“There are no cops now. They’ve all gone home to look after their own families, I guess. The only authorities we saw were some Homeland Security guys and their wives looting a Wal-Mart for ammo and food,” the man said. “They were set up real good; they had one of those high-off-the-ground crowd-control vehicles the cops use. But they didn’t want to help us, that’s for sure. We’ve had no help at all.” The gun dealer was Price’s age, and the strain of the last two days showed on the man’s grizzled unshaven face.

“Do you know what’s happened to people?” the man asked him. He introduced himself as Jon Wein and said he was born in Douglas, Arizona. It was odd, Price thought, that the man had told him where he was born. It was as if the two had crossed paths in the Old West.

“My name is Howard ... Howard Price.”

“Please to meet you, Howard,” Jon said.

“Jon, I don’t know what’s happened for sure, but I think it could be radiation poisoning—from Fukushima.”

“What’s that? Fuka what?”

“It’s an atomic power station in Japan,” Howard said.

“Never heard of it,” Jon said.

“Most people haven’t. They had an accident there, at the plant, back when they had the typhoon and tsunami in 2011.”

“Well, something sure as shit happened all right,” Jon said. “You have any kind of weapon, Howard?”

“Letter opener I found at the office.”

The man smiled at him and rubbed his chin. “You got to shoot them in the head, Howard. That’s the best way to kill them fast.”

“I see,” Howard said.

“Do you know how to use a pistol?”

“A little. I was in the Army,” Price said. “But I don’t have one.”

“I’ll give you one. I got lots of them in the mobile home. I can’t just leave you out here with a fucking letter opener,” Jon said and spit. “Jesus, Howard, maybe you’d better come with us.”

“Thank you Jon, but I have a son—you know—up there in Timberline, and a wife. I think I better make sure they’re okay, but thank you.” It felt good to have the fantasy. It made him feel whole again. For a long time he’d felt so alone and sad about everything in the world. The fantasy about a family was something that made him feel better. He’d started telling complete strangers that “his family this, or his family that.” The fantasy was growing, taking on a life of its own, and he didn’t care; he liked it.

“Well, sure, I get that, but let me give you something. A gift, then,” Jon said.

Price looked at the huddled group of people at the water fountain; they were various ages and colors. The group were filling a motley collection of plastic containers from two water fountains in front of the rest stop’s bathrooms. Jon came out from the mobile home and handed him an old-school .38 Special revolver.

“All you have to do, Howard, is pull the trigger when they’re close: say six feet, or so.”  He handed Howard the pistol and a box of ammo. “You want to practice? Maybe once, while I’m watching?” Jon turned around and pointed to a road sign that said Keep Off The Grass, maybe 50 feet away. “Can you hit that sign, Howard?”

“I’ll try,” Howard said. He lifted the pistol, aimed at the sign and pulled the trigger. The gun went off and he heard the bullet strike the sign, punching a hole in it.

“Well, there you go then, Howard. Good shooting!”

“Thanks, Jon.” They shook hands warmly as if they were old friends.

“You know what, Howard?” Jon said.

“No, what?”

“I always knew that atomic shit would blow back on us someday,” the old man said. “I was in the Navy back in the day, and saw one of the tests at Bikini Atoll.”

   “‘It’s unreasonable to make such a big deal over the death of a fisherman.’ That’s what Edward Teller said,” Price said.

“The Jap fisherman that died?” Jon said.

“Yeah.” Howard said. “Funny the things you remember reading when you’re a kid. I’m over sixty and I remember things I read when I was ten,” Howard said.

The older man just looked at him and smiled, thinking that Howard was close to going around the bend, maybe from the stress of it all.

The old gun dealer and his new friends pulled out of the rest area ahead of Howard. The old man said they were going to try and go north to Oregon because they’d seen a rumor, on the internet that was still up, that it was okay up there. Howard wished them all luck. They’d all hugged as if they knew they might all be dead soon, and certainly would never met again.

Before he closed the door to his Prius, Howard looked around the eerie rest area. It was silent. The roof on the restrooms had snow on it that reflected the moonlight. He remembered a Kurosawa film; a bit of it ran in his head in perfect black and white, like these colors, a boy running down a snowy street in a small Japanese town.

“Akira Kurosawa,” Howard said out loud. “The Bad Sleep Well. Am I losing my mind? Who will look for us? We have no father or mother, and we are lost in the world.” He yelled, perhaps to break the silence. His voice echoed against the concrete and wood walls of the rest stop and died away in the shadows. The silence returned.

He walked across the parking lot. Miles had emailed him the directions to the cabin. He studied the email carefully. When he was sure he understood the directions, he got into his Prius. He put the revolver on the passenger seat next to him, locked the door and pulled out. The freeway was completely deserted as he gained speed and headed toward the turn off at Emigrant Gap. He tried to find a radio station to get any useful news, but all the government had hijacked all the local stations. All were playing the same loop, telling people “not to panic” and to “remain indoors, until further instructions.” Howard clicked off the radio, turned off the freeway and took the road toward Timberline.

*   *   *

Dillon had sat in the cabin’s control room with Miles and watched the Howlers gathering for the last three hours.

“There are a thousand. Maybe more,” Miles said under his breath.

“More,” Dillon said. They looked at each other.

“There’s no way we can stop them if they want to get in here,” Miles said.

“Stop being such a pussy,” Dillon said, turning back to look at the monitors.

Miles reached up and flipped on the switch marked Sound Front Driveway. Immediately they heard the howling. It was the most horrible sound Miles thought he’d ever heard—overwhelming. He turned it off. He felt panicked, sure they were going to die. He looked around the concrete room. It seemed smaller than it had only an hour ago. It was cold in the room. He stood up.

“What are we going to do?” Miles said. His chest was tight. He turned off the screens. The monitors went dark. “What good is it to see them out there? Look how many there are!”

Dillon turned and looked at the younger man. He’d seen men go stir-crazy in prison. The kid had the same panicked look on his face. It often happened to new arrivals at San Quentin, men who were not used to sitting in a cell for long periods of time. He was used to small spaces, to the feeling of being locked down, suffocating, but he too had lost it after being in solitary confinement for six weeks. He’d woken up one morning and felt the walls actually move toward him. The prison’s psychiatrist who came to visit him later, after he’d gone “buggy,” said that sensory deprivation caused several symptoms. One of them was a sense of panic and the feeling you couldn’t breathe. It could even induce hallucinations.

“You’re okay, kid?” Dillon said. He took his arm. “You’re okay. It’s going to be okay.”

The kid looked at him, his blue eyes crazy. “Maybe I’m becoming one of them,” Miles blurted. “I don’t feel good. Sick. Stomach.”

Dillon kept his hand on Miles’ arm. When he’d been in solitary confinement, he’d had the desire for another human being’s touch, anyone’s touch. He’d imagined he would die without feeling that kind of touch, he’d sat in the cell and remembered exactly how his mother used to touch his forehead when he’d been upset. He’d dreamt of his mother’s warm hand on his face. Once he’d sat in the cold “isolation cell” calling Patty’s name, trying to remember lying with her in bed, the incredible lush feeling of her naked body pressed next to his.