“I don’t even know. I had some canned food, but I didn’t have enough water to stay put.” He lapsed into silence for a moment. “I never knew how quickly things could break down. I figured if people were looting restaurants for whatever food they had, pretty soon they’d be busting down any and every door. I saw others packed up and walking out and knew I had to too. Things were only going to get worse. It was already starting to stink. Garbage piled up in the street, the toilets weren’t flushing. And that damn smoke that was only getting thicker. I packed up what I could carry, and I started walking. Met a few people who only knew they were getting out, and then formed a small group. We got robbed before we’d even left the city. I tried to run and got fired on. The guy next to me got shot in the head.”

“Jesus,” Charlie muttered.

“Luckily, I’d stuffed some beef jerky and protein bars in my pants pockets,” he said, pointing down to his filthy cargo pants. “I’ve lived on those for the past few days.”

My head was swimming. This was the worst possible scenario I could have pictured. I’d been worried at the gas station near Springfield, Illinois, and now I was downright scared by what was happening in St. Louis, Missouri.

Society was collapsing.

And if it was happening in those places, it was happening in other towns and cities too.

“Do you want me to look at that wound?” I asked. “I have a first aid kit and some essentials. I’m no doctor, but I can at least clean it up for you.” I needed to do something with my hands, and I might as well be helpful. The guy had just talked for fifteen minutes when he probably barely had the energy to do so.

“Yeah, sure. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

He grimaced as he slowly removed the flannel shirt he was wearing.

I walked the short distance to the barn, ducked through the opening, and retrieved the first aid kit from my backpack and then once outside, picked up the crate I’d been sitting on, and moved it next to Isaac.

It only took me five minutes to clean the wound and apply antibiotic ointment. As I did so, I thought back to doing the same thing to Emily’s wound in that clearing in the forest the night of our plane crash. We’d been lost and cold and shaken to our cores by what we’d experienced, but we’d had no idea what was happening to other people not that far away. In fact, despite the circumstances, I’d momentarily gotten lost in the satiny feel of Emily’s skin under my fingers and the way goose bumps had risen when I’d touched her.