It had been a good life, once. Samuel had been living the American dream. A big house, a job that payed well, a beautiful wife and two wonderful children. Matt and Jane, eight year old twins that he loved more than anything else in the world. He even had an old Corvette in the garage he was working on, and on Sundays he played golf with his boss. He was going places.

When the disease erupted Samuel thought it would soon pass over, like the bird flue-craze had, as well as the swine flue-craze, but it didn't. It never went away, it lingered, it outstayed its welcome, it fucked everyone over. Soon people around him starting getting sick, colleagues and people at the golf club. It was getting closer and closer. And then his wife got sick. When she was diagnosed Samuel didn't think it could get any worse, but of course it soon did. She deteriorated quickly, falling victim to the disease. Her behavior soon turned erratic, and her once beautiful skin was soon filled with boils and open sores. There was nothing Samuel or the doctors could do to help her. But the worst part was how it affected Matt and Jayne, they were terrified, afraid of their mother. The innocence of youth lost forever.

The hardest thing Samuel ever had to do was telling his children that their mommy would never come back home, that she had gone to heaven. And that the way mommy had been behaving at the end wasn't really her, it was the disease that had made mommy act like that. But how could they truly understand? Their last memory of their mommy would be the crazed version of her, the sick version, acting more like an animal than a human being, not the loving mother she had been. It gave them nightmares, terrible nightmares. But at least the twins had each other, maybe they would get through this together?

Then Jane got sick.

If seeing his wife dying in front of him had been tough this was torture, soul-wrenching torture. Seeing his beautiful daughter, a spitting image of her mother, fall victim to the same disease that killed her mother almost destroyed Samuel, but somehow he managed to stay strong. He had to, for his children.

And soon it was only him and Matt left. Matt was convinced that he would die next, and the nightmares got even worse now that Jane wasn't around anymore. Samuel tried to convince Matt that everything would be okay, but in his heart Samuel knew that it wouldn't be. He could feel it in his bones that Matt would soon be gone as well, and so would he. All he prayed for was that Matt didn't have to watch his father die as well, Samuel knew that he had to hope for his son to die before he did to save him more even more mental anguish. If it hadn't been for the fact Samuel had to stay strong for Matt he would have ended his life right there and then, but he couldn't, he had to be there for Matt, be strong for him. He couldn't abandon his own son like that.

Every night they both woke up several times a night. Matt screaming from his nightmares, and Samuel with that sickening feeling in his stomach that told him Matt was sick. He checked Matt several times every night to make sure he wasn't sick. It was only a matter of time before they both would break down.

Of course, Matt got sick and died as well.

By now Samuel was numb, he had cried himself dry and his once infectious laughter was a thing of the past. Burying his son next to his wife and daughter he knew he couldn't stay here. Not here, not around all those memories. He had to leave. He didn't care where too, as long as it was somewhere else.

And with that he left his shattered life behind, expecting nothing but a lonely death somewhere in the big wasteland that the United States, and the rest of the world, had become.