I perched along the lower branches of the tree I preferred to sleep in, holding onto the limb above while reaching down with my free hand. My eyes skimmed over the forest greenery, following a robin joining a flock of angry, screeching birds attacking a falcon to drive it off.

I could tell by feel and weight that all my weaponry was in place, of course, but it never hurts to check. And let’s be frank, the ritual is calming. Boot knife, there, my fingers grazing over the hilt before moving up to ensure the leather sheath that dangled from around my neck remained in place.

I gave the trunk of the tree a wistful pat, triple checked the location for enemies, and hopped down. Can’t come back too often, but it’s the most comfortable one I’ve found. Sleeping in trees is ridiculous and uncomfortable. It’s also more secure since they haven’t learned to expect us to be there yet.

Yet. The day they do will be a bad day. I’m not sure what the next step is after that.

I miss my shotgun. I miss Drew’s crossbow, too. It’s not like he needs it anymore, but he’d landed on it and there was no coming back from that crunching, snapping noise. It was more terrible than his screaming. I didn’t bother to take a look after they carried him off. Pretty sure they’d left it as a trap, anyway. Bait.

This is what we are reduced to. Traipsing through the woods, searching for berries and edible greens, hoping the snares will bring protein and not the enemy’s sharp eye and subsequent numbers.

I could have been safe, back in Ohio, after they realized the threat and put up the blockades. But my parents had called the day before, and when the line went dead and they didn’t pick up, well. I got in my car and drove to Pennsylvania to find out what was wrong.

Should’ve known, since 911 and the emergency lines didn’t answer, but I thought the number not in service message meant the lines were overwhelmed. Maybe a natural disaster. Western PA – that’s right, pronounced “pee-ay” – doesn’t get a ton of tornadoes, but they’re bad when they hit.

Besides, Mom and Dad were getting up there, and it had been a while. Why not do a spontaneous weekend visit?

Instead I wound up finding a blood trail, the house destroyed, the few neighbors remaining unwilling to open their doors and completely incoherent. I’d tried the cops again, on my cell while heading toward the woods, following dried maroonish-brown stains splashed over the winter-dead grass.

I try not to think about what happened next.

It helps that I don’t remember it clearly. Just blood, and fire, and fur. Ashes in the air, charcoal streaking my face.

I hate that I was that dumb, that oblivious. I hate that I think of this every day. That I was just too late to save them. That I didn’t get out while I could.

It wasn’t always like this. As a kid, I used to think they were cute. Nicknamed them Sam and Charlie, even. The neighbors would try to trap them. Use a golf ball, the guy two houses down said; they think it’s a mushroom. Works every time. But the cages were never big enough to get the adults, only the babies. And we called it humane, because we let them live.

Maybe we should have thought about what we were doing more. Taking away their babies every year for years on end. Eliminating their future.

Nobody saw it coming.

I look back at years of mealy garden tomatoes, thinking about whether we missed their message when every single red-ripened fruit had a single bite in it. Or the hole they dug in the ground, waiting right at the end of the sled run.

Good thing Mom always made us stop sledding when we got too close. No matter how much we tried to hide it, she could see when the tracks got too close from the back window. Though I sometimes wonder if we’d have gotten off more lightly had we let them screech and claw at us a bit then.

Maybe we’d have learned.

I don’t expect to see home again, nor do I expect to make it much longer. They’re whittling us down one by one, and hunger takes care of the rest.

Don’t try to tell me groundhogs don’t get bigger than a rabbit. I know they’re tiny in Ohio, but these ones, geez. Four feet long if not bigger. It was always hard to tell the exact length, because they ran as soon as they heard you.

We thought they were scared of us, you see. Until the day they stopped running.