Free Devil’s Wake by Steven Barnes, Tananarive Due Page A

she’d barely had time to know. And if anything happened to him… The idea made Kendra’s chest seize up, stanching her breath.
    She couldn’t let herself think about being alone, or she might suffocate.
    “That six-point we brought down will bring a good haul at Mike’s. We’ll trade jerky for gas. Don’t like to be low on gas,” Grandpa said. His foot slid a little on the braided rug as he turned to leave the room, and Kendra thought she heard him hiss with pain. “Maybe we can find that Coke for you. Whaddya say, Little Soldier?”
    Kendra couldn’t make any words come out of her mouth this time, but at least she was smiling, and smiling felt good. For once, they had something to smile about. Three days ago, a buck had come to drink from the creek. Through the kitchen window, Kendra had seen something move in the brush—antlers, it turned out—and Grandpa Joe grabbed his rifle when Kendra motioned. Before the shot exploded, Kendra had seen the buck look up, and Kendra thought, It knows. The buck’s black eyes reminded her of Dad’s when he had listened to the news on the radio in the basement, hunched over the desk with a headset. Trapped.
    Dad and Mom would be surprised at how good Kendra was with a rifle now. She could center punch an empty SPAM can from twenty yards. She’d played with shooting on Left 4 Dead and Call of Duty, but Grandpa Joe had taught her how to shoot for real, a little every day. Grandpa Joe had a room full of guns and ammunition—the back shed he kept locked—so they never ran low on bullets.
    Kendra supposed she would have to shoot a deer one day soon. Or an elk. Or something else. The time would come, Grandpa Joe said, when she would have to squeeze that trigger whether she wanted to or not. You may have to kill to survive, Kendra, he said. You’re sixteen, a grown woman, so you need to be sure you can protect yourself.
    Before the Bad Times, Grandpa Joe used to ask Mom and Dad if he could teach Kendra how to hunt during summer vacation, and they’d said no. Dad didn’t like Grandpa Joe much, maybe because Grandpa Joe always said what he thought, and he was Mom’s father, not his.And Mom didn’t go much easier on him, always telling Grandpa Joe no, no matter what he asked. No, you can’t keep her longer than a couple of weeks in the summer. No, you can’t teach her how to shoot. No, you can’t take her hunting. Now there was no one to say no . No one except Grandpa Joe, unless somehow Mom had survived. And somehow came for her. It was possible. Almost anything could happen, in a world like this had become. Anything…
    The tears were coming. She had to change her thoughts, or curl up and cry.
    Show me your math homework, Kendra.
    By the time Kendra dressed, Grandpa was outside loading the truck, a beat-up navy blue Chevy with so many scratches it looked like it had lost a fight with a tractor. Kendra heard a thud as he dropped a large sack of wrapped deer jerky in the truck bed. Grandpa Joe had taught her how to mix up the secret jerky recipe he hadn’t even given Mom: soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, fresh garlic cloves, dried pepper, onion powder, a pinch of wasabi. He’d made sure Kendra was paying attention while strips of deer meat soaked in that tangy mess for two days, and then spent twelve hours in the slow-cook oven. Grandpa Joe had also made her watch as he cut the deer open and its guts flopped to the ground, all gray and glistening. Watch, girl. Don’t turn away. Don’t be scared to look at something for what it is.
    Grandpa Joe’s deer jerky was almost as good as the lumberjack breakfast, and Kendra’s mouth used to water for it. Not anymore. His jerky loaded, Grandpa Joe leaned against the truck, lighting a brown cigarette. Kendra was sure that smoking wasn’t a good idea for an old man who spent a half hour hacking up his lungs every morning.
    “Ready?”
    Kendra nodded. Her hands shook a little every time she got in the truck, so she hid them in