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should keep it because the cop inside was infected and he wasn’t gonna need it anymore." She hissed the last word for extra effect.
                  Keith smiled, even with the world ending children could still be cute in the most macabre ways. "So there's no sheriff or police?"
                  "My daddy is a cop, but he says all them other chicken shit motherfuckers left with the Army so they can eat shit and rot in hell ." All three kids made the sign of the cross on their hearts.
                  "Nice touch, Children of the Corn. Do you know where your daddy is?"
                  "I'm right here." They both turned to face a rather plump man holding an M1 Garand menacingly enough. "Who're you?"
                  "I'm Ethan, he's Keith." Ethan let his rifle hang on its sling. Keith similarly relaxed to try and ease the man's stress a little. "We're looking for family around here."
                  "You stand an okay chance of finding them." The chubby cop relaxed his grip on his rifle. "Most people left along with the Army, though. Last soldiers we saw were gone by midnight last night." The officer eyed them suspiciously, "Those are some nice guns you got. Look kinda Government Issued if you ask me. Your haircut too." He pointed at Keith, “You friend there looks like a dirty hippy.”
                  “Thank you.” Ethan smiled. “I like to think my inner self shines through when no one makes me shave at 0500.”
                  "Where are you going with this?" Keith didn't like the direction the conversation was taking. The guy was still wearing a royal blue polo that read POLICE over his heart, and a work belt loaded for riot control.
                  "You misunderstand me," The officer smiled. "I've been hoping there'd be some Soldiers or Marines out there who weren't stupid enough to get infected, that some of you guys would wind up here. Most of the officers from my department got caught up in the Army pullout. There's only three of us and a retired sheriff from Branson. We could use some help keeping the other towns away from us.”
                  "Is there some kind of government here?" Ethan asked.
                  "Not really. You can only be in charge of what you can patrol, and that would be just three cops right now to cover a lot of hostile area. If you two are who I think you are, we could use you."
    “ Is there a meeting place?”
                  "We’re meeting tonight at seven at the Police Station. You two gonna be there?"
                  "We hope so." Ethan said before they turned to go back to their golf cart on steroids.
                  "Hey, GI Ginger, I'll trade you this here drum magazine for that there bear mace you’re packin’." One of the kids on the truck offered to Keith. His father smiled proudly, watching his children sell like they were an auctioneer.
                  Ethan looked down at Keith's belt. "Where the hell did you get bear mace?" Keith ignored Ethan and made the trade. They drove away after that, Keith happily loading the drum magazine with 5.56mm rounds. The trip wound through the older part of town on the East side of the tracks that paralleled Main Street. A dozen people on the roads were just wandering around in the middle of the dark, shock and disbelief disconnecting them from their new reality. One man even walked along the road with his cell phone out, looking for a signal that may never appear again. Wal*Mart had still been lit when they left, though the lights being on hadn’t stopped anyone from looting it of course. The streets were a lot scarier than Ethan remembered as a boy. He turned off the side-by-side’s lights as they swerved down a back road, suspicious someone might be following them. During Sullivan’s height, when the Railroads were everywhere, the housing had boomed to