How It All Goes Down
Section 31
- They trudge on in the rain with the tarp over their heads.
Section 32
- The Man thinks death is calling him through rich, colorful dreams.
Section 33
- At this point, we get a clue about the setting. They see a barn with "See Rock City" painted on its roof. Rock City is in Tennessee, but there are signs for it all over the southeastern United States. So we're definitely in the southeast, possibly Tennessee.
Section 34
- The Man forages through an old farmhouse for anything of value. He finds some wool blankets but nothing else.
Section 35
- They scour a supermarket on the edge of a city. There's not much left.
- The Man reaches up into an overturned and gutted Coca-Cola machine. He finds a Coke and gives to The Boy, who has never had one of these fizzy drinks. The Boy really enjoys it.
Section 36
- They're in the city. Concrete overpasses and highway exchanges. They see lots of corpses without shoes "[s]hriveled and drawn like latterday bogfolk" (36.1).
Section 37
- They cross a bridge.
Section 38
- They travel south of the city and see "an old frame house with chimneys and gables and a stone wall" (38.1). It's the house where The Man grew up.
Section 39
- They walk through the house and The Man does some heavy-duty reminiscing.
- The section ends with this little exchange: "We should go, Papa, he [The Boy] said. Yes, the man said. But he didn't" (39.1).
Section 40
- They go into The Man's old bedroom. They decide to leave.