3rd Installment of "Barn Stormers"

In the morning she went to sleep and Dan kept watch. Zigzagging slowly back and forth across the barn through thin beams of dusty sunlight, knothole to knothole, alternating his route in case someone with a bow tried to get lucky.

He knew that eating the dead man’s leg was a good idea, but he was equally sure that Jill would sooner starve. So he had dropped it without argument. He wished there was still a loft in the barn, but it was gone, dismantled sometime after the plague— probably for firewood during the second winter, after the nation’s infrastructure had finally collapsed completely and things had really gone to hell.

If he could just get himself up high enough to see out the loft window he could probably pick the bastards off like ten-pins where many of them hid during the day in defilade just beyond the rise. He and Jill had tried stacking the hay bales on the first day, but they were about ten bails short, no matter what configuration they had tried. He’d been foolish to let them be cornered in a barn—foolish try crossing an open plain by day.

Something snapped up front and he whipped around, crouching low as an arrow arced through the wall and into the dirt floor.

Jill sat up and grabbed the shotgun. “What the fuck was that?”

“Harassment fire,” he said with a chuckle.

He went to the door and tried to see through the crack whether the bowman was still in sight, but they never were. He picked up the arrow and examined it. It was an aluminum shaft with a four-bladed razor head. The fletching had torn away as it ripped through the plank.

“Well, this is one less arrow to worry about.”

She got up and went to the east wall, shotgun in hand. “Think we should try the water again? See if we can keep one bladder full at all times?”

“It’s a risk,” he said. “They’ve probably come up with a plan by now.”

“Like what?” she said doubtfully. “We’d be back inside before they could fart.”

“Suppose William Tell out there dug himself a hole last night somewhere near the pump and he’s lying in wait?”

“When you suppose shit like that it makes me glad you’re in here and not out there.” She stood watching out. “I’d still like to try though. You can keep watch with the rifle and I’ll fill the bladder on my own.”

“How are you going to pump and hold the pack at the same time?”

“Here’s an idea,” she said. “What if we went to the pump and then suddenly broke for the house? There might be food inside.”

“How are we going to defend that great big house with all those windows? We can barely defend this barn. We don’t even know how many are in there. Just because we never see anyone come or go doesn’t mean it’s empty. They’re probably circling around below the rise and up hill to the back door.”

“I was thinking we’d kill whoever was inside. They obviously don’t have any guns. Maybe we’d even catch some of those bowmen asleep.”

“The devil himself could be in that house for all we know.”

“It beats starving to death,” she said. “Let’s hit’em at sundown.”

“High noon’s better. It’s hotter and they’ll be feeling lazy.”

“Better get some rest then,” she said. “I’ll stand watch.”

Dan made himself a nest in the hay and fell asleep in a very short time.

Jill kept a watch similar to his but made her rounds with a .45 pistol in her hand, keeping the shotgun slung over one shoulder. The past few months had been hard on their ammo supply. In fact, they’d fired more rounds in the past two months than they’d fired in the previous two years. The upside was that they could move faster now without having to lug so much ammo along, but once they ran out they were going to be in deep shit.

The group they had spent the last year with had finally made the decision to disband the month before. There had been twenty of them in the beginning but their numbers had dwindled to only six, and so they had paired off, divvied up the ammo and food and let out in three different directions, each couple convinced their own was the best bet.

Three days ago she and Dan had been caught in the open by a feral community and chased into the barn. The two of them had shot a bunch down on the run, but there were too many and they were too close to get them all before being overwhelmed, so they’d run into the barn and barred door, shooting a few more through the wall as they tried get inside.

This community had obviously found a means of growing some food, but there weren’t any live stock and meat was all too scarce since the plague had killed off so many species of mammals. Feral communities had begun to spring up over the past winter, after the last of the canned goods had been eaten up. Some of the more civilized communities bred chickens rather successfully and ate their eggs, but those communities were often raided by the more violent ones and murdered to the last man or woman, and the chickens were usually eaten straight away without any thought to their more practical value.

In a feral community you didn’t want to get sick or badly injured. You didn’t even want to risk becoming unpopular with your peers. If you did, you got devoured.

Dan awoke to her kicking his boot.

“What now?”

“That kid’s standing out there with his hands up,” she said. “Over by the well.”

Dan got dizzily to his feet in the heat and staggered to the east-side door, peeking out.

“He looks sick.”

“Shoot him.”

He looked at her then opened the door a crack, motioning the boy forward.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Be calm,” he said.

He let the boy into the barn and they stood looking at him. He was about fourteen and his clothes were filthy. His face was dirty and his eyes were sunk into their sockets. He was missing a tooth in front and his gums were bleeding.

“What do you want?” Dan asked, not unfriendly.

“Me and my little sister need some water,” the boy said.

“You can bring her to the well,” Dan said.

“She’s pretty sick.”

“Sick like you?”

The kid nodded.

“You’ve got scurvy,” Dan told him. “And it will kill you if you don’t do something about it. You and your sister get yourselves a good drink and then go out there in the field and start chewing on the alfalfa. Don’t eat it, just swallow the juice. It’s got vitamin C in it. Chew it reguarly, every day.”

“I’ve seen the others doing that,” the boy said. “I didn’t know why.”

“Where are your parents?”

“They died.”

“Then the others are probably just waiting for you and your sister to die too,” Dan said.

“Will you take us if you get away?”

“Do you know how we can get away?”

“Not right now,” the boy said shaking his head. “Wish I did.”

They questioned him about the community and found out there were still fifty people left, but that only thirty-five or so were healthy enough to chase after anyone. They also learned that a woman was in charge, a woman who claimed to be in touch with the All Mighty. A "hell buster" she apparently called herself. The kid told them she ate the hearts of the people they cooked because she claimed she could take their souls to heaven that way. He said she was about forty and that she slept with a number of the stronger men.

“She isn’t going to mind you coming in here and talking to us?” Dan asked.

The boy shook his head.

“She told me to. She said: ‘Go up and ask’em to let you get a drink.’ She said not to lie about nothin.”

“Who’s in the house?” Jill asked.

The boy looked at her. “The hunters.”

She and Dan exchanged glances.

“Are they asleep?”

“They’re ready for you all the time,” the boy said. “Miss Oaks says you two are the last of the devil’s breed. That people like you brought the plague.”

“Go on and get your sister,” Dan said. “But hear me… if either of you tries to take any water to the others, I’ll shoot you down. Understand?”

The boy left the barn to fetch his sister and they barred the door after him.

“That boy’s the enemy,” Jill said. “When you’re turning on the spit he’ll be standing around licking his chops.”

“Maybe so,” Dan said, taking a seat in the hay. “But he won’t be the one who killed me.”

They watched on a short time later as the boy and his sister came to the well. The boy pumped for his sister while she drank her fill and then she pumped for him. She looked about twelve, frail and dirty and very obviously suffering from rickets, her legs bent and spindly.

“You should do them both a favor and shoot them,” Jill said turning away.

“Here.” He offered her the M1.

“If I thought I could kill them both in just two shots, I would,” she said.

**********

“I still say we storm the place,” Jill said later. “They won’t be expecting it. The well’s almost half-way to the house anyway.”

“Are you forgetting how accurate that guy was? He dead-centered me on the run. The only reason I’m not dead is the steel ammo can in my ruck sack.”

“You keep telling me not to give up,” she said, “but all you plan for is to sit here and starve.”

“I’m waiting for them to make a mistake.”

“What mistake?” she demanded.

“This Oaks woman didn’t send that kid up here for water,” he said. “She sent him up to do some recon whether he knew it or not. She probably questioned him the second he got back—which means she’s going to think we’re worse off than we really are.”

“You must have a pack full of food I haven’t seen,” she said.

“I’ll tell you what I do have,” he said. He went to the corner and kicked away a bunch of hay to reveal a two dozen big ears of dried field corn.

Her eyes grew wide and she ran over and grabbed two of them up as if they were bars of gold. “When did you—?”

“Found them while you were asleep this morning,” he said. “I felt them under my feet when I came over here to piss.”

Using her thumb, Jill broke a number of kernels from the fat end of the ear and put them into her mouth, crunching them.

“Careful,” he said. “Don’t break to a tooth. Suck on them to soften them up. We’ll eat an ear or two a day… along with our rations… we’ll hold out.”

“As long we control the water,” she said.

“Which we’ll continue to do, no problem. And because of this corn, they’re water problem just became a lot more critical than our food problem.”