Ben Carter, the youngest of Burton’s soldiers, who looked like he should still be in high school, sat on the front porch steps, bullpup across his lap, Viz in his eye, drinking coffee from a Thermos. She wanted some, but knew she’d never sleep at all if she had it, and Wilf Netherton was explaining the end of the world, or anyway of hers, this one, which seemed to have been the beginning of his.