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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 7: Beam 160
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 215
It wasn’t all that long before a building came into view in the distance on the barren plain. It was still some distance walking, but its visible presence encouraged everyone to hurry a bit more. As it neared, Beam decided it was a two-story colonial. It would certainly be large enough to house them all, but the question was whether it was too big for them to defend.
Still, it would be easier than fighting in the open.
The front door was locked.
“Ashleigh?” he said.
“On it,” she answered, and producing her lock picks she had it open in a moment. It was a solid steel door with a locking knob and a separate bolt, the sort that was marketed as a decorative security feature.
Quickly the white-haired man considered what they should do, then started giving out assignments.
“Dawn, Bob, stand guard, alert us when those things get close. Ashleigh, Sophia, search the house, downstairs first then upstairs. If there’s anything alive or dead, we need to know. We also need to know if there are any breaches, broken windows, unsecured doors. Bron, you and I are going to start fortifying, seeing whether we can find things to board up the windows so they can’t break through. Questions? Good. Go.”
Spotting a bank of light switches by the door, he flipped them all. Nothing lit up, which is what he expected. It was possible that the front hall light was on a different switch, or that the bulb was dead, but he didn’t really expect there to be electricity here.
That was going to complicate things a bit. There was going to be an unlit attic and likely a basement, and they were going to have to check these. He had a flashlight, and of course he remembered that Sophia had her magic light, so they would be able to do that. Meanwhile, he should check whether they had water, but he could do that when he got to some room that had a sink.
“So,” he said to a waiting Bron, “what have we got?”
Acknowledging with a nod, the blacksmith said, “These windows,” and he waved a hand toward them, “all have bars mounted to the frames, inside. There are some places where the glass is broken through, but in other places the windows are made of something else, like maybe the glass was replaced with some clear material.”
That suggested that the house had withstood previous attacks, and that whatever was happening here had been happening long enough for some people to have defended themselves, and built defenses. It also meant that these things could be beaten, at least in the short term.
“All right, let’s check the rest of the downstairs, and then we’ll look upstairs.” He took one more look at the front door, made sure both locks were engaged, and let Bron lead the way around the house.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476: Versers Deduce. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
