by the Author of The Widow in the Woods Here’s where the story left off last time. Kate cautiously entered the next room, back against the wall to protect herself. The living room smelled comforting, the familiar smell of damp wool and a toasty fire. Mr. Slocum always kept a fire going in the woodstove the moment it got chilly enough, but today, the ashes inside the cast-iron stove were cold. Kate’s eyes swept the space. It looked normal. She felt hopeful when she saw his recliner, the crocheted blanket his late wife had made draped neatly over the back. A half-finished jigsaw puzzle of a barn owl was spread across the coffee table. Nothing overturned, nothing broken. Just still. Too still. She took a quick look behind the sofa, which was the only possible hiding place in the cozy room. Nothing. Her boots whispered over the old braided rug as she moved toward the hallway. “Mr. Slocum?” she called again, louder this time. She didn’t want to stumble upon the old man if he was still in bed or in the shower – how embarrassing for both of them, she thought. Her voice sounded strange in the silent cabin. It was too sharp, too alive. She waited hopefully for a response. Prayed for a response. There was no answer. She moved into the hallway and switched on the light. Only one bulb burned weakly overhead. She was going to check each room, with Mr. Slocum’s room being the last. The first door on the right led to the guest room. She checked under the empty bed, sheets tight and crisp. She looked in the closet and was greeted by the faint scent of mothballs. The bathroom door was open, and the clear vinyl shower curtain was pulled aside – there was no need to search that There was only one room left. Her feet felt like she was wearing boots of cement as she trudged toward the last door. “Mr. Slocum?” she called again, hopefully waiting for an answer. The door was almost closed – opened just a crack. She hesitated, closing her eyes for a moment. She knocked on the bedroom door, hoping that he was in bed taking a nap, and this had all been a silly leap of her imagination. Again, there was no answer. She eased the door open with the muzzle of her Glock. The hinges gave a slight creak, high-pitched. She was betting Mr. Slocum was unable to hear it, otherwise he would have oiled the offending hardware immediately. The scents hit her first – it smelled of iron and something faintly metallic, undercut by shaving soap. She closed her eyes and whispered an unintelligible prayer. Her brain refused to name the scent until she saw him. Mr. Slocum sat in his chair beside the window, facing the mountains like he was gazing outside at the stunning view. His hands rested neatly on his knees, palms up, like he’d been waiting for something. His favorite flannel shirt was buttoned wrong—off by one hole, which he never would’ve tolerated.  There was something dark on his shirt. Kate’s throat constricted. “Oh, no. Oh, Mr. S…” She stepped closer. The chair creaked as her boot brushed it. Mr. Slocum didn’t move. His head lolled slightly to one side, and she saw the neat slice across his throat. The blood had soaked one side of his gray and blue plaid shirt, coloring over the pattern. “No,” Kate said again, this time more firmly, as if she could make this horrible event be erased by sheer strength of will. Then she noticed the reddish brown smudges on his bedroom wall. Words, her brain registered numbly, without actually reading them. They had not put on the wall with paint, but with blood. The words had been written in a large, uneven scrawl.  Thick, dark strokes gleamed in the weak light from the window, almost seeming moist. FAMILY IS FOREVER. When she read the message, her hand began to tremble so badly she almost dropped the gun. There was no other way to take those words – they were a warning and she was chilled to the bone Ariel’s voice floated from the kitchen. “Mom? You okay?” Kate swallowed hard and forced her voice steady.  It came out broken anyway. “Stay where you are, baby. I mean it.” She crouched beside the chair, two fingers to the side of his neck. He was cold. The skin was softer than she would have expected from a corpse, she noted, then squelched the gruesome observation. The pulse was gone. He was dead and probably had been for a day or so. Her vision tunneled. The edges of the room went gray. She forced herself to breathe through her nose, slow, steady, like she’d taught Ariel. Counting, breathing, clearing her mind. A creak from a floorboard in the hallway pulled her out of her quick meditation – someone was in the hall behind her. Kate whirled around, gun raised, eye staring down the front sight. When she saw it was her daughter, she immediately pointed the gun toward the floor and holstered it. “I said to stay in the kitchen!” But the girl was already in the doorway, hand to her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh no,” she whispered. “He’s our friend. Is he – dead?” Kate rose, senses suddenly sharp and back in control. She caught her daughter by the shoulders, turning her toward the door.  “Don’t look, honey. Look at me instead.” Ariel’s eyes filled with tears, but she disobeyed, turning back to the gruesome scene. “He wrote that, didn’t he? Logan did?” Kate didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. She gently pushed the girl from the room and quietly closed the door behind them. She guided Ariel back toward the kitchen. “Sit down. I’ll make you some tea.” Ariel nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve as she perched on the old, red vinyl kitchen chair. Soon, the kettle was bubbling merrily on the stove. Kate opened a cabinet, where she knew her friend had kept the tea, and that simple thought made her eyes fill with tears again. She turned toward the red telephone with a rotary dial. She picked up the handset and found that it had been cut.She looked behind the table for the jack and found that too ahd been destroyed, ripped right out of the wall. Mr. Slocum always teased about the red being his line to find out what the commies were doing.  Kate was old enough to remember the cold war, but her daughter was not. “Mom, what are we going to do?” Ariel asked, eyes reddened with unshed tears. Kate set the mug of tea in front of Ariel and watched the steam curl between them, carrying the scent of mint and metal. Kate looked toward the hook where Mr. Slocum kept the keys to his beautifully maintained 1971 Dodge Ram. The keys were gone. “Wait here this time,” she ordered Ariel. “I mean it, you hear me?” Ariel nodded wordlessly, tears slipping from her eyes. Full of dread, Kate trudged reluctantly back down the dark hallway to Mr. Slocum’s room. He was, of course, exactly how she had left him. “I’m sorry to do this,” she whispered apologetically, even though Mr. Slocum was far beyond hearing the words. She patted his pockets, searching for the keys. She felt something promising in his right pants pocket. Shuddering at her proximity to a dead man, she leaned across him to reach into the pocket. Victoriously,  she pulled out a set of keys.  Finally, something had gone right, and they could get the heck out of there and let the police handle things. “Thank you,” she said to Mr. Slocum as if he could hear her. When she strode back through the kitchen, she had a feeling of elation. She was not going to be a victim. She would save herself and save her daughter and let the cops do their jobs. She dangled the keys in front of Ariel. “Look – I found Mr. Slocum’s truck keys!” Ariel perked up at the sight of the keys. She, too, fervently wanted to get out of there. “Gather up our stuff while I go start the truck,” Kate told her daughter, then she walked outside with purpose. This was finally going to be over. She got into the old truck. The leather seats were so old and well-worn that they felt as soft as fabric to the touch. Kate put the key into the ignition. Click. Click. Click. “No, no, NO!” Kate cried, trying the key again. Her efforts were met with nothing but dead clicks. Just like her own Jeep, the truck had been sabotaged. It was not going to start. Ariel was standing on the back stoop, the one where the door had been swinging in the breeze. “He got to it, didn’t he?” she asked flatly. Her voice seemed resigned and oddly adult. Kate nodded, unable to find the right words. She pounded on the driver’s side windows with the flat of her hands and screamed, her swear word echoed through the forest. Then wh3 threw the keys as hard as she could toward the house. She took some deep breaths, willing herself to calm down. “He’s never going to stop.,” Ariel told her, eerily calm during her mother’s display of anger. “Nowhere is safe for us, not even Haven Hill, Kate looked at her daughter — pale, precious, trying to be brave — and knew that they could not keep running. “You’re right,” Kate replied. “He’s never going to stop. But we will find a way to stop him.” Her hands were steady now, unnaturally so, and that scared her a little. Somewhere between the bedroom and this moment, something in her had gone quiet. The shaking had stopped. The fear settled into hardness inside her chest. Mr. Slocum’s blood had written the truth on the wall for her, too. Family is forever. Fine. She would protect hers forever, too — even if it meant using all her training in a way she had never intended. She unconsciously flexed her fingers, as if remembering the weight of her weapon. Kate carefully checked that the stove was off and all the lamps were turned off to prevent a possible fire. Then, for what felt like the very last time, she closed Mr. Slocum’s door behind her and locked it with the spare key, which she put back in its hiding place. About Daisy Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging author and blogger who’s traded her air miles for a screen porch, having embraced a more homebody lifestyle after a serious injury. She’s the heart and mind behind The Organic Prepper, a top-tier website where she shares what she’s learned about preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty. With 17 books under her belt, Daisy’s insights on living frugally, surviving tough times, finding some happiness in the most difficult situations, and embracing independence have touched many lives. Her work doesn’t just stay on her site; it’s shared far and wide across alternative media, making her a familiar voice in the community. Known for her adventurous spirit, she’s lived in five different countries and raised two wonderful daughters as a single mom. Now living in the beautiful state of North Carolina, Daisy has been spreading her knowledge through blogging for 15 years now.  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. The post Haven Hill: Chapter 24 appeared first on The Organic Prepper.