the highway a blacker strip beyond it. There was no moon. He heard the Earth Mother's snores, the crickets' sad chirping. The rain sound of leaves in wind. Then he heard the sound that had awakened him, a faint growling in the distance. Immobile, he listened. The sound stopped. Making no noise, he got to his feet and, crouching double, ran to the convertible. The growling came again. Far off between the black fields a silver needle stabbed briefly then curved away. The growling faded, and died in a series of sputters.

Markel eased across the wet grass to the highway's edge where he knelt with the M-1 ready across one knee. He stayed there a long time, but the sound did not come again, nor did the silver needle. Finally he went back to the blankets but he didn't sleep.

At breakfast the Earth Mother, her face bloated with sleep, said, "You ain't eating much and your eyes are all blood-shot like you didn't get no sleep."

"Any sleep," he said, pushing away the plate of greasy canned meat. The coffee was hot, at least, and after he lit his pipe he felt better. He sat beside the girl while she scrubbed the tins in the stream. "Are you sure there was nobody in the city but you and Rocky?"

She wiped a greasy fork in the grass. "Yeah, I'm sure, I oughta know. There was only the two of us for a long time, till you came. Before, there was a whole lot of people, but everybody got sick and swelled up. They all died except me and Rocky. He didn't even get sick, like I did."

He was silent as they put the blankets and utensils in the convertible and stayed silent all morning as he drove between fields heavy with late-summer haze. The Earth Mother yawned. "How come you ain't said nothing all morning?"

"I've been thinking," he said.

"Yeah?" She switched on the radio, dialed it, listened, then switched it off. "I forget. I used to keep doing that all the time back in the apartment. But nothing ever happened, just like now."

"Nothing is likely to, either."

"Rocky always said that everybody else was dead. That ain't true, is it?"

"Not quite, but it's almost true. It's hard for someone like you to believe, I suppose."

"I can't believe it. Not everybody."

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