Walking among the tents, with sellers pushing squirrel meat and mess kits and knives, I felt as if I had gone back in time. I walked through a Civil War camp, or one of those pioneer festivals Mama always swore she would take me to but never did. I had gone back, further than my childhood, further than I meant to. I was lost. A cooking smell of onions and garlic drifted from one of the tents. Something sizzled in a huge pan. I bought two bags of roasted chestnuts, thinking I would bring them back to Grayson. I was not even sure what chestnuts tasted like, but at least they warmed my pockets. I hadn’t seen any ammo.

I passed a stall selling garlands, festooned with red bows and sleigh bells, and stopped.

“Christmas decorations?”

The woman in charge of the stall said, “Might as well make the best of things. It feels like Christmas, don’t it?”

“What happened to Halloween?” I asked.

It was just meant to be conversation, but the woman pointed across the parking lot, to the end of the aisle of tents. “For that, you want the Pumpkin King.”

“The what?”

“If you want a pumpkin, you need the Pumpkin King. He’s the only one who grew them this year. All mine died.” The woman fingered the bows of a garland, her hands going down the row, like a rosary. “Everything I tried died.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

I walked on, past bows and kayaks, cider and corn. I bought a bag of apples, cringing at the price and at the small size of them: almost as wrinkled as the potatoes, with spots of green and cracked brown skin. A man who sold military surplus items had a stand at the end of the row. My mama had bought me a pocketknife from him that year I had refused to pick out my own present with Lobo’s cash.

I knew that a knife was a bad luck gift. It severed the relationship. That was the superstition.

But though the man had backpacks and canteens for sale, though there were duffel bags and utensil sets, I didn’t see any boxes of ammo.

The man—I thought I remembered his name was Phil—nodded at me from a folding chair. “Wylodine,” he said. “Good to see you looking well.”

“You got any ammo?” I asked.

A slow shake of his head.

I was surprised to feel relief. Maybe I should have it, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to have to figure out what the gun took, how to load it. How to use it.

“Try the Walmart,” Phil said.

“I don’t want to go back there. What about MREs?”

“Sold out of those weeks ago. Your best bets are canned goods and dried food at this point. Do you have vitamin C?”

I thought back to the clinic pharmacy. “Why?”