Fortunately/Unfortunately 11

Something warm and fluffy pressed on his head. His neck, too, felt a strange, bristly pressure, and even his arms and chest sensed a weight and warmth he could not identify.

At first, he thought he was still dreaming. Strange sensations were the language of dreams. But then, he remembered that his dreams had featured his ex-girlfriend yelling at him for not turning off the stove in his old apartment, and neither his stove nor his ex had felt anything like whatever had spread itself over his upper body. Also, he realized, his eyes were closed, and he seldom dreamt of keeping his eyes closed.

He opened his eyes. An unfocused brown blur covered his field of vision, the image of something too close to his face for him to see properly. He shut his eyes again and shook his head, lifted his arms from their fuzzy prisons, and shoved the brown blur off of his head.

A chorus of peeps and shrieks blared in his ears, concentrated by the walls of his shelter. He pushed himself up by his elbows and looked toward his feet but saw only his uninvited guests, nearly the entire demon bird brood, nestled against his legs, pecking at the interior of his shelter, and screeching at the sudden disturbance. During the night, they must have returned to what had once been their parents' nest, only to find a structure that held the only dry spot in the forest. What luck for them that there was even a heater inside, albeit one that had recently killed their parents and one of their siblings.

He pulled himself out of the feather-filled chamber and into the mud outside. A pungent, earthy smell permeated the forest. The leaves hung low on their branches, releasing droplets onto the moist ground. His shelter had held up fairly well, all things considered, though he could already see some spots on the roof he'd want to shore up soon.

The remains of his cooking were less uplifting. The storm had reduced his rotisserie to a pile of sticks beside his extinguished fire, and the torso of the demon bird had sunk several inches into the dirt. The intact corpse had fared no better, its matted feathers muddied and buzzing with flies. A repulsive smell intensified as he approached, and the bloated belly of his would-be meal confirmed that putrefaction had set in. He nudged at the body with his foot, lifting it from the dirt. Thin swarms of buzzing, winged specks exited the openings where its neck and legs had been, and their subterranean cousins tunneled in and out of the demon bird where its flesh had met the ground. He withdrew his foot and let them resume their meal.

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Fortunately/Unfortunately 12

Despite the stench, his stomach pined for food. He was tempted to carve out the least rotten chunks of meat--no, carrion--but he wasn't sure he wanted to risk inviting parasites or bugs into his gut. He wondered if he could sterilize his food somehow, but, without a pot or pan, he didn't think he could even boil water. Still, it seemed an incredible waste to leave the demon bird meat to the beetles and maggots.

One of the demon chicks pecked at his foot, continuing its constant search for food. The orphans had spread out from his shelter meandering as they had when he'd first encountered them. Some of them had begun poking at their parents' bodies, which he at first regarded as a gesture of mourning, but on closer inspection as one of hunger; they had discovered that the creeping crawlers dining on their former guardians made for a passable breakfast. Some of them may also have been gobbling the occasional strip of flesh, whether on purpose or by accident. He admired how practical the chicks could be in the face of their recent loss.

A similarly practical decision might have been to kill one of the chicks for his own breakfast, but, for all the encouragement his stomach offered, his heart recoiled. He'd already taken their parents, sibling, and nest; killing another would be excessive. They'd made a decent heated blanket, even they probably did poop all around his shelter. If he killed another, they'd shriek up a storm, and maybe another adult would come charging in, who knows? On the other hand, if he let them live . . . they might make a decent alarm system for his camp! They were, uh, a good homing beacon in case he got lost in the woods, what with all the squeaking.

Okay, he admitted. They were kinda cute.

His manlier side scoffed at him. The chicks could live, it conceded, for now. But he would eat them before he starved and before they had a chance to grow up. And he'd have to start looking for other, manlier foods right away.

He picked up his demon bird-slaying spear. It had looked better yesterday. Even as he wiped the grime from its point, he could see that this implement wouldn't last; the water and dirt had softened its wood and dulled its tip. He prodded the point into the nearby carcass and was pleased that it could still at least impale flesh. With modest effort, the shaft buried itself a few inches deep before butting up against some less yielding structure inside. A bone, most likely.

Come to think of it, there was probably a lot of bone in these corpses. Even if the meat was a putrid mess, he could still use the bones for tools. And they'd be waterproof, which would certainly be a plus.

He decided he'd start with the legs, since they almost certainly had some of the largest bones, and he wouldn't have to contend with any fragrant internal organs while cleaning them. He dragged one of the previously severed limbs to a nearby log, seated himself, and began working at it with his pocketknife. Guts or no, the aroma was still overwhelming, and he found himself wishing for a kitchen sink. In lieu of modern plumbing, he dragged the leg through the undergrowth, across the beach, and down to the water, where he let the ocean wash away the rotten flesh.

After a few minutes of work, however, the waves became more of a nuisance than an aid. The force of the incoming water shook the leg under his knife and forced him to brace himself between each impact. He stood up in frustration and searched for a better place to work.

He eventually sighted the rocky outcroppings down the beach. At their farthest point, they presented a flat stone surface, only inches above the water, but still protected from the passing crests and troughs. Here, he began again, dipping his hands and dropping chunks of meat when he willed it rather than when the ocean did. The flesh did not loose itself easily. Even in its decaying state, the tissue clung to its frame, and his knife, though sharp, was slow to expose the underlying bone.

As he peeled away muscle and sinew, he planned his next task. He wasn't sure exactly what he would do with the skeleton of a demon bird; for all the apparent usefulness of the material, he had little concept of how to shape it. While his wooden spear had taken him only minutes to whittle and harden, bone implements would surely require more trial and error. He had never carved bone before, and he didn't know that his knife was up to the task. For all he knew, he might instead have to grind it into shape with a stout rock. But maybe that was for the best; the less he used his knife, the longer it would last him.

A splash in the water disrupted his concentration. He hadn't tossed in any chunk of flesh, so he looked around to see if perhaps he had accidentally displaced a loose rock. Finding none, he stared into the blood-stained surf. A scaled face broke surface, then vanished with a splash. An incoming wave diluted the obscuring crimson, and he began to make out the silhouettes of hand-sized fish, darting back and forth.

He set the hunk of demon bird aside and carved off a thumb sized chunk. Holding his knife in his right hand and raw poultry in his left, he knelt down close to the water. Slowly, he extended his arm, then gingerly released the bait. A shadow approached, and the morsel bobbed up and down on the surface. He leaned low, then lunged forward with the knife. Blood and saltwater exploded from where his hand met the water, clenched around the knife handle. Something tugged against the blade and slapped his knuckles. He pulled his arm up in a hooking motion, and brought it to his side.

A silvery-green fish thrashed beside him, even as his knife pinned it to the rockface. A pair of slimy green lips hinged open next to a dull yellow eye on each side. Its gills flapped futilely for absent seawater, and its tail slapped the ground. He dug his knife further into its entry point behind one of the creature's pectoral fins. The fight faded from his catch, and at last it lay dead.


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