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control and we would be safe. ‘So why leave?’ I
asked, swallowing back against the rising urge to vomit.
    ‘It’s inevitable,’ he stated. ‘Better to face it now and leave while
things out there are still relatively quiet.’
    ‘Not if last night was anything to go by.’
    ‘It’s quiet now. I’ll take the Falcon and go to the dealership tonight,
pick us up an RV.’
    ‘You’re going to steal one?’ I responded in surprise.
    ‘There’s not enough room in the Falcon for everything we need to take
with us. We can live in an RV.’
    ‘But you’re going to steal it.’
    Bob nodded. ‘Yes.’ He tried to hold my gaze, but turned away, looking to
the bath. ‘We should fill it now.’
    I stood in silence. We were law abiding citizens and now, less than
twenty-four hours after the bombs had dropped, Bob was already suggesting grand
theft auto.
    He moved past me to the taps, turning both to full flow after putting in
the plug. The sound of pouring water filled the small room.
    ‘Doesn’t that mean we’re part of the collapse, that we’re helping it
happen?’
    ‘It’s reality, Leah. We need something bigger if we’re going to survive.
The RV dealership is just down the road a ways. I’ll be in and out. I’ll bring
it back and we can pack it up and be gone by morning. We can spend the day
today getting everything together that we’re going to need.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I replied with a shake of my head.
    ‘I do. This is the only way.’
    ‘Mommy? Daddy?’ Chrissie’s voice came from the other side of the door.
‘What are you doing in there?’
    ‘Just filling the bath so that we have water if the supply stops,’ stated
Bob, reaching forward and quietly sliding the bolt back before opening the
door.
    Chrissie regarded us both curiously and glanced to the steadily filling
bath. ‘Do you want me to fill the upstairs sink?’
    ‘Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,’ nodded Bob.
    She regarded me for a moment. ‘Are you okay, Mommy?’
    I blinked and took a wavering breath, my stomach still churning. ‘Fine,’
I replied with a nod.
    ‘We should find all the containers we can and fill them in the kitchen,’
said Bob as he stepped from the room and Chrissie moved back.
    A thoughtful expression dawned upon her pale face. ‘If the water stops
does that mean we won’t be able to visit the little room?’
    Bob glanced at me and then turned to her. ‘We’ll cross that bright if and
when we come to it,’ he said, neatly sidestepping the issue.
    She looked at him and I expected another question to pass her lips, but
she eventually gave a vague nod and then turned to head back upstairs and fill
the sink.
    ‘What will we do?’ I asked in a whisper.
    ‘We could flush it down with some of the saved water? Hopefully the
supply will keep running while we’re still here.’
    ‘And on the road?’
    ‘We’ll be fine,’ he said, reaching out and touching my arm in a brief
gesture of reassurance, one that fell short of the mark thanks to the doubt
evident in his tone and his eyes.

6
    A convoy of five
vehicles moved along the street, a Cherokee bringing up the rear with me riding
shotgun in the black Ford Raptor at the front, three glorified shopping carts
between. One of three handguns we’d rounded up from the congregation rested on
my lap, the fingers of my right hand gripping it tightly as we headed to the
nearest store, a few people wandering aimless, only a couple of other cars on
the road, both heading north in the other direction and packed with belongings
as people began to flee, but you can’t run from your fate.
    ‘Expecting trouble?’ asked Dodge, glancing at the gun and seeing the
whites of my knuckles.
    ‘Just ready for it, is all,’ I replied, looking out of the pickup as we
passed a police patrol vehicle that was abandoned on the sidewalk outside a row
of stores, the windshield shot out and bullet holes riddling the bodywork, the
front of a nearby jewellers lying in shards on