“Four days ago, I saw two kids. Ten or eleven. I think they were brother and sister. There were still a few people left four days ago, but they were all sick. Bad sick. These kids were no different—coughing, holding on to each other like they might fall down. They were going from house to house, looking for food maybe.” His voice is thick with sadness. Or maybe fear.

“What happened?” I say it coolly, even though my heart beats rapid fire.

“I called out to them. I was so glad to see someone. They turned. Saw me. We were smiling.” He rests his elbows on the table and stares off into space as though suddenly lost. “I started toward them, and something came out of the sky. Something metal. I thought it was some kind of huge drone, but it was shaped weird, like a bug. It had this coating, or aura, or . . . All shimmery and thick, but I could kind of see through it, you know? Like dragonfly wings. Anyway, it swooped down, and a shimmering wave came out of it and suddenly the kids were gone. Just . . . evaporated.”

“Oh my god.”

“I ran as fast as I could to get under cover. Found an enclosed porch. Stayed there for hours, until it got dark. That’s the coldest I’ve ever been in my life. Finally, I had to move or get hypothermia.

“I snuck over to the place where the kids’d been standing. There were two little shadows on the sidewalk. Like burn scars in the concrete. The concrete was . . . melty.”

I’m gaping at him. “That’s . . . I’m sorry.”

“There’s something else out there, Paige. Something that wants us dead. So I’ve been lying low.”

I bury my hand in Emmaline’s ruff, gathering courage to confess my own theory. “We were exterminated,” I say.

He nods. “Some guy from the World Health Organization said exactly that. His interview was all over the major networks right before everything went dark. He called it an ‘engineered virus.’ And now whoever released it is cleaning house. Getting the stragglers.”

“But who? And why?”

He shrugs. “Probably the Umbrella Corporation.”

“Huh?”

“You know, from Resident Evil? The people who created the virus that caused . . .”

I stare at him.

“Never mind. Stupid video game joke. I don’t know who. No one does. Or, I should say, no one did.”

We fall silent. I pet Emmaline’s head as guilt twinges in my chest. I shouldn’t be so happy discussing something so devastating. I guess it’s not the topic but the talking itself. I’m sitting in a dank room that reeks of rotting food with a strange guy who has a machine gun, and I’m delighted. And I sure as hell don’t want him to stop talking.

“There had to have been some theories,” I press, just to keep the conversation going.