Chapter 17 Summary

The doctor's wife begins to worry and despair. She feels overwhelmed by her self-imposed responsibility and wonders how long she will be able to help her friends. One day she leaves the apartment to go on another foraging trip - she plans to return to the supermarket basement where she first found food. Her husband, the doctor, accompanies her. On her trip, she finds the streets much worse. Conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly. She passes through a public square full of speakers and notes they are discussing topics of organization. She arrives at the supermarket and finds is strangely vacant. She enters the supermarket and finds that it stinks of death and rotting flesh. She walks to the back where the hidden stairs are located and is horrified to discover that the large stairwell is full of rotting corpses. She immediately blames herself...