They both smiled at the picture of Albert in his chinos and button-down shirt exhorting kids from atop a bike.

An old couple came running from a motorhome, scribbling as they ran. Their sign read, Can you check on our cat, Ariel? No one would answer that, because the cats had all been eaten.

Guilt was a fascinating thing: it seemed not to weaken over time. If anything it grew stronger as the circumstances faded from memory, as the fear and the necessity became abstract. And only her own actions stood out with crystal clarity.

She was scared. Scared of dying.

Oh, Snap," I say. "What?" "Sorry. I was flashing back to 2005.

He found a set of encyclopedias—like Wikipedia, but paper and very bulky.

Sam and Caine were left standing side by side, bruised and battered, to stare over Penny's sickening corpse, at the face of their mother.