The Vigilantes (The Superiors) Read Online Free Page B

You’re starting to sound an awful lot like Daddy.”
    “I can think of worser folks to sound like. And as it happens, Daddy’s right. I can’t think about what’s gonna happen if one stops in here again. I don’t think he’ll make it to the cage with the way Daddy and Uncle Tom carry on about them bloodsuckers. But if he does, well, it’s my job to make sure we’re ready for him.”
    “Well alright, I’ll leave you to it. Come get some tea iffen you get cold.”
    “Will do, sis. Be in in a bit.”
    Sally stopped to feed the dogs on the way in. Dumb things were pretty much worthless as far as she could tell. Sure, they chased off an animal or two every couple nights, in the summer months anyway. But in the winter they mostly just ate food and didn’t earn their keep no how.
    Sally kicked her boots against the porch railing until the snow fell away in clumps, and then she went in the house to have her hot tea.
    “After you finish your tea, I brought in some hawthorn so we can whittle away some stakes. Too cold out to do much,” her father said. He sat by the fire, peeling away layers of wood to bring out the sharp stake at the center of a limb.
    “Yeah, alright,” she said, sitting down with her tea. “I ain’t got nothing else to do no how.”
    Dang snow. Been falling for days. Everybody got grumpy, especially Sally. Nobody could get out to do nothing. Daddy’d been doing a lot of carving, and Larry spent most of his time out in that dang shed. Everybody waiting for the end of the world or something. Tom’d been pacing for days, wanting to get out and go to one of his inflammatory meetings with all those fellers who was always talking war and never doing much of anything as far as Sally could tell.
    After a while of sitting around inside, Sally put on her snow shoes and piled on about a million layers of clothes and headed out to the shed. She went on around the side and loaded up with wood and took it back to the house. After she replenished the stack on the back porch, she went back out. She got bored with sitting around all winter whittling away at stakes for the herds of thirsty bloodsuckers her family thought was descending on them, closing in by the second. As far as she could tell, it weren’t nothing but a bunch of hot air. Weren’t no bloodsuckers coming this way as far as she could tell. If her family was all gonna die it, would probably be of freezing to death, or maybe dying of cabin fever stuck out there and not even able to go visit the neighbors.
    “Larry,” Sally called, clomping into the shed. “Turn off that dang music! You know Daddy said we can’t use electricity for nothing until the sun comes out or the wind decides to blow a minute.”
    “Yeah, but I don’t see Daddy out here, do you?”
    “So we can’t use the fridge, but you get to listen to music?”
    “Ain’t no need for a fridge til summer,” Larry said. “And I need my music to concentrate. Mind your own damn business.”
    “Maybe I will. I’ll just tell Daddy you’re out here using up our last store of electricity listening to ‘Life Is a Highway’ for the three millionth time.”
    “Shut the hell up, sister. You tell Dad, and I’ll shave your head next time you fall asleep.”
    “What you doing out here anyway? Nothing’s gonna be using that cage except you, when I throw you in there next time you touch my hair.”
    “Why don’t you shut your trap and go do something you’re good at, like brushing your hair a hundred strokes or making me some tea.”
    “Oh, shut up, why don’t you? I’ll leave you alone with your stupid cage. Stupid boys and their stupid toys. Pretending you’re doing something useful when really you’re just trying to get out of the house and sneak some time with your dang radio,” Sally muttered as she fastened her snowshoes and headed back out. She fed the dogs and stood outside looking up at the grey sky. A few flakes of snow drifted down on the silent white world. Winter