Sophia’s Point of View

I made my way from one room to the next as I tossed food onto the ground for my animals. My tears had mostly dried up from the two horses that died, to the hail and blizzard. I had let them out early, not remembering that the man had warned me not to go outside, and then they wouldn’t come back when I felt the shift in the weather. Both horses were on the older side, but it was still sad. I wished… I wish I remembered the weird man’s warning.

I still had a remaining foal(young horse), a kangaroo, a miniature pony, a donkey, six prairie dogs, four pigs and nine piglets, a cow, a half dozen chickens, a few dozen cats, and about a dozen dogs. My main job was to rehabilitate injured animals. Everything but the dogs would have drowned if I hadn’t been warned beforehand. It could have been worse; I could have let all the animals out to enjoy the ranch, so while I was heartbroken over my horses, I was happy I hadn’t made that mistake.

My parents were both dead, or at least, were ruled dead by the court. They were doing missionary work, and the boat they were on went missing, making its return trip to America. That only left my sister, who lived in Pennsylvania. I inherited the ranch and all the land in our home state, and she inherited all the housing my father purchased in the latter half of his life.

We were well off with none of us needing to work for the rest of our lives, so we took up jobs that we wanted to do. Both my parents wanted to make a difference, so they started the ranch, then moved to mission work to take care of sick refugees, while my sister handled most of our businesses and donated a large portion of her income to charity. That’s the type of family we were; my father literally gave a homeless man the shirt off his back when we were coming home before.

I went to my kitchen and flipped the food that was cooking on a charcoal grill my father had installed. It hadn’t seen any use until the power went out, now I was happy to have the large supply of charcoal to use to keep the house warm and to cook food with. It could also function as a propane grill, but I had already gone through all of the stored propane for cooking food.

In between flipping some of the tofu burgers, I looked out my backdoor window and saw someone messing with the horse corpses. Not just someone, a group of men were trying to move my horse, but horses weigh over a thousand pounds. Even the six of them together couldn’t move it, my first thought was to yell at them, to tell them to leave my horse's body alone… 

I caught myself at the last moment as I thought about it more. I was a single woman on a ranch where the closest neighbor was a few miles away. Yelling at them now was an incredibly bad idea, as I fearfully ran up to the second floor of my home and grabbed my shotgun with shaky hands. My father didn’t believe guns were necessary, but he bought my mother and me one to protect ourselves, just in case.

I peeked out of the second-story window, even fully clothed with a thick winter coat, and I could feel the cold seep through the window. I kept an eye on them as they managed to cut the horse up into pieces, someone hauling away the horse's legs as they cleaned the horse right there in my ranch backyard. Each took what they could carry as they left the horse's head and frame, but took almost everything else.

I watched and waited for another hour until I felt it was safe, only to remember the food that was left in the grill that had been turned into charcoal bricks. Preparing food for myself didn’t seem like a good idea, so I ate the last bit of the snack foods I had left before making my way upstairs to keep an eye out for those people.

…

Five days have passed since then. I had almost forgotten about them. The snow covered any signs of the corpse, as well as the other horse, which they didn’t mess with. The snow was piled up to over four feet; I could only see out half the window now, as the other half was buried. If I didn’t have a second floor, I’d be worried about being buried.

I was making my way back upstairs when I heard glass shattering from the dining room. I couldn’t help but scream as I heard several men all talking with each other. “You said this place was empty.” “I didn’t say that, I said it would be easy. Only one girl lives here!” “You heard her scream, get her before we take her animals.”

I ran upstairs and let out the dogs. Most of the smaller ones, the cats and dogs, pigs, and chickens. The larger animals remained on the bottom floor. Out of the dozen dogs, half of them were on the bigger side. I rushed to my shotgun, a weapon I had viewed with disdain was now the only thing protecting me from these home invaders.

I double-checked that it was loaded, and there wasn’t a safety on this type of shotgun. Did red or black mean the safety was off? I heard the sounds of my dogs attacking the men as one screamed out in pain. “Get him off me! Get him off me!” Followed by the sounds of a dog crying out in pain, then whimpering, after a shot rang out.

“God damnit, Chester! That was right beside my head. You’re gonna make me deaf!” “Can you not say my name, Billy! I’d rather not have to kill the lady on account of her being able to remember our names and faces.” “Well, you just said mine dumbass, now we’re gonna have to kill her!” My heart beat out of my chest as the men talked about killing me so casually.

“Shut the fuck up, you two. If she’s smart, she’ll come down from where she is with her HANDS RAISED so we can just tie her up.” The voice spoke calmly except when he shouted, but it did not make me feel comfortable. No, instinctively, I knew if I went down there, my fate would be worse than death. There was a ten-second silence before I heard footsteps rushing up the stairs.

Doors banged open as they all picked rooms before I heard mine be kicked in. A large, black man stood in the doorway, wearing several layers of clothes, with most of his face covered. We stared at each other for a quarter of a second before I saw him start to raise his gun. I didn’t think, my finger pulling the trigger as I just acted. *BOOM*

The explosion went off so loud it managed to scare the already terrified me. My shoulder hurt tremendously, but all that fell away as I looked in the doorway where the man was. His body slumped against the wall, and my shot ripped through his throat, almost ripping his head from his body. Which might have been a kindness to me, so I didn’t have to see the eyes of the man I just killed staring back at me. I stared at him, emotional tears running down my cheeks. I heard one of the other men shout out. “Brock, no!”