65 pages • 2-hour read
All That's Left in the World
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Chapter 28-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of anti-gay bias, child death, suicidal ideation, graphic violence, illness, and death.
Chapter 28 Summary: “Jamison”
After traveling for the rest of the day, Jamie tries to stop at a burned-down mall. However, Cara breaks down in tears, insisting that she can’t stay there. Although he doesn’t understand why, Andrew assures her that they will find somewhere else. They end up in an abandoned motel.
The next night, they make camp in the woods in a clearing near a farmhouse. Andrew tells them the plot of a movie, then leaves to urinate. When he is gone, Cara tells Jamie that she knows he loves Andrew. Jamie initially refutes it, but she insists that she can tell by the way they act around each other. She urges Jamie to tell him. She goes to collect water, giving them time to talk when Andrew returns. Jamie insists she take the gun with her.
When Jamie hears Andrew returning, he starts to talk to him. However, he realizes that Andrew’s voice is muffled. When he comes into the clearing, Andrew is tied up, gagged, and has a gun to his head. The man holding him is soon joined by Grover Denton. Denton ties up Jamie, then he and his men go to report to Danny Rosewood.
When they are gone, Jamie kisses Andrew. He apologizes for not telling him sooner, then admits that he loves him. Andrew tells him that he loves him back, and the two kiss again. They sit on the ground with their heads touching each other, realizing that they will likely die.
As the men return, they hear gunshots in the forest. One of the bullets hits the ground at their feet. The men fire in response, then another bullet hits the ground from a different direction. They turn and fire again. Jamie realizes that Cara is shooting at them. He uses Henri’s multi-tool to cut his hands loose, then does the same for Andrew.
Jamie and Andrew run blindly into the forest. The men shoot at them several times, then chase after them. As the boys struggle in the dark, Jamie trips. He feels a pain in his side and hits his head. He stumbles forward, then down a hill. He struggles to hear Andrew, wondering if he has a concussion. Andrew tells him that he was shot. Things then go dark.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Andrew”
Andrew tries desperately to stop Jamie from bleeding. He finds a hole in the front and back of his stomach on the right side. He puts shirts there, then ties a pair of jeans tightly around his waist. Realizing that he needs to find Cara and the first aid kid, or at least figure out where the men from Fort Caroline are, he returns to the clearing.
Andrew finds the men fighting with each other. Rosewood arrives. He orders the men to go back out and search. However, Denton resists. He accuses Rosewood of being too emotional over Harvey’s death. Rosewood initially argues, but the other men support Denton. They point out the extra supplies and food they have used to try to get revenge for Harvey. Eventually, Rosewood relents, and the men leave.
After he is sure they are gone, Andrew moves into the clearing. Cara quickly joins him. He tells her what happened to Jamie. She volunteers to take her bike and go try to find supplies to help him. She gives Andrew the first-aid kit, then leaves.
Andrew leaves a trail for Cara to follow back to Jamie. He is relieved to learn that Jamie is still alive. He lies down next to him and, after a few hours, falls asleep.
Chapter 30 Summary: “Jamison”
When Jamie wakes up, he checks over his wound. He is grateful that Andrew stopped the bleeding but also knows that it will be “luck” that allows him to survive. He passes out again for several hours.
Jamie regains consciousness, and Andrew is standing over him. They tell each other they love each other, then kiss. Andrew explains that Cara has been gone for a long time; he is nervous that she won’t return.
Andrew collects sticks, then uses their T-shirts to create a makeshift stretcher. Jamie decides that they should try to move. With great effort, the two boys manage to make it back to the clearing. As they debate what to do next, Cara returns.
Cara shows them that she found painkillers, bandages, alcohol, a sewing kit, and more. She was unable to find any antibiotics. Jamie gratefully takes the painkillers.
Jamie tells Andrew and Cara what to do. He instructs them to remove the jeans, then the shirts. Using the alcohol, they must sterilize their hands and his wound, then they should attempt to sew it shut. He warns them that he will likely pass out.
As Andrew and Cara begin, Jamie loses consciousness. He says “I love you” into the darkness (306).
Chapter 31 Summary: “Andrew”
Andrew manages to stitch up Jamie’s wound. He slowly starts to get better, and they find an abandoned house and even a car. However, Jamie gets an infection, causing him to get progressively worse. Andrew hooks up a wagon to a second bike, then he and Cara continue moving south. They raid homes, stores, and hospitals looking for antibiotics. They find a few pills, but they do little to help Jamie.
In Delray Beach, just a few days from Islamorada, where Amy lives, Andrew grows desperate. He insists that they need to ride through the night. Cara argues that it could be dangerous or that there could be nothing for them in Islamorada, but she relents.
Several hours later, they come to a gate that stretches across the road and connects to more on either side. It is just outside Key Largo. Andrew asks if there is another way around, but Cara is adamant that this is their only choice.
Andrew checks on Jamie. He is unconscious, having only woken a couple times to drink. He refuses to eat or move. When he looks at the wound, it is red and has lines streaking off it.
Andrew yells in frustration. His anger makes Cara shut down, as she closes her eyes and sobs. It is something she has done twice—once outside a burned down shopping center and again outside a burned down hospital. Frustrated, Andrew tells her that he is going to return to Homestead to search for something to cut the fence.
As Andrew turns to leave, he spots movement behind the gate. A truck pulls up, and two men get out with their guns trained on him. Andrew pleads with them for help. He insists that he will do whatever he has to do to get antibiotics. Despite his desperation, he is adamant that the men won’t help. He is certain they will turn out to be the same as the people from the cabin or those at Fort Caroline.
To Andrew’s surprise, one of the men steps forward. The other guy calls him “Eddie,” asking if he is certain that he wants to help. Eddie comes to the gate with a set of keys and unlocks it. He instructs Cara and Andrew to leave their bikes and help get Jamie into the truck.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Jamison”
When Jamie wakes up, he is in a hospital bed. Andrew is asleep in a chair beside his bed. There is tape from an IV in his arm, and the stitches in his side have been replaced by glue. Other than feeling hungry and having a pain in his side, he feels significantly better.
Cara comes into the room. She is surprised to see that Jamie is awake. She tells him that they are in Key Largo and that he has been asleep for four days. Despite Cara’s protests, Jamie urges her to help him out of bed and to find a robe to cover his hospital gown.
Jamie and Cara make their way out of the hospital and onto the beach. Jamie asks if the people here are “good,” and she insists that they are. Despite this, Jamie knows that “[t]he world has changed” (321).
Cara goes back inside. Jamie stands looking out at the beach, then steps into the water. A few moments later, he feels Andrew’s arms wrap around him.
Jamie explains that he is nervous to find Amy. He is worried that she is dead and that their trip will have been for nothing. Andrew responds that they can always go back to Henri and find a place to live with Cara. However, he explains that the settlement they are in stretches as far as Islamorada. They have a census, and Amy is listed in it.
Two days later, Jamie, Andrew, and Cara travel down the coast. They ride in a truck owned by a man named Dave. He points out a desalination building that allows them to reclaim water from the sea. He mentions things like “engineers” and their work on a “water treatment plant” (324), making Jamie marvel at how far they have come. Jamie can tell by the people he sees and the work that they are doing that people here are happy, giving him hope that it is different than Fort Caroline.
A few miles later, they pull up to a pink house. Dave goes to the door and talks to a woman. When Andrew sees her, he audibly exclaims because of how much she looks like Henri. Amy hesitates, then invites them inside.
Jamie marvels at the fact that Amy has electricity. She tells them that they use solar and wind power. As they ask questions about the settlement, she explains how it came to be. It started as a handful of people that destroyed the main bridge leading into the Keys. Then, they fortified the only entrance in. People started arriving in groups from all over the country. There are around 2,500 people living there now.
Amy then asks about her mother. Jamie explains that they met her near Bethesda. She told them about her, and they chose to come here to let Amy know that her mother is still alive. They then give her the multi-tool. She sobs and thanks the boys profusely.
They are interrupted by a cry upstairs. Amy goes and gets a baby, introducing them to “Baby Henri.” She explains that all the babies born recently are immune to the superflu.
Amy shows them sailboats in the harbor. She explains that they have been traveling up the coast and even started trading with a group in Cuba. She suggests that they could travel up to Bethesda to convince Henri to come down.
Jamie asks if they will be allowed to stay. Amy jokes about them killing people, then realizes that they actually have killed people. She asks if they feel happier that the people they killed are dead. Without hesitation, Jamie answers “no.” She assures them that they are good people.
Amy excuses herself to feed Baby Henri. As Jamie looks out at the harbor, he thinks of everything that they have been through to get here. He can’t stop himself from crying. When he looks at Andrew and Cara, he sees support and comfort. He assures himself that they made it this far because they relied on each other—and they will continue to.
Epilogue Summary
On October 14, Andrew and Jamie stand overlooking the ocean. They are just a couple weeks away from traveling to get Henri. They have discussed leaving the community several times to go back to the cabin. They still have not made up their minds whether they will return from the boat trip north.
Despite everything they have been through, there is still a chance that their lives will be disrupted again. The community could change its mind, or they could be overrun by a community like Fort Caroline, or a new virus could begin killing people again. Ultimately, they aren’t sure whether they will live in their current safety or go out alone to survive. Regardless, they are adamant that they will be with each other.
Chapter 28-Epilogue Analysis
In the novel’s climax, Brown underscores The Value of Human Connection in the bond that Andrew, Jamie, and Cara have formed with each other, serving as a found family. As Jamie is on the verge of death, Cara and Andrew devote themselves to trying to find a way to cure him. They travel for days, fighting exhaustion, hunger, and fear to try to find a way to save Jamie’s life. After losing everything in their lives, they have found comfort and support—and a reason to survive—in each other. The rescue itself highlights the relationships they’ve built: Henri’s gifted multi-tool cuts the boys free; Cara’s marksmanship and bike runs replace absent medics; and finally a stranger named Eddie unlocks a gate, choosing mercy so that community delivers salvation. Cut fences, keys, and unlocked doors recur to show that survival depends on people deciding to let others in. At the same time, the fact that they are being hunted at all—stalked for weeks by men expending dwindling resources to avenge Harvey—makes Jamie’s shooting feel inevitable in a world where violence shadows every step. The only thing that saves them, besides Cara’s intervention, is Fort Caroline’s scarcity. The implication is chilling: Had their pursuers possessed abundance, Andrew and Jamie would not have survived.
The confession-and-kiss scene while bound and awaiting execution reframes the love story as a choice made in extreme situations. Jamie’s “I love you” immediately precedes action (Cara’s covering fire, the multi-tool, the escape), marrying emotional revelation to tactical survival and showing how intimacy becomes a catalyst for strategic action. That Jamie sends Cara with the gun and insists she take it acknowledges his growth in trust and leadership under pressure; he redistributes tools and risk in a way consistent with the book’s argument that connection is both ethical and practical. This moment also signals Jamie’s turning point: He can finally say aloud what the novel has been circling, that his attachment to Andrew is love. By pairing that declaration with mortal danger, Brown shows that attraction and survival have become inseparable for him, and his desire is a reason to fight.
When Jamie, Andrew, and Cara finally find another community in Florida, the novel ends on an ambiguous note as to whether they will be safe there. Each community that they have faced was centered around violence and control. Although this one seems different, the boys question whether it will be. Ultimately, they ponder the conflict that they now face in their decision whether to remain or to continue to live alone. They think:
There’s a risk to living here. A risk that one day one of the settlements we trade with is going to turn against us. That Fort Caroline is going to expand outward and find us here. That our own settlement is going to change their minds on who deserves to stay. That the flu will find a way to mutate and return worse than before. There’s a lot at stake for everyone (337).
This moment in the final pages of the novel underscores the danger that continues to exist in the world that Andrew and Jamie inhabit. They can never be certain that they are safe or that they are making the right decision. However, they have come to the realization that this will always be the case and that it cannot be changed. Instead, they focus on the relationship that they have with each other, as they are willing to take on these dangers to find happiness and comfort with each other. Key Largo’s details—census records, wind and solar, desalination, a water-treatment buildout, and sailboats used for trade—contrast sharply with Fort Caroline’s surveillance and quotas; the technology of care (clean water, antibiotics, glue stitches) symbolically replaces the technology of control (questionnaires, ration ledgers). Amy’s census entry verifying her own existence echoes the airport binder but inverts its meaning: Documentation that once canceled hope now confirms it. Amy’s baby, born with immunity to the superflu, is the clearest emblem of renewal, a literal next generation that need not inherit the plague. This child embodies what Andrew longed for when he insisted he needed something “worth hoping for”—the possibility that the world is not only surviving but resetting (183).
The novel’s Epilogue features a shift in the novel’s point of view for the first time. Throughout the text, the chapters alternate perspective between Jamie and Andrew, with the point-of-view character’s name serving as the chapter’s title. However, the Epilogue has no title, and the narrator is left intentionally ambiguous. Instead, it is unclear which of the character’s is speaking. This ambiguity further underscores how much Andrew and Jamie have come to mean to each other. It does not matter which is speaking, as they both now have the same feelings about their future: No matter what they choose to do, they will choose together and do what is best for both of them. Form mirrors feeling here. The fused perspective closes a book built on dueling first-person chapters, signaling that trust, once provisional, has become shared perspective. Equally important, their uncertainty about whether to remain in Key Largo, return to Henri, or even go back to the cabin suggests that closure has been reached. They no longer flee the past but can contemplate revisiting it. The Foster house, Fort Caroline, and even the cabin are behind them, yet now revisitable in thought or travel, proof that the trauma is integrated rather than avoided.
In this way, the novel ends on a tone of hope despite everything that the boys have been through. The narrator notes how “the worrisome thoughts return […] but then he puts his arm around me and I feel safe again. We stay like that past the sunset” (338). The sunset that they watch over the harbor, preparing for their journey north, serves as a metaphorical ending to this part of their journey. As they look toward the future, this part of their life has ended, but now they move forward together to the uncertain future. Brown also resolves the idea of luck versus fate, as chance brought them to Eddie’s gate, but it’s their practiced ethics—telling the truth, helping strangers, protecting each other—that convert luck into a life. The sunset is an agreement about how to meet whatever comes next.
Just as Henri served as a source of guidance and comfort for Andrew and Jamie, so does her daughter, Amy. When Amy makes a joke about killing people, she is surprised to learn that Andrew and Jamie have done so. However, when she asks if they are happy to have killed someone, their unequivocal “no” underscores how Andrew and Jamie differ from the other people that they have faced. She assures them that “if there’s one thing the new world needs, it’s people like” them (333). This assertion provides both Jamie and Andrew further comfort and closure. Although none of them—Amy included—believes that killing another person is good, she reminds them that their empathy and compassion in response to that killing is what makes them “good” people. Crucially, Amy reframes guilt as civic capital. Remorse becomes a prerequisite for membership in humane community. Her naming of “good people” draws a moral border that Fort Caroline cannot cross, and it clarifies why Andrew and Jamie belong—not because they never killed, but because they still feel the weight of life.
Finally, Cara’s two breakdowns at burned sites and her steady competence in the woods mark trauma as nonlinear. She can’t tolerate certain ruins but can face gunfire and night rides. Brown refuses a single arc for healing; instead, he embeds Cara’s recovery in purpose—maps drawn, supplies found, friends saved—so that by the time the Keys admit them, the trio’s bond has hardened into a portable home, whether they stay or sail.
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