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as he did Sami and some of the others. But she struck him as a very responsible woman with a good head on her shoulders.
         Certainly not the type of woman who would just wander off on her own and get lost.
         “Let me round up some volunteers and I’ll be there within an hour. It’ll be dark soon. Do you have enough flashlights and batteries?”
         “We’ve got a few but not enough.”
         “I know where there’s a case of each on a trailer in the yard. Anything else you need?”
         “No, just bodies. Please hurry.”
         “You got it.”
         Marty raced through the place, drafting people as he went. Some of the regulars knew Marty well enough to know he always kept a level head. For him to look so worried told them this was serious.
         Marty’s thoughts echoed Frank’s. He was concerned that with the darkness would come a severe drop in temperatures. And he doubted that Sarah had the training to know how to survive a night alone in the woods.
         Even Lenny, who seldom left the truck stop, climbed into the bed of one of the three pickups that burned rubber out of the parking lot, headed toward the compound.
         The truck stop was completely abandoned, save old Walt, who’d lost a leg in Vietnam and was confined to a wheelchair.
         Even Walt volunteered to help, although he’d have been more a hindrance.
         Marty tried to be gentle, but his words were more blunt than they were intended.
         “I’m sorry, my friend, but you can’t roll yourself through the woods. And the man pushing you can move much faster on his own.”
         Like many older veterans, Walt needed more than anything else to feel included. To be part of the effort.
         So Marty offered him a concession.
         “We need someone to stay back here and hold down the fort,” Marty said.
         “I can handle that.”
         “Good. You’re in charge. We’ll be back when we can.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
         Major Davis had been flying choppers for the United States Army for many years. Before the freeze he was the personal pilot for the Secretary of the Army, and later the Secretary of Defense.
         They were both dead now, but not because of anything Davis did. Actually, he took great pride in knowing he was never late for a mission, and he flew in all kinds of adverse conditions all over the world.
         That was why they personally selected him.
         Because he was the best.
         Like many others, he resigned his commission when word about Saris 7 leaked out.
         The Army wasn’t his only family, he’d explained. He had another family as well. And he wanted to spend some time with them before they all perished.
         But that was not meant to be.
         On the very day Major Davis signed his papers, the day before he’d become a civilian again, his young daughter died of a massive overdose of sleeping pills.
         She left behind a note saying she didn’t like the idea of freezing to death because of some stupid asteroid. She wanted to leave this life under her own schedule.
         She was only twenty years old.
         His wife, Julie, wailed. She couldn’t understand why anyone she loved would take their own life when there was some chance, any chance, of survival.
         Then, eight days later, she did the same thing.
         With a bottle of pills identical to the ones her daughter used.
         Major Davis no longer had his other family. What he had was a huge hole in his heart.
         And the United States Army.
         The Army welcomed him back, and he’d been through hell with them, both before the impact and during the freeze.
         The thaw brought renewed hope, sure.
         But the stress of losing his family, and all the havoc that Saris 7 had wrought, had