He wasn’t happy.
When Nick approached him a little before dinner, he felt his face falling into a scowl. His daughter had used emotional blackmail to get him to allow Nick’s family to stay at the compound, and that irritated him. He wished Nick and his kids would stay out of his way for a while—every time he saw them, his resentment toward Emma flared. It was another reminder that he was weak when it came to that girl. He’d learned to set aside Shelly’s feelings for the most part, but he couldn’t seem to get around Emma.
Abram had just returned the ladder to the upper barn, not where it belonged but to the storage area closest to where he was working. It could live there until one of the other storage areas was closer to the section of the fence he was currently reinforcing. He walked out of the barn to find Nick coming up the drive, walking with purpose. He sighed.
“Abram, I’m glad I found you,” Nick said. “Can we talk?”
“What is it you need, Nick? You can’t be ready to start pouring concrete?”
“No, not yet. I just wanted to talk to you about Joshua.”
Abram made a sound of negation, but it didn’t stop Nick from continuing on.
“You know we really could use him—Joshua, I mean,” Nick said. “He’d be another set of hands, and we have a lot to do. He’s skilled, too, and knows how to use tools.”
“I’m sure he has plenty of skills, but we don’t know him. Where’s his character reference? I don’t want a man in my house, around my wife and daughter, that I don’t know. His worth as a worker doesn’t outweigh the threat a strange man brings.”
“I’m his character reference. He picked us up in the middle of nowhere and brought us right to town. How many people would do that? By all rights, he should have left us at the freeway exit.”
“Be that as it may, he’s an outsider and I’m not letting him in.” Abram stood firm on this.
“Could we at least give him some fuel so he can reach his family in Canada? Can we spare a few gallons of gas?”
“Everything we give away is something we’ll run out of eventually. I don’t think it’s wise to give the man a commodity that we’ll be needing. Everyone will run out eventually. No, Nick, if you want to help him, you’ll have to find a way to do that without including me. I owe this man nothing.”
“No. Of course not. Sorry to have bothered you.” Nick turned and walked back down the hill toward the house.
Abram followed more slowly. They wouldn’t begin dinner until he arrived, so he could take as long as he wanted and not have to make small talk with Nick on the way down.
After dinner, Abram asked Gary to join him on the front porch and discouraged anyone else from joining them.
“Where were you this afternoon?” Abram asked Gary once they were settled on the Adirondack chairs with a beer each. “I was counting on you helping with the razor wire.”
“I decided it was time to teach the kid to use a weapon.”
“That was more important than securing the perimeter?” Abram asked, putting a lid on his anger.
“I mean, why not? I don’t expect we’ll be seeing looters for a few weeks yet.”
“You could have let me know, Gary. I could have worked on something easier to do without a partner.”
“You figured it out, didn’t you? You’re an intelligent man, Abram, so I didn’t think you needed me to hold your hand.”
“I’m talking about common courtesy. You’ve known me long enough to know that communication is important to me.”
Gary shrugged and sipped his beer, which Abram took as a signal he was done talking, and Abram wasn’t going to get an apology.
“What did Nick say when you asked to teach Corey to shoot? Oh wait, you didn’t ask, did you? And Corey just didn’t show up for his afternoon work duty.” Abram pursed his lips.
“Nick came running when he heard us shooting, and I convinced him to let Corey teach him how to handle guns. So now they both have some experience, and Maggie too. Corey’s got a good grounding because he had to teach the others. It was a productive afternoon. You should be happy.”
Abram took a swig of beer. “I’d be happy if we could make a plan and stick to it instead of just doing what we feel like doing.”
“It’s early days yet, Abram. You shouldn’t worry so much. Let me tell you my plan for the fields.”
Abram listened to Gary’s grand plans until it was time to go to bed. He stood up and stretched, watching Gary head down the path toward his cabin. A crashing noise came from the direction of the upper barn, and then a cacophony of squawking Guinea fowl and bleating goats. Abram sprinted down the stairs, joining Gary on the path up past the garage and up to the animal barn.
Gary, who always carried both a flashlight and a gun, had both out and aimed the torch at the entrance to the supply storage room. The hasp that held the padlock had been ripped out of the wood, and the door hung open lopsidedly. A figure ran from the black hole of the doorway, a bag over their shoulder, and headed into the woods.
Abram ran after them while Gary hurried into the storeroom to check if anyone else was there. Abram kept the figure in his sights and crashed through the undergrowth, zigzagging around the birch trees glowing white in the moonlight. He tripped over a log or a root, he couldn’t really tell which, and nearly fell. When he’d steadied himself on a maple, he saw the intruder go over the fence in an area they hadn’t strung with razor wire yet and disappear into the woods on the other side.
Gary reached him, panting with the effort of running up the hill, and Abram realized his breathing wasn’t exactly even either.
“He got away?” Gary asked, hands on his knees, catching his breath.
“Yeah. Went over the fence like a monkey. It barely even stopped them.”
“Judging by the amount of stuff that was stolen, there had to be more than one. Still, we got off easy. I’ll sleep up here tonight in case they decide to come back.”
“Are the animals okay?”
“I didn’t look,” Gary said, finally standing upright.
“Let’s go check,” Abram said, and they made their way back through the woods to the barn.
The animals were all there, although the goats were skittish, and the birds were complaining about the disturbance. The chickens, while not as deafening as the Guinea fowl, were cackling as well, distressed by the feeling of being in danger.
“They’re fine,” Abram said, “they just need some time to settle down. All the goats are here, and the hen house is still locked, so I doubt they ran off with any birds.”
“Still, I’ll keep an eye out,” Gary said.
“Who was supposed to be on watch this evening?”
“Either Shelly or Maggie. We’ll have to check the roster in the morning.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t shown up here. You’d think they would have heard the noise.”
“Do you want me to go looking for her, Abram?”
“No, the looters could come back, and we’d be unprepared. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He headed back down the path, wondering if he should be worried about whoever had been on watch. But there was no point in searching for them now. You could walk right past them and not know they were there in the dark. It would have to wait until morning when they could see. And anyway, he didn’t think anything had gone wrong—they’d heard no screams and seen no sign that any harm had come to the night watch.
19
Abram was up at first light and spotted Shelly and Maggie in the kitchen making breakfast.
“You’ll never believe what happened to me last night,” Maggie said from her position at the propane-powered stove. She was stirring oatmeal.
“What’s that?” Abram asked.
“I heard a noise in the woods, and I followed it out past where we are putting the fence up. I thought I saw a figure, a person, but they kept disappearing just out of sight. Then I heard a noise up at the animal barn, but I was blocked by this huge thicket of brambles,
and by the time I got around it and back up to the house, everything was quiet.”
“Yes, we were robbed last night. Someone looted our stores at the upper barn. Sounds like they got you out of the way before they broke in.”
“I fell into their trap,” Maggie said. “I should have stayed up here, close to the buildings, rather than chase someone through the forest where there’s nothing to be stolen. Except for fenceposts. They could have stolen those.”
“We will all be working on getting the fence up and fortified. That will take priority until it’s done. And then, yes, we need a strategy for when we are on watch. Clearly, we need to protect the buildings. We could have lost all our animals last night.”
“That would not have been good,” Shelly said. “And how did they know where the supplies were kept? Who would have told them?”
“That’s where we unloaded all the deliveries,” Abram said, “wanting to keep the location of the bigger store caches a secret for just this reason. So, anyone who knew anything could only spill the beans on the small storeroom. It’s our dummy. A safeguard.”
“Too bad it’s so close to the animals. I don’t want to lose them.”
“Actually, it’s good. They made a lot of noise and helped alert us to what was going on.” Abram stepped toward the door. “I’ll be back for breakfast. I need to see what the damage was.”
He walked out of the house and up the hill to the barn, where he found Gary working on repairing the broken door.
“What’s the damage?” Abram asked.
“The door is an easy repair,” Gary said, “but we’ve lost maybe a week’s worth of food.”
“It could have been worse. Do you know they lured Maggie into the forest and got her lost? That’s why she never showed up.”
“They’re smart. We’ll have to be more prepared.”
“You know, Nick has been encouraging me to let Joshua join us here. I’m beginning to think he may be right. We could use help defending our perimeter.”
“We have enough people, Abram. You don’t need more mouths to feed. Once we have the fence finished, it will be a lot harder for anyone to breach the boundary.”
Abram rubbed his face. “Yes, we need to focus on that. No more weapons training until the fence is finished. We’re vulnerable here.”
“I beg to differ. I think weapons training is just as important.”
“If we need weapons to protect ourselves, then that just tells me that we need more people and I should let Joshua in. If we had a strong fence and enough people, we wouldn’t need firearms.”
“What have you got against firearms training? With weapons to use, we can survive with fewer people. Fewer mouths to feed. I’m already worried enough about having enough supplies.”
“There isn’t any way to get fresh supplies without violence. I mean, besides farming and bartering. We’ll just have to live with what we have and what we can grow.”
“They looted us, so we loot them. It’s small scale warfare, and they expect it.”
“No, Gary. No looting.”
“No looting, no extra people. Joshua is a no-go.”
“But we need more bodies. We should have at least two people on watch at night. Corey and Emma are too young, so that leaves us with just five adults. And the days after they take watch, two people will be unavailable to work. I think it makes sense to add to our numbers.”
“Corey and Emma can pair with an adult. As long as they have someone to take orders from, they should be fine. Everyone takes two nights a week. It works out fine.” Gary tested the door by swinging it back and forth.
“That only leaves five of us to finish the fence, plant the garden, seed the corn fields. Then there will be the harvests,” Abram said. “I think Joshua could be helpful.”
“Joshua is an unknown quantity, a stranger. And he’ll need to eat, and sleep in the house near your wife and daughter.” Gary raised his eyebrows at Abram. “Is that what you want?”
“We could set him up in the rooms above the garage. Or in one of the sheds.”
“I’m still saying no unless you let me bring in more supplies.”
“And, I’m saying no to that. Absolutely not, Gary. I’m putting my foot down. If you go looting, I’ll send you away and replace you with Joshua. Do you understand?” Abram could feel the anger burning through him. Why must Gary always push for his own way?
“Then I want to do an hour of target practice with the boy, his father, and Maggie before we work on the fence. Just give me an hour. Then it’s all-hands-on-deck for the fence project. Rae’s too small and Shelly needs to work on meals, but everyone else on the post holes. Can you give me that?”
Abram pursed his lips. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it probably wouldn’t do that much harm. One hour of daylight spent shooting.
“Okay,” Abram said. “But no blowing me off. That person we saw last night went over the chain link like a monkey. We need to get this place secured.”
“It’s a deal. Why don’t you come and take a look at what we lost yesterday?”
Abram nodded and followed him into the storeroom. There was a cot set up against one wall where Gary had slept the night before. Abram noticed a rifle on the floor underneath it and pursed his lips.
The shelves closest to the door had been ransacked. It looked like they’d taken bags of flour and rice, as well as canned vegetables. Like Gary had said, a week’s worth of food. Well, they’d be fine without it. What was a week or two when you were looking at several years or longer with no power? They were going to have to be able to grow their own food to survive, in any case.
“We’d better go down to breakfast,” Abram said, “get our day going.”
“My day has been going since dawn. I planted bear traps around the area where they climbed the fence, so be careful walking out there. That’s what I did before I started on the door.”
They left the storeroom and Gary closed and padlocked the door behind them. “Just so you know, Abram, I’m not wasting any daylight hours.”
“I already said you could have an hour for target practice. What more do you want?”
“I want you to trust my judgment. When I say we need more supplies, I want you to believe me.”
“It doesn’t matter if I believe you or not—the avenues for obtaining supplies have been closed to us. And I’m serious about no violence.”
“In times like this, violence is the language of trade,” Gary said. “We either dominate, or we are dominated.”
“I don’t believe that the world is that black and white. Outside these walls, alliances are being made, communities developing. We have separated ourselves from those groups of people, but if we threaten them in any way, we’re putting ourselves at risk. We need to tread carefully. We want to be self-sufficient, yes. But we also want to be seen as a community of reasonable people. Not a gang of outlaws who shoot before they ask questions. Law abiding people don’t want outlaws living near them. If we are benign, they’ll let us be, but if we are seen as killers, then they’ll happily wipe us out. Remember that.”
“But that is black and white,” Gary said. “Us and them.”
Corey was at the table eating breakfast with Rae Ann, Maggie, and Emma when Gary stuck his head through the doorway.
“Weapons training after breakfast at the range,” Gary said. “Authorized by Abram. We’ll work on the fence after.”
Rae Ann clutched Louise, eyes excited. “Me too?”
“Sorry, kid. You are still too young.”
“But when will I be old enough?”
“You’ll have to ask your dad that,” Gary said, then disappeared.
Corey finished his breakfast and headed down to the firing range to find Gary and Emma already there. Emma had her eye and hearing protection on and was shooting at a target that was positioned twice as far away as the other two targets that had been placed on the range. Corey grabbed his gear and walked to a position in the middle, but Gary motioned for him to set
himself up at the far end of the range.
Corey wondered if this was because he was the worst shot, but when Emma put down her pistol and started his way, Gary stepped in front of her and sent her back to her end of the range, and Corey understood. Gary was in on the plot to keep Emma and Corey apart. Anger blossomed in his chest, and he shot all seventeen rounds in quick succession. A few of them even hit the target.
Of course, Gary had to come over then. Corey kept his eyes on the ground, ready for the telling off he knew was coming.
“You’ll get better faster if you take each shot deliberately,” Gary said. “I know it’s fun to just let off a whole magazine all at once, but it’s not going to improve your aim, so it’s a waste of bullets. You’ll have to work that off.”
“I thought I was working everything off,” Corey said, his anger overflowing. “Or isn’t manual labor good enough?”
“Never mind. I can see you aren’t mature enough for what I have in mind, so I’ll have your dad do it. Meanwhile, take each shot slowly, and remember to hold your breath while you are pulling the trigger.”
“My dad has enough to do. Tell me what you want.”
“No, kid, I can’t. I shouldn’t have said anything. I forgot how young you are. Don’t worry about it. Just get in your practice and go back to work on the fence. That’s the priority.”
Corey concentrated on aiming, holding his breath, and squeezing the trigger slowly for the next several rounds, then his dad showed up, and he was so clearly agitated that Corey couldn’t focus on his target. He put his gun down and listened.
“But what did we lose?” his dad was asking Gary as Corey took off his ear protection.
“A couple of weeks’ worth of supplies,” Gary said. “It could be worse. Remember to watch out for the bear traps I hid around the area of the fence they breached.”
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