Chapter 4

A Chapter by Courtney

We had begun our trek from a small city in Wyoming and were moving across the country to get to where the extravagant home of our past democracy once stood, now but a crater of what it had been. Tarnished and desecrated monuments stood as proof of what used to be. As we crossed the border into Nebraska, there seemed to be a feat that we had conquered. We had traveled farther than dared by the others and were well on our way to our destination after just under a month. Those left behind, those we had loved and had trusted were then behind us: Not even in the vicinity of our goal.
Putting that aside, we continued on, hiking through the forest on a faded, cracked dirt road. Everything was going so well: Too well. We had begun to grow leery of a conflict that had not yet arisen. The anticipation of all that could go wrong was causing irritation to be at an all time high. We walked in tense silence, aware of our surroundings; every rabbit that ran out into our path was an imminent threat.
As we were walking, Landon threw his arm out in front of me, “Wait...” he said quietly. I tilted my head back and noticed the almost imperceivable thin traces of smoke in the air, lining the mid-afternoon sky. I followed the gossameresque path down to the source which was a mere hundred feet away. Through the leaves of a tall tree hanging down as vines, I could make out the outlines of a small encampment. I looked over at Landon and nodded my head toward it as we silently crept towards the curtain that concealed what truly lied beyond.
We peered through the gaps and could discern a young man, who could not be much older than we, warming his hands over a small fire with a large dog lying it’s head on his lap. There backs were to us, so neither man nor hound heard our approach.
The dog’s wagging tail stopped on a dime and his nose lifted to the air before jumping up and staring at where the two of us were scarcely veiled from sight. my gaze lowered to look to the right of the boy as my eyes widened when I saw his hand drop down on a .50 caliber rifle. An arrow would be no protection compared to the speed of a bullet.
We slowly backed away from the campsite, but it was already too late. The dog had caught our scent and was running toward us; the boy right behind with his rifle pointed where we hid, under no certain cover.

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