Two long days passed without so much as a Jehovah’s Witness coming to the front gate. But no one let their guard down or dared to leave, even when Al’s girlfriend called frantically to explain that her significant other hadn’t come home from the bar. They assumed the worst.
Dakota worked himself to exhaustion each day. Compared to Eddie and Eleanor, he was terribly out of shape but expected to contribute just as much. Trudging through a snow storm for several hours at a time took everything he had. They turned off the blizzard once everyone huddled safe in the house, but they needed it for cover when one or more people patrolled the borders.
As they neared the end of the third full day, the snow piled up past Dakota’s knees. He shuffled through it lethargically, the muscles in his legs a
