They ate without speaking. The table was a booth nearest the kitchen hatch, chosen because it let RayRay watch the front windows and Wes the back door. Canned peaches slid across melamine plates in thin syrup the color of slow sunrises. The boy, Elijah, spooned three pieces, then pushed the plate away and hid beneath the blanket again. His mother, Mara Huang, no relation to Wes that either knew, kept her hands visible on the tabletop, fingers laced, knuckles white.
RayRay finished first. He wiped his mouth with a paper towel that had once advertised baby-back ribs, then began the questions. Name, age, last known location, exposure history, medical skills. His voice stayed flat, like he was ordering produce.
Mara answered in order. Thirty-two, legal secretary, Flagstaff to Phoenix commute, detoured north when I-17 clogged, no bites, no scratches, childhood asthma, knows basic CPR because the firm required it. She did not look at Wes when she spoke, only at RayRay, as if recognizing the hierarchy here the way she recognized billable hours.
Wes listened and, without being asked, wrote everything on the back of a guest check pad. The act felt useful, so he kept going: estimated calories on shelves, water jugs remaining, ammunition count, number of usable windows for firing ports. Numbers gave shape to dread.
When RayRay finished, he stood. "Strip to undergarments," he said to Mara. "I inspect. You refuse, you walk. No second offer."
Mara's chin trembled, but she nodded. She stood, moved behind the counter, out of sight of the boy. Wes turned away, faced the window, rifle slung muzzle down. He heard fabric fall, heard RayRay's boots circle, heard the low grunt when a wound was found or not found. The inspection lasted ninety seconds. Then Mara dressed again, cheeks flushed but eyes dry.
"Clear," RayRay announced. He looked at Wes. "Your turn. Check the kid."
Wes crouched beside Elijah. The boy peered over the blanket edge, thumb wet against his lip. Wes spoke soft. "I need to look at your skin, okay? Arms, legs, tummy. No shots, promise."
Elijah glanced at his mother; she nodded. He stood on the booth seat and let the blanket fall. Wes moved methodically, checking wrists, elbows, behind ears, along the hairline. He found only bruises from the seat belt and a small birthmark on the left shoulder blade shaped like Ohio. He pulled the blanket back around the boy and reported. "Clear."
RayRay exhaled through his nose, the closest thing to relief he allowed. "All right. Assignments. Mara, you inventory medical supplies and set up a triage corner in the walk in cooler. Keep the kid with you. Door stays open unless we scream, then you lock it and do not open for any voice you recognize. Wes, you and I secure the perimeter. We board the remaining windows, cut firing slots, relocate the generator to the roof so exhaust vents above nose level. We work until dusk, then we rotate watch. Questions?"
Mara raised a hand. "Restroom facilities?"
RayRay pointed toward the staff bathroom. "Cold water only. Flush by pouring. Keep the door cracked so we hear if you fall. Waste goes in the grease barrel out back, sealed lid. We dump it when we dump the world."
She accepted without expression, lifted Elijah, and disappeared into the cooler. The heavy door stayed propped with a folded cardboard wedge. Cold air drifted out and pooled around Wes's boots.
RayRay picked up a cordless drill and a box of three-inch screws. "First task," he said, moving to the front windows. "We turn this picture frame into a fortress. You measure, I drill. We work fast, we work quiet. Every screw is one more minute of living."
They began. Wes held plywood sheets scavenged from the stockroom while RayRay drove screws home, the drill's whine short and controlled. With each plank the dining room darkened, neon stripes shrinking to pinholes. Wes felt the space compress, as if the building were becoming a shell, calcifying around them.
Halfway through the north wall, RayRay spoke without looking away from the drill. "You hesitated out there. Woman and kid, pretty picture, but you lowered the rifle first. Next time you verify before you sympathize. Sympathy gets brains on the linoleum."
Wes tightened his grip on the board. "Copy that."
"Don't copy. Remember."
They finished the windows and moved to the roof hatch. The generator, a battered portable unit, sat near the edge. They lugged it up the maintenance ladder, muscles trembling. Gas sloshed inside the tank, sound like liquid clock ticks. On the roof they positioned it near the exhaust hood, ran a pipe up the vent stack, and zip-tied it in place. Now fumes would vent above the roofline, invisible from ground level, noise muffled by the humming compressor they left running for show.
Dusk arrived while they worked. The sky shifted from brushed steel to bruised purple, then to a deep red that made the parking lot look submerged in blood. Sirens had stopped completely. The silence felt heavier than gunfire.
When the last screw was driven, they climbed down. RayRay checked his watch, a cheap digital model cracked but still ticking. Twenty hundred hours. He assigned Mara the first watch from the kitchen roof vent, gave her the spare rifle, showed her how to flick off safety. She climbed without comment, boy curled asleep on a folded coat beside her.
RayRay poured two cups of instant coffee made with lukewarm water. He handed one to Wes. "To tomorrow," he said, voice low.
They drank. It tasted like burnt paper and survival.
Wes set his cup down. "What's the long game?"
RayRay stared at the boarded windows, the tiny slits showing nothing but dark. "Long game is we last five nights. Then we last five more. Somewhere in between, we figure out if there's still a country, still an army, still rules. If not, we write our own."
He turned and walked toward the cooler, steps slow but certain. Wes stayed behind, listening to the building settle, to the soft clink of canned goods shifting on shelves, to the occasional scrape outside where things that had once been people tested the walls for weakness.
He checked the rifle again, counted rounds, clicked the safety on, then off, then on. The diner around him felt smaller than ever, a tin box in a vast black room, three souls inside, waiting for the next hour to declare what part of the world, if any, remained negotiable.