Safety in numbers

You gently stroke Amanda's hair for a while, gathering your thoughts as best you can. Your mind seems to be in "crisis mode", ignoring the horror of what the world has become and concentrating on the here and now, and survival.

"You say there are ten men for every woman?" you ask.

"Well, it's not like I took a census, but that seems about right."

You think for a moment. "I like the idea of getting out of the city. It's dangerous here. But we'll never make it if it's just the two of us, we need numbers. More than that, we women need to protect our own. The rape gangs are out there looking for any female flesh they can find - we need to find them first, and together we can get out of here. Then, once we're in a position of strength, we can invite the men of our choosing to join us."

Amanda looks up at you gratefully, and seems more than willing to let you assume command. "So, what do we do?"

"Well, we're going to have to start by finding some other clothes to wear. Something that doesn't identify us as women right from the get-go. We'll also need something to defend ourselves with, and other supplies. Any ideas?"

"There's a big Army surplus store about ten blocks east of here. There's also the mall, we could probably do pretty well there. Or, I suppose we could just break into random homes and take whatever we can."

You pause. Any of those options has its own risk. Others would have thought of the Army store, and going around to random homes makes it that much more likely you'll run into trouble - though you'll also be more likely to find other women. And you really don't want to go back to the mall. For some reason, it simply terrifies you.

There's also another thought that occurs to you, which is that there's a hospital just down the street. You have a feeling that if there already is a crowd of women gathering, that might be where they choose to go, if only because it's a reasonably safe and easily defensible place that has its own source of survival gear and, of course, medical supplies. Perhaps it would be better to increase the size of your little party before going after weapons.