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“What? Are we going to have to walk everywhere and become farmers?” Hector asked. “I don't know if I'm really into that.”

“Me, neither,” Gwen agreed. “But we might have to do that. Or at least ride bikes. I keep asking myself—is this a good thing or a bad thing that's happening?”

The three of them stared at one another helplessly.

“I have no idea about that,” Tom admitted. “No idea at all.”

“There's something else I want to show you in the back of this place,” Gwen said. “It's a thing I've been building from some blueprints in a kit I found down here.”

“A kit for what?” Tom asked.

“A still,” Gwen replied.

“Like back in the days of prohibition when alcohol was illegal and they made whiskey in stills?” Hector asked quizzically.

“Sort of,” Gwen answered.

“Gwen, don't tell me you've been out here getting blitzed every day,” Hector said disapprovingly.

Gwen laughed. “No, crazy. Don't worry. I haven't been making whiskey. I've learned how to make alcohol for fuel—ethanol. Come on. I'll show you. It's pretty cool.”

Niki heard the story about the “mysterious benefactor” in the orange canoe on her mother's radio, and thought,
Okay, so Tom is alive
. She knew there was no way to know whether he'd called her—her phone was dead—but still…he knew where she lived.

The last time she'd seen him, he'd seemed so crazy about her. Had all that meant nothing?

If he didn't come to see her soon, she might be gone. Most of her neighbors had left, though she wasn't exactly sure where they were leaving to. They said they were too isolated out here by the lake. Maybe they'd gone to relatives closer to town. Or even into the city.

Standing, Niki went down the steps to the wet dirt below. The lake had gone down a little, but everything was still so wet. Her glasses fogged and she wiped them on her shirt.

Why didn't all this water just evaporate?

The dark clouds overhead probably had something to do with it. The glorious days right after the hurricane had turned gloomy once more. The weather people said there were two more hurricanes brewing in the Caribbean. If they merged, it would be another OscPearl situation.
Everyone agreed: The East Coast couldn't take another superhurricane, not when it hadn't yet recovered from the first one.

Her father appeared on the deck in his pajamas, and barefoot; his face was covered in stubble and his hair bent at odd angles. “Do we have an oar for this kayak?” Niki called up to him.

“In that equipment chest over there,” he replied, pointing to a rectangular cedar box behind the boat. “Where are you going?”

“We need fresh water and charcoal.” They'd drunk the last of their bottled water supply. She'd taken some from the lake and boiled it, but then the charcoal supply slowly dwindled down to a few chunks.

“Wear a life vest. It's also in the chest.”

Niki nodded and stopped to gaze at him a moment. Was he back from his stupor? He seemed to care if she was safe all of a sudden. That was probably a good sign.

“Okay. I will,” she agreed as she leaned into the highly polished, wooden kayak, dipping her elbow in an effort to flip it hull-side up. It wasn't easy, but years of handsprings, cartwheels, and handstands had made her strong. In five minutes, she had dragged the kayak off its stand of twin sawhorses and pulled it to the shoreline, the back end afloat as the water lapped at its side, the front still in the dirt.

Niki ran back to the chest to get the long oar with its paddles on either end, and an orange life vest. “Take a chain and padlock with you. That's an expensive, handmade kayak,” her father shouted.

“Okay.”
That
was an excellent sign that he was getting back to his old self, Niki decided.

Returning to the kayak, Niki positioned herself low in the hull, stashed the life vest in front of her, and pushed off by digging the paddle into the ground. It was immediately exhilarating to be out on Lake
Morrisey, though the water was choppier than she'd expected and the breeze stronger than she had guessed.

Niki began rowing across the lake, knowing it would bring her to Shore Road. From there she could walk to town, even though it would be miles, and coming back she would be dragging charcoal and water.

Despite the difficulty, she didn't really mind going; she'd been stuck in the house with no electricity for longer than she could stand. If they hadn't had the battery-powered radio, she'd have gone totally insane. And even that was getting more and more static. She made a note to herself to also buy some batteries while she was in town.

This morning, the news report had said some towns not too far away had come back onto the electric grid and their power had been restored. Manhattan was the first to light up, though it was a mild amber version of its former illuminated glory, due to the necessity to conserve power. Towns in Westchester and the Bronx had power, too, especially the wealthier ones.

In lower Westchester, the floodwaters were receding enough for trucks to get through and bring in supplies. Train tracks weren't so flooded anymore, either.

But Marietta, Sage Valley, and other nearby towns weren't as lucky. What the reports had said seemed true to Niki: It was as if they had been forgotten.

When Niki reached knee-high water on the other side, she got out, pulled the kayak up, and stowed the oar inside. After chaining and locking it to a tree, she headed up a dirt trail.

Shore Road was eerily deserted—no cars at all. Listening hard, Niki couldn't detect even a single distant engine. The gray wash of sky above
lent a somber, almost ghostly gloom. And there was a pervasive dampness in the air. Everything had gone silent and wet.

As Niki began walking toward town, her thoughts wandered and she remembered the day she'd been stuck there with Tom. Just a little more than a month and a half had passed, yet it seemed so long ago. It was as though it was a world away. Everything had been so different then.

When she even thought of herself, she felt she must have been a different person. In August, she was still the perfect girl she'd always been, the one with the swingy blunt haircut, the perfect skin—a girl who understood the world and knew exactly what she wanted from it.

Now, Niki laughed darkly at how that image contrasted with the girl currently heading down the road. This girl had unwashed hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Her skin now showed blemishes on her cheeks from a diet of canned and boxed foods and quick washups done by candlelight with water taken from the lake. She still had some clean clothing left, but it wasn't her first choice of what to wear. She'd just about gotten used to the sight of herself in eyeglasses when she'd dropped them one morning and the right side piece had snapped. Imagine, Niki Barton, captain of the cheer squad, in glasses taped together with a Band-Aid! It was almost funny—nearly hilarious, in fact.

Niki was nearly to the gas station that had been closed on the day she was out of gas with Tom when she spotted a lone male figure walking down the road coming toward her. Wiping mist from her glasses, she put them back on and peered at him. She knew those broad shoulders and his lumbering walk.

“Brock?” she asked.

What is he doing out here?

He started jogging toward her.

Niki knew what she was seeing was real, but it didn't seem possible. What were the chances of meeting Brock out here on the road like this? Her mind couldn't make sense of it. Back in August, it would have been a dream come true, but now Brock was someone who seemed like he belonged in that old world she'd left behind.

“Niki, why are you out here by yourself?” Brock asked breathlessly when he reached her.

“Me? Why are
you
here?”

Brock's crew cut was longer and he was thinner. He'd lost that square football-player shape that Niki had always found so appealing. But maybe she liked the look of this lankier Brock better. She couldn't be sure yet.

“I was coming to your house. I wanted to see if you were okay,” he said, not meeting her eyes. His words surprised and shocked her—but they pleased her, too, and she wasn't sure why that should be.

“I'm all right. How are you?” she said.

“Okay, considering…”

“Considering what?”

“You know…all this. A tree fell on our roof during OscPearl. Another one came down and destroyed my car. My whole family is living in a shelter at Sage Valley Elementary. My little brother is real sick with some kind of pneumonia thing. They have all these cots set up in the gym for sick kids, but he's not going to get any better like that. The hospital says he's not sick enough for them to take him.”

“How did you get all the way over here?” Niki asked.

“Biked. The roads are pretty passable now as long as it doesn't rain again.” He shot a quick, worried glance at the sky. “Unfortunately, the bike blew a flat about a mile back.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah. So, why are you out on the road like this?”

Before Niki could answer, a flatbed truck appeared on the road coming from down by the lake and heading toward town. Niki recognized it immediately. It was Tom's old brown truck.

“Where'd that guy ever get gas?” Brock wondered. “There's none anywhere.”

Niki's heart raced as she tried to sort through the whirl of emotions she was feeling. She was glad to see Tom, really glad, but what would he think when he saw her there with Brock? Of all the moments for him to show up!

And yet she was so touched that Brock had come to see if she was all right.

The truck pulled to a stop right by Niki and Brock. Tom stuck his head out of the window. “You guys okay?” he asked.

“We're fine. Did you drive here?” Brock asked, going to the window. “The roads are passable now?”

“I came the back way, up on Ridge Road,” Tom told them. “It's not too bad anymore.”

“Where'd you get gas, man?”

Tom grinned. “I made it.”

“What?” Niki would've thought Tom had totally lost it, if he weren't sitting in a running vehicle. “What are you talking about?”

“It's ethanol. I made it in a still from corn.”

“Are you kidding?” Brock cried, impressed. “And this truck runs on it?”

“I had to tinker with the engine a little. I found this guy Artie, who showed me how to change the truck around. He used to charge a ton of money to do it, but he took pity on me and showed me how for nothing as long as I did the work.”

“Did he show you how to make the ethanol, too?” Brock asked.

“No. Gwen Jones did.”

“Gwen Jones?” Niki questioned, furrowing her brow with dislike. “That freaky Goth girl?”

“She's pretty cool when you get to know her,” Tom replied.

“Since when do you hang out with Gwen Jones?” Niki demanded, irked by the way he'd defended the strange girl.

Brock looked at her sharply, and Niki knew he'd caught the jealous resentment in her tone. “I mean, I don't know her that well,” she amended more mildly. “I just think she's strange, is all.”

“I guess…in a way,” Tom allowed. “But good strange.”

“Whatever.” Niki dismissed the subject, eager to be off it.

“Were you going into town?” Tom asked.

“I was,” Niki said. “My family needs charcoal, water, and D batteries.”

“Good luck finding any kind of batteries anywhere,” Brock warned. “And how were you planning to drag all that stuff back?”

Niki flexed her bicep. “Muscle power,” she replied.

“I'd have helped you, but it wouldn't have been easy,” Brock remarked.

“Hop in,” Tom invited them. “I can take you into town.”

Niki climbed into the truck beside Tom, and then Brock wedged in, leaning against the passenger side door.
This is awkward
, Niki thought. But it was better than walking all the way into the center of Marietta.

An uneasy silence settled as Tom continued down the road. Niki was dying to ask Tom if he had come to see her, but it didn't seem right with Brock sitting right there.

“Is that your sailboat I see in the back?” Niki asked.

“Yeah, I came out here to get it.”

A pang of disappointment ran through her. He'd come all this way and hadn't stopped by to see her. Though maybe he had. She'd have to wait to get him alone to find out.

Rain splashed the windshield and Tom turned on the wipers. They continued on without talking, the three of them staring into the gray road ahead.

Niki wondered if it was possible to like two boys at one time, because that was how she felt. If Brock wasn't there, she would have been happy to see Tom. But if Tom hadn't come along, she would have been thrilled that Brock had traveled so far to check on her. As it was, all she felt was extremely uncomfortable.