They shoot the flarepistol off one night, feeling abandoned by the “good guys” and God. The man sees a wrecked boat offshore, and inside he finds more food and a flarepistol. They finally reach the coast, but are disappointed to find the ocean just as gray and lifeless as everything else. After more travel and starvation they find a house with more canned food. They set off again and encounter an old man named Ely, who stays one night with them. They stay there a few days and bathe, cut their hair, and stock up. After that food runs out, and once again starving, they find a bomb shelter full of canned food and supplies.

They are on the verge of starvation again when the man finds an apple orchard and a well. They keep traveling, following the man’s map. Horrified, the man and boy flee just as some “bad guys” return. They find a basement full of human prisoners who are being kept as livestock. The man and boy then escape, with the boy wondering if they are still “good guys.” Soon afterward they run out of food and desperately search a big plantation house that is clearly inhabited. The stranger lunges for the boy but the man shoots the stranger in the forehead. The man and boy accidentally encounter one of these strangers. On the way observe a truck of “bad guys,” the gangs on the road who rape, murder, and eat other people. The man and boy cross a mountain range, where they suffer through snowstorms. His wife had killed herself, trying to escape what she felt was inevitable rape and murder. The man sometimes has good dreams about the past and his wife. They suffer from cold, exposure, and frequent starvation as they travel the road and search abandoned buildings for food. The man sometimes coughs up blood and the boy constantly asks for comfort and reassurance. They plod along in the darkness with a shopping cart, two knapsacks, and a pistol. The plot begins as they are traveling south down the road towards the coast, somewhere in the Southeastern United States. The protagonists, a man and a boy, his young son, are never given names. In this landscape everything is dead and burnt, the sun is blotted out by ash, all plants and animals are extinct, and most humans are either lone travelers or members of cannibalistic communes. The Road takes place after some unknown apocalyptic event has nearly wiped out the earth.

The road cormac mccarthy sparknotes