"The first time the virus came was a little island off the coast of North Carolina. The people of Roanoke didn't know what hit them. They didn't speak their last words, the carved them into a tree. A big ol' oak tree just like this one in the road here. Croatoan. Croatoan."

"Even the company of the mad is better than the company of the dead. Let me in."

In a small town, at the border of Maine, Danny stared dumbfounded. The old man in front of him grinned.

How did he get there!?

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Alarmed and with a slack jaw he looked into the steely eyes of the old man's creased face.

"Perhaps we should trade places, then? Hmmm? If you don't desire a dinner date."

The corner of the old man's mouthed turned upwards into a half grin.

"What... are you talking about?" he managed.

"I told you it's better out here than it is in there, but you didn't listen..."

With that, the old man turned and walked away towards the virus and the land it had consumed.

"Old house up the road there" the old man called after without turning. "Might find some food in the cupboard and some shelter if need be..."

He stared as the man disappeared in the distance. He had no desire to go back to what he had escaped: the corpses lining the streets, the fluid from their lungs bubbling out of their dead mouths.

He took a deep breath and stepped over the tree in the road and into the unknown...