There isn't much of a grapevine left, but they put the word out on it anyway, because women will gossip no matter what. 8/19. Majerle's. Noon until there's no more alcohol. Bring stories.

The pros start showing up well before noon: Silver Stars and Comets with haunted expressions and deep black circles under their eyes, wide-eyed Lynx cubs in blue and green, Californians who have put aside their rivalry to arrive together in their different shades of purple, the Storm with unlined faces and deep green sweats, terrified Sky players paler than their pale blue. Diana buys drinks.

And then they tell stories.

Schuey, her once-clear blue eyes bloodshot and rubbed raw, voice scratchy and words choked: "Ebony- she tried to be tough, but she was such a good kid that it didn't work… Tan, you couldn't hold her still if you tried, we had to chase her around the locker room before her first game… I can say this now: Shameka suggested the hot pants, she said they'd show how long my legs are… and how did I forget the time when Tully…"

After an hour of holding court, when she can't talk anymore, Schuey turns the floor over to another Phoenix Kelly with Indiana ties. "Ebony liked to surprise people, and they were usually nice surprises, but there was this one time when… and you should have seen the look on Tully's face when she saw…"

And Vickie, variations on a theme. "Miko was so earnest, tryin' so hard to learn everything from everyone, and Sue and Spoon were such influences on her… and then K.B. looks at us like we're the crazy ones and says… Shameka wasn't ever happy with how we dressed, and one night Crystal took her aside and told her if she didn't lay off she was gonna… so Loree was in the weight room and we hear this crash, and she's got a look on her face like… I know most of y'all weren't around for 1998, but the first game of the season, Tully checked in for the first time, looked at me, smiled, and made me…"

Ruth, head bowed, pensive and quiet: "There was so much Swin wanted to do with her life, and I don't think she thought there were enough hours in the day, so she just kept going and going… when we were recruiting Jackie, okay, it didn't take much, she was so in awe of the blue and gold, like a kid in a candy store, and I'll never forget that look on her face… yeah, Elaine was rough, but if Tweety brought the dog around, forget it, she was a big old softie…"

When talk turns to the Silver Stars, to the reason why Ruth's here to talk about the Shock in the first place, Marie steps up to the plate, arms wrapped around herself, looking more shy and vulnerable than any of them have ever seen before. "I never saw anyone so passionate about what they did like Pee-Wee was, no one who loved being on the court more, no one who took more pride in playing the game… Katie tried so hard to understand the way the rest of us worked. She really was a good kid, never tried to force her beliefs on anyone, more than I can say for some, and she took so much abuse from people who didn't know her- if I'd been her, I don't think I could have taken it half as well as she did…"

Murriel, the Original Mystic, tries to speak, but neither she nor Chamique can form words. That's all right, though, because the way this league works, everyone knows someone.

"So this one time at band camp, Coco and I- okay, no, it wasn't band camp, but it should have been…"

"It was the last year in Cleveland, and I was wiped because the kids were crying all night, and Chas took one look at me, got the number of Suzie's babysitter, and took me for a full spa day because she said I needed something that was just for me. Wasn't even really her thing…"

"DeLisha saved my ass out there more times than I could ever count. Oh, don't look surprised, I know when I have good teammates, and she was one of the best. I don't know why she wanted to leave…" And there's something raw and shockingly human in Lisa's voice, in the hesitation between her words and the unfamiliar insecurity in her abnormal slouch, to the point where someone almost puts a hand on her shoulder to offer her comfort, but she's still Lisa and she remains inviolate.

Though there tend to be times when one player has the floor, they often interrupt each other, giving each other breaks, because there's always a moment to insert a Tully story, and somehow everyone has a Tully story. Basketball is like Kevin Bacon: six degrees, and often far fewer, of separation tie any of them to any other. Loyalties tangle- or now, perhaps things are in the past tense- and there are ties that no one ever thinks of.

Glasses empty. Diana buys more drinks. Dead silence falls over the room until Seimone raises her glass, and says, her voice choked, "To the best goddamn conference there ever was."

If anything, the silence thickens after the toast. No one wants to delve into this, not when Seimone's just thrown down half a glass of something alcoholic in one swallow and slammed the glass down on the table hard enough to break something- what, no one knows, but the echo of whatever broke hangs in the air, daring anyone, everyone, someone to overshadow it.

They haven't heard from Florida yet, and that's the scariest part of all. From most of the rest of the South, there have been Army reports, whether they like them or not, but no one's crossed the Florida border and lived to tell the tale. No one knows what's going on down there, if the entire state's gone undead or if they're just too trigger happy to notice life.

Sidney, her eyes ringed with deep circles and the webbing between her fingers raw red from jamming her hands together in prayer, looks up from whatever it is she's been drinking and murmurs, "Tennessee held the line. When it came down to the wire, Tennessee didn't give." She doesn't talk about the likely cost, about the lives that were lost when Tennessee sealed its borders and let no one, living or undead, cross them. The Volunteer State paid a high price, but its northern neighbors will be eternally grateful for its protection.

If Florida's lost, there's only one ACC school left. If Florida's gone, there's nothing left of the SEC except Vandy and Tennessee. The Big South is gone. Even some of the more spread-out conferences are down members; the Big East has lost West Virginia and Georgetown, Conference USA has lost UAB, the WAC has lost Louisiana Tech. Years, decades, of tradition are in ruins. The youngest players, those who came out of college this year or last or the year before, go quieter than the rest, because everything started to go wrong right before finals, the one time of the year when players couldn't leave campus for tournament tryouts.

Seimone brought up the SEC, and Seimone starts the college conversation, her soft drawl keeping her soft voice calm. She talks about Sylvia and Erica and the other girls, and Doneeka picks up where she leaves off, and Marie picks up where Doneeka leaves off. Armintie shares her Mississippi memories, which gets LaToya talking about Mississippi State and telling a couple of Tan stories that none of them have heard before. Christi's been quiet, but she and Kiesha are the only Bulldogs in the room and there's word from back east that there might not be too many Bulldogs left, so they take turns, but they both have to stop when they realize that Tasha's gone.

Into the quiet that falls, Camille inserts North Carolina stories, and Lindsey counters with Duke stories. Rivalries are dead, unable to rise again, unlike everything else. It feels like there are wedges in the room, and things don't work right. And if they don't have ex-teammates still at their schools, so many of them have former coaches who are gone now, legends of the game. It's hard to think of the scale. It's inconceivable.

So they all take their careful turns telling their own stories, and even those women who played together no longer interrupt each other to add details to each other's stories. They are individual bodies, moving through space like random particles, and the slightest collision could cause an explosion. Each woman wraps herself in her own form of grief, and the feeling descends on the group collectively as they come to grips with what they have lost. The hours continue to slip by, and the grapevine bears even more fruit. Collegians who never made it big drift through the doors, and they tell stories about those who have been forgotten. A Bearcat with a quiet calm describes K.B.'s freshman year. There's a Westerwind with memories of Zane's sweet smile and linguistic difficulties. Oregon sends a Duck, and Cathrine is remembered. One lonely flickering Flame, her eyes haunted and her drink virgin, talks about Katie's faith and the cross she wore over her heart, and none of them can find it in their hearts to make protest.

People come. People go. People stay. So many of them were strangers to each other, but no one who comes to Majerle's is leaving a stranger to anyone else.

Maybe it's the 20th, maybe it's the early hours of the 21st. The bar hasn't run out of alcohol yet, and Dan gets it, so if Dan gets it, no one else has a right to comment. Whenever it is, they have stayed together long enough that no one can be surprised when secrets start to slip out, the things they would never have said in public before, the things they'll never have to bother saying in public at all now. When Tangela talks about Miko, her voice is thick and choked, strangely intimate and sweet. Her tears are symmetrical on her beautiful face, composed as perfectly as a close-up or an ad campaign.

Lauren's just as beautiful, and if her grief is just as powerful, it seems less calculated. She rages at whatever caused the dead to rise and separated her from Sheri, tears and fury reddening and twisting her face, but when the anger is gone, she speaks softly. There are many things that no one in the room would have guessed about either of them, and she pours her heart out- maybe the beer helps, or maybe she's just kept so much bottled up inside for so long that the slightest thing might have caused her to break anyway, and this was certainly more than the slightest thing. Whatever the reason, Lauren bares her heart and her soul. And when she finally breaks down, when she's said all she can say without the emotions taking control and stealing her words away, the first one to move over beside her, to offer her tissues, to put an arm over her shoulder and tell her that somehow everything will be okay, is Lisa.

"Talk about the end of the world," someone mutters, and whoever it is immediately yelps as whoever was sitting in her vicinity does something to cause her pain. Any other time and place, that might have been appropriate, but not here and not now. Not when they've left behind so many friends and teammates. They still don't know just who many were lost, how many were in the affected areas and how many were away from home. Everyone calls and calls every number they have to spread the word, hoping against hope that someone will show up who they fear lost. Every time the door swings open, there's a rustle and a feeling of anticipation; who's on the other side, who has a story to tell, who made it through this whole thing?

They roll into the afternoon of the 21st, and although most of them have been and gone and maybe just come back again, there are still more than a few who don't know what to do with themselves; at loose ends, they find themselves drifting back to Majerle's, or perhaps not even leaving because sleep seems like an impossibility. Schuey's a wreck, and the only reason she's slept is because of the drinks; Tangela and Diana have to get her out the door and take her home to get her out of trouble. It's already too clear she'll never be the same again, but she's just the most obviously messed up one. None of them are going to be the women they were are the start of what was going to be a record-setting season.

The door swings open again a little while after that, just after Tangela's grabbed a soda and Diana's grabbed a beer, and for a very long moment no one actually recognizes the woman at the door, even though she's tall enough to fit in with the crowd. "Fuck off," Lauren snarls, her temper fraying rapidly. "Private party. Leave us be."

"Hold up," Vickie says, and she gets up from her seat to take a look at the silhouette. "Lord have mercy!" It's the first note of joy that's been struck in this place since the get-together started, and everyone starts trying to subtly stare at the scene as Vickie runs through the bar to the front door and half-hugs, half-drags her friend into the bar. "We thought you were dead! Kelly said that Alana said that-"

"Alana don't know much don't burn anymore," Crystal says, and her voice is as harsh and raspy as ever, about the only thing that hasn't changed in her after- well, after all of this. There's no smile hiding in her face the way there used to be, and there's a hardness about her that isn't familiar at all. Even though she lets Vickie hug her, she holds herself apart from the intimacy, her body stiff and unyielding. And those are just the emotional changes. There are obvious physical changes as well. Her hair's grown out wildly, and it looks like a fro crossed with dreadlocks. Not her best look. She's way too skinny, which Vickie notices with the hug, when she can feel bone that she never felt before, and there are scars that give the very strong impression that they should not be asked about.

But most of that doesn't matter. All the women know is that one of their own who they thought lost has come back to them. It doesn't matter how much bad blood was between them back in the days when basketball was important, because Tari's the second one out of her seat to offer Crystal a hug and a welcome home.

Of course they pry, of course they all ask questions, because she survived Dead City on her own: no help from the government until far, far, later, no escape to New York like Nikki and Alana put together. They know she has stories to tell that no one else does, and Crystal never used to be shy about telling stories. Then again, that was before what should have been the end of the world, so it's understandable that Crystal might have changed a little bit.

And she knows that they're waiting with bated breath for the things she has to say about the months in Dead City. She knows that they want to know what she had to do, what it was like, who she killed, who she couldn't kill, who almost killed her, who might have survived. She also knows that she can never tell them what it was like, even if she did want to talk about it, even if she felt it was something she could talk about. Words aren't enough to describe hell on earth. They just don't exist strong enough for what she experienced, and if they did- well, why would she want anyone else to feel what it was like? It was bad enough facing it herself. She's not about to inflict it on anyone else.

She sits down between Tari and Vickie, the two of them acting like her honor guard, and the talk starts up again around her. But for the first time in a long time, there's genuine joy in the room. There's something that might, in a different light and if squinted at, be hope. And Crystal knows that if she opens her mouth to talk about Dead City, she'll take it away. Better to enjoy it while she can, better to chip in a few sly details whenever someone talks about someone she might have known once upon a time, better to blend in where she can and lie where she can't.

The party goes on, in a way, although it's not quite the same as it was before. Only a few are left, only those who lost the most, whether they lost friends, lovers, former teams, families, or hometowns. There's a sense in the air that no matter what happens, they'll never quite leave Majerle's.

At the end of that day, jet-lagged and short-tempered from hours in the past, the rest of the interested survivors filter in. Ivory still has that rooster walk, cocky for her size, but it's hard to meet her terrifyingly adult gaze. Shay seems locked in the past, with a thousand-yard stare that no one dares cross in front of. Ann twitches, even when Diana hugs her. Erin seems the most normal of them, but it's hard to overlook the white in her hair and the lines that mark her face. She's the one who does a double take upon seeing Crystal, but not much else. No one else really has much to say. "Gang's all here," Ivory says. "Tweety's busy holdin' shit together in the D, and Bill's up in New York with their crew." She hooks a thumb at Shay and Erin. "Brax got herself a padded cell and Cheryl's… I ain't bringin' it up. She's breathin', at least I can say that. Plenette's got target practice."

"We heard from Kelly," Diana says. "Sit down and drink something, damn it. At least have something to eat. You guys look like shit."

"I feel like shit," Erin mutters, raking her fingers through her hair, amazed at how long it's gotten and just how tangled it's managed to get itself. The swear word isn't quite natural on her lips yet, but it's not nearly as foreign to her as it once was. She falls into the nearest empty chair, and the rest of the survivors gather near her. No one says anything about Ivory sitting next to Shay, not when they see Ivory about ready to kill someone and to hell with the consequences. Maybe it's strange that they keep their distance from Crystal, but then, there's something about surviving zombies that might make people leery of someone who returned from the dead. And it's true that Crystal is giving off the impression that she doesn't actually want company, she's just here because she feels some kind of obligation to her former teammates.

"Ali's back in New York," Ann says to Lindsey. "She's working on something with Kasha- she won't say what, but she thinks it's a great breakthrough that'll help protect the troops down South." What she doesn't say is that Alison's last few great breakthroughs have turned out to be anything but, and it's hard to be remain optimistic with so many failures. "I guess Kel or Schuey or someone might know more about what Catch is doing in Indy- didn't they stop in to visit there?"

Kelly nods, but that's all she does. It makes sense, in a way. Catch was always a little too invested in places that she never really belonged.

Somehow, the silence that takes over the room is worse than any of the previous silences. It hovers. It's heavy and thick with expectation and fear. They've all been waiting for the stories that the survivors have to tell; oh, they say that they don't want to know, that they'd rather remember their friends, teammates, family, lovers, the way they were before, but the horrors that took place have a fascinating pull, and there's always the burning urge to find out how the story ended.

Erin breaks the silence, glancing at Shay to see if it's okay before she says, "It took us way too long to figure out that Patty was one of the walking dead…" There are a couple of almost-laughs that get choked back in a hurry as Erin and Shay take turns speaking about that first day at the Garden. Shay speaks softly about Queens and what she found there. Erin's voice is warm, full of pride, when she describes how she pulled together her band of survivors, and tender when she tells the story of Janel and Cathrine, and how they almost found a beautiful thing in the middle of Hell on earth. Shay and Erin's New York is a place of heroic last stands and noble deeds, where order comes from the chaos and there's a seed of hope.

This is not Ivory's world. Ivory's Detroit is a mystery better left unconsidered, and her world is populated with stupid people who are to be mocked, if her tone is anything to judge by. She laughs at the long-dead Katies, the one who fell first and the one who never fell at all- "Damn fools," she calls them with cruel laughter in her voice, but the people who know her get the funny feeling that she might have swallowed a couple of letters, and that there might be a hint of sadness at her teammates who have been damned. Her voice is cold and distant when she talks about the bond of lovers that drove Pee-Wee into madness and Tweety almost to her death, and no one has to know that she distances herself from these tales of love because maybe she's a little bit jealous. She glares daggers at Lindsey when Lindsey is moments away from bringing up how she knew Katie Smith, and Lindsey gets the hint to shut the hell up before Ivory fucks her shit up for her. But there's nothing disguised about her disdain for the dysfunctional relationship Cheryl and Kara fell into, or her concern about Plenette's bloodlust; she talks about shit being fucked up four ways from Sunday, and while her hand doesn't trace the shape of an imaginary captain's C on her chest, her voice does.

Ann's Indianapolis lies somewhere in between, hope and deadly fear mixed up into one. She describes almost losing Kasha right in front of her eyes, her panicked gut reaction, how Kasha was still able to look at her with human eyes and say, "OW, shit, that hurt, what did you do that for?" For the sake of the New Yorkers and the former New Yorkers in the group, she doesn't describe what it was like to kill a teammate, or something that wore a teammate's face and had once been a teammate. They've been through enough heartbreak already, she figures, and she doesn't want to put them through more, especially when she knows that they know the faces. She describes Alison's long nights in the lab with the medical staff, the breakthroughs that allowed them to walk almost unscathed through the zombie-infested streets because they no longer smelled like prey. She tells them about the first time she went back to Conseco after she made it out, how flat Catch's eyes were, how her face had become a mask and never did regain full emotion. She talks about the first time they heard the transmission from New York, what it meant, how easy a decision it was to go east and damn the consequences, the things they saw along the road- and Ivory chips in here, too, because they came on the same road, coming from the Midwest, and they saw so many of the same things.

Crystal still refuses to talk about Washington. Doesn't look up when Vickie calls her name softly. Lets out a little grunt between her teeth, but doesn't uncurl from her near-fetal position. So no one talks about Washington, and the dead stay dead.

"Where do we go from here?" Erin asks when the room has faded into a comfortable silence. "I mean. The world hasn't ended. Do they ever show the after part in the movies?"

"I'm going home," Ann says. "I'm going home and I'm staying there. My family's there. I have a degree, I can use it there. I can't go back to- well, you guys understand, right?"

"Yeah, blondie, you get to go home. Some of us don't have shit to go back to. I got maybe a dozen people I know left on this world." For the first time, Ivory actually sounds small, no matter how big and brassy the words are. She twists her fingers together, calluses scraping against each other, flexing the scars that won't ever heal. She doesn't look at anyone. She doesn't even glare when Shay puts a hand on her shoulder, or when Shay takes it away. "Ain't the only one either. Yeah, great idea, D. Let's all shoot the shit and try to forget what we don't got."

"We're not here to forget," Diana says. She pauses, her head tilted, but some unexpected gift of tact allows her to not say okay, except for Schuey, 'cuz she looked like she was trying to forget everything including her own name. "We're here to remember. Door's that way if you want out."

Ivory glares at her through narrowed eyes, throws back the rest of her drink, and doesn't say another word. She doesn't have to. Enough of them there lost everything that they turn on Diana, who's lost nothing. Shanna speaks up softly, almost as if she isn't sure she has the right to say anything. "We are here for a reason. We need each other's strength to get us through this trying time. Let us have faith in each other and in God."

More than one face twists in anger or disgust; more than one survivor has lost her faith in God, if she ever had it at all. But Shanna isn't the only one who believes faith will get her through, and her earnestness is such that Ivory doesn't bring up the only other player she's ever known who had that kind of faith, had being the operative word on account of the fact that Jesus-girl kicked it back in Detroit. If Shanna wants to believe that God can make everything okay, it'll make her feel better, and at least Jesus-girl didn't get back up after she went down. Maybe there's something to be said for God after all.

So it surprises no one when there's a long moment of mostly silence that only murmured prayers, too indistinct for anyone but the supplicant to hear, break, and those but barely. Even those who don't believe accept for those few moments that there are those who still believe and that they need this belief. Stillness falls over the room like a benediction.

But when everyone raises their heads and looks back up at their colleagues, there's one head that remains bowed. Crystal hasn't moved in a very long time. Vickie puts a hand on her shoulder and shakes her gently. "You okay there?" she asks softly, concern shining through in the tone of her voice and the frown that's starting to curve her mouth downward. "Talk to me, Crystal, talk to me."

"Been better," Crystal grits out from between her teeth. She's breathing heavily now, trying to get air through both her nose and her mouth. She coughs, and she's not just covering her mouth out of the common politeness she was taught as a child; when she pulls her hand away, there's something slick in it, too many colors that bode no good. "I gotta- bathroom." She tries to get up, out from between her overprotective friends, but while Tari steps back and lets her go, Vickie won't leave her alone. "Can take care of myself," she says, her voice harsh. "Just leave me be."

"You're in no condition to take care of yourself," Vickie replies. "Let me-"

But Crystal interrupts her with a drawn-out fit of coughing, and this time everyone sees yellow and red and black coming out. "Think I'm hackin' up a lung," she says with as much wry humor as she can muster up under these conditions; that way no one has to know that she's perfectly serious. She stumbles towards the door at the back of the bar that leads to the bathrooms, and Vickie trails her like a ghost, because friends don't let friends walk around alone when they start hacking up blood.

Crystal's gait is uneven, like she's the one who needs to be carried out drunk the way Schuey was, except that she looks like she might be having more fun if she were drunk. She holds tight to everything she passes for support, everything but Vickie. Her grip slips on the corner of a table, her foot catches on the leg of a chair, and she goes down in a heap, gasping like she's trying not to scream, like she can't scream even if she wants to. She shakes a couple of times, coughing out every deep breath she manages to take, and there's more than blood, more than phlegm, coming out. Everyone takes a step back. Everyone except Vickie. Friends don't let friends, and all of that. Vickie leans in close, and somehow she misses Crystal's pleading eyes, the gaze focused over her shoulder towards someone who Crystal thinks might be more help, the hand that's extended to push her away. She takes that hand instead, holds it tight until Crystal's fingers go slack in hers.

"This can't be happening," Vickie says, and she looks up at the rest of them. "Someone! Any of you know CPR? Help her!"

Tired eyes meet across the tables. Ann shakes her head slowly, all of the blood rushing out of her face; she's bone pale, chalky unhealthy white, and her eyes are wild. Erin's hands are behind her back. Shay's hover at her hips, looking for something that isn't there anymore. It's left to Ivory to say what shouldn't be said. "Only one way left we know how to help her, and ain't one you want to be real close to."

"Don’t say that!" Vickie yells through the tears that are starting to choke her. "Don't! That's over and done with now! She's not- you saw she wasn't!" Her vehemence draws eyes; this isn't normal for Vickie, to say the least. Almost everyone in the room is looking at her.

Not Erin. Erin has road trips on her mind: listening carefully to Crystal, both of them already knowing what they wanted to do after they were done on the hardwood; watching Crystal's hand sketch out plays on the clipboard; Crystal's surprisingly reedy voice breaking down the plays as they happened on the floor; the crispness of her words, her gestures, her black shirt. Just last year, someone found old pictures on a Storm fan's site, and no one understood why they were joking about calculus class when the Mystics came to the Garden at the end of that season. Erin wouldn't have wished Dead City on her worst enemy, let alone a former teammate, a mentor, a friend.

So Erin's staring off into space, sort of in Crystal's direction instead of getting caught up in Vickie's grief. Turns out to be for the best, since she's the one who notices Crystal starting to stir. "Get the hell down!" she screams. Another gear kicks in- she's not one of the Libkids anymore, not the wide-eyed youngster who took in basketball lessons from any of these players; she's Mark's second in command, one of the protectors of human life in New York on Roosevelt Island. She reaches under the bar for the gun she knows has to be there, comes up with a rifle surprisingly similar to Becky's that she's been using all these months. Her voice carries a note of authority that none of them except Shay, Ivory, and Ann are used to hearing from her. "GET DOWN! NOW!"

And most of them have the common sense to listen to her, or perhaps the gun, or maybe their hindbrains respond to the edge of command without them really thinking about it. But of course Vickie's not listening. Her usual common sense seems to have left the building, and briefly Erin wonders if some of the gossip about the two of them was true. Not that it matters now, of course. Right now, the issue is getting Vickie out of the way, and that's going to require intervention of some sort. She's got two choices: grab Vickie, which will then leave Crystal free to do things that are distinctly un-Crystal-like, or shoot Crystal, which has the distinct disadvantage of not being particularly easy to do with an innocent bystander in the way.

The policy is to minimize the damage. Liberty tradition can go hang.

But Shay's a step ahead of her, grabbing Vickie by the ankle and dragging her away from Crystal by force. Vickie's still staring horrorstruck at skin and flesh that's come off in her hand when Erin sights along the barrel of the gun and fires the single shot that she knows is good as soon as it leaves, even as she falls back against another of the tables.

This time when Crystal collapses in a heap, she doesn't get up again. The room exhales.

Vickie's trembling, scared, in Shay's protective embrace. Rookies keeping veterans from doing stupid things is extremely backwards, but such is the way of the world these days. Rookies have to take over. Shay has to step up, and then Ivory steps up when she sees the even marks on Vickie's left hand, the one she had held out to Crystal. They've already scabbed over, which means that they broke the skin, which means that unless the rookies act now, it's going to be wash, rinse, repeat, in a few short minutes.

It's not over. Things like this are never over.

Erin can't be blind, but she'll have to be deaf. She grips the rifle tightly. "VJ? Mind if I talk to you out back for a few minutes? About… all this?"

The second shot rings out a minute later, the welcoming peal to Dead City.