Dinah circled the now-dwindling source of smoke, eying the remains with a little more than disappointment.  The car alarm had whined itself to silence long before she turned this corner, and now all was still.  She lifted her hat from the top of her head, the cooling air feeling quite a relief, and stepped cautiously around the abandoned vehicles, noting a body with a mangled face long-dead... she made VERY sure to give it a wide berth regardless.  Though she knew very little about military operations, it was immediately clear that the helicopter wasn't from the army-- though it might have been a rescue airlift, she guessed from the now-charred numbering that the copter was more likely from some news network...<br/><br/>Her heart nearly stopped at a high-pitched noise from some distance to her right.  "Oh shit--" Her eyes dart back to the bodies, and she hoisted the shotgun reflexively, terror gripping her spine like an icy vice, until she realized that the noise was a whistle, and its source-- "Oh, thank God..."  she swept her gaze over the lot, less careful than she should have been, but the elation at seeing another living person sent her at a run toward the hardware store, the shotgun up and at her shoulder by its strap.<i>So much for scoping them out first</i>, she realized, for whoever she'd heard firing-- maybe the military?-- had seen her already, and they--<i>he,</i>apparently-- was truly a sight for sore eyes.<br/><br/>"Oh my God, I can't believe it--" she says, her youthful face beaming as she reached the door.  "You're alive!  Oh my God, oh my God."  Not thinking, not self-conscious, she embraces the first person she sees, not feeling the weight of her hiker's pack any more.