“I think I see someone in a car right over there.” I pointed, and Emily and Charlie stood, turning in the direction where I’d seen someone sit up in the driver’s seat of a compact car. “I’m gonna go talk to him.”

“We’ll come,” Emily said, brushing the crumbs off her jacket and following me.

We wove through the abandoned vehicles and the man sitting in the car spotted us and gave a small wave, opening his door and getting out. “Hey. Hi.” He looked sort of rumpled, like he’d just been sleeping and when I glanced in his vehicle, I saw a few boxes of the same cereal we’d just scored.

“Hi. I’m Tuck.” I pointed behind me to where Emily and Charlie were approaching. “That’s Emily and Charlie.”

“Neil. Hi. Damn, it’s good to see a few faces. The last of the folks around me gave up and left yesterday. There might be one or two back that way, but I haven’t walked in that direction because there’s a pileup and I hear there are bodies.” He turned and pointed behind him and drew his shoulders up in a shiver.

“Bodies?” Emily asked. “No, no that can’t be true.” But the look on her face said that she knew very well that it could be. The three of us might have been casualties of whatever event this was too if Russell hadn’t had the skill to land the plane like he did.

But I shook off the thought of Russell. “What do you mean, ‘gave up’?” I asked Neil. “Can you tell us what happened? From the beginning. We were in an accident, and it’s taken us three days to get here.”

“Oh man. Shit. Yeah, uh, I was just driving along when this bright white flash almost made me crash. Other cars veered sideways. Most of us managed to stay on the road, but our cars died. Just…died. All at the same time. After waiting for a couple hours for some help to come, most of the people here decided to walk home. A group of us from out of town walked to the closest exit where there are some businesses, but there was no power there. No one’s phones were working either. Luckily, I had a little cash and went to a liquor store in a strip mall and bought some snack food and water and brought it back here. Once the truck driver took off—” he inclined his head toward the now empty cereal truck “—others who were waiting broke into the back and took the product. I was out of food by then, so I did too. There’s nothing else to do. That liquor store is boarded up now, but I’d bet that the food and water is all gone and only the liquor remains anyway. Yesterday, people started getting real nervous.”