Free Endless Winter (Book 2): Rain & Ruin by Theresa Shaver

waiting for four months for the next horror to happen and it’s made me numb. I guess that’s why I barely react when the back door comes smashing in bringing a gust of artic air and two huge monsters.
    Sasha let’s out a high pitched scream followed quickly by Matty’s siren-like wail while Marsh and I just stare open mouthed with our cards still clutched in our hands. It takes a few seconds in the dim light for me to realize that they aren’t monsters but two men bundled up in multiple layers of outerwear. The one in the lead pushes his hood off his head and quickly scans the room before focusing on Sasha and thrusting a gloved finger sharply at her with a harsh “shhh” sound. Her scream cuts off halfway through and she yanks the blankets up and over her head before he turns and faces Marsh and I.
    He takes a step closer to us and into the flickering candle light we’ve been using to see our cards while the guy behind him wrestles with the damaged door to get it to close. His face is gaunt with his cheeks hollowed and his eyes sunken in, he looks half way to being a skeleton. This is the true face of what the bombs have left behind, starvation.
    “Where’s the food?” His voice rasps out menacingly. When no one answers him right away, he does the opposite of what I expect. I expect him to bellow and rage and threaten but instead he lets out a deep sigh. “We know it’s here. Every house in this area has been stripped of every crumb and you are the only ones living on this side of town. So, where’s the food? You can give it to us or we can take it!”
    I peel my eyes off of him to glance at Marsh to see if we should give this guy some of our supplies but he’s looking past the intruders at something else. I swing my eyes back to the man and open my mouth to speak but whatever I was going to say comes out a gag as a bloody arrow tip explodes halfway out of his neck. I think the worst part of seeing my first man die is not the blood but the resignation and something that looks almost like relief in his eyes before he falls to the floor. It’s almost like he’s relieved he won’t have to fight and struggle anymore.
    When I finally pull my gaze from his empty eyes and look up, Belle is scooping Matty up and pulling Sasha off the couch before rushing them down into the basement. The second intruder is on his knees with Ethan gripping his shoulders from behind and Lance is in front of him with an arrow notched and ready to fly right at his face.
    Marsh finally drops his cards to the table and stands but he moves towards the front of the house and looks out the viewing slot cut into the plywood over the window. I have no idea what I should be doing so I stay right where I am and watch the kneeling man’s face. I’m amazed that there’s no anger in the man’s face. All I see is acceptance. Lance calmly asks the man questions about where he came from and if there are others in his group. When the man answers all of Lance’s questions, I’m not even surprised by his response.
    “You know we can’t just let you go.”
    When the man merely nods, I finally realize that all of us are numb, not just me but everyone who’s left.
    I stay sitting there with my winning hand of cards clutched in my hand as Lance takes the man outside and Ethan works on fixing the damaged door. It isn’t until Lance comes back and kneels in front of me and starts speaking that I finally move.
    “Son, Rex, I need you to listen to me. What just happened was…sad. They were probably good men once but they had finally reached their limit and had become a danger to us and anyone else out there. The difference between us and them is a slim line but it’s a line we will never cross. Life is hard now and it’ll get much harder in the future but we will never attack and take food from other people so that we can survive. We have the smarts and will to take care of ourselves without resorting to that.
    "Even if we had given them some of