Primitive Instinct: The Journey Home

I groaned, feeling like I just got hit by a bus. Everything was stiff and sore and protested greatly when I tried to move, checking to make sure nothing was actually damaged. Opening my eyes, I saw what looked like a storybook winter wonderland. I could almost believe it, too as I watched snow start to float down from the gray sky above. As the first snowflake settled, it whispered secrets of a winter tale waiting to unfold.

“Fairytale bullshit,” I muttered and grunted as I attempted to sit up before the cold wetness that I felt on the back of my neck spread. It was bad enough that I think one of my boobs had popped out of my bra. No one wants nippy nips, and it was plenty cold enough to make frostbite a real concern.

My mind might be foggy, but I didn’t think I had been anywhere near snow, much less drifts deep enough to make me struggle to climb out of.

What the hell happened? I thought, getting a better look at my surroundings.

A soft whine nearby brought it all back in a snap.

“Diesel!” I called, looking for the giant fur ball that led me to this point. “Diesel!”

Another whine and I snapped my head around, instantly regretting the sudden movement as I scrambled to find my feet. I rushed over to the black and gray mass of fur and sighed when I saw the happy tail wagging in the snow.

“You were made for this garbage, huh?” I sighed as the big husky mix bit at the snow around him and sneezed before rolling to his belly.

I quickly checked him over for injuries before letting him frolic, much to his dismay, then stood up, dusting powder from my knees. My pack wasn’t far away, and I was incredibly glad to see the sloppily stitched name ‘FERN’ on it. I was ten when I did that and very proud of myself. At least you could read it.

“Okay, Dies,” I sighed as I opened the bag and dug out the jacket, I had stuffed in there at the beginning of our hike from where I had parked my old truck. “Time to take stock in the situation.”

I pulled the jacket on and, while it wasn’t very thick, it was weatherproof, and I had the foresight to wear steel toed boots and heavy-duty weather treated pants before setting out this morning since there was a chance for rain this weekend.

“We were going out of town to relax after a shitty few months. Three days and two nights of you and me and nature,” I said, zipping the jacket and closing the bag again. “You, in a completely out of character spazztastic moment, decided to take off after God knows what and I, being the idiot that has to pay your vet bills and/or grooming fees, chased after you. Let’s not rehash the skunk incident. It was traumatizing for everyone.”

Diesel snuffled through the snow excitedly, ignoring my words. He heard me just fine. He just chose what to actually listen to. Typical male, despite not having balls.

“There was this electrified chain-link fence and a bent section just big enough for your stupid butt to squeeze in without getting zapped and for my stupid butt to go in after you,” I continued as I tried to figure out my next move from here. “There was this concrete building and guys in bullet-proof vests with guns that made me glad they had no idea we were there when I finally did catch you and end your hair-brained fun. Then some kind of earthquake, which is really weird, because there’s no fault lines big enough to shake the ground that much anywhere near where we were. Then an explosion and lab coats running around. The ground caved under us and this purple-blue flashy rip thingy, some major whiplash and then... snow.”

Diesel came over and watched me sort this out, not helping at all, of course. His dark brown eyes and pointed ears were solely focused on me, like the bestest good boy that he was. Loyalty might have been hard earned with him, but it ran deep once you got it.

“So, what happened is figured out,” I said, looking around and frowning. I recognized some of these trees. Some kind of spruce or something, but they weren’t something that grew in north-east Texas. That was mostly pine and cedars with some gum trees or oaks in the mix. These were what my uncle Rudy would call Yankee trees, since they were far more common in the northern US. “Where the hell are we?”

Diesel just tilted his head and shook himself as the snowfall collected on his thick fur.

“I’ll trade you,” I said flatly, and he sneezed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t either. Come on. There’s bound to be some kind of civilization around here, right? Serves me right for opting to leave my cell phone behind in the truck, huh? Lost and no clue as to why there’s easily six inches of snow on the ground. Winter is cold, but Texas winter is wet, not snowy.”

I got up and slung the bag onto my back as Diesel trudged ahead of me, his nose working overtime as he took in the scents around us. What I wouldn’t give for that extra input of information.

“God, I’m glad Uncle Rudy was fucking bat shit, now,” I muttered and then pointed at Diesel. “Do not tell anyone I admitted that.”

Uncle Rudy was one of those extreme preppers with a couple decades of military background to go with it. Honestly, the man had a few screws loose, thanks to a minor traumatic brain injury. He recovered completely, but the yolk was a bit cracked, as Mama would say. When Mama and Daddy died in a car accident, I was eight and sent to live with my only living relative, Rudy.

He taught me how to survive in the wilderness and instilled the importance of having a fit body. To him, it didn’t matter if that body had more on the frame, so long as you could do the work. I was blessed with my Granny Annie’s metabolism, so I was an average size, if not a little long in the legs. I might have moved out of the cuckoo’s nest a few years ago, but the knowledge and habits were there to stay, and I was actually thanking the old coot for his many survivalist trips that took up every school holiday and break for ten long years.

“The air is a bit thin,” I huffed after a while and stopped to breath deeper and get my heart rate back down before it got too high for too long and made me pass out.

I looked up at the gray sky and rolled my eyes, reaching into a side pocket on my bag. Rudy had given me a gift when I was thirteen. Well, he gave me a couple. One was the knife with a bit of flint on the sheath to start fires with. That thing broke by the time I was eighteen and I had replaced it out of fondness for the ‘adventures’ I went on with my crazy uncle. The other was a compass with two lenses under the cover. One was to filter out sunlight, like sunglasses, and one enhanced the sunlight, making it useful for finding the sun when clouds were blocking it out.

I flipped the lens up and turned around, looking for the sun. I found it and looked at the compass, frowning.

“It’s in the south? Since when is the sun anywhere near the southern horizon?” I asked myself and shook the compass, thinking maybe the needle bent and was stuck or something. “Maybe the magnets got messed up? That’s a thing, right, Dies?”

Of course, the big fluff ignored me, and I gave him a flat look as I put the compass back in my bag, which he also ignored as he wandered ahead of me.

Absolutely no help, buddy. Woman’s best friend my pink, icy ass, I thought, following the sun... South. Because that’s not concerning as shit.