Clearing the house is easy. Otis did his job in locking the place up well, but the key is hidden exactly where Beth remembered it being under a flower pot on the porch. Shane will be amused by it being hidden between the inner and outer pots of the damned cactus once the jab the stupid plant gave him heals.

He carries Sophia inside and sits her at the kitchen table. "Beth, see if you can find any first aid supplies. Carl, make sure all the windows are covered on the ground floor." Both kids scurry off to do as asked, leaving him to peel away the improvised bandaging on Sophia's arm.

"How bad does it hurt, one to ten, sweetheart?"

Sophia eyes the ugly gash and swallows hard. "Six. Less than when I broke my arm, more than when I had my tonsils out."

Shane squeezes her hand and goes to set water to boil on the stove, thanking the prior residents for being set on a propane stove instead of electric, and that someone liked tea. The tea kettle will boil - and thus cool - water much faster than a pot will. "We're going to flush the wound as best we can with sterile water. Normally, I might just bandage it up, but if we've got to be on the move, you won't be able to keep the arm immobile. So I'm going to have to do stitches somehow."

He has to hand it to the girl for being able to make the logic leap there. "And we don't have lidocaine."

"No, we don't. It's going to hurt like hell, I'm afraid." Shane starts checking the cabinets, feeling a bit of relief when he sees the decently stocked pantry. He's even more relieved when he finds a bottle of vodka in the otherwise empty freezer compartment of the fridge. "This is a one time good deal, Sophia, because end of the world or not, I am not approving of a thirteen year old drinking normally."

She giggles a little as he pours as much as he dares safely give her in the cup. "Don't drink that just yet, in case Beth finds something actually for pain better than ibuprofen."

Sophia nods as Carl returns. "Everything's covered up, but some of the curtains are kind of sheer."

"We'll move upstairs as soon as we can then to wait for daylight."

Beth returns to the kitchen carrying a pillowcase she's improvised into a bag. She tips out the contents onto the table for Shane to look over. There are two prescription bottles, but he doesn't recognize either medication. As much as he was hoping for an unfinished bottle of painkiller from old dental work or similar, it seems that's not going to pan out.

When he nudges the cup toward Sophia, she grimaces. "This isn't going to taste good, is it?"

"Straight alcohol is an acquired taste, I'm afraid, and unlike medicine, where they tell you to hold your nose and swallow, you do not want to do that with alcohol."

The rest of Beth's raid of the house bathrooms yields plenty of gauze, tape, bandages, and antibiotic cream, at least, among other standard medicine cabinet supplies. "Any dental floss in the bathroom? And would the former missus have a sewing kit anywhere? I need a good needle."

"She's got a whole sewing room. I'll be right back."

The kettle screams, so Shane takes it off the burner to cool. "Carl? Why don't you open a few cans and get something to eat together?"

While Carl sets to work, he kneels and unwraps Sophia's ankle next. This one will be easier, since none of the cuts are deep enough for stitches, but the girl's definitely not going to be walking anywhere. Thankfully, Beth's loot has a chemical ice pack, so that will come in handy.

"Are you going to pour the vodka on my cuts?" Sophia asks, leaning in to study the ankle.

"No. Stuff has to be a lot higher proof than this to be really useful. No sense in making you think your skin's burning off if we can avoid it."

Beth returns with a small cloth with several needles jabbed into it and a packet of thankfully unflavored dental floss.

"Grab me a shallow bowl for the needle and tweezers, please. Pour in enough of the rubbing alcohol to cover both of them so they can soak." Shane checks the boiled water, and it's cool enough to use. He scrubs his own hands at the sink twice over, hating what he's about to do.

"Grab the kettle and come trickle it over Sophia's ankle for me."

Beth nods, carefully rinsing the older girl's foot, letting the excess water flow into the bucket. She halts when Shane says to, and he rechecks the ankle. None of the cuts seem to be actively bleeding, so he slathers them with antibiotic cream and bandages them up. He wraps an ace bandage in place to support the ankle and bandages, glad that the place had one like every southern home seems to collect up.

"Now's the hard part, Sophia. Hang in there with me, okay? Even the water is going to hurt like hell."

As Beth pours the water to irrigate the deeper wound, Sophia squirms and fights off tears. Beth doesn't bother, her young face damp as she helps. Dirt and debris join the bloody water in the bucket, but just when Shane thinks they won't be able to fully irrigate it with this batch of water, the water turns simply pink. He still examines the wound, not finding anything visible at least. They'll have to risk it, since the household didn't have any iodine.

"Can't you just use peroxide?" Sophia asks, looking at the brown bottle on the table.

"Last first aid course I took said it does more harm than good. Kills the good cells along with the bacteria."

She nods, looking apprehensive. Shane goes and washes his hands one more time, just in case. Beth puts an arm around Sophia as he begins the stitches, letting her cry into Beth's shoulder. He makes it quick, opting for securing the wound and not avoiding scarring. One benefit of sports and law enforcement is that he's had enough stitches to know the difference.

"All done. Seven stitches, sweetheart, and now we'll bandage it up."

Sophia turns teary eyes toward him and blinks, studying the arm. "They're not all smushed together like my friend's were."

"No, they aren't, but lots of little, close stitches are when they're trying to avoid scarring. I figured you might prefer a faster job and a cool scar than a bunch done with no painkiller." He layers on the antibiotic cream. Fewer stitches means less to take out if Hershel decides she's better off without them, too.

"I don't mind a scar."

The statement sounds so boyish that Shane grins at her as he tapes bandaging in place. "Well, you'll definitely have a cool scar to talk about when we find your mama and this heals up."

Carl sets bowls on the table as Beth gathers up the first aid supplies and puts them back in the pillowcase. Shane empties the bucket and washes up again. While the kids start eating, he does his own patrol of the windows, keeping an eye out. The direction change they made could put them in the path of that herd if it shifts even a little bit.

"Alright, kids. Eat up, and then I want y'all to fill up containers with water upstairs. If we have to hide and wait out any walkers, we don't want to run any water to alert them we're here."

"What about going to the bathroom?" Beth asks. Shane pauses in eating Carl's makeshift stew to point at the mop bucket he just emptied.

"Eww." It's a chorus from both girls, but they don't seem actually offended by the idea.

"They have an attic here, if you're really worried," Beth suggests. "It's got those stairs that drop down out of the ceiling."

"Good thinking. Soon as we're done eating, I want Beth to go fill up the bathtub and any water containers you can find. Carl, you go through the pantry and load up anything that can be eaten without being warmed up. Make sure you pack the can opener."

They scarf down the food, seeming to catch his unease. While they disburse to do as directed, first he carries Sophia upstairs and sets her on the foot of a bed in a guest room. He goes back downstairs and grabs Beth's first aid bag and the bucket and goes upstairs to find those stairs to make sure the attic is even viable. Like most attics, it's dusty as hell, but at least it's got a partial floor because the missus of the house stored decorations up here. He shoves those over into the area that doesn't have a firm floor, figuring no one cares about ceiling cracks now.

One of the rooms has a set of twin beds, so he hefts both mattresses up into the attic by the time the kids converge again. Carl is practically dragging his overloaded shopping bags, looking pale.

"I saw a walker down by the woodline where we came from," he reports.

Shane's glad they don't have lights to really give away their position, and that Carl's supper concoction was all vegetables that reduces any strong scents in the house. "Here's the rest of the plan. Carl, drag some bedding up from the room I got the twin beds in. Beth, see if you can get the water and food up the steps."

Thank God for a Southern household needing a half dozen gallon sized pitchers for everything, because they'll be able to get by for a day or two without having to exit the attic to dip into the water stored in the upstairs bathtub. Shane carries Sophia into the attic before he creeps down the stairs, going toward the living room to verify the sighting Carl had.

It's just a trio of walkers now, and maybe that will be all, but he isn't counting on it, especially in the dark. More than two stories up, if they stay quiet, they should be invisible to the damned things, and there's no animals here to keep their attention.

Shane does the quietest walk through he can imagine, finding the old couple's bad weather stash in a Rubbermaid bin in the downstairs hall closet. If he can drape something over the two small attic windows to hide the lantern light, at least they won't be huddled in the dark. Luckily, the camp lantern he finds is battery powered and not kerosene. He sets the bin at the foot of the stairs, along with both cases of bottled water, and calls for the kids to fetch it up to the attic.

In the kitchen, he gathers the bloodied scraps of shirt and douses them with bleach in the kitchen trash can. On his way back upstairs, he stops by the master, for once glad of oldtimers and their lack of gun safes. There are two hunting rifles in the gun rack over the desk in the master. Shane takes a page of Beth's scavenging book and shucks a pillow to use the case to empty all the ammo stored in the gun rack's drawers. Once the guns are passed up to the girls in the attic, he sends Carl up to stay, too and does one last walkthrough of the second floor.

From the room he took the twin beds from, he can see that their initial worries are correct. The three walkers from before are halfway toward the house, but behind them, just leaving the woods, are enough to count as a herd. Shane grabs the stack of extra blankets from the closet and heads upstairs, closing the attic door behind him.

"Herd's on its way," he cautions the kids, and they nod, even as he snags one of the rolls of duct tape out of the supply bin. "Y'all sit on the mattresses for now and let me get these windows covered. It'll get even darker for a few minutes, so I need to know where y'all are, okay?"

Carl joins the girls from where he's been hovering near one of the windows, the one that faces the field the walkers are approaching from. Shane covers that one first, since it's in the half of the attic with less actual flooring, securing the thin blanket with copious amounts of duct tape at the top and upper sides. It steals what little light the attic has, so he walks carefully down the center to reach the other window.

There's nothing outside this one that can be seen, so he covers it as well before allowing himself a moment to breathe a sigh of relief. "Turn the lantern on, please?" he asks, not wanting to walk in the complete dark that now envelops the attic.

It comes to light, casting the kids in that weird glow that camping lanterns always seem to have. "Everyone doing okay?"

Shane gets three barely audible affirmatives. "It's probably going to get really hot in here, even with the vents and whirlybirds circulating air a bit. I'll sneak the windows open some when it does, but we'll have to be absolutely silent when I do. But don't get overheated trying to brave it out, okay?" He honestly isn't sure if the walkers could orient on them up this high even if they do talk, but it's the sort of experiment he doesn't want to try with three dependent kids.

The kids' easy agreement gives him time to look around, and he laughs softly. Beth and Carl didn't just grab only what he told him. Next to the mop bucket he deemed suitable for bathroom trips, there's four rolls of toilet paper, a stack of towels and washcloths, and for some odd reason, the shower curtain.

Beth sees him looking and grins. "If we cover it up between bathroom trips, maybe we won't smell it as much?"

"Good thinking. Y'all stay put." That lets him go through the rest of their supplies and make sure everything is easy to find. Carl did really well with the food, and Shane does a mental calculation that they can make it about four days without rationing, longer if they do, but the water up here might not last quite that long. Dehydration is a real risk in a room like this one. With any luck, the herd will mosey on its way long before that's an issue.

The kids are looking a little bit rattled now, compared to their quiet efficiency both in the run through the woods and the work to get up here. The twin mattresses are pressed together, with the sheets back on them, but the other bedding is piled to the side since it's too damned hot. "Think y'all can sleep yet?"

Sophia nods, but Beth and Carl shake their heads.

"Tell you what. Sophia, why don't you tuck back against the eaves there and get some rest. There's some playing cards in the emergency bin, so we'll pass the time a bit before everyone joins you in snoozing."

The blonde yawns and smiles weakly, before laying down. Beth fetches one of the blankets and rolls it up, sticking it between Sophia and the rough finished attic wall. The poor kid is asleep before Beth can ease back to the edge of the mattress to see what Carl's found in the bin Shane found downstairs.

"They must have really hated being bored if the electricity was out," Carl mutters, holding up a couple of boxes of card games. "Got regular cards, Uno, Rook, Skipbo, Phase 10, and Yahtzee."

"Think we might want to skip out on the Yahtzee," Beth remarks, grinning.

Shane settles the leftover blankets from the spare room into a cushion to sit on opposite the kids once they settle on playing Rook. Beth pops the lid back on the bin to use as a table. He's exhausted out of his mind, but there's no way he's sleeping until the kids do.

They play four games before Carl pretty much falls asleep sitting up, so Shane helps Beth maneuver him into lying down. She crawls in between him and Sophia, going to sleep almost as fast. Shane eases from the cramped position. His thigh screams at him, but he ignores it to crawl around to reach Sophia and check for any fever. It's been three hours since he treated the injury, and so far, her skin doesn't seem any warmer than the other kids.

After a peek under the barest edge of the window blanket shows him a mass of dead bodies stumbling aimlessly over the property, he sighs. It may be awhile before they can leave their little aerial haven, but at least they're all safe for now.

As he settles down next to Carl to sleep, Shane prays the others were as lucky in finding safety.


A/N: Next chapter will feature what happened on the farm without them. It may not be a full chapter of nothing but the other folks, but we probably don't need a full chapter of the attic time either. :)

Obviously, never give alcohol to a teenager as a painkiller, okay? o.O

Sorry, still no doggos this chapter. Probably looking like Chapter Four now.

I've posted a rotational posting schedule in my Profile to give folks an idea of how I'm trying to space out the different series so that they don't clump up and there be two weeks between anything of a series if I only put out a chapter a day. The offspring seems to have virtual school attendance well underway now, so I'm likely to be back to more of a regular writing schedule that could be as many as two chapters a day, now that I'm not helping her navigate video meetings, what seems like seven kinds of new software, and the very entertaining fun of virtual band and PE classes...