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stuck here with whatever food is left in the house and no vehicle,” Gary replied sharply.
    I was about to speak, when Powell interjected. “Gary’s right; if we go, there should be at least two of us. If you go alone and get trapped, injured or—well, if something happens to you, there’ll be no one to help or to bring you or the truck back. We’re going to need to go out sooner or later for food and to get fuel for the generator.”
    “The slip tank out back is full, should last a while if we shut the generator off when it’s not being used; it’s diesel though, we’ll need gas for the truck,” I said.
    “So who’s all going?” Gary asked.
    “I’ll go.”
    The group stared back at me.
    “They’re less likely to attack a young woman and a preacher,” I added.
    “Don’t be so sure; I’m coming too then,” Gary said.
    “No,” the preacher said in a firm, unflinching tone. “We need the extra seat. We have to find Margaret.”
    The rest of us looked blankly at each other and back at the preacher.
    “The piano player. She’s too old to fight over crumbs,” he added.
    ***
    I changed into an old work shirt and jeans and contemplated fetching my father’s gun from the back of his closet, but decided against it. There didn’t seem much point in carrying a gun if I wasn’t willing to use it, and I had already seen more blood than I could stomach in the brawl.
    It was dark outside. I was barely able to make out the preacher waiting by my dad’s truck. He had the bag of supplies, a light version of the everyday travel bags Gary and the search teams used, containing a siphon kit, food and water, and a variety of other survival items.
    Along the way, we stopped at crashed or parked cars, checked them for gas, and siphoned what remained in their tanks using the surgical tubing from the kit. The tubing had originally been intended for use as a tourniquet or IV line if required, but now, the fluids that would keep us alive were gas and water, and one was necessary to procure the other.
    We stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of town, but without the tools or knowledge required to bleed gas from non-powered pumps, we resigned to filling the acquired gas cans with gas siphoned from the tanks of parked cars at the station.
    The preacher suggested we fill up the truck with food and meds on the way. His manner and tone implied there would be no stopping on the way back from the church to the house. It appeared that Gary’s talk of wolves had made the preacher question his faith, but for now, it was only his faith in people that had been shaken.
    We idled at the corner grocer and loaded the truck bed with cans, dry packaged goods, and flats of bottled water; the money I had left at the cash register was still there, untouched. From the clinic where Powell had seen his first ghost, I grabbed all the pill bottles, first-aid kits, syrups, bandages, and whatever else would fit into the remaining space in the back of the truck, while the preacher brought out the last of the food.
    Every unseen bump in the road was realized and punctuated with a loud shuck sound as thousands of pills, packaged pasta, and bottled water jumped in response to the debris-strewn terrain. When we neared the church, I slowed the truck, and the preacher said to turn off the headlights so as not to draw more attention than was gained by the sound of the truck’s engine. The radio, that now played nothing more than white noise, was powered off and displayed the time; it was eleven after three in the morning, but I didn’t expect the people inside the church hall would be sleeping.
    “Wait outside; if I’m not back in ten minutes, then leave,” the preacher said.
    I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off.
    “Keep the engine running, and if anyone but me comes near the truck, just drive on. I don’t want to believe that people are as bad as Gary says, but I’m not willing to stake your life on my optimism.”
    He got out of the