Screamers

    I didn't know how far I had ran, I just knew that I didn't want to stop until everything was silent. When it got to the point I couldn't run anymore and my body had reached its limit, I stopped and sat down beneath a tree. I leaned my head back against the rough bark, closed my eyes, and tried to get my breathing back under control. Before I knew it, my exhausted body had fallen asleep, what had been midday, was now turning to late evening. Though I needed to sleep, It wasn't exactly my plan to lose that much daylight. But at least I didn't have any nightmares, God knew I didn't need that.     I tried to get up off the hard ground, but my body resisted. The stiffness in my joints made me realize just how far I had pushed myself on the run. Finally upright, I stretched and looked around. Nothing. Good. In the distance, I faintly heard soft booms of thunder. The sky above me wasn't completely overcast, but I had a feeling it would be clouding up soon, as the storm rolled in.     Honestly, when I left what was left of 'home', I hadn't put much thought into where I was headed or what I was going to do. Hell, I didn't think about I was going to be able to survive. At least I had the common sense to grab my trusty old Swiss army knife. Maybe common sense should have told me to grab backpack full of real supplies, but I guess not. Oh well, I knew I had to figure something out. Basics first. I had to have somewhere to sleep tonight.     How in the hell was I going to do that. I searched around me for trees small enough to cut with the tiny saw on the army knife. After about 45 minutes of tiring myself out trying to saw with a tool the size perfect for an elf, I had 6 decently sized branches. I tried to keep them all about as tall as me, and an inch and a half in diameter so they'd be sturdy enough not to bend and break, but small enough to not take years to cut. I thought id go for a tepee-like structure, seeing as how my resources were heavily limited – along with my skills. I laid the branches out in a circle around me about three feet away from me on all sides. I knew when I brought them all up together, id have to tie them together at the top. Obviously I didn't have rope. Then I looked down and thought about the hem of my t-shirt. So I grabbed my knife and cut the shirt, then continued to rip the hem off all the way around. Then, I cut the hem so I had a straight piece about five foot long.     So I brought three of the limbs up and over my head, and tied them together with the fabric, enough so that they wound stand alone, and left the rest of the fabric hang for fastening the other limbs. Once I had everything together and tied, I weaved the fabric around the ends several times trying to make sure the branches wouldn't move. I couldn't stand up straight in the open tepee-like 'thing', but seeing as how its just for sleep, I didn't care. So then I thought about how to enclose it. Would have been nice to have a tarp right about now. But, I had to work with nature. I looked around. I looked up. I looked down. Maybe it's the exhaustion, or maybe I'm just an i***t, but I couldn't think of anything to use. So, I decided to go with my gut, and just started breaking down limbs that had a decent amount of leaves on them. I laid them up against my tepee, trying to close it in best I could. I spread a couple of leaved branches over the top, then walked around to some pine trees and scooped up a big armful of the fallen pine needles and spread them around the edges of the little 'home'. I had to admit, it was rather sad looking, but I tried to cut myself some slack because what else could I have done? Nothing. I pushed two of the main support branches a little further from each other so I would have some room to walk in.      By this time, I hadn't even noticed the skies had cleared up, as though the storm had decided to move on past. Thank God, because my 'shelter' was definitely not waterproof. But as dusk settled in and night began to fall, I realized I had a bigger problem than my sleeping situation. I should have brought some damn matches. I gathered up as much dead and dried up foliage as I could find, and some small dried out twigs, and placed them in a little pile a few feet from my tepee. I found a fallen log and kicked a decent sized chunk off and then searched for a more dowel-like piece of wood. After about fifteen minutes I finally found one that would have to work. I took my findings back over to my little pile of kindling. I took out my knife and carved a small hole into the larger piece of the log, then I grabbed the more slender piece and placed the narrowest end into the indention I carved out and placed my hands together with the stick in between and started rubbing my hands together to spin the stick, being sure to press down as hard as I could.     I had been spinning for probably about half an hour before I finally started to see some smoke. A couple more minutes later, the smoke from the small hole was enough that I felt I could stop, pick up the smoking piece of log, and dump the small ember from the hole into my kindling. I covered the ember up and started blowing into it to give it more oxygen. Finally, it started to catch on and light up bigger and bigger. I added a few larger pieces of wood and had a decent sized fire.      As soon as my flame really took off, I heard something in the woods across from me. Something big enough to break branches. I stood up, and out from the shadows appeared a woman. Not just any woman, either. She moved closer, the glare of the fire revealing what the darkness of the night hid. She was absolutely stunning. She was wearing light washed, dirty and ripped jeans that fit perfectly, hugging her soft curves. Her shirt, I'm not sure if it was white or gray, hung off one shoulder. And she had such a soft face, almost heart shaped. Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail and from what I could tell, was a beautiful shade of auburn. I couldn't move. I'm not sure if it was from her beauty, or the fact that she had a – very large – gun pointed right at me. Her expression let me know she was not looking to f**k around.