Winter After fAll

A Part

Leaves rustled calmly in the breeze, loud in the silence after the shooting. Collecting the casings was one thing, the spent rounds another. It was messy but practice made it easier, quicker, impersonal. Bodies weren't people anymore. The thought of not having enough stock chased any compassion from the act of gathering supplies. self interest wasn't a lifestyle, it was a life. The subtle sound of a branch bending, whooshing back and forth, alerted y/n to the others departure. The pressure to rush settles like a wet towel on the shoulders of an involuntary swimmer. I don't increase the speed, since I am already going as fast as I can without missing any. It's been days since I've seen metals worth melting and casting outside my own stash. Three weeks ago Alden was shot because the cut he'd given himself while gathering barnacles went septic. I'd considered shooting him when it first happened. Healing takes energy. No one has any to spare. I'd gotten that lead back too.The last body wasn't mine; Evy's knife marked the dead's throat well. I trotted lightly to catch up with the people that considered me part of their crew, as I considered them. Rushing was dangerous but, so was being caught alone. There was surely some left from the other crew that would like all I had on me. I fell into the end of the winged formation. From an outside perspective we might not have looked like we were working together, unless they'd been professionals. The die hard, dooms day survivors were also eerily good at scouting, flanking, and trapping but they usually had pretty well built up lodgings, set locations. We weren't tracking new ground and were surprised to have gotten into a shootout with rare, random strangers. There wasn't any obvious disease. They'd looked hungry, but so did everyone else.I spotted some chicken-of-the-wood and stepped toward the tree to gather it slowly. I quickly bent, picked up a stone, and rolled it in the path I'd take to get to fungus before proceeding to gather it. I'd set traps before too. It wasn't trapped, though. The stone rolled harmlessly to the log, with a dull thump of impact. Sandy heard and stopped, and turned. Gave the halt signal. I gathered up the nutritious bounty and rejoined the formation. Sandy and I nodded to each other before she signaled us onward. Sandy liked order. It helped most of us would-be-loners stay integrated. Most of the time we all got along because none of us liked talking about what had happened or what was happening. It might be a recipe for burnt, split cheesecake but it was what was working for now. How we weren't more affected by the nuclear winter was a mystery none of us had the science lab, time, or energy to experiment on.