He nodded as Leon turned and left the room. “Please come and sit down. You must be so tired. I’m Merrick Winchester, and I insist you call me Merrick. This is my home and it’s my honor to share it.”

We approached the old man with the cane. Layne shook his hand and then I did too, his skin papery but his grip strong. “Thank you so much for allowing us here. The world, it’s…” I was suddenly lost for words. Or…no, it wasn’t that I didn’t have the words, it was that there were too many attempting to fill my mouth all at once and my brain was too tired to choose just one: terrifying, awful, tragic, lonely…

But Mr. Winchester—Merrick—who was still holding my hand, gave it a gentle squeeze. “I know, my dear. We’re very lucky. We wanted to pack this community with as many as possible, but there are only so many resources. We did the math and came up with a number based on the crops and the few animals we have…” He sighed. “Even so, rationing will be necessary as I’ve told every newcomer here. I hope you’re prepared for that. So many are doing the same, I suppose, whether their land is miles wide or one square inch.”

“Not everyone is calculating how much they can realistically share,” I said as we all sat down. “Some are hoarding.”

“Yes, it’s base human nature, of course, to hoard. You always hope that in a moment like this, you’d act in such a way that your legacy would be honor, but you never truly know until it arrives, I suppose.”

“It seems like you acted quickly to help as many as possible as soon as the event happened,” Layne said.

“We had a community meeting the morning after the power went down. No one knew exactly what had happened, but we explored the possibilities and made agreements based on worst-case scenarios. In some sense, we set up this community with just such a disaster in mind. But none of us imagined something of this magnitude would actually come to pass. Before this, it had become somewhat of a group pet project if you will, a way to use the land with purpose. I like to think it’s kept us young.” A fleeting smile touched his face. “If we’d truly known what would happen, we would have done so much more.” He looked away for a moment. “As a result, our resources will only go so far. Still, to lock ourselves behind a gate while others we might have helped suffered outside, was unthinkable to all of us.”

My shoulders relaxed and I pulled in a full breath after what felt like a day of oxygen deprivation. These were good people. I’d arrived in a safe place after all. Thanks to Leon.