She felt lost. Alone- swirling in a sea of despair- when she looked outside at the grimy snow-covered ground, the mostly burned-out husks of the buildings around her, with no other life that she could see- or knew of. She closed the dingy dull blue curtains with a sigh…no use looking out there...there was no help coming- the last moving vehicle she saw was over 3 weeks ago, and while some folks, were at one point, out and about on bikes and such, even that type of traffic dried up not long after the cars and such stopped coming through. She turned and looked at the huddled lump on the sofa and sighed again while brushing a tear from her eye: what was she going to do with him; he couldn’t walk, both legs were broken. He was a grown ass man, so it was impossible for her to carry, and most of the time he was too out of it on all the drugs she had found in some of the apartments close by before thy were all torched in someway; sometimes living in a poor part of town paid off…all the salvageable food was gone, it was probably packed off by the first round of looters that swept through… but there was enough weed, pain pills, and God only knew what kind of white powder that was in those baggies she had found ;but it kept him happy, and out of her hair as she thought of what to do next.

Thinking of food made her stomach growl. They were down to their last bit of what they had squirreled away when she heard on the news what was happening: Mass shooting…riots…funny how everything went to shit when you were faced with your own mortality. The vaccines were garneted to work they said-one shot cured all types of the strain it was mutating into-but that was a balled-face lie! She had figured that out on her own when she watched the little old lady across the street stumble out onto the sidewalk from her apartment building, with someone’s foot in one hand, and her head barley attached to her neck as she took a bite out of it. (Thankfully, her grandson came out with a shotgun and put her…and then himself...out of their misery.) She decide then and there it was time to stock up, and fortify...and thanking her lucky stars he worked at a place that it was easy to get sheets of metal, they began to rig up a fortress that would of made the makers of the movie I am Legend proud. He had built, and she had bought: food…misalliance supplies…extra clothes… whatever else sounded good…and when the first round of ‘eliminators’ came through, and killed whatever moved ,they were all safe and snug and stocked.

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 The news had said to do what they had done-anything outside and moving on certain days, and at certain times would be killed: and in that they didn’t lie. So, for a month they were ok. Then the news went black, and the hearts of the law and the government went blacker, and hell was unleashed. The media was taken over by the government, the army was the law, and bombs were dropped in the big cities, and mass town burnings were done where it was ‘financially better’ to do so. How their little corner of the world was spared was beyond her reasoning...but maybe living by a major army base may had something to do with it .Nothing was bombed or burned (at least until gangs of thugs, ass-holes, and the like swept through),and for a while she and he was safe. But it got progressively worse, and they had to fight to save what they had…and for two months after Hell-In-A-Hand Basket (as he called it) they held their own. Then the last bunch of gangs came through (and conceitedly that is when the last trucks and such came through) , he got both legs crushed by that damn wall...and she was pretty much left on her own. She had done the best she could for him...even found a doctor to come set his legs while the foot traffic was still coming through…but there was nothing much  left standing  intact around them but their little whole-in-the-wall building, and she knew it was time to go.

So, she fixed him the last bit of soup they had, and even gave him the last roll of crackers, and set it on his table by the couch. She propped his head up so he could look out the window when he woke up from this last drugged stupor he had smoked/sniffed/popped himself into…filled his glass with the tepid water that was still flowing from the tap, and then laid one of the numerous guns they had by his crackers, with 1 bullet in the chamber, wiped her eyes, and read aloud the note she was leaving him. “I am taking what I can, and I hope you will understand why I had to go. I need to move on, and see if there is anything better out there, we can’t survive here alone… I can’t survive here with you. We had a good run, buts it’s time for me to better my chances.” She whispered to him as she gently brushed the hair from his face, and all he did was snort in his sleep. She called the dog to her, grabbed up her backpack and strapped on another backpack type rig onto the back of the animal and quietly walked out the door...not bothering to lock it this last time.