Just a few minutes after he’d bundled me into the cave, I heard footsteps crunching in the snow. I couldn’t disguise the cave entrance, but I could get farther back into it. I stood up, my movements silent, and motioned for him to go deeper. He nodded and stood, his movements careful. It was clear that he wasn’t used to moving with the silent grace that I was. I led the way farther into the cave and grabbed the jawbone I used as a knife. I had a real knife, a proper one, but I didn’t want to take a chance on it.
I’d just picked it up when I heard a commotion at the mouth of the cave. A woman’s voice yelled out, “we found us a place, Allie!” I tensed, motioning at the strange man behind me to stay, that I’d take care of it. Insistently, he shook his head. “Stay out of sight,” I mouthed. He rolled his eyes, but nodded agreement, and I stalked forward. “Are you sure it’s safe, Liza?” a different woman’s voice answered. “It’s an empty old cave. Of course it’s safe,” came the first voice.
I gripped the jawbone tighter. “Are you sure it’s empty? There are footprints outside in the snow.” The first one snorted. “It was the man we’re hunting. He made several sets to try and throw us off,” she responded. It was then that I stepped out of the shadows, using all the force I could muster to stab the jawbone in between the shoulder blades of the first one before twirling around and grabbing the other one, bashing her on the cave wall, knocking her out.
The man ran out from the shadows, looking down at the crumpled bodies on the floor. The first one, Liza, was already dead, a pool of blood spreading beneath her. I’d have to clean that up later. I knelt and pulled the jawbone out of her back, the edge of it slick with blood. “I should kill you too,” I say, my voice rough from so long without use. His green gaze meets mine. “Or we could work together. After all, I just hand delivered two people to you. That’s a lot of meat,” he says, his voice loosening and sounding better the more he used it.
“That amount of meat is why you’re still alive,” I say, my face hardening. It was tempting to allow him in, to let him help me. I’ve been pretty lonely the past two and a half years. He moves forward cautiously, his eyes on the jawbone in my hand, and I notice that he’s wearing a pair of deerskin pants, obviously new. I motion towards them. “I could get more deerskin, enough to make you an outfit. But only if you let me work with you as an equal. There’s a village not far from here. We can get food, and I can get the deerskin and other supplies,” he offers. I pause, considering this, then make a deal that’ll change the world.
“Okay. Let’s do it. Drag them further back into the cave. I’ll clean this mess up and cover the entrance to the cave. We’ve got to prepare them quickly.” He nods and starts to move them when I realize I don’t know his name, and he doesn’t know mine. “Wait a second. I never got your name?” I ask, and he looks up, flashing me a quick smile. “Dallas. What’s yours?” I take a deep breath, remembering. It’s been so long since I’ve used my name that I may as well have forgotten it. “Anastasia.” He nods, then continued taking the bodies deeper into the cave.
I can’t use any of my clothes to mop up the blood, so I grab some dried moss that I’d managed to dig and find a long time ago and soak the blood up. There’s still a smear when I’m done, but it’s not as bad as before. I bury the moss outside, as far away from the cave as I dare to get, then come back and hide the entrance to the cave. I rigged up a door that looks like stone when I first found it, so that way the gave just looks like one giant boulder. It’s tricked all my past meals before, and it kept the wind out.
When I stepped back into the cave, Dallas was standing there. “That one will wake up soon,” he remarked. “Do you have your own knife?” I ask, sighing. He nods. “I assume you’ve prepared bodies before?” He nods again. “Then let’s get busy. I’ll take the unconscious one. You take the dead one. There’s a small little cavern that branches off way back there. I prepare all my…meals there,” I say, struggling to speak of people as food. Even after two and a half years, it’s kinda hard. He nods, and I pick up the unconscious girl as he picks up the dead one, and I grab the knife I keep, and I lead him deep into my cave, unused to having someone alive with me.
Once there, we get to work.
