"Johnnie?"
The thought of leaving their home hadn't occurred to her, was terrifying, and though he felt it too, the fear wasn't strong enough to get John to change his mind. She had to see things his way this time. Her life depended on it.
"To NORAD, for starters. We'll surrender to the Draft." The graying sawbones said it firmly, almost sure they would find little at the Colorado complex. That world had moved on.
"What if it's all like here, or worse?"
She was referring to the dead pets, dead police, dead crops, and of course, dead friends and neighbors they had known all their lives. The horrors were still fresh for Anne, especially the memory of passing the neighbor's wrecked truck on the two-lane dirt road to their farm. Both doors were open, and they'd seen the bullet holes in the windshield as they returned from their burning office to avoid the panic gripping their town, their country. She had wanted to stop, but there hadn't been a reason to. The elderly couple was dead, their brains all over the road.
"We'll have to do some searching. Other healthy survivors are out there. I know it doesn't seem that way when you look out the window, but there are. We just have to find them." He winced at his reference to the window.
"But we're old, they won't want us. Shouldn't we just stay here?"
It broke John's heart to tell her no, but he did, had to. "That, my dear Anne, is exactly what most people will do, and they'll die. What the weather and disease don't take, the gangs and starvation will. All these threats are lessened when humanity comes together. Despite its flaws, humankind is not better off without society."
He looked into her frightened eyes and when she leaned toward him, tan slacks rustling, he gently surrounded her with his strong arms, hoping she wouldn't notice his racing pulse. "You're a Nurse, I'm a Doctor. It's wrong of us to hide and deny them our help. They need us now more than ever."
He kissed her wrinkled forehead, smiled at her, "Our age won't matter, except to make us more valuable because of all our experience."
John played his trump card without guilt, knowing her inability to catch pregnant (which he believed to be his fault) would keep her from arguing more. Suddenly sorry he had never talked to her about adopting, John ignored the pain in his gut and looked at her with doubtless blue eyes.