FSE

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Prosthetic limbs had been widely developed and perfected through Faraday Medical's extensive research and experiments in the field. At the end of WW3, Faraday released a statement about a patient that had been almost completely rebuilt and hinted they were on the cusp of something extraordinary they would reveal during an event that would follow in the coming months. The bombs fell first, and the discovery in question, along with the patient, was never revealed.

Once we had cleared the ruined outskirts of NYC we took a detour, heading along Interstate 77 and through some smaller, ghost cities in an attempt to get as far away from the big East Coast cites as we possibly could. Once we had cleared the outskirts of NYC, we had returned home to the normal sights of the Northern US Wasteland, dead and brown shrubs and trees, slightly radioactive snow and cars rusting quietly in the winter winds, only reminding nearby survivors of their presence when occasionally the wind would gust hard enough to make old door hinges creak. The route Eirren had charted for us would take us along the full length of I-78, through Easton, Allentown and Harrisburg before branching off into Interstate 81, which we could follow for a good chunk of the remaining trip. I-81 would take us about halfway or so through Tennessee, where we would hop onto I-59, follow that all the way through to Louisiana, get on I-12, to I-10 and from there, to Houston. I knew we'd have to go around Houston, but from there, I could get us home, I had no doubt in my mind about that. I felt like I could reach out and touch my goal, a goal that not two damn weeks ago would have taken me well over a year to walk, then, Will had come along and changed everything. Now, I had two main worries. My first, and what would keep me up at night was...how many bombs had fallen between us and home, and how many Bandits and Rabids were infesting our route? Didn't feel like I'd see many bandits, but Rabids? Couldn't count on not seeing them. Kind of tying into my first concern also was what other post war horrors besides Rabids and Bandits, IE, the demons we'd seen in Albany. Somehow, I doubted we'd seen the last of them. My second concern, and most pressing at the moment, Diesel Fuel. Zack had promised me he could get more of it, and now was the time for him to deliver. Shortly after coming into Harrisburg, "FUEL CRITICAL-50 MILES TO EMPTY", began to flash across the tablet in the Ford's dash.

"50 miles to empty", I announced, "Zack, now's your time to shine. You said in Albany you could find the stuff to make fuel?"

He nodded, "and I guarantee I can do it here too. Just gotta find a place to stash this thing, I'll need at least a couple of hours to get this done, once everything is together at least."

"Then let's get off the Interstate", Eirren said tapping my shoulder and pointing, "there, turn on Crums Mill Road, I saw a sign a mile or so back advertising estates and it also said that road will take us straight in."

"Good enough for me", I said clicking on the right blinker. I turned off the exit into a more natural area of Harrisburg, following that road for about a thousand or so feet, took another right hand turn and parked in the empty driveway of a two story white plank house that had seen it's share of wasteland abuse. It's set of three second story windows stood above the garage, while a smaller, single story piece of the old home was sat off to the right hand side. The landscaping plants in front of the neglected building were shaggy as well as dead and brown, somehow at the same time. All of the windows had been boarded up while the garage door had two large pieces of ply wood screwed into it with huge log screws, along with four two by fours to reinforce it. Icicles hung from the eaves of the house and door frame, as well as the handle. Either the owner was gone, and had been since the bombs, was home and not coming out, or dead inside. The possibility that he might be waiting for us inside with a 12 gauge wasn't lost on me either, which left me wondering how I wanted to play this. If someone was home, they'd heard the Ford pull up.

"How do we play this boss?", Zack asked.

"Not sure yet", I mused skulking up to the door way and covertly trying the handle, finding it unlocked, "well the door's unlocked...so let's just go in through the front."

I moved to the side of the door, Zack got behind me and the girls were on the other side. I nodded towards Nina, who kicked the door in and threw in one of her makeshift flashbangs to draw out any Rabids or stun any bandits that might be hiding just inside. After it went off, the four of us rushed inside, myself first, then Eirren, followed by Zack and the Nat. A very short, stub of a hallway lead Zack and I into the main area of the downstairs portion of the house, separated only by the stair case which led the girls upstairs. The house was barren. There wasn't any furniture in the living room, the appliances were all gone and there was hardly a trace that anyone had ever been here except for a window that had been left open. The quietly rusting remnants of a M1911 sat in the sill of the window, covered in ice and with the slide still locked back. The firearm's paint had long been stripped from her and the grip panels only held traces of what once might have been a New York State flag, and damn was she rusty, good layer of that on the slide, never mind the crap in the barrel. She'd suffered at the hand's of the wasteland and didn't look serviceable, but then again, I'd seen guns in a lot worse shape that could still put a bullet through the hole at 1000 yards.

"Like M1911's bro?", I asked walking over to the window sill. I tried the slide release, and much to my surprise the slide went forward without any difficulty. Inspecting the handgun further, it was a Nighthawk Custom's Predator, expensive piece, wonder who'd just leave it here, "man, I wonder who left this here? Ain't a cheap piece."

"What is it?", Zack asked joining me by the window.

"A Nighthawk Customs Predator", I said handing it to him.

"Who the fuck just leaves a three and a half grand handgun to rust in a window sill?", Zack asked, "Is this something you can save?"

"Maybe. I'm kind of adverse to taking a wire brush to a three thousand dollar handgun, but assuming the internals aren't all kinds of rusted, yeah, probably."

Zack put the handgun in the back of his pants, "I saw a basement door when we came in, I'mma go recon it, watch my back up here?"

I nodded, "yeah bro. Got you covered, lemme go get Nero and Mya outta the truck though, leaving them out there is a bad idea."

Zack nodded and went back to the kitchen while I went back outside to get Nero and Mya out of the Ford. They'd been shut up since we'd left Will's house, and I figured some fresh air would do them both a little bit of good. The two of them were laying on the back seat, Nero was on his side, staring off into space like he always did and Mya was sitting on her haunches beside him, looking him over. The two of them were talking, and because Maya didn't see me, and thanks to a cracked open window where Zack had been sitting, it was easy to listen into their conversation.

"I don't quite think it works that way", Nero laughed with a huge grin on his face.

"Sure it does", Mya said, "why wouldn't it?"

"Well for one...I don't think it would even fit to begin with, a chicken and a squirrel aren't exactly the same size. I mean if it does I'd love to know how you stuff meat into meat, because that'd be awesome."

"Well my Mom used to chop the chicken up into little pieces and then stuff it inside the squirrels with potatoes, carrots and broccoli. After an hour in the oven we'd just eat it."

"What about the bones?", Nero asked.

Mya shrugged, "what did I just say?"

"You eat the bones?", Nero asked surprisedly.

Mya nodded, "sort of. I always cracked them open and ate the marrow. Mom always said Dad never touched a bone, at least not that she saw."

"Coyote's are weird", Nero smirked rolling onto his back and stretching out, "See, we wolves are above that, we just eat the meat and leave the bones for you loser scavengers."

"The problem with that is you're not a wolf", Mya grinned putting her paw on his nose, "you're a dirty hybrid."

"Yes but I still have wolf in me", Nero said, "and according to Martin in Canada using the phrase dirty hybrid is a crime and you can be arrested."

"Whose gonna arrest me?", Mya growled playfully batting him around, "you? You can't arrest what you can't see."

"I may be blind", Nero said, "but do you know I can smell you, and hear everyone of your heartbeats?"

"You can?", Mya asked, still batting his head from side to side.

"Yep", he answered reaching out and putting his paws on her head, "and your's sounds amazing."

Mya giggled, "Nero, what do you think I look like?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. I've never seen a Coyote before, but if you look half as good as you're heart sounds then I imagine you must stick out like a sore paw in the deserts and probably had other males our age falling over themselves to get to you."

Mya smiled and licked him across his nose, "I'll take it."

I smiled and opened the door, Mya jumped, but Nero stayed on his back with all four legs in the air. "Hey Dad", he smiled.

"You guys can come in if you want", I said, "truck'll be cooling off before too long and trust me, we'll be here at least the rest of the day."

"Okay", Mya said. Nero rolled back onto all fours and followed her out of the truck. They walked in the trail the four of us had made in the snow to the front door, where we met Eirren, Nat wasn't around.

"House is empty", she told me, "we searched every inch of the place with a fine toothed comb, nothing except some crumbs that were too small for even lesser mice."

"I'm starting to think maybe this was a new house that hadn't been sold or rented yet", I shrugged, "would explain the lack of life. Where's Nat?"

"Garage, gonna see if she can unlock the door, we could back the Ford into it, lock it up and keep the house secure while Zack does his fuel work, how ever long it might take."

"I get the feeling we're here over night at least", I said, "but hey, I'm not complaining, we covered more distance today alone than we did in the past week."

"Uhhh...okay I might stop, short of that", Eirren said.

"So six days?", I grinned.

"Sure, we'll go with that", she said bending down to pick up Nero, "you happen to know where Zack got off to?"

"He said he was searching a basement", I said walking back into the kitchen, where I found the entrance to the basement wide open. The metal stair case descended into a pitch black void that probably wasn't very far down, but damn did it look like it.

"See, Demons aren't half as terrifying as that shit is", Eirren commented, "who the hell has this in their house?"

I shrugged, shining my light into the bottom, revealing that the basement wasn't actually an empty stone box, but rather was carpeted, dry walled and ready to be inhabited.

"Zack", I called, "you down here brother?"

"Yeah, I'm in the back of the room", Zack called, sounding like he was just at the base of the stairs, "come down here and help me with this."

I walked down the stair case, following the sound of his voice, Mya and Eirren followed. The room was a rectangular box with a brown carpet floor and wood paneling along the lower half of the wall and dry wall along the upper half. He was working on the lock to a heavy wooden door that led into another room.

"Heck of a lock...got something to hide?", he grunted to himself.

"Just shoot it off", I said flipping off the safety of my AR.

"Ahh, don't waste the ammo", Zack said stepping back from the door just a little bit, took a deep breath and then shattered the door into a million splinters with a single kick. The sheer surprise of it left Eirren, Nero, Mya and myself standing there slack jawed and completely speechless. The shattering wood slab had splintered with a sound like a gunshot, and upstairs I could hear the bolt on Nat's M4 fly forward and her running around trying to locate the source of the shot. Soon she'd run downstairs.

'What was that noise!?", she asked concerned.

"Zack shattering a door into splinters", Eirren revealed.

"He what?", Nat asked, "did I just hear you right?"

"Yeah...you did", I said, "Zack...if you've got something to say, now's a good time to say it."

"Yeah, figured you'd find out sooner or later", he shrugged as we moved into, yet another, empty basement room, "when I said I hadn't seen combat? Two words, Western Trench."

"I heard a lot about that battle", Eirren said, "the fighting there was so fierce that the Federation and the African Empire agreed to a nightly ceasefire so the troops wouldn't die of exhaustion before they could kill each other."

"That was pretty much how it went", Zack said, "then one night, fresh artillerymen arrived and didn't waste any time in starting the shelling. I still remember laying in that bunker with about 30 bullets lodged in my insides from the previous day's fighting and hearing the first shell ring off. Like two seconds later C12 gas was pouring into the bunker. The fight just droned on, and on, and on until eventually the artillerymen fired again. Well wouldn't ya know it, one of those shell's had my and Andrew's names written on it. Broke his spine in about 15 places and ripped off my legs and tail. Then like five minutes later we got shived in the chests with bayonets. I left that battle with a Congressional Medal of Honor, an Airborne Platinum Cross and a purple heart."

"Damn brother. I'll bet you had nightmares about that", I replied.

Zack shook his head, "yeah, you could say that. I started to compartmentalize by telling myself I never saw combat. I put the medals away, and tried to forget about it all. You know how they say if you tell a lie long enough that you start to believe it?"

"Yeah, heard it a few times. Don't think it works."

"Oh it works", Zack said, "and for the longest time, it worked for me, then I got in a bike accident and scraped the skin off my foot down to my cybernetics. Reminded me that even though I still look normal...I'm one radioactive hotspot away from suffocating to death."

"Is it really that bad?", I asked after a long pause. Thunder and dark clouds had set in over the area, telling me a snow storm wasn't far off. Fitting, for the situation I supposed.

Zack nodded, "Both legs...my tail, one lung initially, but it caused me so much grief they eventually replaced my other lung, but then my heart couldn't keep up, so they had to replace it too, then I had problems with my spine...it just never ended."

The entire team traded looks. It was obvious, to me at least, that there was more at work here than just a strong case of PTSD. Zack seem sort of...detached, from the fact that he'd had to have things replaced as a result of his time in combat. I knew, well, knew of, some of the guys who worked at Faraday Medical, the company that developed this sort of thing from my friend Luke, a wolf that had been on the receiving end of some pretty horrific burns pre-war. According to him, he was one of the few cases where his implants hadn't induced a sort of madness. Like in those old movies when people get cybernetics implanted for whatever the reason, but their bodies reject them and they go insane. He'd told me that almost everyone that he saw come through Farady's facility had ended up attempting suicide from maniac depression shortly after their surgeries, sometimes even days afterwords. Zack seemed to be one of the more rare cases where the fact that it'd happened had sunk in, but I don't think he could bring himself to accept it. Despite all the benefits I knew he could bring to the table now, despite just being another member of the family, it wasn't lost on me that he might also be a ticking time bomb who could go batshit crazy at any minute. I'm reminded of a certain game where nearly everyone had cybernetics of some kind, and the campaign of said game didn't end well.

"You gonna be okay brother?", Eirren asked as we all came in, "you know we got your back if you need anything."

"I appreciate it", Zack sighed, "but you guys being in my corner doesn't fix what's wrong with me. All it'll take for me to die a slow and painful death is any fool with a P-94 who doesn't know enough to aim for the head."

"That ain't gonna happen", Nat said, "not so long as we're around."

There was another long pause, probably about five or so minutes of utter quiet except the wind and the snow raging outside. It seemed as though it were rolling around and around on the roof, incessantly attacking, though unable to enter, and angered because of it. Finally, Zack responded, with only a shrug at first, then spoke.

"Still, sometimes I wonder if I'm living on borrowed time."

"What makes you think that?", Nat asked.

"Can't tell you the number of times I should have died in that trench, even just that night alone. It's gotta be up there in the high hundreds, maybe low thousands", Zack said, "I cheated death out of so much in the four weeks I was trapped in that line."

"We all cheat death everyday", I shrugged, "we've been doing it since the day the first nuke fell. You survived the trenches on the Front, survived the EMP and Nuclear Bombs and you survived the Rabies Pandemic. Some fool with a P-94 would have to get pretty damn lucky to get you when all of us are throwing chunks of lead at him faster than the speed of sound."

Zack sighed, but smiled as well, "well, it means a lot Arien. For now, let's focus on the task at hand, it'll probably take at least one or two days for me to gather what I need to make enough fuel to fill the Ford. I dislike the idea of having to stop and make it every time we need to fill up, and tying a spare gas can to the front deer guard doesn't seem like a good idea, so, to that end we should try and find or build some kind of a roof rack. Soon as this storm lets up, someone needs to come with me and scavenge the surrounding area and see if we can find any stores of diesel that hasn't gone bad yet. If we can't then I'll gather the stuff I need and get to work."

"In the mean time two of us can work on setting up a base camp and the other two can go on a supply run", Eirren suggested, "I saw a sign back a ways that said there was a Walmart Supercenter not very far from where we are now. Assuming the store isn't leveled, there might still be some good supplies and equipment left inside."

"And assuming the place ain't been picked clean by scavengers", Nat said, "I could use a good walk, Arien and I will go hit the Walmart, you and Zack can set up camp."

"Splitting up our forces this deep in Rabid country is a bad idea", I said, "we have a base camp, we know where it's at and if someone tries to loot it while we're gone, who cares? It's an empty house, they'll brake in, search it and leave in disappointment."

"He has a point", Eirren said, "I dislike the idea of splitting up."

"Yeah...it's not a good idea. Only if we have to, we don't."

"Fair enough", Nat agreed, "in that case let's get going."

We left the house door slightly ajar and piled back into the Ford. The starter awakened the large engine and from the passenger seat, Eirren called out directions.

"This is a fairly new atlas, so it looks like we can ride this road all the way to the store. Name'll change a few times, but don't take any turns until it becomes North 61st street, but if I'm reading this right we should see the Walmart by then."

I pulled out of the driveway, following Eirren's directions to the letter, arriving at the Walmart in no more than a few minutes. To say the store was trashed was an understatement. The cars in the parking lot, not all of them, but most of them, had been stripped to the chassis by looters and the remnants left to rust quietly in the desert. Twisted pieces of scrap metal, broken glass, empty, shredded boxes and bottles, and the occasional fragment of skull were scattered all around the parking lot. Nuclear shadows were of course present, there weren't too many places left you could go where those weren't around. The front glass doors had the glass smashed out of them and the burglar bars that had been lowered looked like someone had tried to punch through with a blow torch, but had failed. Of course, the bar's weren't any match for the Ford's torque output, so I slowly drove through the old bars and parked the Ford inside the main lobby of the building, turning it around and using the deer guard to plug the hole.

Over the years, abuse and neglect had left the old store to fall into despair. The fact that it'd been looted before wasn't lost on me, however, it was also obvious that no animal had set foot here since maybe a few months after the last bomber landed. The store had a good layer of sand on the floor, old skylights were broken out, allowing the snow in, the smell of old rotting produce and evidence of rust in the random creaking and croaking of the ceiling was around and about as well. Despite the store's outward appearance, I suspected that this rough looking exterior might be hiding something that would help us along our way.

"So what does the shopping list entail today?", I asked turning to my friends.

"Everything", Zack said, "walking distances is one thing, but here in the store, I feel we should be able to split up. I don't smell any blood or Rabids, and since those smells pretty much go hand in hand, we're safe."

"I'll go with Arien and raid the sporting goods, automotive and hardware section", Nat said.

"I'll focus on getting the components I need to distill diesel fuel from veggie oil", Zack said.

"Then I guess that means I'm shoppin' for food", Eirren shrugged, "carts for everyone. I'll take Mya and watch her."

"Nat and I will watch Nero then", I said as he climbed up to my shoulder.

"Back here in two hours", Eirren said as we split off. Zack going towards the back, Eirren going to the market and Nat and I headed off to the side, past all the twisted checkout lines and scrapped shopping carts, picking p various still intact snack foods, bottled water and other supplies that were still clutched in the hands of all kinds of slowly decaying skeletons left over from the day the bombs fell. God they were piled everywhere. I'd seen a lot of bleached bones since I started this trip...but there were hundreds of them piled on top of one another. They all looked like they'd died in a desperate bid to get out of the store with whatever it was they could. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, and maybe I didn't want to, but I couldn't see any signs of damage in the bones other than basic scavenging, so I blamed radiation.

"This is why my backpack was full", I sighed, "man, I thought the scene in Canada was bad?"

"All the skeletons?", Nat inquired.

I nodded, "Eirren and I came across something similar to this on the outskirts in Sherbrooke, 'cept there weren't nearly as many, They'd been killed by the Canadian government when they tried to leave the city, something about the government basically said, "leave the city and you're a traitor."

"I always thought we were better than the communists", Nat sighed adjusting something on her mask, "hey, how's the air in here?"

"Gotta be fresher than in the mask", I said, "doesn't stink or smell of death if that's what your asking."

"It is cold though", Nero said digging into a blanket I had tied to the top of my pack.

"I lived in Iceland for like four years buddy. Cold don't bother me a bit", Nat said. She unzipped her jacket a way's, unlocked her helmet and pulled it off.

Her features were completely different from the last time I'd seen her without the helmet. Her skin wasn't full of small cracks full of sizzling Corium any more, but the larger gashes, the one tracing across here face and neck hadn't closed up, in fact, they appeared to have widened, but only slightly. It was still black as fresh charcoal, however, it looked like normal skin again and appeared to be covered in a powder of some kind that was even blacker than the skin underneath it. The Corium now took on a glow reminiscent of that blue sheen of pre-war snow viewed in morning twilight. Her ears, no longer blistered and swollen, were standing straight up like Nero's, suggest to me that she either had German Shepard or wolf somewhere in her and wasn't pure pit. Her eyes were an even deeper blue than normal, and to say her radiation levels had increased would have been inaccurate because I don't think saying she was making the Geiger counter's blast off to infinity and beyond was a strong enough euphemism. I reached into my vest and turned it off, Nat spoke up when I did.

"I've never heard it throw a tantrum quite like that", Nat said, "did I cause that?"

I nodded, "yeah, seems like. Seems like you're getting more radioactive."

"I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing", Nat sighed as she stopped and picked up a large piece of a broken mirror off a near by checkout counter and inspected herself. The way her expression changed as she did made me wonder as to how her mind was processing everything. She quietly set the mirror down, glanced around, then turned back to me.

"I've never in my life, been able to see or hear this well", Nat said, she rubbed her fingers together, then inspected her hands. The pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place and I began to suspect that as the levels of radiation in her body rose, the more her senses would return and be heightened. Somehow. One concern I did have though was....why so suddenly? I wondered if maybe it had something to do with how the suit itself was constructed, because the Geiger's never peeped when they were around her when the thing was locked down, and if whatever was going on was bringing back her senses, what else would it bring back?

"You've been getting more and more radioactive since the day I met you", I noted, "wonder why all your senses are coming back all of a sudden?"

"I couldn't tell you", she shrugged, "I just hope it doesn't get so strong the pills Khen gave you stop working."

"If it was going to it would have by now. I don't think we have anything to worry about, but our enemies might."

"You're not gonna pick me up and throw me like a grenade at someone are you?", Nat grinned, "because I'm way too heavy for that, even without all my gear."

"No, I think Eirren is the jealous type, the, "I will absolutely kill any female who even looks at my mate weird", type. Imagine if she saw me pick you up out of context."

"Hehe, good answer", she smiled.

"I have my moments", I shrugged.

The condition of the old Walmart didn't get much better the further back we traveled. More twisted shelves, forgotten and abandoned merchandise and the skeletons of furs that had attempted to snatch it up when the bombs fell were smashed to pieces and strung about like they'd been scavenged by hyenas that had, believe it or not, only been doing a little bit of crack. Everything came together in just the right way that set this store into one of the most creepy places I'd ever visited. The three of us slowly made our way to the back of the store, where we found the sporting goods section. Completely trashed, like the rest of the store, it also seemed to contain the highest concentration of dead furs, many of them piled atop the supplies they'd tried to buy...or steal. Nat and I of course, knew what we had to do, and the job probably took about an hour. One at a time, we removed the dead animals from the piles they'd spent the last three years in and lined them up against the back wall, covering them with several of the tarps we found in the automotive section. In all, it was probably about three hundred animals, many of them being kids. It was one of the many moment's I'd had that I was glad Nero was blind, and that I was force fed another stark reminder that the apocalypse was far from the fun and games that my past life made it out to be.

Nat stayed strangely quiet throughout the entire job, and the fact that her puppies were in her head again wasn't lost upon me when she laid the last two skeletons, two canine pups, beside their parents. Or...at least who we thought were their parents, there weren't any other feral bones around. She probably sat there for about ten minutes after that, just crying into the sleeves of her jacket.

"Dad, why is Aunt Nat crying?", Nero asked.

"It's best you didn't know buddy", I sighed petting his head, "not right now anyway."

Nero hopped down off my shoulder and went over to her, tugging on the sleeves of her jacket. She looked up, into his eyes, then picked him up and held him close, continuing to cry.

"Fuckin' bombs", I snuffed, beginning to go through the stuff left over in the section, looking for something to get my mind off the amount of carnage in this store. Most of the stuff that you'd usually find in this section of a Walmart seemed to be here, flashlights, food, miscellaneous supplies, varied hunting rifle ammunition and even a few rifles. We didn't need any more firearms to lug around and take up space, but more ammunition was never a bad thing. There were still some boxes of 5.56, .308 and twelve gauge shells left on the shelves along with a .30 round case of .300 blackout. Some old scopes were still on the shelf beside the ammo container, flanked by some more generic after market parts and rails for other more exotic hunting rifles, nothing of which we could really get any use out of. Right around the time that I finished looting the section, Nat turned up again. Her face was streaked with tears and she was still clutching Nero like a teddy bear.

"Are you gonna be okay sister?", I asked.

She wiped her eyes, "I don't even know any more Arien, every time I think I've suppressed these old memories they find a way to claw their way right back to the surface. I wish Medusa had fucking vaporized me just like it did everyone else in my town."

There was a long moment of pause before she spoke up again, "sorry, did you find anything worth our time?"

I nodded, "couple bags full of supplies, let's finish up our raid and get back to the truck."

Nat nodded in agreement. We took our time picking through the automotive and hardware sections. Much like the sporting goods isle, the supplies had been scattered and dispersed underneath the piles of animals that had run into the store, tried to take whatever they could carry and then succumbed to radiation waves when the bombs had fallen. Shit like that made me glad I had money to be paranoid in the years before they came. Nat and I were diligently at work picking through the gear and laying the dead to rest when Nero walked to the end of the isle, stood where he was and started barking as loud as he could. He was only a puppy, so it wasn't to intimidate someone, rather to alert us to their presence.

"What Nero!?", Nat asked, quickly slamming the bolt forward on her AR.

"Eirren, Zack. May have a problem may not, get over to the automotive section", I said into the radio.

"On my way", Eirren said.

"Coming to you", Zack said.

Nat and I walked up to Nero, who was now trying to muster a deep enough growl to not seem as small as he was.

"What is it buddy?", I asked.

"There's another animal out here", Nero said, "I can smell her."

"Is it just one?", I asked.

Nero nodded, "she's somewhere near where we just where, I can't exactly tell."

I racked a shell into the shotgun. Nat and I used Nero's nose as a guide, and soon we had located our mystery animal. She was a skinny, bruised and burned mink that was dressed mostly in old work clothes. She was carrying a Hi-Point 9mm carbine with a rapidly decaying Italian camo rattle can finish, a Trijjicon ACOG, surpressor and one of those foregrips with a bipod in it. I felt that the sling she had on it was also way to excessive and probably cost more than the entire gun did, but who am I to judge? She had a Glock on her hip as well, so I figured she was mag sharing. She carried herself as a resourceful type, as well as a stealth type. The way she was shaking told me she'd never been in any danger of being found before, and kinda didn't know what to do.

"I know just throwing your trust into the wind and assuming not everyone you meet is out to kill and rape you is a suicidal thought these days", Nat shouted to her, "but not everyone is out to kill and rape you."

The mink spun around onto her back, leveling her carbine at my head, but she didn't pull the trigger. No way she could have hit me with the way she was shaking.

"Guns down!", she ordered.

"Not gonna happen sister", Nat said.

The mink fired a warning shot that flew harmlessly past us and hit a piece of duct work hanging from the ceiling, Nat and I exchanged glances, and lowered our weapons.

"You know ammunition is expensive", Nat said tossing her a box of 9mm's from the sporting good's section, "warning shots are stupid."

The mink lowered her carbine with an exasperated sigh and fell back onto her back.

"Tired huh?", Nero asked.

"You don't know the half of it little buddy", she said, "I haven't been able to sleep in like a week with all of the Rabids around. Staying so quiet all the time is exhausting, not being able to trust anyone...even more so."

"Well, you can trust us", I said getting back on the radio, "hey guys, false alarm, just a jittery, exhausted scavenger."

"Rodger", Eirren said, "what was that shot?"

"She fired a warning shot at us, but she was shaking so badly she missed, don't worry about it."

"Got ya. PS, rally time in 20 minutes", Zack said.

"10-4", I said.

"How many are you?", the mink asked sitting up.

"6 of us, two kids", I said.

"Nice to meet someone who doesn't want to string me up on a pole", the mink laughed exhaustively, "Sierra."

"I'm Arien", I said, "when was the last time you had something hot to eat?"

Sierra shrugged, "few weeks? Maybe more? I'm beginning to get delirious from everything I've been deprived of."

"We got plenty of packed rations in our Ford", Nat said clasping her helmet back to her suit, "we're due back in 20 minutes anyway, wanna tag along?"

"Sure...but first...what's up with those gashes in your face and neck, and more importantly, the suit that looks like it's from Fallout Vegas?"

"I've got some kind of mutation", Nat said, "ever heard of the Ground Zero Ghost?"

"Only rumors", Sierra shrugged, "I don't believe he's real."

"Oh he's real. He is actually a she, and she is me. I'll tell you the story while the food's cooking, but first, Arien, any of those pill's left?"

I nodded, reaching into my vest and taking the vial out, "here, take that."

"What's it for?", Sierra asked.

"It'll keep you safe from the radiation Aunt Nat puts out", Nero smiled.

Sierra glanced at me.

"Yeah it's safe, our resident diesel mechanic Zack didn't trust me either, nor did Mya", I told her, "trust me, it works."

"Okay", Sierra said nervously as she swallowed the last pill in the bottle. We waited a few minutes and then Nat took her helmet off and I turned on the Geiger counter as proof.

"Well, I guess that's that", she said pushing herself to her feet, "you still offering that food?"

"Course", I smiled, "come on, let's head back."

When I returned to the Ford, Eirren was packing stuff away, Mya was playing with a chew toy and Zack, clad in rubber safety gear, was busily cooking diesel fuel in an old hair salon, the stink emanating from the place was nauseating, which would explain the gas mask he was wearing.

"What the hell is that!?", Shannon gagged, sounding like she might puke.

"Diesel fuel", Eirren said, "he's cooking it the old hair salon out of common household chemicals and used grease from the McDonalds in the back of the store."

"How long is it gonna take?", I asked.

"He told me he want's to fill the tank, plus the four five gallon cans we found", Eirren said, "if his math is right, a day? Maybe a day and a half."

"Plenty of time to get some rest then", Shannon said sitting up against the rear tire of the Ford.

"You the new girl?", Eirren asked.

Shannon smirked, "yeah, I'm the new girl."

"Well it's good to have you here, can never have too many friends, not out here. Welcome abroad sister."

"Thanks for having me", Shannon said.

"I'll get cooking on something to eat", Eirren said. She set up a camp stove on the tail gate of the Excursion, set a pot of water to boil and then continued with what she'd been doing. The old cart collection area, though small, was empty of carts, making it the perfect place to set up air mattresses, chairs and makeshift tables for a prolonged stay, even if it was only a couple of days. Nat and I helped Eirren set up an extra mattress for Shannon, and with all of the bedding she'd gathered from home and living, the stay would be more than comfortable. Turned out the hard part would just be outlasting the blizzard, but with everything we'd found inside the old store, that wouldn't be a problem, even if the temperature plummeted. Only thing on my mind now was, could I sleep knowing the store was full of skeletons, and what the hell do we leave behind to save space in the Ford? Oh well, bridges we'd cross once Zack was done cooking fuel.

Over the course of that afternoon, and well into the evening, Zack continued to cook along. Gallons and gallons of diesel made their way into the Excursion's tank, one at a time. He was working harder than I would have liked him to, and more than once he had a "bubble" blow up in his face and spray him with burning fuel. He tried to justify keeping at it with "accidents happen, bubbles are a hazard of home made diesel." Personally I wasn't buying the crap, neither was Nat or Eirren. Shannon was a different story, she was watching Zack work with a sparkle in her eye, it took minimal logic to tell that this was a love at first sight case, I guessed that only time would tell if Zack would return the favor. By the time the sun had gone down, the Excursion's tank was only showing 200 miles to empty, when it was full the day Norman had given it to us, it was reading 1500.

"Still have a bunch of work to do in the morning", Zack sighed as he joined us in the old cart well, "200 miles ain't jack compared to the 1500 this thing can do on a full tank."

"Do you even have enough supplies to fill it?", I asked.

"I have more than enough to fill the tank three times over", Zack said, "it just takes so long to do anything because there are so many steps involved."

"Is there anything I can help with? To earn my keep or something?", Shannon asked.

"If you shoot straight and don't have a problem with bashing in a Rabid skull with a shovel, then you've already earned your keep far as I care", I shrugged.

"Besides, cooking diesel is a one person job, unless you happen to be a master chemist as well as diesel expert, ain't a whole lot you can do", Zack said.

"Well...I can't cook gas, but I did spend five years as a Veterinarian before the bombs fell", Shannon said.

"You're a vet?", I asked.

She nodded, "all I've ever wanted to do was help other animals, but these damn bombs turned me into a killer."

The four of us exchanged glances.

"How so?", Eirren asked.

"Couple of weeks ago, a bunch of bandits found where I'd been camping. First non Rabid life I'd seen in a while, of course, they weren't interested in talking, just broke into my house and started looting the place. I was upstairs and heard them brake in. So I of course, grabbed my Hi-Point and went down stairs. The bandits turned out to be four orphaned wolf kids that thought the house was abandoned. I would have fed them, but there wasn't any hesitation from the oldest, who was like...six or seven? Shotgun blast knocked him right on his tail and missed me by a country mile. The other's weren't armed with anything but clubs, came running at me."

"I have a pretty good idea what's coming", Nat sighed.

"Nine by nineteen millimeter plus powder jacketed hollow points causing irreparable ballistic trauma to brain tissue and the frontal skull plates is what happened", Shannon said with a shake in her voice, "they were kids...and I fucking shot them down like a savage."

"There's nothing to feel guilty about", Nat said putting her paw on Shannon's shoulder, "in Vermont, if someone comes into your house you shoot them, even more if they're packing. Besides', they shot at you first."

Shannon stayed quiet.

"We've all done thing's we're not proud of", I sighed, "I can attest to that."

"Some of the things I did in the military I'll never tell another living soul", Zack said.

Shannon looked at him, "was it really that bad?"

Zack nodded, "Remember the Battle of the Western Trench being covered on the news?"

Shannon nodded.

"I was there. Other animals literally were on their knees begging for mercy as I drove a fifteen inch long bayonet through their hearts", Zack said, "killing bad guys has never bothered me, so long as they fired the first shot."

"Yeah", I said, "Zack, ever dealt with a Rabid that wandered up from New York city before you met us?"

"Once or twice", Zack said, "creepy motherfuckers. The worst part is the last few I saw were buddies of mine from when I was in the military. The way they were burned, and shambled around with exposed bone just freezes blood."

"I heard all the horror stories about NYC", Shannon said, "back in Oklahoma we don't have a lot of Rabids, and I'd never really seen one before I left the state. I found out pretty quickly when I met one that pre-war rabies drugs did nothing."

"You found a sane one huh? Rare breed them", Nat said.

Shannon nodded, "yeah, I know. His name was Jake, he was a red parrot and was a good friend till the disease claimed his life about a month ago. His last few weeks were spent in agony as his systems shut down one by one. All I could do was help him along, do you have any idea what it's like to see the ones you love die in front of you? And be powerless to stop it?"

Nat nodded, "yeah....yeah. I do."

"You don't have to elaborate", Shannon said.

Nat smiled lightly, "thanks. Even though Medusa had no right to hurt them the way it did", she pulled out an old, worn and burned picture of her and Benjamin posing with their rifles with Joey and Tia on their shoulders at a gun range, "they're with their Dad now, and chances are good that Benjamin's tucking them into bed right now."

Nat curled into a ball and sniffled, "goddamn...I miss my puppies!"

At that point, the flood gate opened and she broke. Whatever she'd been doing to try to and block out the deaths of her pups and the events of Judgment Day failed. She burst into tears, crying harder than I'd ever seen any one cry.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU TAKE ME TOO!?!?", Nat screamed, "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE THEM AND LEAVE THEM WITHOUT ME!? WHAT DID I DO TO MAKE THEM DESERVE THAT!?!"

We all gathered around her. We didn't try to get her to stop, we didn't try to talk to her. I just let her cry into my shoulder, and for at least half an hour, that was all she did. At a point, not only were tears soaking my shirt, but Corium had begun to leak from the gashes in her head and neck, falling to the floor and burning holes into the concrete when it hit.

"What sin did I commit that I deserved to watch my puppies torn limb from limb and burned to death in-front of me?", Nat sobbed, "why couldn't Medusa have the courtesy to rip me apart with them? Someone please answer me, BENJAMIN! COME HOME TO ME! DON'I LEAVE ME HERE!"

Over the course of the next two hours, Nat cried herself to sleep. For the first time since Medusa fell, she'd been able to close her eyes, even if it was a result of a PTSD attack, or maybe she just finally got tired of the shit. Either way, she seemed to have calmed down. Her breakdown had left a sense of dread hanging over us, which sucked because it made me feel like shit that my mate was still here, so was my son, my friends....my family. But Nat? Medusa had taken everything from her. Even though she'd left the Fog, and her body had adjusted to it, it seemed that Medusa's Curse was eternal and would never let go. Soon after Nat had calmed down, the rest of us began to put up for bed as well. The bathroom's still had running water, so we let Nat sleep since no one could get near her without frying while we went to get cleaned up. Buckets filled with water, holes punched in them and hung from the ceiling tiles isn't exactly a shower, but it was better than nothing I gotta say, better than going to sleep dirty. Once we'd all gotten clean, we returned to the cubby by the Ford and put up. Sometime that night, we were all rudely jolted awake by sounds of an explosion at the opposite end of the store.

"The heck was that!?", Shannon yelped as she snatched up her Hi-Point.

"Sounded like an M203", Nat commented picking up her M4.

"Protect the truck!", I said slamming forward the bolt on my AR, "if he shoots the Excursion we're screwed!"

We spread out, still in our underwear pretty much, and took defensive positions near the checkouts and in the money section. Nat' glowing gashes gave her away in the darkness, but I don't think she cared after being awoken from her first nap in years.

"Bring it on so I can kill you!", she growled.

A flashlight appeared at the end of the store, a single figure appeared behind it, back lit from the reflection of the light on the floor, he was a grey pitbull dressed in heavy winter clothes and had a glowing slash across the side of his head. He was armed with a multi-cam painted M4A1 SOPMOD and his helmet had some pretty sophisticated nods on it.

"Corium gashes?", Eirren asked from behind me, "but...how?"

"Maybe he tried to fuck with Medusa and lost", I shrugged, "it happened once, what's to stop it from happening again?"

"Where did you get my mate's M4!!?", Nat shouted, causing the Pit to damn near spin on his heel and raise his weapon, but, just was quickly as he raised it...he lowered it. I saw the look on his face as he let his weapon fall to his side. The look in his eyes, like he'd reached the end of a road he'd been walking for years to no avail, and finally, he could touch the end. I lowered my firearm, I was pretty sure I knew exactly who this Pit was.

The pit wiped tears from his eyes with his heavy gloves, and with a stutter and a shake, he spoke, "Natalie..."

Nat''s M4 slipped from her grasp. The clank as it hit the ground seemed to echo throughout the entire wasteland.

"Benjamin", she said, tears returning to her eyes.

Benjamin took off running towards her. Nat met him half way and leapt into his arms. Benjamin had to spin around to avoid being knocked over.

"Where did you come from!? How are you here! I thought you were dead!?", Nat sobbed, "where the hell have you been all these years!?"

"I've been searching for you love", Benjamin cried, "I will never let you go again. I promise! Can you ever forgive me for what I did!?"

Nat didn't answer. She and Benjamin cried into each other's arms for a good twenty minutes, almost till midnight, when Nat cried herself out again. Benjamin, still conscious, whispered into her ear.

"I will never let you go again."

I walked up to him and put my paw on his shoulder. He looked up at me and I smiled, "welcome to the family brother."