A favorite song of his, "Old Man" played serenely through his mind as he drove south out of town. He steered the old Buick with one hand and the other hanging out the drivers side window. The morning sun felt good on his arm and shoulder. He guessed that he could have put the top down but thought it was just a bit too cool for that and he sure didn't want to booger up Aristotle's beautiful car somehow. ND-256 ran south straight as an arrow out of Antler. It was a vast flat grassland with few trees. Twelve thousand years ago it was covered by a four hundred foot thick slab of ice. The retreating glacier gouged out innumerable potholes and lakes that dotted the countryside. The melting ice created an inland sea which in the distant past was estimated to be three hundred feet deep in the vicinity of what is now the city of Fargo.

At the Renville corners he pulled the Buick to the side of the road. He swung the door open and stepped out to stretch his legs and ease the burning in his hip. He left the car idling. He didn't want to risk shutting it off and then have it not start again. It would be a fifteen mile walk back to Antler. There wasn't much to see in Renville. On one corner were a number of large metal grain storage bins and a machinery repair building. On the opposite corner was a shabby run down convenience store. From here he could either head west through Mohall, drop south through Kenmare and then eventually cross the Missouri river at Williston. Or he could continue south through Minot, head west on ND-23 and cross Lake Sakakawea on the Four Bears bridge. Lake Sakakawea was created in the early fifties with the construction of the Garrison Dam. Hundreds of members of the Three Affiliated Tribes were forcibly relocated from the land that they had lived on for more than a thousand years. He stood at the intersection gazing off to the west. He knew that although that route was a few less miles, it was sparsely populated, and if he got in a situation where he had to find food or shelter, it could be a long walk. He decided to go south through Minot. There was a large air base there on the north end of the city and he thought that he might find a clue there as to what had happened those few long weeks ago. He reached into the feed sack which lay in the back seat of the Flamingo and pulled out the bottle of Stolichnaya. His better judgement told him to put it back but his hip throbbed so. He tilted the bottle back, swallowed the last of the vodka, and stuck the empty bottle back in the feed sack. It crossed his mind that if he ever got back to the farm where he was quartered back in Westhope, that there were eleven more bottles stashed in the hay mow. He smiled thinking that there was slim chance that he would get pulled over. It was a good bet that he was the only one on the road in Bottineau County this day. He slid back into the front seat, pulled the stick to drive and rumbled away from Renville.

His mind wandered back to the camp in Westhope that he had escaped from. He smiled when he thought of the little girl with the big round eyes who had said that he was the "chosen one." He hoped that she and her young mother were surviving alright in that draconian nightmare. He thought too about what Aristotle had said...that over time, usually there will come about a logical explanation for something that a person might initially not understand. He felt indebted to the old man. His clear reasoning and common sense that he displayed in their conversations were reassuring to him. It helped him to view things differently that he had formerly been led to believe. And he greatly appreciated the kindness and generosity that he had shown to him. Not many people would loan their classic car to an unshaven bum dressed in Liberty overalls who rode into town astride an old draft horse and the smell of beer on his breath. He hoped that someday he could repay Aristotle for his kindness. He was confident that the old man would take good care of Fireball until the day that he could make his way back. Wherever he ended up, he promised himself that the old horse would be a part of his family.

On a whim he reached over and clicked on the AM radio. He turned the tuning dial to the far left and then slowly to the right. Nothing but static crackled out from the speakers. When he was almost at 1400 on the display scale a voice boomed across the airwaves... "This is KRRZ Classic Hits at 1390 on your radio dial". Then came that widely recognizable buzzing sound and an impersonal voice which said, "We interrupt this broadcast to bring you an important message. This is the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a test. At this time, a massive relief effort is underway for a vast area of north central North Dakota, southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba. The efforts are being initiated jointly between the United States and Canadian governments. The President has authorized the mobilization of National Guard and military personnel units from Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota to take charge of the extensive effort. Hampering the operations is the uncertainty of what initially caused the catastrophic destruction. U.S. military bases around the world continue to remain on high alert. Initial security agency reports indicated that it could have been a first strike attack from a foreign entity. With more information, scientists now believe it was....pheri...ai...rst...ent...sim...rred...ssia...guska...." The voice broke up in a wave of static. He pulled the car off to the side of the road and vainly adjusted the radio dial. There was nothing but crackling static. "Damn"...he muttered as he lightly pounded the dashboard above the radio hoping the vibration would help the connection. He sat back in the seat perplexed. He thought to himself that if he was hearing a radio broadcast, that obviously meant that there were more survivors out there. And if, like the announcement said, that the military was involved in a relief effort, that it wasn't just members of the "Inheritors" who had survived. "Inheritors" didn't involve themselves with the military. That would mean that this whole idea of "The Day of Fury" that he had been convinced of was just nonsense. "But just what in the hell had happened?"...he wondered. He knew that KRRZ was a radio station out of Minot. If there were survivors in Minot, chances were that people living farther away had survived also...like his wife and family in Charbonneau. It was about thirty five more miles to Minot. He felt that it was there that he would finally discover the answer. He adjusted the rearview mirror, clicked off the radio, slid the stick to drive and rumbled south towards Minot.