Day 20-21/ Marie

It's been a while since I've had anything worth writing about, aside from talk of moving inland. Today was different, though.

It started with a commotion near the edge of the woods late into the night. Rustling in the bushes, followed by something akin to the bleating of a goat, if goats could also roar. Something slammed into a tree with a force that could be heard all along the coast.

Blain came stumbling and jumping out of the treeline with his spear in hand. He rolled away just as a tree toppled in his direction. The sound of a tree trunk exploding slowly as it forgets how to hold the weight it's owned for decades and crashing all at once into the ground is perhaps the most magnificent sound I'll ever hear.

Then, the monstrosity burst out of the woods with tusks lowered. A massive boar with a scorpion's stinger jumped to pounce on Blain with lion's paws. As if it were magic, the beast went from pouncing on him to jumping clean over. The change happened midair, and only when the dust cleared did I see the boar had Blain's spear hanging out of its stomach.

The boar struggled on the ground like a dog running in its sleep. The stinger lashed out viscously, striking only empty air and sandy beach until its paws found purchase and the beast righted itself.

Blain did the same, both rising to their feet and beginning the slow circular dance of two predators. A silent game of rock, paper, tooth, and claw as they moved. In the blink of an eye, Blain lunged for the spear and even grabbed it, eliciting a sharp and rumbling hiss from the beast.

Despite the miracle of being faster, Blain found himself dragged to the front of the beast. Its claws dug into his shoulders. Its lion's maw snapped at his face as he held it back with one thumb in its eye and the other hand wresting with its tusk.

The spear went sliding to the side, and the stinger came down. Blain slipped his head out of the way just in time but also slipped with his grip on the creature's skull.

Most of us half-heartedly rushed to get closer or panicked to grab a weapon. As I was stepping forward, a Brazilian bombshell rushed past me. I almost didn't see her, but I felt the breeze as she zipped past. She slid up to Blain's spear and stood in nearly the same motion. She spun around and brought the spear with her. Three times each the tip slashed, and the haft bashed the beast's stinger, but when she had finished her dance on the other side of the beast, she had its attention.

It dropped Blain and turned to sting her, but as it stabbed, so did she. With perfect precision, the weapons met, and the stinger fell to the sand. It was no match for sharpened stone. Blain regained himself and pulled out a sling with a large rock. The two of them circled the chimera with her spear jabbing near its face and rocks pelting it until it was cornered near the woods.

The beast had had enough and gave a last-ditch charge at Blain. The caramel beauty that I now have a girl crush on caught it in the flank as it ran past. Blain got the final blow, though, as he brought his sling overhead and cracked the beast's skull right in between the eyes.

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Not long after, the carcass was strung up by its front legs, and Muarice started carving into it very precisely with a pocket knife. At first, only a few people helped string the beast up as the rest congratulated Blain and the woman (Karla) with relieved claps on the back and a bottle of our dwindling supply of whisky. They found a rock slab to sit on and laugh their nerves away.

Muarice stopped cutting not long after he started. He just stood there staring at the dead thing with his shoulders slumped. Us curious ones trickled into his space to see what had made him stop. Soon, we were all gathered around the carcass.

The rib cage hung wide open. It was cut in several places to reveal the meat inches deep. The meat was laced with puss, crawling with some disgusting hybrid of worm and crawlfish, and streaked with solid green veins of poison all throughout. It smelled like it was left in the sun for weeks, not just freshly cut open.

There was a silence long enough for the sun to finish setting before someone threw up. It was more of a dry heave, really.

Blain finally broke the silence with a drawn-out groan, "Well, that settles it. I'm moving further inland. The sun's already coming up, so I guess it'll be tomorrow. Anyone that wants to join can, we'll gather our stuff and sleep off this whiskey today. There's a path up the mountain that might give us a better view."

Mitch snapped.

He took Muarice's pocket knife and slashed wide at the tail. Then he grabbed the tail and twisted it until it cracked and hung limp by a thread of tendon. He cut it loose to and went berserk. He pounded the blade into the tail again and again. Blood splattered across his face.

The blade slid through the length of appendage until it was split perfectly down the middle, and the sand was muddy with red. Every inch of meat was exposed, and... well, it was clean.

Muarie carefully removed the venom vein in a single long peice. Blain wrapped it around his spearhead for some ungodly reason and stuck several more spears in the infested boar carcass to coat them with disease.

Now that I'm thinking about it again, I'm surprised anyone had an appetite. We cut it up by the sections and cooked it over three fires. There was plenty for all of us to have a nice sized scorpion steak.

It took quite a few death glares from Blain and Maurice to keep everyone from fighting over the meat. Honestly, it might have been worth fighting Ron, beating him with that briefcase he carries. I've never had such a sweet meat. It fell off of the bone in strips. For a night, things were almost normal. We even sat around talking like a picture-perfect family from a sitcom.

For a while I talked to Al, a stereotypical Chicago man in his twenties, complete with a Nets t-shirt. He asked me how I was holding up and what life was like on the other side. We both have German Shepards waiting for us. He seemed amused by the pictures of Trapper standing on the prow of our fishing boat in his life vest. (Phone's at 58%). His dog is named Air-Bud, and he actually plays soccer! Al says he tends to score in the wrong goal, though, so they gave up on the pro leagues. (His phone is at 83%).

Apparently, his Nan makes the best fudge brownies. He was on his way to her place for the holidays. He asked where I was heading, so I told him my brother and I were on our way to accept an award for discovering a new breed of fish. He was the one that actually found it, but I was on the boat when he did, so he dragged me with him.

The group talked about our predicament some more. This is how it went (as best as I can remember):

"So, you're a biologist right, shouldn't there be bugs or something? The biome doesn't work if nothing can be eaten, right?" Al surprised me with his use of 'biome'.

"I've been thinking about it. That thing was the first predator we've seen, and it seems like maybe it's adapted to eat the poisonous things, but that would make poison useless as a survival trait. Even then, there should be something edible by the prey. The fucking plants run too fast to make sense."

"Maybe we could piece together a hunting strategy if we went around and talked about the things we've seen so far," Blain decided to kick things off.

Muarice went first, "I saw an ant yesterday, about a foot long, but it was bright purple and red all over, even had pimples like a frog. Poisonous if I know anything."

"We saw a rabbit with the same skin the other day. Weirdest animal I've ever seen."

"I've seen owls. Maybe if we could make a bow?" Karla made the first practical suggestion.

A small Venezuelan goth teen with a black frayed shirt labeled Pique Enferrujado (Rusty Pike), her cousin's garage band, "I'd hate to kill an owl, but..."

Blain was the first to agree, "me to. No good comes from killing an owl, but I'd eat dog at this point."

One of two teenage boys in soccer jerseys, "I saw a swarm of mosquitoes. They were each as big as a squirrel. I managed to kill one with a stick, and well, it just crumbled to dust like a vampire or something from a video game."

The other teenage boy, responded rather eagerly, "They kinda are vampires if you think about it." It wasn't hard to see the doe-eyed look he gave the goth girl, a look she shyly reciprocated.

"Is there nothing normal in this hell?" Mumbled a downtrodden man who was skinny when he arrived. Now he was gaunt and dotted with patches of flaky, sunburnt skin. I could hear his stomach growling from across the fire. His name is Jeremy.

Dale, who was quite the opposite size and still favoring his slightly shriveled right arm, "those bugs from the boar..."

"Let's face it, push comes to shove. We all know what we'll end up eating," said a man in a three-piece suit and a suitcase that he had an iron grip on.

"Leave that kind of talk for the dead, we're all doing quite well, considering," Maurice put an end to the idea very easily, but that didn't stop the thoughts banging around inside our minds as we fixed each other with hard glares or averted sad eyes. The fire reflected off of everyone's face the same devilish way, revealing gaunt lines that didn't exist days earlier.

The groups gaze broke as Mitch strode back into camp. Something was off about him. He was not sporting the same vibe as the party he'd just crashed. He seemed almost happy or proud of himself. When he finally spoke up, he said, "If I die, it was the boar meat. I cooked it in the woods, burnt it actually, wanted to make sure."

"You did what!?"

"Best case: we have meat now, worst case: I get to see my family again."

We spent the rest of the night in silence as Mitch became ill and recited his wedding vows over and over.

"In sickness or health, I promise we will always be equals, except when you're better than me. Which is always."

We tried to watch him, but we couldn't keep from turning our eyes. Or maybe we were trying not to watch him but couldn't keep our eyes off of him.

He started foaming at the mouth when the sun rose. His last words were about how he wanted a daughter, but would be okay with a son just the same.

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R.I.P. Mitch

Your sacrifice will be remembered.