I Overpacked for the Apocalypse, So My Daughter Invited the Street novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Hold Still

"Headache," said Elspeth. "Sick to the stomach. Sleepy, and slow to answer. Is that the picture?"

"I don't know," said Neil. "They said they were tired."

"A sealed house with two stoves burning isn't a shelter. It's a flue with people in it."

Neil said nothing, and in the silence the answer came out of him anyway.

"Everything," he said. "The windows, the doors, the stovepipe chase. I did it at the siren, to keep the gas out."

"Then you've kept the smoke in," said Elspeth. "Where's your key?"

He patted his lanyard, his belt, both pockets.

His hands had lost their manners and would not find anything.

Lucy took the bolt cutters out of Garth's hands.

"It's the chain," she said. "I'll do the chain."

"I'll do it," said Garth.

"You're taller than the post. Hold the light."

She set the jaws on a link beside Neil's padlock, and I made a sound that wasn't a word.

"Dad," said Lucy. "Back up."

"It's under tension," I said. "The link will."

"I know it's under tension. I back a bus into driveways."

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