We try them all. Each car is either locked, or it holds a dead body. One white Acura contains two bodies, though the windows are so damp and fogged we can’t see much more than that. We also try getting inside the travel center, but it’s locked down tight.

“The empty cars,” Trey muses. “Maybe their owners are inside the travel center? Maybe we can find keys.”

“Remember how hard it was to break into that grocery store?” I remind him. “Do we want to make that much noise right now?”

“What else can we do?”

“We walk. For now. Just until we find a farmhouse. It’s easier to break into a farmhouse than a humongous store like this. Eventually, we’ll find a house with keys to a car.”

“We can travel in that ditch,” Tanq says. “Crouch down in the grass if we see anything.”

Trey stares at the ditch.

“Trey?” I prompt. “Thoughts?”

He frowns. “On rough ground, we won’t even hit three miles per hour. But I don’t have a better idea. Let’s go.”

We’ve been walking for hours, and it’s getting colder. Or at least I think it’s been hours. I have no phone to check the time, no clear sky to gauge the position of the sun. The bones in my legs weigh a thousand pounds. My bitten heel aches, though as long as it doesn’t start to sting—indicating the wound has opened up again—I’ll choose to ignore it.

We have not seen a single farmhouse.

A church rose up in the distance, about two miles back, and we headed in its direction just long enough to note that its parking lot was empty. So after we took a quick break to share water from the bottle in my purse and eat granola bars, we passed by and pushed on.

The drainage ditch alongside State Route 61 is spongy with dampness and thick with reeds, but Tanq was right; it will provide a little cover if we need it.

“Hey, there aren’t any snakes out here, are there?” Tanq says, startling me, because we’ve all been silent so long.

“Nothing venomous,” I lie. I saw a northern copperhead once, outside a gymnasium in southern Ohio.

“Okay, that’s good.”

Trey leads us, and he glances back over his shoulder and says, “You doing okay, Paige?”

“What about me?” Tanq says, and I can see in her face that she’s mostly teasing. “You never ask about me.”

“You weren’t in a coma a week ago.”

“Fair point,” she says.

Trey stops in his tracks, but he doesn’t duck for cover, so after a confused mutual glance, Tanq and I hurry to catch up.

“What?” I say. “What is it?”

He points.