Chapter 9-Surviving the Nightmare

"Do we start a fire now, or wait until dark?"

Kaylee thought for a minute. "Wait. We can hunt now, maybe get a Bearmutt or Monkbee."

"A what or a wha?" I didn't know the names of any of the Beasts.

"A Bearmutt is a cross between a bear and a dog. It's really big, like, ten feet tall. But they're slow, and they can't climb. If you get a good position in a tree, you can take one down, it's a lot of meat. Monkbees are monkey-bee crossbreeds. They have the shape of a monkey, but the coloring of a bee, and the wings. They can take down a lone hunter, but with three or more, it's easy to kill."

Cody nodded. "But how can we hunt? We're unarmed."

Kaylee laughed. "Come on, we'll change that, if it's the Box Day."

"Box day?"

She started back towards the beach. "Every few days, there'll be a bunch of boxes on the beach. They have a few hunting supplies, maybe a few building supplies, and clothes. They're the only thing we get from the outside world." She fell silent. Her cat ears seemed flatter.

Cody put his arm around me. I held his hand on the other side of me. I was scared. For the first time in my life, I was really scared. What was gonna happen to us? Would we get attacked by a Beast? Starve to death? Get murdered by another Runner or a DNA? Or would we just live our life out here and die old, not ever seeing anyone else?

We got to the beach. A large box, maybe five feet wide and four feet wide, sat in the sand. Kaylee ran up to it and tore it open. A curved dagger. A sword. A bow, with a full quiver of arrows. A package of beef jerky. And two sets of packaged clothes-a cameo shirt, a dark green shirt, and two pairs of jeans. I noticed that it was unisex, so that anyone could wear it.

"This is a good find. I'm a sword-user, but one of you guys can have the sword. I can throw daggers just as well. Go ahead with the arrows, I suck at archery."

I took a closer look. The bow was painted pure black, and the quiver matched it. The arrow shafts were black with a light brown band halfway between either end. It looked nice.

"I can shoot pretty well, should I take it?"

Cody nodded. "Go ahead, I'm not going to bother. I'll take the sword and try my luck with that." He kissed my cheek.

"We can save the jerky for later, and the clothes, we can put them somewhere, in case we need to use them. Out here, you only change when you absolutely have to."

We took the loot back to the camp. The clothes and beef went into a hole in a tree, at the edge of the clearing. We stashed our arms in our tent, made from sticks and the blanket. We still hadn't found our backpacks.

"You two try hunting. I'll stay behind and watch camp. Stay close to here, and shout if you get caught in trouble."

Cody and I nodded. We went off, keeping an eye out for animals. I had heard birds, and maybe saw a squirrel. But there were beasts, too. Big ones, insects that could poison you in seconds.

"Why don't you get in a tree and scout for anything? I'll stay right below."

I nodded, then dashed up a pine. They were easy to climb. I looked down at Cody, then around for any movement. A wall of fur was moving around near a creek, a way's away. I relayed the information down to Cody. he nodded, and I jumped down. He made sure I was fine, and we headed towards the Bearmutt.

The thing was huge. It had brown and grey fur. Pointed ears. I realized that this was the animal from my dream. It had a name. I notched and arrow, aimed, and waited. It sniffed the air and growled. I let go of the string. The thunk rang out, then the crash of a heavy animal hitting the ground. I was on target.

"Cammie? You okay?"

I jumped. Cody slid his hand into mine. "You looked like you were shooting your mother."

I shook my head. "I had a dream, while you were driving..." I told him about it, every detail I could remember. He nodded, then hugged me.

"I'll be careful here, alright? And you can come with me on hunting trips, to make sure." i nodded, and we started to drag the Bearmutt back to camp.

It took over an hour to get to the clearing. When we did, Kaylee helped us move the corpse net to the fire. Cody quickly lit the wood in the fire circle, and Kaylee used her sword to cut chunks of meat off of the Beast. I pulled an arrow out and started to skin it. The fur was soft, and there was a lot of it. If it got cold, it would make a perfect blanket or coat.

Fifteen minutes later, we were around the fire, eating. The meat tasted like steak. It was already dark, and the chill had started to come.

"It'll get cold during the night, but the beach heats up quickly. We can set someone there with the blankets i the evening, to let them heat up before night."

I yawned. Cody noticed and pressed his face to mine. "You want to go to sleep?" I nodded. He set his food on a mat made out of woven grass. "Come on, you don't need to stay up." He walked me over to the tent. I crawled in, on top of the blanket. he pulled the Bearmutt pelt over me and tucked me in. Before he went back to the fire, he kissed my cheek. "Goodnight, Cammie."

And I lulled into sleep, too tired to reply.