Chapter 3: The Road To Philadelphia

Of course, my friends vote for me to look outside first. I grabbed a rifle from my dad's old gun cabinet in the basement. I point the rifle out of the door, looking around.

My house was still standing, the same could not be said for the neighbors. All of the Windows were shattered and the door was ripped off the hinges and thrown across the room. It looked like it was snowing outside.

Strange... I thought it would be more like a desert. I went outside, it didn't feel like snow. Ash... It was ash from the fire of the bomb. I was walking through it when I stepped on something hard, kinda like a rock.

I look at my footprint, squinting at it. I reach down and grab it, pulling it up. "Ah! Jesus Christ!" I dropped the arm of the skeleton. The worse part was I didn't even know who it was. I walked away, mortified by the sights I was seeing. I went back to the basement and told them it was safe to come up.

They all came up and we looked around, just as shocked as I was. We stayed inside for a while, There were small piles of ash in front of the shattered windows, but nowhere else. The house constantly squealed with the sound of wood bending.

We attempted to go upstairs but Josh and Mason were too heavy, so only me and Raymir could go up. We walked up the steps and into my room. I knew my knife collection would come in handy eventually. The knives were in a large black box, so I picked it up and put my backpack on, tossing the box in it.

Raymir found a few cans of food with some water and soda, we put those in my backpack too. We walked back downstairs and as we were upstairs Mason and Josh looked through the garage. They found a small toolbox and a pipe wrench, Josh took that, leaving Mason the one without a melee weapon.

We left my house and searched through the street, no one. We searched through the part of town I was in, no one. We looked through the entire town, plenty of food and drinks, too much in fact, but no one alive around.

We only found one other person with flesh on themselves. Sadly, they weren't alive. They were slumped over on a chair with a gun on the floor. It was obvious what he did. We took his gun and left him be.

We walked down the road. No one said anything, but what was there to say? We could possibly be the only living people in Pennsylvania. We wondered a bit more until we stopped at a railroad station.

A long train car was flipped over to the right side. We walked over to it and began climbing it. We eventually pried the sliding doors open with Josh's wrench and jumped in. A light came from the Windows above us and we had to watch it not to step on skeletons. Some hung from the seat belts of the train seats, they're slim fingers grazing across our heads. We grabbed a few bags for everyone so we all could carry something.

We eventually reached the back of the train and unlocked the back door, climbing out. Then I came up with an idea.

"Guys, people might be alive a Philly! We should go there!" I pointed down the track, it was the track to Philly. We would show up at the subway near the liberty bell.

"Yeah, that's a good idea, let's get moving."  Josh began walking but Raymir interrupted. "But we don't know what people do to survive, there could be lots of criminals!"

I shook my head and scoffed. "We just have to hope not to run into any of them." Josh nods and we continue on our way, Raymir taking a bit to follow.