"Chucky? You in here?" Sam kept her pistol pointed in front of her, parallel with the littered floor. The beam of her flashlight cast dusty shadows over the rubble of the once-habitable, two bedroom apartment. Jack trotted into the room from behind her and began sniffing random piles of concrete and plywood. He snorted quietly as he inhaled something he didn't particularly want to inhale.

She took a step forward. Her combat boots made a dull thump as they came into contact with the floorboards, which creaked with her weight. Without moving her head, she glanced down as she walked, avoiding piles of debris. She panned her flashlight around but saw nothing.

The TV was on, a small, portable model set on a card table. A standard test pattern illuminated the screen and cast the only light save her flashlight into the dirty room. Using the television's light, she turned her head and faced where it shown, which was towards the kitchen. It was a complete disaster; nothing remained in the cabinets or on the shelves. Filth and rubble covered the entire floor. The windows were boarded shut, and the ceiling had collapsed in the corner, making a small ramp of debris that led up into the floor above.

"Chucky?" she called again.

"Thank God!" she heard him suddenly call with a sigh of relief. From one of the small bedrooms emerged Charles, covered in soot and ash and holding a double-barreled shotgun. "I thought you were one of the radios."

Sam's arms collapsed to her side as she smiled. "You're alright," she said in confirmation. "You had me worried, big guy." She held out her gloved hand and Chucky met it in an informal clasp. He pulled her close and gave her a friendly noogie with a laugh as she tried to escape from his playful chokehold.

Chucky released her. "I can't believe it," he said, still smiling broadly. He quickly wiped the rim of his mouth with his free hand and scratched his dark brown soul patch. "You made it!"

Sam holstered her pistol and flashlight and looked around the room. "Yeah," she said, as if her accomplishment meant nothing. She watched for a moment as Jack continued sniffing around the apartment. She turned and headed into the kitchen. "How've you been holding up?"

Chucky shrugged, despite the fact Sam's back was turned. "Still alive," he said. "Looted the local Wal-Mart. Got the last piece there." He broke his shotgun and took out the live shells. He placed them both in the breast pocket of the thick veteran's coat he wore.

Sam opened the fridge. It was off, of course, but inside were non-perishable food items, saved from contaminates only by airtight security of the refrigerator. She pulled out a bag of Ramen noodles and savagely ripped it open. She cast her head back and poured the contents into her mouth. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten.

"Sure, you can have some food. Thanks for asking," Chucky sarcastically remarked.

Sam didn't turn to look but replied, "Have I ever told you how much I love you, Chuck?"

"Not recently."

"Sorry." Jack approached Sam slowly and sat by her feet, patiently awaiting his share. Sam opened a can of Spaghettios via the pull-back tab and crouched to place the can on the floor. The golden retriever--now stained brown with dirt and other unmentionables--stared into Sam's eyes as she continued chewing for a second. She smiled slowly, then said, "Go ahead, boy." Jack attacked the can as she scratched his head and stood. "How long did I take?"

Chucky ran his hand through his long hair. "Almost a week," he said with an expulsion of air.

Sam stopped mid-chew. She put her hand over her brow. "We gotta get going," she said after a few moments of silence. She finished off the bag of Ramen and tossed the remains onto the ground. She quickly opened another can of soup and rolled it across the ground towards Jack, who was just finished his first meal. "You got a backpack or a hand bag or something?"

Chucky held up a finger and dodged back into the bedroom. He emerged in seconds, carrying a gray messenger bag. He tossed the empty sack to Sam, who caught and began filling it with food and water bottles. He pulled from under a random pile of garbage some extra cases of shotgun shells and threw those to her as well.

"How many have you had to kill?" Sam asked as she sipped from a lukewarm bottle of water.

Chucky held up his hand in the shape of a zero. "You were gonna be my first," he said. "But lucky for you, I didn't pull the trigger."

Sam nodded and took another drink.

"What about you?"

Sam shrugged. "Lost count."

"Shit..."

Sam waved her free hand at him like she was telling him not to worry about it. "It's not so bad. They're hardly human anymore."

"They were at some point."

Sam discarded her plastic bottle and called Jack to her side. She unholstered her MK23 SOCOM and checked her ammo. She felt on her belt for her clips and one reserve grenade (which she hoped she never had to use), then pulled back the slide her handgun, arming a round into the pistol's chamber. "You ready, buddy?"

Chucky had just finished loading his 12 gauge. Sam wondered why he had unloaded it in the first place. He snapped his gun back together and stood in a defensive pose. "Ready as I'll get." He walked slowly out the door of his apartment, Sam on his heels as she slung the bag over her shoulder and Jack close behind.

It was 3:00 PM, but one would believe it to be 3:00 AM from the lack of light outside. A thick haze obscured the view of the three travelers no matter where they walked; they hadn't seen the sun in a week.

Everything--absolutely everything--was in ruins. Every building crumbled, every window shattered, every car demolished. It had all happened so fast. Sam never thought in her life she would be a part of the apocalypse, and she definitely never believed World War III would carry any role in it. Now that she thought about it, it was pretty obvious.

They passed bodies of every shape, size, and color as they crossed the streets. Men, women, and children littered the ground like discarded waste left for the street cleaners. Most were charred beyond recognition, but others were torn in half by the force of nuclear explosions casting inanimate objects at breakneck speeds into them. It was nauseating for Chucky, but Sam was getting used to a sight like this, and that disgusted her just as much.

Jack stayed ahead for the most part. He'd run for a bit, stop to sniff a body or a car or a pile of rubble, then run back. Sam remembered a few days ago when he found a live person--not a radio, but a normal human being. Sam had approached him cautiously and nearly vomited when she saw the man. He was pinned under a tipped over moving van. His face and torso were horribly burned; she could see the muscle and even the bone where his flesh was supposed to be. And he was conscious. Barely, but still aware of his surroundings and pain. All he could do was moan.

Sam had watched him for a bit, pacing back and forth and nearly hyperventilating; she had no idea what to do. After a fit of silently arguing with herself, she pointed her pistol at his skull, turned her head, and fired. She heard his body--what was left of it--fall to the ground and walked away in tears. The image of him still haunted her, and probably would for the rest of her life, however long that ended up being in this now desolate wasteland.

They continued forward. "There it is," Chucky said after nearly thirty minutes of walking. Sam glanced up and saw Wal-Mart, shattered and ripped apart on the exterior, but still standing. "How 'bout we grab some supplies before we head to refuge?"

Sam nodded. "Sounds good to me." They made a quick jog to the entrance and carefully walked into the crumbling store. Sam flicked on her flashlight as she stepped over the broken glass of the front doors and made her way inside.

The store was almost completely cleaned out. All the frozen foods had long since thawed and rotted, producing an awful stench. Invaluable nonperishable foodstuffs were nowhere to be seen, but the two did find, with Jack's help, the supply room in the back that still had some edibles hidden away. After finding another messenger bag, this one an olive green, they stuffed it with what they could and headed back towards the doors they had entered through, stepping around knocked over racks, shelves, and the occasional body.

"Where to now?" Chucky asked. They once again stepped over the broken doorway and stood in the deserted parking lot.

"We need to round up some known survivors before we head to camp," she answered. "How about your parents? Let's get them."

Chucky's face went grave for a moment. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he stared towards the pavement. "My parents are dead," he eventually mumbled. "Let's find yours."

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