Publisher's Synopsis
He walked until he came to a brushy rise which overlooked the prairie, which was bathed in moonlight now that the clouds had parted some, and looked out at it in silence. At length he heard movement and turned to see Sheila looking at him in the dark. "Are you all right?" she asked. She took a step closer and paused. "I don't know," he said. The breeze kicked up slightly, blowing her dirty hair sidelong across her face. "I've got to go," she said at last. "I don't know where. Somewhere Erik can be safe." He turned away and stared out over the plains again. At last he said, softly, "You were heading north before you ever heard the broadcast ... weren't you?" "Yes. I-I lost my husband and a daughter to the Flashback in a town called Anchor Rock ... a long ways from here. A Sheriff tried to help us ... we lost him too. After that I just-I can't explain it. It's like, when you spend enough time alone, or nearly so ... when the whole world is quiet ... you grow an antenna you never knew you had. Like the land itself is talking to you, trying to tell you something. It's-it's always been talking to you. You just couldn't hear it, not through all the noise. Is that what you mean?" "Yes," he said. He didn't elaborate. "Where will you go?" she asked. The silence was deafening. At last he said, "Come with us." She laughed, a little too harshly, she felt. But then she had become a harsh person. "To where? To Barley's? No ... absolutely no. They're on their own. I've got a kid to think about. You ... you're not actually going to continue on there. Are you?" He turned to face her slowly. "There's nowhere else to go. I think you know that. Come with us. You know as well as I do there's nothing back the way we came. You said so yourself, your car's been your primary weapon. What will you do when a pack or raptors or worse finds you on the open plain-kill them all with your six bullets? And what then; what will you do when the bullets run out, when there's not even enough to put your kid out mercifully, much less yourself?"
