[Elspode]

We had managed to round up a pretty good load of useful gear, but getting it back to the bus was proving to be a problem. It wasn't difficult to come by a couple of grocery carts, but shoving them along through the debris-strewn streets was nigh impossible. The carts were heavily laden, and we had to make more dry land portages than I would have ever thought possible.

The strenuous effort had us both breathing pretty hard, and we had wrapped bandannas around our noses and mouths to try and fight the stench from the rotting corpses. Fred had remembered seeing "Silence of the Lambs", and grabbed a container of Vicks from the rubble of the drugstore where we'd pillaged for med supplies. Smeared liberally across the bandannas, it actually did cut the smell to tolerable levels.

The streets were utterly deserted. Anyone who had ever been a pedestrian was either buried under tons of rubble or had apparently left town some time ago...and that was very, very strange. After all...*we* were here. Why wasn't anyone else?