Chapter 21

We got up the next morning at first light, sticky and smelly as Rebecca had requested. I had slept the sleep of an exhausted, drained man, dead to the world and woke still a little groggy. Rebecca woke up perky and bright eyed, smiling from ear to ear, lifted an arm and sniffed, her nose crinkling adorably at the smell.

We washed, thankful for the water in the half of the sled until we realized it was still wet after we emptied it and we had to put our tent, sleeping bag etc in there! We could solve that by dragging both pieces side by side for a while until they dried.

After breaking camp, we decided to move down closer to the lake. We would move down through the park slowly, Rebecca walking both horses while I went through the woods looking for any sign of deer or larger animals. Once we got to the bottom of the park we would turn back east, hugging the shore of the lake for a while before moving back up inland towards home. Even if we did manage to bag a deer that wouldn't be so far out of the way to make the trip too much longer than needed.

Heading out, I took the .308 and told Rebecca where to meet me. If she heard a gunshot she knew to make her way as close as possible to the sound and yell out to let me know where she was. I hadn't washed with anything other than water and some sand in many weeks now and while I didn't reek, I certainly didn't smell of shampoo and toothpaste! Thankfully the wind was blowing up from the water a mile and a bit away. I made my way into the woods, the space still, silent and covered in shadows, the low light of the morning only pushing through in places. I did my best to make as little noise as possible, my rifle cradled in my arms, ready to swing to my shoulder. I followed small, well-worn paths that a few months ago would have had mountain bikers or kids playing forts running around on them. Every sound made me freeze, my eyes the only thing moving, looking for any sign of motion. Not more than forty or fifty feet down the path I came across more deer droppings, which I took as both a great sign and a sign to go even slower and quieter. Reminding myself I wasn't a trained hunter, I had never hunted or shot big game before, I willed myself, as silly and potentially ultimately fruitless as it may be to pause between every step, slow my breathing, scan for movement. The likelihood of actually coming across something I knew was low, but I had to try. Plus I could look for good places to set up a tree stand or something for later days.

The trees started to thin a little ahead of me and I slowed even more. Thankfully I did. The sun dapples on the low branches about forty yards ahead and to the right of me moved though there weren't any clouds. A little scratching sound, some more movement. I started to slowly move the rifle to my shoulder, getting there with my eye to the scope the same time the source of the movement went totally still. The deer began to bolt before I could properly sight it and I fired instinctively, hoping to at least hit its body.

The sound in the silence was deafening, rolling forwards through the trees and back again, the muzzle flash, larger than I expected, drowned out much of the moment of impact, the recoil ruining the rest. I saw the deer stumble and roll over its shoulder before getting up and limping off into the trees. I wished I had been able to cleanly kill it but I wasn't going to let it go. I cycled the spent round out of the rifle, pocketed the shell casing and followed after the bloodied animal at a trot. The deer had gone into the trees with the wound facing away from me so I had little idea how badly it was wounded. I didn't want to meet up with it, wounded or not and have it rush me, gouge me or try to trample me. There was a good amount of blood to follow so tracking it was easy. About fifty feet further on I came across it, lying near a tree, its eyes closed, its breathing labored. I had hit it just above the fore shank; its left front leg was hanging useless, nearly torn off, bone visible, blood freely flowing. I wasn't going near it while it was still alive but I was loathe to use another of my precious .308 rounds to put it out of its misery, despite the fact it would probably be the most humane and certain. I was debating trying to shoot it in the eye with my little .22 Ruger when it opened its eyes and tried to get up. I didn't hesitate, I gave it another .308, in its head this time, and it dropped back down, its one remaining eye open, its tongue hanging out.

I could hear Rebecca yelling from a couple of hundred yards away and I called back to her, telling her everything was fine but to bring some rope and one half of the sled with her when she came in. We spent the next while field dressing the carcass before putting it in the sled and pulling it back towards the horses. We were in high spirits, laughing and chatting away as we pulled the sled back towards the treeline. Rebecca stopped midsentence, her whole body tensing and radiating aggression and anger. I followed where she was looking and saw three men standing by our horses. I dropped the ropes to the sled and swung my rifle back into my arms while silently motioning to Bec to do the same and move down a good ways to flank them. As she was moving down through the trees, I stepped out into the grass drawing their attention.

"Hey Guys, those are my horses." I called out, trying to keep a friendly edge to my voice, probably not succeeding very well...

They turned to look at me in surprise, at least one of them blanching a little at the sight of my rifle, and I guess the knife hanging on one side of my belt and a handgun on the other and the blood on my arms ... They all looked healthy enough, well dressed in your standard REI/MEC outdoorsy clothing. Solid hiking boots on two of the three of them, the other in cross trainers. All normal, various shades of brown haired, average height, maybe a bit on the thin side ... All three had somewhat trimmed beards, looks like none had packed a razor when they had the chance! Also, unlike Juan and the big guy that I had killed, they didn't look rough or mean; they looked like pleasant enough city guys that had gone camping.

"Woah, woah!" The guy I'm guess was going to take the leadership role said, raising his arms shoulder high, palms out. "We heard the gun shots and came to see. We don't mean any harm, don't want any trouble. We just knew you would come back to your horses. We can leave you alone if you'd like, it's just that we haven't seen anyone else in a couple of weeks and wanted to-"

I cut him off. "You've seen other people? How many? Is it just you three?"

They looked at each other, obviously unsure how much to tell. I decided to be the first to be forthcoming.

"Rebecca! You can come out, it's fine."

The three looked around, obviously a little surprised that there were two of us. They were even more surprised when they saw her, one of my two visions of loveliness, come stepping out of the woods, tiny little shorts and tight shirt showing off her long legs and fantastic chest, rifle in her hands and knife on her hip showing off the fact my kitten had claws. I smiled at the thought of the term my kitten, I thought Rebecca would like it too. I didn't smile at the obvious interest, and in one case downright lust, in the eyes of the three.

She stopped, a little unsure, she would tell me later because she was trying to decide whether to stay far enough away from me that they would have to rush in two different directions to get both of us or to walk over and stick her tongue down my throat to show them she was very very taken. She ended up doing neither though closer to the first keeping about five or six feet from me, her face a mask.

"This is Rebecca," I began "She and her mom came by my camp a while ago and we've stayed together since. We've got a camp over near where Forest Hill used to be."

Rebecca looked at me, I'm sure they thought because we had told them where our camp was, in actuality she looked at me because she was surprised I was lying about our "camp" location.

I continued; "My name's Jack. We've only seen two other people and now you guys. Bec and I were taking a couple of days to wander around try and find more people. So you guys have seen other people too?"

They introduced themselves, Doug, Jonathan and the leader, Pete. Jonathan and Pete went "camping" together, Jonathan, the one that was obviously hot and horny for Rebecca had met the other two a few day later.

Jonathan spoke up for the first time at that point. "Look guys, we don't have any guns, we've only got a couple of kitchen knives and an ax back at the camp. Can you put away the guns? I'm freaking out a little."

I threw my rifle over my shoulder and Rebecca followed suit.

"Thanks."

"We heard a couple of shots, were you hunting? Get anything?" Doug asked me

"I shot a deer; it's just in past the treeline on a sled."

Avarice flashed across Doug's eyes. Despite not knowing him, I didn't like this guy a whole lot, but then again I guess if you hadn't had much in a while you would be jealous of others as well. Some people would be the jealous type regardless of what they had and he seemed to be one of those types.

Still, I figured it was much better to have these guys as allies than as enemies, we didn't need more enemies in this world you might end up having to really fight them. I decided bribery was the best quick avenue to some good will.

"We're not going to be able to eat all of the deer before it spoils. Would you like some of the meat? We could cut a big roast or a whole hind leg or something. I know I haven't had a good piece of meat since this whole thing started!"

They might not be for life, but with those four sentences just made three friends. Pete happily offered to help me pull the deer out to the horses so we could go back to their camp. In the few minutes we had alone, he was pleasant and open, talking mostly about his previous life, he was a graphic designer, and his new life how they had been scrounging for food, doing a lot of fishing, eating some racoon just like us.

We pulled the deer out on the top half of the sled and tied it to Horse, Clydesdale already had the other half of the sled attached to him. Rebecca seemed to have done fine and was happily talking away to Jonathan. Doug was white as a sheet though. Pete picked up on it and asked what was going on.

Jonathan answered, laughing a bit, before Rebecca could. "He was hitting on her hard. She told him she and her mom were almost raped a few weeks ago and if he didn't want her to shot his balls off, he should cut it out."

I looked sharply at her and she smiled sweetly back, almost coyly wiggling her toe in the ground. Pete laughed to Doug's obvious discomfort.

"Shooting's better Doug, believe me!" I said; "That guy that did that to her, she kept kicking him in the balls until they burst."

Doug went even whiter.

"Jack!" she whined, saccharine sweetly; "It's not like he felt it!" She turned to the rest of them as if explaining to a child; "Jack had already shot him in the head."

Pete and Jonathan blanched and were quiet now as well. Doug was a little green around the gills; I don't think he had it in him to ever hit on Rebecca again. Still I needed to diffuse things a little.

"I don't do well with rape, attempted or successful. And I'll do anything in my power to protect the people close to me. You would have all done the same thing ... Come on, let's get going."

I grabbed Clydesdale's halter and started him moving. With Pete showing the way the others fell into line behind us, Doug staying on the other side of Horse from Rebecca. It wasn't far to their camp, they were just south of where we were situated in a flat, elevated spot, sheltered in and amongst two stands of trees and looking at the river which would empty out into the lake only a few hundred yards further south. We had camped not more than a mile away from them and had been absolutely oblivious. It just goes to show you that unless there is a sizable fire or loud noise it would be hard to ever find someone. At that moment I thanked god or whomever else that Hanna and Rebecca had found me that day.

As we got closer and could see through the trees a little more, it quickly became apparent that there had to be more than just the three of them as there were six tents and a kitchen shelter. I looked over at Pete who gave me a lopsided grin.

"Ok, you've got me." Pete laughed; "We've got a regular little tribe here. We've only turned away two people from staying with us. There's nine of us now. We're getting along all right. It's nice to have people and people to talk to you know? Plus you can go fishing or gathering and not have to worry about your camp and stuff. I haven't talked to the others, but I'm pretty sure you guys would be welcome here."

I was torn. Torn about telling him how much we had, how open to be with them. I didn't know if they wanted to move to us, I knew we weren't going to move to them. I was already feeling bad about telling my little lies about where our camp was. I instinctively liked Pete, much in the same way I instinctively thought Doug was an asshole and a dirty old man in the making. Still better safe than sorry, I constantly had to remind myself that we had more than maybe anyone else ... anywhere. We would be pleasant, play it by ear, but be non-committal.

We headed into camp, meeting the other six who, upon hearing the shots had all made sure they were together. Safety in numbers I guess. All told there were four women and five men. Everyone was in the same general age, I think Rebecca in her early twenties was the youngest out of everyone I had seen and Hanna at thirty nine and maybe dead man Juan seemed to be the oldest. At thirty seven I was on the older side of things. Everyone well into the prime of their life.

The nine here all seemed to be in their late twenties to mid-thirties. On the male side, besides Pete, Jonathan and Doug who were all in their early to mid-thirties, there was Benjamin and Shane. Shane was a guy you instantly took to. Short, I would say no more than five foot five, a bit stocky, an electric smile on his face and the scraggly threads of a beard on his chin. He was probably about thirty and of Japanese heritage but totally westernized. You could tell he was the life and jokester of the group, the one that kept spirits up when gloom abounded. Ben on the other hand was a tall, gangly guy, probably about six foot three with rapidly thinning sandy brownish blond hair, that "hair coloured hair" that was totally non-descript. It looked like he had had his hair cut with a dull knife. Come to think of it he probably had ... He was a little on the scrawny side but had a bit of a pot belly, the type that looks stuck on due the rest of him being so thin. Ben was one of those guys who you thought was older than he actually was. Once you really looked at him you realized he wasn't in his forties he was probably barely into his thirties if that. Still he looked like an alright guy from first glance. Probably the quiet, computer nerd type and a bit of a whiner and complainer if I was to judge a book by its cover.