“So, there were people in these cars?” Charlie asked. “They walked away? You saw them?”

Neil looked at him strangely. “Yeah.”

Charlie had clearly decided Emily’s theory about a people-vaporizing comet had some merit. “And no one you talked to has any guesses about what happened?” I asked as I stepped in front of Charlie.

“No. Some are saying it’s just a widespread power outage. Some guy said this happened in Detroit in the two-thousands. Other people say an EMP or a meteor.”

“EMP?” Charlie asked. “What’s an EMP?”

Neil shrugged. “I don’t know. Like a sunspot or something?”

An EMP. What was that? I’d heard the term before. An electromagnetic pulse maybe? That sounded right, but I couldn’t recall much more than that.

I looked around at all the abandoned cars. “And in the three days you’ve been here, there haven’t been any police officers or other first responders that have come through?”

“No. Not one. I haven’t even heard any sirens from anywhere. I live in Ann Arbor. I’m hundreds of miles from home. It’s not like I can just start walking.”

I glanced at that empty food truck. “You might have to.”

He looked bleakly up the highway. “Seems safer here. The authorities are bound to come. It’s not like they can just stop working. I have some food and water so… I’ll just wait.”

“Okay. Hey, good luck.”

He nodded and got back in his car. I saw him pick up the box of cereal next to him before I stepped away from his vehicle.

“Where are you going?” Emily asked as I walked ahead. The stars had blinked to life and soon it’d be too dark to do anything other than hole up and get some rest. I would bet that a number of these cars were still unlocked. It wouldn’t be the worst place to sleep.

“There’s a tower that way,” I said. “See it?”

“What are you going to do? Climb it?” Emily asked. “Oh my God, you would, wouldn’t you? Are you out of your mind?”

“No. I want to know how far this outage extends. If it goes all the way to the city of Springfield, then we need to figure out how to get to the next one.”

“The next what?”

“The next city.”

“You cannot be serious. There is no way in hell I’m walking to the next city!”

I turned. “Listen, Emily, I didn’t create this situation, okay—”

“What’s that smell?” Her face was wrinkled up, and she was sniffing at the air.