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leave on the can run, Stephen was woken by a bell. A hand-rung bell rang
from outside, insistent and deliberate, raising the alarm. Stephen jumped up.
Across the room, Alana stirred before sitting up. “What is it?” she asked.
    Stephen pulled his trousers on
and stepped outside, still buckling his belt. He looked up at the hills above
the village and saw what the bell was for. It was Morgan’s Unit. The small
column of soldiers, all still on horseback, had crested the hill and were
making their way down the road. Gareth, doing his job on the gate, had spotted
them, and was ringing the bell to let everyone know.
    Alana and Karen appeared at his
side. She swore when she saw the soldiers and ushered Karen back inside, but
the girl brushed by to use the toilet. Gary and Phil joined them outside. Gary
rubbed his head and yawned. Phil looked terrified.
    Stephen said, “You all battened
down there?”
    “Yup, all locked down.” They had
stacked all the wood up, inside Gary’s, in front of their supplies and weapons;
Gary’s shotgun included. After moving in, Gary and Stephen had removed part of
a wall, lifted some floorboards, and had stashed their stuff there. Morgan’s
men would likely mooch about but not actually disturb their home, let alone
piles of wood. At least, they normally did that, thought Stephen.
    “Will you still go today?” Alana
asked.
    “Nah. We’ll stick around,” said
Stephen. “We’ll see what they do.”
    Karen skipped up and Stephen
gestured for them to go into their respective billets.
     
    Morgan’s Unit rode round the gate and pulled up
around the church. With the manse, the former Minister’s home, just behind it,
the churchyard and garden provided a decent sized pasture for the horses.
Stephen and Alana watched discreetly from a small window as Morgan dismounted.
    Tall and broad, and though he was
dressed the same as his unit in the Multi-Terrain-Pattern uniform, he alone
wore a soft teal-coloured beret, where the others wore helmets. He wore two
silver pistols at his belt, like a mad general of old, thought Stephen. The
rest of the unit wore helmets, which they began to unclip and hook under an
arm, relaxed in their environment. Morgan strode about, surveying the manse.
One of his men took his horse away to join the others.
    Quietly, though they would not be
heard, Alana said to Stephen, “I’d like to know what their story is.”
    Stephen made a non-committal
shrug, “Would it make a difference?”
    She looked him in the eye. “I
came across a unit like this last year. They’d gone rogue because they had no
command structure. This guy Morgan is clearly in charge.”
    “So?”
    “So, why are they leeching off
the people when they’re supposed to be helping them?”
    “Fair point.” Stephen looked back
outside. Morgan was pointing at the house, talking to two men. “The one on the
left is Captain Weaver and the other one is Lieutenant Baxter.”
    “And we already met the
Sergeant.” Alana brushed up next to Stephen as she tried to see out the small
window. “Do they always do this?”
    “No. My guess is Colonel Morgan
is sizing up a winter home.”
    Alana drew away and put her back
to the wall. “Soldiers here for the winter? Bad news.”
    “And a re-think on the can runs.”
    Alana chewed her lip. “Could we
stay where the cans are?”
    Stephen shook his head. “I
wouldn’t have when these goons were out in the countryside. Maybe now.”
    She moved back to the window and
looked out. Stephen hung back and looked at her. Long hair, dark mostly but
with different colours flavouring the effect, surrounded the pale skin of her
face. Her eyes were brown and she watched intently. He asked her, “Why are you
interested in their story?”
    She shrugged. “Just interested.”
Alana didn’t look at him but kept her attention on the soldiers outside.
    She was lying, he knew. There was
something else, he thought, maybe she had been in the military. Certainly, she
knew how to