by Chris Hechtl
She closed her eyes, fighting the tears of fear and loneliness. She hugged herself and did her best to make herself comfortable as she tried to sleep.
----------
Meanwhile Bret has caught his second fish and built a trident fish spear to catch more. He scavenged several dead fish that had spawned in the fall and died and then frozen in the waters of the lake. They tasted terrible until they were cooked. He choked it down but determined he could and would do better. By the light of the evening fire, he weaved and braided grass he had collected to form a crude rope. He tugged on it on occasion to make sure his braiding was kept taut. It wouldn't last long, but hopefully long enough he judged.
Fish were spitted above the fire, being smoked. The bits he didn't care for he saved for bait in the morning. When he was ready for bed, he used the rope and a crude net of grass he'd created to haul his food up into a nearby tree hopefully out of the reach of any potential predators … if not the occasional nosy squirrel. He grimaced when he heard the chatter and saw the net swinging lightly. He'd been smart enough to put it far enough away so he wouldn't be in the direct line of fire if a predator came for it in the night.
He'd sharpened several stakes using a rock to try to cut down on the usage of his knife. Some he set up as spikes to protect his camp from intruders. It wouldn't deter much, but he felt a little better for it.
He'd feel even better though if he had a real shelter. As he let Morpheus take him, he decided he'd have to work on that. But in the morning, he thought as coherent thought started to drift. His muscles ached a bit but it was a good ache.
----------
The next day Bret stoked his fire, then pulled down his stash of food for a quick breakfast. He took a cold but brisk bath in the stream, quite the wake-up, better than caffeine. He still preferred a hot cup; it would have been warming. He stamped his feet and rubbed at himself to get warm quickly. When he was dried off, he moved on improving his base camp.
Improving the camp was an ongoing process, not just for his own comfort but also to improve his chances of survival. That and long-term survival, he'd have to work on that soon. He wasn't aware when he'd transitioned from expecting rescue to not, but he knew he was there now. He'd also given up on going out to find some form of civilization. Just one look at the sky told him they were definitely not on Earth anymore, even though it was a lot like it. For now he focused on what he could think of and could easily do.
He used river rocks to build up a wall of rock on one side of the fire to reflect the heat towards the lean-to. He built a better bed of pine boughs and improvised hammer and hatchet. He stacked more fire material, more wood, piles of sticks and things. He created a cutting tool to help him cut and gather grass. Piles of it were stacked like hay bales. While he worked he was not afraid of eating grubs to supplement his diet with additional protein, but also he also gathered dandelions and other plants to make a salad. “Waste not, want not,” he said out loud then froze. He was talking to himself he thought, not a good sign. Did he do it to hear his own voice or just to get rid of the boredom? He shrugged such considerations off and went back to work.
The sticks and other material in his camp would not just serve as firewood but would also serve other purposes. He needed to get a lay of the land but also conserve his energy. When he was tired, he went back to camp and rested, making more water for himself or braiding more rope or worked on other projects. There was always something else to do. Keeping himself busy helped a lot to pass the time.
----------
On the third day, Dwayne took a desperate hungry group out to hunt with the makeshift spears while a second group went for firewood and any plants they could find. They had picked a lot of the edible foods in the area so they had to go further afield. Just to be safe he took his hunters off in the opposite direction.
They didn't get anything because they were like yaks, stumbling around and talking too much, scaring off the game. They were desperate but not desperate enough to keep their traps shut, he thought darkly. They'd learn or at least he hoped they would. An empty stomach would help focus their thoughts.
They'd lost several spears when the idiots had tried to throw them at birds or sounds in the bush. He shook his head ruefully. He had to admit, even he wasn't up to this. He'd hunted but with a damn rifle, not a spear! He wasn't sure any of them were cut out for this long-term. He hoped he was wrong about what was going on. But if he was right … he looked at the guys trying to sharpen a spear. He cut his thumb and promptly popped it into his mouth. The trooper sighed. Yeah, they were in trouble. He looked away.
The gatherer group came back with handfuls of berries. Most of the berries went fast. Everyone got a handful though, the trooper and doctor made certain of that. The people who picked them were surprised and a little resentful that some complained that it wasn't enough.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to do that? I mean, it's spring! We had to go all over that field to get what we could!” Ginger said, waving an aggrieved hand. She looked at the stains on it and then wiped her hand on her skirt. “We spent all day doing that! For what? A mouthful?”
By the light of the dying fires, they all realized it wasn't enough. Even using some of the juices to mix with the water for the wounded wasn't helping much.
“We'll have to do better.”
“We've got to.”
“We're learning. You can't expect us to learn this shit overnight! I … I worked in a brokerage firm for Christ's sake! What do you want from me?”
“Take it easy,” Doc cautioned waving them down. “We're all tired and frustrated. Low blood sugar is making everyone cranky. I suggest we all calm down.”
“We shouldn't have eaten all the food,” a girl said in a small voice. “We should have rationed it. Like that guy said.”
“Yeah, well … what's done is done,” the stockbroker said with a sniff. “Besides, he's not here, right? Probably fell over a cliff.”
“Or drowned,” Ginger said acidly.
“Or out there watching us,” the girl said, looking at the shadows around them.
“Great,” Dwayne said as people looked uneasily at the darkness around them as well. “That's all we need,” he muttered.
“Maybe it's for the best if it gets them focused. Fear can do that, if it's a healthy amount and justified,” Doc whispered to him. He nodded slightly but didn't respond. “We'll see what the morning brings,” she said as she patted his hand and then got up with a heavy sigh. She moved off slowly to check on her patients.
He watched her go with troubled eyes.
----------
At dawn Bret got up, stretched, and then remembered to dig a midden for a bathroom so he wouldn't foul his drinking water. He took a leak on a bush and then created a crude set of trowels and a shovel out of pieces of bark and branches. He almost didn't make it before nature had its course with his bowels.
When he was finished, he cleaned himself up with some convenient leaves and then also remembered to boil more water before he left camp. He knew he would be tired, possibly too tired from his planned walkabout to do it later. That way he would have it when he returned. He didn't want to go far, but just to be on the safe side, he secured some of the food he'd scrimped and saved into his net in the usual tree and then set up the remaining fish to be smoked around the dampened fire.
When he did leave camp, he scouted the northern side of the lake shore. He crossed a couple of the rather cold mountain streams that fed the lake along the way. He was glad when he found a bank of white clay and a path up to a forest meadow above the falls that were a part of the streams.
There was lichens and moss about but also ferns and other growth. A lot could lurk in the area so he reminded himself to be careful. Too many people startled a sleeping or feeding bear. When he crested the hill, he stopped to admire the view below.
The meadow was populated by a high number of elk and deer. Some of them looked bigger than expected. He wasn't sure what to make
of that. They also didn't have antlers, just velvet nubs. Again, odd, he thought.
----------
The next day the gatherers hunted along the shoreline for cattails and edible stuff. The group of foragers ran into Bret's camp after he had left. They explored the area quietly and found fish being smoked over a dampened fire. The women argued quietly, then decided to take the fish and tools.
“We're desperate; he's obviously doing fine for himself,” Gisel reasoned. “He'll make more, trust me. He'll be … he'll be fine,” she said. Done with justifying their theft, she pushed the others away and back to their own camp. She didn't want a confrontation and was pretty sure the other ladies didn't either. There was no telling what the hermit would do. He had to be mentally unbalanced; only a fool would go off and live by himself. She for one didn't want to be raped or worse. She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder to the camp then picked up the pace. She grimaced when she heard Ginger nibbling on the fish.
“Hey! Save some of that. Or at least give me a bite!” Gisel growled.
“Sorry. I can't help it. I'm hungry,” Ginger said with her mouth full. Gisel sighed.
“Let's not brag about this. Some people may not be happy about what we did,” one of the girls said softly. The others looked at her then nodded. Gisel hunched her shoulders and gripped her improvised spear tightly.
----------
When the ladies came back to camp, the people waiting there were happy to see the food. The women didn't tell them where they got it, just shrugged such questions off as they ate. The vegetarians in the group refused to eat it. “They are getting weaker,” Doc sniffed.
“You'd think they'd give in and …,” Dwayne sighed. He shook his head, weary and just too damned tired to care. The trooper was a little wary about the source of the food. It was pretty obvious that they didn't just find smoked fish out there in the bush, but he was too desperate to care. He was glad of protein since the hunters had come up empty once again.
----------
Bret came back when they left to find his camp tore up and the gear he had carefully made gone. He was pissed; they had even taken the crude stool he had been making. He went to his fish traps along the nearby stream and found more fish, so he was slightly mollified. Fortunately they hadn't found the supplies he had stored in the tree branches nearby to keep away from bears and scavengers too, so he'd only lost the food he'd been smoking and the tools he'd left behind.
It still bothered him, and it bothered him even more that they would resort to theft. That meant all sorts of bad things. They could come at him in the night as a group, he thought. He tried to fight off the paranoia, but it was difficult.
Bret spent a wary night with bow and spear nearby and his belt knife under his improvised pillow. He was angry and his imagination kept toying with people or animals raiding him at every sound in the night. He got little sleep and vowed to do something about it in the morning. The easiest way to defend himself was to put more distance between himself and them he decided. He was reluctant to come to the decision; he didn't like the idea of just moving so lightly. But he had to do something; he refused to bust his ass so they could steal it all from him. There were many more hands with them than he had, yet they had still resorted to thievery? He scowled and wrapped his arms around his chest tighter. “Enough of this shit,” he muttered, rolling over so his back was to the fire. Finally he managed to doze.
----------
The next morning Bret was awake at dawn as usual. He was in a foul mood however; he went through his stretching routine, then breakfast. He kept looking about expecting eyes in the bush around him or behind the trees. It bothered him that he was so damned paranoid about his own species.
When he was ready to move out, he took a few extra precautions. This time he bagged the surplus food and tools and hid them in another nearby tree. Some of the stuff he buried.
He finally gave in and headed out, but he kept a wary eye on the camp until it was out of his sight. When he got further along the shoreline, he could see embers from the group's campfires and snorted softly to himself. He paused to watch warily, but there was no activity.
In the meadow he scouted elk. He got lucky and killed an injured yearling with his bow and spear. The poor thing had to be cut down so what he had done was a blessing in a way; there was no way it could have gotten around for long with the broken leg. When he got to the body, he made certain it was dead and then warily looked around. Finally he shook his head and dug in to the grisly task.
He cut off front and back haunches as well as much of the hide as he could. He then tried to carry back the meat but it was too heavy. He swore as he took a break, panting and wiping at the blood. Finally he cut down some saplings, bound them together with bark and a draw string and then used the improvised litter to drag his kill back to his camp.
----------
Meanwhile the women raiders struck out early on gathering food on their own so they hit his camp again. They were afraid they would run into him but eager for more free food. Gisel had brought Allen, one of the men, with them for protection and to help carry anything heavy. Allen wasn't much, but he had more energy than any of the other men left in camp.
At first they didn't find any food, just the embers of his fire and his shelter. They were clearly disappointed about it. “He is so stupid. Leaving a fire unattended. Doesn't he know about forest fires?” Allen commented. He unbuttoned his fly and pissed in the fire putting it out. The girls turned away in disgust.
They kicked the bushes and his store of wood around to see if he'd hidden it there, but they found nothing. Dispirited, Hayden looked on, ready to leave when she saw something odd. She went over and found sticks in the water, an obvious construct of some sort. “Hey, come here, check this out,” she said over her shoulder to the others.
“That's a fish trap,” Allen said excitedly as he approached the shoreline. They checked inside and found a couple of trapped fish. Excited and hungry Allen, Gisel, and Lori jumped in to catch some of the fish. Allen tossed a few out to Hayden who kicked them away from the water. They stirred the water up to the point the silt made it like mud. Allen went to climb out but slipped and fell back in, ripping the trap apart. The remaining fish escaped in the confusion.
“Oops,” Gisel said.
“Fuck,” Lori said grumbling. “You stupid idiot!” she scolded the thin male.
“I didn't mean it. It was an accident,” Allen said, hunching his thin frame. He picked at his fingers then pointed to the fish. “Aren't we going to get them?”
“We'd better,” Gisel said. “It's all we've got.”
“It'll have to do,” Lori said with a grim nod. They took their ill-gotten goods and left the area. Hayden was the only one to look back out of some sort of sense of guilt. She wasn't certain what Bret would do, but she hoped he would get over it and not do anything stupid they would all regret.
----------
Bret came back with his meat and was pissed at the rank smell of urine coming from his fire pit. The rock wall was knocked over. He could tell from the footprints all around what had happened. He tiredly dug out the wet soil and ashes from the fire pit and then managed to get a new fire going.
He used the litter to cook some of the meat and smoke the rest. Some of it he put in a nearby pool of cold water for later use. The area was in the shade and still had a bit of ice on the surface so he knew the meat would keep for at least a week if the night temperatures kept to where they had been, hovering near freezing.
As he came back, he checked his fish traps. The nearest one to his camp was destroyed. He was furious, raging as he stood there, clenching his fists for some time. There had been no need of that, no need of the vandalism. He checked his tools and stuff and found that they were okay. He was now determined to leave the area, however, to put distance between them and to find a more defensible location.
----------
Meanwhile Dwayne has gotten back to camp and found more half-cooked
fish. “How are you doing this?” he demanded.
The group of raiders shrugged the question off, grinning at each other. “Just lucky I guess,” Gisel said, eying the others with a clear expression to keep their mouths shut.
“Well, some more than others,” Lori said, giving the thin man in the red shirt a dirty look.
“I said I was sorry,” Allen said again, practically whining. He rubbed at his sore shoulder and hip.
“Well, it's something I guess,” Dwayne said, too tired to argue. He had been eating grubs which Helen and the others had turned their noses up at. He shook his head and tossed a skinny rabbit he had caught to Jim the cook. “Here is my best, such as it is,” he said. “Try to save the skin if you can. Something tells me we'll need it,” he said. “We need to save a portion of it for breakfast tomorrow or we're going hungry again,” Dwayne warned.
Jim nodded and did his best to skin and then spit the rabbit as the sun began to set. But they couldn't save anything of the rabbit, even the bones were picked over by the ravenous group. Dwayne sighed, thinking of the little marrow in the bones that might give a bit of protein in the morning. He made a mental note to try to crack them open but then sighed when Allen tossed the bones into the fire. So much for that idea he thought darkly.
----------
Early in the next morning before dawn, Bret grimly packed up. He tore apart his lean-to, traps, and fire pit but kept an ember burning in a torch. He carried his goods to the other side of the stream in stages with the litter. He kept going back and forth until his camp was cleared of every scrap he wanted to take along.
Near noon he was moving stuff along the deer trail when he caught sight of the raiders hitting his camp again. He crouched and watched with a grim smile on his face. This time they were upset over his leaving. They scouted the area along the shore and then dejectedly went back to their own camp. He grinned maliciously. “Cheaters never prosper,” he whispered to himself as he got up and moved on.
