I stand up and pain rockets down my spine. I walk to the ransacked shelves. I slip cans back up into their dust rings on the shelves, pick up glass shards, fold the clothes. Beneath a pair of coveralls I find a rusty ax. I ignore the pain from my busted hands as I grip it and climb the ladder.

Ethan sits up suddenly. “What’re you doing?”

I look down at him and try to smile. My face is unresponsive, so I give up and begin hacking at the crack between the doors. “Getting us out.”

Ethan watches me. “What do you think happened, you know, to Mama and Dad?”

“I’m sure they’re fi …” My throat squeezes. I look down at my little brother. “I don’t know.” I swing the ax over and over until my hands are screaming.

It takes a half an hour to bust the doors open. When I can barely grip the ax and my head throbs enough to blur my vision, the last of the wood gives way. I push open the mangled doors. Sunlight floods my face. Squinting, I climb out of the cellar and look around.

The stillness sends goose bumps over my arms. The yard is empty. Our farmhouse is silent, the back door open. Across the yard, the barn door thwacks in the breeze. A crow perches on the roof. When it sees me, it caws and flings itself into the air. Arn says crows are a bad omen. I watch the bird slash upward and feel like throwing up.

I peer down the hole at Ethan. “Stay here.” I don’t wait for him to protest. I steel my will and stalk toward the house with the ax.

The first porch step creaks as I walk up. I freeze. Someone might lurk inside the darken doorway, waiting to ambush me. I grip the ax handle, take a deep breath and slip through the doorway into the dark hall.

I stand in the hallway and listen with the ax clutched to my chest. There’s no sounds, no sign that anyone’s inside, but I can’t shake the feeling that lurking behind a door someone waits to kill me. My hands tremble as I step into our living room.

Small beams of light sift in through bullet holes in the front wall. A vase is shattered and lying on the floor, yet the couch and Auntie’s Victrola look undisturbed. I tiptoe forward and something crunches beneath my heel. I pick it up. It’s a shotgun shell. I set it on my mother’s sideboard table, clutch the ax to my chest and creep toward the kitchen.

When I see what’s become of the kitchen, I can’t help gasping.

The place is unrecognizable. The table is flipped on its side; the table top, a splintered mess of bullet holes. Glass shards from the exploded front windows litter the ground like jagged snow. The cupboards are open and their contents in pieces on the floor. I pick up a shard from the green ceramic mug that my mama drank tea out of every morning. I set the pieces on the counter with trembling fingers. Then my eyes trail toward the front window. What waits outside?