Sophia Devero's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Sophia could not sleep. The gate had been locked from inside. That meant someone had shut it, and no one had walked out. She pulled her ponytail tight and picked up her knife. The big dog rose beside her, ears up, and matched her step for step. She would search every room. She had to know if she shared these walls with a stranger. She cleared the kitchen, then the stairs, then both bedrooms. Dust lay thick on every surface. No footprints but her own. The house was empty. Her shoulders dropped. Then the dog turned toward the back window and growled low. Out past the wild yard stood a small building half-buried in vines. A pool house. Warm light glowed behind its glass. Sophia's stomach clenched. She had not lit that lamp. Someone was inside it, and that someone had locked the gate. She crossed the yard low and quiet, the dog at her hip. She reached the wooden door and threw it open, knife raised. A man spun toward her. He held a hunting bow, arrow half-drawn. Tall, dark stubble, a quiver strapped to his back. He froze when he saw her face. For a long moment neither breathed. "You're a person," he said. His voice cracked, like hers had. He lowered the bow slowly. "A real, live person. I thought I was the last one." "Drop it," Sophia said. "You locked me in." "I locked the gate to keep things out." He set the bow on the floor and raised both hands. A smile pulled at his mouth, tired but easy. "Name's Drake. I've held this place two months. Then a woman and a mutant dog walk into my yard." He looked at the huge animal leaning on her leg. "He never let me near him. He picked you fast." Sophia kept the knife up. Her heart pounded. She had wanted others alive more than anything. Now one stood in front of her, armed, in her yard, and she did not know him at all. "Why hide out here?" she asked. "Why not the house?" "The house has cameras." Drake nodded at the dark yard. "Something trips them at night. Big. It circles the fence. I sleep out here so I hear it coming." Sophia lowered the knife an inch. The dog's growl had stopped. It sat now, tail sweeping the floor, watching Drake with soft eyes. "Then we have a problem," she said. "Because I claimed that house. And it seems we both want the same walls." Drake's smile widened. "Two of us is better odds than one. Whatever comes at night, it's coming tonight." He picked up the bow, slower this time, and held it loose. "You want the last people on earth fighting each other, or that thing outside?" Sophia looked at him, then at the black window. She was not alone anymore. She just did not know yet if that was safety or a new kind of danger.