The Post-World

Chapter 9

When morning finally came, Avon was busy roasting pork over the fire. He had sharpeded some sticks to cook the pork on. I had a rough time sleeping from the pain of my cuts but I certainly got more than Avon and William. Avon was up most of the night, cutting, disposing, and cooking. While William was up, patrolling the camp borders. I put away my sleeping bag and sat next to the fire.

"Some of the food should be ready soon. I burned a little earlier but I think I have it figured out." Avon sat, attending the food.

"What's everyone doing?" I asked.

"Well,..." Avon said before being interrupted by William.

"Henry is trying to rest, while Malcolm, Illia, and Kaylyn are searching for herbs for medicine and water." William said as he stood near Avon.

Avon sighed. "We should put more focus on finding a main river. The stream we went over yesterday must have came from a bigger body of water. Now, we just keep running into little, disgusting, swampy ponds. If we follow the flow of them upstream we could find a river or something."

William thought quietly. "I know we need to find water but Henry needs to get better before that's our main focus."

"William, you know that's stupid... We NEED water. Henry can go a long time with a UTI. Its painful but totally survivable. And water will help him anyways. I doubt anyone out there even knows what to look for." Avon retorted.

I could see William was getting annoyed. "I know... BUT Henry needs!..." Avon cut William off and looked behind him.

"Shh..." Avon planted the sticks in the ground to keep the food cooking and slowly got up.

Me and William looked at each other, confused but stayed quiet. Avon motioned for us to stay down while he lowered and moved quietly forward. A breeze picked up and launched some of Avon's hair into William's face. It almost seemed on purpose as Avon grinned slightly upon noticing his discomfort.

"What's goi..." William was once again interrupted by a sharp "Shh" from Avon who continued away from the camp. It was at this time William and I had taken note of what was happening. Well... To a degree... Avon seemed to have a full grasp of the situation but as far as anyone else could tell, Avon had spotted something we could not confront on an even ground.

As we creeped deeper into the forest we moved past the spot of my attack the night before and strangely, there had been a disturbance. Of course I had made quite the one last night but it seemed too scattered and wide to have been made from just me and a pig. That was when we all heard rustling in the deeper parts of the forest.

Avon pulled me down to my stomach by my hair and William by his neck. "Stay low. Don't speak." Through the thick grass and trees I could make out the fat, black, head of a black bear. Its eyes wondered around and in a snort time its wicked gaze met mine. The monster stood incredibly high. I had studied the wildlife on the skyship but this black bear must have weighed at least 800 pounds and easily 9ft tall. The white patch on its throat was stained red from a kill that must have not been very long ago.

Avon shot up to his feet and pulled out a knife. "Stand up and make yourselves look big!" He raised his arms and we raised ourselves to standing. I believe we both left our knieves stupidly at camp.

"Agh!" Avon shouted and the bear roared and swatted at him. "He's not wanting to fight but this is way too close to camp for our safety." He looked at us. "Wave your arms and look big. We need to scare him away."

We both waved our arms and moves towards the creature, behind Avon. "We needs to kill it, Avon! He's dangerous and we could use that fur and meat." William said to Avon as we pushed the bear back from us, waving our arms like birds.

"We are three men, one injured, with as far as I can see one knife." The bear turned to flee and Avon ran after it screaming until it was in a full sprint away. "Agh! Leave!" Avon screamed and threw some sticks at him to encourage the flee. "We shouldn't see him again." He turned to us and wiped some sweat off his face. "Back to camp. Our food is probably half burnt." Avon nodded at the two of us and patted my back before heading back to camp.

William and I followed after him when Avon laughed and said to us behind him; "The animals here just don't want us to leave, do they?"

Back at camp, the food had not burned but was certainly well done as Avon had to pry the meat away from the fire before it burned. Soon the remainder of our party joined us again at camp. Henry was feeling well enough to stomach some pork and certainly ate more than his fair share but no one seemed to really notice but me. I didn't care though. I was getting full quick enough with everyone else.

"We need to move on." William said as the sun set over us. "Henry is feeling well enough to move around, as he has today, so it is time we move." We all looked at him and waited for Avon's inevitable response.

Avon pried his lips away from Illia and answered. "I could not agree more. Henry seems to have narrowly avoided a full blown UTI. Best to head west. There is a guaranteed water supply." He kissed Illia again before finishing. "There's no way we can miss the lake."

Malcolm spoke; "I think it's not a bad idea. Certainly better than sitting here. I hardly believe this is what we were dropped off to do."

William stood and looked at us all. "Does anyone have any objections?" No one shown any objections so William left us to his sleeping bag.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*************************Author's Note********************************

I am very thankful for the few dedicated readers of this series I have. Every vote and every single read means an incredible amount to me and today when I saw who always votes my chapters I felt motivated enough to continue the series and finish this chapter. I do not know either of you but your continued interest has been very inspiring. Thank you Tdomenick and Maxxiumus for consistently following this book as it develops. I'd love to hear your feed back and I'm very curious to know where you think I am going with this. I have had a plan on where it will end since I began writing and I do wonder what you think. If you message me I will answer some questions that might be too revealing to leave sitting on the comment feed and I would also happily answer questions or comments you leave me on the comment feed. Once again thank the both of you for motivating me to continue.

P.S

I'm sorry for how short this chapter is but I promise things are going to get more interesting and a tad page heavy.

~Sebastian