Time bled together in the farmhouse's dim belly. The only clock was the sun's slow crawl between the boarded windows, painting tiger stripes of light across Sarah's sweat-slick face. Martha moved between rooms like a battlefield medic—changing bandages with hands that smelled of lye and lavender, barking orders at Helen who shadowed her like a half-feral apprentice.
George haunted the edges, oiling his shotgun with the reverence of a priest preparing last rites. His patrols were silent, methodical: press an eye to the peepholes drilled between window boards, test the door bolts, listen. Always listening.
When evening came, it brought smells that made Quinn's gut clench—roast chicken fat dripping into coals, bread crust cracking in the oven. Real food. The kind that didn't come vacuum-sealed with a ten-year shelf life.
Martha slammed the platter down. "Eat. Before I change my mind."
The table groaned under the weight of it—golden chicken, potatoes fried in rendered fat, greens swimming in pot liquor. Helen's knife hovered over the breast meat, her eyes flicking to George for permission. The old man grunted, carving knife flashing.
"Take the dark meat, girl. More iron in it."
Quinn watched Sarah force down two bites before her hands started shaking. Martha shoved a steaming mug at her. "Broth. Every drop."
The silence that followed wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't hostile either. Just the sound of starving people remembering how to chew without swallowing their tongues.
Helen surprised them all by gathering plates afterward, stacking them with military precision. George watched her, pipe smoke curling around his face like fog on a grave.
"Built this place forty years back," he said suddenly, tapping the table. "Storm country. Extra timber in the walls." A pause. "Never figured I'd be barricading against something worse than tornadoes."
He rose, crossed to an oak cabinet, and pulled out a guitar case dustier than a preacher's bible. The instrument inside had scars but sang sweet when George's calloused fingers found the strings.
Martha's voice joined in, thin but true: "Almost heaven..."
Sarah mouthed the words at first, like she'd forgotten how her own voice worked. By the second chorus, it came out ragged but real: "Country roads, take me home..."
Helen giggled—an actual, unpracticed sound—when Quinn's boot started tapping.
Later, in the quilt nest Martha had made them, Helen fought sleep like it was an ambush. "Not tired," she slurred, even as her head lolled against Quinn's shoulder.
Sarah watched from the couch, her smirk a ghost of its usual sharpness. "Kid's worse than a recruit after fifty klicks."
Quinn tucked the blankets around Helen's bony shoulders. The girl muttered something that might've been "Not a kid" before face-planting into the pillow.
The house settled around them, its old bones creaking. Sarah's voice cut through the dark:
"Miami."
Quinn stilled.
"My husband. My boy." Her breath hitched. "Got there three weeks late. Front door was open. TV still on." A rustle as she turned away. "Fuckin' Disney channel."
The silence that followed was a blade pressed to Quinn's throat. He thought of his kids' faces pressed against the car window as their mother drove them away—small hands leaving smudges on the glass, his daughter mouthing "Daddy" through tears. The coordinates on his arm itched like a fresh scar.
"Your turn," Sarah whispered.
The words came out like a confession: "My kids. Their mom took 'em to Seattle after the divorce." He didn't say how his son had clung to his leg at the courthouse. Didn't say how his daughter's letters stopped coming six months before the world ended. Some wounds were too raw to touch.
Sarah's hand found his in the dark, squeezed once. A soldier's grip. No pity, just proof they were both still here.
Upstairs, George's boots paced. Outside, the wind tested the boards.
Morning would come. But tonight, they stole this—the warmth, the full bellies, the quiet.