I awoke to the sound of howling of both the wind and the wolves. I left my nest of blankets and was hit with the coldness of the house. It had grown rather warm in the nest and three steps out of it I already wished to return. It was morning, the sun was rising over the hills in the distance and the pack of wolves roaming the neighborhood seemed to be sticking to my street now. This situation would only grow more dire if I chose to ignore it, how long would it take them to find a way into the backyard and the discover the dog door to get into the house? No, I had to deal with this, today. Thinking on the bright side, I would have at least four wolves to butcher up and eat for a while. I went into the hallway and opened the closet there, two 12-gauges and three hunting rifles greeted me as I looked inside. I grabbed one of each gun and some ammo to go with them. My father had taken me to the gun range many times to shoot these exact guns, so I knew how to load them and how to fire them properly.
In fact, the only thing I was never taught was how to clean and maintenance the guns which could become a problem. My plan for dealing with the wolves was simple, open the living room window, stick the shotgun out a bit, and shoot the wolves as they circled around. I would kill them all in one quick volley and be done with their stalking for good. This is not what happened unfortunately. What really happened was one of them being killed by the first lucky shot and then every other shot being a complete miss. The loud noises did scare away the wolves and with one of their pack mates dead, I could be sure they would come back with revenge on their minds. On the bright side, there were only three now. I waited a good half an hour before I dared opening the front door and when I did I was greeted by a gust of wind so cold it felt like my skin was being torn away. I winced in pain but pushed through out onto the front lawn and slowly moved towards the corpse of the wolf. I looked around constantly to avoid a sneak attack, luckily none came. I dragged the wolf inside and slammed the door shut.
I continued to drag it through the house and into the garage. There was practically nothing in here as we had just cleaned the whole place out. There were two saws, two dirt bikes, some clothing, and a washer and dryer. There was a fridge as well but it seemed to not be getting any power. The lights in this room were working fine enough for me to see what I was doing so I set to work. First I grabbed some rope and flung one end over a bit of wood that made up the rafters where we stored miscellaneous things. I then tied what resembled a knot around the hind legs of the wolf and hoisted it into the air, the knot held so I tied the loose end of rope to an anchor point so I could let go. I then got the largest bucket I could find and put it under the wolf's head. I headed back into the kitchen and took one of the chefs knifes from the knife drawer and brought it into the garage. There was only one was I was comfortable butchering up an animal, and that was making certain it was dead so, not knowing where the heart on a dog was, I did the only other thing I knew. I slit open the wolf's neck and let the blood drain into the bucket.
I sat there for a while, just watching the blood ooze out of the wolf's neck. I had never killed anything before, I took solace in knowing that the wolf would have had no trouble killing me for food and so I felt no pity. I left the garage, it would take a while for the blood to completely drain and saw no reason to stop being productive to baby the process along. I did a walk around the house making a mental note off all of the places I could fortify and insulate better. I didn't need windows in every room so covering up the bedroom and bathroom windows and giving a nice seal on the edges would keep the house a lot warmer. The kitchen window wasn't much use to me either and the dog door was just asking for trouble. Luckily my father kept the original sliding glass door on the side of the house and showed me how to change it out a few years back in case we needed to remove the dog door. We weren't exactly suppose to have dogs in our house as the landlord didn't like them very much so whenever we had an inspection we would remove any trace of them from the house. Changing out the door was the first thing I did, making my house completely safe from unwelcome wolves, unless they learned how to use a doorknob that is.
On the other side of town there was a Friedman's, basically a store that sold tools, lumber, planing supplies, and anything else that would be useful for a home remodel or restoration. If I could acquire a truck I could use it to get all of the tools and wood I would need to make my home into a fortress. I could knock down the wall separating my room and my sisters to make an indoor farm to grow some crops for food. Getting rid of the couches and other furniture from the living room I could make an armory of sorts and have a place to assemble gear for any expeditions I might need to make into the snow. The garage would easily become my work room, seeings how there was already a saws in there. My parents room I would try to turn into a computer room, this served no survival purpose, I've just always wanted a room to go to and have nothing but a desk and my computer. That's when it hit me, I have a bloody computer! If the electricity was still working then there is a good chance that the internet was as well. And at the very least, I could use my computer to entertain myself for the indefinite future. With 286 games on steam I could play for weeks and months before running out of something new. Granted I only had around twenty of those games installed, but one of them was Skyrim, and I can play Skyrim for three years straight with no problems of boredom.
I went to my room and powered on my PC, it took her a while to turn on all the way due to some neglect but when she was on she was as fast as ever. Twenty-four gigs of RAM can do that to a girl. I looked down to the bottom right of the monitor and the internet was up and running. I went to all the news websites that came to mind and all of them said roughly the same thing. 'There is no rescue, the conditions are worsening by the hour and soon the northern countries will be uninhabitable. The south is already seeing heavy snow falls. The government is no longer branching out to us, to anyone. There is no help, do whatever you can to survive. Lock your doors, find a gun, raiders and bandits are sure to be on the way.' No help? No rescue? Well….shit.