Chapter 3 (Anna’s POV)
Two days had crawled by since Joshua had slipped through that copper door, and every hour had hollowed out a little more of the cottage’s soul. The place felt smaller—corners loomed, ceilings pressed down, and each footstep echoed reminders of his absence. I had begun waking before dawn, bones stiff from the previous day’s labor, and my muscles throbbed with the memory of my Hammer biting into rotted joists and nails rattling home against brittle floorboards.
The morning air inside tasted of resin and dust. When I stepped barefoot onto the warped plank by the door, the grain pressed into my arches, and tiny splinters nibbled at my skin. I let my breath settle into the rhythm of the day: inhale sawdust, exhale stubborn resolve. On the far wall, a row of mismatched boards stood sentinel where glass once gaped into the wind. Each board bore its own story—a porch floorboard pried from Mrs. Calderón’s stoop, stained with her faded blue paint and the ghosts of flowerpots; a sheet of plywood scavenged from Morgan Street’s collapsed annex, splintered at the corner but straight enough to stop an arrow; a rust-speckled panel of sheet metal I had levered from a fallen garage, its jagged corner slicing the air like an open wound. Together they formed a patchwork shield against whatever howled beyond these walls.
I flexed my shoulders, pine-scented sweat prickling my skin, and brushed damp strands of hair from my forehead. My ribs ached where I had slipped two days earlier—a misstep on a rickety ladder that had nearly broken me in half. A cough still sent hot knives lancing through my side, but pain was proof of life. It reminded me that I was still here, still fighting.
Along the opposite wall, where a rotted dresser had sagged, I had built a makeshift supply shelf. I clambered onto its rough frame, gingerly testing each rotten support. The wood groaned under my weight, but did not splinter. Better it held me than the walls held back feral jaws. I set jars and pouches in meticulous rows: two beef-stew MREs, three chicken-and-rice, and four vegetarian-chili. Each pouch gleamed like a bronze-edged medal—micro-rations of hope. I counted them slowly. Nine. Nine meals stretched across nine more nights, assuming nothing went wrong—and that remained a fragile assumption whenever gunshots crackled beyond my barricades.
Beneath the shelf, I arranged twenty water bottles in a precise formation—clear plastic sentinels glinting under the flickering incandescent bulb. Each bottle represented the promise of tomorrow’s dawn. Outside, under a patched-up tarp, sat the fifty-gallon barrel I had jury-rigged to catch rainwater. Its sun-bleached plastic bulged gently, taut with yesterday’s downpour. With iodine tabs in my pocket, that water could serve as lifeblood; without them, it would become a breeding ground for disease. I placed a small funnel and a stack of empty jugs beside the barrel—efficiency, I reminded myself: no drop wasted.
From its hook on the wall, my compound bow hung like a coiled serpent—black carbon limbs arcing in quiet menace. I lifted it off the nail and traced my gloved fingertips along the taut string, feeling every fiber’s tension and potential energy. Next to it, my short sword rested in its sheath: a gleaming curve of polished steel wrapped in cracked leather, still warm from last night’s cleaning. I unstrapped it briefly, inhaled the cold burn of metal, and slid it back into place. These were my last resorts: whispered threats delivered through arrow shafts, and if those failed, the silent promise of steel between ribs.
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Abruptly, a dull thud reverberated through the cottage. My heart skipped a beat. I froze—bow in one hand, sword in the other—and strained to listen. A distant explosion bloomed like a starburst in the countryside of empty streets. Moments later, the hollow crack-crack of gunfire rattled the air, each report carrying the rasp of desperation. My mouth went dry, tongue thick and gummy. I swallowed and realized the world outside was bleeding into empire territory—the very same direction I had mapped two days ago when I first scouted for supplies amid patrolled ruins.
My pulse thundered in my throat. I closed my eyes, and Joshua’s calm voice echoed in my mind: “Breathe, Anna. Trust the barricades.” With that memory as an anchor, I let the bow lower to my side and tightened my grip on the sword’s hilt. The cold promise of control settled beneath my knuckles.
I retreated to the corner stove, leaning my shoulder against chipped plaster that flaked under my weight. My fingers fumbled against the ancient pilot valve until the burner lit with a soft whoosh. The flame blossomed orange and hungry, casting shadows that danced across cracked walls. The cottage filled with the sweet, acrid hiss of metal and gas—two days of endless wood shaving had made me an expert at coaxing fire.
A clean bowl waited on the counter. I tore open a chili MRE pouch, the plastic crinkling like bones in my hands. Steam coiled upward, thick with the greasy perfume of beans spiced with ghost pepper and rationed oil. I spooned in half the pouchful, the chili’s salty heat coating my teeth and jolting my senses awake. Each bite reminded me that hunger was a blade; fail to feed it today, and it would carve away tomorrow’s chance to fight. I washed it down with a long, cold gulp from a water bottle, the liquid burning pleasantly on its way down, chasing away grit and fear.
When the bowl was empty, I pressed my palm against the smooth plastic of the container and offered a silent prayer of gratitude to whatever gods presided over broken doors and makeshift defenses. I extinguished the flame, and silence fell into the corners. The gunfire had faded into distant rumbling—engines or the mindless footsteps of the undead drawn to noise. It served as a reminder: no place was ever truly safe, but this cottage trembled less under siege now than it had two days ago.
I sank onto a battered stool, tucking the bow between my legs like a talisman. Its limbs cradled me like a cracked cradle of hope. Outside, twilight draped the sky in bruised purples. I peeled my shirt from my skin, feeling the grit of sawdust and sweat woven into the fabric, and allowed myself a moment to simply breathe. Strands of hair clung damply to my neck; a mosquito bite itched on my ankle, evidence that life persisted in the smallest, maddest ways.
I closed my eyes, tilted my head back, and whispered into the settling dark, “I was ready.”
Because amid every scream and in each tremor of these battered boards, I had come to know that survival was never about gnashing teeth—it was about fashioning shields from scrap, rationing hope drop by drop, and syncing one’s heartbeat to the rhythm of the fight. As the final ember of dusk died and night settled across my makeshift fortress, I tightened my fingers on the bow’s grip, steeled myself against tomorrow’s storms, and waited.
