Thomas squinted through his dingy spectacles at the overgrown mass of vines and grass that had been set before him. He reached forward and grasped the dewey strings, giving them a hard tug and pulling them down to reveal an old yellowing sign.

"What's it say, daddy?" Sandra asked. Thomas pulled his glasses off, only now realizing how dirty they were. As he wiped them down he squinted once more.

"Chrysler Center, my dear. They used to manufacture automobiles," Thomas said to the girl as he pointed off to the left at a car lot filled with abandoned and mossy vehicles, "like those." Sandra didn't say anything but he could feel her weight shift on his back as she turned to examine the point of interest. "I'm sorry dear, I'd love to let you look but we have to go. We're almost to the tunnel." Thomas proclaimed, stepping away from the sign. As he stepped back into the street to continue walking he had to adjust Sandra on his back.

"Daddy?" Sandra asked after the uncomfortable shifting.

"I'm fine, dear. Daddy's just getting old, carrying you isn't as easy as it used to be."

"I can walk." Sandra said quietly, seemingly embarrassed.

"I'll tell you what, once we get into the tunnel I'll put you down." Thomas said. Sandra hugged him tightly to let him know she was happy with the suggestion. She was quite mature for a six year old, she never complained about anything even when Thomas knew she wanted to. In the last month she'd even given up struggling when Thomas cut her hair down short. "It'll help keep you safe." he'd always tell her as he snipped away the brown curls she and her mother had loved so much. And it seemed that the message had finally sunk in.

"Oh look, sweetie." Thomas said after roughly ten minutes of walking. He pointed to a green road sign, vines crawling from the base to the top, though it appeared somebody else may have removed them from the sign itself. "Ottawa Street. That means we're getting close."

"How far away is it? Sandra asked, gleefully. Thomas felt his heart grow noticeably warmer at the sound of her joyful response.

"Half an hour, maybe. Unless we run into some obstacles." Thomas said. "We should be more careful now, however. We're entering the residential area of the city."

"What's that mean?" Sandra asked innocently.

"Houses."

"Oh." Sandra knew what that meant. Not only did she know, but she understood and obeyed. That made it easy to evade any infected. And surprisingly Thomas wasn't seeing many of them. The ones he did see were oblivious, far off, or too weak to do anything about him. The infected had become increasingly less aggressive since he'd passed into the lower Toronto area. The numbers had dwindled as well, though Thomas was sure that they'd encounter plenty as soon as they got through the Windsor.

"Look, my dear." Thomas said, creeping out of the winding alleyways they had taken after turning onto Ottawa Street. "The river." He walked out into the street, seemingly without a care, and approached the sidewalk on the opposite side. The Detroit River flowed energetically through Windsor, fish jumped out and into the air on occassion, a couple of ducks were perched on a fallen log laying half in the river and half on the shore, and just then did Thomas notice the sound of the Robins chirping in the distance. "Isn't it beautiful, Sandra?" He asked.

"Yes." was all she could muster. Thomas knew this was the first time Sandra had seen a body of water of any significant size. She'd spent her entire life in central Ontario, sure she'd seen a passing stream or pong but nothing of this magnitude. "What did it look like before?" Sandra asked.

"Well. I imagine it didn't look much different. Maybe less burnt out cars." Thomas said turning his head to look at his daughter's face resting on his shoulder. She smiled.

It only took ten minutes to reach the Windsor Tunnel from the part of the river they were viewing. Cars were piled up around the Customs booths in front of the tunnel, likely left by those attempting to flee into America during the outbreak. Behind the cars were the cracked husks that once held Canadian and American customs officers set to check the passports of those attempting to cross the border via tunnel. There appeared to have been several accidents as well. Upon approaching the cars Thomas noticed several bodies as well. They were old though. Too old to tell if any had been infected.

"Alright." Thomas said, unbuckling the backpack strap on his chest and gently setting down his bag. After that he untied the sling he'd built for Sandra and allowed her to slide down off his back. "As promised." he said as he knelt down to place the sling into his bag and adjust the straps to fit his body without the child on his back. Sandra stretched and yawned loudly. "Don't look inside the cars, my sweet. Come now." He said, picking her up in both hands and setting her on the trunk of a red Impala; after which he hoisted himself up onto the same trunk. He took her hand and led her across the short field of cars before them. Thomas made sure to step lightly just in case any of them still had working car alarms, he wasn't worried about Sandra setting one off; she was lighter than a dog despite looking a bit chubby at a glance. Thomas on the other hand felt heavy and thick even though he maintained quite a slender frame. Perhaps it was just his old age weighing down on him but he felt that he couldn't be careful enough.

Finally stepping down from the cars in between two customs booths Thomas ordered Sandra to keep watch while he looked inside one of them. He spent a moment scrounging around before Sandra tugged on his pant-leg. He looked back at her and she pointed back out beyond the cars. Looking up and straining to see Thomas noticed a group of what appeared to be five adults walking close to the shore. They were being quite casual but they looked armed as well. Finishing up his search quickly he grabbed a folded up map on detroit still wrapped in a clear plastic baggie, shoved it into the inner pocket of his white suit jacket and then took Sandra's hand. "Good looking out, dear. Let's go." he said, approaching the winding entrance to the tunnel.

It started to get dark inside the tunnel almost immediately but the light produced from the entrances at either end provided at least some form of guidance. Thomas was glad because he didn't want to waste any more battery on his flashlight than he needed to. And, thankfully, the infected didn't seem to have made any sort of move on the tunnel.

"You're being very brave, dear. I'm glad you're getting over your-..." Thomas started but was interrupted by a feeling of overwhelming vertigo just before feeling the cold cement floor touch his chest.

"Dad?" Sandra yelled.

"I'm quite alright, dear. I just stumbled." Before Thomas stood up he reached into his backpack's side pocket to grab the long silver mag-light and press the black rubber button located roughly halfway down the length of it. As the light flicked on Thomas found his glasses quickly and pushed himself up to his feet. Looking over at his daughter he noticed a look of unmistakeable horror in her eyes. Confused, he looked down to find that he had stumbled over the ragged body of a long-gone clicker. The fungus growing out of it's skull was wilted and brown, and it looked as though its body had been contorted into some very uncomfortable position before death. He stepped back toward Sandra and put a hand on her, then shined his light forward.

The tunnel floor was littered with the corpses of seemingly infected corpses. "Don't look dear." Was all he could tell her. He wouldn't be able to tie Sandra's sling on and adjust his backpack in the dark of the tunnel, and he didn't want to force his daughter to remain in this frightening hole any longer than he had to. Instead he walked her over to the side of the tunnel. "Keep your hand on the wall so you don't get lost, and keep your eyes off the floor." he told her, and she obeyed. As they walked through the tunnel Thomas shined the light around, he saw more infected and at one point a dead, non-infected, person. It would have been better to loot his body but Thomas decided not to make Sandra stand around and wait for him to perform some potentially fruitless search; so they continued on toward the light at the end of the tunnel.