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concentrate all my energy on studying batters and working on my pitches. So when baseball ended and money got tight, Laura and I started fighting. One night, after a particularly long battle to get Andy’s insulin levels just right, Laura left a good-bye note. That was the last I ever saw of her. I did my best to find her—my dad even paid for a private investigator—but she was gone. Vanished. Wasn’t even in touch with her parents. I’m guessing she changed her name.
    “Anyway, I got divorced by a motion to serve. Essentially, you just show a judge all your documented efforts to locate your spouse, and if a judge agrees you did your best”—Jake clapped his hands and rubbed them together—“you’re divorced.”
    “How did Andy take it?”
    “He was three. Hardly knew his mother at all. After Laura left, my depression got worse. Some days I couldn’t get out of bed, and my parents had to help me take care of Andy.”
    “But you’re not like that now,” Ellie said.
    “I guess I grew out of it,” Jake said. “Sometimes you’ve got to look adversity right in the face and stick out your tongue.” Jake did this and made Ellie smile while Kibo licked his chops.
    “Eventually my brother saw I was getting better and helped me get a job at Pepperell Academy.”
    Ellie gave this some thought; then she said, “Don’t get me wrong. I admire what you did and what you’ve overcome, but you could have stayed in baseball, couldn’t you? What about becoming a pitching coach or something?”
    Jake shrugged off the suggestion. “I thought about it,” he said. “But I couldn’t be close to the game without getting a hollow pit in my gut. I knew if I didn’t leave the game completely, I’d live the rest of my life in the past. So I walked away and never looked back. That part of my life came to an end—and the rest, as the saying goes, is history.”
    Ellie got up from the couch and crossed the room with a kind of hip-swaying action Jake found hard to resist. She dropped into his lap and kissed him with passion.
    “I like history,” she breathed in his ear. “I feel closer to you. Much closer.”
    Ellie kissed Jake’s neck as he ran his hands along the contours of her back. They were kissing again, but Jake saw Kibo looking at them and he stopped.
    “Maybe this history lesson should continue in the bedroom,” Jake said.
    Ellie took Jake by the hand and led him down a narrow hallway. On the walk, Jake thought about what he hadn’t told her. Maybe he would. Ellie seemed receptive to one part of his past. Would she embrace the other?
    Back then, Jake had needed a new sense of purpose. He found it in the writings of Thomas Wiggins, the founder of a popular survivalist blog. Everything Wiggins said about the coming collapse resonated with Jake in ways he found surprising and inspiring. With Wiggins’s guidance, Jake felt empowered to take control of his life once more. He devoted himself to becoming an expert survivalist. He learned how to use weapons—guns and knives. He improved his physical conditioning and built up strength in his injured arm. He learned about food storage, DIY fuel, gardening, raising livestock, medical supplies, and first aid. In essence, Jake became reborn: stronger in some ways, but weaker in others because for him, the future was always something to fear.

CHAPTER 5
    F ive boys and one girl, students at Pepperell Academy, gathered in the campus’s main courtyard—The Quad, as it was officially known—for a meeting. In better times, the six would have been laughing and talking excitedly. They were the best of friends, and shared the same interests: watched the same movies and TV shows, visited the same websites, downloaded the same apps, ate most of their meals together, and hung out as a group whenever possible during their limited free time. They were, in fact, what other students labeled a clique. Their collective even had a special name—though no one but the members knew it.