Thank you to jerseygirl9766 and guccileopardfor their reviews And thank you to alligator-blood!

Here's Chapter 2. Enjoy!

They never found another landline that worked. Not even a dial tone, just silence. It came to a point where Alana would simply tip the receiver off, let it snap down and dangle. No need to hold it up and wait to hear the silence she knew would be on the other end. Wilhelm hadn't bother with comforting her. One solemn look from him was all Alana needed to know that they were truly on their own now.

No time was wasted on tears or choked backed sobs. There wasn't time for mourning in this world now. Only survival.

Six months into this new world order and they had been lucky. Seemed like the longer they survived, the lower the chances dwindled of them crossing paths with someone who was like them. Alive.

They had practiced, what they would do if and when they encountered others. At the beginning it was the hardest. Wilhelm had told Alana they needed to stay on their own. Wasn't always easy though. Sometimes they'd meet up with a small group, maybe four people. All frightened. They'd hole up in a random building, all in the same room. Wilhelm and Alana would wait till everyone had fallen asleep. They would offer to keep watch. That was their cover. Their way out. As quietly as they showed up, they would disappear. Wilhelm always left something behind for the others. Can of food, water, binoculars. He and Alana were always gathering multiples of items they already had. Leaving something behind for the others was the only way they could atone for abandoning them.

But no amount of atonement could make up for when they'd leave women and children behind. It really way true, how children look up at your with doe-like eyes, scared out of their minds and looking to you for help. Alana believed it was harder on herself, leaving these people behind, but it was Wilhelm who saw Alana in every child's face.

Couldn't let it get to him though. Couldn't allow it to make him weak. They had a plan. To survive. If they were going to do that, they needed only the essentials. And that was each other. The longer they survived, the more they would need each other. People were becoming desperate.

Separate humans from humanity and it was easy to see just how similar we are to beasts.

Alana chucked the iPod out the window. After a solid 3 hours it had died. She wasn't too upset though; she could only take so much of Britney Spears and 3OH!3 before losing her mind. She had a charging cord for it, but again, she had no interest in repeating the musical talent of the past 3 hours.

The highway was clear as far as they could see. A pleasant sight to both. The heat though, that wasn't as welcomed. Wilhelm could never remember it being this hot back home. All the windows were rolled down on the little Honda Accord. No A/C, just ate up the gas faster. They took it slow on the road, no need to be hasty, not with the five jugs of gasoline in the trunk. The backseat was filled with four large packs. They were nearly as tall as Alana at just under 5 feet. Stuffed with everything they'd ever need to survive.

Pack one consisted of clothing, two tents, blankets, small pillows. Stuffed in the middle were bathroom amenities; shampoo, bars of soap, lotion, sun block, toothpaste, nail clippers Even toilet paper.

Pack two was filled with food. The majority of it was jerky. Numerous bottles of water, a couple of sodas. Alana had discovered Big Red in Texas and had since been on the lookout for more. She had three. Everyday she'd take one sip. There were cans of soup, beans, vegetables, fruit. They had a small pot and pan as well. Almost half the pack was stuffed with Ramen Noodles and MRE's. Wilhelm would share one pack with Alana every three days.

Pack three was lined with thick towels. Pack three was reserved for guns. Wilhelm knew the names of most of them. Others he just knew which end not to point at himself. The bottom of the pack was filled with clips and boxes of bullets. He made sure at the start that he and Alana knew which ammo went to which gun. They had a small amount of flares, used only when a distraction was needed. Alana had been keeping an eye out for fireworks, but so far had come across none in their scavenging. There were also four pairs of night vision binoculars. Alana enjoyed wearing those. Reminded her of Jurassic Park. Recently she had added three large tubes of arrows to the bag. They had stopped at a small hunting store in the middle of nowhere and there looking down at her was a crossbow. She had no idea how to use it, but it was there, so she took it. Stuffed three tubes full of arrows. Figured she's sort through them at some point, find out which ones worked with her new bow.

The last pack was most important. It had, as she joked, the silent killers in it. Each item was wrapped in a towel. Two baseball bats, one splintered baseball bat, hunting knife sets, two hand axes, four machetes, shovel, sharpening kits, and various hand knives. And a box of nails. Wilhelm had the idea of sticking some in the splintered bat. He had grabbed them as the previous owner of a random backwoods store came lunging at him, half his face torn off. Wilhelm had stepped aside, pushing the walker to the floor before crushing his head in with the heel of his boot. On the way out of the store that day he saw Alana cradling a handful of steel stakes.

"I'll be Buffy. You can be Xander," she had told him. Wilhelm figured it wasn't too bad a choice, at least Xander lived.

"We should try to find a…those little players. For movies. At an electronic store. It'll pass the time," Wilhelm suggested not even twenty minutes after Alana had tossed the iPod.

"Would it already be charged?"

Wilhelm shrugged, squinting his eyes at the sun. "Maybe. We could find another car, let it charge a while."

"What movies would we get?"

"Long ones."

Alana laughed. "Director's cut."

The car became silent again. Wilhelm tried to slouch in the seat, but he was too tall and wide to do so. He was the formidable German anyone with a stereotypical mindset would think of. His forehead was always wrinkled with lines, even when he wasn't scrunching his face up. His eyes were a pale blue, a tired blue, but always alert, waiting for that thing in the corner of his eye to pop out at him. His face was getting scruffy. Had to toss out an electric razor he'd found when it died last week. He was currently on the lookout for shaving cream and razors. He scratched at his head.

"Sunglasses?" he asked Alana.

She looked around her feet and picked up a pair. They were women's, but gender specifics wasn't something either worried about much anymore.

"Maybe we should look for CD's instead."

"In other cars."

"Yeah."

Alana drifted off to a short nap, the buzz of the wind sweeping through her ears. She was much shorter than her brother and her features softer. Her hair seemed almost black at times, when the sun hit it just right. She had their mother's eyes, always wide, taking everything in. Wilhelm always envied her for having mother's eyes, grey, like the sky before a storm. She was short, for her family, but it never stopped her from following her brother into the Bundeswehr, the Federal Defence Forces of Germany. Neither had wanted to join, but it was father's wish. Longer they survived, the more they appreciated that they had.

Alana had just finished her stint and as a present Wilhelm had decided they would travel across America together. He looked over at her sleeping. Could have been a doctor, he thought. She had completed the training before transferring to the Heer, army, to serve under him. She went through the same training as he did. He wouldn't admit it, but it was difficult, yelling at her group when they failed a mission. He always felt that he was yelling directly at her. And it wasn't easy, at the start, when he had to dump her in the woods, fifty miles from the nearest town. Part of their training. He had done it before her. One week into training they were dropped off by helicopter, left to fend for themselves for 7 days. After returning back to base for a week, they were dropped off again. This time for 14 days. To graduate from training they had to go back. And find their way to the small town, fifty miles away. He had been the first of his group to make it to the town. She was the first of her group.

Wilhelm reached over and pulled the map from Alana's loose hands. He slowed down so he could look at it, even though there was no need. No traffic to worry about. He hadn't bothered with looking at the names of the roads and highways. All he cared about was their location in reference cities. They had a large atlas as well as numerous maps for each state that they had been through. There were X's over various roads and highways. Dead ends. Comments were written here and there. Left side blocked. Bridge out. Dead.

Wilhelm sighed, stuffing the map in the door. They were coming up to a hill. He never liked hills. No clue what could be on the other side. He slowed down to a crawl, creeping as far up the hill as possible. Killing the engine he shook Alana. He pointed out and she nodded, knowing the routine. The both slipped out the car, Wilhelm casually opening the back door to grab a pair of binoculars and a sniper rifle from Pack #3. He fitted the silencer on as he made his way down the road. Alana had taken a seat behind the wheel, hand on the ignition, foot on the gas. She kept counting in her head, moving her eyes left, front, right, behind, left, front, right, behind.

Funny, it felt cooler outside than it did in the car. Probably just the air flowing through their clothes without the car to block it. They both had the same idea when things first went to hell. They stopped at a sporting goods store. Hunting department had been nearly wiped clean. But no one seemed to have had the sense to grab outdoors clothing. The grey material of their pants was light. Underneath their button up shirts they both wore UnderArmour Heat Gear.

Reaching the peak of the hill Wilhelm slowed down, binoculars up. Scanning the horizon he chuckled.

He motioned for Alana to follow in the car. Pulling up next to him she huffed at the sight.

Another graveyard of cars.

There was a turned over van not 100 feet ahead. Wilhelm jogged over to it and climbed atop it. He scanned back and forth across the horizon, looking for movement. There was none. It was difficult to see if there was a path through the vehicles.

"If we drive along the side, I think we can get through," he told Alana.

"How far?"

"Don't know. Far as the eye can see, at the least." Wilhelm jumped down and headed back. He reached into the car and pulled out the map. It was littered with X's. There were a couple of back roads they could try. Likely poorly maintained and every local had probably already tried them and were still there, waiting for a meal to come by. "KBO."

Alana huffed again. "Keep Buggering On."

Wilhelm climbed onto the roof of the car. It had a luggage rack and so he held on with one hand while he continued to look through the binoculars. Alana slowly moved the car down the road.

Here and there a car would be in the way and Alana would have to push past it. A couple of walkers appeared from the cars around them every now and then. Wilhelm would jump down from the roof to take care of them, taking one of the machetes with him.

Thirty minutes in and Alana stopped the car completely. Wilhelm was yanking the machete from the head of an elderly man, his large eyeglasses broken in two. The engine was quiet, but Wilhelm still noticed when Alana turned it off.

He looked up quickly and made his way back to her. She was leaning half her body out the window. She stared off into the woods, but wasn't looking for anything there. She was listening.

First her eyes, then her head turned to the road behind them. Wilhelm took a couple of steps forward. He climbed slowly up on the roof again, binoculars up. Alana looked up at him, waiting. He shook his head.

"Too far back." He turned to the road ahead and looked.

There was a rumble of backfiring and their heads snapped back behind them.

"Motorbike," Alana said instantly.

They quickly worked to stuff the loose items and supplies into the packs. Tossing them to the side he popped the hood. Pulling a pair of gloves from a pocket he got to work at removing the car battery. Alana joined him and together they tipped the car over.

They tossed packs on their backs and Wilhelm carried the other two in his arms. Alana held onto the binoculars, rifle, and machete. Jumping the rail they made their way into the woods.

There was plenty of brush and so it only took seconds to hide the packs. Wilhelm grabbed another rifle and then the two of them started looking for trees to climb up in.

They were 100 feet from the road when a motorcycle came to a halt next to their car.

Yay! Could this be who we think it is? Wonder if the German duo is about to be discovered. Be sure to leave reviews! I make sure to reply back to each one