She glanced around the area and nodded. Everything was as ready as it would get. He stepped away from the window and moved to the trap door. “Let’s go, girl,” he grumbled, bending down against the protest in his knees. He passed the rifle down to Katie and swung his legs onto the ladder.
It took him much longer to get down into the cellar than it would have just a couple of years ago. His body was mostly healed from the damage that those two Cullen brothers had done when they shot him in the stomach, but sudden movements and certain twisting motions still sent a shock of pain through his gut that just about took his breath away. As he went down the ladder, he heard Sidney and Mark adjusting the chairs, and then the girl’s head appeared. “Good luck, guys. We’ll be back when the patrol is gone.” The little bit of light from above disappeared as they closed the trapdoor and pushed the final chair into position over the rug. He heard two pairs of boots scraping across the floorboards above as they rushed out the back door to their hiding spot in the shed out back.
Vern posted himself at the bottom of the ladder, accepting one of the suppressed M-4 rifles that someone handed to him in the darkness. He wrapped his palm around the pistol grip, then stretched his thumb upward, feeling for the selector switch. The weapon was currently on safe, and that’s how he’d keep it unless the patrol searching the house discovered the trapdoor.
His mind raced. Had they thought of everything? Was all evidence of recent habitation gone? Would the smell of the grilled chicken be gone by the time the patrol finally made it down the road to the house? Was the snow melted away enough out back that they wouldn’t see Sidney’s footprints? What if—
Vern’s blood chilled when he heard the hinges squeal in protest as someone opened the front door. He knew it wasn’t those poor, wretched infected. They couldn’t manipulate the round door handle on this old farmhouse. Humans were in the house above. He focused every bit of energy he could muster into his thumb on the selector switch and his finger alongside the trigger. If the chairs moved and the trapdoor opened, he’d begin firing right away.
A harsh, foreign voice drifted down from above. Vern had no idea what they said, but the intentions were clear, for as soon as the voice stopped, the sound of boots stomping along the wooden floorboard reverberated through the cellar. They were in the kitchen above and what sounded like the family room.
A whimper escaped the lips of one of Carmen’s children and Vern cursed the foreigners who’d invaded their space. He was a man of God. The Good Lord had seen fit to bless him with a new, extended family in this world and he’d protect them all until his dying breath. He didn’t know if them Army fellers were right, that the foreigners had caused the disease, but he did know that they were hunting his family, so that was all the justification he needed to despise their presence.
The sound of the boots took on a different rhythm as the invaders went up the stairs to search. Did they get everything? He’d been so careful to keep their stash of weapons hidden safely away from where they slept, but everyone had a few personal effects that they brought out at night. Was it enough?
Doors opened and shut as the searchers looked in closets and under cabinets. Time passed oddly in the darkness. Vern felt like the invaders had been there for hours, but in truth it was probably less than ten minutes. The harsh voice yelled out again, almost startling old Vern since the search had been conducted without any further instructions that he could hear.
The boots began to retreat toward the door and Vern allowed himself a moment of hope.
Then the baby started crying.
Shouts of dismay from above reached them. The boots pounded wildly on the floorboards until the same man barked an order. Almost instantly, everyone above stopped moving and then there was a soft thump. Vern knew that to be the sound of the man’s knees hitting the floorboards as he knelt to listen.
There was another rapid burst of a language that Vern would never understand, and then the table and chairs were shoved roughly away.
Time slowed as Vern took a step back to adjust his angle on the trapdoor’s opening. The M-4’s selector switch rotated from safe to semi-automatic. Baby Lincoln continued to cry, regardless of Carmen’s attempts to quiet him. This was it. The cellar was a good hiding place, but a terrible defensive position. One grenade through the hole and they were all done for.
Small lines of light appeared as the rug coving the trapdoor was thrown away. Vern adjusted his weapon’s aim and felt one of the girls shift beside him to do the same thing. They would all die beside him, trapped like rats in a hole.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled. “We’ll come out.”
“Grandpa, no!” one of his granddaughters shouted.
“It’s—”
Glass shattered and the sound of bullets impacting into the floorboards above them sent Vern scurrying away from the opening. Men screamed above as heavy bodies fell to the floor. The heavy, punching sounds of the soldiers’ AK-47 rifles rang through the air as they returned fire at…Sidney.
She was in the hidden loft of the shed with Mark, providing overwatch to the house. The girl must have seen what was happening and decided to stop the foreigners from discovering the family hiding below.
The baby wailed in response to the sounds of battle raging all around them. The other two little ’uns joined in. They were scared out of their minds.
Again, the voice
