by Dawn, M. K.
She stopped by the window and checked for the sheriff. It’d been hours since she’d called him; he should have been there by now.
After cleaning the kitchen, she checked outside again. Where the hell is he?
She hated to call him a second time, but what choice did she have?
His cell went voice mail. No one answered at the police station.
Exhaustion washed over her. She needed rest, but as tired as she was, she didn’t think she could fall asleep with everything going on.
Running upstairs, she grabbed a shotgun from the safe and a box of ammo. When she went back downstairs, she dragged a chair next to the front window and tied back the blinds to wait.
The sheriff would show eventually. She had to believe that.
Until then, she would keep watch, guard the farm and her family.
She’d keep her children safe.
***
Britney’s eyes flew open. The horrors she witnessed in her dreams overwhelmed her unconscious, making it difficult to distinguish reality from the nightmares. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and checked the time—1:55 a.m. Exhaustion must have gotten the best of her to fall asleep in the old wooden chair.
After running downstairs to check on the kids, she headed for the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, hated the idea that she’d left the kids without someone watching over them. And even though she was a light sleeper, had been since bringing Carson home from the hospital, it terrified her to think someone or something could have snuck past her and gotten to the children while she slept.
She knew she couldn’t go without sleep forever, but she would feel better if, when she did sleep, it was feet away, not a floor.
The sweet aroma of coffee hit her nose, and her heart contracted. She hadn’t even realized she’d brewed John’s favorite blend.
Her legs gave out and she collapsed, the reality of the situation too much to bear.
Just as she was about to let the grief take over, the dogs began to bark.
Britney pulled herself off the floor and sprinted toward the front window, praying the sheriff had finally shown up.
Tearing back the curtains, she let out a small sob of relief when she spotted the familiar white SUV with the gold lettering.
“Finally,” she mumbled.
Britney paused at the door and looked at the gun propped against the wall. After all she’d witnessed today, she didn’t want to go outside in the dead of night without protection. But greeting a sheriff with a loaded shotgun, no matter how well John knew him, was stupid.
Still, something in the back of her mind urged her to grab it. When she’d called the sheriff to report the shooting, she’d explained the situation. Not that he believed her, but she had proof—John’s body was the proof. There was no way Cornhill could look at his body and not agree she’d acted out of self-defense. His lack of hair, the gray color of his skin, the serrated teeth and claws for nails—everything about him screamed predator.
Chances were good he wasn’t the only one, couldn’t be. Not after what happened with Dr. Hildebrand.
Grabbing the gun, she opened the door and headed toward the sheriff, who’d parked in the horseshoe drive. She kept the gun visible so as to not be perceived as a threat.
“Hello?” Britney called out as she made her way to the beat-up SUV. The passenger window, which she had first thought had been rolled down, had been shattered. Scratches, dents and what could be claw marks covered the side of the SUV.
“Sheriff Cornhill?” Britney slowed as she approached. Why hasn’t he gotten out of the vehicle?
The cloudy night made it difficult for her to see inside the SUV. How many times had she asked John to wire in lights for the gravel driveway?
The passenger door swung open, startling her backward a few steps. The other doors followed, including the back of the SUV.
Britney held up her gun as seven people made their way out of the vehicle and huddled together near the back.
In the dark, it was hard to make out their faces, but she had a feeling she’d seen them before. They definitely weren’t part of the sheriff’s small department, that was for sure.
“Who are you, and what are you doin’ with the sheriff’s SUV?”
“Britney?” a familiar voice called out in the dark.
She snapped her head as the biker stepped into the moonlight. “Axel? What the hell are you doin’ here? Where’s Sheriff Cornhill?”
Light reflecting off his waist drew her eyes downward. Tucked in his jeans was the handle of a gun. She scanned the others, figuring if one of them showed up armed, the rest probably did too.
Britney took another step back, the shotgun aimed at the man she almost considered a friend. “You need to go. Now.”
“Wait.” Axel held up his hands. “If you would just listen.”
“No.”
Axel moved closer. “Britney, please. We need your help.”
“Where’s Sheriff Cornhill?” she asked again, this time through clenched teeth. “And why do you have his patrol car?”
“The sheriff is dead,” Axel said matter-of-factly. “Bitten.”
Britney narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, bitten? Bitten by what?”
“One of the infected.” Axel lowered his hands. “Him and one of his deputies. Both of them are dead.”
“Did they turn into somethin’?” Britney asked in a low whisper.
Axel nodded. “Yeah. They turned into whatever the hell it is people are turning into after being bitten and dying.”
Britney lowered the gun, no longer aiming it at Axel’s head. She had no idea where to go from here. But no way was she going to let these strangers stay at her house. “If he’s dead, I guess I need to call the highway patrol.”
Axel looked to his friends and back to her. “Haven’t you seen the news?”
“Not since this mornin’.” Britney pressed her lips together. “Why?”
“Your town… there isn’t anything left.”
Britney’s heart thrashed in her chest. “What do you mean, nothin’ left? What happened?”
Axel rubbed at the scruff on his chin. “The town’s been overrun by the monsters, the infected.”
“Impossible. We were just there.” Britney raised her gun. “Get off my property. Now!”
Axel’s face fell. “We have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s not my problem.” Britney’s voice shook. “Leave. And never come back.”
The looks on his friends’ faces—angry, scared, defeated—broke her heart, but she had more important people to worry about. “Just go, please.”
“Where’s John?” Axel asked.
Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t believe he was asking for her husband. “Get off my land. Now.”
“What are you going to do, shoot me?” Axel challenged. “Shoot all of us?”
If he thought she didn’t have the guts to shoot him, all of them, he had another thing coming. “Do you really want to test me? Do you?”
“I don’t have to. I know you won’t shoot seven innocent people in cold blood. It’s not who you are.”
“You don’t know a damn thin’ about me,” Britney snapped.
“I know you’re a kind, God-fearing woman who helps in her community. People like that, people like you, don’t kill people.”
Britney ground her teeth. “I might be all of those things, but I’m a mother first. If the world is fallin’ apart, I will do anythin’, and I mean anythin’, to protect my children.”
Axel moved closer. “Really? Anything?”
Britney aimed the gun just above his head and pulled the trigger. All seven of the intruders fell to the ground.
Axel lifted his head first. With a smirk on his face, he said, “You missed.”
“I don’t miss.” Britney returned the smirk. “That was just a warnin’.”
She headed back into the house and slammed the door. With a heavy sigh, she collapsed on the
floor.
What the hell was she going to do? Axel was right—she couldn’t shoot people who sought her out for help.
A multitude of emotions flowed through her, fear being the strongest.
Axel had said the town had been taken over by those things. How was that even possible?
Her mama always said when life got tough and you didn’t know which way to turn, look to God for guidance. It had tested her faith to have both her parents pass at such a young age. Sure, she still went through the motions of going to church, but most days her heart wasn’t in it. After the tragedy her family had lived through and now this? What kind of God would allow people to turn into monsters?
A deep yawn pulled tears from her eyes. Forcing herself off the floor, she checked on the kids and then lumbered to the couch. As much as she wanted the intruders to leave, she found comfort in knowing other armed adults kept watch just outside her front door.
With another heavy yawn, she lay down on the couch. A couple of minutes of sleep wouldn’t hurt. She’d just been outside and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe the world wasn’t as bad as Axel said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Axel, man. What the fuck?” Shifter spat through a clenched jaw. “You told us you were friends with this chick, that she would take us in. Fuck. She nearly took your head off with a shotgun.”
Axel had to admit he didn’t expect her to pull a gun on them. The good news was she didn’t shoot any of them. If she wanted them dead, they wouldn’t be standing there discussing what could have happened. “She’s scared. Something’s wrong.”
“Of course something’s wrong.” Angie made her way back to the back seat of the SUV. “The world’s gone to shit, and you’re expecting some stranger to take us in. I don’t blame her for shooting at us. She’s got three kids, a farm to protect. I would have shot at us too, probably taken out a kneecap just to prove a point.”
Axel stared at the house. “Something’s not right.”
“Yeah, you said that.” The vein in Gus’s neck throbbed.
Axel turned to face them. “No, I mean really wrong. Like with her family. Where the hell is her husband? What kind of man lets his wife greet strangers in the middle of the night alone?”
“Maybe he’s not home,” Rainey suggested.
Axel remembered the conversation he’d had with the sheriff. “I don’t think so. The sheriff mentioned he’d gotten a call. Seemed real upset about it. Maybe he was talking about Britney and something awful that happened here.”
“You can’t know that.” Gunner ran his fingers through his beard. “Bad shit is happening everywhere.”
“She was expecting the sheriff,” Axel surmised. “Wasn’t surprised to see his SUV in front of her house.”
Rainey licked her lips. “Maybe they’re friends?”
“Friends don’t show up in the middle of the night.” Axel kicked around the loose pebbles on the driveway. “Something happened here, and she called the sheriff for help.”
“Do you think it has to do with her husband?” Rainey asked.
Axel frowned. “God, I hope he’s not sick.”
“Shit.” Mac ran a hand over his bald, sweaty head. “If he’s sick like all those other people are sick and turns, hell, I don’t want to be here for that.”
“I don’t want to be around those things any more than you do.” Axel’s throat constricted. “But she’s got three kids in there—young kids. Are we just going to leave her alone and hope she can take care of him herself?”
“Wait a minute.” Angie crossed her arm over her chest. “We don’t even know if he is sick. And if he is, I’m not sure I want to get involved.”
Axel cracked his neck from side to side. “I mean… I don’t know… aren’t we sort of involved already?”
He’d never forgive himself if they left and something happened to the family.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Gus leaned against the SUV. “She doesn’t want us here. Told us to leave.”
“Because she’s scared,” Axel reminded them. “For God’s sake, her kids were nearly kidnapped this morning, and now strangers show up in the middle of the night. And we’re not exactly the most clean-cut-looking people.”
Shifter headed for the SUV. “Which is why we should leave. Like you said, she’s scared, and scared people do stupid things. Like shoot at people.”
Angie nodded in agreement.
“Hey,” Axel adopted a challenging tone, “this isn't some ‘all for one and one for all’ Three Musketeers bullshit. If you want to leave, no one’s stopping you.”
The others glanced at each other.
Axel didn’t wait for them to answer. “Seriously, take the SUV and go. But I’m staying. Even if her husband is well, they’re going to need some help.”
“You got much farm experience?” Angie asked.
“No,” Axel snapped. “But by the look of the town, we have little choice.”
Rainey chewed on her bottom lip. “Other parts of the country, maybe even the state, could be fine.”
“You’re right,” Axel agreed, “but until we get some kind of confirmation, I’m staying. I’d rather be stuck on some farm than in the city. You saw how many infected were at the police station. The population of the town and the surrounding area couldn’t be more than a thousand. Can you imagine what the big cities look like? At least here there’s a fence, food, probably a well. Here we can survive.”
Angie snorted. “Yeah, if she doesn’t shoot us first.”
“Then we need to prove that she needs us and we can be trusted. Unless anybody has a better suggestion?”
“Say we stay, against the lady’s wishes,” Max said. “What are we going to do? It’s not like we can live in the stolen police car. The busted windows alone make that impossible.”
Axel surveyed the area the best he could in the dark night. “There are a lot of barns. Maybe we can talk her into letting us take one of those.”
Gunner chuckled. “You really think she’s going to give up one of her barns to let us sleep in? And even if she does, how do we know it’ll be safe?”
Axel’s face tightened. “I’ll take being in a wooden barn over standing out here in the open exposed.”
Rainey’s face paled as she frantically searched the area. “I didn’t even think of that.”
Axel patted her on the shoulder. “I don’t think it’s anything we have to worry about right now. Once we got out of the city, we didn’t see any of the infected roaming around.”
“Doesn’t mean they’re not hiding in the bushes,” Gus grumbled.
“That’s it.” Angie threw up her hands. “I’m getting back in the car.”
“Me too.” Rainey followed her into the back seat and slammed the door.
Axel mumbled a slew of curses under his breath. “I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. Never in a million years did he think Britney would react the way she did. “I just… didn’t know what else to do. Where else to go.”
Gus’s shoulders slumped. “We didn’t think this through. I mean, you don’t just show up at someone’s house and expect them to take you in. Not when the fucking world is ending. Supplies are limited. Whatever they have, they aren’t going to share them with us. Family, maybe, but not strangers.”
As much as Axel hated to admit it, Gus was right. If they wanted something from her, they needed to offer something in return. “I saw a general store on the way out of town.”
“Excuse me?” Mac’s mouth went slack. “You are not suggesting what I think you are. We nearly got ourselves killed getting out of that police station.”
“We also made a whole hell of a lot of noise,” Axel reminded him. “Car alarm, remember? If we could get into town without drawing too much attention to ourselves—”
“An SUV driving around when nothing else is moving will definitely draw some attention,” Mac cut in.
“I’m not suggesting we all go.” A plan started forming in Axel’s hea
d. “Maybe a few of us. A quick in and out. Back the SUV to the entrance, grab as much crap as we can and get out. We have guns and know how to kill them. Gunner, Gus and I both have decent aim.”
Shifter scratched at his jaw. “What you’re saying is you’re going to take the SUV and leave the rest of us here with the crazy, gun-wielding chick. Are you fucking nuts?”
“No one said you have to stay here.” Axel glared. “You want to come, come. The more hands, the more shit we can get and the faster we can get out of there.”
“Hey, this ain’t some bullshit zombie apocalypse, end-of-the-world TV show.” Gunner’s nostrils flared.
Axel raked his hands through his hair. “Not a TV show. Reality. The world is gone. How long do you think we’ll survive without supplies? The electricity is on now, but how long will that last? Water, food, medical supplies? We’re in fucking Montana. The weather might be okay now, but what about winter? No electricity when the temperatures drop below freezing. The infected will be the last of our worries when we have no way to cook or stay warm.”
“You’re talking about months from now.” Mac shook his head. “We have no idea what the world will be like then. Hell, as far as we know, the military might be fighting them off right now. A week or two, this could all just be a bad dream.”
Gus turned to Mac. “You really believe that?”
He hung his head. “Better than believing the world’s over.”
“No, you’re right, Mac,” Axel said “In a week this could be over with. There could be some crazy shit going down we don’t know about. Hell, they could already have a vaccine and be handing it out. But what if there isn’t? We have to prepare for the worst. If we don’t, we’ll all be dead.”
Gunner let out a weighted breath. “I’m in. When you want to head out?”
It surprised Axel that Gunner volunteered so quickly. He thought he’d have to do a lot more convincing. “I say we leave at first light. Get a few hours of shut-eye. That way we’ll be able to see what’s coming.”
“I’d feel a whole hell of a lot better if I could see what’s coming,” Gunner said.
“Agreed.” Axel looked to other three men. “What about you?”
