After about half an hour, Charlie’s smug smile drooped and his head landed on Emily’s shoulder, and I heard him let out a rattly snore. The man was constantly tired and wound up. And that could very well have to do with the situation at hand, but I was pretty sure it also had to do with the fact that he wanted a hit or a pill and could no longer get one. Maybe he hadn’t been enough of a user that he was going through withdrawal, but he was probably pretty darn antsy with not being able to take the edge off with his regular coping mechanism.

I stretched my legs out to the right of Emily and crossed them at the ankles. I’d have liked to get some shut-eye too. I’d tossed and turned the night before, still keyed up from hearing Isaac’s account, my mind churning with thoughts and horrible visions of what downtown St. Louis had looked like in the aftermath of the event. And now I could add the picture of colossal dams overflowing as trillions of tons of water washed out entire towns in their wake.

But beyond all that, I didn’t feel safe not keeping guard. By necessity the truck was moving pretty slowly and at certain points, if someone had wanted, they could have chased us down and waged an attack.

As we drove, we saw more broken-down vehicles, and also a few groups of people who lifted their arms and attempted to wave down the truck. But Emilio and Wells didn’t stop for them like they’d stopped for us. Perhaps the information we’d given about the extent of the outage had heightened their rush to get home, or maybe they realized if they pulled over for everyone trying to hitch a ride, they’d be filled up and weighed down in short order.

I saw Emily turn her head as a couple who’d shouted a plea, disappeared behind us. “I guess we got lucky that we have the professor with us,” Emily said, tipping her head toward Charlie with a wry, if slightly shaky, smile. I nodded. I had to give credit where credit was due. We were also lucky that Emilio and Wells had slowed down when we’d waved, enough to notice Charlie at all. Isaac had mentioned that he’d gotten a ride too, which meant drivers had responded to his obvious need, but I had to imagine that certain kindnesses were going to end rather quickly.

“Yes, it was fortunate in this case that Charlie is recognizable and considered safe. They’re perfectly justified in driving right past anyone trying to get them to stop,” I told her. “Not everyone on the road is going to be well-meaning. We’ve only gotten a small taste of it.”

“More Leonards and fake Amish?”