The road by Cormac McCarthy

filled three jars with water and screwed on the two-piece caps from a box of
them he'd found on a shelf in the mudroom. Then he wrapped everything in one of
the blankets and packed it into the knapsack and tied the other blankets across
the top of the knapsack and shouldered it up. They stood in the door watching
the light draw down over the world to the west. Then they went down the drive
and set out upon the road again.
     
    The boy hung on to his coat and he kept to the edge
of the road and tried to feel out the pavement under his feet in the dark. In
the distance he could hear thunder and after a while there were dim shudderings
of light ahead of them. He got out the plastic sheeting from the knapsack but
there was hardly enough of it left to cover them and after a while it began to
rain. They stumbled along side by side. There was nowhere to go. They had the
hoods of their coats up but the coats were getting wet and heavy from the rain.
He stopped in the road and tried to rearrange the tarp. The boy was shaking
badly. You're freezing, arent you? Yes.
    If we stop we'll get really cold. I'm really cold
now. What do you want to do? Can we stop? Yes. Okay. We can stop.
     
    It was as long a night as he could remember out of
a great plenty of such nights. They lay on the wet ground by the side of the
road under the blankets with the rain rattling on the tarp and he held the boy
and after a while the boy stopped shaking and after a while he slept. The
thunder trundled away to the north and ceased and there was just the rain. He
slept and woke and the rain slackened and after a while it stopped. He wondered
if it was even midnight. He was coughing and it got worse and it woke the
child. The dawn was a long time coming. He raised up from time to time to look
to the east and after a while it was day.
     
    He wrapped their coats each in turn around the
trunk of a small tree and twisted out the water. He had the boy take off his
clothes and he wrapped him in one of the blankets and while he stood shivering
he wrung the water out of his clothes and passed them back. The ground where
they'd slept was dry and they sat there with the blankets draped over them and
ate apples and drank water. Then they set out upon the road again, slumped and
cowled and shivering in their rags like mendicant friars sent forth to find
their keep.
     
    By evening they at least were dry. They studied
the pieces of map but he'd little notion of where they were. He stood at a rise
in the road and tried to take his bearings in the twilight. They left the pike
and took a narrow road through the country and came at last upon a bridge and a
dry creek and they crawled down the bank and huddled underneath. Can we have a
fire? the boy said. We dont have a lighter. The boy looked away. I'm sorry. I
dropped it. I didnt want to tell you. That's okay. I'll find us some flint.
I've been looking. And we've still got the little bottle of gasoline. Okay.
    Are you very cold? I'm okay. The boy lay with his
head in the man's lap. After a while he said: They're going to kill those
people, arent they? Yes.
    Why do they have to do that? I dont know. Are they
going to eat them? I dont know. They're going to eat them, arent they? Yes.
    And we couldnt help them because then they'd eat
us too. Yes.
    And that's why we couldnt help them. Yes.
    Okay.
     
    They passed through towns that warned people away
with messages scrawled on the billboards. The billboards had been whited out
with thin coats of paint in order to write on them and through the paint could
be seen a pale palimpsest of advertisements for goods which no longer existed.
They sat by the side of the road and ate the last of the apples. What is it?
the man said. Nothing.
    We'll find something to eat. We always do. The boy
didnt answer. The man watched him. That's not it, is it? It's okay. Tell me.
The boy looked away down the road. I want you to tell me. It's okay. He shook
his