The Infected: An H1-2M1 Chronicle

Chapter 4

THEN

"I'm not eating that," I said to Jasper as he made soup from a dehydrated packet.

"It's all we have, Amber."

"No there's dehydrated fruit and vegetables. I've seen them."

"We need to ration it out."

"There's meat in there." I said pushing the bowl away from me. My stomach growled in protest. We had cut our food intake down by half since arriving at the cabin. The hardest part of winter was just around the corner. Jasper disappeared for hours at a time. I knew he was hunting. We didn't talk about it, because he hadn't been successful. We wouldn't survive the winter with what we had. "Don't act all surprised, Jasper. You knew I was a vegetarian."

"Times are different now. You have to eat to survive. You're going to have to eat things that you don't want to. In the spring we can garden, we have the seeds, but until summer you're going to have to make sacrifices."

"Not while I still have a choice!" I said through my teeth.

"God damn it Amber!" Jasper said slamming his fists on the counter. "You are the most ungrateful person I have ever met. If you don't want to eat. FINE! Starve! I don't even know why I brought you. You think this is all a joke."

"I hate you!" I screamed at my brother. "I know this isn't a joke! You just left him there to die! He has done nothing but devote his life to saving people and you just abandoned him. We had food at the house. You should have taken that instead of forcing me into the car."

"I didn't tie you up and force you to come! You got into the car on your own." Even though his voice was calm, it unnerved me. Jasper had that effect on me. He could yell, throw things around, and call me names, but the moment his voice turned calm his words turned into daggers.

"You lied to me. One week. You said ONE WEEK!"

Jasper ran his fingers through his hair and stared at the table. We had been at the hunting cabin for three weeks. The electricity went out three days ago. All we had was a hand powered emergency radio to communicate with the outside world. We listened to it for a few minutes every few hours. The news wasn't reporting much. Most of the time we heard nothing but white noise, but when there was news, it was never good. The virus was spreading. A lot of people were dying. The infected were murdering the uninfected. The uninfected were murdering the infected. Jasper had been right. We had to leave when we did. Cities were being quarantined. People rushed, by foot mostly, to get out of the cities. The national government was failing to control the panic. There was nowhere for people to go. The smaller communities weren't equipped to handle the flood of people leaving the cities. Martial Law was being declared to keep people in the cities. Militias were rising all over the place.

"I'll just skip the meat days." I said softly.

"If you skip the meat days you won't be eating enough calories."

"I don't need a lot," I said from the couch.

"Will you eat the vegetables inside the soup?"

"It's in beef broth. It'll make me sick, Jasper."

"Better to be sick now than when there's nothing left to eat but rat and you're eating moss just to fill your stomach."

"Is moss an option?"

"Moss grows on decay. You'd rather eat that than this?" he said pointing to the vegetable and beef soup.

"I can go one day without eating," I said lying down. "It won't kill me." I had never gone a day without eating. We were very fortunate when it came to food. I knew there were days ahead where eating wasn't going to be an option.

I closed my eyes as I heard a cabinet door open. "Here," Jasper said as a small sack of seeds, nuts, and raisins fell on my stomach. I tore it open. My stomach growled at the sight of it. I took one nut into my mouth at a time. I sucked on it before slowly grinding it with my teeth. I had to make the bag last. I could pour it into my mouth and in two swallows have the bag digesting in my stomach, but that wouldn't help ease the hunger. I had to trick my brain into thinking I was eating a larger meal.

I watched Jasper as he picked the vegetables from not only my bowl, but also from his. He dumped the vegetables into a pot and filled it with fresh drinking water. He set the pot over the fire and watched it boil as he ate the beef chunks and broth from the remaining bowl. He handed the boiling vegetables and water to me. "It's the best I can do," He said softly.

I sat up slowly and accepted the peace offering. I felt guilty about the bag of nuts I was slowly munching on. I handed the remainder of the bag to him. He shook his head slowly. "You need the protein," he said as he drank the broth from his bowl.