“It’s this way,” he said behind his scarf.

I looked back at the truck. Grayson had dimmed the brights and was mouthing something to me. Jamey was shaking her head.

“Lock the doors,” I said, as if they could hear me. “Be back soon.”

I followed the boy.

This was my job. I thought it had always been mine, but I had only just grown into it: to follow with hands in my pockets—knife in one, gun in the other.

The boy blended into the undergrowth off the side of the road. The only hint of him was the torch, which flickered in and out. Saplings gave way to thicker trees as we veered farther away. I turned back to look at the truck, and the boy reassured me, “It’s right this way.”

What was? Was I wrong to trust a child?

“We need fuel,” I said. “We can trade or pay for it.”

“Come on, then.”

Where were we going? I glanced back one time more to see the lights of the truck still blazing. They were going to run down the battery—but they needed that heat. The boy ducked under a branch, and I followed. He held brambles back for me. Walking along a dirt track, we passed a tangle of metal and rebar. An old road sign. It had been used for target practice, the letters mangled with buckshot. I tried not to feel afraid at this. It didn’t mean bad men, it didn’t mean Skate State.

TOWN, I read. Nothing more.

Beyond the sign, small white houses lay out in a double row, facing each other across the dirt track. They seemed like blow-up dollhouses, barely bigger than my own tiny house, each with a tin roof, small windows, and a porch. They were occupied, each window lit by a candle or lamp. At the end of the row—I could barely make it out in the darkness—was a building much larger than the others.

I had seen this before. A coal company town. A company store. And all the little houses, planted down almost on top of each other, were homes for the coal miners’ families.

I couldn’t believe this company town was still standing. But of course it had been taken over. Shelters like this, with walls and roofs, wouldn’t stay empty for long.

The boy with the torch, who had been so solemn in his mission to lead me here, raced off, confident he had done his job, whatever that was. He joined a group of other children playing. Then he became a kid again, in a blur of bright coats and plastic things.