what if this storm ends

and leaves us nothing

except a memory

a distant echo

The new world has no time for noise. So, when the sharp crack of a gunshot echoes through the dead city of Atlanta, she stares down the scope of her binoculars and waits. The silence that follows is deafening, as if the city itself hesitates and draws in a long and nervous breath.

From atop the rundown apartment complex she's taken refuge on, she's an inconspicuous blur against the brilliant Georgian sky. Another shot cracks across the sky, and she hunkers down closer to the edge of the roof, peering over the eave with wide, disbelieving eyes.

She wets her sun dried lips – useless really, as her tongue is like cotton in her mouth – and lets out a single breath. It's like wind to her ears. It grows and grows until it's roaring with the rattling moans of the dead and the pounding of their fists. She can see them throwing their bodies against the dark glass of a department store down the block.

"How ya like me now?!" The grizzled voice is hardly more than a whisper on the wind compared to the rifle, but it is enough to draw her eyes. She looks up and watches as a man hangs over the edge of the roof, aiming at the horde clambering below. She can't look away, even as he hollers into the sky and lets loose another shot.

It's like thunder in her ears.

She rolls over and hides when the man's rifle swings wildly around, her chest tightening as if he can hear her windy breaths. She counts down from ten, and peeks over the edge. He's still there, hanging off the roof and cursing into the sky, but he isn't looking at her or for her.

He's watching someone. Someone running through the streets.

Another shot fires off. She's up and moving back into the building. She doesn't need more incentive than the group of walkers gathering at the foot of the department store a few blocks down. A crowd that big means one thing: the store under her feet is going to be clear, and that's good enough for her.

She just needs to be quiet – quieter than that asshole looking to get himself killed.

The convenience store is small. One of those little Mom and Pop shops that sit under an apartment complex and lap up the clientele that live overhead. The front windows are smashed in and the shelves are nearly empty. There is a brown stain behind the counter and a nice streak right out the front window and into the street.

She feels the slickness of her sweat down her back, and neck; the heat of summer thick and heavy in the confines of the dilapidated convenience store. And she stands there and waits, knife tap-tap-tapping against the counter.

Tap-tap-tapping.

Another gunshot echoes through the streets. Crack.

Her knife-hand stills, and she holds her breath.

One, two, three...

Nothing – only the echoing moans of the dead down the street, and the sudden crack of the rifle. She shakes her head, bewildered by how wildly he's wasting ammo.

She tries to ignore the severity of her situation – the fact her feet are on ground zero of Atlanta city. She had foreseen only rooftops and plus-fifteens in her future; it wasn't safe here. Ground-zero was walker territory.

Crack.

The idiot on the rooftop was leveling the playing field, but only as long as his ammo held out.

Crack.

She moves, grabbing anything and everything that looks edible. A handful of melted chocolate bars, a few packs of noodles, and as many bottles of water and warm soda pop that she can.

Crack.

The aisle marked with Personal Care is empty. For a long moment she stands in silence and stares at the shelves that are picked clean. Everything from children's Tylenol to Ex-Lax is long and gone. She takes a hesitant step forward, her disbelief hardly more than a desperate sweep of her eyes and a frustrated sigh.

She kneels down, fingers clawing under shelves and fumbling through empty boxes. Her hands are shaking as she hits something – and it rattles. It rattles. She wipes her hand over her brow and grabs the box – and it's nothing more than a handful of Glossettes. Glossettes. She lets out a sharp breath and whips it across the store.

She won't yell.

She can't.

There is no time for noise in the new world.

Instead she grits her teeth and hisses into the silent store. For a long moment she kneels there, staring down at the ground. She tugs at the bandana wrapped around her neck, the knife in her other hand pushing against the floor.

The store is quiet, save for the shuffling feet scratching against dusted concrete, or the desperate growls of the walkers as they throw themselves over and over against the unyielding glass of the store down the street. She can hear all of this – but not the sharp crack of the rifle.

The rifleman is silent.

It was a cop who had saved her life, an older man who looked her in the eye and saw a need there.

"You remind me of my daughter," he had said, his hands shaking as he handed her the keys to his cruiser. She had taken them, her eyes lingering on the bloody gash on his forearm.

"Remember to be quiet, and not be afraid," had been his last words to her. He had rested his hand on her head, his eyes seeing someone else standing there. And then she had gone. He hadn't watched her drive away. He had simply started walking back towards the city – whistling a tune that sounded something like laughter and tears.

She hadn't cried. He hadn't wanted her sympathy.

The cruiser saved her life, but only for a while. Inevitably, it led to her downfall. Mankind was a failing race - humanity had died the moment fear ruled.

"Give us the car, and your weapons," they'd all say, virgin hands trembling with guns. The slick smell of gun-oil mixed in finely with that of blood, and she forgot to look scared when they'd press the mouth of the barrel to her forehead. That smell – that smell was enough to make her breath clutch in her chest, and her lungs to swell in anticipation.

"Do it," she always said. "Pull the trigger; it's the easiest thing you'll ever do." That was enough for them to hesitate, and suddenly her fingers would be curling on their wrists and they'd let loose a single shot.

And then they'd scatter.

There was no room for noise in the new world – only silence. A single shot meant more than just a loosed bullet, it meant a brilliant and flaring beacon.

We're right here, it said. Come and get us.

Her bluff only lasted for so long, until a group of young men used the butt of their own pistols to send her staggering. They drove away with everything; the cruiser, the handgun, the backpack from before. She had barely managed to drag herself into a building before something had sniffed her out, her head bleeding and reeling and flashing with blackness.

She had hidden in an abandoned apartment's closet, an old vacuum pipe in one hand.

After weeks of silence, she had given up. She had firmly and resolutely believed that she was what remained of humanity – until that idiot had started shooting up the town and a gaggle of people had made off with a squealing car that could be heard for miles. After they had fled in their stolen vehicle, she had sat in the convenience store behind the counter and waited.

And then she had heard him – she had heard him yelling and cursing and flaring with anger. More beast than man.

He eventually went quiet.

And then she left.

She's walking away from Atlanta when she sees it. A cube van sitting crookedly in the middle of the road with its door thrown open. She eyes it warily, having preferred the concrete barrier between her and a graveyard of vehicles and people.

She comes up alongside it, her knife tapping against the side even before she gets to the door. She hesitates, breath tight.

Nothing.

Not a sound.

When she looks in and stares; a man is passed out in the driver seat, one hand clutching at the keys and the other... the other doesn't exist.

It's been erased.

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