“Did you see anything when … you know …” I frown and glance at Ethan. “When you saw that thing in the alley?” Ethan’s eyes are locked on me. I smile as if I’ve nothing to hide.

“She means the body. Do you know how he died?” Ethan asks matter-of-factly.

Clay and I stare at Ethan with our mouths open.

Ethan scowls. “You guys think I don’t notice anything. I’m eight, not four.” He’s trying to be so big, but when he sticks out his lower lip at the end of his sentence, all I can see is the baby I touted around the yard on my hip.

Clay nods. “Sorry, hoss. We’ll do better.”

I nod, but I’m lying. He’ll be my baby brother whether he’s eight or eighty.

Clay shakes his head as his eyes turn toward the open window. “There was nothing on the body to show what killed him. It was in bad shape, decay-wise. And the damn dog didn’t help. I didn’t see gunshots or stab wounds, so that’s something. But it doesn’t tell us much.”

“At least with no people, we can get what we need and get out,” I say. I don’t want to hang around here very long. Other than our little classroom, the rest of this town feels like a morgue.

“Fuel and water. Those are our main priorities.” Clay holds up two fingers. “Riley already got us water. If we can find fuel, we can jack one of the cars we saw and hit the road.”

He makes it sound so easy. I look out the busted classroom window toward the blue sky outside. I hope it is.

We dig through our bags for breakfast. Ethan pulls out a hunk of bread wrapped in paper. We split it and try to chew the hard crust as best we can. My stomach growls, but I quiet it with more water. It’ll do for a while.

We work through each room for supplies. This time, with the boys at my back, I lose my fear. I pull open cupboards, frighten mice and spiders out of their homes, dig through moldy wads of paper. Ethan pockets a sheet of gold stars, soggy but miraculously somewhat sticky. Clay finds a heavy-duty pair of scissors with decent blades, an empty aluminum water bottle and a ball of twine. I pick up many things, kid’s socks, a mug that says World’s Best Teacher, a little pink boot with daisies painted on it. My mind wanders to times when these things were in use. What did these people look like? Were they happy? What happened to them? I leave each item in its dust outline where they’ll decay like the rest of this place.

Classrooms pilfered, we find a set of double doors.

“Gymnasium,” Clay reads on the sign above the doors. “Come on.”