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toolbox complete with a hammer, a set of screwdrivers, lock-pick set, sandpaper, magnifying glass, and a terrifying-looking hunting knife.
    “Present from my dad when I went to school,” she explained.
    “The knife or the box?”
    “Both.”
    We were just beginning to relax about our unusual situation when there was knocking on the door, though it was really more like pounding. Lawrence dashed to the door and opened it to find Joe standing on the other side, an upset look on his face.
    “Guys, there’s been more rioting,” he said. “Come look.”
    Sure enough, the news was covering more instances of looting. This time it wasn’t mostly just students. Much larger groups had begun to descend on the bigger retail stores, like the one we had just visited. The news cameras caught shaky images of people grabbing whatever they could carry, trampling over each other, and fighting with policemen and security guards. Four people had been shot. A security guard had been hit over the head with a shovel someone had picked up from a rack. All schools - including Ivy Tech - had cancelled classes indefinitely.
    The governor had declared a state of emergency.
    “This is insane,” Joe kept saying over and over again.
    “Did the mail guy come?” Tyrsa asked suddenly, turning to Joe.
    He looked at her for a moment as if he didn’t understand her question.
    “Um,” he finally said, kind of shaking his head, “I don’t know.”
    Tyrsa went out to the hallway. The rest of us continued watching the television, our former relief gradually escalating into tight knots of fear.
    Tyrsa returned, cursing under her breath.
    “He didn’t come,” she told us. “So yeah, still no electricity.”
    Oh, yeah, I thought.
    Weird how that had been something that could have slipped my mind. It just went to prove how stressful the situation at large had become. Joe shooed us out of his office, muttering something about having to make phone calls. He seemed to be fighting panic. We shuffled back to our apartment and all sat around the living room. Rick held his head in his hands. Lawrence frowned and kept picking imaginary fuzz off his shirt sleeve. The battery-operated clock we had hanging in the kitchen ticked at an excruciating volume.
    Tock. Tock. Tock.
    “Should we leave?” Beth said suddenly.
    We all looked at her, not sure of what we had just heard.
    “What do you mean?” Rick asked.
    “Leave. Get out of the city.”
    “How? We don’t have a car!” Lawrence reminded everyone.
    “We find one somehow.”
    “ Steal one ?” I asked, dumbfounded.
    Beth’s face tightened with anxiety and she ground her teeth together.
    “I don’t know!” she cried. “But we do something! We get out somehow! It can’t be safe to just hang around here and wait for people to break down the doors!”
    “She’s right,” Rick interjected sternly. “We find a way. We get a bunch of bikes or something. Travel at night.”
    “That’s crazy,” I said.
    “Crazier than whatever we’re doing now?” Rick asked pointedly.
    “Yes!” I replied.
    Beth and Rick started talking at once and I raised my voice to match theirs. No one could understand each other, but we just kept talking until Tyrsa broke in.
    “Hang on! Everyone, just chill!” she cried.
    She held her hands out, waiting for silence. We shut our mouths and waited. She started again, quietly, but firmly.
    “It’s too dangerous to leave. My dad told me about this. He said that if there’s looting and people shooting each other and craziness like this, it’s already too late to leave. We try to steal a car, we get shot. Even if we did manage to pull it off, we get carjacked right away. We run out of gas in the middle of nowhere. And those are the best scenarios. If we try walking or biking, we’re just asking for trouble. What you’re talking about is called bugging-out, and not even the right kind of bugging-out. You’re only supposed to go if you know exactly where you’re headed,