"No, we heard it. When you're around firearms for a living, you get to recognize the sounds. Something's going down in our neighborhood, guys."
“I don’t like this, mom…” Amber whispered.
Cami stood still for a moment, feeling the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "Guys," she said slowly, her voice barely audible. "Everybody back inside—right now. Move slow, don't talk—” Cami said, putting a hand on Amber's back and gently nudging her toward the door. "Mitchell, be careful with that door. Inside…now," she said, insistent.
All three of them padded silent as ghosts to the screen door, and Mitch carefully pulled it back just far enough for them to slip through, then gently closed it behind him. The rusted hinge squeaked only at the very last second, and barely loud enough to be heard across the room.
Cami added to her mental list that they should oil the hinge first thing in the morning. She slid the locking bar down, knowing that anyone who wanted to could just walk right through the screen, but it made her feel better. Besides, she reasoned, most crooks would simply try to open the door first, in which case it would rattle, giving away their intentions and alerting anyone inside. At any rate, it was the best they were going to do in the middle of the night, in the dark.
"What exactly is going on?" asked Mitch.
Amber reached up and put her hand over Mitch's mouth. "Listen—you hear any bugs out there? Any owls or anything?"
Mitch shook his head, his eyes white in the reflected moonlight.
"Exactly. They're still spooked after the gunshots," Cami whispered, "or someone's out there. I don't like this."
"What can we do?" asked Amber in a whisper as they reached the kitchen. It was the central hub of the house, but with three openings, one down the hallway toward the front door and the living spaces in the front of the house, one to the glass door to the patio, and one hallway leading to the garage. The kitchen would be hard to defend.
Cami clenched her jaw in frustration. She’d never been able to convince Reese that they should have had a tornado shelter or a panic room built into their copious garage space. Now, more than ever, she was regretting not convincing him of the worthiness of that particular project.
"You guys get upstairs to the FROG.”
"What? It's stifling upstairs!" Amber protested.
"This is not open for debate," Cami said, sharper than she'd meant. "We didn't open the windows behind the media center. Have Mitch help you pull that beast away from the wall, and you can get two more windows open. They face north, so at least some of the breeze out of the west should work its way in.”
"But—” Amber began.
"You promised to do what I say, when I say it," Cami insisted. "It's the safest room in the house—there's only one way in and one way out. Plus, we can escape out the hobbit hole if we need to."
"You think somebody's gonna try and break in?" asked Mitch.
"I don't know—but I don't like this. You two get upstairs, I'm getting the shotgun and I'll meet you there."
"Oh, snap," Mitch muttered. “It’s gettin’ real now.”
Amber grabbed his arm and shoved him toward the stairs in the foyer. “Come on, let’s go.”
"I'll be right there," Cami hissed. She raced barefoot down the hall into her own room, then rushed to the closet. She put her hand on the biometric battery-powered scanner attached to the front of the safe, and the combination lock lit up green to show she'd gained access. Cami cursed, kicked her foot out and nudged the closet door shut, trapping the bright light from the safe inside the closet. If anyone had been outside the house casing the place, they would've seen a flash of light emanate from her bedroom window.
"Stupid," Cami muttered at herself as she rummaged through the safe, blinking her eyes to adjust to the LED lights Reese had installed to illuminate the interior. She selected Reese's short barreled shotgun and a box of self defense shells. Looking for a bag, she found a satchel hanging from a hook, magnetically attached to the side of the safe, and dropped in the shells.
She slipped the pistol into the satchel as well, along with a couple more loaded mags, then shut the safe and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness again. Feeling her way through the house with the shotgun in her hands and a satchel full of ammunition over her shoulder, Cami felt safer, but not secure. Passing by windows on her way to the stairs in the foyer, she didn't hear any crickets or creatures in the night yet. Something still had mother nature spooked.
By the time Cami made it up the stairs and down the short open hallway toward the FROG, her heart was racing and sweat slicked her hands and the back of her neck. Amber was right. The heat upstairs was almost intolerable.
When she crossed the threshold into the FROG, she felt the cooler air through the open windows and smiled. Mitch and Amber had pulled the media cabinets away from the unused windows and cracked them open to allow the hot air trapped in that end of the house to escape. Cami took off the satchel and dropped it on the floor near the door, resting the shotgun in the corner and immediately shut and locked the door.
She moved over to the windows, peered through the filthy, dust-caked louvers, and watched. Seeing no movement for several minutes, she cautiously grabbed the bottom of one sliding window frame and pulled up. The rusted tracks, caked with dirt and dust after more than a decade of neglect, squealed in protest and Cami froze.
"Mom!" Amber hissed from somewhere in the darkened room. “We already tried
