“The air started smelling like smoke from fires burning in different parts of the city. Someone said they’d seen a plane practically fall from the sky and that the wreckage landed in the Mississippi. Apparently, the whole area around the Gateway Arch was burning and people were jumping in the water to get away from the spreading flames.” He looked up and met my eyes. “As the city grew dark, we could see all the fires, still burning. But there were no sirens, not a single one.”

Emily, Charlie, and I all exchanged looks, obviously in silent agreement that there was no need to bring up our own plane crash. But our experience certainly added merit to what Isaac was telling us. My head spun. How many aircraft were in the air at any given time? And how many of those had “practically fallen from the sky” like ours had? The number of lives lost both on the aircraft and on the ground as a result was too staggering to even imagine.

“My neighbor had a few of us over to his place to use the meat in their freezer, so it didn’t go bad. We each brought something to share. The water stopped running soon after the six of us gathered though and the mood, it just…got real somber. We knew this was nothing like other blackouts and it was only the first day. Cars littering the streets, blocking roads, no way for emergency vehicles to get through if those were even still running at all. But like I said, we couldn’t hear any…even far away. It was eerie as fuck. Then this dude, he said he’d heard from someone else that the MetroLink had come off the rails and people were injured and dying inside the wreckage in one of the tunnels. Everywhere, all over the city, people were stuck and no one was coming for them.” He gave another small shiver, which I thought was more from whatever he was picturing in his head than from the cold. “Anyway, the next day, people started taking what they needed from the stores. Then others started taking what they wanted. By the third day stores were empty. Fuckin’ empty. The neighbors weren’t sharing anymore by then. Restaurants started being looted too. And still no sirens, no National Guard, nothing. People panicked and that panic spread faster than the fires. Everything…it all crumbled fucking fast, man.”

“Who shot you?” I asked.