Survivors of the Sun

by Kingslie, Mia

  ‘Can we have a go?’ Jamie asked, after Deedee had run yet again to search for an arrow that Georgia had sent into the field.

  ‘You are welcome to try,’ she said, After all they can’t be any worse than I am. Before she let them have a turn, she carefully went over the instructions, getting them to mime their actions, before she let them touch the bows. She would have let them practice pulling the string without the arrows but the instructions had been very clear about not doing this, that it could be dangerous, and damage the bow. Finally, feeling confident that they understood everything, she let Jamie have a go.

  He seemed to grasp the techniques for the hunting bow very quickly, which did not surprise Georgia, he was extremely particular and precise in everything he did. One only had to look at his bedroom, which was always tidy and well organized to see that. At least that is, when he still had a room. What did surprise her though, was how accurate he was. He hit the target area at least two out of three times.

  After a time it was Deedee’s turn. She tried out the Genesis but decided she did not like it. ‘Can I try out the other one?’

  Georgia nodded, she had almost forgotten about that one. ‘Go for it, same rules apply though, and make sure you use the correct arrows, not the ones from the Genesis.’

  Deedee was so enthusiastic. Georgia smiled to herself as she sat back to watch her. It was lovely to see Deedee looking so happy and clearly enjoying herself. Deedee did not seem to follow any of the guidelines. She did not even hold the bow level, nor did she appear to line up the target.

  With fluid movements, a look of fierce concentration on her face, she nocked the arrow in place, drew back the string and without any hesitation at all, let it fly. Georgia made no attempt to correct her, after all, she was only eight, and this was more of a game to her than anything else.

  ‘Or maybe not,’ Georgia suddenly thought, as she sat up straight, hardly believing what she was seeing.

  So far, every single one of Deedee’s arrows had flown through the air and struck the target, the first two had been on the outer edge, striking the charcoal line at eleven o’clock and three o’clock respectively. After that, she consistently struck the tiny bull’s eye they had drawn in the center.

  Jamie had an expression of amazement on his face. ‘Let me have a go with that bow.’

  Deedee turned to look at him, ‘this one?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Deedee shrugged her shoulders. ‘Sure.’

  It quickly became very obvious that it wasn’t the bow, it was Deedee. Jamie gave it a couple of tries, but the arrows flew wide.

  ‘Wow, you are really good,’ he said as he finally gave the bow back to Deedee.’

  ‘I know,’ Deedee said. Her tone was neither smug nor boastful, she was just agreeing with Jamie.

  Georgia suddenly found herself grinning foolishly. Their prospects were suddenly looking ever so much better. Maybe they weren’t going to starve after all.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Finally the heat of the day had begun to subside and a light breeze had sprung up. For a while there, Georgia had thought they might be in for a storm, but almost as soon as they had arrived, the gathering clouds had scattered again and she knew that yet again there would be no rain. She sat with her back against a tree, Ant stretched out asleep next to her, the journal on her lap, idly tapping one of the blank pages with a pen.

  No rain was both good and bad. It meant another dry night for them, but the land was thirsty. If this drought continued then even the wild plants, the ones that they would desperately need to supplement their diet would begin to die off. Never in her wildest nightmares had she thought that one day she would be concerned about the survival of nettles, dandelions, sorrel, chickweed and thistles.

  In her other life (for that is how she saw it now, ‘this life’, and her ‘other life’), lack of rain had simply meant the minor inconvenience of turning on the sprinklers, setting them so they would whirl round and round, spraying unlimited water across her lawns, keeping them a luxuriant and respectable green. Now this continued lack of rain made her uneasy.

  In her mind, she imagined the landscape, over the next weeks and months turning to desert like conditions, the vegetation turning brown and dying off, and the soil becoming cracked and furrowed, zig-zagged, just like the images one saw in a National Geographic magazine. She shook her head, she had to stop thinking like this. She had to think positive. It will rain, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

  She turned to the back page, where she had been keeping note of the days and carefully wrote out the date. Only nine days since this had all begun. Unbelievable.

  The sound of laughter floated up from the river where Lola and the children were still bathing. Ant kicked her back legs in her sleep, flicking an ear as a fly kept landing on the tip. Georgia chased it away with her hand, and then flipped the book open again to the first page. Her thoughts turned to Nathan as she began to write.

  Nathan, she began, So much has happened and so much has changed since we were last together. For now, we are all well and… she paused, nibbling the end of the pen, as she re-read ‘for now’. Did that sound too pessimistic? And even if it did, it wasn’t as though she would be mailing this to him. If he ever did read this, and what a big ‘if’ that was, it would be because he had found them and he would be able to see for himself how things were. So why write this? Nevertheless, even as she asked herself the question she knew the answer. So much has happened and so much has changed. She knew she had to keep a record, so that he would not miss the day to day changes in his children, and understand the things they had experienced.

  She began to write again.

  A short while afterwards, Lola returned to the campsite and came over to her.

  ‘So, what you doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Talking to Nathan,’ Georgia answered distractedly, her pen scratching feverishly at the page. She did not look up and after a moment, Lola walked away. She wrote nonstop, filling five or six pages before a cramp began to grab at her fingers. Shaking her hand, to ease the pain, she abruptly stopped. It was so quiet. She became aware that it had been some time since she had heard any sounds coming up from the river.

  Where had everyone gone? She stood up hurriedly. Ant leapt to her feet, barking. The sound echoed through the trees, emphasizing the absence of the others. Her heart beginning to race, she cupped her hands around her mouth.

  ‘Lola,’ she cried out, above her a flock of birds took wing, cawing loudly. Picking up Ant, she scrambled down to the water’s edge calling all the while. ‘Lola, Rebecca….’

  Suddenly she heard Rebecca’s voice echoing through the trees. ‘Over here.’

  Relief flooded through her as Millie and Badger burst through the bushes, bounding towards her, followed shortly afterwards by Lola and the children.

  ‘We’ve been gathering nettles and things!’ Deedee exclaimed as they reached her.

  ‘Look at what we have,’ Rebecca added, holding out her bag.

  She peered into the bag, it seemed to be full of wilted vegetation with an awful lot of dirt still clinging to roots. ‘That’s quite a haul, I’m really impressed,’ Georgia said aloud, but to herself she was thinking, ‘Are we really going to do this? Eat weeds.’

  ‘Yep, it sure is,’ Rebecca said, ‘and we have three thistles!’

  ‘They were real hard work digging up,’ Jamie added as they began walking back up to the camp, ‘good thing we had the axe.’

  It was decided that they would carefully check each plant next to the pictures in the book, just to be absolutely sure.

  ‘So,’ Lola asked looking over at Georgia, ‘how do you plan to cook them?’ They were down at the river, thoroughly washing the dirt from the plants. Georgia stared down at the weeds she was rinsing. How come I get to be the one to cook them? ‘Not sure,’ she replied, ‘perhaps a vegetable soup? I imagine it would taste awful though.’

  ‘Or you could go and get a rabbit,’ Lola said, �
�then you could make us rabbit stew.’

  Half an hour later Georgia sat crouched in the scraggly grass on the far side of their oasis, looking out across the fields, Deedee and Jamie flanking her on each side. The first of the lightning bugs were out, but so far, there was no sign of any rabbits.

  Lola, Georgia decided, had a very simplistic view of life. Lola had made getting a rabbit sound as simple as stopping off at the butchers. Those days were gone. Now it was way more complicated. Even if they spotted a rabbit, they still had to shoot it, with an arrow no less. And if they actually did manage to hit the rabbit, depending where the arrow struck, they would more than likely, still have to kill it. Georgia shivered at the thought of having to be the one put it out of its misery. It was the stuff of nightmares.

  She had heard that sound before, as a teenager, when a dingo had caught a rabbit out in the scrub behind their property. She had awoken to its screams. It was not a sound she ever wanted to hear again.

  Once they had their dead rabbit, then it would have to be dressed, another of those prettying words, meaning it would have to be bled, gutted and skinned, then quartered. And didn’t they have to be hung up or something, or the meat would be too tough and gamey? Moreover, it would take hours to cook and it was already twilight. For a moment, she envied Lola’s simplistic outlook, it was ever so much less stressful. Problem is that I think too much.

  She had just about given up hope of actually even seeing a rabbit, let alone catch one, when Jamie suddenly whispered, ‘there, I see one, over by the fallen tree.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Deedee whispered back, ‘I see it, and there’s another one.’

  Then suddenly there were rabbits everywhere. It took Georgia a moment to realize that the children were looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to shoot one. She bit her bottom lip as she slowly got to her feet, half expecting to scare the rabbits away, but they were some distance off and didn’t appear to notice their stealthy movements.

  Ever so slowly, the three of them made their way within striking distance. Carefully, Georgia drew back the bowstring, lining up the target, helpless bunny, and holding her breath, let the arrow fly. It thudded into the ground. There was a wild flurry of movement as rabbits bolted in every direction and disappeared from sight.

  ‘You missed,’ Deedee whispered somewhat unnecessarily, Georgia thought.

  She was furious with herself. At the last minute she had wavered from the target, and this was no time for sentimentality. She needed to get a grip. This was not killing for the sake of it. This was killing to survive. Not only did she miss the rabbit, now she had to go and get the arrow, and that would probably scare them away for good.

  Jamie was whispering something to her.

  ‘What did you say?’ Georgia asked, keeping her voice low.

  ‘Can we try? I was thinking, if we go and sit on the log, just Deedee and I, and wait for the rabbits to come back out, a bit like in my online game, you know, when trying to get a monster, sometimes you have to sit and wait for them to rezz. That way we would be much closer.’

  Georgia nodded her head. ‘Okay, see what you can do.’ She handed the Genesis to Jamie. Deedee already had the pacific bow in her hands.

  As they silently slipped towards the fallen log, Georgia heard Deedee ask, ‘what does rezz mean?’

  Jamie murmured something, which Georgia did not quite catch as she settled back down to wait. In the fading light, Jamie and Deedee squatted a little distance apart from each other on the log, their arrows already nocked into place, as they sat motionless. Georgia scarcely dared breathe.

  As they waited, she studied the two of them. Despite all the hardships, their new lifestyle seemed to agree with them. She could not recall ever seeing them looking quite so healthy. The walking and constant exercise had toned up their muscles and the sun had taken away the insipid milky look of their skin. They were now evenly tanned; positively glowing in fact. Deedee’s skin tone was a little more olive than Jamie’s, and not for the first time, Georgia wondered if Deedee’s mum was Spanish or more likely, Mexican considering this was America.

  She saw Jamie catching Deedee’s eye, then ever so slightly, indicated with his chin, a little way to his left. Then almost before Georgia could look in that direction, it was all on.

  The arrows had been sent flying, and Deedee and Jamie were whooping and bounding over the grassy outcrops ‘We got one, we got one,’ they called, as they fell to their knees.

  Thankfully the rabbit was dead. Pierced in two places, Deedee’s arrow had struck it through the neck and Jamie’s had hit a little further back, through the chest. Looks like Lola is getting her rabbit stew after all.

  Even though the light had been fading, it had been much lighter out in the open fields, than here under the canopy. For a moment, she lost her bearings, as they stepped into the near blackness of the oasis. She was about to call out, when she spied a flicker of orange through the trees. Thankfully Lola and Rebecca had lit the fire.

  As the three of them slipped out of the shadows and back into their campsite, Deedee shrieked, ‘we got one, we got one.’

  Jamie held out the dead rabbit by its back legs and, there was an expression on his face that Georgia knew she would never forget. There was mixed pride and joy and…, something else. She tried to put her finger on it, then she had it. A look of maturity, she had never seen before.

  Lola and Rebecca who had apparently just come back from gathering firewood (judging by the bits of bark and leaves clinging to their hair), looked up startled.

  ‘Yes, we got a rabbit,’ Georgia said, then added, ‘and there are lots of them just over the other side, but it is not that easy.’

  Lola beamed at them, ‘I knew you could do it, who got it?’ Jamie and Deedee exchanged glances.

  ‘He did,’ Deedee said, at exactly the same moment that Jamie said, ‘she did.’

  ‘Well which was it?’ Lola asked, looking a little confused.

  ‘Actually, they both did, and they were amazing.’ Georgia said.

  ‘Poor bunny,’ Rebecca said, unknowingly echoing Georgia’s own thoughts earlier, as she reached over and stroked its fur.

  ‘Not poor bunny,’ Deedee said, an indignant tone to her voice. ‘That’s dinner.’

  Georgia was struck by this. Less than two weeks ago, Deedee would have been inconsolable if she had come across a dead rabbit. Her father would probably have taken her to counseling to help her deal with the trauma. Now, here she was, bluntly telling Rebecca that it was dinner, having taken part in its slaughter.

  ‘Guess we better cook it then,’ Lola said, ‘I…,’

  ‘No, have to skin it first, and gut it,’ Jamie interrupted.

  ‘Eew,’ Rebecca exclaimed. ‘That is gross.’

  ‘Either that, or eat it fur and all,’ Deedee exclaimed, still prancing around full of enthusiasm.

  ‘At least I do know how to skin it,’ Georgia said before Rebecca could respond. ‘I was shown how to do it once, and if done correctly you can just peel the skin off like pulling off a jacket, but I have to say that I have never gutted one.’

  ‘I think I am going to be sick,’ Rebecca exclaimed, rushing off making exaggerated gagging noises.

  ‘Idiot,’ Deedee said, somewhat smugly.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Lola said, ‘I have done it quite a few times when I was a kid. Rabbit was a constant at our table. Let me borrow your skinning knife Jamie.’

  Georgia woke up. It was still night, the waxing moon filling the oasis with a silvery magic as it reflected upon the dew kissed leaves that carpeted the oasis. The others lay sleeping around her, the dogs as well. She became aware again of the radiating pain in her chest, the burning sensation in her throat. Heartburn. It had been this pain that had awoken her, she sat up, pressing her fingertips just below her sternum, in an attempt to sooth the pain. She slipped from the bedding and made her way over to the back packs. They did not have any anti-acid tablets, she knew that, but perhaps a little milk powder woul
d help. Drinking milk had helped in the past.

  Retrieving the caddy, she crouched down and slowly, not wanting to wake anyone, she slid the zip open. Badger slipped out of the shadows, licking her arm in greeting as she popped the lid of the container and tipped a little of the powder into the palm of her hand.

  ‘Hello, beautiful,’ Georgia whispered as the Boston terrier wiggled her bottom and then sat down, clearly expecting to share in this midnight feast. Georgia tipped the milk powder into her mouth, letting it sit on her tongue slowly dissolving before swallowing it. Then she let Badger lick the remaining powder of her fingers, before wiping her sticky fingers on some leaves.

  She stood up gingerly, she should try to walk it off. Slowly she made her way down to the river, Badger by her side. The night air was cool, but even so, she dipped her hands in the stream, rinsed her fingers and washed her face, watching the moonlight catch at the drops and the concentric circles that rippled outwards as the water cascaded from her hands. Something flitted down to the surface of the stream, a dark shadow that hovered momentarily, and then was gone.

  The pain easing, she sat down on a mossy rock and Badger jumped up onto her lap. That she had heart-burn was really no surprise. She could see that the radical change in diet was going to take a little getting used to. The rabbit had been tough as old boots. They had boiled it up with the nettles and the chopped thistles. The greens had boiled down to mush and taste-wise it had been nothing to write home about, but it was food.

  As a first attempt, at being hunters and foragers, the meal was passable and it had filled their stomachs. More importantly, it had lifted all of their spirits; it was as though someone had ticked a box on their survival assessment sheet: the one that said ‘very likely to succeed.’

  Badger had fallen asleep on her lap, twisting and turning until she was lying on her back, snoring loudly, and as Georgia stared across the waters, she gently stroked the terrier’s belly.