Our way had grown curvier, the turns sharper as we had driven deeper into West Virginia. The roads were jagged parts in the mountains, thin and filling with white. Ice beards dribbled off the cliffs. Grayson said Interstate 77 had been closed; we had passed it while I slept. There were chained gates down across the on-ramp, so even my truck couldn’t barrel through. No salt was left to treat the roads, or no trucks were driving around to spread it. No deputies were working to control the skidding, spinning traffic.

I thought we would see more law enforcement, not less, as people panicked and fled. But the law had left us, too. I hadn’t seen a sheriff or police car since the West Virginia border, maybe longer. Maybe they knew something we didn’t.

With the interstate lost to us, we had the back roads, streaked with snow: the mountain roads where the next rise might plummet us to anything—an unguarded ridge, a face full of poplars, pirates.

Jamey woke up. “Where are we?”

“Almost out of gas,” Grayson said.

We went back. The gas station Grayson had passed was closed, of course. Even before we pulled into the lot, I could tell from the dark windows of the little store. Stillness had settled around it, a visible mist. Grayson drove in, anyway, the signal hose setting off a bell. We parked. Nobody answered the bell.

“Let’s get out,” Grayson said. “I need to stretch my legs.”

“Leg,” Jamey said.

The gas station and convenience store sat at the bottom of a small rise. Go-carts were lined up at the top, parked and forgotten. A faded, snow-cuffed sign read Boat Trips, Zip Lines, and something else I couldn’t read under the snow. Near the back of the parking lot sat a van with a canoe or kayak carrier hooked to the trailer hitch. The van looked dusty and the boats were all gone. Had they been stolen or moved to storage? Had people floated away before the rivers turned to ice?

“I’m going to look around, see if we can find anybody alive to sell us fuel,” Dance said.

He disappeared around the back of the station. The rest of us got out of the truck. My foot was asleep. Starla fussed, flinging pebbles against the truck tires. The air was so crisp and cold it felt like it might break, like we were cracking through the atmosphere just to walk around.

“Can I take Starla on a zip line?” Grayson asked Jamey.

“Absolutely not.”

“What about if I just put her in a go-cart and push her?”

Jamey looked up at the go-carts. “All right. Wear a helmet, if you can find one.”

Grayson raced Starla up the hill, the baby wobbling on her new legs, Grayson lopsided with his boot.