The summer drags on

[ronfiction]

Lou rolled up the sleeves of his red flannel shirt and smirked to himself when he wiped some sweat off of his brow with a balled up bandanna. Walking alone in the woods around these parts was an unthinkable risk at night, but during the day it was far less risky. Lou had originally gone out to hunt, thinning out the last of the infected animals left over from the fall was important work and a great way to blow off steam. As they got further and further away from the spring however, there were now far less infected animals, most of which having died off or been hunted down. Lou could now go days on end without seeing any, and the woods were getting back to their normal self.

Lou's hunting treks had become more like nature walks at this point in the summer and for the most part, he was ok with that. Lou's owned a gun for most of his life, getting his first 22' rifle when he was only 10 years old, which was late in the game for a lot of the folks around these parts. His mother had insisted that he not get one until then since his younger brother Marc was younger than he was. Lou never really got into hunting and fishing as much as other rural country boys did. He found it to be cruel in some regards, didn't feel like the game around these parts had it fair.

Lou didn't shy away from it, not like he was a vegetarian or anything like that. He just felt like the animals were at a disadvantage and that humans with their advanced weapons were cheating in the grand schemes of things. Lou kept a gun in his life since his first one; he even inherited his grand father's shot gun from his father when his father pasted away. Marc was far more into guns and had grown an impressive collection and didn't want 'that old thing cluttering up his racks'.

Lou had long since slung the shot gun over his shoulder and now walked very calmly through the woods whistling to himself. When they weren't full of demons, giant moths, wack jobs in gas masks, fairy folk or the darkened, the woods were a very calming place to explore. Most of the towns folks had some sort of appreciation for the out doors, but few felt it the same way Lou did. He had been in these woods for years, and woods like them for even longer. These woods were his home as far as he was concerned.

Lou did his best to keep his walk patterns random but short. He didn't want to get lost, but knew he had a lot of ground to cover. His attention span would come and go as the walk wore on but generally speaking his kept his wits about him just to be safe. He came to a small brook that he knew he could trace all the way back to the lake if he needed a fast way back to town and he sat down by it's edge.

He decided he would refresh himself with the water in the brook, not by drinking it, but by instead pulling off his boots and dipping his feet into the cool water for a little bit. With two plops, he plunged his feet into the water and tossed his boots onto a near by stump while he sat on a rock. He groaned some as he flexed out his toes and rolled up his pants to his knees to keep them from getting wet.

He lingered in the water for a time and enjoyed the moment of relaxation in nature. For the moment, the problems back in town where not on his mind. He didn't worry about the gate, the government, lizard people, corporations, or even heaven and hell. He was alone with himself, out in the woods. The moment lasted just a moment.

A loud snap of a branch in the distance shoot through the silence and Lou was up with gun drawn in a flash. Lou's senses reached out as best he could; his ears trained on hearing out more twigs snapping; his eyes staring down the sights of his shot gun, even his skin was on edge, feeling the water running past his bare calves. He stood rigid, stone still in the foot deep water and kept his finger on the trigger.

He ran through the long list of dangers that could be out in the woods. He considered which ones he could handle alone, he considered which ones he could out run, and then he considered the ones that if they were out there in the woods, he was just plain fucked. As he stood there, ready for whatever may come, he sneered some and ejected a round from his shot gun.

As the slide of the long arm range out in the once more silent woods, Lou paid no attention to the round that went flying out of his gun and instead ran a hand into his pocket and pulled out a massive round that he slammed into his gun to load it. The massive round, almost as if by magic, managed to fit into his shot gun and Lou kept aiming his gun into the woods.

A moment past, then a few more. It became clear that whatever out there was either not showing itself, or Lou was just plain jumpy. Lou slowly stepped out of the river and eventually lowered his weapon. He quickly put his boots back on and retrieved the round that he had ejected to make room for an ammo change. Once the normal bullet had been picked up he ejected the one he had just put in.

He looked over the massive round and turned it over in his hands. His fingers ran over the name scratched into the bullet with a pang of guilt. He held it up in the sun light and frowned at the name 'Sally' in his own messy script. He sighed deeply and tossed the bullet back into his pocket and looked around the clearing once more.

"Please, please don't make me use this." He said to himself, barely more than a whisper.