Cora (Love in the Apocalypse #2)

10. Isaac

Chapter ten

Isaac

A s I stepped outside, I saw a squirrel scurrying up a tree. What I wouldn’t give for some fresh meat right now, even from a rodent. The cool breeze and the changing leaves reminded me that fall was coming. We needed to stock up on as much meat as possible, and now that we had electricity and a working refrigerator, we wouldn’t have to dry it all.

The problem was that we didn’t exactly have the necessary weapons to hunt effectively. We used to have a bow and arrow, but we ran out of arrows a bit back and hadn’t come across any to restock. This house was great in many ways, but one disappointing aspect was that it didn’t have any weaponry. No guns, ammo, or arrows. Nothing that could help us get meat.

Trent and Remi went foraging in the woods for berries and other edible vegetation while Derrick and I finished examining the rest of the property’s buildings. We were hoping one of them would have something worthwhile.

“How long will you make us stand watch at night?” I asked him as we walked to the final shed on the edge of the property. We had almost missed it because it was so thoroughly tucked away into the mountainside that Mother Nature had started to swallow it whole.

“Until we figure out what’s been eating the food,” Derrick replied. “Have you noticed it hasn’t happened since the night watches started?”

“Yes, I noticed,” I sighed.

We reached the shed and began clearing the vines and saplings away from it so we could pry the door open.

“Now, this is more like it,” I said when we finally got inside.

Animal traps lined the walls, along with sharp-looking knives. A large metal table sat off-center in the room, and meat hooks on a pulley system hung over the larger empty area. This was a meat processing building! Now if only I knew how to work the damn traps, Or what type of animal they were for.

“I don’t feel like this has gotten us any closer to getting meat,” Derrick commented.

“It hasn’t hurt our chances,” I replied. I grabbed the nearest trap off the wall and laid it on the table. How hard could these be? I pried the two halves of the spring-loaded trap apart and held them flat as I fumbled with the lever to set the trap and keep it open. When I thought I had it, I had to yank my hands back at the last second as the trap snapped shut.

“You were almost too slow,” Derrick cackled. “Try not to lose a hand, would you?”

“You could help me,” I suggested with a light growl.

“I’m rather fond of my hands,” Derrick replied. He stepped up to the other side of the table and helped me anyway. After a few more mishaps and close calls, we set the trap. “There has to be an easier way,” Derrick huffed.

“I’m open to suggestions,” I replied, eyeing the contraption with annoyance. I looked at the others on the wall. They were all different sizes of the same trap. It probably wasn’t as easy as throwing them around the forest and hoping for the best. It was times like these that I missed my cell phone the most. I had grown so accustomed to having the answer to everything at my fingertips, and now... well, if we didn’t already have the knowledge in our heads or weren’t near a library, we’d have to figure it out the best we could.

I was not a trapping specialist and didn’t know of any nearby libraries. “Do you have any idea about any of this?” I asked Derrick.

He shook his head. “Sorry, bro. I’d never even shot a gun before the apocalypse.”

I nodded. There were a lot of things that we hadn’t done before the apocalypse. “Remi is from Iowa. Maybe he’s done some trapping in his youth and can help us figure this out.”

“I don’t think they do that sort of hunting there,” Derrick replied. “All you’ll find in Iowa is a bunch of fields—corn, soybean, baseball, mice. You get my point. Not a lot of places for trapping.”

“Still, he might know something. It doesn’t hurt to ask,” I argued. I grabbed a stick and sprung the trap, which snapped the stick in two. We left the slaughter shed, and I went back inside while Derrick did whatever it was that Derrick did when he wasn’t annoying the shit out of me.

I sat at the kitchen table, messing with the trap until I could set it on my own. That was a start.

“Whatcha got there?” Trent asked as he and Remi came inside with baskets laden with berries, wild mushrooms, and what looked like lawn trimmings.

“It turns out that last shed is a slaughterhouse of sorts,” I replied, plucking a berry from the basket he set on the table and popping it into my mouth. “Inside are a bunch of different traps. I’m trying to figure out how they work so that we can have some fresh meat.”

“Are you having any luck?” Remi asked.

“Yes and no,” I answered. “I’ve gotten better at setting the traps, but I still don’t know where we should put them, what animal they’re for, or how we get the animals to step in them.” I looked up at Remi with a hopeful look. “I was hoping that you might have some experience with trapping.”

“Sorry. Dad went bow and shotgun hunting, not trapping, but I didn’t go with him. Hunting was never really my thing,” Remi replied.

“I told you so,” Derrick yelled from the living room.

I rolled my eyes at his childishness. “No need to apologize, Remi. It was a long shot.”

“Can’t we just set them and hope for the best?” Trent asked. “Eventually, we’ll figure out what works and doesn’t and get better at it.”

“I think that’s what we’ll have to do,” I admitted. Hopefully, the learning curve won’t be too steep. By my calculations, we would be nearing October if it wasn’t already here. Cold weather was just around the corner, so animals would become more scarce. We spent the rest of the day brainstorming places to put the traps, with plans to go out tomorrow and try our luck.

I turned in early for the night and was still awake long after Derrick came to bed. I stared at the ceiling while listening to him snore. I worried about our ongoing survival here in the mountains. Finding this place was a godsend; however, being up in the mountains away from “civilization” meant it was harder to find or barter for food. We were one hundred percent reliant on ourselves, and if I didn’t figure this trapping thing out, we would have to move out of the mountains for the winter and hope this place was still here and vacant come spring.

The low growl of a zombie outside broke me out of my thoughts. It sounded like one must have slipped through the fences or stumbled down the mountainside. It didn’t happen often, but one or two did pop up now and then. I left the bedroom and went into the kitchen to see if I could see it through the windows, but all I could see was the pitch black of the night. When I turned toward the living room, I spotted Trent asleep on the couch. I shook my head and smiled. My little brother was supposed to be on guard duty to make sure Derrick’s ghost didn’t try to eat our food. I didn’t find it necessary, but Derrick did, so I didn’t argue with him. I was going to leave Trent asleep on the couch until I noticed a book beside the trap on the kitchen table.

I bent closer to it and nearly shouted in triumph when I saw it was a book about trapping. One of the others must have found it after I went to bed. I grabbed the book and took it into the living room. “Trent,” I said, shaking him awake.

“Huh? What’s wrong? What happened?” a confused Trent said as he sat up and looked at me with bleary eyes.

“Nothing happened. I can’t sleep, so I’m going to read this book someone found. Why don’t you go to bed,” I replied, settling into my favorite armchair.

“It’s my turn to keep watch,” Trent protested as his eyes slid shut. I watched him with growing amusement as he suddenly jolted back awake.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked again.

“Go to bed, Trent,” I said more firmly. “That’s an order.”

Trent nodded sleepily as he stood and wobbled his way down the hall and into the bedroom he shared with Remi. I shook my head as I cracked open the book, excited to learn everything there was to know about trapping. If I could master this, we could stay here indefinitely.

When I opened the book, an envelope fell into my lap. Curiously, I opened it and saw that it contained several pages of maps, and if I wasn’t mistaken, they were maps of the area around the cabins. A closer inspection showed points marked with an ‘x’ and a number. My excitement grew as I studied the maps. If this was what I thought it was, I held the key to our survival—a map of where to place all the traps!

I carefully slipped the pages back into the envelope and set them aside. I’d come back to those later. First, I needed to learn what I was doing.

BANG

I was startled awake and jumped to my feet, the book and envelope sliding to the floor. As my mind tried to clear, I looked around for the threat, only to find Derrick standing in the entryway between the living room and kitchen with a smirk and two pots in his hands.

“If you’re going to trade places with Trent, you should probably try to stay awake; otherwise, what’s the point?” Derrick asked.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” I grumbled, bending down to pick up the book and maps. “And I wasn’t asleep for long. I read the trapping book, and with what I learned and the maps inside, I think there’s a good chance that we could have rabbit stew for dinner.”

“Really?” Derrick asked excitedly as he followed me into the kitchen.

“Yes, but you can’t have any because you woke me up like an asshole,” I replied.

“Try and stop me,” Derrick retorted. “What do we have to do?”

“We need to gather the rest of the traps. I’d like to get a few lines set today for some of the smaller game and then try for larger game over the next few days,” I told him as I filled the tea kettle with water and put it on the stove to heat.

“I’ll go grab the traps!” he said, rushing from the kitchen. Now that there was a real chance for better meals on the line, the grouch was all sorts of ready to help. I heard him leave the house and then a surprised shout. Seconds later, Derrick came storming back into the house. “There was a fucking zombie out there!”

“Oh yeah,” I said as I popped a tea bag into my mug. “I heard one bumping around last night.”

“And you didn’t think to fucking warn me?” Derrick fumed.

“It’s the zombie apocalypse,” I replied. “I kinda thought you knew.”

“You thought I knew?! Well, thanks a hell of a lot for that, Isaac,” Derrick shouted, shoving me. “It’s a good thing I had my fucking knife on me.”

“What is with all the shouting?” Trent asked, running into the kitchen, followed closely by Remi.

I turned and shoved Derrick back. “Don’t fucking push me.”

“Your brother is a fucking asshole,” Derrick growled. He rushed me, dipping low and slamming his shoulder into my stomach. He used his momentum to lift me slightly and propel me backward, slamming me into the counter.

I punched him in the side a couple of times to try and get him to release me. “I fucking forgot about it! It’s not like I didn’t tell you on purpose!”

“Hey!” Trent shouted as he and Remi dashed forward to pry us apart. “What the fuck has gotten into you two lately?”

“If we start fighting with each other, things will get weird,” Remi added, placing himself between us as Trent hauled Derrick to the other side of the kitchen.

We glared at each other, breathing heavily. When he made no move to apologize, I bit the bullet and took the first step. “I’m sorry for forgetting to warn you about the zombie in the yard. I promise I hadn’t done so with any sort of malice.”

Derrick’s eyes narrowed slightly before he spoke. “And I’m sorry for pushing you. It had just startled me; honestly, it was a little closer than I would have liked. Because of that, I lashed out at you more strongly than I should have.”

“There, see,” Remi said as Trent released Derrick. “That’s more like it. We can’t afford to let rifts build between us.”

“We get it, Dad,” I replied, playfully shoving him before returning to my tea.

“That’s Daddy to your brother,” Remi retorted, snorting when I accidentally dropped my spoon.

“I didn’t need to know that.”

My groan got lost in the laughter of the three men behind me.