That didn't even begin to cover it. From my position on the ground I was staring up at a clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, or a ceiling for that matter. I hauled myself up, taking in the destruction. The city of Rochester was annihilated. We sat in the bottom of a crater, every building, every structure in the city, broken down to fist sized bits of rubble. The destructive force had seeped through the ground, tearing away the first layer, before leveling off, creating a sheared line along the sewer walls where it stopped. Our little pit of a room was relatively intact for having no ceiling and chunks of the wall knocked out. I was certain the wall shielded us from the worst of the flying bits, though who knew where Fred hid during the melee.

            "Ha, there's my beauties!" J.D. snagged the dust covered duffel, peeking inside to check on his depleted stash of firearms. "Even the smoke bombs are still good."

            Ignoring J.D. cooing over his guns, I got to my feet, using the cast off wall as a ramp up topside. Above ground the situation looked worse. Through the clearing dust cloud I could see where the destruction ended, at the city's edge, and the crumbling road beyond. Hell, I could see our abandoned wagon from here. The wagon!

            "How much gas was in the wagon Fred?" I perched at the edge of the hole, finding him digging through his backpack. He didn't look at me as he pulled out another ace bandage, kneeling next to Wolf Girl. How many of those things did he snag, a whole shelf?

            "Maybe a quarter of a tank, it won't get us very far." He said, attempting to dress the girl's bite mark. Wolf Girl stared at him, clutching her arms tight to her chest, until he sat back with a sigh. "Li, maybe she'll let you do it."

            I frowned at the remark, sliding back into the hole. Sure enough, when I plunked down next to her and made a grab for her arm, she let me. I accepted Fred's bandage without a word, wondering why she would trust me in the first place. It was my fault she was dying via zombie bite. Except Wolf Girl didn't bat an eyelash in my direction, she kept her gaze fixed on Fred. Her feral eyes were almost thoughtful.

            "Why is she staring at me like that?" Fred muttered from the corner of his mouth.

            "Oh, like I am privy to the inner workings of her mind?" I tied the bandage off, wishing I had a bucket of Neosporin or something to slather on the wound, not that it would help anything. "Look, we need the get out of here, far away from the city as we can manage and if the wagon isn't an option-"

            "Hey, I didn't say it wasn't an option." Said Fred, pawing through the contents of his pack.

            "Think our maybe quarter tank is going to last us until the next town? It's upstate New York; objects on the map are further away than they appear." I eyed the sky, wondering if our vindictive alien friends left anyone behind to pick off stragglers. Doubtful since their solution was pouring a barrel of napalm on an ant hill. "Think they'll start blasting every city they come across?"

            "Independence Day style? No, I think this was personal. They didn't blast it until they got their asses handed to them. Ah ha!" Fred tugged a length of clear plastic tubing free and a sealed bottle of soda, the brown liquid long since flat, sloshing gently in the silent pause of his reveal.

            "I'm almost afraid to ask," J.D. rumbled behind me, earning a scowl from Fred.

            "This is the solution to our problem, or have none of you nancies ever siphoned gas before?" He looked at us expectantly, waiting for the light bulb to come on.

            "Just you, delinquent."

            "Oh, shove it, Gomer Pyle. Look, we saw abandoned cars all over the place on our way in.  The burbs is full of them. We'll skirt round the crater and see if we can find a tank with some gas still in it."

            J.D. snorted. "Those cars have been on the road for years. They have to be dried out by now."

            That gave me pause. My knowledge of gasoline evaporation was nil, I was not a science whiz, so I never really thought of how Fred found the wagon not only in working condition but with enough gas in the tank to get us here.

            "But the hummer had gas too," I said, looking at J.D.

            "Of course it did. We had a stockpile kept in a sub-basement cold storage for emergencies. I gassed it up myself after I tried uh, other options. Couldn't get it working until Fred took a crack at it." The soldier crossed his arms, peering into the distance. "Not much good to us now."

            Fred seized his shirt, causing the bigger man to stagger. "Did you say sub-basement?"

            We both stared at him wide-eyed until J.D. swore, shaking out of his hold. "Son of a bitch, you think we're that lucky?"

            Fred answered with a ghastly grin, his teeth stark against his dark gums, stained purple around the edges. "Dude, we survived a city being ripped away over our heads. We either have the worst luck or the best. Besides, searching for a hidden stockpile sounds way more appealing than siphoning gas any day."

            I couldn't argue with that. We had a plan, it wasn't a detailed or necessarily good plan, but it was something. "Okay," I declared with a clap, causing Wolf Girl and Fred to jump. "Find magical stockpile of gas, fill up the wagon, keep heading to the Great Lakes, and try not to die. Oh, Fred, that's terrifying."

            The smile dropped off his face as he sucked in his cheeks, making fish lips. I rolled my eyes, while Wolf Girl giggled. I peered at her out of my peripheral vision as J.D. began scouting the flattened city for signs leading to the remains of his bunker. Our lone human didn't appear worse for wear, wandering through the debris with her usual carefree attitude, no signs of ravenous hunger. How long did it take to turn into a zombie without dying first? In the movies, the timing was different across the board. Obviously she wasn't the insta-zombie type since she was breathing and slowly bleeding through her bandages. Other movies depicted a slow painful turn, eaten alive by the virus, but she hummed as she walked. What would we do when she did turn? It's not like I could put her on a chain like a vicious dog and sic her on the first alien we ran across. Or could I?

I shook the thought out of my head. What was I thinking? There was no guarantee we would run into another alien anytime soon, though if we found any humans they would put her down themselves. Hell, it would be hard enough to convince them of our peaceful intentions without dragging a ravenous corpse along with us. What if dying was the trigger? If she didn't die, she wouldn't turn, right? Was I being a really naïve optimist?

I didn't realize how far behind I'd fallen until Fred sidled up next to me, nudging me with his shoulder. I titled my head up. He took one look at my face and slung an arm around me, giving me a squeeze. "One crisis at a time, Li. We'll deal with her when we have to."

A tiny smile tugged at my mouth. "How did you know I was thinking about her?"

"You look like you ran over your little sister." He cleared his throat, releasing a sigh. "We'll find a way, there's got to be something we can do for her."

We walked in silence for a few minutes, trailing after the others, taking solace in each other's company. I broke it with a strained whisper. "I can't make her like the Muppets."

"They aren't so bad. Honestly, she's halfway there already."

I glared up at him, catching the teasing hint in his voice. "Aside from the very terrible thing you just said, I don't think I can. I'm not exactly sure how I made those two to begin with and they-"Guilt gnawed at me. It's not like I could cry for the goons, but damn I lead them blind into this death trap. They would have protected Wolf Girl from those sewer zombies like a couple of junkyard dogs.

I pinched the bridge of my nose, wishing I could cry a little. I wasn't big on tears, but sometimes, you need to let go, like cleansing your soul. At the thought I burst out laughing, causing Fred to tense.

"You okay there, kid?"

"Do you think we have souls?" The question earned the face it deserved. I must be rattled to start asking inane questions like this. How far off the reservation could I get?

"What about my appearance screams fount of philosophical wisdom?" He lifted his arm, putting me in a light head lock. "Didn't I make it clear, one crisis at a time? That includes existential ones. We shall deal with the meaning of life another night okay?"

"Thank you," I said, "for not letting me sink into an emotional pothole."

Fred extended his hand out in front of him. "No need to thank me. We can't have our fearless leader crumbling at the seams."

I screwed up my face. "I am nobody's leader."

"Yeah okay, I'm sure J.D. or I would make a fantastic leader after one of us establishes dominance in a testosterone fueled battle royale. For the sake of my ego, I insist we would have gone out in a draw, choking the death out of each other."

That forced a chuckle out of me. I tacked it up to being physically and emotionally drained from the cluster fuck of our day. J.D. yelled out, bringing us back to earth, he and Wolf Girl racing to a sizable hole in the ground. Fred gave me another of those nightmare inducing grins before bounding after him, leaving me to bring up the rear. By Fred's whoop of delight, we definitely had some kind of luck.

***Luck indeed. Don't forget to vote!***