“A week ago, in a minivan back in Virginia (three kids in the back seat, all of them very dead), Crazy Chris found a travel Scrabble set. Tina was a good player but got so drunk she passed out over her tiles. Lamar tried his best, but he can’t spell. Jack gave up halfway through so he could crawl into his sleeping bag with Stephen King. I won, but against an alcoholic and a dyslexic, it was sort of an empty triumph. A lot of post-apocalyptic victories are.”