Hanson stirred the small fire in front of him gently as the chilly wind blew through the gaps and holes in his cobbled together shelter. He had made the shack himself from wood he had gathered a few years back, but he was no carpenter and constantly had to repair and maintain it, especially around this time of year when the temperatures dropped. Honestly, the fact that he hadn't frozen to death yet was a minor miracle.
He listened to the fire sizzle and pop along with the groans of the things that were walking about outside. Despite the isolation of his makeshift house several uninvited guests had shown up late last night and up until about an hour ago. They were slow and weak, nothing compared to a man like Hanson, but their numbers seemed to grow as the day wore on. At the rate they seemed to multiply it would only be another day or two before he got overrun.
Hanson gripped a small hatchet in his hand and pulled back the thick blanket he had set over the doorway of his small home. He saw two of the small ones off in the field about 50-70 yards away stumbling by just under the tree line in front of the local forest. They wouldn't see him, but Hanson didn't like letting in more cold air than he needed to.
With a sigh he turned over a log on his tiny campfire and went through his backpack. He still had some snack food, two flashlights, spare batteries, a multi-tool and his small collection of loaned library books, due back in just under two weeks. He knew if this kept up he'd have to leave soon, but hiking to town in the cold was dangerous, even if it was only a mile or two away. He took a moment to consider his options as he looked over his hatchet in the dim glow of the fire.
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