"I don't suppose you have any beer in you," Marylou said, as she poked the fire. "Or, I don't know... some Jagger?"

"No," Amy said. "Sorry."

"You see, that's the downside of taking shelter in a high school building," Marylou said. "They don't have any alcohol in the cafeteria. Canned goods and juice, sure. But God forbid they keep a few Steel Reserves stacked away in the case of future apocalyptic rain."

"There's more food?" Amy said, her mouth dripping corn and pork into the cans Marylou had given her.

"Yeah, there's a shit ton of stuff in the cafeteria," Marylou replied. "It's tricky to get there, though, 'cause it's in another building."

The girl stopped her spoon halfway to her mouth. "You have to go out in the rain?"

"Yeah," Marylou said. "But only for a little bit."

The girl held on to her stare, somber eyes, then resumed eating in silence.

"How long since you had something to eat?" Marylou asked. "Before now, I mean."

The girl stopped again, a little piece of corn dangling from her lips. "I don't remember," she said.

"Three days, I think. Why?"

"You're eating like a farm animal with a bad tooth."

The girl sniffed and cleaned her mouth and rested the can on the floor. "I'm sorry," she said.

Marylou laughed. "It's fine. Eat, come on, I'm not royalty."

They'd been back at the fire for almost an hour, and the sun was beginning to rise out the window above their heads. Amy didn't talk much – a quality that Marylou had always cherished in people, before the Storm – but she seemed harmless. No family, no friends. Said she'd been drifting from abandoned house to abandoned house, trying to find food and shelter, for months now.

Said she saw a stray cat once, but the cat ran way.

Also said she'd seen a lightning really close to her, a few days before.

Also said she liked the color blue.

Not a person with very interesting stories, Marylou concluded. But, truth be told, it was nice having someone existing near her for a change, after so many days of solitude. Even if that someone wasn't exactly the most exciting person ever. And ate like a farm animal.

How that girl had made it this far on her own in the shitshow that the world had become, Marylou had no idea.

"So, where did you live? Before the Storm?"

Amy looked up from her can. "Beverly Hills. With my parents."

"Uh. Rich bitch."

Amy frowned.

"I'm just joking," Marylou said. "Partly."

Amy shoved some more food down her throat, then looked up. "How about you?"

Marylou chuckled. "Oh, shit. You wouldn't know the name of my neighborhood."

"Why not?"

"Cause it's white trash and poor and faaar away from Beverly Hills."

Amy didn't say anything, but kept her eyes up, expecting more.

Marylou sighed. "I lived in a trailer park with two very nice methamphetamine addicts."

Amy kept the blank stare.

"My parents," Marylou explained. "I meant my parents. They were junkies."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, they're dead now."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Eat your porks."

"Okay..."

Amy was sixteen, or so she had told Marylou, but she acted younger. Or maybe it was shyness. Or maybe Marylou intimidated her. Maybe a bit of both.

Marylou didn't care either way.

"My parents died too," Amy said. "Right after the Fall."

"Yeah you told me," Marylou said.

"I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize every five seconds, Amy."

"I'm sorry."

Marylou sighed. "Eat your corn."

"Okay..."

Marylou's parents had died on the first week. Almost everyone had died in the first week – first month tops. The Fall – the first week of the storm -- was a fuckton of a lot worse than the current weather. People being dragged down sidewalk rivers and splashing dead against buildings, getting run over by out-of-control cars drifting with the tides, drowning on overflowed rivers inside their SUVs and BMWs every time a bridge gave in...

It was brutal.

And then, when pretty much the whole city had been destroyed and the highways leading out of LA had crumpled and the survivors were pretty much marooned in the ruins of the city, the Fall receded. It kept on raining – it never stopped – but to a somewhat acceptable, if still horrible, level.

And that's when the Ghost stories started coming up. People wandering out into the rain and never coming back. Bodies with hollow eyes and pale skin, no bruises, no sign of struggle or fight. No blood or organs inside them. Whispers of shapeless creatures deforming the raindrops outside, moving fast and silent, preying on those who ventured unto unroofed territories. Paranoia bred from panic and despair, or so Marylou liked to believe.

No creo en las brujas, but they scare the shit out of me anyway.

"Do you believe in the Ghosts?" Amy asked all of a sudden, as if reading Marylou's mind.

"No," Marylou answered. "I mean, I've never seen one, but –"

"I have."

Marylou paused. "You did?"

"Well... my father did."

"That's cool," Marylou said. Then, after a while, "Is that how he died?"

Amy froze. She rested her empty cans by the fire and looked down, moving her lips but not saying anything.

"How'd your folks die?" Marylou pressed.

Amy kept quiet.

"Oh, come on," Marylou protested. "I'll tell you how my parents died. The rain pushed our trailer off a cliff, and they were squished to death like itsy bitsy spiders under a shoe."

Amy's eyes widened. She swallowed, then grabbed the empty pork can and nibbled with the label, nervous.

"It's no big deal," Marylou said. "Everybody died, dude. We gotta make our peace with it."

From somewhere deep in her memory, Marylou heard the loud, obnoxious meth-laughter of her mom and dad, the same way she remembered back when she used to lock herself in her room when her parents got high, before the Storm. Loud, annoying, scream-like laughter.

"Okay, you don't have to talk about it," Marylou said, pushing the thoughts of her parents away. "But it' good to acknowledge these things. Or not. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, anyway. God, I could use a beer."

Amy kept quiet, peeling the label off her can, eyes fixed down.

Marylou studied Amy. The girl had something about her – a kind of innocence that didn't match this new world at all. A foreign childishness in this place of darkness, like she was just visiting from some brighter place; like at any moment her parents would come and pick her up and take her back to whatever higher plane of existence with no death and suffering she seemed to be from.

Marylou thought back on her own parents, and with them came the laughter again. She always hated – haaated – the way her parents laughed when they were high. She'd learned still a kid to pull the pillow over her head and wait for it to end, every time her parents scored. It was just so... loud and annoying and childish and stupid and dirty and –

"Who's laughing?"

Marylou looked up at Amy. "What?"

Then she heard it too. It wasn't in her head. Echoed and distant and mixed with rhythmic footsteps, coming from the main hallway to their left. Inside the building.

"Shit," Marylou said, getting up and stomping the fire as quietly and fast as she could. "Someone's here."