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their front bumpers with their trunks in the air. They formed a wall that stretched as far as I could see to the left and curved away from us to the right. Where U.S. 20 passed through the car-wall someone had built a heavy timber gate across the road. Almost before I’d processed what I was seeing, church bells began ringing furiously. A line of men popped into view one by one, their heads and shoulders above the low log gate.
    Every one of them was pointing a rifle at us.

Chapter 7
    Darla must have seen the rifles, too, because she slammed on the brakes. I got off the bike and stepped up beside her.
    “I doubt if any of them can hit us from this far off,” she said.
    “Yeah,” I replied. “How about if I walk up there with my hands up and try to talk to them, and you turn Bikezilla around so that if they start shooting, we can ride out of here in a hurry.”
    Darla paused. “Okay.” She pulled me close for a kiss. “I’ll get out the binoculars and keep a lookout. If I yell, run back as fast as you can. And be careful.”
    “I will.” I held up my hands with my palms open and started trudging down the road toward the guns.
    The wind was in my face, blowing bits of ice that stung my skin. I had to squint, making everything look indistinct.
    As I got closer, I could see the car-wall better. It was bizarre—made up of every conceivable make and model of automobile: from huge pickup trucks and SUVs to Priuses and mini Coopers. Their front bumpers were planted on the ground, hidden by the snow. The rear bumpers rose in the air at various heights, so that the arrangement looked like a monstrous row of multicolored teeth gnawing up from the ground. Each car touched its neighbor on both sides, forming an impassable wall. I couldn’t tell what held them upright.
    I got to within about a hundred feet of the gate and yelled, “Hello! Is this Stockton?”
    Someone yelled back, “We’re closed.”
    “You got a doctor here?”
    “Yep. She’s closed, too.”
    “I can trade.”
    “Trade what?”
    “Guns, seeds, food . . .”
    A lean man wearing a chocolate-brown coat and overalls set his rifle aside, climbed over the log gate, and started walking toward me. I noticed he was walking to one side of the road, carefully staying out of his buddies’ line of fire. I briefly toyed with the idea of sidestepping to put him between me and the guns, but there was no point—he could easily sidestep, also.
    He stopped about ten feet from me. “Who’re you?”
    “Alex Halprin.”
    “From?”
    “Warren.”
    “No y’aint. Warren only sends four guys here to trade, and I know ’em all.”
    “I live on Paul Halprin’s farm, near Warren.”
    “Don’t know him. Said you got guns to trade? Any ammo?”
    “No, just the guns. A MAC-10, maybe a pistol, too.”
    “Don’t need ’em. Got plenty of guns, not enough ammo.”
    “What about seeds? I’ve got good, cold-weather kale seeds. Stuff’s full of vitamin C.”
    The guy turned his head and spat sideways. “Like the last guy who sold us seeds? Claimed they were turnip seeds.”
    “Didn’t sprout?”
    “They sprouted all right. Grew spurry weed. Useless.”
    “This is kale. Same stuff Warren trades. It cures scurvy.”
    “Maybe. Maybe you’re the King of England, too. Don’t rightly know. What’re you trying to trade for, anyway?”
    “Medical care. The guy on the back of our bike’s been shot. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
    “Best you put him out of his misery and give him a proper burial, then.” The guy shrugged. “Best hide the spot you bury him, too, ’less you want a flenser gang to dig him up.”
    Whatever a flenser gang was, I didn’t think telling him that the guy was probably already in one would help my case at all.
    “So what would it take to buy medical care for this guy?” I asked.
    “How ’bout two hog carcasses?”
    “I’ve got some pork, but not that much.”
    “I hear they got plenty up in Warren.”
    “Yeah, thousands. But