The Survivor Chronicles: Book 1, The Upheaval by Erica Stevens

remained immobile.
     
    “That’s my Moogie.”
     
    “I’m sorry?” Al asked. “What’s a Moogie?”
     
    The woman raised a trembling hand and pointed out the window at a golden retriever seated in between a poodle, and a dachshund. “The retriever, her name is Moogie.”
     
    Al quirked a brow over that one, but bit his tongue on a response. He’d probably go a little crazy too, if someone had named him “Moogie.” He realized that he now knew more about the woman’s dog than the woman herself. “So, if that’s Moogie, what’s your name, may I ask?”
     
    “I’m sorry.” She colored as she thrust out her hand. “It’s Rita.”
     
    He shook her hand firmly as he introduced himself and then Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen barely acknowledged the woman as she quickly shook her hand. Her gaze was still riveted on the sidewalk and the sky. “The birds stopped falling,” she said quietly.
     
    Al watched as a small dog that looked like a cross between a Jack Russell and a Chihuahua padded over to the others and sat at the end. It frightened him that they all seemed to be staring at his house, and beyond. He’d always been more of a cat man himself, and now, looking at the dogs, he was reassured by his preference.
     
    “Maybe I should get Moogie,” Rita pondered.
     
    “You’re crazy if you try,” Mary Ellen told her.
     
    Al silently agreed as he was seized with the sudden urge to get his guns. He turned away from the window and hurried into his back den. Even though his youngest son had moved out years ago, he still kept the gun cabinet locked. He pulled it open and critically eyed the three rifles tucked safely inside. He’d bought them years ago, when he’d still gone on his yearly hunting trips to Maine with some of his college friends. He’d never been much of a hunter, but he had enjoyed the week they had spent drinking and catching up on each other’s lives.
     
    In fact, he’d only ever shot one deer in his life, and he’d only shot that one because someone else had maimed it first and had either been too inept to track the deer, or too lazy to be bothered. Al couldn’t walk away and leave the animal to suffer, however. There was no way it was going to survive with the bullet wound it had sustained to its hindquarters. Not only had the hunter been too lazy to track the deer, they’d also been a poor shot.
     
    Al may not have been much of a hunter, but he was deadly accurate with a gun. He’d made sure to be, had spent hours at target practice just in case there ever came a time when he would actually have to shoot something. He’d never gone out there to kill anything, but if it ever became necessary, or if he ever had to defend himself, he was going to make sure it was with a kill shot. He wasn’t about to let anything suffer because of his incompetence.
     
    It had been years since he’d met with his friends in Maine, but he’d kept the guns in excellent condition. He’d cleaned them regularly, even taken each of them to the shooting range twice a year to keep them in good, firing condition. Growing up, his family had had little, they’d scrimped and saved and gone without, and he’d grown up believing that everything ought to be treated with respect. He’d had a lot more in his later years, but he’d never wasted unnecessarily and he took care of every one of his possessions, only getting rid of them when they were beyond repair.
     
    Now, he was grateful for his meticulousness as he pulled the gleaming rifles from the cabinet. There was a twenty-two Winchester he had bought for Nellie when she had expressed a desire to learn to shoot. The other two were both thirty-aught-sixes with top notch scopes. He grabbed the boxes of ammo from the cabinet and tucked them into his rifle bag. There were also two Smith and Wesson nine mm’s that he hefted into his hands. He was reassured by their weight.
     
    As he turned away from the gun cabinet he had intended to ignore the back window,