Chapter 12
Barb spent the morning tightening the hinges on the pantry door. Her hands moved with quiet precision, the kind of focused rhythm that usually lived in her writing days. The house felt warmer than the day before, heavy with breath and stillness.
She was tightening the final screw when she heard Cathy outside calling softly to the ducks.
Cathy’s voice sounded thin and distant, but at least she was speaking.
At least she was doing something besides collapsing under grief.
Barb listened for a moment, checked the tightness of the hinge one last time, then wiped her hands on her jeans.
A faint sensation crawled along Barb’s spine.
She stepped onto the porch and scanned the gravel road on instinct, the same way she had checked blind corners in crowded markets before the collapse.
She froze at the top of the steps when she spotted two figures walking on the road.
They were far enough away that their words didn’t reach her, but their shapes told a story immediately.
Their clothes were too clean for farm work and too dirty for a normal day.
The movement of people who had walked miles without hope of rest.
Barb’s voice dropped to a quiet edge. “Cathy. Inside.”
Cathy stepped out from behind the duck pen, surprise widening her eyes when she saw the figures. “Who is that?”
“Inside,” Barb repeated. “Now.”
Cathy hurried up the steps and went inside without another question. Barb closed the door behind her and pulled the curtain back just enough to watch. The figures reached the bend in the road, moving toward the gate slowly, like each step cost more than they had left to give.
One was a man in his fifties. His shirt clung to him with sweat, and the back of his neck was red from walking in direct sunlight. His companion, a teenage girl, wrapped her arms around herself as though she were cold. Her pace matched his only because she refused to fall behind.
The man looked toward the house and raised his hand. His voice carried weakly across the yard. “Hello? Can someone help us?”
Cathy’s breath hitched. “Barb, what do we do?”
“We watch,” Barb said quietly. “Until I decide.”
“Please. We’re looking for anyone who has a generator or a phone,” the girl said.
She watched their posture, their hands, their scanning.
Neither carried visible weapons. Neither looked like they had strength left to fight.
Desperation, not aggression. She watched the road behind them too, checking for shadows or movement, the way she once watched for double-taps in surveillance scenes—but no one followed.
Barb exhaled. “I’ll handle it.”
Cathy grabbed her arm. “Don’t go out there alone.”
“I have to. We need information.”
She took Hank’s rifle from the wall. She didn’t grip it like a threat. She slung it over her back, so the barrel angled toward the porch roof, a visible boundary rather than an invitation to panic.
“Stay inside,” Barb said. “Don’t look through the window unless I call you.”
Cathy nodded tightly and slipped back behind the door. Barb stepped onto the porch. The boards creaked softly beneath her feet. She stopped at the top step and let herself be seen.
The man straightened as soon as he noticed her. He lifted both hands in a gesture of peace. “Ma’am,” he said, voice hoarse. “We don’t mean trouble. We’re just looking for help.”
“What do you need?”
The teenager stepped closer. “Do your phones work here? Do you have a car? Anything that still runs?”
“Nothing runs,” Barb said. “Nothing here or anywhere.”
The girl’s eyes filled with panic she tried to hide. “Why?”
“Before we talk about that, tell me where you came from.”
“Town,” the man said quickly. “We’re staying near the clinic. Everything’s falling apart there. People are scared. Some are fighting.”
“What happened?” Barb asked.
“Nothing works. No generators. No police…no announcements. People started gathering at the grocery store yesterday morning. A crowd tried to get inside. The front door broke. Everyone panicked. There’s no order. No one knows anything.”
“We thought maybe someone out here had a generator. Or a radio…anything,” the girl added.
Barb walked down two steps, slowly enough not to startle either of them. She placed two bottles of water on the third step, then a small bag of trail mix beside them. She stepped back and waited. “Drink and eat,” she said. “Then we’ll talk.”
The man reached for a bottle with shaking hands. The girl hesitated, scanning the property for threats, then grabbed the second bottle and drank it with desperate gulps.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I mean it. We haven’t had clean water since yesterday.”
Barb watched him closely. “Tell me more about the town.”
“The hospital lost everything. They tried moving patients outside for air, but it didn’t help. Everything failed at once. People lined up, asking what had happened, and no one could answer.”
The girl clutched her bottle tightly. “My mom works at the grocery store. She said people came in trying to trade jewelry for batteries. Then, someone took a cart and tried to run with it. Everyone panicked.”
“Any emergency vehicles?”
“None,” the man said. “No police cars, ambulances, or aircraft overhead. Nothing.”
Barb inhaled very slowly. “Did anyone from the county come out to make announcements?”
“No one. The police boarded their lobby after the crowd got angry. People tried yelling at them through the door, but no one answered.”
The girl lowered her voice. “Is this going to get better?”
“Not anytime soon.”
“Is it an attack?” the man asked. “Someone said it might be. Someone else said the government shut everything off.”
“It was a solar event,” Barb said. “A large one. Everything electrical is gone.”
“Gone? As in broken?”
“As in destroyed.”
“So, nothing is coming back?” the girl whispered.
“No time soon,” Barb answered.
The man took a shaky breath. “We should keep going. There’s a farm west of here, someone mentioned yesterday. They said there might be a generator there.”
“There’s water west,” she said. “Ponds and streams. Keep walking but stay off the main roads.”
“Thank you,” the man said again. “We’d…we’d have died out here without this.”
“You won’t die today. Now go while there’s daylight.”
The girl met Barb’s eyes briefly, fear and exhaustion mixing into something older than her age. “You were kind. Thank you.”
They turned and continued down the road, the man limping slightly on one foot, the girl steadying him with her shoulder. Barb didn’t move until they were almost out of sight. When she finally stepped inside, Cathy stood just behind the door, eyes wide.
“Are they gone?” Cathy asked.
“Yes.”
“They looked so lost. Just…broken.”
Barb hung the rifle on its hook. “Town is unraveling.”
“What did they say?” Cathy asked. “Did they hear anything official?”
“No. There is no official. Not right now.”
“Maybe once people calm down, someone will take charge. Maybe someone from the county. Maybe the military will step in.”
Barb let her gaze drift across the room, across the reinforced windows, across the tools she had lined up for the next stage. “There are no helicopters, convoys, or communication. Nothing is coming from outside.”
Cathy hugged her arms around her chest. “So, we wait?”
“No,” Barb said softly. “We prepare.”
Cathy turned toward her, searching her expression for something bright enough to cling to. Barb stepped toward the window and watched the figures disappear around the bend. She thought of the man’s voice, the girl’s trembling hands, and the details they had given her.
The blacked-out hospital, silent police station, looted store, and deafening absence of every authority that used to hold the edges of society in place. She thought of the sky that held no contrails. The roads that held no engines. The lines of panic were carving themselves into people’s faces.
“It’s not going back to the way it was.”
Cathy’s breath caught. “Barb…”
Barb looked at her gently. “I won’t let anything happen to us, but the world we knew isn’t sideways. It’s gone.”
Cathy lowered her head, a quiet sob escaping despite her effort to swallow it down. Barb wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Outside, the valley held its unnatural silence. The world had reached its gate, and Barb knew with unshakable certainty that they were on their own.