I got the idea Nate was holding something back. “What are you not telling me?”

Nate leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. He looked down and it was a long time before he looked up. He sighed and said, “We’re not alone.”

I leaned back in my chair and stared at him. When I found my voice I asked, “How do you know?”

“We had a generator we found in the home of a carpenter, and we hooked the radio up to it. Jim worked on it for a while, then we heard the voices. We were pretty excited about that, until we started to seriously listen to the people on the radio. We got broadcasts from all over the place, all kinds of languages.” Nate paused. “There’s survivors all over, but not much else. Some people are screaming for anyone to help, others are just trying to find a link to keep themselves from committing suicide. Several times, we could hear the dead moaning in the background. After a while, we just turned it off.”

“Must have been bad, hearing people and not being able to help or even let them know you could hear them.”

Nate looked down again. “I actually felt guilty knowing what we have and hearing about people starving or about to be overrun.”

I tried to be reassuring. “You can’t save everyone. We’re on our own as much as anyone else. We got lucky, but we fought for it too.”

Nate turned cryptic. “Maybe we can save some.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking at his maps for a clue.

“We got a broadcast we actually answered, and they know about us, and we know about them,” Nate said. “Turns out they managed to escape the virus itself, and have barricaded themselves against the hordes. But they know they can’t hold out forever and were wondering if we could lend a hand.” Nate looked at me questioningly.

I chuckled at his look. “Phase three.”