"You're sure you have everything you need?"

    I nodded in response to Natalie's question, jamming the last bits of food and water into my book bag. We already had another bag in the SUV filled with supplies. God knows we wouldn't use that much, but Natalie insisted. Robert was still uneasy about the situation, but he let us go through with it.
    I pulled on some jeans, a grey t-shirt, black zip-up hoodie, and then pulled my winter jacket over it. On my feet I wore my mom's old military use that she dug out from the closet in the house for me to wear. I looked at Oliver who looked at me, both of our faces wearing a mix of confidence and nervousness, two emotions that counteracted each other. 
    I pulled my bag up on my shoulder, and turned to the bunker. Bailey stood behind William with her arms around his shoulders, and mom as usual was laid in a ball in the bed. I opened my arms and William flew into them. I wrapped around him and pressed my lips to his head.
    "You've got to stay here with sissy, okay? Help her take care of momma," I told him. He looked up at me with brave eyes and nodded. Bailey came over next and gave me a hug, and I held her close. 
    "Just keep William happy. Help out Robert and Natalie as much as you can," I instructed her. When I pulled away her eyes were filled with tears.
    "Do you have to go?" She asked, her small voice weak and shaky. I nodded and put my hand on her cheek.
    "It's only for a day or two, and then I'll be right back here," I told her reassuringly. She nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. I used my thumb to wipe it away, and leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead.

    We left soon after. Oliver said goodbye to his parents and brother, and we hopped into the SUV. The vehicle was already started, so it could warm up. I decided to drive; it only felt right, considering it was my family's car. I'd been driving since I was 8 years, curtsey of my father who wanted to teach me everything I needed to know way earlier than I needed to. We waved to everybody through the window, and pulled out of the yard.
    The driveway was plowed. The Lambert's had brought their truck to our house, which by the grace of god already had the plow on it, something Robert always did before the winter season to stay prepared. We pulled out onto the road, and began our journey towards the city.
    The radio stations were blank, besides the constantly repeating message warming people of the international emergency. I wondered what they would change it to now if they could. "The world is over, fend for yourselves." "Beware of ravenous intruders, humans are turning on each other to survive." The world was past an emergency. During an emergency, there's always the chance of making it through and succeeding to handle the situation. The world did not handle this situation. The world collapsed.
    We decided to take a back road to the city. We knew the highway would be packed with cars, and that there would be no way that our SUV could make it through. The back road was part of the places that had been caught on fire. Most of the ground was covered in snow, but you could still see the black char on the trees, and ash that had blown from those trees and dusted the snow.
    "What do you think the city will be like?" Oliver asked. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat at the thought.
    "During the attack on the farm, the attackers said the city was demolished. They said riots had taken over the streets and that every store had been raided," I explained. I looked over to him. He looked just as uncomfortable and nervous as I did. We were both uneasy, thinking about what we might possibly see.
    "What happened that night?" He asked, his voice quiet. I gulped and repositioned my hands on the steering wheel, again shifting in my seat. I really did not want to recall that night.
    "I killed a man," I admitted. I don't know why I told him. I don't know why it was so easy to say. I guess I knew I could tell Oliver anything.
    But he went quiet. He sat there in his seat, silent. I couldn't blame him. I'm sure that wasn't the answer he was expecting. But it was the truth. I had killed a man and that was a guilt that I would have to deal with for the rest of my life. 
    I'd been having nightmares about it ever since it happened. I would wake up during the night in a fight of screams, the image of my father being shot and me shooting the man replaying over and over again. I could hear the disbelief in the man's word as he saw who I was, just a teenager that killed him. I would see my dad, bleeding to death, and hear him tell me I was a monster, a murderer.
    When those nightmares would happen, Bailey would climb into my bed with me. She would scratch my back and tell me I would be okay. She didn't know what the nightmares were about. She just knew I was upset. It was in those moments that she didn't seem so much like a kid anymore.
    "Why?" Oliver asked. I kept my eyes on the road. We were almost to the city.
    "He killed my father," I answered simply. Oliver went quiet again. I wanted to know what he was thinking. What words were bouncing through his thoughts, what emotions running amuck in his mind? I wasn't sure what I would have thought if it had been myself in that situation.
    We continued the rest of the drive in silence, besides the rumble of the car and crunch of the road beneath the wheels. I still couldn't get over the greyness of the world outside, everything slicked in dirty snow and dark ash. It looked like something out of a horror movie. This was a black and white film and we were the main characters.
    As we broke out of the back roads and edged onto the main road, my breath caught in my throat. The strong peaks of the buildings that once stood tall and proud over the rest of the city had been reduced to half their size, left in rubble. As we drove closer and gained a better view of the city, the sights got worse and worse. 
    Cars blocked the entrance to the city. There was no way around them. We would have to enter on foot.
    We parked the car and I pocketed the keys on the inside pocket of my jacket, making sure to zipper it.
    "We'll have to go it on foot," Oliver said, as though I didn't already know already. I nodded and we got out of the car.
    We grabbed our bags and geared up, each of us taking a semiautomatic rifle and 2 handguns, with extra mags and clips for each. On my thigh, I strap on my hunting knife, the one dad gave me the day I turned 15. A birthday present. It had my name engraved in the handle, it was the one I took with me on every hunting trip, every time I went out in the woods. Now I was no longer going into the woods, I was going somewhere much more dangerous.
    We climbed over the cars blocking the entrance to the city and began walking inside. Still, neither of us spoke. There was no need to. There was nothing to talk about. It wasn't like when we were in school and there were people to talk about and funny stories to tell. We'd been in the bunker for 4 months; anything that was worth seeing we saw together. And we couldn't talk about our old friends, gossip about them. The chances were that they were dead, and it's wrong to talk ill of the deceased.
    "I would have done the same thing," Oliver said randomly, looking around the city. Or what remained of it.
    "What?" I asked. He looked to the ground and kicked a stone as he took a step.
    "If it had been my father, I would have done the same thing," He clarified. There was a tone of admittance, acceptance that he had the capability to kill. I looked to the ground as well and repeated him, kicking a stone in my path. "What did you think about after you did it?"
    "My father was dead, I didn't think," I answered. I looked up. We'd reached one of the streets that was lined with shops. "Where to first?"
    And just like that, the conversation changed. The city was in ruin. It was what I expected but it still shocked me. Tall buildings that were once beautiful structures were reduced to crumbles. Apartment buildings that used to contain families were undistinguishable from the rubble on the ground. Everything was cracked, everything was broken. Seemed like a pretty good metaphor for the state of society.
    "The grocery mart is just around the corner, let's go there first," Oliver suggested. I nodded. We climbed our way through the rubble and weaved our way through crashed cars and other barricades. We finally made it to the grocery mart, but we weren't prepared for the sight before us.
    Bodies were piled up outside. Most of the bodies were covered in snow but some of the ice powder had either blown away or melted off, revealing the chilled blue corpses that lie underneath. I couldn't see any faces,  they were indistinguishable due to decomposition and frost bite, a combination which left the corpses mangled and blue. 
   The windows had been smashed out, and the bodies of policemen could be seen lying around the body piles, their protective shields laying by their sides, batons frozen in their hands. The scene was a scene frozen in panic, showing just exactly what the attackers on the farm were talking about last night.
    "What happened here?" Oliver asked in disbelief. I told him what the attackers had said that night.
    "This must've been the aftermath of one of the raids," I finished, staring at the bodies and the broken windows in shock. It was a scene of absolute chaos frozen in time, frozen with the winter.
    We walked past the bodies soon after, making our way into the grocery mart. The snow had found its way inside, but only as far as the wind would take it. The center of the store was bare. I looked around, the chaos from outside a carrying scene to the inside. Shelves were overturned, garbage discarded on the floor, blood dried to a muddy brown color on the floors and walls. Everything was destroyed.
    "Do you think anything will be left?" Oliver asked with no trace of hope in his voice. I chewed the inside of my lip.
    "There has to be," I answered.
    We scoured the mart, lifting upturned shelves and going over every surface. We found a few cans of food, but not enough to even last a full week. Once we looked over the entire store, we walked out, basically empty handed.
    "What do we do now?" I asked, kicking a shield in anger. I immediately regretted it. It made me feel like I was disrespecting the officer who had carried it.
    "We could check the next store," He offered, but I shook my head.
    "You don't think that one won't be just like the one we were just in? This city is bare. There's nothing left in any of the stores," I countered. 
    He paused for a moment, debating options in his head. He was always the smart one in the two of us. I always acted on feeling, on impulse. I never thought about what I was doing, I just... did. Oliver was always the smart one. He always paused. He felt, too, he just paused before he did anything. He was considerate and he always considered the options and consequences of everything and because of that, everybody liked him more than they liked me. They asked him why he hung out with me and told him to stop hanging out with me, but he never listened. I always wondered if he considered the consequences of those actions. I hoped that he didn't.
    "What if we didn't check the stores?" He suggested, with a tone of personal surprise hidden in his voice. I looked at him confusedly.
    "What do you mean?" I asked. We stopped our walk. We were standing in the square. It used to be a happy place. It's where events were held, where vendors were always lined up and festivals were held. Children could run around and laugh and play, it always had a festive air to it. Now, it was a place taken over by the grey darkness that plagued the rest of the world, the dark looming feeling of death and destruction. What a transition, I thought to myself. 
    "I mean, what if we didn't look in the stores? People's houses, apartments, they'd have to have food left in them. They'd have to. People would have taken food when they abandoned their homes but they wouldn't have been able to take all of it," He explained. I smiled at him. That crazy idiot. He always had the bright ideas between the two of us.
    "Oliver!" I exclaimed, shooting him a wild smiled. "You're a genius!"
    He laughed, and we began our trek to the nearest apartment building. It was hard to find one that wasn't completely demolished, or one that even had an entrance that you could reach. Most of the buildings were broken down in one way or another, either completely toppled over or just not accessible. It turned out to be a harder task to get inside than I had imagined.
    When we finally found a building, we climbed over rubble that lead to the complex, and tried the doors. They would open, but something was blocking it from the inside. Oliver and I looked at each other, and on the count of three, we threw our weight into the doors, budging whatever was on the other side slightly. We backed up and repeated the process, until the crack was big enough for us to slide into.
    Once inside the apartments, we decided to spilt up. Oliver took the right side of the hall, myself taking the left. I tried the handle on the first door, only to find that it wouldn't budge. I took a deep breath and stepped back, and in one swift movement, I kicked the door in. Cheap apartment buildings with cheap doors.
    I slowly took my first step in. The place smelled old and musty, which was understandable. It wasn't like somebody had been there constantly cleaning to keep up with them smell.
    I stepped further inside and looked around. It was a small apartment, not very well decorated, not much life in the walls. Based off of the furniture and other belongings left in the household, it didn't look like the owner of the apartment had very much. I prayed that there would be food in the cupboards.
    I closed my eyes as I stood in front of the cupboards and swung them open. I peeked one eye open, and a smile spread out across my face. Cans of food. I check the expiration date on all of it, and only took the ones that were good. It felt good to be able to put food in the bag.
    I combed the apartment, and moved onto the next. I did the same thing, one after the other, scanning the apartments for food. Occasionally, Oliver and I would end up in the hallway at the same times, and we'd show off our best finds. It was like a game.
    As I came up to the last apartment, I heard a rustle inside the open door. I grabbed my gun from my hip, clicking the safety off, and slowly stepped inside. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, thud thud, thud thud, thud thud. 
    As I rounded the corner to wear the sound was coming from, I peaked my head over and looked around. I was surprised by what I saw.
    Eating from a knocked over garbage can, stood a large dog. With long, matted fur, it stood over the upturned can like a wolf. I froze, wondering if the animal was friendly or not. Just as the thought crossed my mind, the large canine turned its head to look at me. There we stood, both of us staring at each other. It felt like catching the eyes of a wolf in the wild.
    "Hey boy," I said softly. I crouched down on one knee, and brought my bag down. "You hungry? I have something better than garbage."
    The dog just stood and stared as I rifled through my bag. I figured out it was a long haired german shepard, my cousin on my dad's side had one. This dog had a darker coat, though, with black fur mixed in through the brown fur. Its long fur was stuck in big balls, matted from no brushing. The dog looked skinny, which was expected. No good food for months will do that to an animal.
    I found what I was looking for, a can of mini hot dogs. I found a whole pack of them in one of the apartments and stocked up. I opened the can, and the dog lifted its nose in the air at the smell. I fished one out and held it out in an outstretched hand.
    "Come here boy," I cooed, and the dog trotted over. He slowed as he got closer, eyeing me suspiciously. "I'm not gonna hurt you."
    He finally edged his way over, and gently took the wiener from my hand. I smiled and watched him gobble it up, basically not chewing. I took another out of the can and fed him, this time scratching behind his ears as he ate it. He leaned into my hand, making me laugh. 
    "What are you laughing at?" I heard Oliver call out from the hall.
    "Come here and see!" I called back, feeding the furry giant another wiener. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps enter the room.
    "Woah," Oliver said. I turned around and looked at him with a smile.
    "Isn't he beautiful?" I asked, turning back to the dog. "He was in here digging through the trash. He's friendly."
    Oliver walked over and kneeled beside me. He held his hand out to let the dog smell him, and then scratched the dog's neck. "Poor guy. Looks like he could use some TLC."
   I nodded in agreement and fed him another wiener. 1 left in the can. "Do you think they'd let us take him back home?" I asked. Oliver shook his head. 
   "No way that they would," He answered. I sighed and fed the dog the last wiener. I sat the container on the floor and the dog licked the juices from it. "Besides, the bunker's already crowded enough."
   "We don't have to stay in the bunker anymore, though," I countered. But I thought about it. Robert and Natalie would fight it. Mom wouldn't say anything, as usual. But if the adults said no, that meant the dog would be out. "But you're probably right. At least now he's eaten something that isn't literal garbage."
   Oliver nodded. We patted the dog one last time, and stood up to leave. As we walked out the door, we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around, and there stood the dog, staring up at us expectantly. I shooed him, but he didn't budge. I sighed and kept walking, just to see if he'd stop once we left the room. But he didn't.
    The dog followed me as we cleared the next floor and I went through the next set of apartments. Every once in a while, I'd find some food to give him, and he'd gobble it up without hesitation. I took one of the water bottles out of a case that I found and a bowl out of a random cupboard, and poured him a bowl of water. I figured it had been a long time since he'd had clean water to drink.
    The dog was impossible to shake. Between checking apartments and getting distracted by the stray canine, I didn't realize that by the time I reached the last apartment at the end of the hall on the 3rd floor, that the sun had went down outside. I told Oliver that, and we decided it would be too dangerous to walk around the city at night alone.
    We picked a nice 1 bedroom apartment to sleep in, making sure to close the door behind us. We didn't want people to fall us in, looking for a place like we were. 
    Using the propane fireplace in the apartment to warm the room, we set up camp in the living room to eat. Oliver set up dinner while I ventured aimlessly around the apartment, this one nicer than other ones in the complex.
    I went into the only bedroom, the bed neatly made, everything spotless, a room waiting for its owners to return home. I imagined a happy couple, both at work, both of them thinking how nice it would be to come home and climb in bed and get some rest. But they never got the chance to, and the bed laid there, empty, untouched. I cringed at the thought.
    I walked over to the dresser, where pictures sat on top of it. I picked them up and observed them, looking at a smiling couple, just as I'd envisioned. A happy young woman, no older than 25, and her boyfriend who looked about the same age. It was a fall photo shoot, at an apple orchard outside of the city. My family used to go there before we grew our own apples in the backyard. Now we had 8 trees, and they grew big apples every year. I wondered if they still would in the coming spring.
    I sat the pictures down and opened the drawers. Finding clean clothes, I decided to change into some clothes that weren't filthy like all the clothes I owned at that point. With no running water, our clothes had become dirty and smelly, and we had run out of clean clothes to wear. We got accustomed to the rancid smell in the bunker. We had to.
   I changed into a pair of dark wash jeans and a long sleeved, tight V-neck shirt. I brushed out my hair with a brush on the dresser and french braided it back out of my face. Once I was all changed, I went back out to the living room, where Oliver sat on the couch, the wolf dog laying in front of the fireplace, head on his paws. I imagined that was the first time he'd been warm in a while.
    That winter had been brutal. It was the cherry on top to all the other misery in the world. It gave us something to complain about, though. Because nobody wanted to get angry about the real issue, the fact that the world had ended. That issue was too big to talk about, too angry to discuss. It was a monster screaming in our faces, the issue a monster that grew more and more every day. So we complained about the cold instead, because the cold is easy to complain about. It's normal to complain about. And that's all that we wanted: normal.
    I sat beside Oliver with a long sigh. After a long day of walking around in frigid weather, stressed out over the fact that we might not have enough food to bring back to the bunker, the lumpy couch that I would have considered uncomfortable a while ago felt amazing. To just sit back and relax. And it felt nice to not be at the bunker, to not hear everybody stressing about the issues that come with the post-bombing. It was like the world wasn't demolished outside.
    We ate some of the food we had scavenged. I fed the dog more wieners, and ate some dried fruit and some canned beans for myself. It wasn't the most appetizing to eat beans cold out of the can, but it was food. Something I didn't take for granted anymore.
   When we finished eating, we put all of the trash in the garbage underneath the sink of the apartment. I don't know why. It wasn't likely that anybody was going to be in the apartment after us. But it just felt right. It felt normal, and we had to take all the normal we could get so we wouldn't go crazy.
    Oliver and I sat side by side, staring at the fire. The red and yellow heat flickered up through the stones, sending a warm cast of light that shivered in the room. I'd grabbed a blanket from a closet in the bedroom, and I had spread it over Oliver and I.
    "I don't really want to go home tomorrow," Oliver admitted. I looked at him, but he continued to stare into the fire. "Dad isn't the same. Ever since your dad died, he's been different. He's not my dad."
    "Don't say that," I countered. He looked at me. "Your dad is still your dad. He's just got a lot of work on his hands now and he's stressed out. You can't blame him for that."
    Oliver shrugged and looked at the fire again. "Well he doesn't have to take it out on me."
    I knew what he was talking about. I'd seen it. I caught them once in the hallway of the barn. They were arguing over something. Well, Robert was arguing, Oliver was taking it. And then it happened. I watched as Robert took his hand and backhanded Oliver across the face. It wasn't hard enough that it left a bruise or anything, but there was definitely a red hand mark on his face. That's when I turned the corner and walked the other way, not wanting to get involved. I realized now I should have stepped in.
    I looked back at the fire, putting my head on Oliver's shoulder. I snuggled down into the couch and closed my eyes, my body warm and my stomach full. It wasn't a combination that was common those days. I had lost a lot of weight over the span of the fall and winter, going from a healthy size with even a little bit of weight to spare to being able to see my hip bones and collar bones and cheek bones with way more definition than before. My nails and hair were brittle and my skin was dry from lack of proper nutrition. All of us had slimmed out. None of us were a healthy weight anymore.
    "Before everything happened, weren't you talking to that girl... oh what was her name... oh! Lyla Evans?" I asked him. He chuckled. His body movement made my head shake.
    "I guess so. Not really. I didn't really like her," He admitted. "Weren't you talking to Thomas?"
    "I furrowed my eyebrows together and scoffed. "Thomas? No. Are you serious?"
    "Not Thomas Ace, Thomas Boland."
    "Oh. I mean not really. He was talking to me I guess."
    We kept talking and talking. We talked for what felt like hours. It may have been hours. I wasn't really sure. We talked until my eyelids felt heavy and I felt like I was melting into Oliver. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up to him carrying me to the bedroom. I snuggled my face into his chest, and then he lowered me onto the bed. He hauled the  blankets up around me, and began to walk out to the living room.
    "Where are you going?" I asked him. He turned and looked at me. The wolf dog slipped in behind him through the doorway and jumped up on the bed, laying at the foot.
    "I was gonna sleep on the couch, let you sleep in the bed," He answered.
    "Just come get in bed with me," I argued. He stood there and looked at me. I closed my eyes and snuggled into the  blankets. He paused for a moment, but after a few seconds I heard his footsteps come over and then felt the other side of the bed sink in with his weight. He crawled under the covers.
    I yawned, my mind foggy from sleepiness. I rolled over and put my head on his chest, draping one arm over him. He froze for a second, but proceeded to wrap his arm around me, tracing his fingers gently across my arm. The room was silent. My heartbeat slowed, and I could feel myself drifting into sleep.
    "What are we going to name the dog?" Oliver asked. I thought about it for a second, eyes still closed.
    "Bear," I answered.
    "Bear it is," He said, affirming the name. And then I fell asleep.