The two travelers pulled their cloaks tighter, protection from the blowing sand. The sun had risen an hour ago and the winds were picking up, whipping the granules into tiny stinging projectiles.

“We’ve got to find some shelter soon! Jesus Christ is it getting hot.” the man in the lead shouted.

The younger man in behind pulled out a beaten-up alcohol thermometer, salvaged from the porch of a home in an abandoned suburb, three hundred miles to the East. Desert the entire way. Dunes and salt flats, where irrigated lawns and fields once stood. Global warming may have only raised the average by a couple of degrees, but the Southern half of the continent had taken it hard.

“A hundred and fifteen degrees. We’re close, though, look at the road.”

They crested a hill and looked down upon a ruined city, half consumed by sand. Hopefully there would be enough supplies here to get them to the coast.

“Yeah, this’ll do. Come on, let’s get inside before this heat kills us. Welcome to Tucson.”