This Valley Takes Care of Its Own
Posted on Thu Oct 22nd, 2026 @ 9:32am by Wanderer Brielle Anders
4,521 words; about a 23 minute read
Mission:
Wandering About
Location: Brielle's Farm – Southern Wisconsin
Timeline: September 7, 2010
By eight-fifteen, Brielle had already checked the radio four times. By eight-thirty, she had stopped pretending she was only walking past it. At eight-forty, Gareth finally looked up from the mug of coffee he was nursing at the kitchen table. The coffee had long since stopped steaming, but he seemed in no hurry to finish it. His eyes followed Brielle as she crossed the kitchen once again, slowing almost imperceptibly as she passed the radio sitting on the counter. “You’ve checked that thing six times.”
Brielle glanced toward him. “Five.” Gareth lifted one eyebrow. She looked back at the radio. “Fine. Six.”
“Seven, actually.”
Brielle shot him a look sharp enough to discourage further commentary, and Gareth wisely lowered his eyes to his coffee. Around them, the farmhouse was already fully awake. Outside the kitchen window, Maggie lay near the porch steps with her head raised. The black-and-tan shepherd mix watched the front gate with the same solemn concentration she seemed to apply to everything. She rarely relaxed completely anymore, as though Margaret’s death had taught her that there was always something worth watching for. Toby and Pip were somewhere behind the barn with Sebastian. Brielle knew because every few minutes an excited bark carried across the yard, followed by Sebastian’s increasingly exasperated voice telling one of them to stop digging. Pumpkin had crossed the barn camera twenty minutes earlier carrying something Brielle had deliberately chosen not to identify. Daisy and Clover had been fed. Brielle’s original flock and Margaret’s ten chickens had been watered, though the newcomers were still being kept in the separated section while both groups adjusted to one another. There had been considerable offended clucking from both sides of the wire that morning. The solar panels were already drinking in the clear September sunlight, and the battery readout had been climbing steadily since dawn after carrying the farmhouse through the night. Everything was normal. Or as normal as anything had become. Except Walter had not answered. Again. Brielle picked up the notebook she had left beside the radio. She had written every missed check-in down.
**September 5 — 8:00 a.m. — NO RESPONSE**
**September 5 — 8:00 p.m. — NO RESPONSE**
**September 6 — 8:00 a.m. — NO RESPONSE**
**September 6 — 8:00 p.m. — NO RESPONSE**
**September 7 — 8:00 a.m. — NO RESPONSE**
Five. Five scheduled calls with nothing in return. Each time she had followed the routine they had agreed upon. Call at eight. Wait five minutes. Try again. Then ten. Then twenty. Nothing. Only static. The occasional broken voice from somewhere far enough away that she could never make out more than a word or two. Never Walter. Never Elsie. The last time Brielle had heard Walter’s voice had been saturday night. September fourth. Eight o’clock. Walter and Elsie had already returned safely to their own farm after spending most of the day helping Brielle at Margaret Reed’s homestead. Walter had brought the livestock trailer. Elsie had stood beside Brielle when they found the blood in Margaret’s kitchen, the open first-aid supplies and the notepad lying on the table.
**MAN AT DOOR**
**hurt**
**bit me**
**fever**
**GO TO BRIELLE?**
Together they had moved what remained of Margaret’s living world. Maggie and Pip. Mabel, Pumpkin and Smudge. Daisy and Clover. Ten chickens. They had loaded Margaret’s preserving equipment, seeds, animal supplies, wool, spinning wheel, carders, shears and the other things that might keep people alive or allow them to make things they could no longer simply purchase. Then Walter and Elsie had gone home. At eight that evening, Walter’s voice had crackled cheerfully through Brielle’s radio. *Miller farm to Blake Farm. Two elderly fugitives safely returned to base.* Elsie had immediately shouted something in the background about Walter being the only elderly fugitive in the house. Everything had been fine. Then Sunday morning came. Nothing. And there had been nothing since. Brielle picked up the handset again, pressing the transmit button harder than necessary. “Miller Farm, this is Brielle. Walter, Elsie, do you copy?”
Static answered her. She waited. Nothing. “Miller Farm, do you copy?” The kitchen remained painfully quiet.
Gareth set his mug down. “You want to go.” It wasn’t a question.
Brielle slowly returned the handset to the counter. “I want to know they’re alive.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
She looked at him.
Gareth leaned back slightly in his chair. “You want to go.”
Brielle held his gaze for a moment before finally answering. “Yes.”
He nodded once. “Then we go.”
From the doorway behind them, Carmen spoke immediately. “No.”
Brielle turned.
Carmen stood there with Leah against one shoulder. The five-month-old baby’s small fist had tangled itself determinedly in a handful of her mother’s hair. “Ow. Leah, sweetheart, release the hostage.”
Leah responded with a delighted bubbling sound and pulled harder. Carmen grimaced, carefully disentangling her hair from the baby’s fingers before looking back at Brielle. “You are not just riding off because someone missed a radio call.”
“Five radio calls.”
“That is not helping your argument.”
“They haven’t answered since Saturday night.”
Carmen’s expression tightened. "And Margaret walked three miles after she was already sick.”
That stopped Brielle. The words landed with considerably more force than Carmen had needed to put behind them. Carmen’s expression softened, but only slightly. “I’m not saying Walter and Elsie are fine. I’m saying you don’t know what is between here and there anymore.” Brielle’s eyes drifted toward the living room. Sebastian and Miranda had transformed the space between the sofa and coffee table into some elaborate blanket fort whose structural integrity appeared to depend largely on dining chairs and optimism. Toby was inside it. He was also wearing one of Miranda’s hats. Pip was attempting to squeeze through the same opening despite being repeatedly informed that there was not enough room for both dogs. Smudge sat neatly beside Sebastian, her tail curled around her paws. The grey cat had apparently decided that wherever Sebastian happened to be was where she belonged. Mabel occupied the centre cushion of the sofa as though she had owned the farmhouse for years. Midnight watched her from the top of the bookshelf. The territorial dispute between the two female cats had entered what Brielle privately considered its cold-war phase. Nobody had openly attacked anybody for nearly twelve hours.
Brielle considered that genuine progress. Sebastian looked up. “Mom?”
She hated that he had learned the tone of her silences. “I’m going to check Walter and Elsie.”
His expression changed immediately. “Can I come?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Sebastian.”
He stopped. Brielle crossed the room and crouched beside him. “I need you here.”
“I could help.”
“I know you could.” She rested one hand against his shoulder. “That’s why I need you here helping Carmen.”
His eyes shifted toward Gareth. “He’s going with you?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian thought about it for several seconds before finally nodding, though reluctantly. Miranda suddenly popped her head out from beneath one of the blankets. “Bring Walter back.”
Brielle blinked. “What?”
“Bring Walter back.”
“If he wants to come.”
Miranda frowned as though Brielle had misunderstood something extremely obvious. “Tell him I said he has to.”
Behind her, Gareth made a choking sound that might have been a laugh. Brielle stood. “I’ll pass that along.”
Carmen followed her into the kitchen. “You have three hours.”
Brielle looked automatically toward the clock. Eight forty-three.
“Eleven forty-five.”
Carmen nodded. “If you’re not back by then, I lock everything.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody comes through the gate.”
“Yes.”
“I keep the dogs close.”
“Yes.”
“I watch the cameras.”
“Yes.”
Carmen shifted Leah higher against her shoulder. “And if something happens here?”
Brielle hesitated. Her eyes drifted toward the barn. Toward the double-decker bus hidden inside. She had driven Sebastian and Miranda to Wisconsin in that bus when she fled Myles. Myles had never set foot on this farm. The farm was hers. The bus was different. It had come with them from the other life, carrying them away from it. But whatever memories clung to it, it remained useful. Its own solar panels and batteries. Water storage. Beds. A kitchen. Fuel. A second shelter if the farmhouse became unsafe. “The bus,” Brielle said.
Carmen followed her gaze. For a moment neither woman spoke. Then Carmen nodded. “The bus.”
---
They took the bicycles. The pickup would have been faster, considerably so, but engines carried in the still countryside now. They announced movement. They announced fuel. They announced people. And people were no longer automatically reassuring. Gareth rode with his rifle secured across his back and the hatchet tucked where he could reach it quickly. Brielle carried her pistol. Gareth glanced toward it once as they rolled through the gate. “Gun’s faster.”
“Gun’s louder.”
“Conversation?”
“Exactly.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. They left the farm behind. The valley had changed. Not dramatically. That was almost worse. The road still curved between the same fields Brielle had driven past countless times. The hills were still green beneath a clear September sky. Farmhouses still sat where they had always sat, separated by fields, tree lines and long gravel drives. But human activity had begun draining out of the landscape. Grass grew longer along driveways. Mailboxes remained stuffed with letters that nobody collected. One paddock contained several cattle standing around a completely empty water trough. A combine sat halfway through a field, its work unfinished, as though someone had simply switched it off, climbed down and never returned. Near the Peterson property, Gareth slowed. Their gate stood open. Brielle looked toward the house. “No movement.”
“We check on the way back,” Gareth said.
“If we have time.” He nodded. Farther down the road, something lay partially concealed in the ditch. Brielle saw the jeans first. Then the shoes. Then enough of the rest to know. She turned her eyes forward. “You don’t have to look at everything,” Gareth said quietly.
“I know.”
“You can’t carry all of them.”
Brielle thought of Margaret. The grave beneath the old maple. The little ceramic bee Elsie had placed at its base. The note. The dogs. The cats. The sheep. The strawberry jam. “I know.”
Gareth looked at her. “You know the words.”
Brielle understood exactly what he meant. Knowing them and believing them were entirely different things.
---
They heard Jasper and Beau before they saw the Miller farmhouse. Both dogs erupted into barking from behind the front fence. Relief hit Brielle so quickly that she almost laughed. “Walter!”
Movement came from the house. The front door opened. Elsie appeared first. Walter stepped out behind her carrying a shovel. Brielle stopped her bicycle so abruptly that the back wheel skidded sideways across the gravel. Walter stared at her. “What in God’s name—” Brielle abandoned the bicycle beside the gate.
“You missed five calls.”
Walter looked genuinely confused. “What?”
“Five.”
Elsie was already opening the gate. Brielle stepped through and hugged her. Hard. Elsie made a startled sound before both arms came around Brielle. “Well,” she said after a moment, “good morning to you too.”
Brielle pulled back. “You didn’t answer.”
“Our radio died,” Walter said.
Brielle turned slowly toward him. “Your radio died.”
Walter raised one hand. “In my defence—”
“There is no defence.”
“It stopped making noise.”
“That was the first clue.”
“I thought the battery was flat.”
“And?”
“I changed the battery.”
“And?”
“It was still dead.”
Brielle stared at him. “And at no point during the last two days did you consider finding another way to tell us that you were alive?”
Walter glanced at Elsie. Elsie folded her arms. “Don’t look at me. I told you.”
Walter looked back at Brielle. “I was going to come by.”
“When?”
“Today.”
Brielle stared at him. Walter offered what was probably meant to be an apologetic smile. “Probably.”
Gareth leaned casually against the fence. “I like him.”
Brielle didn’t look away from Walter. “Don’t encourage him.”
Elsie squeezed Brielle’s arm. “We’re alright.”
Only then did Brielle finally allow herself to breathe properly. And then she noticed the bodies. Two lay near the far section of fence. One wore overalls. The other wore a faded floral blouse. The relief disappeared from Brielle almost instantly. “When did they get here?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” Walter said.
“They came straight to the fence?”
“More or less.”
Gareth was already moving in their direction. Brielle followed. Both were dead now. Properly dead. The skull of the one wearing overalls showed the ugly, unmistakable damage of Walter’s shovel.
The second had suffered similar treatment. “You knew what to do,” Brielle said.
Walter’s face changed. “After Margaret, I wasn't taking chances.”
For a moment, all of them were quiet. There was nothing else to explain. Walter and Elsie had been there. They had seen the blood in Margaret’s kitchen. They had read the note. They had helped Brielle move Margaret’s animals and everything worth preserving. Margaret’s death was no longer something passed between neighbours as a story. It was something they shared. Elsie broke the silence first. “How are they settling?”
Brielle glanced toward her. “Who?”
“All of them.” Elsie began counting on her fingers. “Maggie. Pip. Mabel. Pumpkin. Smudge. Daisy. Clover. The chickens.”
“Mostly well.”
“Mostly?”
“Clover continues to believe cooperation is an insult.”
Walter snorted. “That sheep tried to murder me.”
“She did not try to murder you.”
“She considered it.”
Elsie ignored him. “And Smudge?”
“Sebastian’s.”
Elsie smiled immediately. “I thought she might be.”
“Mabel and Midnight are conducting diplomatic negotiations.”
“Poor Midnight.”
“I’m not sure which one of them you should be worried about.”
“Pumpkin?”
“Barn.”
“Of course.”
“And Maggie?”
Brielle looked briefly toward the road. “Watching everything.”
Elsie’s smile changed, softening. “She always did.” Then she asked, “Have you sorted Margaret’s preserving things yet?”
“Some of them. Carmen has already reorganised half my kitchen.”
“Good.”
“The spinning wheel is still in the workshop.”
Walter immediately pointed at Brielle. “I told you to take that.”
Elsie stared at him. “I told you to bring the livestock trailer.”
Walter slowly lowered his finger. “Yes, dear.”
Gareth grinned. And Brielle realised, with surprising force, how much she had needed this. Not the argument. Not Walter’s ridiculousness. The normality of standing here with people who remembered the same day she did. Nobody asking what had happened. Nobody requiring her to explain Margaret’s final hours again. They knew. They had stood beside her.
---
The broken radio was not the only problem. The Miller farmhouse had now lost grid power completely. Their generator had stopped working the previous evening. And their well pump depended on electricity. “We have stored water,” Elsie explained as they stood near the utility room, “but not enough if the generator stays down.”
“Especially not with livestock,” Gareth said.
Walter grunted. “The goats drink like sailors.”
Brielle looked at him. “You have four goats.”
“And they’re committed to the lifestyle.”
Gareth crouched beside the generator. He removed the access panel, inspected the fuel system and then reached for one of Walter’s tools. “Fuel line.”
Walter frowned. “What about it?”
“Problem.”
“What kind?”
“The kind where fuel doesn’t get from there to here.”
Walter stared at him. “I gathered that.”
Gareth worked for another twenty minutes. Then the generator coughed. Once. Twice. And caught. The familiar hum rolled across the yard. Walter looked personally offended. “That’s it?”
“Looks like.”
“I pulled half that thing apart.”
“Maybe it was scared of you.”
Walter turned toward Brielle. “Our friend is irritating.”
“He’s growing on me.”
“That concerns me.”
The well pump came back online soon afterward. Elsie visibly relaxed. But Brielle did not. A repaired generator solved the immediate problem. It did not solve the larger one.
---
They sat in the kitchen afterward. Elsie had made coffee. Of course she had. Brielle had begun to suspect that the world could end entirely and Elsie Miller would still find some way of putting coffee on the table for visitors. Brielle opened her bicycle panniers and began removing what she had brought. Medicine. Batteries. Soap. A small block of cheese. Elsie immediately pushed the cheese back toward her.
“No.”
“Elsie.”
“We have food.”
“So do I.”
“You have more people.”
“And you have goats.”
Walter pointed at Brielle. “She has a point.”
Elsie ignored him. “We are not taking charity.”
Brielle stared at her. Then she slowly leaned back in her chair. “This valley takes care of its own.” Elsie’s expression changed. Brielle continued. “You said that.”
Walter suddenly looked very interested in his coffee. Elsie narrowed her eyes. “That is unfair.”
“Take the damn cheese.”
Walter coughed into his fist. Gareth looked down at the table. Elsie stared at Brielle for another three seconds. Then pulled the cheese toward herself. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
“But I’m sending preserves back with you.”
“That defeats the purpose.”
“It absolutely does not.”
Brielle sighed. There was no winning against Elsie. Her attention shifted toward Walter. “You should come back with us.” Silence settled over the kitchen. Walter’s expression hardened instantly.
“No.”
“Walter.”
“No.”
“You have no grid power.”
“Neither does anyone else.”
“Your generator failed.”
“It’s fixed.”
“You have dead people at the fence.”
“So do plenty of places.”
Brielle leaned forward. “Henderson hasn’t answered anyone. Neither have the Coopers. The roads are getting worse. Margaret reached my gate after being bitten because she thought I could help her.”
Walter’s jaw tightened. “This is home.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Brielle went completely still. Walter immediately regretted saying it. She could see that in his face. But the words were already there. “My father built that barn,” he continued more quietly. “I’ve lived here thirty-eight years. Elsie planted those apple trees. Our children grew up in this house.”
Brielle looked around the kitchen. The scratches in the table. The old photographs. The curtain Elsie had probably made herself. She understood more than Walter realised. Because the Wisconsin farm was the first place Brielle had ever looked at and thought: **Mine.** Not Myles’s. Not something she had to ask permission to exist inside. The first place she had chosen after fleeing with Sebastian and Miranda. The first place where she had started building a life rather than surviving someone else’s. “I do know,” Brielle said quietly.
Walter looked at her. “And I’m not telling you to abandon it today.” Some of the tension left his shoulders. "But I am telling you I want you to know there is somewhere to go.”
Elsie reached across the table and placed one hand over Walter’s. He looked at her. She said nothing. She didn’t need to. Brielle picked up the dead radio. “I’m taking this.”
Walter immediately protested. “That’s mine.”
“It’s rubbish.”
“It can probably be fixed.”
“Then Gareth can have a look at it.”
Gareth glanced over. “Apparently I’ve volunteered.”
“You have now.” Brielle tucked the radio securely beneath one arm. “Either way, I’m bringing you another one.”
Walter sighed. “And then?”
“Eight in the morning.”
He nodded.
“And eight at night.”
“I know.”
“And if that radio dies—”
“I come tell you.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes, mother hen.”
Brielle pointed at him. “Keep going.”
Walter smiled.
---
Before leaving, Brielle helped Elsie with the chickens. Forty-three. She knew because Miranda knew. Miranda had remembered Elsie’s number from the first time she heard it and had apparently decided that chicken mathematics was critically important information. Brielle counted twice. Forty-three. Henry strutted through the flock as though he personally owned every bird, every grain of feed and most of Wisconsin. Brielle leaned against the coop. “How’s Mildred?”
Elsie pointed immediately. “There.” One hen stood slightly apart from the others, looking inexplicably judgmental. “She still thinks she owns the place,” Elsie said.
“Mildred or you?”
Elsie looked at her. Brielle smiled. Elsie tried not to. Failed. “Go home.”
While Brielle helped with the chickens, Gareth and Walter reinforced the damaged section of fence. They moved loose tools inside, checked each of the animal pens and locked the fuel shed. Elsie drew the curtains across the road-facing windows. Small things. Not fortress things. But more than yesterday. At the front gate, Walter caught Brielle lightly by the arm. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Brielle frowned.
“You’ve got those kids.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t be riding around checking on old fools because their radio broke.”
Brielle looked toward Elsie. Then back at Walter. “You helped me with the gate when I first got here.” Walter opened his mouth. “You gave Sebastian tools and treated him like he belonged beside you.” He closed it. “Elsie has fed my children enough food to support a football team.”
“That woman overfeeds everyone.”
“I heard that!” Elsie called from the porch.
Brielle continued. “You came with me to Margaret’s.” Walter’s expression sobered. “You brought the trailer. You helped move animals you didn’t own from a woman you cared about because leaving them there was wrong.”
“That was different.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Walter stared at her. “You don’t get to teach someone that neighbours look after each other and then complain when they actually do it.” For once, Walter had no answer. Brielle hugged him.
He stood stiffly for half a second before returning the embrace. “Eight o’clock,” she said.
“Morning and night.”
“Good.” She released him. Then Miranda’s message came rushing back to her. “Oh.”
Walter eyed her suspiciously. “What?”
“Miranda said I was supposed to bring you home.”
A smile appeared. “Did she?”
“She said you had to.”
“Well, tell her I’m difficult.”
“I think she already knows.”
---
They stopped at the Peterson place on the way back. The front door was locked. There was no blood. No bodies. No visible movement. Gareth checked the barn while Brielle walked around the porch. A folded piece of paper had been wedged carefully behind the screen door. She pulled it free.
**Gone to my sister’s. Taking the kids. — Sarah**
Brielle read it twice. Relief loosened something in her chest. “They left,” she said when Gareth returned.
“Good.”
Brielle looked toward the house. There might be food inside. Medicine. Tools. Useful things. For a moment, she thought of Margaret’s property. The cellar. The greenhouse. The supplies. Then she carefully returned the note exactly where she had found it. Margaret had been dead. Her animals would have died or scattered. Her food and years of work would eventually have rotted. The Petersons were alive. Or at least they had been when they left. This was still their home. Brielle did not try the back door. She did not look through the cupboards. She did not check the medicine cabinet. She walked away.
---
They were less than two miles from Brielle’s farm when Gareth suddenly raised one hand. Brielle stopped immediately. “What?” He tilted his head. Then she heard it too. Engines. More than one. They moved quickly, wheeling their bicycles into the hedgerow before crouching behind the overgrown boundary fence. Three pickups came into view. Not abandoned. Not damaged. Not limping along on the last fumes in their tanks. They were moving with purpose. The first was dark. The second carried bags and boxes stacked in its bed. The third towed a small trailer. Brielle could see people inside and in the beds. Several. At least two visibly armed. The vehicles did not slow. They raced west along the county road and disappeared around the bend. Brielle remained crouched until the sound of their engines had completely faded. “Survivors?”
“Probably.”
“Then why are we hiding?”
Gareth looked at her. “Because we don’t know them.” Brielle couldn't argue with that.
---
Carmen was waiting inside the gate when they returned. Maggie stood beside her. Toby and Pip hovered several feet behind, both of them clearly wanting to participate in whatever Maggie was doing despite having absolutely no idea what it was. The gate remained locked. Carmen did not open it until she had seen both Brielle and Gareth clearly. Only then did she unlock it and pull it open. Once they were through, she checked her watch. “Eleven minutes late.”
Brielle pushed her bicycle inside. “Walter and Elsie are alive.”
Carmen’s shoulders dropped. “Thank God.”
“Their radio died.”
Carmen stared. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
From the porch Sebastian called, “Are they okay?”
“Yes.”
Miranda appeared beside him. “Where’s Walter?”
Brielle stopped. “He was difficult.”
Miranda nodded solemnly. “He does that.”
Behind Brielle, Gareth laughed outright. Sebastian came down the steps and accepted the dead Miller radio when Brielle handed it to him. “What’s wrong with it?”
“I don’t know.”
He immediately looked at Gareth. “Can we take it apart?”
Gareth looked toward Brielle.
“Supervised,” she said.
Sebastian grinned.
---
By eight that evening, the replacement radio was sitting on Walter Miller’s kitchen table. Brielle knew because Walter told her so. At exactly eight-oh-two, the radio on her own kitchen counter crackled.
*"Testing your damned contraption."*
Brielle grabbed the handset. “Walter?”
*"No, the President."*
She closed her eyes. Across the room, Carmen smiled. Sebastian sat on the floor with Smudge tucked securely against his leg while he carefully examined the dead Miller radio under Gareth’s supervision. Miranda had fallen asleep against Toby on the rug. Pip had fallen asleep against Miranda. Maggie lay facing the front door. Somewhere outside, Daisy called once. Clover answered. The goats were bleeting. The chickens had settled for the night. Pumpkin was probably murdering something in the barn. Mabel occupied the kitchen chair nearest the window. Midnight watched her from the stairs. Hostilities remained suspended. Elsie’s voice came through the radio.
*"Tell Brielle I found somewhere for the cheese."*
Brielle smiled. “I heard that.”
Walter’s voice returned. *"Eight tomorrow morning?"*
“And tomorrow night.”
*"Yes, mother hen."*
The radio clicked silent. Brielle remained beside it for several seconds, one hand still resting on the handset. The valley did not feel quite as empty anymore. Not safe. Not normal. But connected. There were still people out there who answered when called. People who worried when somebody went quiet. People who showed up. That mattered now. Maybe more than ever. Her eyes drifted toward the security monitor. Toward the road camera. She thought about the three trucks. About the body in the ditch. About the empty Peterson house. About Margaret’s note. About how quickly a neighbour could become a memory. Maggie suddenly lifted her head. Brielle froze. The dog listened. For several seconds, nobody moved. Then Maggie slowly lowered her head again. Nothing. This time. Outside, darkness settled completely over the farm. The solar panels had stopped producing hours earlier, but the batteries carried the farmhouse quietly through the night. The curtains were drawn. The exterior lights remained off. Beyond the fences, unseen engines continued moving along roads that no longer belonged to anyone.
TBC
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