Quill didn’t like spending the night in abandoned houses. They were ill-maintained, and although all but the worst of them looked structurally sound, it was still unnerving to hear the creaks and groans of an old building. The worst part, though, was the feeling of invasion she got from standing on someone else’s property. Everything, from the living room to the bedroom to the sun-bleached kitchen, was a monument to someone else’s life, and if the dust and cobwebs didn’t tell a different story, those people might just walk through the front door and pick up where they’d paused. Their photographs would still be there to greet them: faded, but otherwise unchanged.

Still, as much as she hated them, the wilderness was far worse.

She’d run until she could run no farther, but it had to be far enough. Her flashlight’s beam flashed unsteadily as she panted, and Terrence stopped beside her. Aure kept on wailing. “What do we do now?” Terrence asked.

She put a hand up and tried to think. Her mind was scattered, and she was lost in the woods. Aure was screaming in her arms.

“Mom, are you okay?” Terrence asked again, his voice edged with panic.

No, she wasn’t, but her children still looked up to her. She needed to be there for them, but it was a tall order when she couldn’t even be there for herself. “I’m sorry, I just need…” What? A moment to think? A mature adult to talk to? Civilization to not be collapsing? Aurelien to stop screaming?

“Mom, should I—?”

“Could you shut up for a moment?!” she yelled at Aure. The little girl shrank back as though slapped, retreating into her mother’s arms because there was nowhere else to hide. A wave of guilt added itself to Quill’s already swimming head. “No, look honey, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s scary out here,” Aurelien whimpered. “I’m cold.”

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I know, honey.” Damn if she wasn’t cold and scared, too. But what would complaining do, aside from chip away at their fragile morale? “Hey, there’s no need to cry. We’ll figure this out.” She smiled for their sake as well as her own. “We’ve made it through some tough times. We’ll get through this.”

Aure nestled into her arms, trust coming easily to her. Terrence wasn’t convinced, but he wouldn’t break the illusion for his sister. “Do you think the bandits are back at the house?” he asked.

Quill pursed her lips. Almost certainly, the men would have stayed near the safety of the house and waited for the monster to finish snacking on their unfortunate companion. And if they hadn’t felt safe enough to start looting the place right then, they would surely return to finish what they had started. Whatever Quill had left behind wasn’t coming back. “We shouldn’t chance it,” she nodded.

“But what if we should?” He looked behind him and then back at Quill with a furtive eagerness in his eyes. She realized that he was still holding the gun. “They’re expecting us to run and hide, so what if we turned it around on them? They’d never see it coming.”

“And if they did, what do you think would happen to us?”

His expression fell. “Okay, fine, it was a dumb idea,” he sighed. “I just thought, I dunno, we could fight back for a change.”

“We’re not s’posed to fight,” Aurelien preached. “Fighting is bad.”

Quill patted her softly. “I wish we could,” she said, “but it’s just too dangerous. If something happened to you or me, who would take care of us? Imagine if something happened to Aure?” His look was bitter, but she knew she’d gotten through to him. She looked down at the gun. “Here, give that to me. It isn’t safe.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He looked up at her again. “But I know how to use it.”

“I know. I’m more worried about you knowing when.”

She could see how protectively he held it, how his fingers twitched across the metal. “I do,” he said suddenly. “I can help, Mom, really. I’m not a little kid anymore. I’ll only use it if we absolutely need to.” He straightened up, still barely passing her eye level. “Besides, you can’t use it if you’re carrying Aurelien. Let me help. Please.”

As much as she wanted to refuse, he’d brought up some valid points. “All right then,” she sighed. “But only until we find somewhere to spend the night.”

The excitement on his face was quickly replaced by a more mature solemness, making her feel much less uneasy about her decision. “I won’t let us down,” he nodded, and then he blinked. “How are we going to, um, find a place spend the night?”

It brought them back to their initial predicament. They had no tent, barely any light, and only a general idea of where the road was. At least the rain had stopped, although it had still left the ground a muddy mess. “We walk,” she said at last. “If we find the road and move parallel to it but not on it, we’ll have an idea of where we’re going without being seen. If we find any good places on the way, we’ll stop there.”

Terrence groaned. “When we make it to New Jericho, I’m going to quit walking for good. I’m just going to sit in a chair and have someone pull me around, and I won’t even care how dumb it looks. Whatever. Let’s go.”

They found the road and followed it at a distance.

Quill couldn’t help but feel cheated. Forests weren’t supposed to be scary. Her fellow humans had driven out the obvious predators, the bears and wolves, years ago, and what remained posed no danger to anyone but the very young. The dark shapes in the trees should have been owls and bats, and the noises in the undergrowth should have been come from small creatures either disinterested or afraid of them. But that was before the apocalypse. Now, anything could be out there.

The trees around them changed from pines to a deciduous species, and the small plants of the undergrowth became unmanaged grass. Here and there a fern or bush or alien plant would patch over the ground, as though the land was still figuring out how to be wild. A stone wall, broken by force rather than time, marked what was once the boundary of an orchard. Terrence looked at his mother quizzically and a wind brushed past them, chilling their drenched clothing. The clouds drifted by to reveal the moon, and Quill nodded.

They followed the wall. Around them, the pine forest fell back for cleared, flat land. A distant lake sparkled in the moonlight, all dark water and tranquility. The trees inside the wall grew close together, twisting around one another in a frightened huddle. They shied away from the wall, which helped Quill notice the equipment shed built next to it. Its door hung by one hinge, creaking miserably in the wind.

As Quill reached for the handle, Aure squeezed her shoulder. “I don’t want to go in there.”

“It’s going to be okay. Here,” she told her, surprised that her daughter was still awake. She set Aure down and the girl toddled over to her brother. Quill pressed down on the handle. It was rusted and so was the hinge, but with some protest, they moved again. Quill’s flashlight revealed what was inside.

At first, there was silence. The beam of light illuminated dark shapes that were connected to pairs, triplets, and scores of eyes. Then, collectively shaking off their disorientation, the creatures fled from the brightness and swarmed out of the shed, skittering and slithering and flying. An avian thing with a beak that opened vertically swooped down on Aure, who tripped and tumbled backward. Quill sprang to get between her and the monster, reaching them just in time to have her arm gashed instead of Aure’s. There was a gunshot behind her, and Quill froze. The monster had apparently seen enough encounters with humans to be conditioned to fear that sound, and it drew back, disappearing as quickly as it had arrived.

Terrence was holding the rifle like it might attack him next. He looked at his mother. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded stiffly, her arm bloody and stinging. Only Aure was still crying, and she focused on calming her down. Terrence was still watching the rifle uneasily. “Do you want me to take it?” Quill asked.

He lowered it and shook his head. “It’s okay.” His shakiness was disappearing, to be replaced with something unreadable. “It’s not even like I killed anything.”

He took a long look at the hard-won shack. Aure stuck by her side as Quill stood up with a grimace. “Does it hurt?” she asked in a small voice.

“It will get better,” Quill replied, avoiding the question. The wound didn’t seem that deep, but she had nothing clean to bandage it with. She had to remind herself that New Jericho was close. They would be able to deal with it, hopefully.

Until then, she would bear it, and rest if she could for the remainder of the night.