I awake sever hours later, the helicopter set down in a field. Looking around I find myself alone. Jason nowhere in sight.Getting out of my seat, I sit right back down. My shoulder is killing me, I pull down my shirt to see a dark and tender bruise forming. Ouch. Gently getting up as to not move my shoulder in the slightest, I get out of the chopper and take a look around. The land to my left begins to roll, hills as far as the eyes can see, to my left were the flat plains we had been flying over for what seemed forever. Still not seeing Jason, I take my handgun out and hold it with my left hand, my right being completely useless. I walk a couple of yards from the chopper and still see nothing. Panic begins to creep in. Why leave me and the chopper? As I ponder where Jason could have even gone to I hear a loud crack behind me, hearing the noise echo for a good minute. I run back to the chopper and take cover. Never know what could happen. I wait for a good five minutes but hear nothing. Not even a moan. And I thought that was the weirdest part. That sound, carrying as far as it did, should have alerted every one of those things for at least twenty miles. Still nothing. As I begin to make my way out of the chopper something rustles out of sight. Followed by a wet thud. Turning around I see a dead animal. It resembled a deer, but with black and white patches of fur, and black antlers. But much smaller and sharper.
Beginning to panic, I aim my gun towards where it was tossed from, only to hear a familiar voice. "Good eating tonight. Beats eating twinkies and potato chips by a long shot." Lowering my gun I call out to Jason. "you scared the ever loving shit out of me, I almost shot you! But on the other hand I take it the Rifle works huh?" Slipping the gun back in its holster, I hop out of the cockpit and next to Jason's catch. He didn't strike me as the hunting type, but I wasn't complaining. Meat beat sweets any day.But the thought of eating it raw made me sick. I would be no different than the first zombie I saw, or any of them for that matter. "But you're better than them. You have the ability to reason, you are better because you are ALIVE!" I hadn't heard that voice in some time. "This is no time to get squeamish at the though of eating another creature. You cant live on junk forever" That tone, so mature. Far more mature than I was. But it was me, nobody else. Pulling me out of my internal musings Jason snaps his fingers in front of my face. "Yo, you okay over there? You're zoning out there staring at the deer-thing. Its creeping me out a bit." Coming back to the real world I look up to Jason and ask him the most important question I could think of. "So, how are we cooking this sucker?" I grin as I begin to think of how the meat will taste. I hadn't had real food in some time.
After a while we get a fire started, the sun beginning to set, the smell of cooking meat was thick on the air. The sounds of nature were there, but not as heavy as they should have been. But we were distracted by our dinner at hand. Pulling the meat off the fire I don't even wait for it to cool off, burning the roof of my mouth in the process. I didn't care. It was the first real meal I had had since this never ending nightmare began. The juices tasted so good. It made me feel alive, living off of nature, being hunted. The sound of Jason chowing down on his haunch of meat made me laugh, forgetting about my thoughts. "Looks like someone is enjoying his dinner. I didn't know you could hunt." I said, tearing a hunk of the sweet smelling meat off in between sentences. Swallowing the hunk of meat before starting, "I used to live in North Carolina before moving to Boston. Big hunting country down there." finishing the meat on his bone, he tosses it behind him, setting another hunk over the fire before continuing. "It used to be just me and my dad, before he got too sick to hunt. After he died I stopped hunting. I moved to get away from my hometown, everywhere I went there was a memory of me and him. After all this happened, every lesson he taught me came back to me. Thanks to him, I was able to bring us dinner" A smile broke out across his face. I respond before taking another bite of the filling haunch. "You made him proud. Way to go man." I raise my fist and give him a bump.
That was damn good. Keep these up.
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