Life in the Hills

The distant bang of a shotgun startles you out of your half-sleep. You grab the loaded carbine from the corner next to the threadbare armchair that you've spent much of the last few days in, and stealthily creep to the cabin window closest to where the sound originated.

Todd's been out for a couple of hours, taking the shotgun with him, looking to bag some kind of fowl large enough to eat. The shot was probably him, and most likely aimed at some kind of quarry, but it's not impossible that an unexpected human visitor is in the area and either Todd took a shot at them when he judged them to have unfriendly intent or, even more worryingly, they took a shot at him. Certainly worth being careful in any case. With the carbine at the ready, you strain your senses to pick up any clues. Another shot would almost certainly indicate some kind of danger, because you impressed upon Todd the importance of conserving ammunition and this in combination with the high likelihood of missing a moving target while being such novice hunters means that he probably won't be blasting away at some hapless bird that escapes his first attempt.

There's no further movement or sound anywhere within your awareness that can't be attributed to the gentle early winter breeze, so with at least five minutes passing since the bang, you reckon that it's likely to have simply been the sound of his attempting to hunt. You allow your heightened readiness to drop just a little, still wary but trying to bring your breathing and heart rate back to normal.

Todd's proven himself in the last three weeks to be an enthusiastic and motivated novice survivalist, if not yet a very competent one. His success rate when hunting has improved, although he's mostly brought back fairly scrappy game birds. It's still enough to keep you both in a reasonably good state of nutrition, combined with very careful management of your canned food supplies. Your only sources of fibre, starches and vitamins come from the various preserved items you could scavenge, and with the onset of winter your scope for either growing your own or foraging is severely limited. You estimate that you should have enough tinned fruit and vegetables to prevent scurvy until the Spring, having raided a mostly untouched store in the nearest small town down the hill from the lodge and gathered over seventy assorted cans. Enough to share a tin between you three or four times a week, which combined with meat from your shared hunting exploits has meant that the remaining full-meal type cans you had been subsisting on back in the city can be kept in reserve for when winter really sets in to make hunting harder and more perilous.

There's plenty of water, thanks to a stream up the hill and your various rainwater collection funnels set up around the lodge and it's outbuildings. When it begins to snow, keeping it liquid will be the challenge, but there's a stove and a huge shed full of firewood to make it easy to melt as much as you'll need.

In short, as long as nothing goes wrong, and you can keep your rate of consumption frugal, and you can stay warm enough in the harshest months... ok that's a lot of conditions. But you figure you have a decent shot at survival.

You did, anyway, until earlier this week you woke up for the fourth morning in a row expelling your stomach contents. The consistency of the sickness, combined with some other indications, makes it all but certain that Todd's rash decision on the sofa has brought with it nine months and many years of consequences. Not to mention the very serious danger of having to deliver a baby by yourselves in the middle of nowhere, with no facilities, and almost no medicine. This is close to a return to the dark ages of maternity medicine, which made childbirth an exceedingly hazardous prospect for much of human history. In some ways it's worse, because while you've had a tiny amount of exposure to the theory of midwifery in some of your Pre-Med career, you're expecting the challenges of the moment to make it impossible even for this to help. Todd's got no clue at all, and he's going to have to do everything that doesn't involve the actual pushing.

If you somehow do manage to survive giving birth, having an infant to take care of in this environment will not be easy. You rather miserably find yourself hoping to miscarry, and soon, when it's safest to do so. The thought of coming to this pragmatic necessity turns your stomach, because like it or not this fragment of life is part of you, but it represents such a clear threat to your survival, that you don't know what else to reasonably hope for.

Anyway. The sickness and your generally weakened state is why Todd's been going out hunting every day and leaving you at the lodge, giving you ample time to fret over the possibilities.

The journey to the lodge in your scavenged vehicle was been pretty smooth. You encountered no other survivors in the two day journey. The closest you came was seeing a distant smoke plume coming from a small town in the foothills, which you elected to ignore completely for fear of who might be responsible for it. You stopped briefly in the tiny village nearest to the lodge, which was as far as you managed to get on the basis of your vague memories of coming here with Dad. Here in addition to ransacking the grocery store and securing your food supply, you also managed to scavenge another couple of almost filled eight gallon gas canisters. Siphoning fuel off the tanks had been a grim business but the pumps were silent and there'd been no alternative. Todd spewed up for a good twenty minutes after sucking down a little of the toxic fluid, so even though the tanks have a lot left in them, you've not sought to return for stockpiling purposes.

With the help of the map, you then managed to muddle your way up the trails to the lodge. On arrival you were exceedingly pleased to find the place completely undisturbed. The gate was securely locked and the fence appeared intact, which wouldn't protect you from a determined intruder, but did provide a little security. The main log cabin was in good repair, with heavy shutters over all the windows, a sturdy and weatherproof roof, and enough comfort inside to make it a suitable place to bed down for the winter. Heated by a solid wood burning stove in the middle, and with a 'den' style section at the front, it had plenty of room for the two of you with half a dozen wooden cots against the rear wall. It had some meagre food supplies, but these included a load of varied food condiments that would help make your dull and limited tinned food options taste a bit more varied. It was stocked with some other useful or peculiar items, such as highly detailed local maps, a pair of ancient but good quality binoculars, lanterns and oil, blankets and pillows, an odd assortment of reading material, and most amusingly, a battered old box filled with porno magazines dating back to before you were born.

The outbuildings also contained an array of treasures. One shed contained plenty of firewood with several ax's and saws of varying sizes. It was sturdy and dry and should last more than the winter, even when relying on the stove for all of your heat. A concrete, poorly insulated garage housed an eclectic stock of tools, but mostly was useful as a place to safely store the car that would keep it sheltered from the weather. Another smaller log cabin contained a bar and pool table, which didn't strike you as being of much use but it does have some odds and ends of **** which were carefully moved through to the main house. Outside this however under a lean-to was a solid cast-iron smoker and various other different kinds of outdoor cooking equipment. Finally there is the toilet: a solid but draughty outdoor shitter where sitting down already risks freezing your ass to the seat in early November.

In the three weeks since you arrived, you had both begun to adapt your new home to permanent apocalyptic residency, with the setup of rainwater collection, organising of food stores, and starting to learn to hunt. It was tough work, especially as the weather turned quite savagely in the second week, but there's nothing else to do out here except fuck, which admittedly you had been doing, a lot, after dark each day. At least until your morning sickness started and you've felt too miserable and unwell to be in the mood.

You had to ration the condoms, meaning that Todd got very acquainted with the ass that he lusted after for all those years in high school. He's become pretty skilled at giving you head, owing largely to your demanding satisfaction before letting him fuck you and sometimes after as well. Hey, you're putting out and letting him fill your bowels with cum at least every night, it's the least he can do to show his appreciation, right?

You breath a sigh of relief as you see the familiar figure of Todd appear from the undergrowth up the hill. It looks like he's bagged a bird, which means you'll eat fresh tonight, but you can't tell what it is so won't get excited until you're sure it's not another scabby crow. You remove the magazine from your weapon and eject the round in the chamber, replacing and reinserting it before putting the gun back in the corner. You carefully sit back down in the chair as the fading adrenalin allows the hollow feeling of your nausea to return.