One Second After

On the fourth day after the blackout, John notices a Blackhawk helicopter flying overhead. He feels briefly hopeful, but it continues its journey without landing. 

John and Grandma Jen go to the nursing home to check on her husband, Tyler. They are unprepared for the horrific state of the patients. Most of the staff have fled; there is no food, water, or medicine; and many of the residents are dead or dying. One remaining nurse says robbers made off with all the opiates the night before, so many of the remaining patients are in severe pain. John thinks, “It would be hard, even for locals, just five or ten miles away. How to get a sick, demented, or dying parent or grandparent moved” (98). Trying to avoid breathing the awful stench, John and Jen take Tyler home with them.

When John goes to town for supplies later in the day, he finds the local grocery store has been looted. The manager tells him, “‘Well, sir, I guess you could say it was a riot. Folks just started storming into the markets and taking what they wanted and then getting out. It got pretty ugly there for a while’” (103). 

Charlie declares martial law, and the police are doing what they can to distribute water and food to waiting lines of people.