red hill - jamie mcguire

Chapter Eighteen
Scarlet
THE MOTHS AND LIGHTNING BUGS were bouncing and gliding over the top of the prairie grass not far
from me. I sat on the top step of the wooden deck that doubled as a front porch, waving away the
mosquitos buzzing in my ears. The crest of the red dirt road that Jenna and Halle might be walking
toward was bright, lit by the setting sun. There were so many variables for them to make it to the
safety of Red Hill. What if Andrew hadn’t made it back to the house to see my spray-painted message
on the wall What if the girls were too upset to know what it meant What if they had forgotten
Halle’s song Carrying those questions with me all day and night weighed down on me and made it
too easy for exhaustion to set in, but I kept busy with getting the house cleaned and ready for the girls’
arrival.
With wooden stakes and fishing line that I’d found in the barn, I’d strung a primitive alarm system
around the perimeter. The dirt was still soft enough from the previous night’s rain that it was fairly
easy to shove the stakes into the ground. In just half a day, I’d bounced along the ground, winding the
string around the stakes, poking holes in the cans, and stringing them on the line before moving a few
feet down to start the process all over again. The line was far enough from the house that if I was
awoken in the night, I would have time to get a weapon and defend myself. Stringing the line was
easy; it was trying not to lie awake, waiting for something to rattle the cans, that was hard.
Six days after the world ended, the lines hadn’t jingled once. The few shufflers that had come
close always stayed to the road for whatever reason. Maybe they’d already come upon other houses
and had learned that a building didn’t necessarily mean a meal. If I stayed quiet, most didn’t bother
me.
I sat on the porch, aware that a beautiful sunset was visible from the backside of the house, but
when I wasn’t checking the wooden slats I’d nailed to the windows, eating, sleeping, or practicing
with Dr. Hayes’s guns, I was watching that red dirt road, waiting for Andrew’s white Tahoe to fly
over in a hurry to reach their destination, or for my babies’ heads to rise above the hill, higher with
each step. I imagined that moment a hundred times a day: They would be worn and filthy, but very
much alive. I didn’t even mind that their arrival would mean living with Andrew again. If it meant
having my babies, I welcomed it.
Every night my hopes were dashed and my heart was broken. I never gave up until it was too dark
for safe travel. But about this time was when the tears came. I picked at the small stick in my hand,
fighting the desperation and helplessness that overwhelmed me.
Earlier that day, I thought I’d heard thunder, but the sound echoed from the east, and the storm
clouds were off to the west. At first I thought I’d imagined the noise, but then a tall pillar of smoke