The woman who'd saved him but who was now pointing a pistol at his head asked, "Is she okay ... he ... whatever?"

"He," Frank clarified regarding the child's gender. The child had been crying occasionally during the speedy drive across the countryside and had erupted in wails after the crash, but Frank had picked him up and somehow calmed him down as he'd watched their savior near. "He's fine. Great car seat, apparently. I'd give them a thumbs up on their Amazon page ... if there was an Amazon anymore."

After he asked what was next, she told him to sit still until she came back. He did as told, only standing when she'd stepped out of his sight. He didn't move but just a few feet, tracking her until he again lost sight of her, this time beyond the burning pickup truck. 

Frank flinched when he heard a single gunshot, hurrying up onto the pavement for a sign of what had happened. The woman was walking his way, reaching him to ask, "You're Immunes?"

"Yes," Frank said without hesitation. He lifted the infant just enough to indicate who he was talking about before saying, "Robert, too."

"You've been infected then?" she continued her questioning. "That's how you know for certain. It isn't that you just haven't caught it, right?"

"No," he answered, then corrected, "I mean, yes ... yes, I've been infected. Early in the pandemic, before they even knew what I-55 was or had even given it its actual name ... H5-N5. I was sick for a while but came through. I was infected a second time by one of the variants. Flue symptoms. Nausea, sweats, and the like. Still, came through just fine. I've been around people with at least four different variants, in Denver ... Sheridan and Billings."

In the past, people didn't typically talk so proudly about diseases they'd caught. But in the case of I-55, it was better to have caught the originally and/or its variants and survived than to have not caught any version of it at all.

"My name is Allison," she said after studying him a while. "Allison McGee."

"Frank," he told her, smiling a bit. "Frank King."

She looked to his car and said, "Gather what you need, and let's get out of here." 

She indicated their direction, after which Frank hurried to the car to do as told. He and Jennifer had secretly gathered some supplies during the dark of last night, hiding them in the trunk of the sedan. He forced the sticking door open, found the chest carrier for Robert, put the baby in it, and slipped the apparatus over his shoulders, buckling it in place. 

Retrieving the keys from the ignition, he hurried to the trunk and grabbed several backpacks and a handful of cloth shopping bags. He soon realized that he wasn't going to be able to handle the weight for a long distance. He looked to Allison, asking, "Can we hide these in the woods and come back for them later?"

She responded, and Frank acted accordingly. He slammed the trunk lid down, turned -- and saw Jennifer's body once again. He felt instant guilt for having forgotten about her. Yeah, sure, there was a lot going on at the moment, enough to occupy and confuse any mind. But this was the woman he'd been traveling with for months, the woman he'd been sleeping with, the woman he'd concluded he would marry if ever she asked him about their long term future together. And he'd left her laying in a ditch while he gathered canned foods, bottled water, and a jar of freeze-dried coffee.

"What about Jennifer?" he asked Allison. "I can't just leave her here like this."

They made plans to deal with the other woman, and after a moment of looking to Jennifer in solemn silence, Frank headed the direction in which Allison had ordered. Once he was across the ditch again, he felt gravel beneath his feet. The driveway was slowing being reclaimed by nature, but where it entered the forest a clear though narrow road was still obvious. It had been disguised to an extent, with some trees fallen across it and some plants put in the ground in an attempt to appear natural. Still, anyone with half a brain could look at the clues and concluded that there was a property, likely a house, beyond the woods.

Just a dozen yards into the trees, Frank gestured to his right and left the drive to hide most of the bags and packs. He kept only the one with baby supplies and fished the coffee out of another pack, saying, "This stuff's gold these days."

Moving back to the drive, he turned again in the indicated direction and continued. After a moment, he asked, "So ... where we're going ... it's your pre-pandemic home ... or did you just sort of [i]occupy[/i] it?"