11 years ago.

Cathy's eyes were red and puffy from crying when she walked up to her father with the dead bird in her hand. "Dad, Milo isn't singing anymore." She held out her little hands in which a little blue breasted weaver lay still, his feathers seemingly had lost their luster, and his unblinking eye stared right back into your soul.

Cathy's father regarded her with a look of sympathy. The same look he gave her when she came back with scabby knees from the playground.

He had been reading the newspaper at the kitchen counter when his daughter came up to him with tears running down her chubby face. "It's okay, honey." Dad said. He is at peace, I assure you."

"Is this what you'd talked about?" she said. "Is this...what death is? When birds stop singing?"

Dad folded the newspaper and put it aside. "First let's put Milo to rest," he said. "I'll explain it to you then." He got up from the stool by the counter and led his daughter out into the backyard. "Let's put Milo next to the roses."

Cathy nodded, sniffling. She brought the trowel from the garage and a little piece of wood and a thick pointed marker.

"Death is a part of life, Cathy. It is not the end of anything." Her dad started to dig the earth beside the bed of roses by the fence. "Nothing ever ends completely unless we forget it. Unless every last memory of it disappears from the mind of anyone who cared." It took him a few minutes to dig a hole that was about six inches deep.

Cathy gently lay Milo within the small pit. She folded his wings across his blue breast and touched his tiny green beak one last time before pulling back. She was about to smother him with the soil again when her dad stopped her. "You forgot this." He waved a purple flower of rosemary at her.

Cathy's lips formed a little 'O' and she nodded. She put the flower on Milo's still body. Then they started to fill the grave. "Why do we put rosemary with the dead, Cathy?" dad asked her. "I'd told you, remember?"

Cathy nodded again. "Rosemary is remembrance. It is to let Milo know that we will always remember him."

Dad ruffled her hair. "Good girl."

Once they'd buried Milo next to the roses, they both joined their hands and dad said the prayer, "Whatever came from this earth, goes back to it after death. May your bones become the soil that we walk on so that we can feel your gentle touch everyday. And may your breath become the air that whispers around us. So that we may hear you even when you are gone. Bless you, Milo."

"Bless you, Milo."

Then Cathy scrawled Milo's name on the piece of wood with the marker and stabbed the wood into the earth by his grave. The little wooden headstone read: Milo (a best friend and the prettiest blue weaver).

Cathy's dad smiled down at her. "Cat, don't ever forget Milo," he said. "That's when Milo will really die."

Cathy wiped her tears and shook her head. "I won't. I put the rosemary on his wing. I'll never forget him. I'll never--"

###

"--let him die..." Cathy mumbled in her sleep. Lisa gasped. She paused from cleaning up the wound on Cathy's chest.

"Honey?" Lisa stroked the girl's hair. "Are you awake? Talk to me. Please?"

"Don't stop cleaning the wound," the man in the plexiglass helmet said. He was sitting in the opposite corner of the armored truck. His rifle was resting across his lap. "You wouldn't want it to be infected now, would you?"

Lisa frowned and went back to cleaning the cut on Cathy's chest. Almost dousing it with peroxide. Hoping that the windshield that had stabbed the girl wasn't contaminated with the virus. Hoping that the disinfectant would be enough to cleanse it. After she was satisfied, she covered the wound with gauze and cotton and then covered Cathy's bare torso with one of the kevlar suits like a blanket.

"She's been mumbling since she passed out," Lisa said with a worried grimace. "I-Is she...slipping into the dream stage?"

"It might just be delirium. Hit her head, didn't she?" the man said.

"She is so pale. "

"She lost a lot of blood."

"She also has a fever."

"Can be septicemia." The man shrugged. "She might just need some antibiotics to fix her up."

Lisa shook her head, feeling more and more anxious by the minute for Cathy. "The symptoms can mean anything. They can be the virus--"

"Or they can just be something curable," the man interrupted.

Lisa hoped it was the latter and wiped the perspiration off the girl's brow before leaning back against the inner wall of the truck. The rain kept pouring outside. The sound of the raindrops pelting the surface was like machine gun spray. The crack of thunder was an e.m.f pulse. And each time the shower hit something, there was the low hissing sound that cooking oil makes when you lower moist meat into it.

Everything burned. Everything burned outside except for the truck they were in. Lisa felt like she was on some drug. It was like watching the world through glasses of lucidity which could only see so far. And beyond that line of vision was where things stopped making any sense.

"Why isn't the rain hurting us?" she asked the man who was sitting opposite to them.

He raised his head and regarded her (with curiosity, Lisa assumed). "Aren't you more happy that we are still alive?" he asked.

Lisa let out a sigh, frowning. "I'm still confused though. About several things."

"Things other than the rain itself?" he said. Lisa imagined him smirking underneath that helmet.

Still frowning, she said, "Why did you do it? Why did you help us?"

The man turned his head, looked at the wall dividing the front seats and the back chassis of the truck. Lisa stared at him for a long time before realizing that she might not be getting any answers any time soon. She looked down at Cathy and stroked her hair. She was just as afraid for the girl's life as she had been a few hours ago, when the glass pierced her chest, when the blood poured out, when the operatives descended from the armored truck, ready to fill their bodies full of lead...

###

Two hours ago.

"Cathy!" Lisa screamed when the shard of windshield stabbed into the girl's chest. The front of her t-shirt turned red and damp as she sank back in her seat, gasping under her gas mask.

Without thinking twice Lisa yanked the piece of glass out of the girl's chest. I have to cover the wound, she thought, the air...the air is too dangerous for her!

Cathy kept gasping as Lisa tore a rag of her jacket and pressed it against the ever spreading red on Cathy's shirt. Her chest kept rising and falling at a terrifying pace. Her eyelids were fluttering up and down as if uncertain whether to allow vision or not.

"Cathy, honey, please stay awake!" Lisa mumbled frantically, pressing harder on the wound. "Please, dear, don't leave me alone! Not you too!"

Thunder crackled in the sky. The purple clouds had gotten thicker. And the operatives were already dismounting from the truck, rifles in hand.

Lisa didn't care. She was too busy worried for Cathy's life, trying to keep the girl from falling unconscious.

"What should we do with them?" one of the operatives said. They were right outside the car, surrounding the vehicle from all sides. Almost a dozen of them.

"You know the new orders," another voice said. "We can't let them get away."

"But, Marcus, the woman is pregnant!" the first voice said. "And the other one is almost dead!"

"You think I give a damn, Larry?!" the operative named Marcus snapped. "I know that I'm not gonna go against the orders."

"Don't be so heartless, Marcus," Larry said. "You have a wife and daughter of your own!"

"Exactly! And I don't wanna risk them getting kicked out of the quarters by failing to follow the order!"

"But she is pregnant, Marcus!"

"Jeez, Larry!" a third voice snapped. "You know if we let these chicks off, we lose our uniforms and our families starve to death!"

Another clap of thunder. Yellow lightning tore a crack in the purple sky.

Lisa's mind was already foggy from fear. She wasn't even paying any attention to the bickering men outside.

"Alright, I've had enough of this humanity crap!" Marcus growled and raised his rifle at the women in the car. "I'm not gonna risk my own family for strangers I don't even know!" Sweating under his plexiglass helmet, he put his finger on the trigger--

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ten single shots. Point blank. Ten of the twelve operatives lay still on the ground, bleeding out of the bullet holes in their helmet. Crimson turned black as it seeped into the tarmac.

"Aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!" A wheezing squeal tore through the deserted street in terror. Larry's terrified gaze passed over the corpses of his fallen squad-mates. And he was the last one left. Last one except for the shooter.

There was another clap of thunder.

Larry turned to the killer. Yellow lightning threw one brief flash on the murderer dressed as an operative. His nametag illuminated once in the yellow brightness: Marllowe.

"Y-You..." Larry stuttered. "Y-You aren't Marllowe, are you?"

The man wearing Marllowe's uniform just stared at Larry, who was backtracking with trembling feet. The dark plexiglass helmets were obscuring the faces of both men. But it was clear, which one among them was a cornered rat, and which one the snake.

Marllowe's imposter raised his rifle, his sight set on Larry.

Larry squealed again. "D-Don't! I-I was the one trying to stop the others from killing the women!" he cried out. "I'm the good guy!"

"I bet it sucks for you to be one right now."

Larry fumbled with his rifle but--

Bang!

Larry was the eleventh one down. More thunder rolled across the sky. More yellow lightning. Big black shadows flashed across the road before disappearing in the darkness.

The guy in Marllowe's uniform made his way towards the car wreck in which Lisa and Cathy were trapped. "You should get in the truck," he said to them. "It seems like it's gonna rain any minute now."

###

"Did you know about the rain?" she asked Marllowe.

Marllowe said nothing.

"I'm gonna presume you did," she said. "It can just be a coincidence but you told us to get in the truck. You knew that somehow the truck could withstand the rain. I don't get why you did it though?"

"Be happy that you're alive, Mrs. Neville," he said. "There's not much else to be happy about right now."

Lisa leaned back as if she had just been struck. The man in the helmet was right. There wasn't much else left for her. Richard was gone, she was in the middle of bringing another life into this world and the fear for Cathy's life was still very palpable. She probably had the loneliest, most miserable existence ahead of her, but for some reason, it felt oddly reassuring. At least she would still exist. If enough things went right, she would still have her baby. She may not get as lonely then, but it would still be terrifying to be worried for the little one all the time. Yet it would be better than loneliness. Anything would be better than loneliness in this world. Maybe even death.

Death brought her attention back to Cathy. She held her breath and pressed the back of her hand against Cathy's forehead. The skin was still blazing. And the girl still hadn't stopped mumbling.

Lisa put a damp handkerchief on Cathy's forehead and caressed her hair again. "Where are we gonna go?" she asked Marllowe.

The man decided to answer this time at least. "Sector 27," he said.

She raised an eyebrow. "27? That's too far from here," she said.

"That's where our friends are."

'Our', not just 'his'. That meant he counted Cathy and Lisa among his own. There was some reassurance in that too. That meant they won't die and it won't be lonely. She looked up at Marllowe's dark helmet and managed to give him a smile before saying, "I almost forgot to say this but...'thanks'. Thanks for--"

"Save it, Mrs. Neville." He raised a palm. "I'm not the good guy here. I still killed more people tonight than I saved. The last thing I want right now is a congratulations."

Lisa scowled. "Well, those people were about to kill me and Cathy. So you can't stop me from feeling grateful!"

Marllowe let out a sigh. The sound was fatigued, almost tortured. As if he was trying to lift a heavy stone. "Your welcome, I guess," he said at last.

Lisa's face softened with guilt. "They all...were family men, weren't they? I-I heard a bit of their argument."

"The fact that they had families doesn't erase the fact they were willing to kill you," he said. "And it doesn't make me any better than them because I saved you."

Lisa leaned back against the wall of the truck and sighed. "I guess then that doesn't make me any better than them either," she said. "I'm happy to be alive because they died in the first place."

Another tortured sigh escaped the dark helmet. "That's the last thing I want, Mrs. Neville," he said. "This rain is burning everything down outside. The last thing I want is to sit here and talk morals."

Lisa frowned. Before she could answer him, Cathy's hand gripped hers. More words escaped her trembling lips. These were a bit more comprehensible than the ones she spoke earlier.

Lisa leaned in to hear her. "R-Rosemary..." Cathy mumbled. "I-I...didn't put...rosemary on...dad..."