Two Weeks Later
“Moooom,” Mae woke her.
“I swear to God, you’ve got to stop that, Mae! Is there something wrong?”
“No, I was only joking,” Mae giggled.
“That is not funny. Is everyone up?”
“Yeah, Nicole’s on watch and Wren’s fixing breakfast,” Mae said as she helped her mother sit up, though she didn’t need to now. She did it more out of kindness than necessity.
Her left shoulder was still bandaged. The going was slow in the first few days, but now the wound was healing quickly. She had no idea how much damage there was internally, only that it hurt like hell from time to time.
“Anything to report, Wren?”
“Not really. We heard a convoy go by again about an hour ago. It’s happening more and more each day. What do you think that means?” her daughter asked.
“I don’t know. It’s either a very good thing or a very bad thing. We have plans to stay here, but if it comes to anyone trying to make us leave, we still have a contingency plan to leave. Let’s keep listening for now.”
“All right, Mom,” Wren said.
She hadn’t been conscious when the girls slipped out of their hiding places and defied their mother’s orders that night. Wren pulled the knife from her mother’s unconscious body after they brought her inside. They poured peroxide over the stab wound and cleaned it up, but they didn’t attempt to sew up the four-inch long gash. Instead, they closed the wound the best they could with lengths of medical tape from their first-aid kit and kept it as clean as possible. Wren also fished out the stored antibiotics Sloane had stashed in the attic along with the food.
She’d awoken to Nicole weeping at her side the next morning, expelling tears she didn’t have. She was afraid the girl was going to be angry with her over her father’s death—surprisingly, she wasn’t.
Although she loved her father, Nicole had agreed that Doug had lost his mind four years ago. She took comfort in knowing he was now with the rest of her deceased family, at peace finally. She was free of him and his torment.
Sloane officially invited Nicole to live with them after that, and she had accepted. Not that there was anywhere for her to go, but Sloane wanted it to be her choice.
Over the last two weeks, they’d come up with a better system to maintain their Horseshoe Lane deception. Sloane involved the kids in the planning. The game kept their minds working and was something for them to dream about.
Each day, someone was responsible for a different yard-scape using items from each of the homes. Trent Carson was often responsible for leaving lawn chairs and beer bottles strewn in different scenic positions of his front yard. They were talking about an intervention. The warning sign he’d created to warn people off was found in his garage and predominantly displayed in all its juvenile arts and crafts glory.
Larry was starting on front porch repairs. Several two-by-fours lingered alongside cans of paint.
The Millers were now experimenting with fall crop gardening. Several areas of their front lawn were pulled up and being readied for planting. All of the homes now sported little clear baggies tied to branches of nontoxic leaves. They were collected by different people wearing different hats each evening.
As Sloane began the day, she watched while Nicole threw the ball down the road. Six of their canine friends leapt after it in unison. She looked down at Sally by her feet. “You don’t fetch balls, do you?” If she could answer, Sloane knew the little dog would say, “No, that is below my station in life.”
To her left, Ace sat contentedly; he’d kept her company after the injury and never left her side. He’d limped back to the main house after the girls carried her inside. Doug had kicked him terribly as he tried to get away from his attacker. If it hadn’t been for Ace, there was no way Doug would have let her go and, instead, would have sunk the knife into her again. Those thoughts ran through her mind over and over. What would have become of her girls then?
“You’re a good boy, Ace. The best boy ever,” she said and scratched him behind the neck. He still limped but, like her, he was getting a little better each day.
The hardest part was dealing with Doug’s body. He’d lain in the road for two days and she couldn’t stand to have Nicole at the window, seeing her own father there as the birds pecked at his flesh. She disposed of him with only Ace as her accomplice. After the younger girls had gone to sleep, she left Wren on watch while she took Ace with her and tipped Doug over onto a wagon they found at the Millers’. It took her a long time, but she had half the night to do it. She tugged and bartered with whoever might be listening from above to give her strength and fortitude.
She finally made it to what she thought of now as the cemetery in the woods. She dragged him till her shoulder bled though her shirt again, to the same spot Brady’s decomposing corpse still lay. She thought she should say a few words, but nothing came to her. She was empty of words for the dead so she and Ace stood there, listening to the quiet. After a while, they turned and started for home. Then, as before, she heard rustling in the bushes and out came a few more pets to lead home. Ace made sure they were worthy, and they followed them back to Horseshoe Lane. Their pack had grown.
She kept watch this morning as the girls worked on the Bakers’ house. The Carsons’ home had already been remediated of mold. They’d sprayed and scrubbed the walls with a combination of sink water and bleach. The home had been swept out, the furniture replaced, and other than the dining room table screwed to the Carson’s wall, everything looked more or less normal after a wall of water ran through it.
She’d come to the conclusion, after she surpassed the fear, that everything was going to be okay. This life on her own, without Finn, was hard but she could do it. She’d proven that.
Now that things were getting back to normal, they waited. The others would return someday, and when they did, their homes would be waiting for them. She had saved them, but more importantly, they had saved her.
And then it happened one night…