Another Knock in Snow

Evelyn had the kitchen light on and the curtain pulled just enough to see the yard. White drifted across the porch steps. The railing leaned where it always had, and the split in the second step showed dark through the snow crust. She could make out the shape of the barn beyond the gray, and the line of the cellar door half buried beside it.

Then headlights moved in the yard.

Not one set. Three. Then more.

She set the coffee cup down by the stove and went to the front window. Six bikes came in slow, tires slipping on the frozen ruts. The riders kept their weight forward, heads down against the wind. One man had to put a boot out twice before he found the ground. Another had his arm hooked around a younger rider to keep him upright.

“Damn fools,” she said to the empty room.

She was already moving. Coat on, boots laced, key in her pocket. She took the shotgun from the rack by the pantry door and checked the chamber without looking. Then she killed the kitchen light so the house wouldn’t glow like a target.

A knock came hard at the front door.

Not polite. Not panicked. Hard enough to rattle the frame.

Evelyn opened it with the chain still on.

Cold air hit her face. Snow blew in around the porch light. The man in front stood a few feet back, hands open at his sides, helmet under one arm. He was tall, broad in the shoulders, and he didn’t lean on the door the way tired men did. He watched the opening, the porch, the dark behind her.

“Ma’am,” he said. “We need shelter. Just for the night.”

She looked past him at the others huddled in the yard. Then back at his face.

“Your boots stay by the door,” she said. “Nobody wanders. Nobody touches my guns, my stove, or my cupboards unless I say so.”

He gave a short nod. “Fair.”

“Fair don’t matter. You do what I said.”

He didn’t argue.

One of the riders in back turned his head, and the porch light caught the patch on his vest. Black leather. Red stitching. The old winged skull.

Evelyn’s hand tightened on the door edge.

She knew that mark.

And now they were in her yard.