the little children raise their open filthy palms

Phil doesn't go into the cities anymore. Once had been enough, and he doesn't have a death wish.

He chooses only to watch them in the distance, or pass by them from time to time as he walks. The buildings loom in the distance, their once-shining rooftops now overgrown and dull with no one to take care of them. If you get close enough, you smell the stench of rot and death. It's a smell you can never get out of your nose, discovered one night after the initial wave where Phil tried desperately to scrub out his nose, sticking cloth and then even fingers as far up as he could to try and wash the smell out of his sinuses. It didn't work, and the smell has stayed with him since. He tries to look past it, look past the cities, and continue walking forward. That's what he attributes his survival to, really. The ability to look past everything, stare the dead in the eyes, and still walk on after he's shot them in the head. They were people once, but thinking about it too much makes his hands start to shake so Phil looks past it and walks on.