Walking to Busan (Alternate History, General MacArthur went rogue and two weeks later ordered nuclear strikes against the Chinese and North Koreans. The USSR retaliated by storming West Germany. That was three years ago, and WW3 still burns.)

You scramble up the crater, dead rabbit in one hand, pistol in the other. I trail behind you, but the rocks are sharp and I'm sick of moving fast. Stop yelling at me! I'm getting there, just... taking my time.
Ah, damn these rocks. I stand up and glance around, trying to follow your gaze. So what? I don't see anything. You point at the road and say there's something there. I squint.
Oh. Is it-- ..? I look harder, and yeah-- it is. A long column of shining tanks. Well, maybe not exactly shining, but they're not covered in yellow dust yet. I adjust my handkerchief and scratch my beard. They're probably T-34s, judging from the cloud they're kicking up, though they're a bit far off to tell yet... Ace and Dad spot us from across the crater; you can hear them characteristically arguing about something or another, although neither can understand the other. As they're heading our way, you yell at them to come. Ace roars something incomprehensible at you and dashes ahead of Dad. I grin, they've got a rabbit too. You frown as he comes closer, it looks-- He interrupts your thought. “It's not sickly.” Ace glares at Dad, who carries both the semi and the burp across his shoulders, who's still yelling. “Two bullets! And we can't even eat it!” He hands me a pair of spent casings, .30 caliber. I ignore him, you take a look at the rabbit. They must've used the rifle, you think; its back's been nearly blown apart. You brush a hand over the sparse fur and slightly welted skin, then pitch it into the small pool of water at the bottom of the crater. Nope, you say, we can't eat it. Ace immediately starts up again. I backhand his kerchiefed mouth and you point to the road again. Tanks. Yep, commie tanks. Thanks, Joe. Dad wonders aloud if they've rebuilt the Yalu. Must've, to get over the border.
“We will have to go in a different direction.”
“Where's Jean?” You frown and look behind you. You've been wondering the same thing. Nurse probably lit off, though she was supposed to stay while you'd--
“Got nothing.” I start to shout at her as she walks around the crater's broken rim. She cuts me off. “And didn't shoot either, so no loss.” You nod tersely and watch the cloud of dirt come closer. I can almost hear it now, I think maybe.
“We will have to go in a different direction.”
“Why?” She tucks a pistol in her waistband and squats on the dust-covered ground. You grunt in the direction of the road. Oh, she says. Well then, more walking.
You ignore her. I do too. We all watch the road for a bit.
“Hand the bullets back in.” They dig in their pockets and insolently drop a few rounds each into my hand. I put them in your waiting hand; you count faster and I'm lazy.
We wait until you give a quick nod and give the handful back to me. I stick it in the pouch; we'll sort 'em again tonight. We gotta get moving.
I grab the pack with a grin and lift it over my shoulder as I stand. You hop back down into the bomb hole and start walking the other way. Shame. We all follow. I hate trying to go through the woods. Dad calls for his girl.
Nurse takes three steps in front of me, two behind you, and her mouth starts moving.
“We've a plan this time, right?” She's looking at Ace but talking to me. I don't care. He sighs, an exasperated grumble that sours the air. Talk to him, he says, meaning me. He tosses a spiteful glance at you; you don't see it, you feel it. “Or why his friend there, that bloke's the only bloke he'd listen to.”
You turn around and glare back. Nurse continues with a stiff inhale through her bandana as she kicks at a clod of dirt. “My boots're falling apart and I'm so damn sick of wearing this rag on my face.” She walks two steps. Ace talks.
“Miss your hair.”
“Really?” She smiles at him and runs a hand over her head, then wipes her hand on his shirt, leaving a grayish yellowish stain of her hand on it. He smirks at her, and she elbows him playfully. Flinching but smiling, he nearly trips over his own feet. She laughs, sounding bored, while he flails to catch his balance. I bark at them. “Hey! Walk straight!”
They both glower at me, angry eyes above faded masks of red and white, red and white and blue, stained yellow and gray and black. Tension's in the air already, and we only just started walking. You turn around and observe them, moving backwards through the dying forest. She's got two pistols on her hip and a grenade in her dirty bah. He carries the burp gun over his chest, a Japanese rifle across his shoulder, and that knife he thinks you don't know about on his ankle.
They stare at me for a brittle moment while we slow our steps together. One... Two... Three... He sighs, turns around, and keeps walking, she follows him a heartbeat later. Dad starts grumbling in his language. I watch their backs, then continue marching.
You sigh and let them pass you. Everybody's too tired, you realize, too tired to pick a fight.
Still, you're glad I'm holding all the rounds.

Dad stops cursing under his breath, and the dying woods are quiet again; we walk in silence. The girl materializes and joins up with us, a little twig of a child, poor thing. I rustle her short black hair and tighten her kerchief as she passes; she glances at me and falls right in beside her Dad, her steps one two three four for his every one, two.

Dirty woods. We walk from bomb hole to bomb hole, glad Mr. MacArthur cut a path through the underbrush for us even if it means there's a log in our way every ten paces. Try not to touch the wood with your hands when you hop it, you'll get dust on them.
Your kerchief rubs. I'm thirsty and my bandana's dry.
“Anybody got some water left?” Nobody does, or nobody will share. I chuckle and start talking. Too quiet not to. “Good ol' Kai-Shek, roasting reds across the sea and sends us the ashes.”
I glance up, raising a hand between the dusty skies and my eyes Hasn't been so bad recently, the clouds are starting to turn white again.
I scratch my neck.
“Bejing's probably nothing but a large hole in the ground now.”
Heck, I realize. “That sea, ah-” I snap my fingers because I can't remember, “-Hodai? Hoshai? Uh, Ho, Ho... Hebei?” “Bohai?” I grin happily and point at you. “Yeah, yeah, that's the one. Probably twice as long, now, don'tcha think?” I get a good laugh out of that. Yeah, I'm funny.

Somebody points out that we've still got a rabbit and we haven't eaten it yet. We decide to stop on the mountainside and start a fire on a rock.
The problem, these days, with trying to burn wood is that whatever dust is on it won't burn, it'll just float up and and poison the food unless you're really careful, so you and Dad are peeling the bark off of every branch while Ace skins the small animal.
My mouth waters when the meat is on a stick over the clean flames, dripping fat into the fire and oozing deliciousness into the air. We pick at it while it cooks. When it's done, there's only half the meat there was to start with. Whatever. Just means it cooks faster. We eat in smacky, licky silence.
It's gone in a heartbeat – after all, what's one rabbit for six hungry people? Nobody, not even Nurse, bothers complaining. We've gone through this too many times for anybody to entertain the notion that it's be worth the energy to flap their tongues. Like always, Dad ate nothing and just tries to feed everything to his daughter, who inevitably insists that he should eat, and back and forth in a long happy discussion that mostly involves a lot of “aniyo, appa” and “neh, kyung-soon”.
And just like that, one more meal is over. Amazing what you used to take for granted.

The trees start to thin as we descend from wooden slopes to rocky bluffs. I leap forward, food in my stomach and mirth in my mind. I grab you by the shoulder, grinning.
“Darling,” I smirk, “won't you sing for us?” You eye me over your fabric mask. “No.” I bark a humourless laugh – hah! – and slide down to Ace and whack him on the back. “Dearest, give us a song!” He curses me and calls me yank and pushes my face away. You watch me catch my balance and perch my kerchief back on my nose. “Well then, I'll supply the song, then.” I start to bellow a tuneless chant we've all heard a thousand times. Don't ask me why they shot the General or who held the gun Mr. Truman in the White House's gone the way of Lincoln But the dirty-minded Communists were roasted in the sun When China ate the bombs...