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him. One stood dark and silent, the living room window painted with streaks of dark fluid.
    What is that? he wondered. Could they be here already?
    Pale faces looked back at him from an upstairs window of the house directly across from his. The three Tillman kids. He could see their father, Roger, pacing furiously downstairs in the living room, holding one of his big hunting rifles. In the distance, an Army Chinook helicopter pounded over the city. Roger had the right idea: bunker down. Ethan stared at their house for a long time, trying to think about what came next: food, water, defense. But everything was fuzzy. He could not focus on these things beyond abstractions. He decided that he would pack some items in an emergency backpack and leave it by the door. He did not think they would need it but when Carol finally came home she would have wanted him to have done something constructive. He pictured himself showing her the backpack. He smiled glassily, taking a little comfort in the thought.
    A hole appeared in the window with a sound like a wine glass breaking in the sink, jolting his consciousness. Roger Tillman stood on his porch, lowering his rifle and squinting up at him through a puff of gun smoke. Ethan backed away from the window in a dry-mouthed stupor, occasionally flinching as if prodded.
    Why did Roger do that? he thought. Jesus, he could have killed me!
    He retreated to the bathroom, locked the door and sat on the toilet, shaking. Long minutes passed and nothing happened. He sat there until he started to feel safe again.
    The gunshot made him realize how serious the situation was. What am I doing here? he asked himself. I have to find my family. I have to find them now and get them to a safe place.
    Ethan ran out to his car and drove to the bank and then the daycare but both were closed, locked and empty. He saw many terrible things but later he would remember the entire drive only as a blur. As darkness fell, he returned home and paced his house alternating between rage at Carol for not coming home and blind panic that what happened to that family on TV might have happened to his wife and precious little girl. He howled in torment like an animal until he realized that he was starving and needed food immediately. He drank more coffee instead and watched the news in the dark and hit redial on his phone repeatedly until he fell asleep.
    He stayed at home for days waiting for Carol to bring Mary home. Each morning, he woke up hopeful and each night, he passed out from exhaustion in a state of near suicidal despair. The days began to blur together until the power failed. There were no more sirens downtown, only sporadic gunfire. He realized that he had plenty of meat in the freezer that he should cook before it spoiled, but the gas stove did not work either. He ate as much as he could from the refrigerator and washed it down with the cold dregs left in the coffee pot and then went back to staring at his cell phone, willing it to ring and feeling sick. He tried to pour himself a glass of water but the plumbing did not work. He had not filled the tub or any gallon jugs, only a few bottles for the backpack. For some reason, he had thought the plumbing did not need electric power to work. He stared at the faucet, feeling helpless rage at his own stupidity.
    He tried to call his wife again but his cell phone could not get a signal. The collapse of the power grid had cut off phones, cellular communications and the Internet. Ethan was completely isolated from his family now. He knew all about the mathematics of probability. Finding them at this point would be like finding a needle in a haystack—a haystack soaked in gasoline and blazing. He spent the day overpacking two suitcases with clothes and provisions and put them by the door.
    That night, he lay curled up in a fetal ball on the bed, crying into his wife’s pillow, unable to even look inside his daughter’s room, and smell her in the air, out of fear of losing his