I've long forgotten how long ago the war happened. We thought we'd be wiped clean in nuclear fire. We definitely tried, I remember the radio talking about the impacts as they got the reports.

But I guess we came to our senses. Someone stopped pushing the button. I do remember the counts. Thirteen hit here in the States. Our neighbors to the north got half a dozen. They reported thirty across Russia. South America and Africa totalled up were twenty.

Then the new plague. Engineered, radioactive flu, didn't matter. I held my only child in my arms as she died, practically melting into a viscous black paste as the disease took her. I remember her mother slowly banging her head into the window as I cried.

The not so fortunate victims. We called them hollows. Sometimes the plague just ate away your insides and left a shambling husk wandering around. Mostly benign until they saw something alive.

We fled the cities. I keep saying we, like I don't remember their names. Maybe I don't want to. We were a team of analysts and communication specialists meant to keep the country running as Armageddon happened.

We failed, no one could have kept things from falling apart, but we tried.

Out in the wilds, after I buried my family, I saw the first shrine. A collection of sentimental knick knacks in a fountain, "He was here" scrawled across the concrete in what I hoped was red paint.

I found a radio that worked, and found a station. Emergency Broadcast didn't take long to fail, anything commercial had fallen off even faster. But on the shortwave, there was someone, something broadcasting; "Drive West, friends, He was here, He was there, and He waits for you in paradise."

It was something. I needed it to keep from going crazy. I don't even know what His name actually is. Some of the makeshift shrines made Him out as a man in a pullover hoodie, sometimes a robe, sometimes just a t-shirt and jeans with a pulled down ball cap over His eyes.

They never showed His face, and I never met anyone else in my travel. Just me and the radio, discovering more and more intricate depictions of Him.

I'm not much a man of faith, but I found hope in that thread of a constant while the world was dying around me. "Drive West, friends, He was here, He was there, He waits for you in paradise."

Walk during the day, find something to eat, sleep through the night, rinse and repeat.

I'd developed a bit of a ritual before sleeping. I'd cook what I found, and I'd toss a bit in the flames. "For those that were here," and the fire would crackle, "for those that are there," the fire danced, "and for Him," the fire would jump and celebrate.

The United States isn't, wasn't, a narrow country. I'd found a compass to help me keep straight, and always walked west. I did so, I've done so, for years.

I'm not sure if I'm in Hell, or things are just different now, but the broadcast never stops, and the only people I've ever met are corpses.

"Drive West, friends, He was here, He was there, He waits for you in paradise."

"For those that were here, for those that are there, and for Him."

"I hope you don't mind, but I'd rather not have to eat another burnt meal." A voice low and gravelly from the darkness outside the light.

I jump away from the fire, terror in my heart. "Who's there?"

"Just a man wandering around what has been, like yourself."

I realize the tone isn't malicious, and the terror abates. At least a small amount. I thought I was alone.

"You're not, friend," he says as he comes into the light, sitting cross legged before the fire. He's wearing a tattered denim jacket and a cowboy hat pulled down to hide his face.

I try to stutter out a response, and he waves a hand up. "I can't hear all your thoughts, but I heard that one. You're not alone out here, just a bit lost."

"How have I spent so long trying to get West, and I still have never seen the mountains?"

"Your heart is full of pain, and guilt. The world took your family, it's not your fault."

Tears well up in my eyes, "how do you know about "

Another raised hand, and that grandfather like tone, "I've been there, I'm here, and I'm waiting for you. You just have to forgive yourself."

I couldn't see for the tears clouding my vision, but somewhere in the flood of grief, the stranger had left. I'd have doubted he even existed, save for the coat pin where he'd sat. Just gotta survive today was written in black on a simple white square of ceramic.

Sleep wasn't easy, but when I awoke, I saw mountain tops on the horizon.

I'm sorry Anna, Candace, I couldn't save you. Mark, Wendy, Terrance, I hope you found peace.

I gotta survive today, he's been here, he's been there, he's waiting for me in paradise.