The scent of blood hit him before he even crossed the doorway. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness inside of the barn, where the moonlight could not touch, he saw why the odor was so intense. It was everywhere. Glancing around, he saw a few human bodies, mangled and lying in a heap by a horse stall, but the fresh blood flowed from the body lying near the center of the barn where everyone was congregated.
His heart caught in his chest as he stepped a few feet closer. Part of him didn’t want to go. If he stood back by the door, refusing to acknowledge what he was seeing, it couldn’t be real, could it?
His mother was crying. It was the first time he could ever remember seeing tears on her face in the four decades he’d been alive. The others looked just as consternated as they stood about
