Earth: Criminal Rehab

Chapter Eight

Brendon

By the time night rolled around, we had situated everything would could from the quake. Nothing about this place was organized, but it was as good as it got. Together, we dug four holes in the ground and buried the four people who were killed in the crash. People said it was quite a nice funeral, but I tried my best to stay away. I couldn't stand to watch another one.

People were starting to get hungry. The Legacy hadn't provided us with much. The bottles and jugs of water were almost all destroyed in our landing. We had old packaged food that tasted absolutely terrible compared to what we were used to. Prison food was better than that crap. For the most part, the packages did their job, but it wasn't going to be enough. A few people started sharpening sticks and rocks for weapons. If we wanted to survive, we needed to hunt. Patrick recalled an animal he saw in the woods: a two headed thing not too far from base. Our elected hunter started in that area. Later, Ryan claimed it was all his idea. It had nothing to do with his opinion.

"Are we seriously going to try to eat radioactive stuff? I mean, we don't know what it could do to us," Josh said to Tyler and I, sitting around a small fire.

Tyler shrugged, "What other choice do we have? We can't survive long without food or water."

I strained my eyes off into the trees. I don't know what I was looking for, but I had to understand something, "What time is it?"

Josh nudged Tyler and chuckled, "Time to get you a watch."

"No," I tried hard to keep the smile off of my face, "How long do you think they've been gone?"

"The hunters?" Tyler peered out with me, "Yeah, they've been gone for a while. It was lighter out when they left."

Josh agreed. Was there nothing out there? It was common fact that everyone and everything was wiped out by the bombs, but was that really true? What if they did find something and it was too big and strong for them to kill? What if they died? How many times was I going to have to avoid funerals?

Before I got the chance to answer any questions, there was a snapping sound that echoed off the walls of the dropship. All voices died off and all eyes were fixed in the direction of the sound. I grabbed stick I had been working on. It was still pretty dull, but I'm sure I could still impale something. Slowly, I started walking towards it. The sounds got closer and closer until it seemed that it was right in front of our faces and we still couldn't see what it was.

Finally, Pete emerged from the bushes with a large, bloody and dead animal around his shoulders. Everyone erupted into cheers and shouts of glory. Ryan pranced up to him and tried to carry the thing off towards the fire. It nearly crushed him. Pete laughed calmly to himself and helped with the load. I didn't think I'd ever see Ryan's face get so red. It was amazing.

Five other guys trailed behind Pete with smaller animals. Just like humans the centuries ago, we skinned the hides and roasted them over a fire. We had a massive feast. It might have been the fact that we hadn't eaten anything in a while, but it was agreeably the best meal we've had in our lives. I even saw a girl crying. When she was asked why, she replied with, "It's just so good!"

With food in our stomachs, we happily curled up around the fire and quickly fell asleep.

***

The next morning was not so happy.

I opened my eyes to find a massive, brown animal sniffing through our rations. I faintly remember the animal. Bear. Just like the ones in the book I used to read as a kid. Except this one didn't look so cuddly. It didn't seem to be a threat much. It was just hungry. I just stared at it for a while. Everyone else was asleep. It was just me and a bear.