“I thought you said she couldn’t drive?” Dance said.

“She can’t,” Jamey said. She stamped on the gas and the truck lurched toward the woods, turning sharply as she yanked the wheel hard. The house wobbled.

I steadied myself, bracing my arm against the door. “Just get us to the park gate. Get us out of here. Then I’ll take over. I can’t drive right now.”

“What happened back there?” Grayson asked. “Who took our stuff? Why can’t we get it back?”

Out the window, there was nothing to look at, nothing to see. Just white. There was no hint of the people in the valley by the stream. Smoke from their fire hadn’t yet reached the treetops. I couldn’t tell if anyone was changing their mind, running away, couldn’t hear screams.

“It was a group,” Dance said.

“I think they were on something,” I said.

“Wil, those people were just waiting to die.”

I looked away from the window. “We can’t save everyone.”

13

We avoided the cities and towns. We stuck to the winding country roads, the house looping behind us like a girl’s long braid. Sometimes the driver—especially Jamey, when we let her drive—took a turn too fast, and I imagined I heard a crashing behind us, as something fell and hit something else inside the house. Another object was broken from my old life, another supply ruined or wasted; we had so few now.

In the kitchen of the tiny house I had started seeds, tamping paper towels into a glass jar with bean seeds. I had duct-taped the jars under the window, so that they would receive full sun, what was left of it, and wouldn’t sail to the floor and smash on one of Jamey’s daredevil turns.

I used precious water on the seeds, and the last of our paper towels. I was sure the seeds would sprout, even without grow lights. It was the simplest of setups, and we could start other seeds this way, too: carrots, radishes, an avocado if I could find a pit. But so far, the brown seeds had stayed dormant, curled in their secret shells.

I had an aloe plant, useful for snipping off bits and rubbing the ooze on burns, should they come. I felt all kinds of pain would come eventually, and we would be alone with it. I had some kitchen herbs, sage and basil, still alive. I asked everyone to help me look for supplies at the places we stopped for food and fuel: cups, plastic wrap, potting soil. Jamey would break in. We would leave cash folded on the counter, money for dust, for ghosts.

But of course, mostly we stopped at gas stations and roadside stores that didn’t stock gardening supplies. Everything had been emptied by now, anyway, abandoned. Still, we could usually get the pumps working again.