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  What the hell happened here?

  It was then he heard the whimper. Grant stood up and checked his gun. He eased back around the corner and into the kitchen. Faith stood beside Susie, whimpering and pawing the woman’s leg.

  Susie didn’t move. She held Grant’s shotgun in her hands and stared off into space like a wax figurine.

  The light from the lanterns cast the whole place in an artificial glow and Grant could almost believe it was a dream. He reached for Susie. She twitched at his touch.

  Her fingers stayed locked around the shotgun.

  “Susie? Susie it’s Grant. Can you hear me?”

  He pried first one finger and then another off the stock of the shotgun, finally dislodging it from her grip. Still, she didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Susie? Susie are you all right?”

  “Whoa.”

  Grant looked up.

  Dan stepped over the dead man on the floor and came to a stop in the kitchen. “What the hell happened?”

  Grant shook his head. “As far as I can tell, Susie saved everyone’s lives.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  LEAH

  Rose Valley Lane

  Smyrna, Georgia

  Tuesday, 1:00 a.m.

  “You should try and sleep.”

  “I can’t. What if I have a concussion but the symptoms don’t present until I’m asleep?”

  Grant reached out and took Leah’s hand. “I can wake you up.”

  She glanced at the stain on the floor where the dead man oozed blood all over. “I don’t think I could sleep even if I tried.”

  “Fair enough.” Grant leaned back and wiped his eyes.

  “But if you’re tired, you should try. I can keep watch until the morning.”

  “No. I’m too keyed up to sleep.”

  Leah sipped the instant hot chocolate her husband made on their portable stove after everyone else went to bed. It wasn’t as good as the real thing, but she didn’t mind. Something hot and sweet went a long way toward putting the events of the last few hours behind her.

  “You did a great job defending this place.”

  Leah snorted. “You mean Susie did. All I did was shoot a guy in the arm, start a turf war, forget the upstairs wasn’t secure, and almost get all of us killed.”

  She shook her head. “I even shot the guy who broke in and he acted like it was a pin prick.”

  Grant glanced at the kitchen counter where all the guns rested, waiting to be cleaned. “You use the rifle?”

  Leah nodded.

  “Close range?”

  “About five feet.”

  Her husband whistled. “That close and the round would be a through-and-through. I’ve seen guys get hit four or five times like that and keep coming. The bullet hole is too small and the round is traveling too fast to do serious damage that close.”

  Leah set her mug down with a clunk. “Now you tell me.”

  “I didn’t think you’d need to fire it inside.”

  “So we need more shotguns and pistols?”

  “Those would be a good start.” Grant scrubbed his face. “More of everything. A lot more.”

  Leah thought about everything that happened and how brave Susie, Oliver, and Dan had been. Thanks to each of them, no one in their little group was seriously injured.

  Oliver woke up not too long after she did. Apart from a bruise around his neck and a few from where he fell, he was fine. Susie on the other hand…

  Leah had to give her a sedative and tuck her into bed. She hoped in the morning, the woman would be back to her old self. Dan had volunteered to share the guest room and sleep on the floor in case she woke up and didn’t know where she was.

  It was all so surreal. She glanced at her husband. “Are you sure everyone who showed up in that truck is gone?”

  “Either dead or missing. Dan and I counted four strangers dead. All of Greg’s guys ran off. That’s eight, nine if you count Greg.”

  Leah tallied the numbers in her head. “Assuming only four of Greg’s goons were out there, that leaves two missing.”

  Grant nodded. “The man with the wound in his arm and one of his guys.”

  “Should I ask what you did with the bodies?”

  “Better if you don’t.”

  Leah nodded. “What about the truck?”

  “It’s as safe as it can be in Dan’s garage and I’ve got the keys.” Grant patted his pants pocket. “Assuming it’s still there in the morning, we can load it up with all the gear and pick the best car to go with it.”

  “What about the motorcycle?”

  Grant leaned back and blew out a puff of air. “We had to leave it at the car lot. A couple of teenagers are probably still trying to drive it home if they haven’t wiped out in a ditch.”

  Leah stared at her husband. What more had the man been through that he hadn’t explained? She sipped her hot chocolate. “I take it they weren’t friendly?”

  “Not exactly. But it worked out in the end.”

  Grant didn’t elaborate and Leah didn’t push. Whatever happened at the dealership didn’t matter as long as Grant and Dan made it out of there without getting hurt.

  She stifled a yawn and Grant poked her in the shoulder. “Go upstairs and lie down. You should at least try to sleep.”

  “I need to stay awake.”

  Grant smiled. “For the concussion, I know. But you can’t fool me, Nurse Walton. I remember when you explained that the new guidelines are to let concussion patients sleep.”

  “But that’s only if there’s access to brain imaging software. We don’t exactly have that here.”

  “No, but between me and you, we can assess the signs. Besides, there’s only a few hours of night left. You’ll be awake again before it’s an issue.” Grant leaned forward and kissed Leah on the cheek. “Get some sleep.”

  Leah eased the chair back with a frown. She didn’t like leaving Grant all alone. As she stood up, a little white fluff ball trotted up and hopped up into the chair. Faith spun around and made herself comfortable in the seat Leah just left.

  She smiled. That dog was something else. With one last kiss from Grant, Leah dragged her weary body upstairs.

  7:00 a.m.

  Sunlight streamed through the open window as Leah gulped down another dose of Fish Mox. The stitched-up gash on her head barely swelled above her scalp and almost no redness remained. All traces of the infection were gone.

  She wished she could say the same for the purpling bruise now spreading across the top of her cheek and up her eye socket. It hurt to touch any part of the left side of her face. The man Susie killed packed a massive punch.

  Thank goodness he wasn’t a problem anymore.

  With one final look at her injuries, Leah left the bathroom. In an hour or so, they would be leaving her home behind, most likely for good. She looked at all the photos on the wall of the master bedroom. Grant on the beach in Florida, Leah covered in mud from a 3k race up north the year before. The pair of them on their wedding day.

  Leah pulled down a handful of her favorite pictures, including one of her sister when she was only fourteen. She pulled the backs off the frames and slid the photos out. Just because she couldn’t stay didn’t mean she had to leave all the memories behind.

  She pulled one of her favorite books off the shelf and tucked the photos inside. Faulkner could keep her family warm between his pages. After tucking the book into a duffle bag, Leah hurried down the stairs.

  Everyone else was already awake and moving. Oliver shoved bits of electronic equipment into an oversized suitcase in the living room. Grant and Dan struggled with a tarp in the front yard.

  Susie sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in her hands. She nodded at Leah as she came down, but didn’t say anything.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “If you want to talk about last night—”

  “I don’t.”

  Leah almost winced. She couldn’t imagine what Susie
was going through, but she wished she could help. “Thank you. If it weren’t for you—”

  Susie held up a hand. “I don’t want—”

  “I get it. I’ll leave you be.” Leah turned and walked out the front door and into the morning air. A handful of neighbors stood on their porches, watching Leah’s makeshift family work.

  It might as well have been the start of a circus tent show.

  She added her bag to the stack in the back of the pickup and rushed to help her husband. “Sorry it took me so long to get ready.”

  “You needed the sleep. How’s your head?”

  “Fine. My face took a beating, though.”

  Grant glanced up at her and winced. “Nice shiner.”

  “Thanks.”

  Leah grabbed one corner of the tarp and used a zip tie to secure it to a hook on the lip of the truck bed. “Will everything fit?”

  “Between the truck and the Buick, we should be fine.” Dan grunted as he secured another corner of the tarp.

  “How’s the arm?”

  Dan glanced down at the bandage. “Fine. Hurts when I bump it, that’s all.”

  “We should change the bandage tonight.”

  Dan nodded at Leah before getting back to work. Tension laced their little group and Leah shared in the unease. Leaving meant venturing off into the unknown, but staying was even worse.

  After Greg’s death, they could never trust anyone in the neighborhood. Someone would blame them. If it wasn’t Jennifer and her sons, it could be Logan or any of the men who ran off the night before.

  As Grant finished with the tarp, Will Greene, the neighborhood leader, walked up the road. He held up a hand. No one waved back.

  “Looks like you all are leaving. Is that so?”

  Grant rested a hand on the tarp. “I don’t think we’re welcome here anymore.”

  Will tried to smile. “We may have started off on the wrong foot, but that’s no reason to run off.”

  Grant’s jaw ticked and Leah wished they were on the same side of the truck. She spoke up. “Greg tried to break into our house. He had a group of thugs with him, ready to do us harm. If it weren’t for those men who showed up, he’d have broken in.”

  Will rubbed at his chin as he focused on the sidewalk. “From what I’ve heard, you did a fine job of defending us.”

  Grant almost spit. “We weren’t defending you. We were defending ourselves.”

  “Regardless, you saved us all a bunch of trouble.”

  Leah looked past Will to Greg’s house. The shades were open and she could see two faces peering out at the street: David and Preston. Leah felt a pang of regret.

  Greg’s sons were without a father. And for what?

  She cleared her throat. “What is it you want, Will?”

  “I’m here to offer an olive branch of sorts.”

  “What for?”

  “I was hoping you would reconsider leaving.”

  Leah shook her head. “Yesterday, you were willing to let Greg walk all over us. Take our things. Threaten us.” She pointed at the burned-out shell of the truck she drove from Hampton. “He could have killed us all.”

  A tight smile creased Will’s face. “With Greg gone, we need someone to defend us.”

  Dan snorted. “Then you better start going door-to-door because it sure as hell won’t be us.” He turned to Grant. “You ready?”

  “Just about.”

  Grant turned and strode back inside. A few moments later, he reappeared with Oliver, Susie, and Faith in tow. He held up the keys. “Buick or Tacoma?”

  Dan pointed. “Buick all the way. Those worn-out seats are like a hammock for my back.”

  Grant opened the door to the truck and Faith hopped in. Leah climbed in after. Within minutes, Susie and Oliver had claimed seats in the champagne-colored sedan and Dan had cranked the engine.

  They were ready to go. Leah looked back at the house she expected to raise a family in and snuffed back unwanted tears. Grant reached for her hand. “It’s the right thing.”

  She nodded, but didn’t trust her voice enough to speak.

  Grant cranked the engine and rolled down the window. He motioned at Will. “Good luck with your confiscation plan. You’re gonna need it.”

  He tapped the hood and accelerated. Dan, Susie, and Oliver floated behind in the Buick, and together, the two vehicles left the neighborhood behind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  GRANT

  Foothills Motel

  Marietta, Georgia

  Tuesday, 4:00 p.m.

  Smoke wafted past the hood of the Buick and Dan waved his hand in the air. He slowed and the left turn signal lit up on the bumper.

  Grant glanced at the time. It had taken hours just to make it to Marietta thanks to thousands of stalled cars, looted storefronts, and the occasional run-in with desperate people. At almost ten days post-EMP and nine post-nuclear bomb, the Atlanta metro area was turning desperate.

  Once they finished at the university, Grant vowed to stick to small roads and smaller towns and away from anything that could bring mobs. He was over that kind of trouble.

  With their meager progress, it would take another full day at least to reach Kennesaw State, maybe two if the car kept overheating. He glanced at the gas gauge of the truck as he followed Dan into the parking lot of a budget motel.

  Less than a quarter tank left. They would need gas before heading out as well. Dan parked the car in a secluded spot around the rear of the two-story building and Grant parked alongside him.

  Everyone piled out onto the cracked pavement and Dan pointed at the car’s engine. “It’s shot. The temperature gauge hits the red within twenty minutes of driving. We push her any farther and we’ll have to pile on top of the gear in the back of the truck.”

  Grant nodded. “The truck’s almost out of gas. We passed a dealership a ways back. We can get everything stowed here and head back there to siphon some gas.”

  Leah stared at the truck with a grimace. “How about we find a storage rental place and just pull in? That way we don’t have to unload.”

  “Last time I checked, storage places don’t have showers.” Oliver peered in the window of the restaurant attached to the motel. “Or a full bar.”

  Dan perked up. “Looked like I picked the right spot after all.”

  Grant motioned toward the row of rooms stretching off to the right. “Let’s check them. Once we know it’s clear, we can pick a few, unload, and relax.”

  Heading straight for the lobby, Grant wasted no time. He found a broken patch of concrete, picked it up and chucked it at the lower corner of the door. The glass shattered, falling in a sheet of pebbled pieces to the ground.

  He stepped over the glass and behind the counter. A rack of keys, each labeled with a room number, hung on the far wall. Grant grabbed the entire thing and brought it back outside. “Everyone take eight. We can clear it faster if we split up.”

  “What if someone’s here?” Leah picked out eight keys and held them in her hand. “Should we just shut the door?”

  “Yell housekeeping and knock. Even after everything that’s happened, people fall back on the predictable. If someone’s inside, apologize and say you’ll come back later.”

  “And if we run into trouble?”

  Grant glanced around. The chances of that were slim. From everything he’d seen on the front and the back, the motel sat empty and alone. But he offered a suggestion. “Scream. No one will be very far away.”

  Everyone set off to clear their rooms. Grant’s were located the farthest away on the front side of the motel. It was one of those two-story places with doors to the open-air hallways running the length of the building. With ten rooms on each side on each floor, they had forty rooms to clear.

  He started with the room on the second floor closest to the end. “Housekeeping.” Grant banged on the door and waited for a count of three before unlocking it. The room sat empty with a patterned bedspread from the eighties on the bed, threadbare carpet
on the floor, and an even older bistro table and chairs.

  No one lurked inside.

  Grant closed and locked the door and moved on to the next, repeating the same knock and announce routine at each room until his eight were completed. He waved at Susie as she finished her last room upstairs. “Anything?”

  She swallowed and spoke for the first time in hours. “No. I don’t think some of these rooms have been opened in years.”

  He smiled. “You doing okay?”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and nodded. “I’m a little better. It’ll take a while to shake it off, though.”

  They headed down the stairs together and found everyone else waiting by the lobby.

  “Anyone see anything?”

  Oliver spoke up. “One room had some luggage in it, but I think it was abandoned.”

  “Mine were empty.” Leah handed her pile of keys to Grant.

  Dan nodded. “Mine, too.”

  “I say we pick a few rooms down here on the first floor and unload the truck. Then we can poke around the restaurant and see if there’s anything to eat.”

  “Who needs something to eat when there’s whiskey?” Dan patted Grant on the back and headed toward the truck.

  Two hours later, the sun cast a deep orange glow on the bar’s windows and Grant eased into a booth. “The good news is there’s an industrial-sized can of peach pie filling in the kitchen.”

  Dan glanced up from his half-empty glass of whiskey. “What’s the bad news?”

  “There’s not much else.” Grant raked a hand over his face. The last few days were beginning to take their toll. Lack of food. Lack of sleep. Shooting people in the street and dragging their bodies to his dead neighbor’s house…

  It all added up.

  Dan shoved the bottle over. “Have a drink. It’ll take your mind off it.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Not much. Makes me angry.”

  Dan nodded like he’d been there. “Used to be an angry drunk myself.”

  “What changed?”

  “My wife died.”