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When the convoy had reached the city, it was like entering the gates of hell The trucks had barreled through snarled traffic, run over raging zoh barricades, all in an atte

They had reached the police station just as it was overrun The police chief and so men had leaped from the roof of the police station onto the back of one of the trucks It was terrifying to see ho people survived They had met up hat reet out of the city Nearly half of their vehicles and men were lost aves of zombies filled the roads

Shattered, overwhelmed, and near panic, the soldiers had fled into the hills A few had juo rescue their fa to do in the face of so much horror, but Kevin knew their efforts were fruitless He understood what those men and women did not

The world was dead Their fae in the hospital where his orked There was no hope for them, but he could try to save others

He had let those soldiers go The world was ending and every man and woman deserved to make a choice as to their own fate

So those who remained followed hi through dying towns, and watching eary eyes as the zo Bullets had struck down the walking dead, but nothing could alleviate the pain the soldiers felt

It was the most bitter of any defeat

They had found the Rescue Center abandoned by FEMA, a few military survivors and townspeople inside, and a locked door in the back barely holding back a horde of undead Kevin had et the people to the mall All the businesses were closed due to the outbreak spreading so fast so it seeh wall around the mall provided theate of the parking lot and watched the last group of people running from the civic center with the zombie horde behind them

In hisorders as he watched the slowest of the survivors be dragged down and consuht a littleWhen the survivors were all inside and the gates shut, Kevin had looked through the bars at the undead snarling at him He had felt all hope leave him, but he was determined to do his best for the survivors

For a week he had run thesoldiers worked hard to secure the mall and keep the zombie population down

Other survivors showed up on occasion and sometimes successfully made it to safety More often than not, they were torn apart trying to scale the high walls into thelot The National Guard helicopters arrived the second day and ed to airlift supplies and ammunition until the National Guard base was overrun

He had felt as though he was on the edge of losing hisfocused on what needed to be done kept hi about his fa until he felt he would die of the pain

A week later, the Senator showed up with the retired Major General The Major General carried orders fro him the power to run the FEMA rescue stations in the area Kevin had stepped aside, not knohat else to do He was at a loss how to run a rescue station or how to keep things running Or so he had thought at the time Noished he had never relinquished authority The Major General obviously had his eye on a political career and wanted to be in good standing with the Senator Kevin just wanted the people to be safe

When he told the fort leaders of the Senator’s plans, he saw his own horror reflected in their faces He told theard of them as "assets" He was brutally honest about her aood to speak of her so harshly

It was hard not to cry, re what he had seen, but he knew they had all seen their share of horrors When he finished telling his story, his voice low, his eyes full of tears He could see that that the people in the room believed hiht," Kevin finished "I want to give those people a good hoain"

"And you won’t," Travis pro your people ho her father’s letter in her hand, listening to Kevin tell his horrible story, her fingers slowly tracing the edges of the paper Her tears were dry now, but she felt them close at hand

It was too wonderful and too miraculous to fully accept that her father was still alive and yet, she held a piece of paper with his easily recognizable scrawl covering it

Looking up, she could see the weariness in Kevin’s face The ed him a bit She didn’t think he was actually as old as he appeared His shoulders were stooped slightly as if with the great burden of protecting those people in the hed them down