Chapter 16

It was fairly late by the time that Bryan had finally gotten into the house. With all of the night's excitement, it seemed as if hours had slipped by.

The house was dark inside, almost silent if not for the sound of the refrigerator and a slight crackling from the nearly dead coals in the fireplace. Otherwise silence was the only thing within hearing. "Like a tomb," he said to himself, considering the possibilities that had presented themselves.

"An intruder got to within fifty yards of the house before being caught by the dog," Bryan thought. "Something has to change."

He sat down at his computer, to soak in a bit of the news of the day's goings on before turning in. Silver was asleep as evidenced by the heavy breathing, almost snoring sound that came from the bedroom.

Looking through his email, there was a message from someone that he did not know. He clicked on it, thinking it would be junk mail that had not been filtered, but instead found a message from the couple that he had encountered while shopping earlier in the week. The message that followed gave him serious pause. Perhaps things were already worse than he had dreamed.

Hi

This is the couple that you gave your email address to on Wednesday night. We wanted to talk because we are really scared about what is going on around here.

We are holed up in our suburban home with another family, friends of ours that knew this was coming. We have come to no harm but fear that the situation may get worse soon.

We have all heard shots fired in our neighborhood and we live in an area of town that isn't known for that. Most of our neighbors had no more than a meal or two's worth of food and even then they are still starving because they don't know how to get by. We have seen people going door to door begging for anything and everything.

Bryan sat staring at the screen for a few minutes. He read the email again, and then one more time to make sure that he understood. The undertones were clear; it was a blatant yet polite cry for help. The question in his mind was should he help them, could he help them? The answer wasn't clear cut, or even easy from his perspective.

A lot of "what if" questions reared their ugly heads in his mind. What if they were selfish, hateful people that he couldn't get along with? What if they threatened him or his family? What if they contributed nothing and came expecting a free ride? With a sigh he closed the email, deciding to sleep on it before making a decision.

He slipped into the bedroom quietly, but his mere presence in the room made Silver stop snoring.

"Bryan," she called quietly. He did not answer but got himself undressed and slid between the sheets scooping her up in the process.

"Do you hate me?" she asked pleadingly.

"No," he said, his voice neutral. "I don't hate you."

"I would hate me..." she trailed off. "I'm sorry I blew up at you. I shouldn't have done that."

"Don't sweat it," he said coolly. "I forgave you before I left the house."

"I'm just so stressed about this situation," she said, voicing what he already knew. "There are armed military men guarding the front door of the bank. At work I'm wondering how I'm going to pay people next week on their scheduled payday..." she trailed off, waiting for him to answer, but he remained strangely silent.