Page 23 of Cora

“I’m open to suggestions,” I replied, eyeing the contraption with annoyance. I looked at the others on the wall. They were all different sizes of the same trap. It probably wasn’t as easy as throwing them around the forest and hoping for the best. Itwas times like these that I missed my cell phone the most. I had grown so accustomed to having the answer to everything at my fingertips, and now... well, if we didn’t already have the knowledge in our heads or weren’t near a library, we’d have to figure it out the best we could.

I was not a trapping specialist and didn’t know of any nearby libraries. “Do you have any idea about any of this?” I asked Derrick.

He shook his head. “Sorry, bro. I’d never even shot a gun before the apocalypse.”

I nodded. There were a lot of things that we hadn’t done before the apocalypse. “Remi is from Iowa. Maybe he’s done some trapping in his youth and can help us figure this out.”

“I don’t think they do that sort of hunting there,” Derrick replied. “All you’ll find in Iowa is a bunch of fields—corn, soybean, baseball, mice. You get my point. Not a lot of places for trapping.”

“Still, he might know something. It doesn’t hurt to ask,” I argued. I grabbed a stick and sprung the trap, which snapped the stick in two. We left the slaughter shed, and I went back inside while Derrick did whatever it was that Derrick did when he wasn’t annoying the shit out of me.

I sat at the kitchen table, messing with the trap until I could set it on my own. That was a start.

“Whatcha got there?” Trent asked as he and Remi came inside with baskets laden with berries, wild mushrooms, and what looked like lawn trimmings.

“It turns out that last shed is a slaughterhouse of sorts,” I replied, plucking a berry from the basket he set on the table and popping it into my mouth. “Inside are a bunch of different traps. I’m trying to figure out how they work so that we can have some fresh meat.”

“Are you having any luck?” Remi asked.

“Yes and no,” I answered. “I’ve gotten better at setting the traps, but I still don’t know where we should put them, what animal they’re for, or how we get the animals to step in them.” I looked up at Remi with a hopeful look. “I was hoping that you might have some experience with trapping.”

“Sorry. Dad went bow and shotgun hunting, not trapping, but I didn’t go with him. Hunting was never really my thing,” Remi replied.

“I told you so,” Derrick yelled from the living room.

I rolled my eyes at his childishness. “No need to apologize, Remi. It was a long shot.”

“Can’t we just set them and hope for the best?” Trent asked. “Eventually, we’ll figure out what works and doesn’t and get better at it.”

“I think that’s what we’ll have to do,” I admitted. Hopefully, the learning curve won’t be too steep. By my calculations, we would be nearing October if it wasn’t already here. Cold weather was just around the corner, so animals would become more scarce. We spent the rest of the day brainstorming places to put the traps, with plans to go out tomorrow and try our luck.

I turned in early for the night and was still awake long after Derrick came to bed. I stared at the ceiling while listening to him snore. I worried about our ongoing survival here in the mountains. Finding this place was a godsend; however, being up in the mountains away from “civilization” meant it was harder to find or barter for food. We were one hundred percent reliant on ourselves, and if I didn’t figure this trapping thing out, we would have to move out of the mountains for the winter and hope this place was still here and vacant come spring.

The low growl of a zombie outside broke me out of my thoughts. It sounded like one must have slipped through the fences or stumbled down the mountainside. It didn’t happen often, but one or two did pop up now and then. I left thebedroom and went into the kitchen to see if I could see it through the windows, but all I could see was the pitch black of the night. When I turned toward the living room, I spotted Trent asleep on the couch. I shook my head and smiled. My little brother was supposed to be on guard duty to make sure Derrick’s ghost didn’t try to eat our food. I didn’t find it necessary, but Derrick did, so I didn’t argue with him. I was going to leave Trent asleep on the couch until I noticed a book beside the trap on the kitchen table.

I bent closer to it and nearly shouted in triumph when I saw it was a book about trapping. One of the others must have found it after I went to bed. I grabbed the book and took it into the living room. “Trent,” I said, shaking him awake.

“Huh? What’s wrong? What happened?” a confused Trent said as he sat up and looked at me with bleary eyes.

“Nothing happened. I can’t sleep, so I’m going to read this book someone found. Why don’t you go to bed,” I replied, settling into my favorite armchair.

“It’s my turn to keep watch,” Trent protested as his eyes slid shut. I watched him with growing amusement as he suddenly jolted back awake.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked again.

“Go to bed, Trent,” I said more firmly. “That’s an order.”

Trent nodded sleepily as he stood and wobbled his way down the hall and into the bedroom he shared with Remi. I shook my head as I cracked open the book, excited to learn everything there was to know about trapping. If I could master this, we could stay here indefinitely.

When I opened the book, an envelope fell into my lap. Curiously, I opened it and saw that it contained several pages of maps, and if I wasn’t mistaken, they were maps of the area around the cabins. A closer inspection showed points marked with an ‘x’ and a number. My excitement grew as I studied themaps. If this was what I thought it was, I held the key to our survival—a map of where to place all the traps!

I carefully slipped the pages back into the envelope and set them aside. I’d come back to those later. First, I needed to learn what I was doing.

BANG

I was startled awake and jumped to my feet, the book and envelope sliding to the floor. As my mind tried to clear, I looked around for the threat, only to find Derrick standing in the entryway between the living room and kitchen with a smirk and two pots in his hands.

“If you’re going to trade places with Trent, you should probably try to stay awake; otherwise, what’s the point?” Derrick asked.

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