. "She panics too much to be reckless."

"But that's what makes you reckless," TJ deadpanned, looking between them.

"I'm along for the ride, okay?" Maeve flipped her braid over her shoulder. "I wasn't about to let my sister go across the country without me."

"Sister of the year." The boy rolled his eyes.

"Oh, you know what—fuck you!" She flipped him off with both of her hands.

"Knock it off!" Joel groaned out, seeming to have enough of their bickering.

Maeve gave TJ a dirty side glance. "You'd know how it felt if you had siblings."

"Yeah, well, I don't," The other teenager grumbled and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

And that was the end of that conversation.

She didn't know why it was so difficult to talk around this guy. One second, they're on okay terms, and then the next, they're trying to claw each other's throats out. Maeve didn't think she had argued with anyone so much. Well, there were those times with Olive, but that was an entirely different time—a different life.

She though back on those time, it seemed like it happened a thousand years ago. She felt a little homesick as she thought about her old room, her bed, all of her things that she had to leave behind. At least she saved a few, more precious momentums. A Walkman with her only cassette tape, a couple of her polarized pictures. Her mom's letter. Jordan's jacket. It was pretty thick, thicker than her shirt, that was for sure. It took up most of the space in her bag, but she refused to leave it behind.

"Oh," Maeve paused, abruptly aware of the vastly barbwire-coated barricade at the end of the street. She had almost walked right into its metal thorns.

"Bill's handiwork," Joel observed the site. "We're gonna have to find another way around."

"Anybody else live in this town?" Ellie's voice traveled around the empty air.

"As far as I know, it's just him."

This Bill guy sure sounded lonely.

They neared an old record store. Its windows were all busted out and the front door seemed to have been forced off of its hinges by some mysterious force. The place was vandalized on the outside, but the inside appeared to be untouched.

"Fireflies were everywhere, huh?" Ellie suddenly asked.

"Yeah, they were," TJ snickered, but was given a look by Joel.

"They still are. Hopin' to restore the country to what it was," The man answered Ellie finally.

"Well...maybe with a vaccine, they will."

The man shrugged. "Maybe."

"This place is neat," Maeve wandered inside the record store, going for the shelves where many, many records sat, collecting only God knows how much dust. "Damn. What a waste."

"What is?"

"All this music just laying here," she flipped through the records with Ellie, mindlessly. "I dunno. Doesn't seem right. I'd put all of it in my bag if I had the room."

"You'd have to find a turntable first, Mae," Ellie mentioned, moving to the next pile of records.

"Yeah."

Classical. Jazz. Rock. Hip Hop. Alternative bands. Metal. Her chest swelled, knowing she couldn't take any of this with her. What a shame.

We should get movin'," Joel returned from the back room, which Maeve assumed he slipped by when she was distracted by the music, fumbling with his gun. He seemed to have found some more bullets.

"Bye-bye, music store..." Maeve exited the store with severe reluctance.

It really was a shame. All that music was just wasting away on those shelves. Maybe she could go back and try to find cassettes for her Walkman.

"We'll probably find more on our way to Tommy's," Ellie consoled her with a pat on the shoulder.

"Sure. I'm not sad or anything," Maeve lied.

"You're such a liar." The younger rolled her eyes and they headed for the alley splitting the music store and another building apart. Joel and TJ were at the entrance.

They heard the clicking before they saw the culprit. It must have heard them talking, because it hurried around the corner, screeching out its horrible shrill. It was barely able to make it fully between the buildings when it tripped something, which caused a fierce explosion. Its body took full damage, the blast tore its limbs off and shredded its skin apart. The blast of the bomb caused part of the body to be airborne, the torso smacked off the brick wall and fell to the alley ground. The place the torso hit trickled with blood.

It happened so quickly, Maeve wasn't sure who screamed. She had ducked down, covering her face as the Clicker's inwards speckled everywhere.

"Holy fuck! What the shit was that?!" Maeve fumbled to say something about a moment, trying not to look at the bloody part of the Clicker.

"That..." Joel regained his posture. "Would be one of Bill's traps."

"That excessive, isn't it?" Maeve covered her mouth and nose with her hand as her stomach churned.

"Your friend a bit paranoid, maybe?" Ellie grimaced at the damage done to the Clicker.

Joel chuckled darkly. "Now that's putting it lightly."

They go the way the Clicker came. Of course, after witnessing that bomb paper shred it, the group kept their eyes out. They hadn't seen the bomb the Clicker trigger until it exploded. Sure. Maeve knew her way around bombs and the like, but she'd rather not see the after effects. She could handle a lot, but oof. That was a lot to take in. Blergh.

It was the smell more than anything, she told herself. They were dead bodies with live fungus inside their brains. While the infection took them over, they died. And the bodies would decompose with time and the infection grew out of them too. They were their own ecosystem. Ecosystem of rot.

"You're a bit green there." TJ mentioned.

Maeve realized he was glancing at her. As if he cared. She waved him off.

"I'm fine. Wasn't expecting that." Technically not a lie.

When she finally rounded the corner, there was another body. Not a Clicker, but definitely an infected. It laid face down on the concrete before a short set of steps. Its back had multiple arrows buried into its spine and shoulders.

"Yeesh..." Ellie sounded both appalled and impressed. "Bill good with a bow?"

"I reckon he is."

After a moment of Joel looking around, he decided that they would have to climb over a trailer blocking the rest of the alley. And of course, conveniently placed nearby was a ladder. Well, not necessarily placed, it had fallen over. Or kicked off the trailer.

The was placed on the backside of the trailer and Joel made his way on top. Same old routine, they went up one at a time. There was a dusty, but somewhat homey-looking chair on top of the truck. Maeve guess this was a lookout.

"Hey...look at that." Joel suddenly had a bow in his hands and he tested out the string by pulling it. Hummed and shouldered it.

"Let me use that," Ellie suggested quickly, which earned her weird glances from both of the guys. "I'm a pretty good shot with that thing."

"How 'bout you just leave this kind of stuff to TJ and I," Joel passed across a board to a lower roof with a ladder leading to another, higher roof.

"Well, what about Maeve? She's got a strong arm, and probably a better shot than I am! We could all be armed." Ellie pressed on.

"Yeah, that's a no brainer." TJ disagreed.

Of course not. She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth and sneered at the blond. Well, that was rude. She was one to toot her own horn, honestly, and yes, she did like to brag...sometimes. Besides her knife, was an excellent archer.

They crossed over to the next building, and climbed up onto the higher roof.

"Hey, Joel?" TJ looked at the gape. "We're gonna need that plank again."

The older man sighed, almost exhausted. "Yep."

With a little passing around, the plank is placed on a new spot, to be used to cross to another building.

Maeve pursed her lips and peered down at the alley below. From the street to the backway, there was nothing but a forest of barbed wires, curling and resembling metallic thorns. Maybe if she squinted, she could see a body or two under all those silver briars. She was sure a fall wouldn't kill her, but getting pricked in vital areas would. This Bill guy went all out, she grinned nervously. From the bombs, to the wired barricades.

What else was in this guy's arsenal?