Epilogue
Josh and Carol sat in the heated office. Blankets over their shoulders, warm coffee and a clean change of clothes comforted them. Patrice was in the next office being debriefed. He entered, the trio greeting one another with mournful smiles.
"Any word?" Carol asked quietly.
"Nothing yet." Patrice responded just as silently. "Rescue team should be returning soon." They sat in silence for several minutes.

The sound of a helicopter, similar to the one that extracted them from Mission Creek, could be heard landing outside. They all had hopeful looks on their faces as they looked up to one another. A rescue operative ran to their door and asked for Patrice to come with him.

Patrice knew what this meant, and silently came.

Josh and Carol were left again in silence for several minutes.
"So," Josh finally said, "how did you wind up getting left behind and your fiancé got to Mission without you?" Carol smirked.
"He took off at the first sign of trouble, didn't even wait for me."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Asshole."
"Yeah... I told myself I would break up with him if I made it through it all."
"Are you? I mean the other night in the safe house you were talking all lovey and shit."
"I was caught up in the moment, that was before we all started airing our dirty laundry. Yeah, he's so dumped, but I thought first I'd go to see him, make like I was going to hug him, then kick him in the nuts. I'll break up with him after that."
"Good plan." Josh smiled.

A soldier entered the room.
"Mr. Carter, Miss Xing." the soldier greeted them formally, then sat across from them. "The sergeant has identified what we found... I'm sorry, your friend is dead." Both felt the anguish, but neither felt surprise. "We found him in the woods." the soldier continued, "He damn near burned the whole thing down." He tried to make the death as heroic as possible. "A tank corpse was right next to his body, two more were deeper in the woods, they must have been caught in the fire that he set. Boomers, Hunters, Smokers... We're still waiting on the final body count, but for what it's worth, he took a hell of a lot of them with him."
"And he saved three." Josh pointed out, the soldier fumbled and agreed.
"Yes, that to." The soldier stood, saluted, and left the room.

"Well." Josh sighed, "I guess it's confirmed." He pulled out the folded paper given to him the day before. He opened it and read a simple message.

"Guys, thank you. I don't deserve friends, yet I was given the best three I could ever have. If you're reading this, then I'm dead, but don't mourn, please. You all gave me my life back, and for that I would gladly die for you all." Both their eyes welled up.

"I want the three of you to do me one last favour, however." the note continued, "Take a shovel and go to the Busy B gas station at the city limits of Rittina and Timmins Wharf. Go behind the station and head out into the woods about twenty feet, look for a mound of freshly dug soil and start digging.
Enjoy.
With love: Tom Jenson/Jake Delwin"