and trotted off into the woods.
It was her fault the dogs hung around the shanty. She’d made a tactical error with them in her early days out here. She had killed her first animal, another rabbit, and she’d had to force herself to go through the motions of preparing it to eat. Following the instructions in one of the wilderness survival books she’d brought with her, she told herself she had no choice: she would need protein to be able to live out here. Despite the fact that she’d fashioned an impressive spit above the fire and that the aroma of the cooked rabbit had actually made her mouth water, she had not been able to make herself chew and swallow the meat. Instead, she’d tossed it into the woods. That night, she’d lain awake, weeping quietly over the life she’d taken for no good reason, and listened to animals—wild dogs, she knew now—fighting over the carcass in the darkness.
The next time, though, she was hungrier and more determined. Marti was a meat eater, and Zoe knew she would have to be able to kill and cook meat to feed her. On that day, she killed and ate her first squirrel. She’d also caught a small, dark-scaled fish in a net she’d brought with her, and she’d managed to get that down despite the fact that it bore no resemblance to any other fish she’d ever eaten and could have been poisonous for all she knew.
The water was boiling, and she leaned forward to stir the stew before covering it with the lid. The fire pit was in the exact center of the small clearing, just a few yards in front of her shanty. That was what she called the dilapidated cabin, finding shanty a far prettier word than hovel or shack , which would have been a more accurate description of the building. Her little shanty was hidden so deeply in the forest that Zoe was certain no one would find it unless they actually knew it was there.
She herself had found the structure through a painstaking search of these wooded West Virginia mountains back in early April, when she and Marti first agreed on their plan. She’d actually discovered several abandoned cabins, but this one had appealed to her most, both practically and aesthetically. On the practical side, it was far from the nearest road, a good five miles, and even that road was barely paved and rarely traveled. The nearest main road was a couple of miles beyond that one. This cabin was as far from civilization as Zoe had ever been, and she was frankly thrilled by the distance between her and the rest of the world. That world thought she was dead. It held nothing for her any longer.
Her shanty would never appear in Better Homes and Gardens , but it was still more appealing than some of the other shacks she’d seen. Some of them were little more than decrepit piles of rotting wood, while this one had a little character. It was a log cabin and looked as old as the mountains themselves. The logs were separated by a mortar that had oncebeen white, but was now green with moss on two adjacent sides of the house, dirty and crumbling on the others. The roof was rotting, and she’d initially covered the decaying wood and scraps of tin with the tarp she’d brought along with her. But then she realized that, if anyone should find his way to her little clearing, the bright-blue tarp would give away the fact that someone was living in the shanty, so she took it down. Now, when it rained, she put a couple of buckets beneath the worst spots in the roof and let it go at that.
Inside the front door of the shanty was, what she called for want of a better term, the living room, which ran the width of the building. Behind that, an identical room served as a bedroom. And that was it. A two-room log cabin, both rooms together nearly equaling the size of her Malibu bathroom.
But the shanty had what she was coming to think of as amenities. Remarkably clear water ran from a rusty old pump in the overgrown yard. A wood-burning stove in surprisingly good shape sat on the floor in the
It was her fault the dogs hung around the shanty. She’d made a tactical error with them in her early days out here. She had killed her first animal, another rabbit, and she’d had to force herself to go through the motions of preparing it to eat. Following the instructions in one of the wilderness survival books she’d brought with her, she told herself she had no choice: she would need protein to be able to live out here. Despite the fact that she’d fashioned an impressive spit above the fire and that the aroma of the cooked rabbit had actually made her mouth water, she had not been able to make herself chew and swallow the meat. Instead, she’d tossed it into the woods. That night, she’d lain awake, weeping quietly over the life she’d taken for no good reason, and listened to animals—wild dogs, she knew now—fighting over the carcass in the darkness.
The next time, though, she was hungrier and more determined. Marti was a meat eater, and Zoe knew she would have to be able to kill and cook meat to feed her. On that day, she killed and ate her first squirrel. She’d also caught a small, dark-scaled fish in a net she’d brought with her, and she’d managed to get that down despite the fact that it bore no resemblance to any other fish she’d ever eaten and could have been poisonous for all she knew.
The water was boiling, and she leaned forward to stir the stew before covering it with the lid. The fire pit was in the exact center of the small clearing, just a few yards in front of her shanty. That was what she called the dilapidated cabin, finding shanty a far prettier word than hovel or shack , which would have been a more accurate description of the building. Her little shanty was hidden so deeply in the forest that Zoe was certain no one would find it unless they actually knew it was there.
She herself had found the structure through a painstaking search of these wooded West Virginia mountains back in early April, when she and Marti first agreed on their plan. She’d actually discovered several abandoned cabins, but this one had appealed to her most, both practically and aesthetically. On the practical side, it was far from the nearest road, a good five miles, and even that road was barely paved and rarely traveled. The nearest main road was a couple of miles beyond that one. This cabin was as far from civilization as Zoe had ever been, and she was frankly thrilled by the distance between her and the rest of the world. That world thought she was dead. It held nothing for her any longer.
Her shanty would never appear in Better Homes and Gardens , but it was still more appealing than some of the other shacks she’d seen. Some of them were little more than decrepit piles of rotting wood, while this one had a little character. It was a log cabin and looked as old as the mountains themselves. The logs were separated by a mortar that had oncebeen white, but was now green with moss on two adjacent sides of the house, dirty and crumbling on the others. The roof was rotting, and she’d initially covered the decaying wood and scraps of tin with the tarp she’d brought along with her. But then she realized that, if anyone should find his way to her little clearing, the bright-blue tarp would give away the fact that someone was living in the shanty, so she took it down. Now, when it rained, she put a couple of buckets beneath the worst spots in the roof and let it go at that.
Inside the front door of the shanty was, what she called for want of a better term, the living room, which ran the width of the building. Behind that, an identical room served as a bedroom. And that was it. A two-room log cabin, both rooms together nearly equaling the size of her Malibu bathroom.
But the shanty had what she was coming to think of as amenities. Remarkably clear water ran from a rusty old pump in the overgrown yard. A wood-burning stove in surprisingly good shape sat on the floor in the
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