Anthony Newman - American Survivor

“Mom let’s try heading west today for our hunt. We ran into those killers southeast of here,” her daughter said.

“It’s worth a try. We need to be careful and not run up on anyone and be careful not to shoot unless it’s a deer or large game. We’ll set several rabbit snares while we find a blind and watch for deer,” replied Cobie.

“I’ll make lunch for us if you’ll pack the snares, extra ammo, and roll up our sleeping bags for the hunt,” Cobie smiled at her daughter and pointed at the gear.

“We won’t be out overnight so why bring the sleeping bags?”

“Because I said so and then there is the fact that we never have a clue what we will run into so we need to always be prepared for anything,” my sweet little Mini-Me.

“Mom! I don’t like that. I do like looking like you and hope to have big boobs like yours one day, but Mini Me sounds like I’m a dwarf Cobie,” Cloe protested.

Cobie looked at her twelve-year-old daughter and prayed those men never found them. She would die trying to save her from those animals. She then wondered if the world would ever be safe again for twelve-year-old girls.

Bennie had gone off again, so Cobie and Cloe left the cabin after setting several traps around the front and back of their home. The cabin wasn’t much, but it beat huddling outside in the rain. They always hid anything of value before leaving the cabin and kept their food hidden above the ceiling. They had found a small trap door in the bedroom closet that went up above the ceiling, and that became their hiding spot. Small actions such as the traps and hiding their valuables made the women feel a little safer even if the measures weren’t a perfect solution to the dangers around them.

They slowly walked west through the forest as the sun rose slowly behind them. The leaves and twigs were still damp, so they made little noise as they hunted that morning to increase their larder that morning. Cobie stopped several times to set rabbit snares along the paths worn into the brush and weeds. She showed her daughter how to rub her gloves in the soil to help hide the human scent. Then she attached the line with the noose to the top of a small sapling, and the trigger stick with its notch hooked into the notch she cut into another small tree. She fixed the noose, so it covered the animal trail, and the trap was set.

They set eight of the small game traps then wandered on west until they saw a large creek with a pool.

Cloe suggested, “That pool of water looks deep and inviting. When it gets warmer, we can bathe in it and swim.”

“Boy, that sounds great. These sponge baths keep us from stinking but just barely. I would love to take a swim in it now if it were forty degrees warmer.”

Cloe started to answer when her mom cautioned, “What was that sound? Hide behind that log.”

They heard the sound of something shuffling through the brush and hear voices.

“Come on Joe, I was a member of the Polar Bear club back in my hometown north of Seattle. We would take a swim in Puget Sound every New Year’s Day,” Madison begged.

“Sorry, but it’s too darned cold for me to stick my butt in that freezing water. You go ahead, and I’ll stand watch for Polar Bears and Penguins while you freeze your butt off,” Joe laughed as he resisted the temptation to jump into the six-foot-deep clear mountain water with the naked nymph.

Madison took her coat off, sat on a log and removed her shoes, and then started to remove her blouse and skirt, when Joe chimed in with, “Whoa, don’t take your clothes off. You’ll catch pneumonia.”

Madison dropped her clothes, bra, and panties to the ground and then jumped into the water as Joe turned his head away.

“Madison, you’ll freeze to death. Get out of the water please,” he pleaded.

Even though she was freezing, Madison stayed in the water trying to tempt him to join her until he walked to the bank with a blanket where he begged her to come to him and get warm. She walked out of the water shivering as he wrapped his arms and the blanket around her naked body. She threw her arms around him and kissed him before he could turn his head.

He took her back to the cabin, and they made love on the couch. Joe thought I could get used to having Madison around.

Cloe whispered, “That woman was naked. They need to get a room.”

Cobie was deep in thought since she remembered the handsome man from the encounter at the outfitter’s store. She was jealous to see him in the arms of another woman and was ready to slink off into the woods when she heard a man speak.

“Stop doing that. Someone might see us out here.”

“Joe, my husband is dead. Your girlfriend is dead. We are alone in the woods at the end of the world, and I just want us to be together and take care of each other,” the woman blubbered as she sat in his lap with only the blanket around her as Cobie watched.

Cobie wished she could change places with the woman but knew her daughter came first, and they needed to head back to check their traps and get back to the cabin. The man picked the woman up in his arms and carried her away heading west. She guessed that meant that they lived close by and that scared her because she had felt they were alone in the woods.

The first trap hadn’t been tripped, but the second and third had dead rabbits. Cobie showed Cloe how to take the animals from the snares and then reset them before moving to the next snares. All but the last one were empty, and it had a raccoon in it that was still alive and mad as hell. Every time they got close, it tried to bite them, so Cobie picked up a large rock and hurled it at the beast. She only hit it on the side and made it madder as it fought the snare, which only had trapped its hind leg. Cobie picked up another rock and this time she crushed its skull with the thrown missile.

“I was tired of Spam and potted meat; this will give us a welcome change for tonight’s meal,” Cobie jested.

“Well, at least we’re not down to eating roadkill,” Cloe responded with a chortle then asked, “Mom, do you think that couple are nice people?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think the man is one of the good ones. Did you notice how he looked away as the woman walked into the water naked and then when she came out again? The woman threw herself at the man, and he didn’t take her up on… err…”

“Sex, Mom, I know about sex. Perhaps the guy was gay, and women don’t turn him on.”

“Okay, I’m not having a talk about other people’s mating habits with my twelve-year-old daughter. Let’s get on to the cabin and clean these animals who gave up their lives to feed us,” Cobie exclaimed.

“Well, how am I going to learn about mating habits if my Mom doesn’t tell me? Besides, that nice man ran his hand under that blanket. What do you suppose he was doing?”

“It was none of our business what his hand was doing, but that’s a fair question, and when you turn 16, we’ll talk about mating habits. Until then zip your lips before I ground you for the rest of your life,” an exasperated Cobie said.

“Not to push my luck, but what are you going to ground me from? We don’t have TV, iPhones, shopping malls, or anything else fun.”

“Smartass! I’ll just beat you like they did in the old days when a child got uppity.”

The next morning they decided to try their luck southeast of their cabin in hopes that the killers stuck to the roads to the northwest of their hunting camp. They wanted to travel about three miles southeast of the cabin to set up their camp for another two-day deer hunting trip. The terrain had more deep valleys and ridges to traverse, and their legs were worn out when they made camp late in the morning.