Survival By Night

Chapter 5

"What...what was that?!" I spring up and look around. That was a gunshot, wasn't it? How far away was it? Which direction? What am I going to do? That's when Sherri grabs me and turns me to face her. She has a finger to her lips letting me know to shut up and keep quiet. Yes, I will definitely do that. She points to my pack and motions me to follow. I notice she has hers on as she moves further into the woods. I grab my pack and move into the woods behind her.
     After a couple of minutes she stops and puts her pack down under some bushes and whispers for me to do the same. Hiding our packs is a good idea. We stay crouched down while we wait and listen.
     Sherri stands up after what feels like an eternity and looks at me running my knees. Yes I know I need to start exercising to better handle this new life. She points and starts picking up some small branches and then looks at me. Oh yeah, right, gather some branches. I knew that.
     When we have gathered an armful each, she starts arranging them around the bushes where we put our packs. She stops and looks around. I look around wondering what she may have heard. She shrugs and goes back to arranging the branches. It looks like a space someone can hide in. Oh, I get it now. We are going to sleep hidden away. She crawls in and motions me to follow. It's a tight fit, but we manage it.
     "We will wait here. It was only the one gunshot, so we have to see what's going on. Does that sound ok?" she whispers, reminding me to whisper.
     "Sounds great. Should we try to get some more sleep? I'm not really tired now with all the adrenaline. You could sleep for a few more hours while I listen for anything and then we could change places," I say, hoping nothing disturbs us.
     "Ok, but don't move anywhere or make any noise," she says.
     She closes her eyes. I hope she can sleep. I'm too worried about what that gunshot was all about. Since we haven't heard any other noises, everything seems a little better. I didn't think things were going to be real easy traveling as we are but at least things haven't been bad. Yet. I'm just glad we are fairly well hidden. Those people from earlier probably won't make it to their destination walking out in the open. I hope they make it. But let's face it, the world sucks.
     Every little sound has me on edge. A twig breaking here. An animal scurrying there. I'm glad I left the gun in my pack. I'm not ready to handle one yet. Definitely don't need to shoot myself. How would I explain that to her? I was just cleaning it and it just went off. I can just see the blank look and her rolling her eyes as she bandages me up. She would walk away. I really need to get better. Maybe we can find another bow and she can teach me. I bet she would like that. To train someone and pass on the knowledge would help both of us.
     The mountains seem so far away at the pace we are going. But I don't want to get there too quickly. What if she wants to be alone? What if we get there and she says thanks for coming with her, but have a nice life. Stop thinking like that. I have to get a few hours of sleep and we will be on our way. Speaking of that, Sherri wakes up and tells me to hit the sack. Yeah the sack. A sack of bugs and I don't know what else.
     Sherri is shaking me awake but has her hand over my mouth. She is whispering for me to be quiet. Huh, what? Is all I can manage.
     "We have company," she says, as she looks toward the road.
     It takes me a couple of seconds to figure out what she said. When I do I sit up straight and look at her. I am definitely wide awake. After I calm down, she tells me that a couple of girls and a guy stopped on the road and came into the woods. No more sleep for me for a while.
     "What do we do now? Are we going to wait here or find another way to go?," I asked.
     "When they stopped, they were talking but I couldn't make out what they were saying. They weren't arguing as far as I could tell. Just maybe scared as they made their way into about the same spot we were in earlier. I haven't heard anything from them since," she replied.
     I thought about them for a minute. If they are scared and we move, would we freak them out too much? Would I freak out too much? I looked at Sherri. Yeah, she knew what I was thinking.
     "So Daryn, what do you think we should do? It seems like we have two options. We ignore them, move on and hope they don't do anything stupid like run after us. Two, we go over there and try to make friends and see if they need help. Thoughts?" she said and sat waiting to see what I had to say.
     I sat there trying to figure out the safest option. There aren't really any safe options was all I could think about. The options I have had up till now haven't been the best. But I've made it this far. I focus on Sherri and she is looking at me impatiently. How long was I sitting there? Anyways, I think I should answer her. "Honestly I'm a bit scared. And you said they seemed scared and not hostile. So maybe we shouldn't spook them." I answered and waited to see what she would say.
     "You're right, we shouldn't spook them. We don't know their story. So we stay here for a few more hours, until they are asleep and then we make our way through the woods a little farther to get back to the road if it is safe. Does that sound good?" she answered.
     "Yeah that sounds very good. We make a pretty good team, don't we? I mean, we are great together. I mean, um we are-" I stop talking and look around at nothing.
     "Do you smell that?," she asked then looked toward where the three stopped. "Oh great, they built a fire. We either move now or tell them they might want to put out the beacon. Have these people never been in the end of the world before?" she said with a half smile.