Lindale native Bethany Auth found her true inner strength in Fort Hood last week, when a gunman opened fire at a processing center, killing 13 people and wounding 29 others.

“My friend’s husband called her and told her to go inside and lock the doors,” she said Monday. “I took it as a joke, but then I called the MPs (military police) and they said the same thing: There’s a shooter on the loose.”

Auth — known as Bethany Young when she graduated from Pepperell High in 2007 and married Spec. Patrick Auth — moved to the Army post in June with her 2-year-old son, Shane. Her husband is serving in Iraq and she gave birth to their baby daughter, Kayleigh, on Oct. 6.

“Everything was so chaotic. We kept getting different reports,” she said. “At one time we heard there were two more shooters and they were in our housing area. The MPs said go upstairs to your bathroom and stay as quiet as possible. My heart was racing. I didn’t know how I would keep my 2-year-old and month-old baby quiet.”

Most of her neighbors were in the same boat, with their husbands deployed overseas. The women tried to keep each other updated on the latest reports by phone and computer, as they hid in their homes with the shades drawn.

“We were locked down pretty much for eight or nine hours,” Auth said. “They told us to put chairs under our doorknobs, and I slept with my whole house booby trapped that night. I’m just now to the point where I can start to relax.”

The phone networks were overloaded and her parents in Floyd County, Tammy Paynter and Todd Young, were “kind of freaked,” when they kept getting a busy signal. They finally got through, as did her husband in Iraq. Since that horrific Thursday, he’s called to check on his young family nearly every day.

“He’s a wreck,” Auth said. “He said it’s bad when he’s over there, trying to fight a war, and he feels safer than he thinks we are.”

Life on Fort Hood has changed, though — going from an open post with a small-town feel to an armed encampment with guards at the gates and stores and crowds of media representatives clamoring for information.

“It’s all so unreal,” she said. “It’s like they’re filming a movie and we’re living it.”

Auth mourns the change, and at the same time she accepts it as “the new normal.” She said she trusts the Fort Hood commanding general to do what’s best for the troops and their families, although she’s also impatient for an official explanation of what went wrong and how.

“We don’t really know what to believe,” she said. “It’s still a ghost town here, with people staying in, but I have a newborn who has doctor appointments and needs formula.

“You just have to do what you have to do,” she continued. “You really don’t know how strong you are until you don’t have anyone to turn to.”

Authorities continue to refer to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan as the only suspect in the rampage, but said they have not determined a motive.

The Army psychiatrist was shot in the torso, taken into custody and eventually moved to Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio.

He was in stable condition Monday and able to talk, hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said — but a lawyer for Hasan, retired Col. John P. Galligan, said he asked investigators not to question his client until he is able to meet with him.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.