All the Beautiful Sinners

Jim Doe held his hands over his ears, trying to make sense here, his mouth open too, like he was going to scream, or needed to. Jim Doe trolled up one aisle of cars and down the other, and suddenly, impossibly, close enough that it had to have gotten there early, there it was: the Impala. He was moving up Cherry Street, his boots crunching through the rubble, the plastic visor of his helmet down, his yellow coat long like death, his axe perfectly balanced at, at, what did he call it? The old man who’d directed him here had peeled off again, sat down at some campfire or another, lifting his arm in farewell as he scooted off, and the way it felt for Jim Doe was that he’d finally let go of his dad’s hand.