New Orleans was a city of pure soul that was built for love. We could see its skyline through the gloom as we continued to travel up river. I have been here before. Apollo, the Greek God of Music spent extra time on craft and architecture on this specific piece of land. Almost as if the sea-level was ignored, a city with a doomed future. A future that would be drowned very similarly to little Susie that was trapped in her attic, alongside her mother and baby brother she was tasked with getting milk for on Thursdays. She wouldn't have to worry about that anymore though since she was now dead, bloated, as she had succumbed to the storm surge with no way out of her home. Even Barbara had been ripped from the comfort of her home as the storm had passed through. Her front door had been ripped open as the water rushed in with a sweeping undertow. She was sucked out onto the patio, and down the street, around the corner just past little Susie's home where she was trapped in her attic without rescue where she would soon die. Eventually Barbara was pulled underwater as the surge ripped through their neighborhood. Rumor has it that she was eaten by bull sharks. Others say that they found her body bloated but unidentifiable, snagged on the body of an underwater white sedan with tinted windows — she tried to rip her clothes off to free herself. But as she looked up through the black waters, she could only see black. It was the last thing that she had ever seen in her life. Just black. Apollo understood the city would endure hard times, which is why he built it for soul so it could ascend above all troubles free of worry. A city in its prime. There is a reason many flock to its streets to party. It's because they've all known it in a past life, a former self once roamed Bourbon and Canal many years before they took their steps today on the familiar roads.

New Orleans was home to so many successful musicians — Fats Domino, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, the Neville Brothers, Trombone Shorty, and so many more. Home to Mardi Gras in addition to the popular Jazz Festival. Musical crescendos fill the air while the city dances. But when Katrina came through, only she would dance that long night. She took the hands of elderly, middle-aged, and the young children and she'd dance with them. Of course it would be the last dance of many, but she was graceful. Until she had become violent. The winds whirled and twirled as the homes of many children were destroyed. The reality was, Katrina didn't care. Those who loved to dance, danced forever with her.

A female's voice from the distance, do you want to kiss me. It sounded like Lily when she had spoke but when I glanced at her, she didn't even face this direction, the wind against her face she faced the opposite direction. She looked ahead of us at the discourse in the water that the boat had parted. It spread outward and away from the boat. "What's that?" I asked her, "did you say something?" She turned to look at me but she only smiled. It's been awhile since I had felt warm inside — almost as if she had taken my heart captive, but I was beginning to suspect that she actually had. Without any words, she continued to smile. In my head once more, "do you want to kiss me."

Of course I did, if it was her. But she didn't say anything. The only thing that persisted was a voice in my head, that sounded just as if she had actually spoken. Kiss me. It bounced from left to right, between my ears and throughout my mind. It grew louder and louder, kiss me she said. I looked at her once more, she looked at me. She smiled, still without words. I noticed her pink lips full of lush. I was confused. Kiss me, once more. I shook the words right out of my head as I glanced at her and then beyond to the Crescent City skyline. Focused on the journey to find my brother, and for her, to find her sister. We were nearly there. A port lay ahead just on the banks of the tattered city. A place for us to land, somewhere nearby the French Quarter, which had been abandoned and without lights, without power, without soul. Apollo would be disappointed after all the time it had taken to carefully craft her.

---

---

My nose started to bleed again. Am I dying? I thought. I hadn't gotten them this frequently before. Then a female voice persisted in echoes throughout the streets as it called to us, "kiss me." I looked towards Lily as we walked through the French Quarter down one of the side streets that lacked anything of interest. It's almost as if the storefronts and bars on Bourbon were very colorful, but everything behind it and in the alleyways lacked color. Void of life. When I caught her eye, she stared at me without movement. She smirked, "kiss me," on repeat. She just stood there with a smile that I had begun to question whether it was a friendly smile. But she didn't seem that dangerous, and it was nice to have someone else around. The streets were empty. The city was a ghost town. We hadn't come across anyone and the windows on the front of the buildings were all boarded up. Some destroyed from the storm, glass lay broken in the street with half-stripped plywood that had failed. Lily stared at me, with a still smile. A dead smile. Without any words whatsoever, she raised her right arm slowly and pointed to our east, "come," she said with grim intent. But yet, I couldn't resist. I felt compelled to comply to her commands in confidence without conflict. No — I mean, I literally could not resist. It's as if something had implanted itself into my mind, into my BRAIN. I had lost control of myself, I watched myself from over my left shoulder walk towards her.

"Stop!" I yelled at me but I couldn't stop. I couldn't fucking stop. I just kept walking towards her, with her beautiful smile. I couldn't help but fall in love. She was beautiful, she drew me in. Almost as if I was a fly caught in her little tiny web. But yet, I welcomed it. The devil had always made me think twice but for her I could not think for myself. I had lost myself to something. I could feel it inside my body as it pulsated throughout my veins. A bright burn, sharp, and intense through my blood. It was excruciating to say the least, I sweat but not from the humidity that clouded us. And don't get me started on those fucking mosquitoes in this musty air.

The scent of many homeless corpses had revealed itself through the stagnant dense humidity. Waterlogged spoiled pork that broiled in the southern sun that stunk as their skin skimmed the surface of the silted water, it slowly peeled itself from the bones of its passenger as it dissipated, dissolved even, and disappeared forever as it fed itself to the New Orleans ecosystem.

"You will come," she said again without any movement from her lips.

And yet I proceeded to these words once more, almost as if I were a zombie that would adhere to her commands completely.

"Come." I said without control of my own self.

---

We waded for what felt like hours through the flooded streets as we left the French Quarter and deeper into the city. The waters from Lake Pontchartrain forced itself onto us, from mere puddles, to ankle deep, to shin deep, to waist deep. Without power and street lights to guide us. We navigated through the dark for as long as possible until we came across a Latino grocer.

"Rest." Lily said in an unsettling demeanor.

We waded through the water towards the entrance of the store, the doors were completely destroyed by the storm. Most of the food here was ruined and scavenged already, as the shelves fell from the aisles. Lily led the way and with each step a lone light would flicker shining its light as dust fell from its enclosure, the buzzing sound of a brief electrical current could be heard when the light was on. Except silence when it flickered off. She progressed throughout the grocer and as we passed the light in waist high waters, the next light flickered itself on. And off.

Suddenly, everything around us had changed. The water had disappeared and the entire grocer lit up in a haze. It was no longer a grocer. But a tiny home somewhere nearby that was cozy. The walls were black halfway up and a classy matte black trim with a panel design ran around the bottom of the half of the walls. An accented wall towards the far end of the room consisted of a black and pink floral pattern, but the closer we got to it, the further away it extended away from us. The flowers were alive and the dark green leaves fell from its stems and from the walls. As they hit the floor they withered into ash and blew away. "Rest," she said again.

"You look like you want to say something Forrest." Her first real words in hours.

I sat down on the cream colored sofa against my will but I accepted the invitation to rest, I let out a sigh and removed my boots that were filled with water. She sat in front of me as I lay down on the sofa that seemed out of place. She reached towards my legs, she ran her hands down from my knees, past my shins, and to my feet. She caressed my feet and they dried, instantly.

"Who are you?" I asked her.

She gripped both of my ankles with her soft hands and came to a crawl as she sat in my lap, my head fell back over the back of the sofa. I couldn't shake her off. Stuck. But her beauty mesmerized and yet in complete comfort as she pinned me to the sofa while she straddled herself into my lap. She looked into my eyes.

"Cu… Cuh.." Here it came, another paralysis episode. Soon to be followed by a slight dose of tinnitus. The little tiny hairs that brushed against my ear drums rang like a spoon that just made contact with a hollow glass chalice. Another prostrating migraine had come on. My nose began to bleed once more and I was in a trance, in immense pain. I was in great agony as she took control of my body.

---

I sat cross-legged in mother's garden with my toes planted in the ripe soil, as I plucked each petal from the head of the daisy I held. One at a time, "he loves me, he loves me not.." The petals fell slowly to the ground with resistance until they met the Earth. "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not," like a broken record repeating until the last petal was plucked, "he loves me." I listened to the wind that whistled as mom and dad corralled inside, yet again. This garden that mom had built provided refuge for me when I needed it the most. Sometimes I wished dad would just go away forever. He was more or less a figure in the home than he was a present parent. A shadow on the sunniest of days, a storm off in the distance with promise to destroy all in its path.

I thought of the times where he would chase me around, he'd hold me down and tickle me when I was younger. Mom came outside, "I am ready to leave this place," she said. She crossed her legs and sat next to me, she innocently picked another one of the flowers that draped from a bush like a willow. Mom brought it closer to her face, she slowly rotated it with careful observation, "these are my favorite, Brugmansia. They are also called Angels Trumpet. Here smell one, but be careful because they are toxic." I leaned over and was blasted with a scent of citrus, magnolia, and a little bit of lily. We had a few different colors in our garden, found in a clean white, rich gold, or a soft rose pink. "How would you like it if mommy and daddy split up?" I'd only dreamed of the day where we'd leave in a normal home, one where we could have friends over, the sleepovers we only heard about, and a peaceful family dinner. "I just want dad to be nicer," I said. "Me too kid, I am sorry for putting you and your sister through this. I think it's time to make some changes." Mom got up, she brushed her rear end off as she walked away from me in her lavender sun dress that trailed behind her with each step.

She reached for the door, before she pulled on the loose handle that dad had promised to fix years ago, she asked me, "would you be willing to pick me a few of these please? I want you to pick the prettiest ones for mommy please." Of course I could do that for you mom. I got up and searched the garden for the most deserving of beauties. I plucked a few of the Brugmansia, with an elegant scent of each one. I deeply inhaled their aroma and was immediately punched by their citrus profile with hints of vanilla. After I had found a few, I brought them to mom inside. Dad was drunk on the chair again watching the Saints lose.

"Son of a bitch." He said.

Great.. they had less points than the Buccaneers and the game was almost over. This was when he got most angry, I knew I needed to get back outside again before the game ended. The last game he watched, he was so upset that he threw his drink across the room and the bracelet that I had made for him came off of his wrist and shattered as it hit the wall.

Crash!

The beads scattered all over the living room and dining room. He made my sister and I pick them up in our dimly lit home which were nearly impossible to find. Each bead bounced throughout both rooms like a detonator had gone off as it sent each one bouncing. The sound of pebbles erratically bounced around our home but dissipated after a few seconds when they all came to a stop.

"Here you go mommy," I handed her the prized Angel's Trumpet flowers.

"Thank you sweetie," she took the flowers that I had brought in.

She placed them into one of her pill grinders. She churned with a light force, it crushed, and shredded the petals and the stem. "Would you like another drink honey?"

"If you don't get me one, you will be sorry." He said.

She dumped the contents of the grinder into one of his short eight ounce whiskey glasses. Then reached for the top shelf, Johnnie Walker Black Label — dad's favorite — especially when mom mixed it with orange juice.

Drip, drop.

She dropped a few ice cubes in it and stirred the concoction with a silver spoon, just what he was used to, all he's known. She took the drink over to dad and handed it to him, "I made this one with love."

He snatched the drink from her as it nearly spilled from the upper edges of his glass. In an instant, he downed the Brompton cocktail. He polished it off within just a few seconds. A few moments later, he stood up, "I don't feel so good."

He stumbled away from his recliner drunkenly, as he collapsed, he knocked over the end table with the lamp on it. He convulsed uncontrollably as he foamed from the mouth. He was trying to speak but they were just mumbled words, I couldn't make out what he was saying.

"What the fuck did you do? You Bi.. Bi.. Bitch. I'll fuc.. fuckin' kill you."

"Mom, I'm scared."

She comforted me and held me tightly, "it's okay sweetie, he's just sick."

She carried me to my room, she stepped carelessly over his convulsing body, reached for my door handle, opening it and setting me down in my room. My sister was inside her room, she hummed the tune of a song I couldn't quite make out all while this happened. She calmly walked back over to dad as I peeked through the thin crack of the doorway. I watched him suffer nervously, his arm extended towards her as he pleaded. He began to drag himself towards mom, he grabbed onto anything within reach. He knocked over whatever he got his hands on. He choked, he gagged, he struggled, "I'll fuckin' kill you.. I'll fuckin' kill.. I'll fuckin'.. I'll," he took his last breath. Mom spit on his remains.

She kneeled down over him, "fuck you, you fucking piece of shit."

I turned around and faced my doorway, "shut your door sweetie, I'll get you in a few minutes."

I shut my door, as my eyes gazed across my room that was cluttered with all of my childhood memories. The light bulb flickered in my ceiling fan, it finally died, it had been needing changed for a while now. I reached for my desk lamp, I pulled the chain slightly until I heard a click. I took a seat on my bed and looked at the photos of my sister, Iris and I on the nightstand. I heard some thumps, thuds, clunks even out in the hall until it was suddenly quiet. I stared at the door as I waited for mom to come get me. Still silent.

I peeked out the bedroom door and stared down the long black forest green hallway. My sister's door was shut. I glanced back over to where dad had lay, he was no longer there. The latch on the door in the kitchen creaked as it opened — once again, dad never committed to fixing anything around the house. I heard mom come back inside, "okay.. okay.. come on sweetie.. We are going to go for a little drive. I've brought your shoes."

She sat the white with dirt ADIDAS with pink shoes down by my feet and I started to put them on, "is dad okay?" I asked her.

"He's been sick for a long time. Come on, get your shoes on baby."

I got both of the shoes on my feet, looped my laces, and pulled tightly, the laces dug into lines of my hands as I pulled them across and towards each other, as I tucked the bunny-eared loop through the first loosely-fitted knot, then pulled snugly.

Mom paused for a moment in the chaos as dad lay dead out in the living room, looked at me, "you and your sister look just like me baby."

I hugged her tightly, she squeezed me like a constrictor that had just caught its prey. She finally released the tension and we hurried to her car. "Where are we going mom?"

"We are just going for a little ride."

Mom placed me in the passenger seat, "seat belt on," she said. I grabbed it, strapped it over my chest until I heard the buckle click. She turned over the key, the engine hesitated before it sputtered itself up quickly. Like a thunderous roar, it had always been a mean ride — as dad would say. I looked out the window at everything we passed by in a blur.

The sun set slowly but it was the only thing that stopped with time, unlike the homes, trees, and shops of where we lived. I rolled the window down, mom turned the radio on. "I love this song," she said. I stuck my hand outside the car window, welcoming the wind to collide against my fingers. Mom started to sing along with Springsteen as he sang about glory days and they rolled on by. The bass held consistent in a groove rhythm as we sped onto the highway. The sun slowly steeped towards the horizon like a chamomile tea bag that hovered a hot glass of water, a blazed fireball look burst through the bluish-pink skies.

"What do you want to be when you grow up sweetie?" She asked me.

I wasn't really sure. I'd had a lot of interests over the years but it was always difficult for me to stick with just one thing. I saw people sticking with their passions for many years before they retired and lived a quiet life as they enjoyed their rest after many years of aching bones as they longed for the day they could finally breathe. I had never seen myself stick to just one thing. Let alone stick with it for their entire life — to say the least. It looked like a trap. "Hmm.. I don't really know," I said.

"I always thought you'd make a great lawyer, watching you and your sister argue. You were very good at it," she said — but I couldn't disagree more.

"Don't you have to go to school for a long time?" I asked her.

She glanced over at me with her left hand on the wheel as the wind picked her hair up, frazzling its way into her eyes. She brushed the loose hairs back out of her face. "Yeah, yeah you do.." she sighed.

She knew I didn't like school very much. A quick question to change the subject:

"Mom, where do we go when we die?"

"I'd like to think it's a place much better than here," she said.

"What's the point of all of this if we just die in the end?" She was puzzled, she didn't have an answer. I was born into a life that felt much different than what the other kids had. We never had friends over, while other kids at school had sleepovers. We were just sort of there — as if we were companions for good company and convenience. Until we had become inconvenient for them. After Iris and I surpassed ten years of age, it felt like our parents had grown weary of children, fondness turned into tiredness, then eventual frustration.

I could tell I had lost mom with the last question, that was until we had a bump that woke her from her daze. The roads around here had always been rough. I wondered restlessly what else the world had to offer, I drifted off in a daydream, as I dreamed about places I've only heard about. I wondered what it was like in different parts of the world and how people lived. What did it mean to be alive? There had to be more than being placed in a lifeless shell that hardened over time due to the steady struggles that life doled out to each of its own passing travelers with care.

We came to a stop as mom backed into one of the spots. We were somewhere around the bayou, but nowhere I was familiar with. A dilapidated shanty off in the distance and through the brush. The unseen wildlife and insects made their presence known as they sang as the sun set. She turned the car off, opened the door, and stepped outside. Then silence. She walked around the back, she popped the trunk open, "wait here just a moment Lily."

I scrunched my back against the seat with a slight wiggle, stiffened my neck as it stretched upward to catch a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror. She shuffled around in the trunk just for a brief moment, the car had shaken just a bit as the lower back half of the car dipped towards the ground. I could hear her grunts, groans even, but she was shielded by the trunk door that blocked her from my sight. Then a reprieve to her groans — the back lower half of the car jolted up almost as if a massive weight had been removed from its interior. She slammed the trunk door to a close as the latch made an aimless thunk that bounced around the bayou as the ghouls that lurked among the brush beyond our sight had watched, they waited even, just to see what would happen next.

Thunk.

A few minutes later, she came around to my door. "Okay sweetie, I need help."

I jumped out of the car and walked around to the back just where she was and at her feet, there was something large wrapped in some of mom's thick landscape fabric. It was never good for preventing the weeds she had my sister and I pull. "What is that mom?"

"This is just yard waste we need to get rid of honey. It's good for the gators, that's why we are here. We are going to toss it off this hill, it will tumble into the swamp. And the gators will eat at it until there are no more little tiny bits left. Go ahead and grab that end Lily."

I picked up the end of the wicked waste that was just to the opposite of her, it was very heavy, very stiff. I couldn't help but think that these were the remains of my father that we had planned to toss into the black waters of the bayou so carefree and blissfully. It reminded me of all the times we've helped her move mulch around her garden — and it was heavy just like so.

"Okay, on the count of three, we let go. One.. two.. and three."

We tossed the heaping pile of yard waste into the swamp. It tumbled with a flop and a thunk. Even with a crack as one part of the filled waste hit upon a jagged stone.

Crack.

We both stared at it. Mom sat down, I took a seat just next to her. The sun fell below the tree line and the sky was ablaze with a fiery red-orange, kissed with gradients of pink, violet, and a bruising blue. As the yard waste tumbled into the swamp, within seconds the swamp gators began to circle it. They thrashed around violently as they hissed at one another in attempt to assert dominance and to lay claim to the waste. In a heartbeat and a half, the wickedly stiff yard waste-filled fabric disappeared — never.. to be seen. Again.

"Mom, what happened to dad?"

She looked over at me, "dad left sweetie. He's not coming back."

"What about Iris?" I asked her.

I struggled to catch my breath from the heavy waste that we had just tossed into the swamp, we both broke out in a sweat as the thick muggy air kissed our skin so aggressively as she brushed her fingers through my grease-filled hair, "she's okay. She doesn't have to worry about him hurting us anymore."

But I knew what had happened.

---

Suddenly, my conscience had come rushing back to myself, I reached for my shoulder from behind and I came back to my senses as my soul was someplace dark as I watched myself lay awake. Eyes open while Lily straddled him. I felt somewhat normal again. Just a little hungry — if anything — I thought. I opened my eyes to see that Lily rested just next to me. Without any of her clothes, well except her silk laced underwear and bra that covered her breasts, of course. My pants had been removed too but I didn't recall that I had taken them off. Once again, I had no control, no recollection of my pants ever being pulled from my body by myself, or by her. I looked to my left to loosen my stiff neck and found my pants alongside hers draped over a stairway banister to dry.

My eyes remained heavy and unrested. The lower half of my body had not yet recovered from the trek to this point. My legs were heavy, very dense in gravity. Every single step felt to the extent of an unending hike up a mountain that poured river rock at our feet. Along the way, death was unavoidable. We were surrounded by it. I sat up, put my soggy and chilled pants back on, rubbed my eyes while they adjusted to the light coming into the windows. The rain had held all night and was still coming down. Lily woke up about fifteen minutes after I did. Looking at her and giving her a minute to awaken herself and also come to her ghostly senses. She let out a yawn, and at last, some character and personality as well, "that was the best night's rest I've had in a long time."

I smiled, relieved to hear that she was able to get some much needed rest. And also some relief from her deathly hollow gestures and minimal sentences. Her beauty had still drawn me to her alongside her minimal communication style. It was quite bizarre. But I kept screaming at myself in an attempt to tell myself that it was a trap and that she was going to kill me if I didn't resist. But I couldn't resist. Physically, bound by her, pinned to the couch as she straddled me.

You will find your brother, a woman's voice called to me but it wasn't Lily's. She hadn't spoken since her last mention about last night's great rest. She got up off of the couch and walked over to her pants, as she braced one arm against the banister and pulled them up over slowly, one leg at a time. She faced me as I grabbed my backpack and then looked towards the exit of the grocer that we had stayed in. Or was it a house? It was a grocer that morphed into an unfamiliar home that was pleasantly decorated in a gothic manner. It somewhat gave off the vibe of a room meant for seances and enchantment. Then Lily had caught me off guard, she reached for me, hugged me and smiled. "I will see you very soon Forrest." I hugged her back and asked if I could take a photo, she smiled and waded away from me in the brackish waters that flooded the New Orleans streets as the dreams that they once carried clogged the drainage pipes with no escape, they floated stagnantly amongst the surface alongside the tadpoles and mosquito larvae, as still as death. I parted the waters as we went towards our separate ways.

---

I was only a few blocks away from my brother's home, I heard a distant woman singing from a rooftop on a home down Orleans Avenue. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.. Audibly shaken with two covered bodies she was sitting next to. Sitting upon her home, looking at the sky and singing a song of grief and release. Even with all the ugly the world can hold, beauty killed the beast. She continued to sing as I struggled through the thick black water, getting eaten alive by mosquitoes — Lily had taken the bug spray with her, damnit. I took my camera out of my backpack and I found the woman through my viewfinder. Adjusting my aperture to capture distance through depth of field. Adjusting my focus until the frame was clear. She looked at me and stopped singing.

Snap.

I took the shot.

The singing lady was wearing a purple top with a different shade on the shoulders that glistened in the sun. We connected with each other as we locked eyes. She slowly leaned to her left, not long before she slumped over and collapsed. I watched her soul leave her body as she lay on her rooftop with two others as the sun lay upon their corpses. Literally, I could see her mystic-like soul leave her body as she had taken her last breath in this world. A little gurgle and a prolonged exhale escaped her lungs that lasted a few seconds. She reached towards the sky with both arms as they stiffened while they pointed upwards, her hands snapped, folded inwards towards her wrist. Then she ceased to be alive and her lifelong memories with her. Her arms continued to shuffle in a disturbing manner, the bones had also snapped somewhere around her radial nerve, after that, her ulna nerve. Her legs folded out from underneath her as she rolled onto her stomach. She sat up slightly as her legs spread out just like the legs of a spider, on all fours. Almost in a dysmorphic shape that couldn't be made out but if she reached for you, her entire body was backwards while her head faced your direction, her feet planted on the ground backwards while her upper torso hovered just slightly above the surface of the roof as she crawled over the two other bodies. She observed like a gargoyle, but she was also dead. Her eyes had a deep fog that masked the color of her iris. Mind you, she was absolutely dead. I waded away from her uncertain what I had just witnessed, while I continued to check over my shoulder, sure enough her head snapped in my direction in a stiff motion like a memoriam statue in a morgue that watched every single move that was made just enough for you to know that she was in fact, indeed watching you — even though she was dead.

I paused for a moment to reflect on the lives that once lived as I had come across what they'd left behind. Packing my camera away and slogging through sludge and decomposition, now on my brother's road only a few houses down. I prayed to god in my mind that he was safe but the landscape had left me with doubts.

I got to his home on the corner of Hagan Avenue and St. Ann Street. A daisy yellow home with blue window frames. Someone had vandalized the vinyl siding that made up the northern side of his home in a black spray paint with a symbol that somewhat resembled the thorax and front legs of a spider and the text For She Was Hungry Once Again. The trim and the gutters of the home were dark blue. There were white stairs leading to the white front door, the windows had been destroyed and water had breached some of the home. I climbed the stairs to the door, it had been broken by the storm and I could push it right open. It reeked inside and my stomach dropped instantly. It smelled like death in here. Passing destroyed picture frames of us and our parents from when we were younger, I felt as if life had just flashed before my eyes. I made my way to his bedroom and forced the door open but it was jammed shut. I kicked it once, Bang! Then another kick, Boom! One final blow to the door and the wood chipped and the door swung open. His dead dog lying on his bed half decomposed and bloated, Hunter nowhere to be found.

I began to throw up and had to get some fresh air. As I was making my way back outside, I noticed a note on the back side of the front door I had entered through.

"Forrest, I am okay. I had to put Banner down because he was suffering and I couldn't get him any help. You can find me here at this location, I made it out with a group. Stay safe Chief."

Tacked behind the note was a map torn from a larger atlas guide. I looked at the map that Hunter had left behind, there was a large red circle around the Fairgrounds. I folded the map up and placed it in my backpack. I went back inside to find any food I could. I opened the pantry, "Canned corned beef hash." There is a god. I chuckled and thought that someone was looking out for me. But maybe who had been looking out for me was something dark, unseen, and unknown to myself. I could feel the breath of another in the bowls between my collarbone and shoulders. In a rhythmic steady pace of an inhale, followed by an exhale. This would continue to repeat itself while the hum of a woman haunted the very home I was in. Almost as if it came from another room in the house. I said thank you and packed it into my bag as I walked out the door as my brothers home had soon become a distant memory with each passing step that I had taken away from its foundation on the Street of St. Anns. For she was hungry once again just to my right shoulder as I looked over, it shrank as distance separated me and the home. It played once more in my head, For she was hungry once again.

A few blocks north, FEMA was present as they checked the home for any survivors. They were a few houses north of my location and marked the doors with a rushed mist of spray paint as if all that was left in the can was the chrome ball at the bottom inside that rattled as you'd shake it — a large X. Just on the bottom of that X, a "0." Which would mean that they found no victims in that home.

A man stood tall on a nearby porch, he stared down at me in the water, he shared no words only a concerned look as if I wasn't welcome around here.

Unsettled but determined to move on, I reached into my bag and grabbed my bottle of water. Down to the last drop, I hoped that the Fairgrounds had something or I was going to be in trouble. As I walked away from the FEMA man I couldn't help but notice that something was off about this place and definitely off about him. Similarly to the woman that had collapsed on the roof and folded into a possessed dog-like being that shifted in ways that bones shouldn't fold as her long black hair draped across the shingles on the roof, he had done the same with each step on the ground that provided more and more distance between us two. He stared, a deep exhale with a bit of struggle, his head with a light right tilt and a black substance as black as oil that flowed freely from his mouth. This wasn't before of course his entire head had snapped and the bottom of his jaw was now the closest thing to the sky, no longer his head of hair. His left shoulder raised higher than his right as it slouched towards the concrete patio. His right arm completely snapped in three different places as he braced himself on the ground. He receded backwards into the home through the dark doorway until he was no longer visible, inch by inch.

With each difficult step the water level had risen and was near chest deep high. Although the water was still, I could feel the movement of a long tail occasionally brush past my legs that were entrenched in the drowned street. I noticed a small boat heading my direction from the same direction of the Fairgrounds, from the direction of Tad Gormley Stadium. I remained right where I was, exhausted and too tired to move anymore. The boat motored closer. It was a small three to four person watercraft and was relatively flat, nothing too special. From what I could gauge, maybe a good twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. As I watched it approach slowly, exhausted, I had grown hangry, thirsty, and quite defeated — he was within about fifteen feet of where I stood as a man with only the upper half of his torso visible, "Oi mate, need a ride!?" He asked. The thick Australian accent had definitely caught me off guard. He was wearing a black Akubra hat — or in other words — a down unduh hat.

"What the actual fuck," I smirked, in disbelief but not because my savior had come from above, but from below.

A timely arrival after I was nearly murdered by my own actions due to being underprepared in such an environment. He kindly pulled up next to me, I tossed my backpack in first and then I grabbed onto the boat and swung my right leg over it first and pulled myself out of the water.

"You're looking fuckin' rough, here.. have some water," he passed me a spare bottle. Within three to five seconds, I had killed the entire bottle.

"Thanks for the ride, it started to dawn on me that maybe all of my luck had started to run out," he took the empty bottle from me and threw it out of the boat. "No worries mate, I saw ya up there and figured I'd come check ya out. You looked kinda funny out here on your own. You out here looking for a lover?" as he laughed it off.

"A brother."

"Alright mate. I joke, I only kid. When we get back to camp, let's get you a slab."

"Get me a what?"

"A slab. A slab mate, what're you dense?"

"Listen, I ain't with all that outback shit. What the fuck is a slab?"

"Oh brotha, it's a beer for crying out loud," he shook his head as he disapproved of my incompetence but he offered a laugh to humor himself.

"Name mate?"

"Forrest," I reached out to shake his hand and he shook mine, "and yours?"

"You can call me Clancy."

"Where are we heading?" I asked Clancy.

"Fairgrounds, we've got a camp ova there."

If there was ever a message from someone above, this was another direct line of communication. The canned corned beef hash, the Aussie down under the billboard, and the slab that awaited. We sped off into the direction of the Fairgrounds. I turned around to look at the billboard that stood above the waterline and the freeway above. Six Flags — Exit in 14 Miles.

I pulled out the ol' Nikon, found the billboard through the viewfinder. Before I snapped the photo, the phrase that I had focused on the billboard as we drifted away — For she was hungry once again. I refocused the viewfinder as I repeated the words in my head once again, and then I took the shot.