Grayson took over. “You’re pretty set for vitamins now. You probably need warmth and nonperishable food.” But in housewares, the shelves had been swept clean of blankets, sheets, even fluffy towels. In the crafts aisle, Grayson shoved bolts of fabric—fleece and hunter’s plaid and thick gray wool—into the cart. “You can make blankets if you have to,” he said. “You don’t even have to sew.”

“Good thing, because I don’t.”

The camping section had been stripped. Hand warmers, lanterns, and portable stoves had disappeared, along with all the heaters, as Grayson had predicted. He put several plastic gas cans into the cart. In the grocery section, I saw a man pulling canned food out of a stranger’s cart. He kept taking them until he was caught by the second man’s screaming wife or girlfriend. We steered out of that aisle.

The shouting intensified. We curved the cart around a smashed jar of cherries, bright and pink on the floor. It was hard not to feel dizzy, not to think of bad things. Grayson edged between strangers, adding energy bars, jars of peanut butter, tins of meat and fish, powdered milk, and packages of hard candy into my cart, swiftly and confidently reaching his hand between strangers’ hands, taking what he thought I’d need.

“You sure you have enough money for all this?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Cash isn’t a problem.”

Mama and Lobo had left a lot of it buried in the yard.

“You listening to the president’s speech tomorrow?” the cashier asked us, scanning our items. We had waited half an hour in line to reach her. “It’s something bad, I bet. Chemical weapons or terrorists. You know what I think?”

“What?” Grayson said.

The cashier leaned forward, her name badge clanging against the stand with the card reader. Her name was April. “I think you should all get the hell outta town.” She started scanning again, the beeps from the register punching under her words. “I tell you what, I ain’t sticking around to give my notice. Not worth it. I’m leaving tomorrow. Mama and me. We’re going to Florida.”

I tried not to feel anything at the word Mama. My own was fine, she was fine. She had gotten out. It was normal for the two of us to go awhile without talking. We hadn’t been close like that for a long time.

“Florida’s packed,” Grayson said. “Besides, even Florida gets snow sometimes.”

“That church left. They just picked up and left, you know? All of them, cleared out in the night.”

“It wasn’t in the night.”

“Maybe those wackos were onto something.”

“Thanks,” I said. I grabbed the receipt, as if we were ever coming back.