23. Hunted

You wipe a tear off of your cheek as you watch Dex and Jacks figures fade behind the horizon. The dreaded day has finally come and you can’t believe you’re completely alone again. You sigh as you cross your arms over chest The next few months were going to be long and stressful. You take a deep breath and do your best to calm your nerves. You survived in the woods by yourself before meeting Dex so you’re not as helpless as you feel.

You stand for a moment longer looking at the spot where you had last seen the men before finally turning and heading back to the cabin. You’re determined to stay strong and calm during this time. You will make it through this.

The first month started off a little roughly. You’re not use to doing some of the harder chores around the cabin. It’s still fairly cold out and every morning you’ve had to go outside to check if the water pump has frozen. Dex would usually be the one to do this as it’s quite hard getting the pump going when it is frozen. This, unfortunately, is one of those mornings. You squint up at the sky and wonder if you can just wait until sun comes out more and melts the ice inside.

You sigh and decide there’s no point waiting. You roll your sleeves up to begin pumping. If you can manage to pump enough the water deeper inside the pipe should **** its way up and push any ice out. You’re in the middle of pumping when you suddenly feel the hair on the back of your neck rise. You quickly stop pumping and slowly reach down into your boot for your pistol. You’ve been in the woods long enough to recognize the feeling of being watched by a predator.

With your pistol now in your hand you turn and slowly scan the distant tree line. You frown as you don’t make out any movement. You stand for staring ahead for what feels like an eternity. You still don’t see anything but you have an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. You quickly glance back over at the cabin and don’t see anything either. Keeping your back to the cabin you slowly begin walking backwards never taking your eyes off the tree line. You make it inside safely and bar the door.

Once you're sure the door is secure you take a look out the window. The uneasy feeling left your body when you made it inside but you’re still worried. The last thing you need right now is a hungry predator stalking you. Now that whatever is out there knows you’re here it’s not likely to just move on. One of the meteors had taken out a large patch of the forest to the northeast you had discovered when you were making your way through it. You know a lot of the animals in the forest were likely taken out as well leaving the food chain unbalanced.

You’ll have to take extra safety precautions going forward. You knew these were the kind of dangers you might have to face while the men are gone. You just didn’t expect something like this to happen so soon. For the next several weeks you try to only go outside when needed and never without Dex’s spare rifle. You’re thankful Dex had the time to show you how to properly shoot it before leaving. You had some basic experience with guns before the apocalypse but between his and Jacks expertise you feel pretty confident with it. The majority of the time you’d go outside you don’t feel or notice anything unusual. This would usually go on for a few days in a row.

Just whenever you’d start to think that maybe whatever was out there had finally given up you’d get that feeling again. You still haven’t seen anything and sometimes wonder if you’re somehow imaging it. You’re mulling this thought over as you cautiously hang up some wet laundry on the lines Dex had put up for you. You had avoided doing laundry for as long as you could since Dex had used one of the large trees a good distance away from the cabin to hold up one end of the lines. The other connected to a pole he set on the other side. You made a mental note to ask him when returned to make a second pole so you could move the whole thing closer to the cabin.

Even if you might be imaging it this time that doesn’t mean there aren’t wild animals in the forest that could hurt you. You bend down to pick up some sheets and begin laying them out on the line. You become temporarily lost in thought and push the feeling of being watched to the back of your mind. You immediately snap out of this when you hear the sound of a branch breaking behind you from the tree line.