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the tarmac.
    ‘Think we’ll run into some?’ asked the twenty year old as he glanced in
the rear-view, the shadow of stubble highlighting his square jaw.
    ‘That depends.’
    ‘On what?’
    ‘How many people have realised that the food they have at home won’t last
them out.’
    Dodge nodded to himself, seemingly unfazed by the possibility of a
confrontation as he idly scratched the John Travolta cleft in his chin.
    ‘Most people will be a state of shock or denial, hunkering down in their
homes and hoping this is some bad dream. It’s when they wake up and smell the
espresso that things will get manic.’
    Dodge sat for a while as we stared out at the vacant streets. It was like
a fucking ghost town, the cars that sometimes sped by only serving to increase
the feeling that we were heading in the wrong direction as thick cloud blocked
out the sun and the southern horizon was stained with the darkness of smoke
rising from distant fires that continued to rage in the wreckage of New York.
    ‘Were you really in a band?’ he asked, wanting to distract his mind from
growing feelings of discomfort.
    I nodded. ‘Yeah. A stadium rock band.’
    ‘What were you called?’
    ‘Atlanta,’ I replied as memories of crowded stadiums stirred in my mind,
hands waving in the air, lighters raised to ballads, the screams and shouts,
the pulsing audience when we rocked out the night.
    ‘Did you have any hits?’
    ‘ Warriors of Rock was the biggest. It got to number three. We were
around at the same time as Kiss, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, The Cult, Guns and
Roses.’ I shook my head. ‘Glory days.’
    ‘That’s a bit before my time, but I guess Springsteen would have been in
his prime back then.’
    ‘I met him once, backstage at a gig.’
    Dodge turned to me with a look of interest. ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah, the Boss dropped by one of our shows.’
    ‘What was he like?’ he asked before turning his attention back to the
highway.
    ‘When it came to cool, the Fonz just wasn’t in the game.’
    ‘The Fonz?’ He glance over in confusion.
    ‘Probably a bit before your time too,’ I responded as we drew close to
the store.
    We pulled into the emptiness of the parking lot. A beaten-up old Chevy in
cherry red was idling in front of the store, a kid with the bottom half of his
face covered by a black bandana sitting behind the wheel.
    He turned as we drove in and sounded the car horn a couple of times. The
store front beyond the car was smashed out, a dark mouth that led into the
interior.
    ‘Pull up in front of him,’ I instructed as we made our way across.
    Dodge gunned the Raptor and we skidded to a halt before the old auto, the
youth raising a handgun into view and looking agitated as he kept glancing at
the broken store window. I jumped out, gun pointed at the windshield as the
rest of the convoy came to a stop and people climbed out.
    I moved around to the passenger side, the window wound down and the kid
aiming his handgun at me as I stood on the sidewalk in front of the store.
    Hearing the crunch of shattered glass, I turned to find three teens walking
out. Two were carrying a huge TV between them and the third had a sound system
cradled in his arms. I stared at the fruits of their looting and shook my head.
    ‘We got a problem?’ asked the kid at the far end of the TV, his beady eyes
narrowed as he regarded me.
    ‘I was just wondering what you gonna do with it, watch the blank screen?’
I asked sarcastically. ‘There isn’t a single brain cell between you.’
    He lowered his end, his companion following suit. Reaching behind him, he
withdrew a pistol that had been tucked into the back of his jeans. ‘What did
you say?’ he growled, glaring at me as the rest of my group gathered to the
right, those with weapons adjusting their grips with nervous anticipation.
    ‘You heard me well enough,’ I replied, my gaze unblinking as I stared
straight back at him.
    He raised his gun and pointed at me gangster style, holding it