#mac limit

He squeezed the steering wheel tight with his left hand to let his right release it. It travelled to his radio, clicking on it. "Yeah? What's up?" He said, glancing at the house at the end of the trail. It seemed so ominous. With a quick glance to the heavily modified assault rifle in the backseat, he started to wonder if this really was a bad idea.

"Listen, these- these guys are unstable. Y'know?" Mac cleared his throat with a grunt. "We've fought at least a dozen like 'em. They've been trying to threaten us for food, you can't take chances with this shit." He explained his worries. Joel could feel sweat build up on his brow as he got closer to the survivors base.

Even though he so desperately wanted to reason with the group, he knew Mac had a point. He'd heard stories of him rampaging through hostiles like Rambo, a one man army whose only objective was to destroy what threatened what he cared about.

But he had to try to reason with these people. They were desperate, should they really be executed just for that? No. He didn't think so.

His hand around the wheel flexed while he pulled it over, turning it off to the side and hitting the brakes. He reached over and pulled the shift into park. "I... I'll be careful." Joel finally answered. "I got, uhm, a grenade and the rifle." He said that as if Mac were going to let him leave without either. "Listen, I'm heading in now. I'll let you know what happens."

Joel looked down at the pistol on his hip. Up close and personal like that, if he really had to? He doubted he'd really be able to draw that fast. A deep breath in, a heavy breath out. He shook away the jitters with a quick shiver before opening the driver's side door and stepping out. "...stay safe, kid." Mac said over the radio, leaving Joel by himself in the outside world.

A piece of him longed to just get back in the car and drive away, to simply leave the group to fend for themselves. The rest of him shut those thoughts down though. If it got bad, he could at least run like hell... Yeah. That would work.

Another deep breath in as he rounded the car and approached the steps to the porch. Joel fixed his posture, trying to stand with more confidence than he really had. "Hey!" He called out with his breath, loud enough for those inside to hear, just not enough to wake the dead.

Figures darted past the window. He squinted, trying to make out just what they were holding. The click of the front door lock drew his attention, and he looked over to see their leader swing it open. He was unarmed- at least for the moment. The survivor knew they had weapons somewhere. Who didn't?

Joel and the leader stared at each other for what felt like minutes. The other male spoke up with his voice lowered. Joel could tell he was forcing its pitch lower, it sounded beyond unnatural. He'd already heard him over their radio. Everyone had.

"Here's the deal." He began, taking a step forward into the outside. "You're gonna get us the food we need, the shit we've been asking for." Joel bit his tongue to stop himself pointing out how he'd never really asked them. The man continued. "You either do that, or I get real angry. You wanna see what happens when you make me MAD?"

Jesus, Mac was right. One, he did talk like a jackass. And two, he was unstable. Still, he wanted to attempt some form of shared rationality with him. Joel held his hands up, his palms facing the other. "We can't... Do that. Okay? You've been-" A low growl from him made Joel stop. The man's face twisted with hatred, and he stepped back.

"Then get the hell out of here, boy." He snapped, "Or I swear to god..." The man finished, stepping back and slamming the door with him. Joel winced at the sharp groan of wood crashing. So much for reasoning with him, crazy bastard.

Joel turned around and stepped away. He went back around the car to the driver's side, he leaned against the open door with one elbow propped up to the roof. "Hey." He sighed while he talked over the radio once more. "They didn't bite. Guy didn't even give it a second thought, just got real aggressive... They didn't attack though. So, positives." He added, letting a light chuckle punctuate his words.

"That could've been worse." Mac pointed out. "Maybe we should send you to do the talking more often, never goes well when they see my ugly mug." He threw in his own joke. It elicited another laugh from Joel, and one from himself.

Joel clicked the radio to speak once more, "Well, that's just cause..." He trailed off when he could hear someone shouting from inside. He allowed himself to take a glance at the house again. "Huh?"

It stopped. He didn't look away though. "Mac, I think someone's-"

A gunshot and glass shattering is what made him stop completely. He almost screamed as he threw himself down to the ground. The bullet collided with the hood of the car, lead scraping metal made his ears ache.

"TOLD YOU TO LEAVE!" He could hear their leader scream. That was followed by another gunshot. Mac's panicked calls for Joel blended in with the deafening blasts from the other survivors guns. They were fucking shooting at him?! He was getting SHOT at?!

He scrambled to the door just next to him, which led into the backseat. Joel had killed before, but those were just zombies. Mindless drones that wanted to just kill and kill and kill... well, maybe not entirely mindless. He'd seen their hivemind at play- why was he even stopping to think about that?! People were opening fucking fire at him!

"Kid?! KID?! TALK TO ME! WHAT THE FUCK- JOEL!" He could still hear Mac scream as his shoulder which held the radio rose up to his neck while he crawled. The bullets were tearing through the vehicle, just barely whizzing by his prone form. His heart was racing in a way it never had before. He felt sick.

Joel reached up to latch onto the door's handle and pull open, just enough to let his arm slip in and take a hold of the assault rifle by its grip. He already had the grenade on his person, but did he seriously have to use it? His mind said no, though the roaring gunfire directed at him said yes.

His mind was blank. Every thought had been overwritten with pure instinct, with unrelenting desperation to survive. Joel pulled away from the backseat and sat up, using the wheel and back end of the car as cover from the bullets. He'd only seen shit like this in the movies. Those weren't very fucking helpful for the moment. Joel's jaw clenched.

The shots would attract zeds, no question about that. He had a minute, maybe two? They were in the middle of nowhere.

Joel shook it off. No time to worry about zombies.

He spun around and pulled himself up, propping his hand that gripped the assault rifle's barrel onto the trunk. The other tightened around the rubber grip. He counted three people. One in the window to the left of the door, and the other two off to the right side. Their leader stayed close to the door. Joel let go of the barrel, allowing his hand to shoot into his vest and past his radio. Mac was still talking over it. He just wanted any sign of life from the young survivor.

No time to waste, Joel thought. He grabbed onto the frag grenade stashed inside of a pocket. The urge to bite down with his teeth like some action hero was there, though he'd learned from Denis that it was bullshit. He let go of the rifle completely. It rested upon the trunk.

With shaking hands, he held the grenade in place to rip the pin out of it. An immediate panic surged through him. Fuck, was he about to blow himself up?!

Joel stood up. His target was in his sights. The large window on the left would be the easiest to hit. He pulled his arm back, like a catapult. He fixed his aim- and he launched it forward. The grenade soared through the air and dove through the already broken window. He ducked back down. It almost felt like a game of football again. A very weird game of football.

He didn't have his eyes on where he'd thrown the explosive when its explosion came. It shook the house with its presence- and bloody murder rang out from inside. The bullets stopped pouring out at him for a moment.

"DARLENE! NO! NO!" Someone howled from inside.

His heart sank. What did he do? He'd just taken a life! He killed someone, maybe someone who did a lot of bad, but someone who may have-!

The gunfire started back up, and then the guilt for his actions was replaced by that same will to survive that made him throw the grenade in the first place. He grabbed onto his own gun again.

Their aim was notably worsening. Possibly the pure force of each shot making their wrists ache, killing their accuracy... Or, hell, maybe they just sucked shit. It didn't matter. Joel adjusted his own aim, though he'd realized that one of the figures had disappeared from its original positioning.

He fired blindly, his own rounds from the rifles double drum magazine spraying the right side of the house down. His ears were ringing already, but he only stopped when he didn't see anyone standing. Were they dead? He hoped so... Was that fucked up to think?

"BASTARD!" The leader shrieked, making his presence known. Joel tried to swivel his aim to where he'd heard it, the door. It was too late for that though. He'd started shooting again, and the only other survivor left in there with him joined him as the two barged out of the front door. Their bullets collided with the trunk of the car and just narrowly missed Joel. He fell back, bringing his gun down with him.

Joel moved as fast as his body would allow while he pulled himself up to his feet. He kept one hand firmly on the trigger, the other going off and back on to plant into the ground and push himself up. He started to fire the moment two bodies got in his sight, and he began to back up.

Their back and forth shooting had left both parties backing away, but never giving up on their end goal. Joel let out a small squeak as he backed up into a ditch, nearly losing his footing with the sudden change in terrain. He adjusted fast to continue moving down. It was the best chance he had to catch them off guard.

His strangle of the trigger stopped when he'd reached the bottom and could no longer see anyone. They were still moving though, he knew that. He could hear their boots meeting the casing ridden ground beneath them. With a shaky huff, he fixed his aim to point upwards to the top of the ditch.

A head peaked over, for just a second.

On instinct, he snapped his aim to the skull and slammed down on the trigger. Bullets spat from it like poison, and he watched as at least two sped through the survivors head. She didn't even make a sound while she fell back. All he could hear was a body smacking against the earth's floor.

Fuck. Fuck. Jesus fucking Christ- what did he do?

No time to think. Shit.

There was no more movement ahead. It had stopped completely, though he noticed the lack of a distraught yell for this survivor. Joel kept his finger firmly around the metal lining while he began to walk back up the ditch. He couldn't feel anything in his body besides the intense pounding in his veins, which gave him shivers.

Joel lowered the gun to be level with the ground as he came back up, finding himself even with the car he'd driven in on now. It wasn't safe. He'd had it drilled into his head to never let go of that damn gun until he was sure he wouldn't die without it. Rose's words, not his.

He started to let his mind wander when he couldn't see anyone else, though his aim never faltered. What the fuck had happened? How did things get so bad so fast? ...where was the leader?

The crumpling of a jacket alerted him to that information.

It was too little too late however. The sole survivor had stood up from behind the car, rage in his eyes and hatred surging through the pistol in his hand. He fired without a thought, just as Joel had gotten his aim in his direction.

Fire. It was fire and hell on earth once the bullet hit him. It raved through his lower left side, zipping out of his back. Joel cried out in torture as he found himself being dragged down to the ground once more, firing back himself on the way down. He didn't expect to hit anything, he just wanted to ward him away.

A gasp followed by choking on some liquid made it clear that he had hit something though. He didn't know what, having made it to the ground with a hiss of pain. Something in him cracked. The force of the bullet left a blast radius in its wake, hurting anything inside of him that it got close to. He hated it.

Joel dropped his gun, wheezing for air and wrapping his arms around the new wound he had. He'd been shot, he realized. There was a goddamned hole in him, and it was a nightmare. How did anyone in the group handle this? He could feel tears build up in his eyes, ready to let loose at any moment.

It felt as though death itself was knocking at his door, eager to get in and rip him apart. He expected to see the leader just stand up from behind the car and unload the magazine into him. Joel peaked under the gap at the bottom of the car, getting an okay-ish look at the situation.

The leader was... Unresponsive. For the moment, at least.

Blood rushed from his neck, and his gun was laid out at his side. He actually hit him with that? That was lucky. A miracle, actually. Joel didn't feel like pushing his luck by sticking around what would be a hot spot for the dead in only a minute or two.

Guilt, shame, pride, anxiety, pain, it all swirled violently in his head. There were a million thoughts for each thing, none of them good. He felt nauseous as he pulled himself together, getting off of the ground and grabbing onto his weapon. That damn rifle saved his life. And whatever God was looking out for him to let him hit that shot.

Joel pushed aside his befuddled thoughts in favor of getting back to the car. It'd been shot to shit, with holes littering the doors, roof- hell, just the entire body of the vehicle. That was going to be a nightmare to fix up, he thought.

He dragged himself back to the front side of it, tossing his weapon into the passenger seat as he plopped down in the driver's. Joel shut the door behind him, glancing down at himself. Red streaked down his blue puffer vest, leaking onto his jeans, and then the leather seat.

He felt thankful he hadn't turned the car off, being able to reach down and switch the stick shift again, slamming it into the ability to drive ahead. After adjusting it, he moved that hand to his radio, the other taking a hold of the wheel as he began to drive away from the scene.

"Mac?" He called weakly over their communications. It wasn't even a second later that he heard the other side light up with life.

"Joel? Kid?! Fuck, what happened? Are you alright?!" He demanded, not caring how his horror painted him at that moment. "They- they shot at me. Shot me." Joel mumbled. Each bump of the dirt trail made his side scream. "They- WHAT?! Are you okay?! Where are you? Are..." Mac paused.

"Are they dead?" He asked, his tone considerably softer than it had been before. "...mhm." Joel confirmed. Mac sighed heavily. "Shit. Do you need someone to get you? Are you okay?" He continued on. "I'm driving back, but I- I need help. It hurts, man." Just saying it hurt was an understatement, but he didn't feel like rambling on about how it made him want to curl up and die.

The sound of tires squealing against the road as he swerved onto it filled the air to replace Mac's brief silence.

"Just get back here, alright, kid? You're alright. You're gonna be fine." Mac offered the support, despite there only being so much he could do from where he was. Joel still appreciated it. "Okay." The younger man coughed.

"Okay... Now focus on the road, not me. Or the bullet."

"Got it."

With that, Joel took his hand off the radio and set his hand on the wound. He pressed down firmly. That's what the others always told him to do. It hurt, but the bleeding slowed.