Infected: They Will Eat You!: A Story of Family Survival in a Zombie Apocalypse (35 page)

“This is the last of the fresh jerky.” Christine said handing Jesse a bag.

“The freezers are full of meat, should we go hunting tomorrow and see what we can find?” I asked, “We can smoke and jerk what we get.”

“YAY!” shouted the boys.

“OK, early tomorrow we’ll go out. I’d like to try up around the small lake up the road. Right now I want to drive down to this area” I pointed to the map, “and start a house-to-house. It’s cold and we have the snow to tell us if there is anything moving.”

“Is there time?” asked Christine.

“We have about three hours before dark and it’s close.” I answered, “The snow has let up so we should be OK.”

Our scouting trip turned up nothing. We searched a neighborhood with about 20 houses and found them empty. Most looked as though the people had left in a hurry with clothes scattered, photos missing from frames and personal items missing. Others looked as if everything was in place and undisturbed. All had food in the refrigerators and cabinets. We were glad it was cold and things were frozen, the stench was minimal.

There were coyote tracks throughout the area along with rabbit and deer but no human or infected tracks.

Over the next five days we hunted for meat in the morning and scouting neighborhoods in the afternoon. We found nothing moving on any of our trips. We had devised a system and symbols to designate the buildings we’d checked and what was inside, whether there was anything of interest, usable or whatnot. Occasionally we fortified a house and stocked it with provisions from those in the area. These were secure buildings we could retreat to in case of emergency. Who knew if any of this would prove necessary but it gave us a purpose and kept us from just sitting in the house.

It wasn’t ‘till the sixth day that we saw deer late in the afternoon. We were checking out a farm west of Lander about to leave when Caleb veered off path to the truck creeping toward a group of trees in the yard. Jesse and I stood still and watched and a six point silently dropped to the ground a hundred yards away. The other deer looked around and went back to eating then scattered as I started the truck. We got the deer home and started the work of processing it right away. Fresh meat was always welcome and the combination of the wood smoke and meat cooking put the boys and me in a near trance state.

“Dinner’s ready.” shouted Christine out the back door.

We were hungry but leaving the smoker was a difficult task we struggled with for at least five seconds then it was an all-out race to the table and venison stakes.

-——————————————

Christmas morning was special. We had a few gifts for each other, Christine ended up crying every time someone opened one. The boys had worked together making me a knife with a staghorn handle and sheath made from deer hide along with a bow and three arrows. They made Christine a deer hide purse and belt and knife. She needed to learn how to skin a deer was their explanation as to why a knife. They had found shelves of books on making traditional weapons, clothes and other items and spent every spare minute working together on the projects.

Christine had made me an Arapahoe style beaded neckless with a gold cross on it. The boys received matching necklaces. Seems I was the only
shopper
in the family but when they opened their new dress clothes they got excited. It took no time before they were all dressed up from head to toe, well, it took Christine a while to finally come downstairs twirling as she reached the floor. It was a happy Christmas morning full of laughter. The rest of the day we spent together, talking about friends and family and remembering happy times with them all. We had been blessed with safety and abundance and prayed that they were experiencing the same.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jesse walked up behind me as I stared into the valley. Steam rose from my coffee cup and I inhaled.

“I’m tired.” I said, “One day maybe I’ll just head out with my knife and find that bear and have at it. If he wins he can eat me.”

“What’s the difference in a bear eating you and an infected eating you?” asked Jesse.

“Never thought about it that way. I guess nothing. You’re dead.” I answered.

“Or even being eaten by a human.” he added.

“I reckon if a bear ate me I’d be nourishment to him and helping him to live. Same for a human. An infected though…..it’s just a waste of meat.” I said.

“I guess” he shrugged.

We were riding back from Jackson after passing on an alert about a herd of infected heading up from the south. Spring always brought added movement from them in the outlying areas.

“It will be good to be home.” he said after a few minutes.

“That it will.” I agreed.

“Remember the first time we came up here?” he asked with a smile.

“We were way out of our skill range.” I said, “I’m surprised we didn’t all die that day.”

“The horses knew we were over our head, I think they took care of us.”

“Maybe.”

Eight years earlier we were pushing our boundaries outside of our valley and rode the horses through the Tetons to Jackson Lake. It took twice as long as it should have and nearly killed us but we made it and found Lake City. The settlers had chosen a location by the lake instead of reestablishing Jackson because of the infected presence. It took our family and three of their men only two days to clear the infected from town, something we were skilled at, but still they chose to stay by the lake. Since then we had made regular trips to visit and trade.

“We’ve come a long way since then, everyone has.” Jesse said.

“It’s either get better or get dead I reckon.” I said turning toward the horses.

The New Year came in with a storm. We had three days of snow and wind that kept us inside except to tend the horses. It was cold! My birthday, two weeks later, brought another storm to the mountains around us. Winter had arrived and the cold caused our routine to revolved around the farm and livestock and staying indoors. By Christine’s birthday in mid-March we were seeing a let up in the weather. There were more blue skies, less wind and warmer days. The valley was well protected with far less snow than I expected. Still, the cold slowed us down considerably.

April was a happy time, the weather was vastly warmer and we spent more time outside. Every day we were on the horses, they seemed glad, maybe it was just relief from the cold weather, but we covered most of the valley on horseback over a six week period. We watched herds of elk and deer and even two smaller herds of bison. There were enormous flocks of geese on the lakes that offered fresh meat whenever we wanted. Spring had bloomed and we were eager to join it.

We played some, explored mountain trails discovering new lakes and streams adding to our familiarity to the area and new places hunt, fish and gather. We worked on remodeling the building in Riverton with plans to move in the fall, although I never thought anyone wanted to leave the farm.

By late May we were planting a garden. We had tilled a large plot near the house and four more around Lander and two in Riverton. There were fields sprouting in corn and alfalfa attracting cattle and horses and large game animals.

On June first we celebrated Caleb’s birthday on the lake fishing. We did the same a month and a half later for Jesse’s birthday.

“I think I’ll move my birthday to the summer.” I said as Christine reeled in a fish.

“You can’t change your birthday.” Jesse said.

“Why not?” I asked, “We are kinda reinventing our lives anyway, why can’t we celebrate what we want and when?”

“It’s your
Birth Day
.” he explained.

“Yeah, like, when you were born.” added Caleb.

“Maybe I’ll celebrate my rebirth day instead, in August.” I said.

“You can celebrate it whenever you want.” Christine agreed.

“We can do it in January. I just like doing this instead of huddling in the house.”

In August we sat a day aside to remember what had happened and for those who had been hurt by the plague and we gave thanks for our blessings. It was our second Thanksgiving, a day we started and ended with prayer and in-between spent searching for survivors like us.

It doesn’t really feel right to say that our first year was exciting but it was…..it felt like a big adventure. As time passed we settled in and learned more, we became good at surviving and then at living. We started laughing again but there were always the lingering memories of family and friends and the question of what had happened to them. Those were times we had to remember to give thanks for what we had and prey they were in as good a place as we were.

Thank you
for reading
Infected: They will Eat You
. If you enjoyed this book please leave a rating and if you have time short review on
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Donel Gillies

Author,
Infected: They Will Eat You
(& others)