The Road Sections 221-230 Summary

Section 221

• They drink some Coca-Cola.
• The Man goes and gets their jeans. The Boy wants to know how long they can stay. The Man says they can't stay for long because it's dangerous.

Section 222

• Once The Boy falls asleep, The Man drags some furniture from the house to put around the hatch. He covers it with a mattress. ("It wasn't much of a ruse but it was better than nothing" (222.1).)
• The Man whittles some fake bullets, stains them, and puts them in his gun.

Section 223

• The Man thinks that if only he'd saved the cartridge casings from his revolver he could reload them.
• He kisses The Boy and goes to sleep.

Section 224

• They walk into town and pick up a new shopping cart at a grocery store. The Boy suggests they take two carts, but The Man reminds him that someone has to be on the lookout.
• They talk about how they never see any "good guys" on the road and how they always need to be on the lookout for trouble.

Section 225

• The Man cuts The Boy's hair, then he cuts his own and trims his beard. This is actually a really touching passage in the book – you should read it.

Section 226

• They eat dinner by candlelight. The Man tries some whiskey he found in the bunker but it makes him dizzy.

Section 227

• The Man hears rain on the mattress above them. He opens the hatch. The yard is flooded "but the bunker itself seemed pretty watertight" (227.1).

Section 228

• When he wakes up, the rain has stopped. He had a weird dream with "creatures of a kind he'd never seen before" (228.1).
• The Man realizes he must seem strange to The Boy because the world he's from doesn't exist anymore. A part of him wishes they'd never found the bunker.

Section 229

• The Man takes apart the stove, then reassembles it with just the tank and burner so it's lighter. He opens the hatch. It's drizzling. He closes it, then "set[s] about making breakfast" (229.1).

Section 230

• They eat and sleep all day and sort through the stores in the bunker. It's still raining.
• Once it's dark they start loading the cart (which they'd hid in the tool shed) with their supplies. They eat dinner and sleep.
• The next morning they bathe, eat breakfast, and head out.