Emily shrieking caused Mike to look up and miss-swing with his axe. Instead of a swift death to the deer-like creature he instead managed to hit the cat creature in the side just as it swiped at the deer and opened its throat with its sharp claws.

Emily immediately snatched another arrow from the ground in front of her. Without pausing to think she aimed for the cat and shot. The arrow flew true and struck the animal in the eye. It shuddered and collapsed. Dead because the arrow had entered its brain.

Mike stood and shook as two beasts died in front of him. Whilst as a barman he was used to violence and as a hunter he was used to animals dying, the immediacy of the events and the sudden danger filled him with adrenaline. He took a series of deep breaths and tried to calm himself.

Emily rushed over to Mike and was instantly relieved to see that he was unhurt. As she was able to assess the situation, the bravery/idiocy of her final shot hit home and she tried to stammer an apology to Mike who was having none of it.

The other three had heard the screaming and had run towards the glade. After entering it they were happy to see that nobody was hurt and amazed to see the large cat with the arrow sticking out of it’s eye.

A debate then followed as to what to do with the cat. Mike wanted to try curing the hide and eventually they agreed to take it back to the caves along with the deer. They quickly field dressed the two corpses and then chopped a couple of staves from the forest so that they could then carry each animal between two people. Mike and Mark carried the heavier cat, whilst Emily and Charlie carried the deer. Jo acted as a scout, checking that everything in there path was good and warning them of trip hazards.

As they trudged back both Mark and Emily occasionally looked behind them but saw nothing. However each of them felt like they were being followed. There were no sounds to suggest this and no evidence of any human or large beast following them.

Eventually they reached the caves and were happy to lower their burdens. Kajal reported that nothing was amiss and then went through the bloody process of cutting the meat from the carcasses. The muscles of the cat were much denser, suggesting a much more active lifestyle and resulting in a stringy meat that they would need to turn into a stew. The meat from the deer on the other hand looked like it would be much easier to eat and everybody other than Charlie had volunteered to be the first to try it.

In the end, the honour of trying the first small taste of deer went to Mike as the person most responsible for killing it. They were all hoping that he had no ill effects as it smelled delicious. After they had removed as much meat as possible the other insides of the animals were buried in a small trench that they dug, well away from the caves.

Mike scraped the hides of the animals whilst soaking them in the stream. After getting them as clean as possible he still needed to remove the fats and fur. To do this he had made some holes in the ground and lined them with clay. Over the course of the day the males had been gradually filling these holes with urine. The two hides were then put in the holes and covered over. The acid from the urine should dissolve the fats. The hides could then be stretched and dried but they needed to wait a while for the urine to do its job.

Whilst Mike was working on the hides, Mark was working on obtaining lye otherwise known as caustic soda. He had collected the ashes from the previous few days fires and was boiling them in the largest pot they had. After half an hour or so he was able to skim the liquid lye from the surface of the water and place it into one of their sealable containers. The next job was to melt down the fat from the deer and to a lesser extent the cat. Finally he had to mix together the liquid fat and the liquid lye and hope he got the proportions right. The single afternoon they had spent covering this as part of the survival course was a while ago and he hoped he remembered everything correctly.

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There was a major need for soap amongst people raised in the 21st Century even if they were living a primitive lifestyle. Mark wasn’t like Charlie who had smothered themselves with Axe until somebody had pointed out that they were easily smelled by any animal. Originally they could be detected anywhere within 5 metres or so. Now they had cut down on the deodorant, possibly because they realised there was no replacement.

Emily, Jo and Kajal had been collecting edible plants. As the week had progressed, these had become harder to find as they ate those that were nearby. They had to travel further and this took time. It rapidly became apparent that they couldn’t stay in this area long term as they would have nothing to eat. Also the time spent finding food was longer and longer each day and so they got less other things done. The group was learning the hard way the truths of a hunter gatherer existence. However they weren’t prepared to move just yet and they certainly weren’t going to become farmers anytime soon.

Charlie in the meantime had been collecting firewood. This wasn’t quite so arduous as dead wood was easy to find and given it hadn’t rained in the time they had been there, everything was pretty dry. The bigger pieces still had to be dragged to the cave and chopped into an appropriate size. They had a hand axe, a wire saw and a pocket chainsaw as well as Mike’s weapon. The latter of which Mike was unwilling to have used on wood. None were ideal but Charlie managed and over the week the woodpile had grown enough that they could now go a few days without collecting wood if they needed to.

By the time of the evening meal Mike had suffered no ill effects from the meat and so they were all prepared for a meal of deer with tubers and plants various. As Kajal started cooking the smell of the meat cooking was carried by the swirling wind all around the area and everyone started to salivate. By the time that the meal was ready they were all practically queueing up, plates ready.

Once the food was served, they sat as a group. They had a variety of different chairs, ranging from large stones and lumps of wood, to the woven chair that Kajal had made himself in his spare time over the first few days. They were all enjoying the food and relaxing after working hard when Mark noticed that one of the bushes near them was moving strangely. As he watched a slightly closer bush started to move and the first bush stopped. Clearly there was something in the undergrowth moving towards them.

He pointed this out to the others. Not changing the tone of voice that he was using from how he had been talking before. As they noticed the movement they all prepared themselves for an attack. Subtly moving so that they had easy access to their weapons. Until finally their stalker made an appearance.

“Why it’s an adorable kitten!” Emily cried in that voice that women especially reserve for the babies of any species.

“I think it’s more of a cub.” Mark replied, as he had noticed that it bore similar markings to the cat that they had killed earlier that day. He now felt really bad about this, as did the others, especially Emily.

“It must have followed us when we took it’s parent.” Emily added, “I thought there was something following us.”

“It’s mother.” Mark said. He had done the initial field dressing and had incidentally noticed the gender of the beast.

“I guess it followed her smell. I bet it’s hungry.” Emily had trained as a vet and had a great love of animals. She went into the cave and found some of the uncooked deer. Coming back to the group she cut a strip from the meat and then cut that strip into cubes. She through one of the cubes near the cub to see how it would react.

The cub pounced on the meat and quickly ate it. Emily threw another cube close to the cub but also closer to her. Again the cub eagerly went to the meat and ate it. With two more cubes the cub was next to Emily and she cut another strip from the meat and placed it next to her. Showing no fear, the cub moved to eat the strip of meat and then looked at Emily in an imploring way that suggested it wanted more. Emily quickly complied and soon the cub was eating meat from her hand.

Not being an animal person, Mark could only watch in admiration as Emily befriended the cub. Soon she had it sitting in her lap and purring. Charlie moved over to try to pet the cub but he (as Emily had learned) struck Charlie’s hand away, drawing a small amount of blood.

“We need a name for him.” Emily said.

“Schroedinger,” Mark suggested.

“Simba,” came as a response from Jo.

“Oedipuss,” was Charlie’s offer.

“Babur,” came from Kajal. “It means Tiger.”

“He needs a name that suggests strength, ferocity and power, how about Mickey?” said Mike.

“That’s just another name for Mike!” Mark laughed, “and anyway Mickey is a mouses name.”

“I shall call him Julius,” stated Emily and that was the name decided.