But the smell is as bad as it’s ever been. Gasoline and sweat. Piss and possibly more.

She follows him through what could be a proper hallway but is probably only a path through stacks of clutter.

“Here,” he says at last.

Malorie thinks of her parents.

Impossible.

“A drink?” Ron asks. “I have a little whiskey left. And I haven’t found cause enough to down it.”

“No,” Malorie says. “But thank you.”

“Well, at least take a seat. Would you believe I keep two chairs? It’s probably a bad idea. There are times I believe I’m not alone.”

He makes to take Malorie’s other hand and feels the stack of papers instead.

“What’s this?” he asks, heavy suspicion in his voice.

“The man from the census left these on our porch. It’s why I’m here.”

She expects Ron to ask her to leave. But he only takes her other hand and guides her to a wooden stool.

Malorie sits but it’s not easy to stay still.

“Do you know anything about a train, Ron?”

Suddenly it strikes her how insane this is. How desperate she is for another opinion. Ron Handy hasn’t left this space in years.

“The Blind Train,” Ron says. “I’ve heard of it.”

Malorie’s voice comes out quicker than planned.

“What do you know?”

“First I’ll introduce to you the medium by which I heard of it,” he says. “But I warn you…what I’m about to play frightens me deeply. And I won’t listen to it for very long. If the sight of them drives us mad…what might the sound of them do?”

Malorie rubs her gloved hands along the long sleeves she wears. She thinks of redheaded Annette running mad with a knife through the school for the blind.

A radio squawks. Malorie recoils. Before she speaks, she hears a distant voice. A man says, “…I used to enjoy that very much!”

Then the radio goes silent again.

“So, you see,” Ron says, “not as cut off as I seem to be. It was upon those very waves that I heard mention of a train. I can only assume your question has something to do with that stack of papers I felt in your hand.”

“It does.”

“And I also assume that you brought it here for me to read, which means, of course, that I would have to remove my fold to do so.”

Malorie doesn’t allow the moment to balloon. She senses that, if she waits another few seconds, Ron isn’t going to read what the man left on her porch. He’s going to find an excuse for her to leave.

“There’s a list of survivors in here. By city and state.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And my parents are on the list.”

“Oh…Malorie…”

She hears the empathy in his voice. Then the long-forgotten sound of alcohol poured into an empty glass.