Gridlock

The road ahead looked clear, so Daniel Bridges set cruise control for seventy-five. But as he came around a bend, all of a sudden, the Interstate was blocked solid as far as he could see.

“Holy fuck!”

He stood on the brake pedal and stopped short of the rear bumper of the car up ahead. But the mug in the console slung coffee onto the gear shift. His girlfriend Jenny jerked forward out of a dead sleep and slapped the dash to brace herself. Boxes and bundles from the back seat slid to the floor.

In his rear-view mirror, a pickup truck loomed closer and closer.

He pleaded, Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me. And the truck stopped short.

Jenny looked around. “What happened?”

Couldn’t she tell? He pointed toward the road ahead. Both northbound lanes were blocked. An unbroken chain of stalled cars and trucks stretched for two hundred yards up to the crest of a hill. How far the chain went beyond that, there was no way to know.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Oh my God, we’re gonna be late. Danny, we’re gonna be late.” She drummed her fists against the dash.

“We don’t know that,” he said. “This might break up in a few minutes.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “I hope so.” She turned to the back seat and tried to shove the bundles back into their places. “It’s a mess back here,” she said.

Among the bundles in the back seat was a package, a little larger than a shoebox, wrapped in craft paper and sealed with clear tape. They were being paid to deliver it, on time, to a Chicago address. On that delivery, they could make enough to get out of their dead-ended backwater life back home. They could start a new life somewhere out west.

If they didn’t deliver . . .

It was not worth asking what could happen if they didn’t deliver. They had talked for days about whether to take this on. What was in the box? Was it drugs? The man was a known drug dealer; what else could it be? But the package was kind of heavy. Could it be a pistol? That made no sense, not for what they were being paid. Back and forth, back and forth they went until, finally, they decided to take on the job. “It’ll get us out of this dead-end life,” she said.

They had met while serving in Afghanistan. She was in recon; he had been a medic. But civilian life was not working out. Every day, it seemed, something else closed down. Every day, it seemed, someone they knew overdosed. “Let’s just do it,” they said to each other. “Let’s go someplace where we’ll have a chance to live.”

So they packed up like pioneers. They took only their clothes, some bedding, and a few other essentials –her laptop, his tools, a few mementos, a cooler full of drinks and sandwiches, and a bag of power bars—and left before dawn while the rest of their crumbling little town still slept.

So now, here they were, on the highway headed north to Chicago, stuck in traffic in the middle of Indiana. It was late afternoon, late in the summer. To the right lay a level, unbroken sea of tall, ripe corn. To their left, a similar sea of soybeans. White farmhouses, black barns, and silver silos stood in the starkened distance.

Daniel asked, “Can you reach me a Coke?”

Jenny stretched back to the cooler, and in that moment, he admired once again the taut, minkish lines of her body. She pulled out a can, cracked it open, and handed it to him. He took a sip and put the can to his forehead. He didn’t know whether to cut the engine to save gas or to keep it running for the air conditioning.

Neither of them spoke for some time. Finally, she whispered, “Daniel, if we’re late . . .”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence.

Better to save the gas.

“If we’re late,” he said, “we might as well keep on going to Texas. Or California. Or Kandahar.”

The joke was bitter. “Been there, done that,” she said.

“But we’re not going to be late,” he said. “That’s why we left so early.”

“I hate being stuck like this,” she said. “It’s like we’re in a box.”

“It’s okay, babe,” he said. “It won’t last.”

Sometimes, she got worked up and he had to talk her down. She had seen so much. Sometimes, he thought he could see the movement of it behind her eyes, like a cheetah pacing in her cage.

“I hope,” she said. “I hope. I hope. I hope.” Suddenly, a pickup truck jumped out of the line of cars and trucks stretched out behind them. Under a plume of diesel smoke, the truck roared and rattled past them along the shoulder.

She opened the door, stepped onto the shoulder, and watched. Under another plume of smoke, the truck swept over the crest of the hill and out of sight. Two other vehicles –a car and another pickup truck– followed onto the shoulder and rolled over the hill.

Jenny hopped back into her seat and shut the door. “We should do it,” she said. “We could head down the shoulder until we get to the first exit. I checked the map. We could the take the back roads. We’re better off on the back roads anyway.”

“We got time,” he said. “I think we should wait until this breaks up.”

“We should go,” she said. “Everybody else is doing it.”

“No, not everybody’s doing it. Most people got the sense to wait and see. We don’t know what’s over that hill. If we get up there and something blocks the way and nobody lets us back in because we jumped the line and then a cop comes down the lane, then we got a real problem. Right now, we just got an inconvenience. There’s a big difference between an inconvenience and a problem.”

“Don’t lecture me,” she said. “Problem. Inconvenience. I don’t care what you call it. If we don’t get that box to Chicago by Wednesday . . .”

A State Highway Patrol car shot past, spraying blue light over their windows.

“See,” he said. “Now, somebody’s got a problem.”

He was happy to be proven right, but he knew to let it go at that.

So they waited. They ate sandwiches and they drank Coca Cola from the cooler and they waited. For a time, she resumed her nap. She jerked in her sleep and fidgeted more than usual. He would have liked to nap as well; it was that drowsy sort of heat that pulls a person down into sleep. But one of them needed to be awake when the jam broke up. Once it did, they might have only a few seconds to fire up the engine and get moving.

But the jam did not break up. For two hours, nothing happened. And nothing happened. Daniel looked around; their neighbor to the left had gotten out of his Prius and stood talking with a trucker in cargoes and a ball cap. Might as well, Daniel thought.

“What’s up?” he called.

“It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” said the Trucker.

“Do we know anything?”

“Not a thing,” said the Neighbor from the Prius.

The Trucker looked toward the crest of the hill. “I got an app on my phone tells what traffic looks like up and down the road, but I got no coverage in this low spot.”

A second squad car, this one from the county, rolled up the shoulder, siren flaring.

“I’m guessing there’s a big wreck up ahead,” said the Trucker. “But I can’t get a phone call in or out. I even got an old-school CB radio but all I get is static.”

A sound of low, repetitive thunder came up from the south and they all turned to look. A helicopter rumbled overhead at full speed, past the hilltop, and out of sight.

“Black helicopter,” the Trucker said. “That’s the feds. Secret agents.”

“You know that’s bullshit,” said the Neighbor from the Prius. “Any helicopter looks black from the ground. There’s probably a wreck up ahead. That’s probably an ambulance helicopter.”

“Suit yourself,” the Trucker said. “But if this is bullshit, this is some serious bullshit.” He turned and climbed back into the cab of his truck.

The Neighbor shook his head. “You know that’s all a bunch of right-wing conspiracy bullshit,” he said. “There’s a wreck up ahead and somebody got injured, so the hospital sent their helicopter. Once they get the wreck cleared, we’ll be rolling again.”

***

Jenny had a map spread out on the hood of the car. She knew recon. She knew how to read the land; she knew how to plot routes.

Daniel asked, “Have you tried calling?”

She did not lift her eyes from the map. “No coverage,” she said. “We’re down in this low valley way out in the country. No signal. What’s the word from your boys?”

“They don’t know any more than we do.”

She pointed to the map. “Look at this,” she said. Her finger followed a thread of highway up the map. “My guess is, we’re like, two, maybe three miles from the next exit.

From across the cornfields to the east, he heard a siren. He raised his head.

“Are you listening?”

“Sorry.” He turned back to the map.

“Look,” she said. “It’s two, maybe three miles at the most to the nearest exit. If that’s true, and if the lane between here and that exit is clear, then we can get out of this trap and follow the back roads. Here,” she pointed. “And here. Then maybe, just maybe, we can get to Chicago on time.”

“So . . .”

“So I’m going to hike to the top of the hill to see what I can see.”

“The other side of the mountain . . .” he said in a sing-song voice.

“What are you saying?”

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s an old song from when I was a kid.”

“So you think this is a joke?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that.”

“You think because I’m a girl I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I didn’t say that. I didn’t mean that.”

“You didn’t need to say it. You showed it. I could tell.”

“Okay. Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. What do you want me to do?”

“You can help us get a plan to get us out of this mess.”

“What’s to plan? We’re stuck.”

“We’re only stuck if we give up.”

“I haven’t given up. I just know . . .”

“Know what?”

“That these things eventually work themselves out and if you try to bust out, you’re headed for trouble.”

“You say that, but you don’t even know the trouble we’re in.”

“I don’t. And neither do you, which is why I’m trying to do the sensible thing and wait it out.”

“Okay, Mister Sensible, but have you even noticed what’s not been happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“When was the last time you saw a car come from the other direction?”

“What?”

“Take a look.”

He saw nothing and no one in the southbound lane. He took a few steps to get a better view, then stared toward the crest of the hill. He saw not a single car in the southbound lanes. He stepped to where he could see better yet and stared for a full minute. He waited another minute and still saw nothing but the heat that shimmered over the pavement.

When he got back to the car, Jenny had hitched her backpack onto her shoulders. “I’ve got a bottle of water and a couple power bars. You’ve got food and drinks in the cooler. If I can see what I need to see from the top of the hill, I’ll turn around and come back. If I need to go further, I’ll do that. If by some chance this breaks up, just look for me at the side of the road.”

Sweat glistened at her temple. She didn’t wait for a goodbye kiss.

***

He was hungry. He was thirsty. There was still one sandwich in the cooler, along with two more Cokes and, in a shopping bag, half a dozen more power bars. The sun cut across the fields to the west in a red blaze. Heat still rose from the pavement and off the roofs of the trapped cars like an embodied thing. He had eaten half a sandwich and sipped the last of his Coke for lunch. But that was five hours ago.

Five hours. And no word, no sign of Jenny. He was hungry; he was thirsty. But he was not about to eat or drink as long as she was still out there. Where did she go? Why hadn’t she come back? Back home, before they left, there were days, even normal, no-stress days, when he thought, She’s gone for good. She would go out on patrol again on some mission only she understood. But she always came back.

A few cars down, a refrigerator truck, on its way to stockpiling a grocery store, kept its generator running. Everyone else had shut their motors off to save gas for the moment the jam broke up. People gathered to talk in small groups. From somewhere in the cars behind, a child was crying.

And crying.

The Neighbor from the Prius came by to talk. “She’s not back yet? I bet you’re worried.”

Daniel nodded. The child cried on and on, on and on.

“It’s been hours now. You think she’ll be okay?”

Daniel shrugged. Perhaps it was the crying child and the hunger and the thirst and the worry, but Daniel began to feel annoyed.

“You’d think,” the Neighbor said, “that the State or the County would be out here by now. You’d think they would be helping people out, letting us know what’s going on. I mean, this is like a disaster, right? Seems like a disaster. Shouldn’t the National Guard be out here? Or the Red Cross?”

He had a point.

“I mean, there’s kids out here. You can hear them crying. Why do we pay our taxes anyway?”

Another helicopter roared up from the south, low enough that they felt the thrum of its rotors in their faces and their hands. They watched it disappear over the hill.

“Well,” the Neighbor said. “Maybe that’s a sign there’s some help coming.”

Maybe.

***

By sundown, Jenny had still not come back. Daniel wanted to wait up for her, but he decided it would be best to try to get some sleep, to be better prepared for whatever was coming. He laid back his car seat and rolled up his jacket for a pillow. But he was troubled in and out of sleep with an unreadable dream. He woke at dawn, stiff and chilled to the bone. An early morning fog had settled; the dew had silvered the front and rear windshield of his car. But the side windows were clear.

To his left, his Neighbor in the Prius was still asleep. There was no motion from inside the Trucker’s cab. Beyond them, the highway was shrouded in mist.

To his right, he could see as far as the edge of the cornfield. A faint wisp of wind set the mists to moving in patches. As he watched, the wall of cornstalks parted and a man emerged. He was dressed in overalls and he carried a rifle. Daniel recognized it as an AR-15 with a scope and a goat-horn clip. The mists had colored the man gray; even his hands and face were gray. He scanned the length of the line of cars and trucks with the rifle at the ready, then turned to the south and walked slowly along the edge of the cornfield until he disappeared into the mist.

***

The first of the beggars came later that morning. Daniel had allowed himself half a Coke and half of the half-sandwich that was left.

“Please,” the woman said. “Something for my children.” She had no children with her. “They’re back at the car, waiting. If you don’t believe me, come and see.”

He told her he had nothing. “I’m as hungry as you,” he said. That much was true; the bit of sandwich had done nothing to ease his hunger. But he was not about to give up what he was saving for Jenny.

The woman did not try to argue. She turned and headed to the Prius where she said the same thing. This time, she took an offering, dropped it into a bag she had suspended from her shoulder, and thanked him. She thanked the Neighbor from the Prius over and over and moved on to the next car.

Half an hour later, another woman came with the same, sad request.

The third beggar came with her baby in her arms; she was the picture of hollow-cheek, Okie-mother desperation. She leaned in to speak to him and the baby clung silently to her shoulder and stared at him. “Please,” she said “I’ll do . . .”

“No, no,” he said. “Don’t say that.” He reached into the back seat for the grocery bag, pulled out one of the power bars, and held it out to her. She took it, but her eye stayed on the bag.

“That’s all I got, ma’am,” he said. He hated the lie, but he was determined to hold out for Jenny.

The woman nodded. She took the baby to the side of the road and sat down in the grass.

***

By noon, people began to leave their cars and head off into the cornfield. People had been doing it off and on for the whole time to relieve themselves in privacy. He had done it himself. It had gotten so that once you left the shoulder, you had to take care so as not to step into a pile.

But now, people were leaving for longer treks. A man or a woman might enter the field and he could see the cornstalks shimmer as they made their way across the field until, at a certain distance he could no longer tell the difference between their movements and the movement of the wind. If he watched long enough –half an hour, an hour, or two—he might see the person come back. Or not.

Daniel walked up and down the line and it seemed that some of the cars had been abandoned. He asked the Neighbor from the Prius, “What about this Honda? You seen that guy?”

“Hours,” the Neighbor said. “I haven’t seen that guy for hours.”

This could be a problem once the line finally got moving. “I wonder,” he said. He was so hungry, it was hard to get the words out.

“Foraging,” the Neighbor said. “He probably went out to look for food and water. Or news,” he said. “He might have gone looking for news.” He looked to the north, to where the jam had started.

“I’d like to know myself,” the Neighbor said. “Why the fuck are we still here?”

***

That night, an hour before dawn, Daniel woke to an odor of smoke. He half-expected to hear the comfortable crackle of a fireplace log.

But it must have been a trick of dream. For here he was in the car again, asleep under a blanket he had unbundled from their packed belongings.

He got out to take a leak and looked around him in the smoke-tinted mist. To the north, beyond the crest of the hill, the sky was tinged with red, as if from some great fire burning.

***

“We need to pull together,” said the Neighbor from the Prius. “We’re all in this together, so if we pool our resources, we have a better chance of getting through.”

Makes sense, Daniel thought. He was heart-sick worried over Jenny and it was hard to think of anything else. But the Neighbor’s idea made sense.

They had gathered twenty people from their section of the highway. “It looks like we’re in this for a while,” the Neighbor said. “We might as well make plans.” So, tasks were assigned. Committees created. Commitments made. Foragers, guards, cooks, scouts allocated to their different jobs. A team set out to construct a latrine. No more slipping out to the cornfield and risking terrible diseases. Daniel, because of his military training, took charge of building the latrine. Because he did not want to leave the car for fear of missing Jenny when she came back, he wanted to be neither forager nor scout; he took a shift as guard: four hours on, four hours off.

“You all can make all the plans you want,” the Trucker said. “I got my plan right here.” He tapped the hip pocket where he kept his pistol.

Daniel had the shift that started at four in the morning. Which was fine, since he could only sleep in snatches. He was already awake when it was time to relieve the Neighbor.

“Still no word from your girlfriend?” The Neighbor already knew, but still he asked.

“Nothing,” Daniel said. He had heard nothing.

“No word from the scouts either.”

Scouts had gone north and south; foragers east and west. The foragers had not been able to find a store that was open. They were too far out in the country for that. And none of the farmers around were willing to answer their doors. But the foragers brought back corn and

soybeans from the fields, so with a dash of this and a dash of that, the cooks were able to make a succotash stew and nobody went to bed totally hungry. The refrigerator truck’s generator still rumbled. They had not yet been able to persuade the driver to unlock his trailer.

So portions of the stew were small and Daniel was still hungry. The power bars were a powerful temptation. How hungry would he have to get, he wondered, before he broke down and ate one of them?

The Neighbor asked, “Are you afraid for what might have happened to her?”

Of course he was. What kind of question was that?

“I can imagine you’re eaten up with worry,” the Neighbor said. “I haven’t been able to reach my wife, my mother, my friends. I have no idea what’s going on or if they’re safe. I have no idea how far or how wide this thing is. Or what it is. I don’t know if my family is alive or dead. I don’t know if my house still stands. It’s a nightmare. But to see your girlfriend leave and then she doesn’t come back . . .”

“Don’t you need to sleep?”

The Neighbor looked awkward. “Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I do.”

***

The raiders attacked with nothing more lethal than tire irons and a baseball bat, but they had the advantage of surprise. Were they from the North along the line? The South? Were they locals from the surrounding farms?

The fight was quick and brutal. The Neighbor had the night watch. In the dark of night, he called out Raid! Raid! and he honked the horn of his car just as they had agreed. Everyone in the guard team came running. They had tire irons and two-by-fours and even a ball bat of their own, but they were coming out stupefied with sleep and they were coming from six different

directions. Daniel heard a crack, like that of a wooden crate being broken, then a series of kicks and blows and a whack that sounded for all the world like a melon being smashed.

The Trucker came out with his pistol and a flashlight that lit up the whole scene. He shot the lead raider in the face. The man jerked back like a marionette and dropped with his bat in mid-swing.

The Trucker paused; he stared at the downed raider a moment, then looked around him. It was as if he expected the gang to take off running. Instead, they turned on him. One of them picked up the bat and made a round-house swing that caught the Trucker in the jaw. He dropped the flashlight and it rolled under the truck, so the rest of the fight was in darkness. There was a quick half-minute of grunts and curses. Daniel got in a solid lick with his tire iron. And the raiders, as one, ran off into the night.

They left behind the baseball bat, a blood trail, and the body of the boy –he was really just a teenage boy– that the Trucker had shot.

***

The raid by the gang left them in a bad way. They hadn’t stolen much; there wasn’t much to steal. But the Trucker had taken a blow to the head that left him with a broken jaw and so addled that he was perpetually falling asleep. The Neighbor was dead; the raiders had clubbed him to death right after he had called out the warning. They would have to find a way to bury him and the boy and, eventually, find a way to notify the Neighbor’s next of kin. The dead raider had no ID on him. They would have to bury him and pass on what little they knew to the authorities, if they ever saw any authorities. The Trucker would have to be tended. He had refused to be part of the watch, and he refused to be a scout of a forager, but it wasn’t right to leave him to suffer.

The scouts came in –finally– to say there wasn’t much to say. They had hiked miles to the next exit, where it was parked bumper to bumper for miles beyond and as far as any report they had been able to gather, but they had not learned a thing. Everyone they spoke with was convinced of the truth of their particular rumor, but no two rumors were the same.

The foragers did a little better, but not by much. More corn. There was lots of corn. More soybeans. Some squash. A chicken.

“So, what do we do now?” someone asked.

Daniel found a voice he did not know he had. He was elected to replace the Neighbor as leader and set about re-organizing the teams by which they could protect and feed themselves. They set up the Trucker in the back of a station wagon where he could stretch out; a nurse was stationed to tend to him. They had the Trucker’s pistol and in a cabinet in the cab of his truck they found an automatic rifle. No one knew how to drive his semi, but using it as a base, they maneuvered the cars to form a redoubt they could more easily defend. Within the redoubt, they set up a kitchen.

They saw more movement up and down the line: another team of raiders saw their line of defense and kept trekking southward. Other people came to the edge of the cornfield. Local farmers? More raiders? These others paused a moment, then withdrew.

Three Humvees from the National Guard rumbled past along the shoulder. Daniel and the others tried to wave them down but they would not stop.

More beggars came and went. The group had agreed to take in anyone who asked, but no one asked.

But two of the beggars stayed –a pair of children, five and six years old. “Mommy left us in the car so she could go find some food. But she didn’t come back. So we went to look for her,” the older one explained.

The smaller one stared at everyone with saucer-sized eyes, but said nothing at all.

Daniel called everyone in the group together and, together, they decided to keep the children. For lack of a better place, the girls could sleep in the back seat of his car. To make room, he set out most of their boxes in a stack and stretched a tarp over them.

He put the box meant for Chicago under the car.

***

The children followed Daniel everywhere he went, though, as leader, he did not go far. The younger girl had brought a book with her, Goodnight, Moon, and she begged him to read it to her over and over. So he did, over and over, whenever he had a moment.

“Do you think Mommy will come for us today?”

“She might.”

“We should go look for her.”

“But then” Daniel said, “we might be over there while she’s looking over here. It’s better just to stay here and let her find you.” The older girl watched him with half averted eyes; the younger girl watched her older sister. “What if we’re there when she’s looking over here? What if we’re up when she’s looking down? What if we zig when she zags? What if we’re crooked when she’s looking straight? Let’s sit still here and let her find us.”

The older girl continued to watch him as if she were already halfway gone.

“I’m hungry,” the younger girl said. The older girl looked to the road.

“I know,” he said. “We’re all hungry. I bet your Mama’s hungry. We got some food here, but we got to save it for later, when your mama finds us. And when this is all over, we’ll all go for ice cream!”

“I’m hungry,” the younger girl said again. She pulled on her sister’s sleeve. They both looked to the road. Daniel was afraid he would lose them, that as soon as he turned his back, they

would disappear. And who knew what sort of person might find them next? He looked over to where the kitchen crew was stewing another thin succotash stew. It would be another hour, maybe two, before it was ready, and it would be a slender thing even then. He needed something that would hold them here.

He asked, “Can you keep a secret?”

The older girl looked dubious.

“For real. Can you keep a secret? A food-type, I-got-some-but-you-can’t-tell-anybody-else secret? Can you keep it?”

The older sister nodded. The younger sister watched her nod.

“I got a little something to hold you until dinner if you can keep a secret,” he said. “But only . . .” He paused. “So can you?”

She nodded a stronger nod and her sister nodded with her this time.

He went to the car and reached under the seat. There were five power bars left. Four was plenty enough to have on hand when Jenny got back. The group were making meals, small meals, every day, twice a day. This whole thing was temporary anyway; as soon as traffic got moving again, none of this would matter. So give the kids a power bar, he thought. They’re hungry. They’re kids.

He waved them over to the car. “Eat it here,” he said. “In the car. Don’t let anybody see you, cause, remember, it’s a secret.” Daniel stood outside the car while each girl ate her half of the power bar. They ate slowly, much too slowly, for Daniel was hungry too. Hungry enough that he yearned to take another of the power bars for himself.

But the Trucker was bedded down in the car next to his in the redoubt; he could wake at any time. And, over at the center of the redoubt, the cooks were tending the dinner fire. He didn’t want to be seen.

Finally, the older girl called, “We’re finished.”

“Hush,” he said, and put his finger to his lips. He had told her, several times over, to be quiet.

The smaller girl hopped out behind the first and handed him the wrapper from the power bar. “I’m still hungry,” she said. Her older sister shushed her and brushed the crumbs from her face.

The Trucker, propped on one elbow, had watched the whole thing. With his bruised and shattered jaw, he couldn’t speak, but he gave Daniel a knowing, sarcastic nod.

“She’s a little girl, and she’s hungry.” Daniel told him.

The Trucker smiled –a scornful, broken-jaw smile. He looked as if he was trying to speak, but a wave of pain crossed his face and he lay back down.

***

That night, the heat was unrelenting. There was still no sign of Jenny. The Trucker, in a final, delirious spasm, had got himself up, staggered to the edge of the redoubt, and died. It had been a rocky, argumentative night. Daniel had finally slept, but not long. At four in the morning, it was time for his shift. “Wake up, buddy,” he had told himself, over and over, though he wanted badly to sleep.

It was a cloudless, half-moon night. To the North, the lined-up cars were a jagged lance of moonlight that cut through the dark fields on either side.

Half an hour into his shift, he heard a distant, rumpling sound; dim lights flashed at the northern horizon.

Nothing changed in the long line of cars in the moonlight. A few people got out of their cars to look, but they soon settled back. But just at dawn, as his shift was ending, a new sound emerged, a sound like the honking of a flock of metallic geese.

Everybody was up by then; all eyes turned to the North. No one had any idea what the sound meant and, an hour after the sound had stopped, nothing had come of it and they heard nothing more. Daniel would have liked to wait longer, just in case, but he needed to sleep. The little girls in the back seat seemed to be able to sleep through anything. And for the moment, so could he. He shut the car door as quietly as he could, set back his car seat, and dropped into sleep like a stone.

***

He woke to the sharp sound of rapping at the window. Another beggar, he thought, another woman looking stringy-haired and nervous.

But it was Jenny at the window, trying to wake him. She was so changed, so gaunt and desperate, that at first he did not know her.

“Start the car,” she said. She spoke in a half-whisper, in a voice gone hoarse. “Start the car. Let’s go.” She came around the front of the car, got in on the shotgun side, and shut the door.

“Start the car,” she said again. “Can you start the car? Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Half our stuff is outside the car.”

“Forget the stuff, start the car, move it. Get moving.”

“But the box . . ?”

“Forget the box. The box is nothing. Start the car.”

But he had already gotten out to look. He stood, half in, half out of the car. All around, people were firing up their engines. Where had he put the box? Somewhere safe, but he could not remember. A couple cars had already broken out of the redoubt. The Trucker, he thought. We still need to bury the Trucker.

Jenny reached out to grab him by the shirt and to reel him back in. “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Daniel looked for the box one last time, but he could not tell it from the others.

“Come on,” Jenny said. “Get in and start the car.”

He sat down behind the wheel and turned the key. For a moment, there was a heartbreak stutter of ignition, but it soon kicked. He put it into gear; it responded crankily and they were in motion.

He felt the rear left wheel rise up over some object ono the ground. Then he heard a pop as the object collapsed under the weight of the car. The box, their delivery for Chicago—he looked over to Jenny, worried.

“Forget it,” she said. “Forget the box. Forget Chicago.” He steered it off the grass and onto the highway She turned to face the back seat.

“Who is that?” she asked.

The girls were wide-eyed in the back seat. He told Jenny their names. “They’re looking for their mother,” he said.

“God, I hope they find her.”

He was not ready to ask what Jenny had seen, but he knew, from the devastation in her eye, that she had seen some terrible thing and that she was not ready to speak of it.

The great, serpent-slow line of cars and trucks had begun at last to move. “Whatever happens,” Jenny said, “whatever you see, don’t stop. Just keep moving” she said. “Don’t stop.”

He wanted to ask, what terrible thing had she seen out there? He glanced in her direction and tried to search in her eyes for an answer. But there was no way to read her now, no way to tell.