“Well, sure. You know that pastor from the megachurch in Texas? He was all over Fox News saying it was god’s judgment for the homosexuality in the world.”

“That’s messed up.”

“Yep. Some people said it was engineered by the Chinese, others said the North Koreans—I guess they just picked the country they were afraid of most. Pretty much everyone agreed it was biological warfare. Maybe an experiment that got out of hand.”

Emmaline stretches out her neck to rest her chin on my thigh. She looks up at me with sad eyes, and I give her nose a light knuckle rub. “What do you think happened?” I ask Trey.

He grabs a Red Vine from the open package on the table, gnaws off a bite, chews. “You’ll laugh at me,” he says finally.

“I won’t.”

He looks me dead in the eye. “I think it was aliens,” he says, almost defiantly. “From outer space.”

I blink. “Okay.”

Trey rises from the chair and starts pacing. Emmaline lifts her head, ears pricked, but she settles when she realizes he’s not going anywhere. He’s so large, and the room is so small that he has to turn a lot. Emmy closes her eyes, already readjusting to the presence of another human in her space.

“Think about it,” he says. “Human beings don’t have the technology to wipe out the entire planet in just a few days, not unless we nuked it all to hell.”

“There are diseases that kill quick,” I say.

He shakes his head. “I’m not talking about the disease. I’m talking about the delivery. For the whole world to get sick and die so fast, everyone had to be exposed at the same time. No one has that kind of tech. But aliens might.”

I’d had a similar thought earlier, that not enough time had passed for the disease to spread. It had actually given me hope. In normal circumstances, it would mean that people were still alive in other places.

“You’ve been thinking about this a lot,” I say.

“Ever since I saw that dragonfly thing.”

“Aliens, then.” I tamp down the giggle that rises in my throat. It’s so preposterous. But, I suppose, not more preposterous than everyone on Earth dying all at once. “Exterminators.”

“Yeah, exterminators. An alien Orkin Man. We got sprayed.”

I take another swig of water. “What were you doing today when I found you? Why were you outside?”

He leans against the wall and crosses his arms. “I was heading down to the supermarket to look for a way inside when I heard your car. The food in this pharmacy is gross. I can’t live on Cheetos and beer. Also, it won’t last forever. Especially now.”

Warmth spreads through my chest. Especially now that I’m here, he means.