He poked a finger at the bulging paper sack she held tightly in her lap. “What if somebody takes a notion to loot us? ”
“Oh.”
He left town quickly, picking up and following a marked route that he knew led to Chicago. Occasionally he was forced to detour around a blocked street where a falling bomb had gouged out a great crater, or a tangle of wrecked automobiles made passage difficult. The suburbs were less badly hit, with only an occasional crater revealing where some stray bomb had come down. But the suburbs were as lifeless. And still he didn't understand why, didn't comprehend why a few scattered bombs should so completely wipe out a population. Momentarily he switched on the car's radio, but the band was silent.
Either the army was continuing radio silence — or the entire nation was off the air permanently. Optimistically he told himself it was not the latter. Sudden and unexpected bombs had fallen a few days ago: more might come, or an enemy force might follow them to establish a bridgehead and dig in for counterattack. In either event radio stations would remain off the air to prevent information from leaking to the enemy, to deny him radio beams on which to track more bombs, or his planes. The lack of information was harmful to the country, to what remained of it, but radio silence was of paramount importance. When the radios again came back on the air, the danger would be over. He looked at his watch, mentally laying out an hourly schedule for listening.
“Look — look, there's a man!”
He slowed the car. “Where?”
“There — that farmhouse ahead.”
Gary put his foot on the brake and one hand on the horn, pulling up sharp at the mouth of a lane leading up to a cluster of farm buildings.
“Hey there!” He leaned out the window.
To his astonishment the farmer whirled and ran into the nearer barn, to emerge a moment later brandishing a double-barreled shotgun. Immediately behind him the barn door ejected two boys, the taller of the two carrying another gun and wearing on his frightened face a stamp of determination.