Doomsday Challenge

Father and daughter bring it.

Hiding from the sick is just a normal everyday thing. Jenna had been doing this since the outbreak. She and her father were comparatively safe in the hills. Her dad saw what was coming and set up a lab in the mountain’s months before the outbreak. Her mother had died about year ago. That was devastating to them both, they had taken all the precautions and mom still got hit with the plague. Dad was angry most of the time, fortunately he took his anger out on what’s left of the government. Jenna had been tasked with supplies today. Father and daughter usually went out together, today she had to go out on her own, at 18 she had been trained by her dad to accomplish most things by herself, checking and resetting traps, skinning, hunting, fishing, escape and evasion and self-defense. Her dad had served in the service and had been very well trained plus mom and dad was the outdoorsy types. Before the outbreak they spent a good amount of time in the hills hunting and fishing and such and just enjoying the close-knit family ties they have.

In the hills where her dad’s cabin is there is still snow on the ground even though spring is just coming around. Being able to follow the animal tracks in the snow is a bonus, come spring and summer it will be a bit more difficult, she is going to have to learn how to “channel” the inner Indian in her to better provide for themselves. She got her snow shoes on and picked up her gear, back pack and rifle and started walking to the trapline. Being out here in the mountains really was just like when she was young, it brought back so many good memories and today was an especially nice day, although it was cold she only needed her bibs and parka. In order to not get over heated and start sweating and then catch a chill she kept her parka unzipped and she took her time, not rushing to fast plus that kept the noise down.

As she came up on her first trap, a thrill of excitement crept over her, she crouched down and slowly crept up on the sprung trap and pulled a snow rabbit from the trap, she reset it and looked around and saw that a lot of her rabbit sets had been set off. She reset the traps and put eleven frozen rabbits in her pack and moved on to the next part of the trapline. She liked the subsistence style of life. She didn’t really have to worry to much about plague victims up here in the hills, mostly what she had to look out for was wild animals, which were plentiful out here, and the occasional raider. The Raiders didn’t live long enough to make it back to the dangerous cities that they lived in. Jenna and her dad had set up “enemy deterrent traps” long ago. And every once in a while, they had to dispose of the remains. Wolves, cougars, and bears made short work of those foolish enough to come out here unprepared.

As she was making her rounds, she looked down at her chest and saw the heart shaped locket hanging just above her breasts, she gently opened up the locket and lovingly gazed upon the pictures incased in it. Mom, from after she had just gotten married to dad. She was beautiful, blonde hair, green eyes, cute button nose, Jenna had the same features as her mother. Then there was her dad. He too was a blonde, yet he had blue eyes, the kind of soft blue that could melt any trouble away. She sat there looking at the pictures for a few minutes then closed up the locket and stuffed it down her shirt to keep it safe and shivered a little from the cold locket resting upon her chest. Then she went back to work with a rueful smile on her face. Then she determined that today she was going to bring back an elk. It had been a while since she had tasted the wonderful flavor of an elk backstrap and she missed it. Dad would like some she knew; he had often commented about the unique flavor of elk and how good it is.

As she got to the next set of traps, she saw that they had trapped a wolverine. Those were more dangerous than raiders. This one was still alive, and she had plans for this one. She went back to the cabin and got the wolverine cage and the pole with the lasso on it and got dad to help. Together they recovered the wolverine and placed it in their cage took it to the foothills, just before where the raiders gathered. They set up the wolverine trap in random areas of the foothills to dissuade anyone from heading up into the mountains. They did this to put across the idea that the mountains were full of predators, that were even more dangerous than the raiders. These traps were always set so that any “trespassers” would only see the predators and not the traps that the wolverines were encased in. They dug out little holes like dens in the ground and placed the wolverine plue the little cage that it was in, in the hole and then put iron bars across the front of the hole then they wrapped it with woven vines to disguise the bars. Once the trap was set off, the trap door was opened and out came a very hungry and angry wolverine. Very few people survived that attack. Sometimes father and daughter used other predators like young wolves and bears. Though they were harder to deal with, they still managed to stage them in “dens”. Very few raiders made it passed these traps.

Sometimes they had to go into the cities to gather some essential supplies, glass tubes, bottles, hoses and different types of fishing supplies. There were still some semblances of “civilized society”. And with enough fire power society was making its way back. This area had the “old west” rules. Setting these traps in the foothill area cleared a path for them to sneak into the outskirts of the settlement.