Kirkham, Jeff - Black Autumn by Kirkham Jeff

Author:Kirkham, Jeff [Kirkham, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Defiance Press
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

• • •

Federal Heights,

Salt Lake City, Utah

Carl Redmund invited Jimmy hunting. Jimmy said yes, but ran through a long list of misgivings in his mind. This wasn’t a world where a man should agree to something because he wanted to avoid conflict, but that’s exactly what Jimmy had done.

Back in the old world—just one week ago, he reminded himself—Jimmy used to hold Carl Redmund in awe. Redmund had been a football player at the University of Utah and he had undoubtedly had sex with scores of women and had, literally, been the big swinging dick on campus.

That was twenty years ago and, even though Jimmy hadn’t even gone to the University of Utah, it still factored into his thinking. Redmund had little to add in a relationship with Jimmy. After a few hunting forays to the cemetery, where Jimmy had brought back half-a-dozen deer, he had been crowned The Hunter on his street. He didn’t know if it was self-delusion or self-discovery, but Jimmy now thought of himself that way now, too. Based on results, he was the apex provider in his neighborhood. Bottom line: he had fed a lot of people over the last few days, including Redmund and even the bishop.

Deer had disappeared from the cemetery and Jimmy hadn’t been able to figure out how to dry deer meat, so they would need more deer in the next couple of days. From what he had seen, hunting up Tellers Canyon was a serious challenge. The mountain crawled with hunters and survivalists, almost all of them armed. Working around the competition and finding deer would be tricky.

Jimmy didn’t honestly want to hunt with Redmund. From his new point of view, on this side of the Apocalypse, Jimmy could see Redmund was a blowhard. Despite Redmund’s massive build, he fell drastically short in cardio fitness. But the social pressure was more than Jimmy could handle. He would go with Redmund, but Jimmy would insist on running the hunt.

It turned out to be a non-issue. By the time they had hiked four miles up the bottom of Tellers Canyon, Redmund was breathing like a blown pony. Jimmy was no picture of cardio fitness either, but he had been dropping Redmund on the climb, having to wait for him every quarter mile. The football player didn’t have the wind to argue about anything, so Jimmy stayed a bit out in front, the default expeditionary leader.

They reached a tiny stream spilling into the canyon bottom over a moss-covered waterfall. Jimmy decided they had climbed far enough to get above most of the other starving hunters, and he turned up the tributary without consulting Redmund.

Redmund followed as they began the more serious climb. The stream cut through a deep gorge, and the woods around it filled in thick, like a thatched barricade meant to hold out man, but allowing deer to pass. The steep climb became twice as hard as the men ducked and wove between trees, deadfall and thick gooseberry. They crossed the stream back and forth, working around cutback embankments and impassable brambles.

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