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To drive a Prius or to drive a Silverado? That was the question of the early morning as she made her way east to Gotham looking at two cars parked in a suburban cul-de-sac. Her chevy truck was old and not practical anymore with the extra baggage. The Prius had the better gas mileage and could snake its way through a lot of abandoned cars easily, but on the other hand the Silverado could hold more stuff and was better for off-road situations. She could consult with the man in the back of her truck, but he was passed out from illness. Thankfully not with the one that wiped out any place with heavy populations, like it did in Bludhaven, like it did everywhere else. If it was that virus he would have been dead within twenty-four hours. That was how it worked. He had been ill for days, more than likely the flu or something of that nature. She instead let the dog do the work.

It had been two years since the initial super virus went rampant among anyone in its path saving for the few old world nut jobs and people with extreme cases of paranoia. They will dead from other reasons such as suicide or killed in a fight for supplies. Her father made sure his daughter was safe, drove across the country to bring her home from college during the initial outbreak.

The place that she was sure at one point had children running up and down the streets laughing and playing was now quiet as the graveyard. The houses were all boarded up and each door had a bio-hazard do-not-enter sign attached to it. Two years ago the health departments around the world sealed up families who had the killer virus in their homes. None of them ever came out. Sometimes you could smell the death from miles away, but it has been so long the smell of rotting infected flesh was a distant memory.

The dark haired germen shepherd had proved reliable for the last six months and was loyal. If something was wrong he would bark and run straight back to her. She called him John, like John Connors, but there was no way this dog could save the world. The world was gone. Every city she had been in looking for survivors was in ruins. She had given up looking a few times. She couldn't decide if she was actually looking for survivors or looking for a friend for the end of the world as she knew it, but the dog was a start. All efforts to help those in need were also dead. Rumor had it that even The Justice League retreated from Earth never to come back.

Batman was assumed to have gone with them. The man, during his lucid periods, said he would and cursed him for it.

John came sauntering back and licked her hand, it was a good sign. She decided on the Silverado and casually emptied the vehicle of all its previous contents, siphoned gas from surrounding vehicles, and loaded up her own supplies of food, water and weapons strategically factoring in the man who called himself The Red Hood in the Tetris like equation. She found him days ago on the side of the road was reluctant to take him in, even though he wasn't infected with the virus, he didn't show the signs (pussy bumps and glazed eyes and dead. The virus claimed its victims in a twenty-four hour period.), she wasn't sure if she could take the risk. But her father wouldn't be happy about leaving a man behind. He instilled all his military mentality in her when he returned from Iraq when she was sixteen and taught her how to survive, even though he was mentally shaken when he finished his tours of duty.

She woke up the man and coaxed him out of the bed of the truck and guided him to the back of the Silverado. He complied. She was happy to see that the Silverado had a CD player and gladly went through a couple more cars that John approved of hunting down some music. Radios were all static and it was a nice change to have some music. She grabbed about five of them and rejoiced when she pulled out 38 Special: Greatest Hits; The music of her childhood. Sure the band was old but her dad always played classic rock. She found The Cars, some Backstreet Boys, Alanis Morisette, and Venga Boys.

The Silverado started and she called for John to hop in the passenger seat. The music started and she couldn't stop singing. They pulled out of the cul-de-sac and headed for the back roads into Gotham. High ways, she learned, were silent traffic jams. Out on the backstreet, taking love where I can. I found a sweet Madonna with a Bible in her hand. She's waiting, anticipating for someone to save her soul. Well I ain't no New Messiah, but I'm close enough for rock n' roll.

The world seemed a little brighter and less dead when music was playing. For the first time in months she could justify smiling even as she entered hell, Gotham. The man protested a few times in the last day or so, but she countered him saying there was a rich man who lived there at one point, his place was huge like a castle, it was shelter, and if he wanted a part of it he was going to have to shut up. She thought and dreamed in her head that the place had gothic grandeur, had clothes (so she could get out of the nasty jeans, old yellow tank top and brown jacket, and her combat boots), running water so bathe and drink. She checked herself out in the rearview mirror and decided her first priority was to shower and wash her light brown hair and scrub the ingrained dirt off her skin. Food for her, John, and the stranger to eat, rationed out of course. But what she looked forward to was sleeping on a bed, an actual bed. Not on a sleeping bag in the back of a car or under a shitty park shelter, but in a bed in a house. The woman worried a little about the man in the back of the vehicle. He had been ill for days and didn't show any change; he needed to not be on the road and be still. She was so excited to be bridge at the city limits, undeterred by the bio-hazard signs. It had been two years, the virus had to have been gone by now.

She had to get through the city even if it meant driving through the night, something she wasn't a fan of since she got her driver's license five years ago. No Entrance Permitted signs were plowed over and ignored all the speed limits on the lower streets. Freeways she could see still had abandoned cars in a pile of chaos. The Police department she could see with the dwindling sunlight was wrecked; the hospital looked like something out of a horror movie, like "28 Days Later". Empty, dark, sterile, and dead. She pulled over at an abandoned newsstand with John who leapt from the car and ran to the stand, sniffing around before returning wagging his furry tail. The woman looked through the place for a map, something that would lead them to the rumored castle. There was no such luck. She noticed something though, the name Wayne was on everything. She looked up to the tall towers and saw one with a big W on it. Whoever this Wayne was had to be really important and really rich. Maybe, she thought, he owned the castle. She retreated back to the vehicle and crawled in the back, woke up the man to give him some water. He took it greedily. The woman was getting more concerned about him as she noticed his breathing was labored and shallow.

She didn't believe that this man was The Red Hood. That vigilante disappeared along with every other do-gooder in the world. She looked at him in the eyes. "If you are who you say you are then you must know Gotham well enough to know who this Wayne is, right?"

He nodded.

She sighed, "Okay, then where does Wayne live?"

"North," he whispered. "At the highest point looking over Gotham."

She crawled out and sat back in the driver's seat, kicked the Silverado into high gear, and headed north listening very closely to the man, who claimed he was The Red Hood, breathing. She didn't care about his name or telling him hers. They had to make it first. Another thing her father taught her when it came to survival was to never tell her name or get close to anyone by knowing theirs. Chances were they weren't going to be around the next day.

The sun had set and the moon began to rise over the city of Gotham. She had made it past the towering buildings and was now in the edge of town. She looked to the horizon and saw what he had described as a big house on the highest point looking over Gotham, and then she pulled over to crawl into the back and check on the man. He was burning up again and was restless, but she had to ask him one question. "Is there anything I need to know about this place before we get there?" she asked.

He wheezed, "If you can get in-" and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Damn it, he passed out again. John looked back and whined with sad puppy eyes. She cooed to him, "Its fine bud. We are almost there."

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