How It All Goes Down
Section 361
- They walk through the town and out onto the pier. There's no one there.
Section 362
- Walking through town The Man hears something whiz past his head. He falls on top of The Boy to protect him: "In an upper window of the house he could see a man drawing a bow on them" (362).
- The Man then feels "a sharp hot pain in his leg" (362.1). He's been shot in the leg with an arrow.
- The Man busts out his flare gun, though, and nails the guy when he steps back to the window to fire again. He reloads the flare gun, tells The Boy to stay where he is, and goes over to the house.
Section 363
- He goes into the house and walks up the stairs.
Section 364
- The Man sees a woman holding a man upstairs. The Man's leg is bleeding. He asks the woman where the others went but she won't tell him. The Man leaves and fetches The Boy.
Section 365
- They make it to a store on the edge of town. The Man takes off his pants and looks at the wound; it's bad. He asks The Boy to get the first-aid kit. When The Boy doesn't move, The Man yells at him. The Boy gets the kit and The Man disinfects the gash and sews it up. The Man apologizes for yelling at The Boy.
Section 366
- The next morning it's raining. The Man looks at his wound: "[t]he flesh swollen and discolored in the truss of the black stitching" (366.1). We're not sure, but that sounds bad.
Section 367
- They're still in the store. The Man tries to get The Boy to talk to him. The Boy doesn't want The Man to tell him a story because "those stories are never true" (367.10). It seems like The Man tells stories where they help people on the road. The Boy thinks they never actually help anyone. The Boy doesn't have any "happy stories" like The Man; he says his stories are more "like real life" (367.24, 367.26). The Man reminds The Boy that they're still alive.
Section 368
- The Man and The Boy sit on a worktable by the window. The Man must have just told The Boy a story (or the other way around) because The Man says: "It's a pretty good story" (368.1).
- They talk for a while about dreams, The Man's wound, and the guy The Man shot with the flare gun.
Section 369
- They leave town two days later. There's a lot of sand on the road. They turn inland into a pine forest.
Section 370
- The Man pulls his stitches out. The Boy asks if The Man is "real brave" and The Man answers that he's just "medium" brave (370.4, 370.5).