Shenandoah by Everette Morgan Page B

small cave not much bigger than a small shed.  Although small, it was just what he needed.  He was able to block the small entrance and this enabled him at least some small level of protection.  There were some small dinosaurs that could fit through the entrance but not many and the metal and rocks kept them out.
    He set to work on skinning the rabbits.  Earlier, when he had found them in his snares, he had field dressed them.  Rabbits were easy to skin so it was only a matter of minutes before he had one of them roasting over the fire.  After cleaning the other one, he put it in the small preservation container that he had found in the helicopter that had crashed.  He was going to save it for later.  He had scavenged about everything he could out of the helicopter that was useable.  The thermal blankets he found in there had been a godsend. 
    He cooked the rabbit for about twenty minutes.  Satisfied that the rabbit was well done or at least well enough done for him, he took the stick with the rabbit on it and lifted it off the fire.  He burned himself several times before the rabbit was cool enough to tear off some meat.  Hungrily he ate every piece of meat he could get off the rabbit. It was delicious.  Satisfied, he sat back and watched the fire burn.  It didn’t look like the weather was going to change any time soon.  He had been in this cave for over a week or at least he thought it had been that long.  A person starts to lose track after a few days.  He had thought about trying to hike out of the forest but he wasn’t sure how far it was to the nearest town plus this area was heavily wooded and the mountainous terrain was hard to traverse.
    Leaning back away from the fire, he wrapped himself in one of the thermal blankets he had found in the helicopter. Between the fire and the thermal blanket, he was getting nice and cozy.  As the fire popped and cracked, he drifted off into sleep and didn’t wake up until the middle of the night.  Around two in the morning, he poked around in the ashes of the fire and added wood to it.  He could tell that the temperature had dropped even lower as he slept.  After he had the fire stoked, he lay back down and slept until morning. 
     

Chapter 4
    In the morning it was bitterly cold.  He could only guess that the temperature was in the teens or lower.  He got up, moved around, and worked on getting the fire blazing again.  He glanced upward through the opening in the rocks and looked at the sky.  As the sky began to lighten, he could tell that there was going to be more snow today.  He went back to tending the fire and getting ready to cook the other rabbit he had.  His mouth was watering the entire time he was roasting the rabbit above the fire. After he finished roasting the rabbit to perfection or at least what he thought was perfection, Marcus leaned back against one of the rocks and devoured the rabbit. He washed it down with some of the water he had gotten from the stream that flowed nearby. 
    After eating, he got up and went about his morning stretches.  His body ached and his shoulder was very sore but he finally felt like he was on the mend.  He still didn’t remember how he obtained all the bruises, cuts, pain, and soreness but he had an idea.  In fact, the thing that puzzled him most was that he couldn’t remember anything past two weeks ago.  As he continued stretching, he started going over the events in his head one more time to try and piece together what had happened.
    Although he wasn’t positive, he thought he was the one that had crashed the helicopter.  He awoke in this cave and he was freezing, bleeding, battered, and bruised.  Using a thermal blanket and flare he found in the backpack he had with him, he had started a fire and survived the night. 
    Sitting there watching the fire he rubbed his head… if he could only remember…  He couldn’t even remember his own name.  It was frustrating.  As he sat warming by the