Haven Hill: Chapter 30

An Excerpt from Haven Hill

Here’s where the story left off last time.

The chili was warm and spicy, exactly as it should be.

The cabin was barricaded like a frontier fort, and it shouldn’t have been.

So they ignored it.

For the first time in days, the silence didn’t feel razor-sharp.

They cleared the dishes from the table and put the remainder of the chili in the fridge. Kate washed, and Ariel dried with a brightly colored dish towel.

“All right,” Kate said, forcing brightness into her voice. “Cards or dominoes?”

Ariel blinked at her over a cracker. “Dominoes. I’m terrible at cards, and you hustle me every time.”

Kate snorted. “You cannot hustle your own child, sweetheart.”

“You absolutely can,” Ariel said, dragging the little wooden box out of the cabinet by the fridge. “You hustle me at Uno every time we play.”

Kate cleared a patch of table between the two Glocks, nudging them aside as if they were just another pair of salt shakers. She pushed the guns just far enough away to keep them out of immediate view so they could act as though they were playing a game and that they didn’t each have a pistol within arm’s reach.

Ariel set the dominoes on the table with a flourish. “Let’s pretend,” she said, sitting across from her mother and trying to smile, “that we aren’t literally barricaded in our house like it’s the zombie apocalypse.”

Kate matched her smile. “Easy. Watch this.” She pointed to the armoire blocking the door. “That’s just a rustic decorative piece.”

“And the dining chairs stacked in front of the back door?”

“Obviously modern art.”

“And the fishing-line tripwire across the clearing?”

“That’s…” Kate paused, then shrugged. “Seasonal décor.”

Ariel laughed—a real one this time. Thin, tired, but real. She continued turning all the dominoes face down so they could draw.

Kate leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs out, trying to let her shoulders drop. The normalcy felt absurd. Almost indulgent.

She glanced at her daughter over the line of dominoes. There was finally a bit of color in Ariel’s cheeks.

“We’re preppers,” Kate said lightly, setting down her first piece. “We can outlast the zombies for a long time.”

Ariel parted her lips to respond, then shut them again, eyes flicking toward the window. The curtain was drawn. They both pretended it made a difference.

“Yeah,” Ariel said eventually, lining up her tile with deliberate care. “We’re like… Olympic-level at waiting out crazy zombies in the woods.”

Kate laughed. “Exactly. This is practically our hobby.”

A gust hit the side of the cabin, making one of the tripwire bells jingle faintly.

Both of them went still.

Just for a second.

Then Ariel carefully placed another domino. “Wind,” she said quietly.

Kate nodded, teeth clenched. “Wind.”

They played three rounds. Ariel lost two, won one, and crowed triumphantly at her victory. Kate let herself bask in the sound—the unsteady laugh of a child pretending to be brave.

Kate got up to make popcorn on the stovetop.

Behind her, Ariel sprawled on the couch, wrapped burrito-style in her afghan, pretending not to watch the shadows under the front door.

The corn popped faster and faster until it was done. Kate tossed in real butter and put it back on the stove to let it melt. She grabbed two diet root beers from the fridge.

For a few minutes, everything felt almost normal.

Almost peaceful. Almost safe.

Kate wiped her hands, leaned her hip against the counter, and allowed herself one quiet thought:

Maybe we can get through the night without anything else happening.

Outside, the wind brushed weakly against the eaves.

The bells stayed still.

For now.

…

They watched a silly old sitcom on Kate’s laptop with the volume so low it was mostly just a murmur. They weren’t really watching it. They were listening—harder than they ever had in their lives.

Every groan of the timbers.

Every whisper of wind.

Every tinkle of the bells.

Ariel tried to laugh at a joke on the screen, but the sound came out thin and cracked.

Kate pulled the curtains tighter, making sure no light leaked out. Then she made another perimeter check inside the cabin—windows latched, doors secured, armoire braced against the front door, and kitchen chairs stacked against the back door.

Her shadow flickered across the walls, long and thin in the lamplight.

Ariel curled sideways on the couch, blanket around her shoulders, popcorn bowl in her lap. “Are we gonna sleep at all tonight?” she wondered.

“We can take shifts,” Kate answered softly, knowing she wasn’t going to wake Ariel in the middle of the night to sit there in terror while she slept.

Ariel nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave the front door.

The hours crept by.

The wind calmed.

The trees settled.

The bells outside gave only the occasional soft, innocent jingle—nothing sharp, nothing deliberate.

Kate forced herself to rest for one hour, lying on her side on the couch with her boots still on, the Glock under her hand. She didn’t truly sleep—she hovered in that floaty, brittle place where your mind is still listening even as your breathing slows.

Ariel watched the windows, fighting yawns. At some point, she crawled from the couch to the floor behind the refrigerator and dozed sitting upright, blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cape.

It was a terrible, aching kind of night, but, as all nights do, it passed.

Eventually, the darkness softened.

The cabin’s edges reappeared.

A faint, pale glow crept through the cracks of the curtains.

Ariel stirred first, rubbing her face. “Is it morning?”

Kate sat up instantly, blinking hard. “Looks like it.”

She checked the door. Still locked. The armoire was undisturbed. She peeked through the curtain. Nothing new on the porch.

For now, the world looked ordinary.

Kate exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

They had made it through the night.

But morning would bring new dangers.

She felt it in her very bones.

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About Daisy

She is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and X.