Katherine Haas

Four months. Four long months have gone by since that fateful weekend in late April when you left town for a weekend of solitude at your family's cabin, situated along a lake in the foothills of the mountains. Four months since you've had human contact. And now, on this first weekend of September, you're faced with yet another problem.

You brush a lock of your rich red hair back behind your ear, and sigh wistfully, remembering the days before this madness had overtaken the world. At 24 years of age, you were doing pretty well for yourself, with a degree and a decent job, and had displayed great potential for advancement. None of that mattered anymore. When the radio had announced the outbreak of the virus, you had thought about leaving, but quickly abandoned that idea as the announcements grew more and more dire, then abruptly cut out, never to be heard again. You could only hope your family had made it, but you had no way of finding out, and your father would be far more upset with you for risking yourself to find out than for staying safe at the cabin. And now, four months later, you've long since admitted you're probably never going to see your family again.

You stand there, in the bathroom, look into the dirty mirror again, and rub your face. You had been gifted with your mother's good looks, high cheekbones and a softly curving face, a cute button nose, and shocking blue eyes. That, your large D-cup breasts, and your delectable ass had caused many a man to stumble over his words, trying to pop off corny one-liners at you. None of that mattered anymore, either.

What mattered was your rather dire supply situation. While the cabin had been well-stocked with gas for the generator, and non-perishable foods when you arrived, those supplies have dwindled. You ran out of gas over a week ago, and now the lights in the house lie dormant. Your foodstuffs are running low, nothing more than a few cans of fruit and beans, and a dozen bottles of water. Your clothing situation is no better. When you had come up here, it had been a beautiful weekend, warm weather and a slight breeze, sunny throughout, and you'd packed accordingly. A pair of sundresses, a pair of shorts and a tank-top, a comfortable pair of flat sandals, a few changes of underwear, and a bikini. You hadn't planned on being here, isolated, for months, and with the first signs of fall's chill on the air, and the promise of another cold winter, you aren't equipped to survive up here for much longer.

For the last month and a half, you'd been carefully foraging around the cabin, gathering berries and nuts while keeping an ever-watchful eye out for any stray Infected that had somehow wandered your way. Thankfully, the cabin is miles from anywhere, your nearest "neighbor" being nearly five miles away, up the creek that fed into the creek. You'd gone up there one day to check that cabin for supplies, and found it abandoned and empty.

You sigh again, and pad back down the hall to the small bedroom where your meager supplies are laid out next to a pack your father kept at the cabin for when he came up to go hiking. You take a pair of panties, your last surviving bra, and the tank-top and shorts, and put them on, noting again how ragged they look. Your sundresses are in no better shape, tattered and torn from the dozens of foraging expeditions you had made in the prior weeks. With their sorry state, if you don't find more clothing soon, you're likely to not have any clothing at all. You pack the remainder of your food, water and clothing away, add a flashlight and the last set of batteries you have, then pull the blanket off the bed and stuff it into the pack as well. What's little's left of a roll of duct tape is already inside a pocket, as is the nearly 30' length of twine you had found. The large hunting knife you'd found in the nightstand goes on your hip, the only thing you'd found that you could properly use as a weapon.

Knowing this day was coming, you'd gone out and checked your car a few days prior, and found it's battery dead. With no wheels, the only option you had left was walking.

You sit on the edge of your bed, slide your feet into your battered sandals, and hope they'll last long enough for you to find some new shoes. As you fasten their straps, you contemplate where to head. The nearest regularly inhabited location is a ski and hunting lodge, located about 15 miles north of your cabin. A handful of other cabins dot the mountainside, generally ringing the lodge. So far you've stayed away from them, more concerned about Infected or isolated, antagonistic survivors than anything. The city is nearly thirty miles south, down the mountain from you.

You have enough supplies to make it to either the city or the lodge, or a couple of the cabins. You need to choose carefully, since not finding the supplies you need could very well spell your doom.