The Road

After a few days, the man wheezes and realizes that there is something wrong with his health. “I am going to die,” the man thinks. “Tell me how I am to do that” (175). The boy realizes that the propane tank is prematurely empty because he left the valve open.

For days they walk in the cold across a barren landscape. They explore a stalled passenger train but find nothing more in it than a package of paper plates. The man notes that their trauma-stunted imaginations do not allow them to reconstruct the train in their minds as it was.

After extended travel, with their stores reduced, the man marks their location on the map and realizes that they are still two or three weeks from their destination on the coast. They shelter from the rain in an old shed, and that night the boy dreams that his father died. The next day, the boy repeats: “There are other good guys. You said so” (184). The man says there are, but they are in hiding.

On the road again, the pair come across three emaciated men in hiding. The father holds them at bay with his pistol, and they walk on without incident.