Born 01 - Born

Sarah is helping him and listening to every word he says. Kids love Will. It's weird. The little white-haired swine who attacked Leo liked Will, too. Thinking about the little brat at the camp makes my skin crawl. I'm grateful Sarah is a good kid. Her and Meg are my kind of kids. Not really kids but still young enough to be called a kid.
    Will gets the fire going quickly.
    I take my bow and quiver that he kept safe for me while I was away, and head into the forest.
    The quiet of the forest fills me. I relax and feel the bow in my hands. Everything is relaxing. I can feel the tension leaving my shoulders as I roll them a few times. I pull out an arrow and pull it back. I hold it taut and ignore the pain in my arms and the tremble of my line.
    I listen. I hear a crack in the forest to the right. I see something beige. I hold my breath and narrow my eyes. I see the tail of a huge cougar. It's a female. I don’t kill cougars. I don’t kill cats. It's a rule I have.
    I wait for it to leave the area. I know nothing is going to move or make a sound while it's there. It stops and looks at me for a minute.
    It's beautiful eyes meet mine and we stare for a second. It sees the bow and leaves.
    After about a half an hour of just listening to the forest I hear another noise beyond the birds that have returned. I pull the arrow and wait. I see a spike deer. It's more meat than we can eat, but it will be good to bring meat to dry into venison jerky. I focus on its soft brown eye. When it takes its next step, it senses me. It turns its head and instantly the arrow is let fly. The arrow pierces the eyeball and the deer drops. I wait a few seconds. Just in case. Nothing moves beyond the odd twitch of the deer.
    I pull my knife out and squat next to it. I gut it. I split the back tendons and hang the deer from a branch. It's heavy, even gutted.
    "Wow."
    I look back at Will standing, watching me.
    I pull the fur and drag the knife along it.
    "I think I love you."
    I laugh, "Good, you can carry it." I have let it bleed and decapitated it. I drop the head and leave the skin and innards in the pile of blood. I know the cougar is waiting for us to leave. I cut a huge hunk of the tough meat along the front quarter off and leave it there too.
    He throws it over his shoulder. It's about seventy-five pounds with meat and bone.
    Will carries it like it weighs nothing.
    "You are an amazing shot."
    I nod. "I know. I practiced for years. I hunt regularly."
    He laughs, "Good to see you're humble."
    I look at him offended. "I am humble."
    He shakes his head. I don’t get the joke.
    "What's the plan for the breeder camps?" he asks.
    I look at him and know he can read my face perfectly.
    "I don’t know. We have to do something. They're killing them off for no reason. Healthy women."
    "It's not ‘no reason’ to them. These women will live long healthy lives and become a burden to society. They will require help and old age assistance. The New World Order is all about breeding to succeed not recreating the entire population. They don’t want the women, just the babies. Grown people are harder to brainwash. They want the new children to see that what they have done was for the greater good."
    I stop. "You don’t believe that, do you?"
    He frowns. "Christ, no. They have killed billions of people off, Emma. They don’t deserve to run the world just because they're more organized than we are and they were prepared for the fallout. I'm just saying how they think."
    We walk into the camp to see Jake making the girls laugh. I smile and feel like I brighten up. He makes everything feel lighter.
    He scrunches up his nose. "What the hell is that?" The girls giggle at him.
    "Venison," I say.
    He looks relieved. "Oh, I actually like venison."
    I roll my eyes at him, and Will and I start taking the deer apart. We cut several small steaks and stew meat. Anna starts making a stew in the pot and Jake grills the meat. Sarah cuts up some apples we got from the camp. They seem really small and old but none of us care. She adds them to the stew. Apples and venison sounds weird but when Anna adds water, it makes a sweet gravy.
    Will looks at me and frowns. "Guess we're in the same boat as last time. Nowhere to wash up."
    I shrug and hand him some of the cooking water. "You clean me, and I clean you?"
    He nods and grabs a small piece of the lavender soap Jake still had from my cabin.
    We walk to the edge of camp, and he pours a small amount on me. I wash up my arms