“Oh come on!” Juniper exclaimed as she jumped down from a plump boulder. Her feet stuck to the ground with a soft thud and a mist of dust twirled up around her knees. In front of her was, well, nothing. But just a moment before was a fat prairie dog popping his head out of his tunnel, teasing at the poor huntress. Juniper had never been very good with a bow. A gun she could do, and she could do it well, but not this flimsy cord and a pointed stick. She rolled her eyes in frustration after seeing her nubby arrow sticking into the ground. Juniper had been trying to get some kind of meat for over a week now. Juniper was getting sluggish without a proper balance of nutrients and she needed to have a sharp mind and quick body out here. She had always been told that the outside was dangerous, but she had never understood that until now.
There were lonely travelers who would do anything for a warm body and men who broke down the doors of helpless families to steal whatever they could find. The young blonde hadn’t had any encounters with those sorts of people, but she had seen them from afar. It wouldn’t be too long until someone would find her too. After all, she was staying in an upright cabin in the middle nowhere. No fence, no dogs, no nothing. All she had done was set up a juvenile booby-trap at the front entrance of her place and dug a couple holes that were stuffed with tumbleweeds. Her trap was a bucket of sand, which would really do nothing more than temporary blind the intruder and perhaps make them angry. As for the holes, they might break an ankle or two. Her current abode was far from the safest place to live, but she didn’t want to test her luck with finding a new shelter. Juniper had a hard enough surviving thus far.
Her boots stomped right up to the prairie dog’s tunnel, she grabbed the arrow that was stuck in the dirt and muttered “stupid rodent.” She tucked the arrow back into her makeshift quiver and looked up at the sky. It was clear day and surprising cool for late August, but this day was finding its end. Juniper let out a shallow sighed, she was at least a couple miles off from her cabin. Better start making the hike now.
Juniper could see her cabin in the horizon as dusk arrived. While looking for any signs of entry or stupidity she finally made it inside the front door. Nothing seemed to have changed, and everything that she stored in the secret compartment under a loose floorboard was intact.
Doing anything this late always put Juniper on edge. Sure, during the day someone could see her chimney smoke, but at night they could see her light. And seeing a light off in the distance was much more reliable than seeing a cluster of grey smoke. Begrudgingly, Juniper lit a dim candle as she chowed on some canned beans. Lazily she sat on her bed and grabbed her journal from under the mattress. Her pencil scribbled furiously as she wrote about her unsuccessful hunting, the inevitable loneliness she felt, and expressed her gratitude for this little cabin she lived in.
When Juni was first brought to this cabin there was already a pipe stove, a crooked wooden chair and a dusty old bed that creaked. There was an old carpet that she found a couple miles east in the center of the tiny place, a collection of kitchen supplies, a chest under her bed that held someone’s lost clothing and a variety of fabrics and blankets. All she did for herself was set up a water collecting and filtration system, something that she learned in school, and added her personal items to the mix.
Her backpack hung on a hook next to the door and a loose floorboard near the stove held a collection of her valuable items. Inside was her gun with a round of bullets, a rare Polaroid that Juniper and Luke had managed to snap together, another picture of her parents, some medical supplies, and an emergency stash of canned goods and drinking water.
Juniper had fallen asleep. The candle burned low and an impression of her journal had made the side of her face numb. She woke to the sound of people. Instantly she blew out the candle, not that it was giving off much light. “Shit.” She said, moving quickly to the floorboard. The voices grew louder, boisterous and full of sarcasm. Juni listened to them. It sounded like a group of men. They were scavengers. “Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered frantically while having a hard time lifting the floorboard up. Juniper needed a game plan. She couldn’t afford to just give them everything, but if she fought back they would probably hurt her, or worse.
“Your turn,” she heard one of them say. Before she had time to get her gun, let alone load the blasted thing, the door handle turned. Instinctually she grabbed the closest thing to her that might pass for a weapon. With a large wooden spoon in her hand and a face of sheer terror she watched as a man opened the door.
