Surviving Chaos

22

“You doing OK, James?” said Max, turning his head around to the side.

“I’m fine,” said James.

But he wasn’t. His breathing was ragged, and he was having a hard time holding onto the stretcher on which his mother lay.

She’d somehow fallen asleep. Mandy had said it was probably a reaction to the pain. It was easier, sometimes, for the body to shut itself off like that. Plus, her body was undertaking the massive reconstruction project of healing up her wounds. It needed time and rest to heal.

But it was hard to see his mother like that. It was hard to not have her there, protecting him and his sister.

James had thought he’d gotten it together himself. He thought he could look out for himself and his family, but was he really that strong?

He could barely carry the stretcher, and they’d only been walking two hours.

His hands felt raw. The wood was rough, from where they’d stripped the bark in places in preparation for the stretcher’s construction. His palms hurt, his arms were fatigued, and his back ached like crazy. He’d never felt pain in his back before. It was a completely new sensation. And not a good one.

Max, somehow, seemed to be doing fine. James didn’t understand it. He was a young man, and he should have been able to go and go and go.

But it was clear Max was going to outpace him.

More than a few times, James had stumbled. More than a few times, he’d almost dropped his end of the stretcher.

It was all he could do to carry the stretcher. He didn’t have the energy or concentration to look around, to keep his eyes open for animals or strangers.

Max seemed to know what was going on.

“Let’s take a break,” said Max. He called out to Mandy, who’d been walking ahead. She stopped.

“What’s going on?” said Sadie. “Did you see something?”

“No. We’re just going to do a shift rotation here.”

“I’m fine,” said James, protesting, even though he knew he wasn’t.

“James,” said Max, giving him one of those classic Max looks. “I know you want to keep pushing yourself. You only want the best for your family. But you’re only going to be a danger to everyone if you don’t admit when you’re tired.”

James felt guilty.

Max was right. Obviously.

“Sorry,” said James.

“Mandy,” said Max. “You take the back.”

“What’s going on?” said James’s mom groggily, waking up.

“Nothing, Mom,” said James. “Everything’s fine. We’re just about to get going again.”

James found himself wringing his hands out, trying to get the sore feeling out of his palms. He put his hands on his lower back and stretched backwards, but it didn’t help the pain.

“Sorry, Mandy,” said James, as Mandy gripped the bare wood of the stretcher with her delicate hands.

“We’re not at our best,” said Mandy. “None of us are. Remember that. We’ve got to keep in mind we’ve barely eaten. We haven’t slept enough. If we’re going to keep surviving, we’ve got to recognize when we’re tired.”

That made James feel a little better.

“Now do us all a favor,” said Max. “And take Mandy’s place up ahead. Keep your eyes open.”

James nodded, and, after some instructions from Mandy about the direction they were headed in, he set off.

It was strange, walking in front of everyone. Everyone walked without speaking, and James felt like he was alone in the woods. He had to occasionally look behind him, checking to make sure they were still there.

They walked and walked, for what felt like forever. The sun had risen long ago, and they walked through the morning. They took some breaks here and there, and ate the few mushrooms that they had left. James offered to take Max’s place on the stretcher, but he shook his head, and kept telling James that they’d switch at the next break.

James knew Max was tired. Even exhausted. But he also knew he could push himself farther than James could. Who knew why. It was probably more mental than physical.

James’s thoughts turned around and around in his head as he walked. Before the EMP, he’d thought of the woods as a place where his mind would become calm. It’d always been a refuge for his mother, who he suspected really had needed those hunting trips, to get away from it all.

But now it was different. The woods did offer a sense of protection, compared to the road, at least. But anything could happen here. Anyone could be out there, waiting and watching.

James simply couldn’t relax. And that was probably good. He needed to be alert. But the sense of hyper-awareness was uncomfortable. His hands and feet were freezing. Probably from the adrenaline that he was running on.

Up ahead, James saw something. A flash by a tree.

He paused, stopping dead in his tracks. He held up his hand, indicating to the others to stop.

James didn’t move. He would have liked to drop to the forest floor, but he also thought that simply moving would make him more visible than he was standing still.

What he’d seen was either an animal or a human. Either food or a threat.

Either way, he was going to do the same thing. Try to shoot it. No, not try. He was going to shoot it.

They desperately needed to eat.

And if it was a threat, James was personally convinced that they didn’t need any more strangers around. They were all threats. The last one, that woman, had proven to be a disaster. They’d tried to do the right thing, and Max had almost lost his life for it.

James felt that he needed to harden up. If there was a stranger, maybe he should shoot first and ask questions later. Of course, there was the risk of killing someone innocent. Provided there were still innocent people out there somewhere.

James had to think of his family. His mother and his sister. Not to mention Max and Mandy.

James’s finger was on the trigger.

He was prepared to shoot. Or that was what he told himself, at least.

Movement. Off to his right.

He saw it.

It wasn’t a person.

It was a deer. A small one. Female.

Still a deer, though.

James didn’t think it through. There wasn’t time.

The deer was close enough that he thought he could hit it with his handgun.

He took careful aim, like his mother had taught him, and squeezed the trigger. The noise rang out, and the deer fell.

“Are you OK?” shouted someone. Maybe Max. Or Mandy.

“I’m fine,” called out James. “Looks like we’ve finally got something to eat.”

The others took a while to catch up him, since they had to carry Georgia along on her stretcher. In that time, James was already at the deer, kneeling down and examining it.

It had been a clean shot. Right in the head.

But James knew better than to give himself too much credit. The deer had been close, and standing sideways. It had been an easy shot, even with a handgun. A lot of it had been simple luck, nothing more.

The dead deer meant food. Full stomachs. Feeling better. More energy. More vigor.

It meant survival.

Somehow all these facts made the dead creature look beautiful, lying there on the ground. James had never before truly appreciated what it was to hunt a deer.

“Good shot, James,” said Mandy.

Max nodded his approval.

“Good job,” said his mother, looking sleepily up at him. He could tell she was still in pain, even being carried.

“Are we going to set up camp here, then?” said Sadie.

They all looked at Max.

“It’s a small deer,” said Max. “But it’ll be too much to carry.”

Max looked tired. Beyond tired, actually. His eyes looked somewhat sunken. Dark circles had formed under them.

Mandy, too, looked exhausted. Sweat covered her brow, as it did Max’s. James’s mom wasn’t particularly heavy, but carrying her for hours had taken its toll.

They were all tired, but they set about getting to work. After all, it wasn’t like the deer would simply be served to them. There was a lot of work to be done just to be able to eat. It was a far cry, James thought, from going through a drive-thru, or better yet, ordering food from a phone app.

James borrowed his mother’s knife, and set about field dressing the deer. He did it the way she’d taught him, but once in a while he still needed instructions from her. She gave them to him from where she lay in the stretcher, which had been set down on the forest floor.

It might not have been the best place to make a campsite. But it was where they were. They all agreed that spending the night there would be best. After they’d eaten, of course.

James felt how sore his muscles were as he worked. It seemed to take forever. Probably because of how exhausted he was.

Mandy went off to look for more water, while Max and Sadie set about gathering wood for a fire.

Finally, James was mostly done.

He glanced over and saw that Max was just getting the fire started. He was teaching Sadie how to do it along the way.

Max was always thinking ahead. When he could, that was. There was so much James could learn from him. It wasn’t just the present moment that was important. No, it was the countless moments and situations that would come. There might come a time when Sadie would need to know how to start a fire. A time when Max wasn’t there.

James had been careful with the organs, making sure to extract the deer’s liver as best he could. It was one of his mom’s favorite meals, and he took it to her now, and nudged her awake, showing her.

“Good job, James,” said his mom, giving him a weak smile.

“It’s all for you,” said James.

Georgia gave a weak little laugh. “I can’t eat all that. And everyone should have some of it.”

“You need the nutrients,” said James. “You’re recovering.”

“Remember, though,” said his mom, “that liver has huge quantities of vitamin A. Too much is actually detrimental. That’s how those early arctic explorers died, from eating polar bear liver. They got hypervitaminosis A.”

“So we shouldn’t eat it?” said James, looking at the liver with worry on his face.

“No, it’s fine. Polar bear liver happens to have much more vitamin A than liver from a deer or cow. But too much of it, and you might get some symptoms. It’s so much richer in nutrients than muscle meat that we can all split it up. It’ll give us all some extra strength.”

“I’ll start cooking it, then,” said James.

He showed the liver to Max, who nodded his approval. “Your mom’s right, you know,” he said. “About the liver. It’s much more nutrient dense than muscle meat.”

“Just because of the vitamin A?”

“Well, there’s more than that. It has concentrations of all the fat-soluble vitamins, and there are even some nutrients in there that have never been isolated and identified by scientists. And I doubt that’ll ever happen. Not any time soon, anyway, considering the state humanity is currently in.”

James nodded, and started sharpening a stick that he could cook the liver on.

Soon enough, the fire was roaring, and James helped Max move his mother closer to the fire so that she could get warm.

The sun was looking low in the sky, even though it was only early afternoon. The sun would set fairly soon, and it was looking like it was going to be a cold night.

James worked on the liver, holding the spit just above the flames.

“I can’t believe how good that smells,” said Sadie, who didn’t take her eyes off the liver even for a second.

“I thought you hated liver,” said James.

“I thought so too,” said Sadie. “But I have a feeling I’d be willing to eat just about any organ that deer had right now.”

“That’s what hunger will do to you,” said Max.

Suddenly, a strange look swept across Max’s face.

“What is it, Max?” said Sadie.

“Where’s Mandy?”

They all looked around.

Mandy was nowhere to be seen.

They’d all been so busy working on their projects that they hadn’t noticed that Mandy hadn’t been there for some time.

“She went to get water, right?” said Sadie.

“But that was at least an hour ago,” said James.

“Maybe she had to walk a ways,” said Sadie.

Max didn’t say anything. His hand was already reaching for his Glock.