Chapter 1.
	November 22nd, 1989. The day the world fell down.
	The unit had rolled across Western Germany over the past week, burning diesel and time and cigarettes. The tired and unbathed soldiers waved at the pretty frauleins on the German streets and when they stopped drank contraband liquor and played cards until it was time to keep driving. Here was a German town the name of which they couldn't pronounce, the site of another nameless comms center and depot. They had stopped here as they had stopped at any other, to refuel and eat a real meal and restock on cartons of Marlboros and Camels and MREs. It was partially cloudy. Light rain throughout the day, with highs in the low 30s and lows in the mid 10s. They huddled against the cold, leaned against their vehicles. Nichols was unused to it, having been in Europe only a few quick, short months. From Texas, the coldest he could remember was 20 degrees ago and maybe that one time it snowed for an hour in Dallas back when he was 10 visiting his grandmother before she died of kidney failure on a casino floor and proceeded to shit herself and the woman at the slot machine next to her. 
	His mind was brought back to the at-hand by the sounds of an air-raid siren, and the realization that the stragglers outside the depot gate had become a crowd, a crowd that was slowly becoming a rioting mob. Situational awareness - where did that go?
	His squad leader came around the corner, murmured to a team leader, who then turned and murmured to the guy closest to him, who proceeded to pass it to the next two guys, one of them being Nichols. The message was essentially this: "Shit's going down, charge your weapon and get your mask ready. Don't put it on yet and don't make it extremely obvious what you're doing."
	A distant rumble. Radio static, then silence. Screaming. Confusion. Gunfire. Breaking glass as a molotov exploded across the top of the armored vehicle he leaned against. The M16 in his hands barking at the crowd 60 meters away across the parking lot. The magazine coming up from the ALICE pouch. Someone pointing towards a building and yelling for him to go. The hallway. A blur of M81 woodland camouflage. Tripping over an overturned something. Boots. Someone helping him up by his web gear. A left turn down a stairwell. Pushing. Two soldiers in dress uniform in a pushing match, one of them holding a Remington 870. The sound of the 870 going off underneath the other one's head as they passed. Another left. A right turn. Stragglers now. Gunfire. 10 of them. One trips, the three behind him vault or step over and onto him. One chokes out an obscenity and a spray of blood. Eight. The one in the rear pushes the one immediately in front of him out of the way and over a railing. That one jumps a rolling cart and is knocked out cold by a low hanging pipe. Six. These find the door and bolt it shut. Darkness. Buddy, you got a light? No man, a Zippo. A Bic. Not your flashlight. Thanks.  

	Here he had been biding his time. He and five other soldiers - three females, two males - had sheltered here during the world's collapse. A stock of dried food and MREs was found in a closet, enough for two months for one person. They made do the best they could, but within weeks they began eyeing each other the way the Grenztruppen had eyed them - as threats. 
	One night, Nichols awoke to the sounds of panting and squealing. He came across his two fellow soldiers laid on the floor, between them the dying form of one of the females, her arms chewed to nubs, ribs exposed, one eye dangling loosely from its socket. She was alive, barely, but alive enough to feel the pain of what her comrades were doing to her. From somewhere within, past the sympathy, the confusion, the shock of what he was seeing, Nichols felt a bright, burning, hating, red ball of rage in his chest. 
	Three .45 caliber shell casings struck the wall to his right. One of them landed in a pool of fluids, another behind a cabinet, and one landed in the hood of his parka. He would later find it when laying down to sleep and, any sentiment long since gone, he would shake it out of his clothes and discard it to the dark floor. 
	His ears rung. The three stacked bodies twitched. The lower rapist was dead, his feet giving the occasional jolt. One round struck just above his right eye, warping his face into an almost unrecognizable maw. Another had entered just below his kidneys, the wound bubbling with a dark crimson that was almost black in the light from a small gas lantern. 
	The higher one had received the round to his jaw. He was alive, and had Nichols felt inclined to pull the man from the ravaged woman's lower bowels and perform medical aid, would have gone on to live a short life of slow agony and regret, his face deformed, his ability to speak, even eat hindered forever. His left eye, green and darting, centered on Nichols. A tear rolled. Nichols pulled him from the woman's back and with one arm threw him into a corner.
	 A metal prybar leaned in the corner next to the cabinet where behind the .45 ACP casing would remain presumably until the end of time. Nichols retrieved the bar and struck the other side of the jaw, in what would have appeared a barbaric and rushed way to right it. The man let a scream of pain and a cry for what could have been either "mama please" or "motherfucker." Another blow to his exposed genitalia. A popping noise was heard, and another stream added to the pooling on the floor. A left boot to the man's trachea, another across to his temple, and a swing of the bar down onto the top of his skull, and the light left his bloodshot eyes. 
	Nichols turned to the woman, naked and ripped, her BDU trousers at her ankles. She had a look of a wounded animal. Her eyes betrayed her thoughts, which were instinctual: Fight. Escape. Pain. Death. Nichols made to comfort her, his hand going to her face. She jerked away from him and her eyes narrowed, her bruised and broken left arm attempting to rise towards him before falling. 
	He wrapped her in a bedsheet and lifted her, as tenderly as he could. This earned a low whine of pain. He carried her into the nearest bathroom and sat her in the floor of the shower. His hands ran through her dark, blood matted hair, her brown eyes fluttering and staring both at him and into nothingness. The words of a song his mother sang found him, which he half-sang, half hummed lowly to her, barely an echo reporting back across the tile floor. What was her name? Martinez? Gonzalez? Something he said everyday but at this point escaped him. Her lack of a uniform blouse offered no hints as to her name. Maybe five minutes had passed, and she was exiting this world slowly and painfully. His left hand slid down over her eyes. Another whimper. He gently sh'd her and kept singing. The muzzle of the 1911 still in his hand came under her chin, and once more the report was heard. The ringing of his ears let go to silence. He leaned back against the wall, his face in his bloodied hand, and slept. 

	
	Two other soldiers, both females, remained in the bunker. One was a slender young black mechanic from Alabama, Private Rebecca Jackson. She had joined up after high school on her father's recommendation, as well as his promises that it wouldn't be anything like what he had gone through in Vietnam. A college education and a way out of a small, nameless town in Alabama where the Klan wasn't technically officially endorsed by the Sheriff's department, which still seemed less than enthusiastic in investigating the dark young men found beaten and robbed on the side of the road, or the occasional little girl that went missing once or twice a year. 
	Nichols was fond of Jackson, Jackson who smoked a lot and kept the generators running and sang hymns in the shower. Jackson who never bloused her boots and wore her hair down and her shirt untucked. Jackson who frequently cleaned Nichols out at poker and would usually slide him half the Jack Daniels or Marlboros he owed her back to him under the table with a wink. Jackson, who woke up in the night promising mama she would come home, she would come home soon and they could have Thanksgiving and Christmas like they had planned, and everything would be normal, no riots, no bombs, no cold, dark bunker hundreds of feet below the earth. 
	Then there was McDonald. McDonald was an overweight third generation Irish-American clerk. A Sergeant, she frequently attempted to order the other inhabitants of the bunker to give up their food, cigarettes, bedding, or personal items. She had already been in several physical altercations with Jackson and the late Ramirez, and Nichols made every attempt to avoid her like the plague. 
	One night, a little over a week after the cannibalistic rape discovered in an empty room down the hall, Nichols felt a heavy pressure on his chest and abdomen, and snapped awake to find McDonald's huge green eyes staring into his, her rancid breath choking him almost as bad as the weight of her massive gut crushing his lungs. He managed to choke out a loud cry for her to "GEDOFFAME," which earned him a pudgy hand clamped over his mouth. Jackson, hearing this, woke up and rolled off her top bunk across from them and began attempting to remove McDonald. McDonald turned and shoved her onto the floor, which gave Nichols the room he needed to push her away from him. McDonald's head hit the steel frame of the upper bunk with a resounding crack. She collapsed onto Nichols' chest and the light left her eyes. Jackson helped him roll her body off of him. She was wrapped in a sheet and drug down the hall to the unused shower with the three other bodies. 
	After depositing the heavy corpse in its tomb, they slumped into two folding chairs by the card table in their room. Jackson produced a fifth of whiskey from her footlocker, and they each lit a cigarette. 
	After a moment she spoke. "Sorry to be such a cockblock, Bryan."
	"Don't sweat it, Becky. She wasn't my type, anyway."
	They took a few shots and finished their cigarettes. Jackson slipped her pants off and grabbed Nichols' hand, leading him towards his bunk. 
	

	One morning (which for them meant around 1300) a few weeks later they talked over a cold breakfast of MREs. It was Monday.
	"Becky. You know we can't stay here, right?"
	"I've thought about that. Purified water supply is low, and we're down to about a dozen MREs. If we each ate one a day we'd be out by Saturday."
	"My biggest concern is topside. We don't know what's out there, if it's safe, or where to go once we get out."
	"Rammstein was the contingency evacuation center. We are a few miles southeast of Wurzburg. By foot Rammstein is about a three days' walk, and it could take up to a week if we run into trouble. Roads will probably still be clogged from abandoned cars, and EMP probably knocked out any running vehicles."
	"Rammstein was also one of the priority targets in the event of nuclear exchange, Beck. We don't even know if it's still there."
	"Well if you have a better idea, then let's hear it."
	Nichols rose and went to a cabinet, digging around through a drawer before finding a road atlas. 
	"We can take 47 west to cross the Rhine at Worms. We're short on food but canned goods in the area should still be edible. We'll have to purify water as well. Let's start making a list. Ideally we can leave Wednesday morning."
	They began taking inventory. They each had an M16A1. Nichols, a machinegunner, was also issued a 1911. Jackson had a Smith and Wesson M10 in her belt. Something her dad had given her, knowing what his time in Europe was like twenty years prior before being sent to the A Shau Valley to machine gun the Viet Cong from the side of a helicopter. This had been his duty gun.
	They each would carry an ALICE pack with food, bedding, ammunition, water, and a change of clothes. Their webgear carried six magazines, two canteens of water, a compass, and a first aid kit. 
	Finally night came and they attempted to sleep, their minds racing over the next day. Nichols, after what seemed like an hour or more, rolled out of bed and slid into Jackson's bunk, holding himself above her as she pretended to sleep face down. He slid a hand into her panties and pushed her against him. She sighed and ground herself against his crotch. She lay still as her panties were pulled to her knees, then winced as Nichols slid into her from behind. Her steady breathing soon turned to low, stifled moans. After exhausting themselves, sleep reluctantly met them.
	
	The next morning they collected food and medical supplies, distributing it between themselves. Water purification tablets, emergency first aid kits, antibiotics, morphine, and anti-radiation pills were carried in pockets and rucksacks. 
	They checked rucks and  weapons, and then checked them again. Jackson's .38 was worn, the bluing covering perhaps 40% of the frame, the mahogany grip that was once an expensive piece of craftsmanship was chipped and gashed. The bore and cylinder, however, were pristine, the rifling prominent and bright. This gun had been places. 
	Nichols' 1911, on the other hand, was nearly new - this was astonishing considering the Army's 1911s were World War era stock. He had fired it a handful of times in training, and imagined he was one of very few that had carried this weapon. Curiously, the gun lacked the engraving identifying it as US Army property. It was blued, as opposed to the parkarized finish used on military Colts. The roll marks on the left side of the slide did not show the rearing horse, instead reading "COLT'S PT.F.A MFG. CO. HARTFORD, CT, U.S.A." It was a curiousity that this weapon appeared to be a civilian private purchase, somehow in Army inventory. 
	The M16 he carried was decent enough for its age. The receiver was worn to a light grey after years of use, faint traces of the autoprimer finish still visible, the kind of wear only seen from guns that have spent years in the jungle. All the same, the internals - trigger mechanism, sear, bolt carrier group - all appeared to be in good shape, if a bit aged. The barrel was perhaps midway through its service life. He regretted that he had chosen to keep the M60 in the track, but was thankful that he only had the lightweight M16A1 to carry. He had been issued both, standard operating procedure being to leave the rifle in the track as a backup, and at times to carry both weapons when on lengthier patrols. It was stupid, of course, but that was what he had come to understand about the Guard in his year and a half of bi-monthly drills. 
	Rucksacks carried weight higher on the shoulders, the idea being that if they were at the bottom of the bag it would cause undo stress on the spine and unbalance the user. A change of clothes, socks, and the MOPP suit were stacked from bottom to top, followed by MREs and canned good, and then two bandoleers of magazines rolled up neatly on top for easy access. The outer pockets held first aid, more magazines, and assorted small items. Atop the rucksack the Modular Sleep System was laced into the straps, and the "puss pad," a foam sleeping mat designed to insulate the user from the cold ground, was similarly tied to the bottom. Along the sides of the packs was webbing used to attach canteens and entrenching tools.
	Web gear consisted of LC-2 Y-suspenders and ALICE belts, two magazine pouches carrying three 30 round magazines each, two 1 quart canteens, and a gas mask bag. Nichols' gear also included two pouches for pistol mags. He was issued an M7 shoulder holster for his 1911. Jackson had a battered leather concealment holster for her M10, and two speedloader pouches that had been custom tailored (in this case the work appeared to have been done by an amateur in a garage with more beer than skill) to fit an ALICE belt. Although it appeared shoddy, the stitching that allowed the slide keepers to slide into the back of the pouches was considerably well done, and they held firm.
	At 0900, Jackson excused herself to go to the latrine. After a lengthy absence, Nichols found her laid next to a toilet,  vomit across the front of her shirt. She hacked and Nichols' felt the warmth of blood droplets on his face.
	Bryan..." she managed to whisper, her voice cracking as she started to cry. He knelt by her and elevated her head. He wasn't sure what to do or say. She hadn't appeared sick, but had been going to the restroom often. She had thrown up once in the night a few days ago, but wrote it off to expired food. 
	"Bring this...bring this to my dad...please..." she said, handing him her .38 and closing her eyes. 
	He didn't say anything. Didn't shake her and ask her to wake up. He held her for a while. After taking her magazines and water, he carried her into the other bathroom, now full of the stench of decay and blood. He laid her next to the bodies of the others and from her footlocker produced two whiskey bottles, one half full and the other unopened. He poured a can of kerosene onto their bodies, and lead a trail of it down the hallway, onto their beds, and into the immediate rooms of the bunker. An oily rag went into the mouth of the half full bottle, and the other he kept. Nichols hefted his ruck and stood peering into the open door of the bathroom. He lit the rag and tossed the bottle, which broke open on a urinal, the flame spreading to the kerosene and engulfing the room. He turned and unlocked a heavy steel door before him. A tunnel there lead to an escape hatch at the depot. 
	Nichols arrived at the end of the corridor. A button on a wall panel would bring an elevator. He pressed the button and waited, the mechanical groans of the machine echoing to him from above. The metal cage descended slowly, coming to rest in front of him. He stepped aboard and pressed a button on a similar panel. He lit a cigarette and double checked his equipment. A silent prayer crossed the darkness of his mind like the smoke from his Marlboro lazily floating in the dim light around him. 
	In the darkness below the earth, a light came from above. It illuminated the young, painted face of Private First Class Bryan Nichols, US III Corps, 1st Calvary Division, 1st Brigade, 3rd Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, Texas National Guard. He removed his boonie cap and donned the M17A1 gas mask that he was issued in another life, and checked the breach of his M16A1. Loaded. 55 grain M193. Every third round was a tracer. Nichols was a machine gunner in another life, and the habit had stuck. He didn't know why.