Chapter 18
Barb woke to movement on the road. Not footsteps near the house or anything immediate, but a steady murmur that climbed the morning air before the sun fully lifted.
The sound carried across the valley in a way it hadn’t before, a pattern of human motion woven into the usual chorus of insects and birds.
Someone coughed sharply, voices rose and fell like short waves pushed by the wind.
She stepped quietly onto the porch. The gravel road shimmered with early light, the dust already disturbed by feet that had passed before dawn.
She crouched behind the railing and counted shadows moving between breaks in the trees.
Four, maybe five, walking with uneven steps.
Backpacks slung low. Shoulders heavy. Cathy opened the door behind her.
“Is something wrong?”
“People are moving,” Barb said. “More than yesterday.”
Cathy leaned just far enough to see the movement, then stepped back again. “They look tired.”
“They’re tired and desperate.”
“Are they looking for us?”
“No,” Barb said. “They’re looking for anything that can help them. That makes us part of the landscape.”
Cathy nodded slowly. “What do we do today?”
“Work where no one can see us. Behind the house. Inside the barn and out of sight.”
When the first group passed the driveway, their faces were sunburned and hollow. A woman carried a child across her hip, the girl’s head lolling with half-conscious exhaustion.
A man beside them called toward a distant farmhouse. “Does anyone have water? Hey, anyone?”
Cathy tensed. “Should we help them?”
“No, not today.”
She guided Cathy down the steps and around the side of the house, away from open ground. They walked behind the barn, where the tree line offered shelter from curious eyes. Barb checked the goats, fed the ducks, and gathered eggs while Cathy hauled water buckets and refilled troughs.
The sounds from the road never stopped. At one point, a man shouted angrily at someone behind him. Another voice answered with fear. Barb listened without showing reaction, her face composed as she passed Cathy a scoop of feed.
“This is going to get worse before it gets better,” Barb said.
“How much worse?”
“Enough that we need to stay ahead of it.”
Cathy didn’t argue. She had reached the point where questions only wasted breath.
Barb lifted a section of fencing and examined a weak point along the inner line, testing the wire with her palm.
It shifted more than she liked. She called Cathy over to help.
Her sister pressed her shoulder into the post while she wrapped a new length of wire around the joint.
The metal bit into Barb’s gloves, but she kept tightening until the line was firm again.
They worked in silence while more people passed. Some moved slowly, limping from exhaustion. Others walked with a sharper intent, eyes fixed forward and hands gripping makeshift weapons.
Cathy caught sight of a man carrying a pipe wrapped in tape and stiffened. “He’s armed,” she whispered.
“Most will be,” Barb said. “They are scared.”
“What if he sees us?”
“He won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we are not going to give him anything to see. You’re doing well,” Barb said. “Fear is natural. Let it make you precise.”
Cathy steadied herself with a slow inhale.
Late-morning heat rolled across the pasture, turning the air thick.
Sweat pooled along Barb’s neck and darkened Cathy’s shirt, but neither slowed.
They reinforced two more fence sections and gathered brush from the tree line before the next wave of movement reached them.
The voices echoed again, closer. A woman was crying, and a boy begged for someone to stop. Footsteps scuffed in the gravel.
Barb lifted a hand. They crouched behind the barn just as a group of five passed into view.
Three adults. Two children. Their clothes were streaked with dirt.
The children lagged behind, stumbling from the heat and exhaustion.
One of the adults held a piece of rebar.
Cathy’s breath caught in her throat. She pressed a single finger to her lips.
The group paused at the end of the driveway.
“Think someone’s home?” one of the men asked.
Another shrugged. “If they are, they’re hiding.”
“Should we check?” the third asked.
“No point,” the first said. “They’ll just lie. Everyone’s lying now.”
“The place looks empty.”
A moment of quiet held the air still. Even the insects seemed to pause. Then, the group continued down the road. Cathy let out a shaky breath.
“I thought they were going to come in.”
“No,” Barb said. “They would have sounded different. They were wandering, not hunting.”
“It feels like they could come back.”
“They might. Which is why we’re reinforcing the driveway.”
Cathy swallowed. “Right now?”
“Yes, before someone stronger passes.”
They gathered fallen logs and dragged them toward the end of the drive.
The heat made every breath harder, but Barb pushed through it with steady resolve.
Cathy matched her pace, muscles trembling but determined.
Barb placed the first log across the narrowest part of the drive and wedged it between two stumps.
Together, they wove brush, logs, and discarded panels into a low barrier. It looked accidental to the untrained eye, more like debris from the weather than an intentional defense. That was the point. Nothing screamed danger. When they stepped back, Cathy wiped sweat from her eyes.
“It looks natural.”
“It should,” Barb said. “People ignore natural obstacles.”
“Do you think those men earlier will come back?”
“No. They were moving toward another farmhouse.”
Cathy’s voice softened. “How can you tell?”
“Their shoulders,” Barb said. “When people intend to approach a house, they lean forward. When they intend to pass, they look past it. They didn’t look at us. They looked at something farther ahead.”
“How do you know these things?”
“I spent years studying every kind of crisis imaginable—military collapse, political collapse, and infrastructure failure. I wrote about people in situations like this long before it happened. It trained me to see patterns.”
Cathy took a slow breath. “I’m glad you did.”
Barb didn’t respond, but her eyes softened. Back behind the house, they gathered water and sat in the sliver of shade near the barn’s side wall.
Cathy leaned against the wooden siding, head tilted back. “Do you hear them?” Cathy asked quietly.
“Yes,” Barb said.
“They just keep coming.”
“The town is emptying itself house by house.”
“Are we next?”
“No. We are tucked back and have cover. People will focus on properties closer to the road.”
“What do we do if someone comes up the driveway anyway?”
Barb shifted, meeting her gaze directly. “We follow the plan. You signal from the house, and I flank. If they approach both buildings, we retreat to the locked stall in the barn. We wait them out.”
“If someone is in the barn,” Cathy added, “I move to the window near the road.”
“Yes.”
“If someone comes to the porch, you circle wide. If both happen, we fall back. I can do that.”
The next group on the road passed around noon. Three men walked side by side. One carried a baseball bat over his shoulder. Another dragged a sharpened shovel blade against the gravel. Their steps were slow, confident, heavy.
Cathy spotted them first. “Barb.”
Barb pulled her into the shadow beside the barn. “Stay low.”
They crouched quietly. The men reached the end of the driveway and stopped. They stared at the property for a full minute. Cathy’s hand tightened on Barb’s wrist.
The nearest man squinted. “You think someone’s here?”
“Maybe,” another answered. “Maybe not.”
“If they are, they know better than to show themselves.”
A heavy silence followed. Then they turned and kept walking.
Cathy sagged against the barn wall. “I thought they saw us.”
“No,” Barb said. “They were scouting the road.”
“They looked dangerous.”
“They were. That’s why we stayed hidden.”
As soon as the men disappeared beyond the bend, Barb stood and walked toward the driveway.
Cathy joined her without being asked. They dragged more brush across the narrow approach, weaving it into the earlier barrier.
They added two more logs, a fallen branch, and a section of broken fencing.
Nothing neat or suspicious, just enough.
When they stepped back, Barb’s posture eased by a fraction.
Cathy studied the barrier. “It looks like storm debris.”
“That’s the point.”
They returned to the shaded space behind the barn. The road noise softened but never fully disappeared. The world beyond their land was shifting with each hour, tightening around them.
Cathy sat beside Barb, pulling her knees to her chest. Her voice was quiet but steady when she spoke. “We can do this,” she said.
Barb nodded. “We already are.”
Cathy looked toward the house. “I’m scared.”
“I know. Fear is part of it, but it keeps us alert.”
“I’m glad I’m not doing this alone.”
Barb didn’t answer immediately. She rested a hand between Cathy’s shoulder blades, grounding her.
The afternoon heat thickened. The road hummed with movement.
Their land held its breath. They felt it in every sound that drifted toward them.
They stayed prepared and stayed in the fight.
The world was approaching, and Barb intended to meet it on her terms.