The highway cut through the hills, which had turned a light brown by the dying grass. The boys trudged down the center of the cracked asphalt overgrown with weeds, pulling a rusted, red wagon that contained their supplies.

Among the canned foods, bottles of water, and jumbles of odds and ends were toys, including a Rubik’s cube, a Nintendo Gameboy, and the board game Life with a tattered and worn box.

The boys wore hooded sweatshirts that were pulled low over their baseball caps, and each wore eye gear to protect themselves from the blustery wind. Simon had tinted skiing goggles that covered half his face, and Isaac wore aviators with a spiderweb of fractures on the lenses.

And beneath the howling and whistling of the rushing air, were the faint, rhythmic squeaks of the white-rimmed wagon tires as the boys leaned into the wind and pushed on.

When the boys rounded a bend, a surge of wind knocked into them with such force that it pushed them back a few steps. Isaac turned to Simon and shook his head. He pointed at a large rock, and they headed toward it with bowed heads. As the boys stepped off the road, a gust hit the broadside of the wagon and blew it violently over, splaying its contents in a wide skittish arc.

Simon was about to run after the items, but Isaac stopped him.

“Leave them!” Isaac shouted as loudly as he could. “We’ll get them later!”

Simon nodded, and the brothers made their way to the large boulder, crouching closely together and waiting for the wind to pass.

***

The windstorm withered later in the day, and the boys spread out in search of their scattered belongings. Isaac saw a flash of white near the crest of a hill and ran to it. When he got there, he was relieved to see that one of his notebooks was in relatively clean condition.

He picked it up and climbed to the top of the hill to survey his surroundings, but he dropped immediately to the ground and motioned Simon over.

“Let me see the binoculars,” Isaac said.

Simon gave him the binoculars. They were the kind often found in the bargain bins of toy stores—red and blue with a plastic body and plastic lenses. Isaac peered through them and focused on a farmhouse in the distance as best as he could.

It was in a large clearing with a neglected field that spread to the hill on which Simon and Isaac lay. The image was blurry, and it was hard to discern any details through the scratches on the lenses, but from what Isaac could see, there was no movement around the house.

“Should we go look inside?” Simon asked.

Isaac lowered the binoculars. They had encountered a few farmhouses just like that one in the past few days they had been on the road, where they had been able to replenish their supplies. But the thought of going through any enclosed space, not knowing what would be waiting behind a closed door, was always unnerving.

“I guess we have no choice. We lost half our stuff,” Isaac said. “But remember that last farmhouse we were in? You thought you heard something and started screaming and running around like an idiot. Remember that? You can’t do that anymore, do you understand?”

“You don’t have to keep telling me. I already said sorry for that. And besides, you started screaming too, remember?”

“That was only because you started screaming first, dummy.” Isaac could see that his brother was beginning to fume. Before the world had changed, he might have pushed further until his brother became furious or started crying, but he knew he could no longer be that way. “Just try to stay quiet. That’s all I’m saying. You know what to do if we have to make a run for it, right? Just go anywhere until you’re safe. It doesn’t matter where.”

“I know,” Simon replied, still annoyed.

“Alright then. Let’s make that rock we were just at our meeting point if we get separated. If I’m not there, just wait for me.”

Simon stared silently at the ground.

“What is it?” asked Isaac.

“What if… what if you don’t come back?”

Isaac paused. “I’ll come back.”

“But what if you don’t? What am I supposed to do then? Dad didn’t come back after he said he would…”

“Don’t think about that kind of stuff, Simon. It’s not good for you.”

“Promise me that it won’t happen.”

“How am I supposed to promise something like that?”

“Just promise.”

Isaac had imagined what he would do if something happened to Simon, but the thought of it brought a crushing heaviness and fear, like peering into a black and endless pit.

He had also wondered what Simon would do if he was left all alone. He would be frightened but more frightened of what his mind would conjure than anything this land of dread and spite could truly hold.

Someday soon, he would have to tell Simon what to do in that situation. He had to say something to Simon to give him hope and a purpose. But that would have to wait until he, himself, knew how it could be done.

“I promise,” he said.

***

The farmhouse had two stories. Its white siding was chipped in several places, revealing gray wood underneath, and the screen on the aluminum door had come loose and was curled up at the edges. Isaac and Simon opened the screen door and stepped into the dark kitchen. The smell of all these houses was the same—stale sweat on old clothes.

On the linoleum were dried boot prints. Crusted dishes sat in the sink, and the drawers and cabinets were agape, empty, and lifeless. Simon and Isaac made their way into the house, stepping lightly as had become their custom during such moments.

The furniture in the living room had been pushed to the side or upturned, and broken glass littered the blackened carpet. They stopped at the foot of a long, narrow staircase with mahogany wainscoting and striped wallpaper.

The boys had seen houses in similar condition, but something was different about this one. Isaac couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. It could have been the dark stains on the carpet, the impression on one end of the sofa, or the fact that a single mirror was the only thing aligned in this mass of clutter.

Being in the house felt to Isaac like those times when he was younger and had to walk down the darkened hallway to the bathroom. The murkiness of the night had felt suffocating, for he knew that something was hiding in the shadows, watching his every move.

He was about to tell Simon they had to leave when heavy, deliberate footsteps fell from somewhere deep inside the house. One footfall was heavier than the other, as if whatever it was suffered from a limp. Isaac quickly turned toward the kitchen, but the footsteps were now coming from that direction.

Isaac caught Simon’s eyes, and they began to climb the steps to the second floor as carefully as they could. Halfway up, Isaac stepped on a board that creaked, and the boys froze.