And then we stopped at the first gas station where we could not.

We had learned the stations visible from the road would be trashed, but soon, so too were the places a couple of miles off our route—and we didn’t dare venture much farther than that. What if we got stuck? There was no one to pull us out of a snowbank or up from a ditch. What if the truck broke down? Dance could repair trucks, but we didn’t have spare parts; we hadn’t thought of that.

I hadn’t thought of it.

The first gas station where the pumps had been drained had a Taco Bell attached to the side. This excited Jamey and Grayson. I tried to warn them we would probably not find usable food.

What we found was an open door. It had been barricaded, and the barricade had been broken through. Most of the boards on the windows had been pried off. I entered first through the smashed door, my boots crunching on a floor sprinkled with glass.

“Pick up Starla,” I said behind me to Jamey. “Don’t let her walk on this. Or maybe just take her back to the truck.”

“No way,” Jamey said. “I’m not missing out on tacos.” Holding Starla, she fanned out behind me. Grayson and Dance took the other aisles.

The metal shelves had been stripped almost bare. The air still smelled of rot, which meant some of the food spoil was newer. Most places just smelled of cold.

I stepped over a smashed jar of pickles. Someone had spilled a bottle of motor oil, and the black slick looked like a dead snack, frozen in a coil.

“Mice have definitely been here,” Grayson said from his aisle.

“Mice are still alive, huh?” Dance said.

“Roaches are going to outlive us all,” Jamey said. “Those fuckers.”

We should have been quiet. I should have warned the others. We should have known better. But I called across the aisle to Jamey: “Any tacos?”

“Everything’s gone,” she said.

“What about gardening stuff?”

“I think this place is pretty wasted,” Grayson said.

We were meeting up at the end of our aisles. In front of us was the Taco Bell portion of the store, its dark and silent counter, familiar shapes looking menacing with the lights off.

“Everything’s gone except...this!” Jamey hopped out from her aisle. She wore a rubber Halloween mask: a werewolf. Her blue eyes swam through the eyeholes; her curls overflowed beneath the floppy neck of the mask. Starla clung to her hip, looking calmly at the monster her mama had become. “Happy Halloween!” Jamey said. “It’s almost Halloween, right?”

“Is it?” Grayson said. “I don’t think so.”