“Nathan, the guy’s clearly in shock,” Jay started, but Micah turned his head toward him with a sharp look, and he shut his mouth.
“Yeah,Nathan, I’m in shock. Help me out. Don’t leave me alone here to die.” The man coughed, and I saw Calix flinch. “Man, youknowhow it is out here. Bein’ alone will just get me killed.”
“Not my problem.” Nathan’s jaw tightened, and he cocked his pistol.
“You have two choices,” Micah said, his shoulders tense. “Get lost or get a bullet in your skull.”
The guy had a gun pointed at his head, blood all over him, and yet he didn’t act scared at all. It looked like he’d been beat up. His eyes were swollen, and he had cuts all over him. It made my skin crawl. Somethingwasoff with him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
His lip curled into a snarl, and he spat on the ground next to Belle, and she huffed at him, swishing her tail in warning. “You’re signin’ my death sentence. Fuck you all.” He glared at Nathan before slowly stepping to the side and walking back behind us.
Nathan turned, keeping the gun pointed at him until he was a good distance away, and then he uncocked the gun and put it inhis holster. The horses started to trot again, and I glanced back to see the man staring at us with a glint of something dark in his eyes.
The dread didn’t let up as we left him behind.
“Why didn’t we take him in?” Spencer asked timidly.
“Yeah. That was fucked up, man,” Jay agreed.
“I don’t know. The guy looked weird.” Daisy scrunched her nose, and for once, I agreed with her.
“Just because someone looks weird doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be helped,” Mom muttered.
“Not at the risk of our family,” Dad stated, and the group fell silent. “Something was off about that guy.”
“He looked familiar,” Nathan stated in a dangerously low tone. “The ticks he was doing suggested he had bad intentions. Body language doesn’t lie.”
“Familiar how?” Daisy asked.
“The only sketchy people I’ve come in contact with like that were the ones who raided and forced Dad, Sally, and me from our homestead.”
A chill ran down my spine as we continued on. Nobody brought the man who had stopped us up again, and I wanted to leave him behind us both literally and metaphorically.
But with the icky feeling in my veins, I didn’t know if that would happen so easily.
We finally broke through the forest and into our pasture, and my stomach lurched.
The pasture had blood frozen over the ground, and the further we made it toward the house, the weight on my chest became heavier.
Nobody spoke a word as we approached, and even the horses didn’t carry on with any antics.
The white paint siding was coated in bloodied hand prints and splatters. Grief washed over me, and it was so tangible Icould feel my family’s grief mirror my own. It was clear to me that our home that was once a safety bubble from the apocalypse had fallen into a disaster.
Windows were broken on the bottom floors, and the doors were banged open, even though we’d locked them before. Bones and flesh chunks were all over, and my stomach churned at the sight as we got off our horses.
The barn’s door was wide open, and another wave of mourning slammed into me—but the coop looked to be locked up as tightly as we’d left it.
My feet were moving before my mind realized where I was headed. I gripped my golf club tightly. The crunching sound of frozen body parts were all I could hear as I ran to the barn. Spencer was beside me as we threw open the other door, and relief and confusion warred within me as we took in the state of the barn.
The cows mooed, and our bull, Blaze, paced restlessly in his stall. His hooves pounded against the hard dirt floor, and his nostrils flared. Blazeneveracted so aggressively, and his gaze was locked on the cow laying in the dirt.
The stall door was open, and she had blood pooling around her head.
My gaze widened, and the dread that hung overhead hit me like a ton of bricks. Calix grabbed my arm to pull me back as Micah rushed toward the cow. His brows furrowed as he glanced up.
“The cow was shot in the head, and it’s still warm.”
Blaze let out a deafening roar and charged the stall door, but it didn’t budge. It was only then that I realized he wasn’t staring at the dead cow anymore. He was staring behind us.
