Hannah protested, but her uncle, a former military man, insisted. “People who’ve been traumatized can do crazy things, girl.”

Uncle Fred wheeled his wheelchair into the bedroom, his paralyzed legs a gift from the time he’d served overseas. He returned with a lock box and opened it to reveal a gleaming black revolver.

Hannah knew how to use a gun. Her father had taught both his daughters young, saying the best way to respect firearms was to know how to use them and see firsthand what they could do. She stuffed the gun in the glove box of her SUV and drove to Brody’s house.

Heart hammering, she knocked on the front door and waited for an answer. When none came, she entered. Minutes later, she raced from the house and fell to her knees in the long grass.

She’d arrived too late.

She told her uncle of what she’d found, the tears rolling down her face as she dealt with yet more horror. One that could have been prevented.

Her frequent trips to town yielded no more sightings of people. She brought back food and filled gas cans with fuel, thanking the gods that the pumps hadn’t been converted to the newer electric ones. She picked up spark plugs for the generator along with kerosene lamps and all the full propane tanks she could find for their camp stove. The list of supplies she and her uncle thought of boggled the mind, but fear of what the winter might bring made them want to be safe rather than sorry. While they stored the food in the house, cellar, and every empty room they could spare, fuels and gases were stored in an old weathered barn at the far end of the property. Even then, she kept a wary eye on it, expecting it to spontaneously combust in a huge ball of flames.

Tiny flakes of snow began drifting down the first week of November. By December, the roads were impassable, and they huddled in, their wood stove pumping out the heat, keeping them from freezing. Cooking became the chore no one wanted. To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning, they had to shut the door that led from the kitchen to the rest of the house and open the kitchen window and outside door. Talk about freaking cold. They often made do with canned soup warmed on the wood stove.