A Cup of Cocoa and a Dead Boar (2)

Since Viviane and Lynn were going to skin the boar first, Sam and Tyson went upstairs to take a shower.

"Hey, kid, be useful, and help me hang the boar."

Lynn had not noticed it, but Viviane had made sort of an ice hanger in the middle of the kitchen.

"We are not going to skin this, inside," Lynn said reluctantly. He was not planning on leaving the pristine kitchen all bloody.

Viviane rolled her eyes, "Fine, then help me take the hanger outside. I will take the animal."

Lynn followed Viviane's orders since she looked as if she knew what she was doing. He also brought with him, the set of knives he found in one of the kitchen cabinets. His grandfather had liked to catch wild animals, and Lynn knew that there should be a set of knives lying somewhere in the cabin.

"Did Grandpa Merlin taught her how to skin a boar?" Lynn was thinking, as he continued watching Viviane.

Lynn had a lot of questions that he wanted to ask Viviane, but he was afraid that a wrong question could lead to his imminent death by ice. He gulped at the idea of dying like the zombies of the afternoon.

"Hey, kid, are you going to continue daydreaming? Put that in here." Viviane pointed the ground at the backyard of the cabin.

"Hey, Viviane, why do you call us, kids? You don't look older than me. To be honest, you don't even look past your 20s," Lynn said as he put the ice hanger that was numbing his hands on the ground.

"Explanations after dinner." These were the only words that came out of Viviane's mouth, "by the way, kid, do you have some gloves we can use. This is going to get messy."

Lynn went to the shed, to search for some gloves. He found two pairs of unused gardening gloves. He handed a pair to Viviane.

"I don't know what kind of gloves, you were asking, but I think this one will do the job."

Viviane took the gloves from Lynn's hands without saying another word. The night was getting cold. Not winter cold, but the sound of the wind passing through the trees in the forest, made the night seem colder than what it really was. Maybe it was the darkness. Maybe it was the fact that Lynn could not forget that there could be monsters roaming in the dark forest, or maybe it was just his imagination, but Lynn could not shake off the creepy feeling of being outside once it was night.

"Do you know how to skin a boar?" Viviane asked, shaking Lynn's already building fear.

Lynn shook his head.

"Come, first you need to hang it. Then we start cutting it from the belly area."

Lynn was not paying attention to Viviane's explanation, in his eyes, the only thing he was seeing was the perfect blonde woman who he had just met preparing a wild boar as if she worked in a butchery.

"Hey, kid, hand me a saw, also in the shed there should be a hose, connect it. We need to clean this thing before Sam can cook it."

"Um… okay…"

Lynn handed Viviane all the things she needed. In the end, Viviane skinned, gutted, and washed the boar on her own. Lynn just stood there as a spectator. She had done it with such a skill that he could not stop himself from asking, "Hey, Viviane, where did you learned to hunt a boar and skin it."

"Hunting is a basic skill from where I come from. Preparing the meat though, Merlin taught me…" Viviane said the last words as if she were reminiscing the mysterious past that Lynn did not know about.

"Um… exactly where do you come from, Viviane? Hunting now is more of a hobby than a life skill."

That is when Lynn saw Viviane's mood change. She threw him the washed boar meat and said, "You are asking too many questions, kid. If you are so idle, why don't you carry the meat back to the kitchen? I'm going to clean the mess here and put back the saw and water hose."

Lynn saw Viviane was no longer in a friendly mood, so he just took the meat and went back inside. Once inside, he saw that Sam and Tyson were already in the kitchen. Sam was apparently teaching Tyson how to cut the mushrooms into tiny pieces.

"Be careful with your fingers, T."

"Don't worry, Sam, I may be a trust-fund kid, but I still know how to handle a knife." Just as Tyson said those words, he scraped a bit his index finger with the knife.

"Bloody hell!"

"See! I told you to be careful! Go upstairs and rinse it. I will do the rest of it. I don't want to have a dinner full of blood," Sam said as she ushered Tyson to leave the kitchen.

"I can still help!"

Sam then pushed Tyson out of the kitchen while arguing with him to get his cut cleaned. When she saw Lynn standing at the entrance of the kitchen with the skinned boar, her face lit up.

"Lynn! Get Tyson cut cleaned, please. We don't need an infection right now. Also, are you feeling well? Don't think I don't remember about you possibly inhaling zombie ashes."

Sam snatched the meat from Lynn's hand.

"So, are you well or should we already tie you down to a chair just to make sure you don't go all rabid around us?"

Lynn shook his head. Sam just smiled at him and turned around humming a song Lynn could not recognize while she continued preparing their meal for that evening.

As he dragged Tyson upstairs, his mind drifted away into Tyson's comment that evening that Lynn was the MC of this zombie apocalypse. Lynn just could not understand. All MCs from the stories he had read had pretty girls around them as their sidekick or useful male friends. He, on the contrary, had two violent women, and a comic relief guy as his team.

"Tyson, are you even sure I'm the MC of this story, and that we are not only the cannon fodders of this story that will die in the beginning chapters?" That was the only thing Lynn could think.