by Marla Monroe
Thad reached over and checked the doorknob. It was locked as well. It was too bad neither of them knew how to pick a lock. That would have been a handy skill so they didn’t have to damage the houses so much.
He looked over at Harry and shrugged his shoulders. There was nothing they could do at this point other than break a window. There were three on the rather large back porch. Two normal-sized ones on either side of the door and another regular-sized one about six feet off the ground. It was either over a kitchen sink or bathroom. The house did tend to be about three feet off the ground on blocks, like a lot of older homes.
They opted for the window to the left. Harry found a brick and wrapped an old cloth around it that they found on the porch. Thad let Harry use the covered brick to break out the window, then they covered broken glass still in the seal with what looked to be the blanket from an ancient dog bed.
Thad breathed a sigh of relief when no one stuck a rifle barrel around the door leading out of what had to be a mud room. An avocado green washer and dryer stood with a grey plastic utility sink to one side. The opposite side held a hanging close rod, several empty wire hangers, and several shelves with a shoe or boot tree below the shelves. He noticed there were two sets of boots, both on the small size.
They had fresh mud on them.
Thad touched Harry’s shoulder and pointed to the boots hoping the other man would notice what he’d picked out. At Harry’s stiff nod, Thad climbed through the window without getting cut then watched the doorway while Harry followed him through. They still didn’t see any evidence of someone waiting for them.
Harry’s raised brows said it all. They had no idea who they were dealing with or if they would shoot first and ask questions later. Thad was praying they had restraint.
Together they eased around the doorway into an obviously used kitchen. Everything was clean and bright unlike the front of the house and the mud room. Except for the muddy boots, he would still have thought no one lived there until he made it into the kitchen. Someone had been in the middle of making dinner. A boiler with potatoes and onions sat cooling on the potbelly stove that proved to still have embers despite someone’s hurried attempt at dousing the flames with water.
He looked over at his friend and touched his lips, then spread them out in front of him. Thad wanted to call out to them again and let them know they weren’t there to harm anyone. Harry shook his head and nodded back to the way they’d come in.
Thad leaned closer to Harry and whispered as softly as he could. “By the size of the boots, they are young and I would bet one of them is female. The kitchen is too polished for two men to be living here.”
Harry’s lips thinned but he nodded. He agreed that Thad could try calling out to them again.
“Hello! We aren’t here to hurt anyone. We just want a place to sleep tonight. Come on out and let’s talk. We know you’re here.” Thad waited, listening for any hint of movement around them.
“You hear anything?” Harry asked keeping his back to Thad’s so they could see every possible direction.
“No, but that hot stove tells me they’re here. Let’s start looking. I’d rather confront them now rather than wait until the women are inside, and we can’t leave them out there much longer. It’s getting dark.”
Thad led the way through the kitchen door into what turned out to be a small dining room. Just like the kitchen, this room had been well maintained and boxes labeled as clothing, supplies, and books lined the walls. Whoever they were, they were organized and had managed to live through the disasters and the years following it. That in itself was a great feat.
Passing through the dining room, they walked into a hallway where a staircase led up on one side and a slightly longer hallway disappeared into the gathering darkness on the other side. They were essentially at a dead end. If they went anywhere else in the house, they would need lanterns or candles in order to see. Whoever lived there had the advantage of knowing the house with all its nooks and crannies.
Thad turned to tell Harry they might as well turn around, and stopped when he heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being racked. Both men froze. All of the blood seeped from his veins to pool at his feet, leaving him cold and nervous. This wasn’t going well. Not well at all.
* * * *
“It’s taking too long.”
Harriet chewed on a long piece of grass she’d plucked when they first sat down in the weeds where they’d made a small hollowed-out area to accommodate them. Abby knew Thad and Harry would fuss that they’d made themselves obvious when the entire reason for hiding in the weeds was to escape notice. Clearly they hadn’t followed through with that plan.
Abby nodded. “Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.”
“I can’t sit here wondering if they are okay or not. They should have already made it to the front of the house.”
“Unless the front of the house was boarded up and they couldn’t pry off the boards.” Abby doubted that unless someone lived there. And that was the crux of the matter.
“I vote we check on them. They may be the men and are trying to protect us, but we if something happens to them, we’re on our own.” Harriet got to her knees and looked around before dropping her head back below the grass tops. “They could need our help.”
Abby thought about it and agreed with the other woman. Normally they would have been out by now herding them inside to set up their bedding for the night and search for canned goods they could eat so as to save their small stashes. Something wasn’t right.
“Let’s go. Try to keep from making any noises. If we find them, and they do need help, we retreat to plan. Got it?” Abby looked hard at the other woman.
“Got it. Let’s go.” Harriet jumped to her feet before Abby could remind her to move slowly and as quietly as possible.
With Harriet leading, they made it around the side of the house and onto the back porch much faster than she thought was safe. Yet there they were, undetected and still standing. All they needed now was to locate how the guys had gotten inside.
“There’s where they broke the window to get inside.” Harriet pointed to where dirty quilt covered the broken glass and frame of one of the windows. “That’s our entry. If anything happens or if we find that they are in trouble, we return here to figure out what to do.”
“Abby, we don’t have weapons. I mean, I have a knife, but that’s no match for a gun.” Harriet’s panicked voice did nothing to calm Abby’s already quivering nerves.
“Everything is a weapon, Harriet. Pots, pans. If we need anything, grab what’s close by and put all your strength into it.” Abby climbed through the window, leaving Harriet to settle down and follow. Time might not be on their side.
She paid little attention to the laundry room as she slipped through the window to the linoleum floor below the window. Abby cringed when she stepped on the broken glass, making a crunching sound.
Please don’t let anyone have heard that. I don’t want to alert whoever might be inside that we’re on our way. Of course, if it’s just Thad and Harry, it’s no big deal, but my gut tells me that something is wrong—very wrong. Please don’t let me be right about this.
Abby dragged the broken glass to one side with her boots in hopes that Harriet wouldn’t make as much noise when she landed on the floor as Abby had. She picked her way through the small room before pausing at the doorway leading into the next. When she could detect no sounds of life from the target room, Abby crept around the doorway just as Harriet climbed through the window behind her. Thanks goodness the crunching sound was much less noticeable under her friend’s feet.
She found herself in the kitchen where the first real evidence supporting her unease nearly paralyzed her. Someone did live in the house. Every surface shone despite the years of use, and there was evidence that someone had been in the middle of cooking when they’d arrived.
“Oh, shit.” Harriet’s warm breath nearly made her jump as the other woman softly voiced her surprise in A
bby’s ear. “Someone does live here, and the boys are somewhere inside with them.”
“They’ll be fine, Harriet. They know that just like we do. You know they’re being extra careful.” Abby just wish she believed that herself.
There were two other doors leading out of the kitchen. One was already open, but all she could see from the doorway was that there was another large space. The other had to be a pantry of some type. There wasn’t any use checking the pantry at this point. She doubted anyone would be hiding in there. It looked like the one leading into the yet unidentified room would be their only option. Abby couldn’t stop the shudder that traveled down her back. She didn’t like dark, unfamiliar places.
“Grab the best weapon you can find. We can’t use a candle or lantern since it would alert whoever might be out there of our presence and give them an easy target. We’re going to have to feel our way and focus on any light we can find.” Abby surveyed her weapon options and finally settled on a large cast-iron pan and added a large kitchen knife that she carefully slid into her right boot on the outside.
“Ready?” Harriet asked.
The other woman had also added a knife to her boot and was carrying the poker used with the old potbellied stove. They were as ready as they could get. Abby leaned against the wall next to the open doorway and carefully looked around the door facing where the inky blackness gave nothing away. She strained to pick up any sound that would give away their guys’ or the house’s occupants’ location, but the house failed to release any sound other than the normal creaking of an old dwelling.
Wherever the occupants were, Abby didn’t believe it was the black room beyond. That meant that there had to be a doorway or opening leading to another room or a hall. To get to the next possibility, they had to navigate the room in front of them.
“Be careful, and try not to trip over anything,” Abby whispered over her shoulder.
“Got it.”
Once they’d take a couple of steps into the dark room, Abby’s eyes adjusted some and the barely-there light from the fading sun that made it between the drapes gave her a general idea that they were in a dining room and that there were boxes lining the walls. Nothing sat on the table in the middle of the room.
The suspense is killing me. I know they are here somewhere and there’s no doubt that someone lives here. Where are they?
A doorway to her left led out of the dining room into another black hole. Harriet followed close enough behind her that Abby could hear the other woman’s heavy breathing. It wasn’t loud, but since hers sounded like a freight train to her, Harriet’s probably wasn’t as loud as she thought. Fear and adrenaline amplified everything, leading to even more panic if they weren’t careful. Panic would cause them to make a mistake. They needed to avoid that at all cost.
It wasn’t until Abby stepped deeper into the hall that she realized there was a staircase on one side with more doors down the opposite wall. She’d forgotten about there being a second story. Where they up there or somewhere downstairs?
I think it would be obvious if they were above us. We’d hear more creaking from their movements. They have to be downstairs somewhere. Why can’t I hear anything? If the house’s occupants have them, I should be able to hear them talking. Right? Am I fooling myself that they’re even conscious?
Abby refused to even contemplate the other possibility. They were too strong and smart to have allowed someone to kill them. Even consciously thinking about listening for some minuscule noise didn’t reveal even the squeak of a mouse. It was as if the darkness dampened all sounds.
“Where do we go now?”
Harriet’s voice trembled, ending in a higher pitch. Even at a whisper it hurt Abby’s ears.
“Follow me. Be ready to step up beside me to fight. I don’t know where they may be until we walk up on them. It’s too dark to see in the hall so they have to be in one of the rooms leading from the hall.” Abby stepped into the pitch blackness on blind faith, focusing on the slivers of light as she did.
“I’m right behind you.”
The only way to navigate the hall was to drag one hand along the wall until she met the resistance of a picture or a doorway. If she touched a picture, she would have to prevent it from falling and alerting every one of her presence. If she kept her hand about waist high, Abby felt confident that she’d avoid the pictures.
After eight short steps, a sliver of light to her right caught her attention. She altered her path to veer over toward the opposite wall and leaned against it, attempting to slow and soften her raspy breathing. That was when she heard the voices.
Chapter Seventeen
“We aren’t here to take anything or hurt you. We were just looking for a safe place to bed down for the night.”
Abby listened as Thad tried to reason with someone in the room she stood next to in the hall.
“You broke in. That feels more like someone looking for easy pickings. We aren’t easy pickings.” The voice came from the left side of the doorway so at least one person stood to her left close to the doorway.
Abby was afraid to stick her head around the door frame in case they saw her, but she needed to know where everyone was in the room in order to figure out a plan to get them out of harm’s way. Then a different voice spoke up from somewhere deeper in the room.
“If you don’t mean any harm, then why don’t you just turn around and head back the way you came?”
Whoever that was, he sounded younger than the first voice and he would be able to see her if she tried to look in to locate their men.
Crap! What can I do?
“We will, but it’s full dark outside now and we need somewhere to bed down. Is there a barn or shed or something we can use? Sending us out into the night is pretty much a death sentence with the way the wild animals are acting.” Thad’s voice sounded strong and confident to Abby.
Silence stretched into a full minute before one of the strangers spoke up again. Abby had almost worried that they were advancing on the guys.
“There’s a shed, but it’s not in good shape. You’re welcome to it. I expect you have your own bedding.”
The second man spoke up in a deeper voice immediately after the younger sounding one. “One night and then you’re out of here, or we’ll run you out. Understand?”
“No problem. We weren’t planning to stick around more than one night anyway.” Harry didn’t appear to be too worried either. It went a long way to calming Abby’s galloping heart.
“So everything’s okay now?” Abby asked as she stepped into the dimly lit room, Harriet close behind her.
The moment she entered the room, Abby knew she’d made a mistake alerting the strangers to her presence. Someone grabbed her from behind, placing a knife against her throat. He stood fairly tall but not as tall as Thad. His arm appeared just as muscular, though. Why did she always mess up like this?
“Harriet!” Harry’s frantic voice jerked Abby’s head to the right where Harry had taken a step forward, only to stop when the man holding her turned his way.
“Don’t move.”
Harriet had already flung herself into her brother’s arms, who shoved her behind him just as quickly.
“Abby, are you okay?” Thad’s strained voice led her to locate his form in the darkness a few feet to the left and behind Harry.
“I’m fine. I’m sorry, Thad. I knew better, but we were worried about you guys.”
“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.” Thad held both hands out to his sides, palms out. “Let her go. We’ll walk away right now.”
“You lied to us. You said there was no one with you.” This came from the man holding Abby.
“Did you really think we would tell you that we had two women with us? Would you have trusted us enough to reveal if any women were with you? For all we know you have women hidden upstairs or in a basement.” Thad still sounded in control.
“Nope. You can’t trust anyone with women these days.” This came from the deeper-
voiced man to Abby’s far left.
“What are you doing with them out here? This is no man’s land. Nothing but criminals and bounty hunters live this far west.” The younger-sounding man relaxed the grip he had on her, but not enough that she could get away without getting her throat cut.
“Are the women with you voluntarily?” the deeper voice male asked. “Are you ladies being held against your will? Tell us and we’ll take you away from them.”
“No!” Harriet shouted, poking her head around her brother’s back. “This is my brother, and Thad and Abby are our friends.”
Abby spoke up to add her voice to their being happy with Thad and Harry. “We’re safe, really. We’re in good hands. You can let us go and we’ll find somewhere else to stay tonight.”
“Mack?” The man holding Abby couldn’t be more than twenty or so.
His voice sounded higher and his build seemed slight compared to the imposing figure to her left. Though she couldn’t see the other man all that clearly, the shadows gave him a much larger appearance with a broad chest and thick arms.
“Let her go, Brad,” the one called Mack told him.
Brad dropped the knife and stepped back. “I didn’t nick you, did I?”
Abby nearly collapsed with relief before turning around and shaking her head. “No. I’m fine.”
“Abby, over here, woman.” Thad held out his hand in her direction. He looked back in the direction of where Mack stood. “Thanks. We’ll leave right now.”
“No.” Both of the men spoke at the same time.
“You can stay here for the night. Upstairs in a real bed. There’re four bedrooms up there and they’re all clean and in good shape.” Mack leaned what appeared to be a shotgun between the wall and a chair. “The women deserve a nice place to sleep for a change, I’m sure.”
“We wouldn’t have hurt them. It startled me when she just suddenly appeared after you told us there were only the two of you.” This came from Brad.
