Hi! I'd like to apologise for any gramatical errors you may find, this has been proof read, but I'm not as perfect as I'd like to believe I am, so there may be some errors.
I was driving east, I knew if I went west I'd hit the coast, my chances are probably better in the mountains. I've no idea if there'll be fewer zombies further inland, but at least I won't end up trapped between the ocean and the undead.
I drove for about two hours before I turned off the road onto an unmarked track, I've no idea what's down here, but I'm hoping for a hunting cabin. Somewhere with a generator would be nice and running water too.
The road was bumpy, two tire tracks through the grass with the forest leaning in overhead and bordered by brambles. It doesn't go straight, but winds its way through the forest, so within minutes I'm out of sight of the road.
After a while the track opens up into a grassy area. There's room to turn a vehicle, and a foot trail leading off into the woods, but nothing else. I turn the truck around and head back to the road. There was nothing wrong with the spot that I could tell; it was good for what it was. Out of the way and surrounded by brambles on all sides, effectively a fortified camping spot, a main entrance to the road and a back door into the woods, which would need thorough exploration if I were to decide to stay there. Hopefully there would be a stream nearby for water, and the brambles would provide berries in late summer. I was still holding out hope for finding a hunting cabin, but I'd keep this spot in mind as a plan B. Assuming I could ever find it again that is. I took a good look around as I re-joined the main road, there was a tree struck by lightning not far from the turn off, I committed it to memory as I headed onwards.
It was about half an hour later I found another turn off, and this time I'd struck gold. It was further from the road, so far I almost gave up and turned back, but eventually I came out into a small clearing. A little log cabin stood off to one side, a garage joined onto the side of the house, hopefully with internal access, and an iron handled pump stood by the front door with a bucket under the spout. So it might not have running water, but it did have a guaranteed clean water supply.
I pulled up and parked, turning the engine off. I sat still listening to the quiet. But the forest was never really quiet; there was the wind in the trees, and birds chirping, as if the world hadn't ended.
I opened the door and jumped out, my feet slipping on the grass and I held on to the door as I fell, it swung towards me and whacked me painfully in the thigh, I let go and landed on my rear in the damp grass.
Well, that was painful, but the timing could have been worse, at least there aren't any zombies after me right this second. With that reminder I got up and leaned back into the truck, fetching out the pistol and slipping the safety off. I headed for the house.
There was no point in trying to be stealthy; my truck would have announced my presence to anyone with ears. I tried the front door, locked, and then made a circuit of the cabin, peering in through windows. I couldn't see much passed the lace curtains though.
The cabin was single story, but larger than it had first appeared. It was very traditional looking, with red paint on the window frames and external doors. There was a back door, also locked, and two bathroom windows. A complete circuit of the house indicated no inhabitants, and no easy way in. I climbed back onto the porch and sat on the swing seat, staring at the forest and the little potted plants around the porch, trying to think of a way in.
I didn't want to break in, but I'm not that great at picking locks, I can manage the basic "My Secret Diary" padlock, but what girl hasn't lost the keys and discovered that a hair pin works just as well? Charlie always kept a spare key over the door; maybe these people did the same. I put the safety on, checked that it was very secure and there was no way it could just slip off, and shoved the pistol into the back of my waistband. Then I started a thorough search of the porch area, and eventually came up trumps inside the birdhouse nailed to the corner of the cabin. The key fit the door and I retrieved the pistol before pushing it open and slipping inside.
The hallway extended all the way through the house, ending with a glass panelled door which appeared to lead to a boot room by the back door. Doors opened to the left and right of the passageway, all shut. There was a small sideboard by the door, with a bowl of pot pouri and a torch, there was also a coat rack, but that was the only furniture. The walls were a pale green and decorated with paintings of the forest and family photos which I didn't stop to inspect, a green patterned rug ran the length of the hall, covering the dark wooden boards.
The first door to the left opened to reveal a good sized kitchen dining room, the wooden kitchen units and table and the red Aga blending perfectly with the theme of the house. There were two doors on the far side of the room, and I crossed the stone flagged floor towards them cautiously. The first opened into the garage, which had plenty of space for my truck and another vehicle besides. There where benches around the edge of the room, filled with tools and a generator under the bench by the door.
The second door opened onto a set of steps descending into darkness behind the garage. A smell of cool earth rose up and I fetched the torch from the table by the front door before climbing warily down. The stairs doubled back on themselves, and ended in a small subterranean storage cupboard, as far as I could tell. There were shelves along two walls, and a well-stocked wine rack along a third. A copper stood in the middle of the floor, next to a drain, which didn't seem to be very effective, judging by the water stains around it. The cellar walls and floor where concrete and the damp earthy smell seemed to be coming from the drain, I stayed only long enough to confirm that there was no-one there before retreating to the warmth of the house above.
Returning the torch to the table by the front door, I opened the first door on the right-hand side of the passageway. A large comfortable sitting room was revealed, a few hunting trophies decorated the walls, and there was a small stone fireplace against an internal wall. Candles and photos lined the mantelpiece and a coffee table sat surrounded by chesterfield sofas, a varied collection of board games and jigsaw puzzles stored beneath it. There where bookcases and comfy looking armchairs by the windows and a pair of large wicker baskets filled with fleece, yarn and half-finished knitting projects stood next to a Saxony spinning wheel by one of the windows. Another wicker basket stood by the fireplace, this one filled with logs, there had been another by the Aga, and I had passed a wood stack outside as well. The room was deserted, so I moved on.
The second room to the right of the passage was a bathroom. There were no taps, and no toilet, but a large bathtub sat in front of another fireplace, the match of the one from the sitting room, a bucket stood next to the tub and candles lined the mantelpiece, but thankfully no photos.
The third room had a toilet, and a basin. The toilet was a regular flushing loo, but the basin had no running water, there was a pitcher to fill it and a stack of fluffy white towels beside it. I lifted the lid to inspect the loo, it was clean, and it had been a while since anyone had been here, judging by the lowered water level, but it did seem to be getting a water supply from somewhere.
The rest of the rooms were all bedrooms, four rooms, two had double beds and two where twins. All decorated in pale colours, with a chest of drawers and a wardrobe in each room. The wooden floorboards all covered with rag rugs in bright cheery colours, the unmade beds covered in crochet afghans.
Having cleared the house, I headed back outside to check the surrounding woods. It was about two in the afternoon at this point, and my stomach was starting to grumble loudly, but hungry was better than dead, and I searched the forest for some distance in every direction, finding nothing of any note, before heading back to the cabin. I moved my truck into the garage, having discovered a complete set of keys hanging on a hook in the garage, and set about unpacking.
The supplies I discovered in the kitchen and cellar, coupled with the supplies I had brought with me would last for a good long time. There where tins of meat and fish, among other things on the shelves in the cellar, and I added my small offering of beans, tomatoes, pineapple and blueberries to their ranks. The perishables went down into the cellar too. Meat and vegetables, dairy produce; there had been plenty to choose from, the good people of Forks weren't interested in those things. There were also many jars of chutneys, jams and marmalades; most without labels. There were jars of pasta sauces and what looked like a home brew kit.
Up in the kitchen, I found a well-stocked spice rack and plenty of pots, pans, crockery and cutlery. There was baking supplies and bags of rice and pasta. There were no electric kitchen gadgets, no fridge or freezer. There was a light fitting in the middle of the room, but also a multitude of candles spread around the room. There had been light fittings in the other rooms too, but I suspected the old generator out in the garage wasn't up to much, since there was oil lamps hung from brackets on the walls too.
I couldn't find any sheets for the beds, presumably the family who seemed to use this as a holiday home took them home to wash in a machine, rather than use the copper in the cellar. I took the sleeping bag I'd acquired from Newton's and spread it over one of the twin beds in the bedroom next to the kitchen, hopefully that room would get some warmth through the wall during winter.
The rest of the camping gear got re-organised in the back of the truck; I wouldn't need it staying here, but if I ever had to leave it'd be better not to have to take too long to pack. A search for matches yielded one small pack in every room; I left those where I found them, a larger pack in the kitchen and a steel and flint in the garage. Add those to the lighters I'd acquired at the petrol station and I'd be worrying about running out of candles before I had to worry about how to light them.
The Jerry cans contained diesel for the truck, and the generator probably took petrol, so I left the two cans in the truck, using their weight to hold down the ground sheets. The water container however got taken out front and filled from the pump, before I lugged it into the kitchen and hefted it up onto the counter. There was a kitchen sink, but there were no taps, the waste pipe going straight out through the wall to water the plants. Then I fetched some pork and vegetables from the cellar and prepared a casserole. I stopped and examined the Aga for a bit. There was a fire box with a wooden door, so you could see the fire burning, or not burning, and three ovens. I put together another casserole and a curry and got a pan of rice and one of pasta to cook on the stove top; if I'm going to light this thing and make smoke, I'm going to get the most use out of it that I can so I don't have to light it often.
It took an age to heat up, but there was thankfully only a little smoke from the chimney at first, which quickly disappeared, and then you couldn't tell from the outside that it was burning at all. No smoke signals telling the zombies "Here I am!" I munched on a salad while I waited for the food to cook, and explored the woods a little more.
There was a water tank fed by rainwater off the roof, which was presumably how the toilet flushed, and a green lidded plastic tank sunk into the ground by that side of the house, I hadn't taken much notice before, but it must be some sort of sewerage system. There was also a barbeque and a tire swing in the back garden, though the grass was so long it was debatable whether to call it a garden or a meadow. Wild flowers in white, yellow and purple were thick amongst the grass, it was beautiful, but had definitely re-claimed the barbeque.
I headed back inside to feed the stove another log and check on the food. It would be a while yet, so I set about making a more thorough inventory of what I had, and what I wanted for. There was plenty of food, and I had washing up liquid, but no soap, toothpaste or shampoo. I found new toothbrushes in the cupboard under the wash hand basin in the toilet room, but there were no bed sheets. There was no washing machine and no running water, no heating system besides the open fires and the cooker, no fridge or freezer, no microwave to reheat food. I could live here, certainly, but it would be a bit of a shock to the system after being so used to modern comforts. The most inconvenient thing would be that I had only the clothes I was wearing and what I had acquired from Newton's, which did not include any clean underwear.
When the food was done I ate a bowl of pasta and pork casserole, and then headed to bed, without taking a shower, or brushing my teeth.
I thought of Charlie, and cried myself to sleep that night.