In his mind, the twisted tune revealed its full glory. A thundering, sweeping melody that was more. It was a pure force driving out fear, hesitance, and panic. When he allowed his mind to wander to that tune, God became fully realized in his mind. Possibility and limitation would clash in a flurry of notes and noises and in the end, possibility was the ultimate victor. He would transcend his body, the world, all obstacles, the universe; he would transcend himself and fully embody and become the very spirit of creation. Nothing could ever stand in his way because all was he and he was all.
    All heights could be jumped, all forces stopped, all obstacles pushed over as if a mere thought were all it required.
    So why!? Why did he have to forget it at that time of all times? Sitting in the cold darkness, he glanced at the person who could be his new best friend or maybe even more. He shuddered. Was it the thought that chilled him or the lack of proper heat?
    Laying back, he cursed the stone slab that would be his only source of leisure. His lids, heavy with days of anxious sleeplessness, came to a close, though sleep would not find him quite yet. Instead, his mind wandered. Not to that tune, woefully, but to those cursed events where he perhaps needed it most.

    “We aren't the only survivors.” Jack bared his teeth in a caricature of a smile as he brushed dirty brown bangs from his clear, blue eyes. Somehow, Kit doubted Jack was capable of genuine happiness. He seemed to live off trouble, the kind that seemed harmless at the onset but always grew to envelop himself and others (“Usually myself,” Kit mused in despair) in slightly more tangible danger. Jack noted the impatience in Kit's eyes, let out a tiny hissing noise that resembled laughter, and continued. “This is how it works. We need to get into contact with the others, before 'they' do.” Jack shuddered, his muscular frame curling and releasing in spasms at the thought. “Contamination sets in approximately 32 hours, so we have some time if we're smart about it. After that, if the zombies so much as see--”
    “Shut up!” Kit threw a stray pebble lamely at Jack's freckled face. “I'm so sick of your games. Your games are what got us into this mess. Do you have even a tiny idea of what kind of trouble we are in? When they find us--”
    “Theeeey,” Jack interrupted.
    “Excuse me?”
    “You have to stress it when you say 'they' or 'them.' It makes it more dramatic. Owch!” Another pebble bounced off his face. “Stop it!” he whined ineffectually.
    “Shut up or I swear to God I will step right outside with a big red flag and yell until they come right by with their blinking red and blue lights and arrest us.”
    “Well, at least it will be all over like you want...”
    “No! No! They can't find us! I'm not going to jail for your stupid game!”
    Jack laughed and scratched his neck. Though youthful features graced both the boys' faces, maturity was already beginning to show in the form of light brown facial hair. Though it was barely noticeable, Kit always begrudged Jack's symbol of maturity, a virtue that Kit seemed to hold over Jack.
    “They can't arrest us, Kit! You gotta relax, man!”
    “Relax? Relax!? We aren't children anymore, James! We're adults. Legally... adults! The full mark of the law will be used against us! We don't get to go home free!” Kit jumped to his feet, dust flying out around him. Somewhere in the ruins of the church, a mouse squeaked its dismay at the intruders. “They will put us away for a very... very... fucking... long time!”
    “It's just graffiti. I wouldn't even call it graffiti. It's more like art.”
    “Who gives a good god damn about the fucking graffiti?! No one! No one, Jack! God, are you fucking insane!? Were you there when you pushed the guy!? He was using a cane. He didn't get up!”
    “I was a little busy trying to get away, Kit. I'm sure he'll be fine.”
    The dust settled with their voices. A moment of silence puncuated by the occasional rodent squeak. “He'll be fine, right, Kit?”
    “He didn't open his eyes,” Kit whispered.
    “What?”
    “There was blood, and he didn't open his eyes, and he didn't get up.”
    “Oh God.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. We can't wait here. They'll find us. We've been yelling. They're probably waiting for us outside right now. We gotta run.”
    Kit took two steps forward and slapped Jack straight across the face. A sharp piercing noise that signaled the end of the world.
    And then it came back to life.
    “Think. If they are waiting outside like you say, we can't just run out.”
    “Right, of course. Oh, Jesus tap dancing Christ, get us out of here, Kit. Please, please, please. You're a smart guy. You're the smart one. You can do it. You've always been the smart one, getting us out of trouble.”
    “It's okay, Jack. I have a plan.”
    “Kit?”
    “Run.”
    “What?”
    “Run!”
    Kit grabbed Jack's wrist and pulled with all his might, running out the door. Running towards the light.

    He laughed to himself, a small rumble that, nevertheless, managed to disturb his new companion. “Quiet, shit face, or I'll give you something to really laugh about.”
    “You know,” Kit slurred, sleep finally coming to claim him in the cold dark, “if you think you see the light, you should turn the other way.”
    “What the fuck are you talking about, shit face?”
    But he was already asleep.

    The light was the first thing he saw. Then the sillhouette. “Get up. You have a visitor.”
    “Wha?”
    “Get up. You have a visitor. Get up.”
    “Who would come to visit me?”
    “Who gives a shit?”
    “Exactly.”

    The guard led Kit down a hall, then down a flight of stairs whose squeaking indicated imminent malfunction. Out a metal door and through a hallway that was slightly more presentable. Paint on the walls that wasn't totally eaten away by lack of care.
    “Stop letting everything bother you.” The guard looked down at Kit, his face betraying only apathy.
    “Easy for you to say.”
    “Everything will change.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “It's the nature of things. You'll see.”
    “Whatever, man.”

    The visitor was a young woman, a girl really. Long, jet black hair flowed to her waist in neat form, clear to reveal her pale face and brown eyes. Her mouth was taut with an adult seriousness that Kit had only seen in authority figures from his school days. A white blouse was covered by an unbuttoned yet tidy blue jacket. A single, red bow rested at an angle on top of her head, though somehow it failed to relieve her of her marked maturity. Kit imagined that not even a teddy bear and a summer dress could make her look childish enough to match her own age.
    The guard tapped Kit's shoulder and pointed to a red board with white print marked “Visiting Rules” then walked away, his pace maintaining apathetic leisure.
    “Thank you for coming.” Her voice was sharp, but not harsh. It would be melodious if she didn't deliver it with such indifference and straightforwardness.
    Kit shrugged and tugged at the too-tight orange jumpsuit that was standard issue for inmates. “You caught me at an unusually free moment.” He was not rewarded with any notable reaction.
    “My name is Susan O'Hara. You are here because you are being granted an opportunity to serve mankind.”
    “Actually, I'm here for manslaughter.”
    “I'm going to have to ask you to maintain a reasonable level of seriousness, Mr. Xxxx.”
    Kit raised his head and straightened his mouth in mock seriousness.
    “Deadly.”
    “Quite.” She left no clue to her meaning. “I am representing the Federal Bureau of Investigations for this visit, Mr. Xxxx.”
    “Yeah? Can I see a badge?”
    “No. I am here to make you an offer.”
    “And if I refuse?”
    “Please, Mr. Xxxx, you are smarter than this. Listen to the offer before opening your very capable mouth.”
    “Kit.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “My name is Kit.”
    “I am aware, Mr. Xxxx. As I was saying, we are prepared to offer you total absolution from your very serious crime in return for your service.”
    “The FBI doesn't have that kind of power.”
    “In most situations you would be correct. However, I am part of that division which has... marked influence.”
    “And which division would that be?”
    “Are you familiar with the Disasterstrike Murders?”
    “Who isn't?” Images flashed in his mind. Newspaper headlines and talking heads on television describing gruesome killing after gruesome killing. Men, seemingly sane by all rights, suddenly driven to amazing acts of murder. Rumors said they were invincible. One popular line of gossip described one such encounter where a man killed two fully grown black bears. There really was no official opinion on whether or not the killer survived that particular encounter.
    “So, wait just a moment,” Kit ventured, “That means you...”
    “Yes. I am an agent of the Disasterstrike Elimination Division.”
    “Prove it.”
    “It's not my business to prove anything to you, Mr. Xxxx. I am merely here to inform you that you are invited and encouraged to join the Disasterstrike Elimination Division.”
    “Why me?”
    “Frankly...”
    “Yes?”
    “You have nothing to lose.”

    Something kept on scratching at the back of his head. A tiny voice was trying to warn him of a very obvious flaw in all this, but he just could not summon the resources to hear or heed it. There were plenty of others things to worry about. The unpleasantly thorough body search. The scratchy uniform that felt too restrictive. Oh, and the shots. Can't forget the shots. All those shots.
    “You know, I was thinking, why can't you just put the ingredients for all of the shots into one super shot so that I don't start springing leaks.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Yeah. It seems pretty obvious to me.”
    The doctor shook her head before removing yet another needle from its place on the counter. “Okay, this one is going to hurt...”

    It wasn't until he woke up in the back of an unfamiliar limousine in front of the ever serious Susan O'Hara that it occurred to him.
    “I'm not the only one there who had lost his entire life. You haven't really explained why I was given this opportunity.”
    “It would have been prudent of you to consider a point like this before obligating yourself in this manner, Mr. Xxxx.”
    “Well?”
    “Suffice it to say, you are not the only member of Disasterstrike Elimination that was recruited in your particular manner. Besides...”
    “Yes?”
    “There are those who are not entirely... unsympathetic.”

    He had been humming that tune for as long as he could remember. It was as if he was born knowing its unique flow, or lack there of. It seemed to have gone without a trace now. Slowly, it was being replaced by its virtual opposite. An uncontrollable creeping dread put to sound that lurked in the back of his mind. It robbed him of his focus.
    Focus was exactly what he needed at this juncture.

    The limo stopped with an unprecedented suddenness, hurtling Kit's unsecured body forward into Susan. Their heads collided comically. “Walter!” Susan barked, “What's the situation?” A voice that was oddly familiar to Kit broke through on a radio attached to the girl's waist, hooked to a loose-hanging belt. Casually it explained:
    “Yorrenites are blocking the path. I can't get through.”
    “How many?”
    “At least a dozen.”
    “Together? They've never shown any organization before.”
    “Yorrenites?” Kit interrupted. “What's going on?”
    Susan withdrew a pistol from a holster attached to the other side of her waist. “You're first mission. Get ready.”
    “What's ready?”
    “For the sake of this mission, ready means staying put and shutting up. Wait here.”
    The limo began to rock side to side, gently at first, then more frantically.
    The radio hissed. “Susan! They have surrounded the vehicle!”
    “I'm ready. We will force our way out then engage the unit as a two-man pincer.”
    “I understand. On your signal.”
    “Now!”