“You see anything?” Bart asked Drew. Bart was rubbing his forehead where the door had hit him earlier. Drew jogged over to where they were all gathered now at the foot of the stairs.
“There’s some people going in and out of the garage.” Drew said.
“Probably saw us putting supplies in the cars earlier today. That was a dumb mistake.” Bart muttered.
“What do we do?” Yue asked. Her eyes were wide open. She was white knuckle gripping her pistol with both hands.
“I’m not sure I’m ready to shoot a bunch of people for stealing our excess canned goods.” Bart said.
“We can just shoot near them like you did the guy in the truck.” Yue said.
“What guy in the truck?” Drew asked. Since they hadn’t told Nancy about the incident in the parking lot, they hadn’t mentioned it to Drew either. The less people who knew the better. They ignored his questioning look for the time being which just made him all the more curious.
“That was a choice I made. If you kids are in a situation where you need to use your weapons, I want you to always shoot to kill. You got it?” They all nodded as Bart made eye contact with each of them in turn.
“What if they mess up the cars?” LeBron said. It was a valid point. Without those vehicles they’d need to walk to any shelter if they decided they wanted to get to one. Based on current events Nancy already had a pretty strong argument for them to head out. Now that looters were breaking into their house, she’d be extra motivated to load up the cars and make a run for the closest shelter. Bart sighed and turned around to go towards the front of the house. He told them all to wait there except for Yue.
Bart and Yue padded back to the side of the house by the retention pond leaving Drew and LeBron guarding the back door. Bart ducked into his bedroom and came out with an AR-15. Nancy also came out with him. She was carrying a shot gun. It was her preferred weapon since it didn’t require much in the way of aiming to get the job done. She’d been keeping watch out the windows and checking the video from the doorbell camera while they’d been by the garage door. She let Bart know the coast was clear on this side.
“Shut and lock the door behind me. Nobody gets back in except me. Shoot anybody else. You got it?” Bart said. Nancy tried telling him not to go. He shrugged her off with a quick kiss and disappeared out the door. Yue pulled it shut and locked it behind him. A few seconds later the sounds of the AR-15 being fired erupted outside of the house. There were about ten shots in all then Bart reappeared waving at the doorbell camera to be let back in.
Once in the house he jogged to the door leading to the garage and flung it open. He moved smoothly out the door. The barrel of his rifle moving from left to right as he advanced on the garage. Drew and LeBron stood back from the open front door with their pistols pointed at the opening. A flurry of gunshots sounded from inside the garage. Bart came back out the garage door. He nodded at his boys then ducked quickly around the side of the garage where he took a few more shots at whoever had just run out of the other side of the garage.
After a few minutes of silence Bart walked back into the garage to hit the button to lower the garage door. The sound of the garage door lowering was way too loud in the crisp stillness of the night. The acrid smell of gun smoke drifted on the breeze. Bart took a few pictures on his phone. The group text he sent out showed the windows to the Traverse all busted out. The supplies they’d loaded into the SUV were mostly missing. Same with the supplies in the back of Drew’s truck. At least they hadn’t bothered breaking his windows.
“Well that sucks.” Bart said once he was back in the house. He reactivated the alarm code and they all gathered into the kitchen for an impromptu family meeting. As anticipated Nancy saw this as the catalyst to pack up and drive to a shelter immediately.
“Are you seriously still thinking we’re safer here on our own?” Nancy argued. She’d fearfully leapt out of her bed at the sound of the burglar alarm. Before she’d had time to rub the sleep out of her eyes her husband had gone out the door to play Rambo. As far as she was concerned it was time to go. When people start breaking into your garage to steal food in the middle of the night that’s a pretty good indicator that the neighborhood’s gone to hell.
“We’ve been stupid. We shouldn’t have been so obvious about moving the supplies out into the garage. We should start standing watches. We can drill some holes through the wood so we can see out. We’re probably ok for tonight. I say we set the watch and go back to sleep.” Bart said.
“Then
