"Just close your eyes," Nicholas told her, gently running his thumbs over her eyelids. He was shaking. His voice was shaking. He had to go [i]out there.[/i] And he was [i]terrified.[/i]

The next difficult decision he had to make was this: did he take the rifle, low on ammo, while he scavenged and leave his sister defenseless, or did he leave the rifle, low on ammo but [i]still loaded,[/i] with an eleven year old girl who had never fired a weapon before? Despite what might have been best, he settled on the latter. He wrapped Alissa's arms around the rifle as if it were a teddy bear, and her eyes cracked open to look at the weapon.

"I'm leaving that with you and you need to be a big girl about it, okay? If [i]anyone,[/i] even mom, tries to attack you, aim at them and pull the trigger. You understand?"

Alissa looked up at him and nodded.

"It's gonna be loud if you have to pull the trigger. Hopefully you won't need to. I'm going to find food for us, okay? I'll be right back."

They were in a Wal-Mart. A [i]Wal-Mart,[/i] and yet it was utterly without food of any kind. And any kind would be paradise right now. They had a single box of Saltine crackers which was getting emptier by the day, and they couldn't long survive on just crackers and water. Nicholas feared they might have to resort to cannibalism...but how sanitary would [i]that[/i] be?

The thought causing his skin to crawl, Nicholas headed for the front entrance of the store. As soon as he stepped out, wielding his machete, he caught sight of a stumbling humanoid figure and immediately took cover, back inside of the building, behind a crane game machine. He peeked out from its edge, completely oblivious to the fact that he was visible through the transparent glass, and eyed the figure warily. It was a woman, but whether living dead or just plain living, he couldn't rightly tell immediately.