Chapter 43
The storm refused to end despite Barb’s hopes.
Even after the first collapse, even after lightning split the sky into violent white scars, the rain kept falling in sheets that blurred the edges of the world.
Barb listened to it pound the roof as she and the others secured the barn, her pulse matching its relentless rhythm.
The animals cried in low, frightened sounds.
The weakened rafters groaned under the weight of water and wind.
The cold wormed through every crack in the wood.
Eli sat on a stool near the inner stall, his breath hitching as he watched the gap in the collapsed section.
Cathy stood at the far wall, where the barn door had been reinforced earlier that afternoon.
Her hands gripped the rifle tightly, knuckles pale.
Every gust of wind made the lantern above them sway and flicker, turning shadows into looming figures across the walls.
Barb stepped into the center aisle and forced her breathing to steady.
The first raid had been a test. The storm had offered cover, but the raiders had not expected resistance.
That mistake had cost them. After the retreat, Barb knew they would return.
They had too much to prove and too little food to walk away.
“Cathy,” Barb said, “inside positions.”
Cathy moved instantly to the front window. Eli grabbed the wooden pole they had wedged into the barn door to block intruders. He braced it under his arm like she had taught him earlier, muscles still trembling from the first attack. Barb stepped outside and looked across the yard.
The storm blurred everything beyond fifteen feet.
The wind threw rain sideways. The mud sucked at her boots.
She scanned the tree line. Nothing moved, but she felt them coming.
They would not retreat for long. They were angry, humiliated, and emboldened by desperation.
The storm gave them noise, cover, and chaos.
She stepped back into the barn and shut the door. Cathy glanced over her shoulder.
“You feel it, too,” she whispered.
“Yeah, it’s eerie and…almost wrong in a way,” Barb said.
“When do you think it will happen?” Cathy asked.
“Soon,” Barb muttered.
The next clap of thunder shook the building hard enough to rattle the frame.
The puppies whimpered but stayed near her.
Cathy kneeled and stroked their fur several times before rising again.
She didn’t look away from the window again, keeping her eyes locked on the land.
In the lull between the sheets of rain, a sound rose beneath the thunder.
It was one she knew well: steps approaching.
The sound was fast and coordinated as they pounded through the mud.
Barb grabbed the rifle and moved to the back of the barn, where visibility was lowest. The rain turned everything outside into a shifting blur.
She held her breath and listened as the footsteps grew louder.
Then the low grunt of men working together reached them.
Barb heard the metallic clatter of scavenged weapons that followed.
A faint shout passed between two voices.
Eli scrambled down from the loft to help them keep the doors closed. “They’re splitting up,” Barb said.
Cathy nodded but kept her gaze focused on the yard.
“They’re coming from the creek side,” Eli shouted.
“Brace the door,” Barb called to Cathy.
Eli threw his shoulder into the pole, bracing the barn door, pushing it deeper into the frame. Barb heard the thud of bodies slamming into the outside of the barn a moment later. Wood groaned as the animals inside panicked, their cries rising in frantic pitches.
Barb sprinted to the side window. Two figures ran across the yard toward the house, silhouettes almost invisible through the storm. She stilled her breath and lowered the rifle, tracking the faster one. Cathy took the nearest window. “Three more coming from the orchard side,” she said.
The raiders hit in waves. Two slammed into the barn door again, striking it with crowbars.
Eli groaned under the pressure, teeth clenched as he fought to keep the pole steady.
Cathy fired toward the yard. The flash lit the storm like a lightning bolt.
The bullet cracked into the mud near the feet of one raider.
He spun back in panic, slipping as rain turned the ground to slurry. Another followed, shielding his face with his arm. The barn door thudded again. Eli’s boots slid in the mud seeping across the floor. He repositioned and leaned harder.
Barb saw the boy’s legs shaking under the weight of the assault. “I have the flank,” she said. “Cathy, get to the house and keep them out. Yell if you need help.”
Her sister nodded and bolted out a gap in the worn siding.
Rain hammered the property, hail now mixing in and intensifying its assault.
Barb slipped into the night, circling low and fast. She kept her body angled close to the house and moved toward the orchard side, where shadows flickered between the trees.
Her heart thudded against her ribs. She felt the mud shift beneath her boots and found her balance before sprinting again.
She spotted one raider moving low and determined across the backyard.
His body cut a sharp outline against the faint lantern glow through the barn window.
He carried a long blade in one hand and a broken shovel handle in the other.
Barb kept her breath controlled. When he reached the point where the shadows thinned, she lunged.
Her shoulder collided with his ribs, the blow knocking the air out of him.
His blade swung wide and missed her. She brought her rifle stock down in a controlled strike to his knee.
Something gave beneath the blow. He collapsed with a strangled cry, both hands trying to catch himself as he hit the ground.
Barb struck him once more across the jaw, and his body stilled.
A shout from the house snapped her head up. “Barb! I need you!”
Barb sprinted toward the back of the house, boots splashing through waterlogged ground. Thunder cracked overhead, drowning her footsteps. She reached the back door and threw herself inside.
Cathy was already in motion. Mud streaked her sleeves. The rifle still smoked faintly from the earlier shot. “One got in,” Cathy said.
Barb followed her toward the living room.
A raider stood inside, dripping with rain and sweat.
He had climbed in through a window Barb had reinforced two weeks earlier.
The storm had swollen the wood, weakening the latch.
Mud covered his boots. His hands were empty, but his posture was ready—shoulders tense, eyes searching for the sisters.
He lunged at Cathy. Cathy reacted too fast for fear to register. She swung the rifle sideways. The wooden stock struck his cheek. Blood sprayed in a sharp line. He staggered. Barb reached him before he recovered, grabbed his arm, twisted it behind him, and drove him into the floorboards.
He growled and tried to roll, but Barb pressed her knee between his shoulder blades and pinned him. Cathy grabbed his other arm, forcing it back. He struggled, kicking, trying to hook Barb’s leg with his boot. She struck the base of his skull with the heel of her hand. His body slackened.
Eli’s voice carried from the barn. “They’re falling back… I think they are falling back.”
Barb looked at Cathy. “Stay with him.”
Cathy nodded and braced the stock of the rifle against the raider’s spine, ready to strike again if he moved.
Barb sprinted across the yard back to the barn.
Rain battered her face. Wind tore at her coat.
Mud clung to her boots with every step. When she reached the barn, she saw Eli pushing the brace against the door with his full weight.
She grabbed the pole beside him. Together, they held it as another raider swung from outside. The door shuddered. The animals inside shrieked. Barb braced her foot against the wall, gritted her teeth, and pushed. “Hold,” Barb said.
The blows stopped as suddenly as they had started. Barb waited, breath held, ears straining for sound. She heard only rain, thunder, and wind, but no more footsteps. Barb and Eli eased back, not fully releasing their weight, but shifting enough to breathe.
“You good?” Barb asked.
“No,” Eli said. “But I’m alive.”
Barb exhaled. “That’s enough for now.”
They stepped outside the barn. Mud stretched across the yard in deep ruts.
Bodies lay where they had fallen. One raider crawled toward the tree line, dragging himself through the muck before disappearing into darkness.
Another lay face down, unmoving. A third limped toward the creek, clutching his arm against his chest.
The storm softened into a cold, steady rain. The lightning drifted farther away, but the threat remained tangible in the wet earth. They moved slowly from the barn to the house after checking the animals one last time.
Cathy stepped onto the porch, breathing hard, hair plastered to her face. She rested the rifle against her shoulder. “They are gone…finally,” she said.
“For now,” Barb said.
Cathy snorted. “Well, that definitely wasn’t a scouting party.”
“No,” Barb said. “That was their main force.”
“And we beat them,” Eli said. “Wow…we actually beat them.”
Barb shook her head. “We survived them. That’s not the same thing.”
Eli wiped rain from his eyes. “Well, they won’t come back tonight.”
“No,” Barb said. “Not tonight.”
Cathy lowered herself onto the top step of the porch as Barb looked over the ruined yard.
She took in the bodies, the mud, and the collapsed barn wall.
Barb watched the tree line. It was dark and silent, but she knew it wasn’t empty.
Victory in collapse carried no celebration, only the understanding that surviving one night meant preparing for the next.
The storm had passed, but the danger had not.