I yanked my mind from those thoughts and back to the present. Isaac was lucky in that the bullet appeared to have gone straight through his arm without hitting bone. But the wound was swollen and red around the edges and if it wasn’t infected yet, it was dangerously close. I slathered it with antibiotic cream and pressed a bandage over it. “You’ll need oral antibiotics too,” I told him.

He let out a huff. “Where the fuck am I gonna get those?”

“I don’t know. But you’ve gotta make it a priority.” This kid was young, probably in his early twenties, and he was obviously alone and directionless, but I was already tasked with taking care of myself and two other people. I couldn’t collect more along the way if the three of us were going to survive. As it was, tonight we’d only had the meat of one rabbit between us, and still had thousands of miles to travel. It’d get warmer the farther west we headed, but for now, it was winter and cold as hell, at least at night.

“Maybe one of the farms around here has some medicine they’d give you,” Emily said. “Even animal antibiotics would help, right, Tuck?”

“Farms,” Isaac murmured as I picked up the crate to move it back where it’d been, and he started putting his heavy flannel shirt back on. “Lots of people will be coming from the cities looking for farms,” he said. “I’m sure many who left sooner than me have already made it to some.”

“Too many, and those farmers will have to start shooting,” Charlie said. Charlie could be a real useless dick, but he wasn’t wrong on that count. And what this meant was that we were far from the only nomads on the road, looking for food, shelter, and any help that might be extended. We were competing now for limited resources.

And we still didn’t know exactly what was unfolding everywhere, but now we knew enough to understand that this was a big fucking catastrophe.

Conditions had just gotten a hell of a lot more dire.

chapter twenty-six

Emily

Day Six

When we woke in the morning, the winter sun streaming through the wide slats and broken sections of the barn, Isaac was gone, and so were our horse, Tuck’s map, and Charlie’s shoes.

“What the fuck?” Charlie yelled, picking up the soggy sneakers that had replaced the ones he’d set next to his sleeping bag before bed, and then threw them against the wall. They met the wood with a slap, the sole of one coming off completely, a dark water spot showing exactly where they’d hit.

“He seemed nice!” I said, my disbelief clear in my tone. He’d stolen from us after we’d offered him warmth, and water, and medical help?