Chapter 8: Woodland Settlers
In the days following the farm outing, Niles and the survivors worked tirelessly on fortifying their camp. This included finishing the remainder of the little hovels, making six in total, enough to split into several groups at night, as well as setting traps and raising defences.
Two of the semicircular quarters were for the night watch, allowing them to split the watch into three shifts without waking the other groups.
Meanwhile, the traps and defences were widely varied.
The most prominent and quickest to set up were bear traps that the away group found in the barn. The old farm was situated outside of town and always ran the risk of bears and other wildlife being attracted to the scent of the chickens and crops. It just happened that most of the traps were stored after recent repairs.
Besides those, Dominic and Réal guided the others in setting up a multitude of angled fortifications, in the form of pointed logs laid in the ground at an angle, like stake fields from medieval warfare.
It took nearly a week to get it to a condition where they could be a little more comfortable about their situation. Well, aside from the splinters and blisters they earned in the process of building all of this up. And there was, of course, still a lot left to do in the coming weeks.
Once they had finished the basics of their camp defences, a second group went back to the farm to refill their food supply and get soap to wash the clothes they’d used over the week. There were no one-size-fits-all options, so many had to keep wearing what they had originally, or make do with oversized things.
Mainly the children for the latter.
Niles spent the next week focused on three things. Teaching others how to forage for edible goods in the forest, collecting firewood, and patrolling at night.
And just because their camp was set and they were living in modest safety for the moment, it didn’t mean things weren’t eventful.
The first notable occurrence was when he and Tyrel, the mousey-haired lawyer fellow who wore the fancy suit, were near Wawa Lake, gathering some hoof fungi off of old birch trees. They spotted movement on the water’s surface, and a massive bull moose was swimming towards the nearby shore.
The rack on its head was a hunter’s dream, and the size of it made Niles wish he had brought his bow instead of a shovel. The amount of meat would have set the group for a while, especially if they smoked it.
However, he never would have had the chance.
Roughly twenty yards from the shoreline, the moose’s head went under without so much as a splash. And what followed was nothing short of terrifying for the two grown men watching from the side.
The water erupted. The tank-like beast flailed in fright, covered in countless wounds, for just a moment before it was pulled under in a sudden, swift motion.
Just like that, in the span it would have taken to take a breath and a half, a giant animal that could have weighed nearly a ton was gone beneath the waves like it was never there to begin with. The only evidence that anything else was around was the slight shift of the surface going against the current.
Like something was displacing the water as it swam back under.
Even Tyrel, a man who never cared for hunting, knew that for something to have eaten a moose, let alone a bull, had to be massive and a strong swimmer. Though rare, orcas have been known to do that, but those were saltwater creatures, and nothing living in freshwater, to their knowledge, should have been able to do that.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The next important event was when a group of those green humanoid monsters and the foul hounds they had seen in town came along and found their camp.
One of the canines ended up in a beartrap, making it easy pickings for Niles, who fired his last arrow into it. The rest were easy pickings after his arrow gouged out its throat. Though the green humanoids had primitive spears and long, lanky arms, they were no match against the humans’ numbers and tactics.
The other dogs fled, but of the two, one got stuck in a trap and was killed soon after.
Faced with a bunch of putrid corpses that didn’t look appetizing to say the least, and couldn’t be guaranteed to be edible, they had little choice but to dig a pit and burn the bodies.
While the fumes and odor didn’t make any stomach grumble among the survivors — unless you’re counting nausea — they did attract the attention of a familiar, hungry creature.
A long, hooked beak under two bright-red eyes. White feathers adorned its head, falling down its long neck, and wrapping its body like a luxurious coat. Two enormous wings that carried it in frightening silence, and a pair of powerful legs fitted with talons capable of cleaving a man in twain if it so desired.
The only reason anyone saw it land in the woods and walk closer to check out what was cooking was that Niles was out retrieving the arrow he had used against the foul-smelling hounds.
Taking it as an opportunity, and risking failure with the arrowhead and part of the shaft broken off, he knocked the arrow and aimed as carefully as possible. The arrow, just barely long enough now for a full draw, is aimed around the area of the neck and wing joint. Granting him the best outcome, even if he’s a little off target.
He lets loose the arrow, seeing it wobble in the air. The balance is off, and it climbs a little before veering to the side.
Niles grits his teeth, sensing that he might have missed.
However, in the narrow range of his vision as he squints, the arrow — flying at an angle — falls. Piercing the base of its neck and slashing through with its uneven momentum.
His breath hitches as the beast reacts, flailing erratically, flapping its wings, and running in random directions, trying to get lift. But it’s too late. The arrow slashed through many blood vessels, and the crimson ichor only dyed its feathers all the faster with how much it moved.
Eventually, it just started running in a random direction until the blood loss was more than it could handle.
Niles followed after it, ignoring the sound of the others who had heard its commotion. When he found it, it had run headfirst into a tree. Breaking its beak and putting an end to its own suffering.
It wasn’t the clean kill he would have preferred. Not that he could complain. It was meat, after all.
Using the five-inch knife on his hip, he cut off its neck and talons, pocketing the latter. Without any rope, he couldn’t tie its wings to make carrying easier. And since he wanted to keep as much of the meat as possible, he opted to awkwardly deal with the drag and them getting stuck on things along the way.
Finally, there was a little sign of hope for the small gang of small-town survivors.
Though tough and gamey, the fact that they were able to make a decent-sized meal for the first time in weeks was like a miracle they were in desperate need of. Bruce’s girlfriend, Sasha, even showed off her cooking skills by turning some of it into a stew.
She rendered a small portion of the fat and used a handful of flour to make a roux in a small pot, then set it aside. With the big cauldron, she boiled garlic, onions, and spices from the farmhouse and made a basic stock before adding shaved pieces of roasted thigh meat. Finally, she put some of the stock into the roux before stirring it into the large pot, thickening it.
Denice and the other women were very impressed with her ingenuity, while Danica and the children just wanted to hurry and eat it.
Meanwhile, Niles and the men were gathered around a tipi structure he had built to smoke the meat they weren’t using, having a great chat while keeping an eye out for more curious eyes.
This event, after the brief battle with the other monsters, was the highlight of their adventures in the woods. Being displaced from their homes was still heartwrenching, but far more bearable thanks to people like Niles, Dominic, Réal, and Bruce.
However, this was soon to be overshadowed by a night they would likely never forget.
