One second later, or five, or ten: time reassembled itself. Wolgast found himself on his hands and knees, pushed against the far wall. Glass was everywhere, a thousand pieces of it on the floor, their edges twinkling like shattered stars in the alien light that bathed the room. Outside, a bulbous glow was swelling the horizon to the west.

“Amy!”

He went to where she lay on the floor.

“Are you burned? Are you cut?”

“I can’t see, I can’t see!” She was thrashing violently, waving her arms in formless panic before her face. There were pieces of glass glimmering all over her, affixed to the skin of her face and arms. And blood, too, soaking her T-shirt as he leaned over her and tried to calm her.

“Please, Amy, hold still! Let me look to see if you’re hurt.”

She relaxed in his arms. Gently he brushed the bits of glass away. There were no cuts anywhere. The blood, he realized, was his own. Where was it coming from? He looked down then to find a long shard, curved like a scimitar, buried in his left leg, halfway between his knee and groin. He pulled; the glass exited cleanly, without pain. Three inches of glass in his leg. Why hadn’t he felt it? The adrenaline? But as soon as he thought this, the pain arrived, a late train roaring into the station. Motes of light dappled his vision; a wave of nausea surged through him.

“I can’t see, Brad! Where are you!”

“I’m here, I’m here.” His head was afloat in agony. Could you bleed to death from a cut like that? “Try to open your eyes.”

“I can’t! It hurts!”

Flash burns, he thought. Flash burns on the retina, from looking into the heart of the blast. Not Portland or Salem or even Corvallis. The explosion was straight west. A stray nuke, he thought, but whose? And how many more were there? What could it accomplish? The answer, he knew, was nothing; it was just one more violent spasm of the world’s excruciating extinguishment. He realized that he’d allowed himself to think, when he’d stepped out into the sun and tasted spring, that the worst was behind them, that they would be all right. How foolish he’d been.

He carried Amy to the kitchen and lit the lamp. The glass in the window over the sink had somehow held. He sat her on a chair, found a dishrag, and quickly tied it around his wounded leg. Amy was crying, pressing her palms to her eyes. The skin of her face and arms, where she’d faced the blast, was a bright pink, already beginning to peel.