Revenge of the Crazy Ants, chapter 3

This is a continuation of my Crazy Ants series.

        We found shelter in a deep underground cave, which was once a parking deck, connected by underground

passages. Finding food was a daily struggle. Every morning, the men would travel many miles to hunt, and the women

would gather vegetables from the nearest farms (that were still intact) or fruit from the orchards.

        It's not unusual for Brian, John, Will, and Josh to get up at 4:30 a.m., to hunt for food. During the summer, they

hunt for slow moving reptile creatures. When you are struggling to survive, taste isn't much of an issue. Sometimes,

they are lucky enough to snag a tasty faun, with a bow, and arrow. On the long days of summer, when they felt a

little safer, they would spear the jellyfish-like creatures. This was quite a delicacy for us. During the winter, they hunt

the wildcats, which are roaming in huge numbers, in search of food.

        During the summer, the men must dodge the stones, and meteorites, in hopes of finding the reptilian creatures.

They must watch their footing, because of the unstable gravitational field. If you make one wrong step on the floating

islands, you could either fall 5 feet, or 5,000 feet, depending on the day. It would be suicidal to take a chance, under

those conditions.

        Josh learned the hard way, that he must stay away from the strange glimmering flowers. Unable to contain his

curiousity, he bent down to take a look, and became mesmerized. It took weeks to snap him out of this. Electrical

imbalances, can do strange things to a person.

        When the fauns were out in great numbers. the men would duck behind the carved rock walls, and shoot their

arrows through a chink in the structure. They knew better than to come into close range of the fauns. A couple

months ago, Will got too cocky, and came within arms length of the humanoid fauns, in an attempt to spear it. The

swift-footed faun grabbed him, and jumped into one of the bloody rivers. Will has never been the same since. Every

day, we have to check him for signs of contamination. Luckily, everything seems normal.

         When the sky was clear, the men would travel to the humid swamps (that were once oceans) to spear jellyfish,

as they gift for their ladies. Sometimes they would have to flee, and leave their catches behind, when they heard the

shrill cries of the cannibalistic mermaids, and mermen.

         During the winter, we were forced to duck behind graves, on the path known as Shades of Death Road (where

the dead have been known to wander at night) that leads to the haunted woods, to hunt for wildcats. The meat

from these creatures, is tasteless, and stringy, but we have to survive somehow.

         The women have it easier. They usually get to sleep until 7:00 a.m. They venture out in search of farms, and

orchards during the warm season, to find fruits, and vegetables. The women still face great danger. In the spring,

they have to hide from the packs of wildcats, in a canopy of low hanging trees. When Renee was menstruating, a

wildcat spotted her, and almost tore her to pieces. She was lucky that Mary, who was a little to brave for her own

good, chased it away with a crude spear, that she carved with a sharp rock. Mary nearly got stung by a feline sized

dragonfly; near the Cat Swamp. She was on her way to the Great Meadow (beyond the Great Meadow, is a huge

orchard) Renee sometimes felt the icy tendrils of the shades of the dead, when she was near Ghost Lake. On the way

to the abandoned farms, they faced many storms. They were forced to hide in a pyramid like structure. Sometimes,

they ventured into the haunted forest, in search of nuts, and berries. They ran when they saw the demonlike

creatures, that hid in the woods.

         We use the steam from the vents of the underground cave, that we live in, to cook.

         We don't have much of a choice when it comes to fashion, because we make our own clothing out of the hides

of the animals we hunt. We sew our clothing with hemp.