He tossed one to me and one to Charlie. “Someone threw these in their glove box for their kids and forgot about them. Lucky us.”

I tore the wrapper open and peeled off a piece of the red sticky sweet, my mouth puckering with the taste of it before I’d even put it in my mouth. “Oh, that’s good,” I said, sucking on it as Tuck and Charlie opened theirs as well. My eyes met Tuck’s as he peeled off a piece of his and set it on his tongue. His eyes seemed to soften as he looked at me and I wondered if he too was remembering how we used to eat these as kids, rolling them into balls and then popping the entire things in our mouths.

The sound of Charlie ripping the dried fruit from the wrapper brought me from my childhood musings and I glanced around to all the empty vehicles. “All these people are gone. Where did they go?”

“Home, I’m sure. The vehicles we’ve passed have almost all had Missouri plates. I’m assuming the majority of these people walked home when their car or truck died,” Tuck said.

The morning was cold but bright, and I shaded my eyes to look out beyond the paved back road we were walking. “It looks like there are farms out there,” I said.

“Maybe one of them will have some lunch,” Charlie offered as he joined us. “Because a Fruit Roll-Up isn’t going to cut it.”

“Maybe one of them will know something more,” I said.

Tuck shook his head. “We’ve only been walking for a couple of hours. There’s no sign that there’s any power here and we haven’t come across one operational vehicle. I think it’s safe to say circumstances here are the same as in Silver Creek. These people are hunkered down and waiting. We’ll take things as they come.”

“Should we check the glove boxes for more food?” I asked.

“Not now. It’ll just slow us down and the Goodfellows gave us enough for the next little while. If we start getting low, we’ll find some cars and search for snacks.”

Unless other people were already raiding the abandoned cars. But Tuck was Tuck, and I was sure he’d already considered that. Plus, the hope was that the farther we walked, the fewer abandoned cars we saw until all the cars we came upon were running. And then we’d negotiate a ride home.

“I’d also love to find a weapon, if possible,” Tuck was murmuring. “If you spot a rifle rack in an abandoned truck or anything like that, let me know.”