Carter, heedless of their mutual nudity, clapped him on the shoulder and leaned towards him in the universal gesture of male comforting male.

"Just go out and walk in the halls at night, and you'll find someone who needs it. Sometimes you just run into them, or run into the monsters. Me, I don't even know that much about soldiering, just bombs, and me and my crowbar have been doing all right for ourselves." One giant rat, one man capable of setting things on fire, several cockroaches, and one bat killed with his bare hands. Carter felt he wasn't doing too bad for himself.

And the shadow. There was that. "But some monsters here you can't kill with normal weapons," Carter was quick to add. "I had to blow one up. So be careful, okay."