Free Walking in the Rain (Book 4): Dark Sky Thunder by William Allen

last time I’d been by while hiking, I noticed the roof was getting the swaybacked look that threatened rotten timbers.
    “I’ll go with you,” I said.
    “You are still recovering from your wound, and besides, you’re not that stealthy in the woods. I know, because I’ve tried to train you, remember?”
    “I’m better now.”
    Dad gave me that disbelieving look he used when I said my room was clean or that I’d already finished my chores when clearly I hadn’t. “Better how? Your gut, or your two left feet in the woods?”
    I almost laughed at that. I might not have been ninja-like in the dark before, but I wasn’t herd-of-elephants bad, either. “Both. Remember, I survived by being small and quiet and sticking to the woods as much as possible. I’m almost two weeks past the surgery, and besides, that pain makes me go slower. Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. You taught me that.”
    Dad nodded. Not agreeing, but in a way that made me think he was taking it under advisement. “All right. But you know that saying is bullshit. Slow is slow. Period. Smooth is fast. Anyway, we also need to get with Buddy and Ronnie and see what Gaddis has gotten up to in the last week or so.”
    “So you’ve been keeping up with them?”
    “Yeah. I check in every week or so with our nearest neighbors. I helped where I could and offered advice. We were too shorthanded here to do more than that. To tell the truth, since Pop…was killed, we’ve been staying close to home. We need to remedy that now. Sounds like we may need all the friends we can get.”
    “Strength in numbers,” I said in agreement. Buddy Farrell was an old dairy farmer, finally driven out of business by the huge corporate farms and a spike in feed prices. Being thrifty, he managed to hold on to his acreage and switched to raising hay instead. I’d helped out over there a few times and remembered they had a couple dozen chickens and some hogs.
    “Especially since Buddy’s family has been gathering at their place. Last time I checked, he’s got all his boys back but one. His oldest, Lee, was still missing.”
    “Where was he?”
    “Out in Odessa,” Dad intoned, like he was saying the man was trapped on the moon. “He was working at one of the refineries out that way.”
    I did the math in my head. Had to be five hundred miles or more. I liked Lee and silently wished him well as we moved on to discuss the status of our other neighbors. As I learned, he and Billy had made contact with the Farrells, our nearest neighbors to the south, and Mr. Gaddis Williams, our neighbor to the north side. Unlike the Farrells, Mr. Williams was all alone on his property and had taken extreme measures to ensure his safety.
    “He looted his own house?” I asked, surprised but not greatly by this revelation. Mr. Williams was a wily old fellow, a blacksmith and welder who ran a small repair shop in town as well as taking on some small farm equipment projects out at his place.
    “Yep. After the second time his place got hit by a gang of looters, he decided he couldn’t keep burying that many bodies. He is an old man, after all.”
    I laughed at that last little bit. Mr. Gaddis might be in his late sixties, but I wouldn’t want to arm wrestle him. Years of wrestling with steel plate and wielding a hammer at his forge gave him biceps and shoulders a body builder would envy.
    “So he trashed the place a bit, scattering garbage out in the yard and breaking out some windows on the house. Then he took every scrap of food and every useful item he had left and moved into that root cellar he has next to the smithy.”
    I nodded at the old man’s ingenuity. Most folks would take one look at the wrecked place and keep on going. For anybody who nosed around too much, he use the camouflaged door to the cellar as a spider trap and snipe anybody who came too close.
    “But he’s there all by himself? I don’t have to ask if you invited him to stay with you, but why did he turn you