I didn’t notice the sunrise at first. The world was so hazy with smoke that I could barely see the sky. Glowing fires provided such intense competition with the dawn’s early light that it just crept up on us.

I was reloading one of my pistols, painfully aware of the dwindling number of percussion caps, while perched on a jagged rock, a thousand ghouls teeming below me, when I realized that I could see tears on Clancy Whitmore’s face. Little streaks of cleanliness running down an otherwise soot-covered cheek. The light was showing me what I had tried to forget earlier that night. My only ally had lost his mind.

The light was also showing me why Clancy had gone mad. His left sleeve was torn open and soaked red with blood. A bite mark was clearly showing in the gap. It was swollen, red with infection, and oozing thick black blood.

“At least we made it across the Mississippi, Sam.” Clancy said, handing me his pistol and a handful of ammunition.

“We surely did,” I said, dropping the hammer on a friend.