Chapter 6: Hunger of Another Kind
The kitchen smelled of canned corn and desperation. Ellie and Nancy had transformed the center island into a command post of sorts. Soup cans stood in neat pyramids. Bags of rice and pasta were lined up like soldiers. Water filled every container we owned—mixing bowls, the good pitcher, even Nancy’s large ceramic salad bowl.
“Three weeks,” Ellie said without looking up. She was writing on the back of an envelope. “If we’re careful. Maybe a month.”
“That’s if the water holds,” Nancy added, her voice soft. She was staring at the overflowing pitcher. “And if nothing else happens.”
Mary and I entered, the smell of pine and something darker clinging to us. We didn’t need to say anything. Our faces told the story.
Ellie’s pen stopped. “That bad?”
“Worse,” I said. I went to the sink and scrubbed my hands, though there was no visible blood. The feel of the hammer connecting was etched into my palm. “It’s on the street. It’s at the door. We’re not waiting for a rescue.”
Mary went straight to the list. “We need to fortify. The bedroom barricade is temporary. The front door is a standard hollow-core. A determined push would break it. The ground-floor windows are single-pane. They’re vulnerabilities.”
“So we board them up,” I said, turning off the tap.
“With what?” Nancy asked. “We don’t have plywood.”
“The shed.” Ellie and I said it at the same time. We looked at each other. A flicker of the old synergy, the countless home projects we’d tackled together.
“The shed has the leftover flooring from the den,” I said, thinking aloud. “Some two-by-fours. My toolbox is out there. Nails, screws.”
“It’s thirty yards from the back door,” Mary stated. “Clear line of sight. But exposure is total.”
“We’ll be fast,” I said. “In and out. You cover me.”
“Cover you with what?” Ellie asked, a slight tremor in her voice. “My superior aim with geranium pots?”
A strained, quiet laugh escaped Nancy. It was a fragile sound, but it cut the tension for a second.
“You cover from here,” I said, moving to Ellie. I put my hands on her shoulders. “You and Nancy are our eyes. You watch the tree line, the street from the upstairs windows. You see anything moving our way, you shout. You don’t throw anything this time. You just yell.”
She searched my face, then nodded, swallowing hard. “Okay. We can do that.”
Nancy was already moving, heading for the stairs to take up a post. Mary and I went to the back door, a solid slab of oak with a small window at the top. I peered out. The backyard was empty. The shed door was closed. It looked peaceful.
“Ready?” I whispered.
Mary had armed herself with a long, heavy meat tenderizer from the kitchen drawer. It was absurd and terrifying. She nodded.
I unlocked the door and we slipped out.
The air outside was no longer clean. It carried a sour, coppery note from the direction of the street, mixed with the sweet decay of overripe blackberries from the hedge. We moved fast, hugging the side of the house before breaking into a low sprint across the open lawn.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Every shadow in the tree line seemed to pulse. I felt utterly exposed, a beetle on a plate.
We reached the shed. The padlock was cool in my hand. My key clicked, loud as a gunshot. We slid inside and I pulled the door shut behind us, leaving it open a crack for light.
The familiar scent of grass seed, motor oil, and damp wood wrapped around us. Sunlight sliced through the dusty window, illuminating dancing motes. My workbench was chaos—a half-fixed table lamp, jars of nails, my good hammer missing because it was currently stained and lying on my bedroom floor.
“Focus,” Mary whispered, already moving. She started pulling lengths of wood from the rack against the wall. The leftover oak flooring planks were solid, maybe three feet long each. Not perfect, but they’d cover windowpanes.
I grabbed a burlap sack and started raking jars of nails and screws into it. My hands were steady now. This was a problem with a tangible solution. Measure, cut, fasten. I could do this.
“Crowbar,” Mary said, hefting the forged steel bar. “For leverage, or as a weapon.”
“Take it.” I slung the heavy bag over my shoulder. “You grab those planks. I’ll get the two-by-fours.”
We were a well-practiced team, loading up in less than a minute. I allowed myself a sliver of hope. We could make this place safe. We could—
A thud against the shed door.
We froze.
Another thud. A slow, dragging scrape.
Through the crack in the door, I saw a denim-clad leg, shuffling past. It didn’t stop. It didn’t seem to have heard us. It was just… moving. Ambling through our backyard like a tourist in a hellish garden.
Mary’s eyes were wide on mine. We didn’t breathe. The thing’s shadow passed the crack. The dragging steps faded, moving toward the front of the house.
Toward where Ellie and Nancy were watching.
The weight of the lumber in my arms turned to lead. My logic screamed to stay put, to wait. My every instinct screamed to run.
Mary’s head tilted, listening. She held up one finger. Wait.
A moment later, Ellie’s voice came from an upstairs window, pitched low but clear. “Clear! It’s past the corner. Go now!”
We burst from the shed, our arms full of clattering wood, and ran for the back door. We didn’t look back. We stumbled inside, dropping our haul on the kitchen tile with a crash that sounded like victory and panic all at once.
Ellie and Nancy came thundering down the stairs. Ellie flew into my arms, her breath hot against my neck. “It just walked right by. It didn’t even look at the house.”
“It’s not smart,” Mary panted, leaning on the counter. “It’s stimulus and response. Auditory, visual. We were quiet. It had no stimulus.”
Nancy was looking at our pile. “So we build a fortress.”
“We build a fortress,” I confirmed, my heart still slamming.
But as I looked at the jagged planks of oak on my clean kitchen floor, I knew a harder truth. Fortresses aren’t built to be lived in forever. They’re built to be besieged. And the siege, it seemed, was already here. It was just taking its time, shuffling its dead feet through the petunias, waiting for us to make a mistake.