"Be reasonable, honey!" said Corey.
"That's what I'm being, for the first time in years," she said. "I wish we'd stayed with Pete and Beth."
"They've turned to ashes by now," said Corey.
Lucille shrugged. "Maybe they're better off." The baby began to cry, and kick its round pink legs.
"I think the baby needs a change, or something," said Corey, looking down at his infant son.
"Read him Coningsby," said Lucille. Then she started laughing again, until Corey was forced to slap her face crimson to quiet her.
Just a few weeks short of two years after the holocaust, the great spaceship settled on faltering fires to the charred surface of the Earth. The Moonbase commander, gaunt from long starvation, reeled out into the glaring white sunlight, fell face downward upon the sharp black rocks, and just lay there, trying to catch his breath. Behind him, a pale shadow formed in the blackness of the open airlock, and a woman crept out, her hair tangled and white-streaked, her face raddled with disease. She shuddered, and sank to a squatting position on the ground, covering her face with her hands to block out the horrible vista that ran for mile upon scorched mile.
"It's dead, the world's dead," she mewled, quaking. "We're at a wake, a hideous, horrible wake!"
The commander groaned and lifted himself up painfully on his elbows. "There's got to be something, somewhere, or we've had it."