Nathan Jones - Shortage

The smell was enough to lure his cousin away from his work and he came over, staring at the searing venison in anticipation. As soon as it looked done they were quick to pull off the skewers and dig in, tearing into the hot meat with their teeth and burning their mouths on the first few bites. Trev didn’t think he’d ever had anything as delicious. Not in his entire life.

Lewis finished chewing the last bite on his skewer in record time and leaned back with a sigh of contentment, crossing his hands behind his head. “Savor these moments, Trev.”

“Okay, Mr. Greeting Card.”

His cousin glanced over at him and grinned for a moment, then his expression grew serious. “I mean it, though. I know it seems like it’s just been a bad thing and then a worse thing and then outright disaster ever since the attack, but we can’t just look at the evil in the world.” He pointed vaguely in the direction of the little icehouse they’d built, where the rest of the venison and Trev’s trout waited packed in snow. “We can conquer our environment, same as our ancestors did, and not just survive but thrive. The future might be difficult but there’s more good times than bad ahead.”

“If we can survive this winter,” Trev said, but after the exceptional day they’d had his heart wasn’t in the dour words. And as he took another bite off his own skewer he paused for a moment to enjoy the taste, same as he had for every bite, and feel some satisfaction that this meat was about as fresh as it came and he’d cooked it. He’d be even more satisfied with the next deer, perhaps even one he brought down himself, knowing he’d be the one to do everything to prepare it the way his cousin had this time.

Lewis leaned over to clap him on the shoulder. “We’ll survive it,” he promised. “And when we do we’ll know we can survive anything.”

The ration line Ferris had set up at the town storehouse allowed anyone who came through it to receive a day’s worth of food once a day, no restrictions or reservations.

Assuming you were a refugee, of course. The residents of Aspen Hill had to be green-lighted to get on their own special list, and the only way to do that was to allow the FETF soldiers to “inspect” their house. Ferris’s justification was that if they were hoarding in excess of two weeks’ worth of food then they didn’t need the ration line.

Considering that FETF was giving out the townspeople’s own food that reasoning rang completely hollow to Sam, but incredibly enough there were plenty of Aspen Hill residents who accepted it. The Larsons hadn’t, thankfully, and although Ed had hidden what food the family had he still refused to submit to an inspection, or for that matter try to get rations from the line. He wasn’t about to give up their food, but he wouldn’t lie and claim they didn’t have any, either.

Sam admired their independence and integrity, but she couldn’t join them in their silent boycott. For all of the family’s insistence that she was one of them she couldn’t shake the knowledge that she was a burden, so she used her refugee status to stand in line every day and receive her pound and a half of coarsely ground wheat flour. Between that, Mona’s garden which they harvested the moment things in it became ripe enough, and whatever foraging of weeds or other edibles they managed in town, they’d managed to keep the hidden food in reserve.

As for Trev’s cache up on Highway 6, one of their main topics of conversation was finding a way to get it down to Aspen Hill. That was hundreds of pounds of food they had to move, not only having to worry about actually transporting that much but also avoiding those who’d want to steal it from them.

Since Matt’s father had lost his hunting rifle at the roadblock and Matt’s pistol had been confiscated in Spanish Fork they had nothing but the bear spray to defend themselves. Even more worrisome was the knowledge that Razor and his goons were waiting out beyond the town’s limits. Even though there’d been no reports of attacks by them in the last week Sam had no doubt that they were still there, working their villainy quietly and in ways that avoided notice.

Mona, April, and Terry argued that between their garden, what they could forage, and the little remaining in their pantry they could last a bit longer, and maybe wait until there was a better opportunity to go retrieve the cache. Their main argument was that when it got colder the flow of refugees along the highway would slow to a trickle. Matt had argued that that might not even be a good thing, since it would just make them more noticeable. Ed wanted to try finding backroads through the foothills and mountains to bring the food down, a position Matt had ended up leaning towards. As for Sam, she was willing to go with whatever the family decided and had offered to help with whatever they ended up doing.

When Sam started going through the ration line April and Terry had tried to go through as well, but even though they were technically just as much refugees as her they’d been refused with the explanation that they were living in the home of family members, and so the same conditions applied for them as for the Larsons. To solve that problem they’d talked to Mayor Anderson and got his permission to move into the house abandoned by Councilman Watts. They’d been happy to let FETF inspect their new home to their hearts’ content, at which point there was no more trouble with them and the ration line.

Sam had been standing in that line every day for a week now, and had recently received her day’s rations. Mrs. Harris had been waiting in line not far ahead of her, and even though the Larsons’ house was just a block away she felt like it was only kind to volunteer to help the elderly widow back home. Especially since Mrs. Harris had been so generous in letting her help harvest her root crops and earn some badly needed food storage.

So they’d gone arm in arm west along the streets with Sam carrying both sacks of flour, towards the outskirts of town. The chat along the way was pleasant, and although Sam asked at the old woman’s front door if there was anything she needed Mrs. Harris staunchly insisted she had things under control, thanked Sam, and pecked her on the cheek before sending her on her way.

Once back on the street Sam paused to collect a few dandelions beside the road, not looking forward to the bitter taste but definitely looking forward to the added nutrients. Yesterday they’d managed to collect enough that they could save some of her wheat, although that had mostly been a fluke thanks to Matt finding a Potawatomi plum tree growing along the banks of the stream that flowed down out of Aspen Hill Canyon and curved south to follow the town’s southern border.

The little fruits were sour enough to make her mouth pucker, but she’d eagerly eaten her portion along with everyone else. Even April’s boys had seemed to enjoy the unexpected treat, and the expressions on their little faces on the first bite was just too adorable for words. Matt was back there today searching for more, and she fervently hoped he’d have some luck.

Sam frowned, thinking of the tall young man as she searched around for more dandelions. She definitely liked him, no questions there, and she was almost certain he liked her too. But first he’d left for weeks to bring back April’s family, which she certainly understood, and since then he kept taking a slow, cautious approach to things that made her want to grab him by the ears and scream in his face to hurry up and do something already.

She supposed she couldn’t blame him when they had so many more pressing things to worry about, and it was hard to think of a romantic future with someone while worrying about whether you were going to starve to death within the month. But with how chaotic and uncertain everything had become Matt was one of the few calm and certain things in her life, and she just knew that it would be much easier to deal with whatever problems they faced if they were well and truly together. Couldn’t he see that?