Day 77

We left that house today leaving our footprints in the un-sodden snow. It wasn't fresh by then as it has been a few days since it first settled but it was still a sight to see: the world was white. There was only a small amount of the roofs which had melted snow, indicating that they still had heating on, but these were the houses which had the remains in so we didn't check to find the living.

We instead headed to a house slightly further from the main road. I had seen, through my kite sight, yesterday that all the windows and doors were intact meaning either survivors or at least some more food.

We opened the back-door which was unlocked and before us lay a blood trail straight out of the building. I backtracked to the garage which was ajar and opened it finding the former inhabitant of the house. He had impaled his head upon a harpoon before death but looking at the rest of him it looked like he had already been attacked. He just wanted to end it before becoming one of them...

Heading back to the house we found a green bag by the start of the trail. We opened it and our luck seemed to have changed. It was full of survival stuff. Including things we hadn't really thought of.

So called 'instant' bbqs were interesting, but much more so was my attention drawn to a box. A Coleman stove. Attached to which was a screwdriver and a hammer. I remembered vaguely being told that Coleman stoves used petrol. Something that would be easily accessible in most areas. I put it into the keep pile.

There were some thermal underclothes and a one man tent. We decided to take all these things by changing into some and packing the rest. The tent would be good even if it was small. It would be something to get out of the wind with.

Pouring the bag out we found military rations. Whoever this guy was he had a lot of interests and experience. We found on the couch three extra sets of clothing I like the look of. Arctic, urban, and natural camouflage suits with the correct webbing. They were a size too big for me and two for Sam but we took them. One of each.

I took my bags off. Now it was too much to hold them as they were. Instead I loaded my things into his bag as best I could trying to remember packing order from scouts. I kept my emergency bag the same as it was. Sam found a similar bag brand new upstairs. He had obviously preferred the used one.

When we were ready we looked like we were going for a camping trip more than a couple of days out like we had previously. Both of us dressed in Arctic attire for the time being and both carrying a good 10-20pounds more weight. It was heavy and we both needed help putting them on but when set correctly it was fine.

I was dubious about our running ability so Sam volunteered to test it. She ran out of the building and back covering a good 200m in total distance. She ran pretty fast but she was tired after. She wasn't even carrying her full compliment of weapons then.

We decided to carry our old bags along with us for a while and figured the fastest way to ditch the big bags if we needed to. Our new rule? Run for a while but if we get tired shout and we will just have to use some of the ammo we have. We're not SAS, we're not even the run of the mill soldier so the weight we are carrying is huge. I can tell we won't be able to keep walking as much for a while in terms of consecutive days purely as we will start to ache and we don't want that in the situations we can find ourselves in.

We managed to move up a couple hundred meters up the main road today after that but the Rani lingered more there so we held ourselves back. Progress is still good. Keeping positive.

I hope you make another day