Chapter 20
Barb walked the gravel path toward the second house with a steadiness born of necessity rather than calm.
The morning light spread across the field in a dull wash, the sky hazy.
Cathy and Hank’s old home sat quietly on its foundation.
The porch boards still held the ghost of their footsteps.
The curtains hung perfectly, untouched. To anyone else wandering the road, it would feel like an opportunity.
She stepped onto the porch and paused for a moment, pressing her fingertips against the wooden railing.
The familiar texture sparked memories she wished she had time for.
Hank’s laugh echoed from the doorway, and she remembered the early mornings they had spent painting trim.
Barb let the memories pass through her like wind through leaves.
She pushed the door open. The hinges gave a soft groan, releasing a faint scent of old dust, dried floral soap, and something untouched for too long.
The living room still looked as it had before the flare.
A blanket was folded neatly over the back of the couch.
A small stack of books on the coffee table.
A candle trapped in its glass jar, wick stiff and unused.
The house looked safe, whole, and occupied, but it needed to look abandoned.
Not dangerously so, just quietly abandoned.
It had been left in a hurry by people who took what they could and left everything else.
Barb crouched beside the blanket on the couch.
She lifted it, feeling its weight. She carried it outside and draped it over her arm, then returned for the pillows.
Cathy appeared at the doorway, arms crossed, gaze flicking around the room. Her sister stepped inside but didn’t move far. Her eyes avoided the hallway that led to the bedroom. Barb noticed and didn’t draw attention to it.
“What do you need me to do?” Cathy asked.
“Watch the road,” Barb said. “People will stop if they see movement.”
Cathy nodded, hesitated, then stepped back outside, closing the door behind her.
Barb heard her settle herself near the porch steps, listening for footsteps.
She set the pillows beside the blanket pile and walked toward the hallway.
The bedroom waited at the end, partially darkened by drawn curtains.
She paused in the doorway. The bed remained made, the sheets crisp, the blankets smoothed into a quiet, painful picture of a life interrupted.
She sat on the edge of the mattress. The springs creaked gently.
She drew a slow breath and reminded herself that it was a strategy, not desecration.
Survival demanded intention, not sentiment.
She pulled the sheets halfway down, wrinkling the fabric.
She removed the pillowcases and tossed them across the floor.
The pillows themselves remained, but without cases, they looked bare and less inviting.
She opened the bedside drawer and found a folded blanket.
She left it there, half pulled out, as if someone had rifled through it quickly.
Everything needed to feel touched by urgency rather than destruction.
She moved to the closet next. Hank’s old shirts hung neatly on one side, Cathy’s dresses on the other.
She touched the fabric of one worn flannel and let her fingertips linger before pushing it aside.
Clothing with sentimental weight held no practical value to intruders.
Someone searching for supplies would see clothes and keep moving.
She walked back to the living room and surveyed what needed to change next.
The shelves looked too organized. The kitchen looked too clean.
She opened the nearest drawer. It contained a lighter that no longer worked, three burned-down tea candles, and a half-empty box of matches.
She pocketed the matches and placed the candle stubs on the kitchen table.
She removed every useful item from the kitchen.
Salt, herbs, a small jar of sugar, and even a ball of twine.
All of it went into a crate she left by the door.
She opened the cabinets and found two metal cups.
One good, one dented. She took the good one and left the dented cup on the counter beside an empty water jug.
The jug itself had been sitting there since the day they moved in.
Barb tilted it just slightly, as though someone had placed it down in a hurry.
The small detail mattered, since intruders believed what they could see.
She stepped back and studied the room. It looked emptier—not abandoned for months, but abandoned in uncertainty.
She returned to the barn and retrieved the broken tool chest she had found earlier.
It was cracked across one side, and the drawers stuck.
Inside were rusted nails, bent screwdrivers, and bits of metal no one would want.
She carried it back to the house and placed it in the living room.
She opened the top drawer and scattered the nails across the floor in a controlled mess.
She grabbed a torn backpack from the barn next door.
One strap had ripped nearly off. Inside, she stuffed scraps of fabric, an old envelope, and a few useless plastic pieces.
She placed the torn backpack in the corner of the room.
All of it looked believable. A house someone fled from and a place where only scraps remained.
She moved to the front window and studied the latch.
She had reinforced it last winter. She loosened the screws slowly until the latch wobbled.
Anyone testing it would find it easy to push open.
She pressed her palm lightly against the window, and it gave with almost no resistance.
She stepped back to evaluate the effect.
Cathy knocked softly. “Barb?”
“Come in,” Barb said.
“It looks empty.”
“Good. That’s what I was hoping for.”
Cathy stepped forward, studying the backpack. “Do you think this will work?”
“Yes,” Barb said. “People see what they expect to see. They expect desperation and failure, not preparation.”
“It feels like a trick.”
“It is a strategy,” Barb said. “Tricks keep people alive, and we are going to use every trick we can think of.”
Cathy’s gaze drifted toward the bedroom. She took one small step in that direction and stopped.
Barb saw the tension in her shoulders and gently redirected her. “Stay here with me.”
Cathy nodded and returned to the living room.
Barb lit one of the half-used candle stubs and let it burn for a moment.
The soft flame flickered. She blew it out and set it back on the table.
The faint scent clung to the air, smelling like someone had lived here recently, someone who might have left only days before.
She walked to the back window, opened it, and stepped outside.
Cathy followed. Barb pulled the window shut behind her from the outside, leaving it slightly off-center.
She scattered a few broken branches near the wall, creating the illusion of a windfall rather than intention.
The house resembled every half-abandoned residence Barb had ever seen in the disaster documentaries she had researched.
Nothing theatrical or forced, just quiet despair.
“That will do.”
Cathy let out a slow breath. “Everyone who walked past today looked hard at this house.”
“They’ll look harder now,” Barb said. “Which keeps them away from ours.”
“Do you think they will come tonight?”
“Not tonight, but soon.”
Cathy nodded and looked toward their real home. “We should eat.”
Barb nodded. “Then we monitor.”
They walked back to the house, stepping carefully along the side path to avoid drawing attention.
The dogs barked softly inside as if sensing their return.
Barb let them out long enough to circle the yard and sniff at the grass before calling them back in again.
Cathy gathered the plates while Barb lit the wood stove.
The fire crackled softly as the small meal warmed. Vegetables and a bit of leftover duck.
They ate in the dim light, the candles unlit to avoid silhouettes. The sound of footsteps along the road drifted through the valley, muted by distance but unmistakable. A man’s voice called out something unintelligible. A woman answered sharply, and a child cried.
Cathy stared at her plate. “I want to help them. I really do. I just know we can’t.”
“We can’t yet,” Barb said. “We don’t have enough margin to save anyone but ourselves.”
Cathy pushed a piece of duck around with her fork. “Do you think someone will try the house soon?”
“Yes, that’s the goal.”
“Why would you want that?”
Barb rested her hands on her knees. “Because it teaches people a lesson. It shows them that the house is empty. It spreads the story that this property has nothing of value. The sooner that happens, the safer we are.”
Cathy swallowed. “I get it. I still hate it.”
“So do I,” Barb said. “Strategy rarely feels good.”
The road quieted slightly. The last glimmer of daylight slipped behind the ridge. The valley darkened under a sky that held no glow from town. The stars flickered faintly through the thin cloud cover. Barb rose and checked the locks again.
“We need to stay inside tonight. No lanterns or fire once we finish.”
Cathy nodded. “I’ll watch from the loft later.”
“Good,” Barb said.
The house settled around them with small creaks and shifting wood.
The dogs curled near their feet. The cats perched near the boarded window.
Outside, the footsteps continued, slower and heavier with fatigue.
Barb sat beside Cathy and listened to the quiet that followed.
It wasn’t too quiet anymore. It was tension and expectation—the pulse of a world closing in.
The decoy was ready, and the intrusion was inevitable.
She needed it to happen before someone tried the real house.