Hunt Journal #3

Last night, while I was sleeping in my tent, I heard a quiet, repetitive, high pitched sound coming from nearby. I was reading when the noise began, but it worked quickly to unravel my concentration. I pictured a bird first. Something small and dark, picking through our camp, following a scent and looking for scraps.
At night. I turned off my flashlight.
What kind of bird would make so much noise at night while foraging? A small bird that did that would not last long. We sleep at night, but there are plenty of hungry creatures that wake at sundown.
Something bigger then. I thought about my rifle, lying next me in the tent. I don't keep it loaded, and the shells are in my bag, outside of my tent. Why do I do that?
I lower pitched noise joined the high one. This one seemed familiar to me.
It grew just a little louder, as I listened; I soon recognized it.
It was Luke. And the first noise was Celine.
I turned my flashlight back on, and the beam splashed over the butt of my long rifle, the carbon looking very dull under the harsh light.
I picked up my book and continued to read.

Hunt Journal #2

I looked at the end of what I wrote yesterday. I stopped in the middle of a sentence. I thought about picking up where I left off, but I just didn't feel like it. It's stupid.
We played cards last night. I forgot about how annoyed I'd been. Writing helps sometimes.
This morning we awoke to fog. A lot of fog. We talked about delaying a day, but Luke and I both were concerned about losing time. We have a finite supply of food, and delaying could cost us more than we want to pay later on. We decided to start this morning, regardless of the fog.
We brought headlamps with us, so it wasn't so bad. The beginning of the trail was well delineated, and visibility was better than I thought it would be.

I was surprised that Celine wanted to come on this trip. In the past, when James, Luke, and I went off on one of these hunts, she always declined. She's been quiet, but very careful with Luke. And Luke, he's been strange towards her.

Hunt Journal 1

We left Portsmouth just before dawn this morning. Myself, James, Luke and Celine in Luke's bronco. It took us all day to drive to the trailhead at Chopper's Curve. We just finished eating dinner, and I was feeling irritable, so I went off by myself to sit in the truck and write this. I feel silly, really, but a strong sense of anger stirred in the bottom of my gut while we were eating dinner. In a way, I feel like I shouldn't be writing about this, or even thinking about it, knowing how much time we're going to be spending together from here on out, but I feel that I need to, so I am.
It was James. Dammit, I've known him for a long time, so this shouldn't have bothered me, but it did. It was the way he ate. He chewed with his mouth open. I'd never noticed it before. I don't know how not. It's the sound. The sloppy chewy noises. The sound of the food and saliva squishing between his teeth and around his tongue. It was really horrible. We were sitting together, eating our sandwiches