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him into the back. Then Beth called out to me.
    ‘I stood up in the doorway so Ramage could see me pointing the rifle at him. Beth called to Kas to get the cable ties from the shed.
    ‘Then Beth tied one around Ramage’s wrists and pushed him down so he was lying next to Rat. There was all thisblood in the bottom of the tray.
    “I’ll be back for you girls,” Ramage screamed as Beth was about to climb in the ute. “I know where you are. You can’t hide. There’ll be more of us next time. We already got the old man.”
    Rose smiles and shakes her head.
    ‘But then, I’ll never forget it: Beth jammed the barrel of the rifle in his mouth. I’d seen her angry before, but nothing like this. It was like something inside her had snapped.
    ‘“You come near my girls,” she said, “and I will kill you. You understand, you fucking creep. I will kill you.”
    ‘I’m pretty sure I heard his teeth break when she snapped the barrel out of his mouth and got back in the driver’s seat. He was bawling now, saying all sorts of dirty things. Things he’d do to Kas and me.
    ‘After Beth took off down the drive it was quiet. Kas and I stood looking at each other. I reckon we both knew nothing was ever going to be normal again.’
    ‘And Beth?’ I ask.
    Rose takes her time to answer. She shifts in her chair and when she speaks her voice breaks.
    ‘She never came back.’

The light is coming right into the kitchen now and my stomach is rumbling.
    ‘We need to eat,’ I say.
    I have to make a decision. I always thought if it came to this, if someone else showed up, I’d have plenty of time to watch them before I made contact. Check them out. Decide if I wanted them to see me. But here’s Rose right in front of me and I’m trying to think on my feet. The funny thing is, even though she’s wary, I’m okay with her being here. I can’t explain why exactly. Something about the way she looks, the way she talks. She’s no threat.
    ‘Come with me,’ I say.
    I ease the back door open and have a good look about. Rowdy slips by my leg for a stretch on the porch.
    Rose stands in the doorway. A small shudder passes through her body. Her legs are thin where the shorts fall to her thighs and her feet are bare. She lifts her face to the sun and shades her eyes with her injured hand.
    Leading her around the side of the house, I duck through a gap in the old cypress hedge to the garage next door, then pull the branches back and feel under the ledge for the key. I open the door and tell her to follow. It’s dark inside, but slowly our eyes adjust.
    She stops in the doorway and stares. The garage is lined with shelves full of all sorts of stuff—tinned food, gas bottles, tools, saws, candles, matches, rabbit traps, ropes and nets.
    ‘Wow,’ she says. ‘Where did you get all this?’
    ‘When things got bad down here, me and Dad started to plan this place. All the shops were cleaned out early on, but we figured there’d be plenty of valuable stuff in the holiday houses.’
    ‘So this is your house, your garage?’ she says.
    ‘No. Dad knew everyone left in town would know he owned the hardware and that they’d come to our place before too long. We picked this garage because it looked like it hadn’t been used in years and the place next door because it was a holiday house hidden away at the back of the block.’
    ‘Gas,’ Rose murmurs, looking at the big cylinders lined up along one wall.
    ‘First thing Dad thought of. He’d just got a big deliveryat the hardware when the town was quarantined.’
    ‘So you can cook food?’
    ‘And run the fridge.’
    ‘Your dad was smart,’ she says. She stops then, but I know what she’s going to ask.
    ‘He died early on.’ I haven’t said this out aloud before, that my dad’s dead, that I’ll never see him again.
    ‘Did you have a mum?’
    ‘She lasted the first winter, but then the virus took her.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
    I start rearranging some tins of beans on a