- David Anders: [thinking about having their car forcibly taken earlier by a man] I wish I'd had the rifle. He wouldn't have got the Blazer.
- Steven Anders: Why, would you have shot him?
- David Anders: Yeah.
- Steven Anders: Have we come to that already, David?
- David Anders: [after checking the food in Clancy's house with the Geiger counter] Nothing, no radioactivity.
- Steven Anders: I'll get Deb.
- [goes outside]
- Steven Anders: Debbie? We found some food.
- Deborah Anders: Can we eat it?
- Steven Anders: Yeah, it's okay.
- [both go into kitchen and begin eating the food rapidly, along with David]
- Deborah Anders: [after a minute] Hey, we're gonna get sick.
- David Anders: Hm?
- [all three begin to laugh loudly]
- Steven Anders: All right, you ready to tell me what's going on? Had a feeling ever since we left Clancy's you had something on your mind you didn't wanna share. Is that for my protection or your sister's?
- David Anders: I didn't know for sure.
- Steven Anders: David, this is not some scientific experiment where we can sit and accumulate data to write a paper later on. I'm not a scientist. I have to depend on you. And we have to depend on each other. Now tell me, do you think something happened to the sun?
- David Anders: Yeah, I do.
- Steven Anders: What?
- David Anders: Probably some kind of explosion.
- Steven Anders: Would that reduce your mother's chances? Come on, we have to accept the worst.
- David Anders: No!
- Steven Anders: All right, then. All right, let's accept the best. Now you tell me all you know or all you think you know.
- David Anders: Could've been a solar flare.
- Steven Anders: Solar flares, don't they happen all the time?
- David Anders: Yeah. It would have to be have been a big one, bigger than anything ever recorded. It was send out a tremendous amount of gamma rays, enough energy to knock out the power sources.
- Steven Anders: But what killed the people? We know it wasn't radiation.
- David Anders: I don't know. It had nothing to do with whether or not they were sheltered.
- Steven Anders: That's right. Clancy's family died, but Michael and his parents lived. And we're alive, so your mother must be, too. All right, let's go tell your sister.
- Deborah Anders: [after finding someone's clothes on a car seat and some white powder] It was a nuclear war.
- Steven Anders: Deb, come on.
- Deborah Anders: [going into hysterics] It was a nuclear war! And they're all dead! Everybody's dead!
- David Anders: [starts to hit the telephone with the receiver] No! No! No! No! No! No! No!
- Steven Anders: David.
- David Anders: Leave me alone! It's not a nuclear war! It's not the whole world, it's just here and that's all! And Mom's not here! She's home and she's alive! Just like us!
- [he takes off running]
- [first lines]
- Deborah Anders: It was a Sunday in August. Mom, Dad, David, and I were on vacation digging for fossils in the high Sierras. Mom had to go back to LA that morning. We didn't know that two and a half hours later the world as we knew it would cease to exist.
- Steven Anders: [David is walking far ahead of the group] David, you're gonna lose us.
- David Anders: You're goin' too slow.
- Deborah Anders: [talking about Jenny] She can't walk any faster!
- David Anders: I can't walk any slower.
- Deborah Anders: Well, what do you expect us to do, leave her here?
- David Anders: What about Mom? How do we know what's happening to her? She may need our help now, and she's slowin' us up!
- Deborah Anders: You know, I really believe he'd leave her here. What's happening to him?
- Steven Anders: He's scared, hon. I guess this is his way of hiding it. Be patient with him.