“There.” Eddie pointed at a rank of signs marking the parking-row closest to the station. There were actually two signs to a post, the top of each pair blue and white, the bottom red and white. When they drew a little closer, Jake saw the one on top was a wheelchair symbol. The one on the bottom was a warning: $200 FINE FOR IMPROPER USE OF HANDICAPPED PARKING SPACE. STRICTLY ENFORCED BY TOPEKA P.D.

“See there!” Susannah said triumphantly. “They shoulda done that a long time ago! Why, back in my when, you’re lucky if you can get your damn wheelchair through the doors of anything smaller than the Shop ’n Save. Hell, lucky if you can get it up over the curbs! And special parking? Forget it, sugar!”

The lot was jammed almost to capacity, but even with the end of the world at hand, only two cars that didn’t have little wheelchair symbols on their license plates were parked in the row Eddie had called “the crip spaces.”

Jake guessed that respecting the “crip spaces” was just one of those things that got a mysterious lifelong hold on people, like putting zip-codes on letters, parting your hair, or brushing your teeth before breakfast.

“And there it is!” Eddie cried. “Hold your cards, folks, but I think we have a Bingo!”

Still carrying Susannah on his hip—a thing he would have been incapable of doing for any extended period of time even a month ago—Eddie hurried over to a boat of a Lincoln. Strapped on the roof was a complicated-looking racing bicycle; poking out of the half-open trunk was a wheelchair. Nor was this the only one; scanning the row of “crip spaces,” Jake saw at least four more wheelchairs, most strapped to roof-racks, some stuffed into the backs of vans or station wagons, one (it looked ancient and fearsomely bulky) thrown into the bed of a pickup truck.