As I waited, I tried to suppress a growing panic attack. Another person had just attacked me! A human being! They might have killed me. I’d threatened to kill them! And they might be watching me right now… no matter how I felt, I had to look calm and in control.

Fortunately, I caught sight of my family before I had a nervous breakdown. I left the mailbox behind, angling my way across the street to get out of sight of Nutcase House as soon as possible. My desire to look casual and confident warred with my need to be gone, and my pace could be described as “walking” only if you were very charitable.

As soon as I felt I was out of view, I dropped even that facade, bolting down the street at a run, relying on Life Sense to dodge hidden foes.

“Wow Mommy, you’re really fast!” said Gavin.

“Thanks!” I told him, voice strained.

Priya frowned at me. “Did she not teach you?”

“Grace?” I asked. “No, she did. Grace was great. Taught me a lot. There was… another little mishap. I don’t think we should go down this street right now.”

Priya nodded immediately, not asking questions.

George followed suit. “It’s probably a good time to head home. Get a little rest before the Deadline. Hey kids, are you excited? Your moms will be using the shields you helped with.”

His question succeeded in distracting the kids. I saw Micah shoot me a suspicious look, but the temptation of explaining to an adult exactly how critical he’d been in the shield creation process overwhelmed him, and he joined the chorus of children extolling the virtues of our homemade bulwarks.

When we got home, I used the excuse of passing on what I’d learned in my butchery lesson to get the kids to give us some privacy. It’s amazing how fast you can clear a room with detailed descriptions of viscera.

As soon as the kids had fled, I tapered off my gruesome lecture. “Honestly, it’s going to be easier to show you most of it. The important thing is what happened afterward. I had just hunted another squirrel, and…”

Priya and George listened with somber expressions as I described what had happened.

“You didn’t want to give them the money?” Priya asked.

I shrugged, uncomfortable. “I was considering it, but I felt like if I just folded without any pushback, they’d just keep trying to shake me down. I didn’t mean to insult her. Her Fire Bolt really took me by surprise.”

George waved a hand. “Not giving them money was the right call. What I don’t understand is why you let them take the squirrel after they attacked you like that.”

Priya rolled her eyes. “What is the money good for? Not much. If we make enemies…”

“You think it will stay that way?” George said. “I don’t. Money, calories - we’re going to need both. You shouldn’t have given them anything. We can deal with enemies. We’re going to have to.”

I folded my arms, defensive. “That might be true… but they were acting crazy. I didn’t know how hungry they were. I thought, if I gave them the squirrel, there wouldn’t be any pressure for them to fight me.”

“We’re going to have to fight other people,” George said.

I nodded, the barest dip of my chin. “You’re probably right, but I didn’t have to fight these people. I don’t think we’re in a place where it makes sense for me to risk my life over half a meal.”

George looked away, frowning. It seemed like he wanted to argue, but he held silent.

I shook my head. “Well, get ready to learn some butchering this evening. I plan to do more hunting - as much as I can. I may not have handled the situation perfectly, but I was pretty freaked out by it, alright? I wasn’t as worried about the squirrel as I was about getting out of there without dying…. Or killing someone. We’ll get more dead animals.”

George sighed, but nodded. Good enough.

“Look, I need to go out and fight the rams again in an hour or so. I need a break.”

Without waiting for a response, I walked out.

…

I spent the time with Gavin and Cassie. Ostensibly I was part of the pretend game they were playing with Samar and Arnav, but my role didn’t require much of me. They were on a journey and I was the boat. Laying facedown, slumped over a pillow, with kids occasionally climbing on my back was just about perfect, from my perspective. It was good to feel the kids close, and they were light enough not to be uncomfortable for me now, even if all four climbed on top… at least, until Cassie started sticking her feet in my face. Had to put a stop to that. I was grateful for a normal game of pretend. I thought their recent monster-fighting games were probably “good” in some general sense, a healthy adaptation to the craziness of our new life, but I needed a break.

I was happy to be a boat. Being a boat was simple and straightforward. All I had to do was… nothing. I did nothing, and Gavin would pat my head every time they pretended to stop at a destination and tell me I was a good boat.

I really appreciated the low standards. It was nice to effortlessly succeed at something. Anything.

I deeply regretted it when the time came to get up and go outside to fight, but at least our new shields worked excellently. We could actually block a ram’s charge, and there was a slight interval after the impact where the animals shook themselves out to try again… they were basically free kills if you could strike in that second or two. It was simple enough that I would have been comfortable bringing the kids out with us tomorrow, if we weren’t expecting a new monster that day.

Priya’s shield took some slight damage - nothing awful, just a bit of scuffs and splintering - but mine was pristine. It looked like Parry slightly reinforced whatever object you were using it with. It was nice to get a pleasant surprise from an ability, for once.

The rest of the day passed reasonably quietly, a highly welcome change of pace. I did go out to hunt again that evening, and brought home a rabbit and fat bird that looked like some kind of pigeon or dove. We did our best with both, and we actually successfully butchered the rabbit, but George ended up using Cleanse on the stupid bird. The amount of meat it ended up giving us was pretty minor.

I peered at it doubtfully. “Is this even worth the trouble?”

“Do you have another way to get food?” George snapped.

“George…” Priya said.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just… really hungry.”

I was too, but I didn’t want to complain. I was eating the same amount George was, and he was a bit taller than me and significantly heavier.

“We should start making… ideas... to leave,” said Priya. Her speech had gotten much more understandable - or I was getting much better at understanding it - but she was still avoiding Ps and Bs.

“I was thinking about that,” George said. “I was thinking we could start stripping down your minivan? Take the seats out, try to take the engine and the fuel tank out… Just keep the frame and try to make it as light as possible. If we could find some way to pull it, that would be ideal, but if not, we could push it with the kids inside. I know it has windows, but it’s a lot better than just walking on foot, and it would give us a reasonably safe place to sleep if we get caught in the open.”

“Yeah… that’s fine… But can we wait another few days before we try to leave?”

George frowned. “I’m sure we’re not the only ones with the idea of hunting. We’ve got eight days of food left, and that’s with us on half rations. I don’t want to wait until the last minute - the wilderness areas and nearby farms might be picked over by the time we get there.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said. “But Pointy thinks there’s good odds of a food solution coming, somewhere around halfway through the month. She said they work in a base-12 number system. Tomorrow’s the start of the tenth day. If we can wait like four more days, until day twelve has finished… I’m really hoping we might not need to leave.”

George and Priya exchanged a long look.

“Alright,” George finally said. “We can wait a few days. But I want to be ready. If we get past the first twelve days and nothing has changed, I want us to be able to hit the road immediately.”

I swallowed. “That’s fair,” I said quietly.

On the call that evening, I offered up the address of the people who’d shaken me down for my squirrel. I could tell my story made people uneasy, especially after other people reported break-ins and thefts that had occurred while they were out fighting. Colonel Zwerinski tried, again, to convince people we needed to group up, so we could better share resources and police issues like this. This time, people expressed interest, but when he asked what resources they had to share, the answer came out: not much. People who still had things to eat weren’t too interested in sharing. I was among their number, so I couldn’t really criticize - though I did feel guilty.

We spent the rest of the evening speculating about what new threat the aliens might throw at us. Flyers? Something with a ranged attack? Flyers with a ranged attack? Something big? The monsters we’d fought hadn’t followed the exact same pattern as the ones from Pointy’s recordings - some of their monsters had arrived in pairs, one underwater and one on land, likely to compensate for the fact that they were an amphibious species, which made it difficult to use them as a guide. Pointy’s bet was on something flying, but she wasn’t sure.

Whatever it was, I hoped we could handle it.