Something in Dinah's mind had warned her away from town... something of her father's teachings of self-reliance, of insistence that, when the worst happened, it was best handled alone.  Community was important, but independence came first.  But that was before she saw what had happened to her community.<br/><br/>From what she seen moving from ranch to ranch, it was pretty much the same everywhere... the Thomas farm had been left open-doored, no one inside, with no sign but a puddle of thickening blood something had been drug through, a trail that ended in a tuft of shredded denim and hair at the barbed-wire, where the sundry footprints had muddied to a rich red-brown.  Further down, the door had been ripped off the hinges of a modular home and the windows were shattered.  Miles of empty highway, of dead homes.  Only one house today with anyone alive inside, and they were so afraid they said they'd shoot her if she passed the split-rail fence... they had plywood screwed to the windows, rolls of chicken wire around the basement windows... she doubted it would hold out.<br/><br/>Suddenly, her footfalls-- almost silent on the road as she entered the junction of State Highway P-- sounded very, very alone.  It was only a mile or two to town now.  Just a couple miles, less than half of what she ran most mornings, but with her heavy pack and weaponry, a run was out of the question for the moment... though she knew, somewhere, that she might have to make a sudden decision to drop everything and run.  Running might not even help-- sick people usually didn't have much speed, but who knows..?  Wouldn't that just be a bitch?<br/><br/>State Highway P would become the county route soon.  And then it was a straight shot to town... to that plume of oily black smoke, to some vague, desperate hope that she fully suspected might be her last.