Next we see Carl and Billy watching Eric as he comes out of a store with a bottle of Drano. When Eric leaves he buys a piece of cake and has it sent to Seth, walking out just as the waitress tells Kate who paid for it.

Next we see Kate and Seth at a diner counter while Eric eats a booth nearby where he hears Kate tell Seth she can't afford to buy him dessert. Then it shifts to a newswoman eating lunch with her cameraman at a highway rest area, complaining that she is always sent to cover local, feel-good stories and expressing her desire to go national with her career. The doctor is telling Kate her son is autistic because he's not talking and Kate rejects this idea telling the doctor Seth will talk when he's ready. The scene shifts to a doctor's office where the mother Kate and has brought her son Seth. Eric hears an odd noise and notices his toilet is overflowing. Then we see Eric in his room looking at an old photograph of a young man with the name Mike Roth and the date 1969 on the back. Carl and Billy attempt to make conversation with Eric but Eric is short-tempered and says he just wants to get to his room and rest. The clerk, Billy the off-duty deputy in civilian clothes, starts to call the card company but Eric talks him out of it and pays cash for his room. Eric attempts to use a credit card which is denied. The scene shifts to the young man, Eric Norris, arriving at a roadside motel, checking in as deputy Carl arrives to sit in the lobby. Carl argues back that he's served the county well for almost 30 years. The sheriff arrives at his office and begins to berate another deputy Carl, whom we have just witnessed drinking on the job, for failure to do his job properly. We see scenes of several characters beginning their day a mother and her son getting breakfast, a woman watching morning news (which mentions that it hasn't snowed on Christmas for 40 years), Vicente the store owner opening his store and a young man driving an older model convertible muscle car down the highway. A flashback to 39 hours earlier then begins.

As he and his deputy Billy gather behind his car to take stock of the situation it starts snowing. After a brief flurry of shots the sheriff calls for a ceasefire. Gunfire erupts at Vicente's Liquor Mart in El Camino, Nevada.

Christmas camino