Sometime deep in the night, the wind began to howl and claw at the rooftops, rattling the whole world with all the fury of the worst West Michigan winter storms that I could recall. As I pressed closer to Thom and listened to the wind scream above us, I hoped against hope that we wouldn’t wake to collapsed tents or dead livestock—our trio of rescued cows, our horses, the chickens, and the herd of sheep. The cats and dogs would be safely snuggled in with someone as usual—we even had a little black kitten curled between me and the wall near my knees, her purring nearly lost beneath the sound of the wind rattling the two layers of roof above us.
It must be all right, since whoever’s on the late watch hasn’t sounded any alarms. It’s just a bad storm. Everything’s solid.
Of course, even with everything solid, a nasty storm would make it hard for us to function for at least a few days, if not longer. I didn’t relish the idea of everyone going stir crazy as we were trapped in the tents and our cots, unable to venture into the wide, cold world beyond if even for a little while. Davon, Rory, and a few of the others had realized that they enjoyed sojourns down into the fields beyond the borders of campus and the ravines surrounding us to hunt deer and smaller game. Kellin still headed out with small parties to scavenge what we could from empty houses and abandoned storefronts, but only when the weather held for it.
But everyone trapped in the tents…
I shuddered at the thought. Thom groaned and rolled over, arms circling me and drawing me close to his chest. I exhaled a sigh and pressed my cheek against the soft, worn cotton of his shirt, praying I hadn’t woken him.
“What’s the matter?” he murmured after a moment, dashing my hopes.
“Storm out there,” I whispered into his chest, squeezing my eyes closed in the darkness. I could almost see the wind ripping branches from trees, nudging some of the still-standing walls of the campus buildings into their final collapse. It couldn’t be that bad, though. Everything where we were seemed to be okay. The wind—the storm—couldn’t be doing that so near and leave us relatively intact.
Could it?
I shivered again. “It sounds bad, that’s all.”
“It woke you?” he asked softly, glancing toward the rafters. “It sounds strong, but I’m sure everything will be fine. I’m not feeling any drafts, are you?”
“No,” I admitted. “But we’ve already double-walled this cot and we’ve got four blankets around us. I don’t know if I’d feel a draft if there was one or not.”
Thom nodded absently, kissing the top of my head. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” he said, his voice quiet. “The cat’s still against your knees, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then we’re fine. She’d be hiding if it were worse, right?”
“Maybe,” I whispered. “Maybe.” Another shiver rushed through me. There was something about this that I didn’t like, something that left me unsettled. Thom must have sensed it, because his arms tightened around me.
“Stop worrying so much,” he said as he buried his nose against my hair. “It’s just a storm and we’re safe and sound under shelter. It’ll be fine.”
“Right,” I said. “You’re right.”
Even as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to concentrate on the sound of his heartbeat over the sound of the storm, of the wind and snow and ice lashing against the world, I couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in my gut that something else had begun to go terribly wrong.
