2021 UPDATED/EDITED CHAPTER

They never found another landline that worked. Not even a dial tone, just silence. It reached a point where Alana would simply tip the receivers off, let it snap down and dangle. No need to hold them up and wait to hear the silence she knew would be on the other end. Wilhelm hadn't bothered with comforting her. Much as both wanted that connection to back home, they knew it wasn't coming. One solemn look from Wilhelm was all Alana needed to know that they were truly on their own now. No time was wasted on tears or choked back sobs. There wasn't time for mourning in this world now. Only survival.

Six months into the outbreak and they had been lucky. Seemed like the longer they remained alive, the lower the chances of them crossing paths with other survivors. At the start, everything was chaotic. People were chaotic. They were going about their daily lives and then an incident would occur, make the news. Next day would be the same. Then the incidents were happening everywhere. In those early days it wasn't uncommon for random strangers to band together, all running to escape, rushing to loot supplies, finding modes of transportation. Alana had supposed it made sense; it always seemed that in the face of abrupt chaos, people banded together to get through it. Hurricanes, earthquakes, a detonation in a city square. But this time the chaos just kept going and that unity amongst people began to dry out.

They had practiced, what they would do if and when they encountered others. There was safety in numbers, but also danger. Wilhelm had tried his hardest to keep them on their own. Sometimes they'd cross paths with a small group—maybe four or so people. Frightened. They'd hole up in a random building, all in the same room. Wilhelm and Alana would wait till everyone had fallen asleep, feigning to volunteer to remain awake and keep a watch for trouble. As quietly as they had appeared, they would disappear. Wilhelm always left something behind for the others. Cans of food, water, binoculars. He and Alana were always gathering multiples of particular items. Leaving these things behind for the groups they crossed paths with 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. The act was not easy on either sibling. It really was true, how children looked up at you with doe-like eyes, scared out of their minds and seeking your help. Pulled at and made a tangled mess of your heartstrings. Nevertheless, Wilhelm and Alana had to stick to their plan. To survive. And if they were going to do that, they needed only the essentials. Each other. The longer they survived, the more they would need each other as people become more and more desperate.

WDWDWDWD

Alana chucked the iPod out the window. After a solid three hours it had died. She wasn't too upset; she could only take so much of 2000's pop and emo before losing her mind. She had a charging cord for it, but again, she had no interest in repeating the musical talents of the past few hours. When she had begun mumbling Welcome to the Black Parade while she and Wilhelm were scavenging Alana knew it was time to call it quits.

The highway was clear as far as they see ahead of them. A pleasant sight. The heat though, that was as welcomed. Wilhelm could never remember it being this hot back home. All the windows were rolled down on the little Honda Accord. No air conditioning, just ate up the gas faster. They took it slow on the road, no need to be hasty, not with five jugs of gasoline in the trunk. The backseat was filled with four decently sized packs. Stuffed with everything they'd need to survive.

The first pack consisted of clothing, two tents, blankets. Stuffed in the middle were bathroom amenities; shampoo, soap, lotion, sun block, toothpaste, nail clippers, wipes. Pack number two was filled with food. The majority of it being jerky. Numerous bottles of water, a couple of sodas. Alana had discovered the drink Big Red in Texas and had since been on the hunt for more. Currently she had three. Everyday she'd take a sip. There were cans of soup, beans, vegetables, fruit. They had a small duo pot and pan as well. Ramen Noodles and MRE's were reserved for eating every three days. Pack three was lined with thick towels, being reserved for guns. Wilhelm and Alana knew the names of most of them. Others they just knew which end to not point at themselves. The bottom of the pack was filled with clips and boxes of ammo. They had a couple flares, used only when a distraction was needed. Alana had been keeping an eye out for fireworks, but had so far not come across any. There were also two pairs of night vision binoculars. Alana enjoyed wearing those. Reminded her of Jurassic Park. Recently she had added three tubes of bolts to the bag. They had stopped at a small hunting store in the middle of nowhere and there looking down at her from a wall display was a crossbow. She had no clue how to use it, but it was there, was quiet compared to a gun, so she took it. Stuffed the three tubes with bolts; figured she'd sort through them at some point, find out which ones worked. The last pack was most important. It had, as she joked, the silent killers. Two baseball bats, hunting knife sets, two hand axes, four machetes of differing sizes, compact shovel, sharpening kits, and various hand knives. And a box of nails for a splintered third bat. Wilhelm had the idea of sticking the nails into it. He grabbed them as the previous owner of the random backwoods store came lunging at him, half his face torn off. Wilhelm had stepped aside, pushing the former man to the floor before crushing his head in with the heel of his boot. On the way out of the store he'd seen Alana cradling a handful of steel stakes.

"I'll be Buffy, you can be Xander," she'd told him. Wilhelm figured it wasn't too bad a choice, at least Xander survived the series.

"We should try to find one of those little players. For movies. It'll pass the time," Wilhelm suggested not even twenty minutes after Alana had tossed the iPod.

"Would it already be charged?" Alana asked from the passenger seat, feet propped up on the dash.

Wilhelm shrugged, squinting his eyes at the sun as the road curved. "Maybe we could find another car, let it charge for a while."

"What movies would we get?" contemplated Alana.

Wilhelm chuckled, "Long ones."

Alana laughed. "Director's Cut."

The car became silent as the conversation died down. 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. He had pale blue eyes, a tired blue, but always alert, waiting for that thing in the corner of his eye to pop out. His face was getting scruffy. He'd tossed out an electric razor he had found when it died a week ago. He was currently on the lookout for shaving cream and razors.

"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. Seeing the sunglasses on Wilhelm reminded Alana of a U2 song; they were overtly large and rounded.

Alana drifted off to a short nap, the buzz of the wind sweeping through her ears to lull her asleep. She was much shorter than her brother and features softer. Her hair appeared almost black at times, when the sun hit it just right. She inherited her mother's eyes, always wide, taking everything in. Wilhelm had always envied her grey eyes, like the sky before a storm and vibrant. She was an opposite to Wilhelm visually, but in life had followed after him, having joined the German army. Bundeswehr. Federal Defense Forces of Germany. They were the fourth generation in the family to go into the military.

Alana had just finished a stint and as a present Wilhelm had decided they would travel across the United States together. She had completed training in the medical field before transferring to the Heer to serve under Wilhelm. She went through the same training as he did, expectations piled upon her. 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 during a training exercise. For the particular unit they joined, a week into bootcamp they were dropped off by helicopter and left to fend for themselves for seven days. After returning to base for a week, they were dropped off again. This time for fourteen days. To graduate at the end they were dropped fifty miles away from the main base and had to find their way back. The land in between was riddled with obstacles and traps. Wilhelm had been the first of his group to make it back to base. Alana was the first of hers.

Wilhelm reached over and pulled a map from Alana's loose hands she'd woken up and began looking at. He slowed down so he could look at it himself, though there really wasn't any need to. No traffic to worry about. They had a large atlas as well as numerous maps for each state they had been through. There were X's over various roads and highways. Dead ends. Comments were scattered 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 hated 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 and Alana slipped out of the car. He casually opened the back door to grab a pair of binoculars and a sniper rifle. He fitted a silencer on as he made his way down the road. Alana remained by the car, pistol in hand. Her eyes were moving constantly left, front, right, behind over and over. Reaching the peak of the hill Wilhelm slowed down, binoculars up. Scanning the horizon he chuckled.

He motioned for Alana to follow after 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. He looked 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 as the road eventually curved up ahead.

"If we drive along the side, I think we can make it through," Wilhelm told Alana.

Alana shielded her eyes from the sun. "How far does it go for?"

"Can't tell, far as the eye can see, at the least." Wilhelm jumped down from van and reached the car. Returning to the map he studied it. It was littered with X's. There were a couple of backroads they could try. Also a handful of side roads they could turn around and take. While these country backroads could be a blessing, the one hiccup was having every local know about them. And many were scattered on those backroads, waiting for a meal to come by.

The two decided to give it try on getting through the abandoned cars. Alana took the driver's seat, easing the Honda through. Here and there a car would be just in the way and she'd have to push past it. At various parts hugging the side of the road wasn't an option as there'd be too sharp a dropoff from the pavement. A couple of the dead appeared from the cars around them every now and then. Wilhelm would hop out from the passenger seat to take care of them, carrying 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. The path had become too constricted, they'd have to move cars out of the way to keep moving. Alana killed the engine and stepped out from behind the wheel. She'd begun walking towards the nearest car when she quickly stopped still. She stared off towards 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 of their car, binoculars up. Alana looked to him, waiting. He shook his head.

"Too far back," he told her. He turned to the road ahead and looked. Suddenly the low hum they'd turned their ears to rumbled into the backfiring of an engine. Their heads snapped to the road behind them.

"Motorbike," Alana instantlty said. She didn't think it could have been following behind them, not with the time they'd spent stalled trying to get through the cars. It must have come from a side road.

The noise was still far enough away, it had yet to begin growing louder. They worked quickly to stuff the loose items and supplies in the packs. Tossing them to the side, Wilhelm and Alana moved to one side of the car and began working on tipping it over. Tossing the packs on their backs then, the two made their way off the road and into the woods that encapsulated them. There was plenty of brush and so it only took seconds to hide the packs and themselves. Wilhelm grabbed two rifles, tossing one to Alana along with binoculars, then began looking for trees they could easily climb. Both kept turning back to the road, wanting to keep a line of sight.

They were perhaps a hundred feet from the road when the noise grew to its loudest and a motorcycle came into view, halting next to their car.

Will have another chapter up later today, cheers!