Sandy wouldn't come. He arched his trembling body across Martin's legs, whimpering. Martin picked him up. Sandy in one arm, the drowsy-eyed pup in the other, he walked to the nearest car, which appeared undamaged.
There were three occupants. A man, a woman, a girl-child, and they were as if sleeping. No wounds, no discolorations were on their flesh. But their flesh was cold, cold, and there were no heart beats. They were dead.
"We—We won't go home yet," Martin said softly. "We'll go to the village."
He walked. He walked past a hundred, a thousand silent cars with silent occupants, past green meadows that were dotted with silent, fallen cattle and sheep and horses.
There was a new fear within him now, but even greater than the fear was a numbness that like a sleep-producing drug had dulled mind and vision and hearing. He walked stiffly, automatically. He was afraid to think and reason, for thought and reason could bring only—madness.
"At the village we'll find out what happened," he mumbled.
At the village he found out—nothing. Because there, too, was only a silence and the white, still people.