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listened politely, insisting
that he understood jewelry wasn’t valuable now, but there was no
telling what it would be worth later.
    “ By the time later gets here, we’ll all be dust.”
    “ That might be true for you,
but think of your grandchildren.”
    Red would throw his hands up into the
air. “I give up!”
    Elizabeth quickly reminded them of the
task at hand. “Men—daylight’s burning.” That was her subtle way of
telling them to shut up, quit bickering and keep
looking.
    They found individual seed packets of
green beans, cucumbers, asparagus, musk melon and more. They gave
them to Michael first so that he could give them his spontaneous
little blessings. Just outside of town, they found an apple
orchard, heavy with bloom and buzzing with bees. An abandoned
strawberry farm produced a bumper crop and Elizabeth tried her hand
at jam. By the end of summer, they were up to their necks in
vegetables and fruit. Especially zucchini. Huge ones. And lots of
them. August and September were devoted to mastering the art of
canning. And zucchini bread.
    The more Red settled in with the woman
and boy, the further the alien encounter at Schlotz’s retreated
into the depths of his recollection. It had happened during the
darkest period of his life; he considered the possibility that it
had been caused by a psychotic breakdown. Michael had never brought
up the aliens in his dreams again, so Red decided to let it
rest.
    Fall arrived in colorful array. The
woods became a smorgasbord of red, yellow and orange. Cool nights
were spent snuggled together under old quilts for warmth. The
wood-burning stove was always stoked and they had taken to reading
novels by candlelight. They steered clear of books in which the
characters lived in the world as it had been just before the
plague, because the contents left them longing for what they had
lost. It was safer to read about characters from ancient times or
on other worlds. They waded through a lot of classics like The
Iliad , The Hobbit , and Dune .
    One afternoon, a knock on the door
startled the three of them from a game of Uno. Red ordered
Elizabeth and Michael to hide in the pantry. When they were safely
hidden away, he opened the door to a brown-skinned man with black
hair and mustache, and wire rimmed glasses.
    “ Hello,” the man said with a
thick Indian accent. The stranger’s smile quickly faded when Red
pressed the end of a revolver against the man’s cheek. The man held
his hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Please don’t
kill me.”
    “ If you’ve come looking for
trouble,” Red said, “then you’ve found it. If you haven’t come for
trouble—then you have nothing to fear.”
    “ No trouble,” the man
replied.
    “ Who are you?”
    “ Dr. Vanan
Patel.”
    “ A medical
doctor?”
    “ Yes, yes,” Patel nodded
vigorously.
    Red ordered him into the house and into
the kitchen, where he tied Patel to a chair.
    “ How did you find
us?”
    In his thick Indian accent, Patel
explained about his reoccurring dreams. They kept telling him to
drive north. So he did. But his truck had conked out about ten
miles down the road. It was full of medical supplies.
    Elizabeth came out of the
pantry.
    “ A doctor,” she gushed as if
a celebrity were sitting in the kitchen. “It’s a pleasure to meet
you. Red, untie him right now.”
    “ Not until I’m sure he’s
telling the truth,” Red said between gritted teeth, pissed that
Elizabeth had come out of the pantry.
    “ Oh, come on, now—why would
he lie?”
    “ Let me handle this.” Red’s
voice was so cold and calculating, she didn’t dare oppose him. “We
are going to leave him tied up until I can verify his
story.”
    “ Fine,” she said with a
pout.
    “ Don’t you even think of
untying him after I go to find the truck.”
    “ This is overkill, Red, he’s
definitely a real doctor.”
    “ Elizabeth...” he said
testily.
    “ Okay, okay, I won’t untie
him until you’re back.” She