After a few minutes of simply sitting and thinking to himself, Jack finally grew anxious and, after hiding his supplies and slinging his Remington 887 shotgun over his shoulder, proceeded out the door. The crisp Washington air blew through his hair as soon as he opened the door, and, for the first time in a long time, he smelled the smells of nature, not of death and decay. He left the cabin at a brisk hiking pace, passing the beat up old Toyota truck that had gotten him this far. Jack took care to watch the ground for tracks, and tried desperately to remember everything he learned during the two or three hunting trips attended with his grandfather as a kid. He pulled the shotgun down from the sling on his back, and checked to make sure it was loaded and ready. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a swift movement deeper into the forest. As he looked, Jack spotted the tail end of a thin deer make a beeline away from him. He gave an initial chase, before slowing down so as not to alert the deer again. Following the tracks cautiously, he kept the Remington poised to shoot when he saw the opportunity. Finally, he found the deer at a small clearing - the animal hadn't spotted him yet. Breathing a silent sigh of relief, Jack leveled the shotgun at the upper chest, and pulled the trigger. The loud [i]bang[/i] forced all the birds from the trees, as the shot connected with a thud and the deer went down in a heap. Upon closer inspection, Jack found the animal to be a buck, but close to starvation. The former congressman figured that either his food source had been impacted by the outbreak somehow, or the deer population was facing severe overpopulation due to the lack of people hunting them. If it was the latter, Jack figured that Cougar Rock may even be a pretty good place to stay, if he didn't mind having venison almost exclusively. Kneeling beside the animal, he set the shotgun down beside him and, knife in hand, attempted to decide how to proceed.

A viscous groan behind him interrupted his thoughts - Jack knew exactly what the source was. He was back on his feet in an instant, and spun around to face the corpse of an older, bearded man in a tattered plaid shirt. The walker was about two yards away, and closing quickly. Jack's knife was too small to guarantee a clean kill, and he knew that, instead opting to drop the knife at his feet and unholster his Smith & Wesson. With the walker now only three feet away, Jack unloaded three rounds into the remains of the man - the first one hitting and shattering the jaw, and the last two blowing apart the brain with a sickening shower of blood and skull fragments. Slumping down beside the dead deer, Jack took a moment to catch his breath. He wasn't expecting that, not at all. As he turned his attentions back to the deer and getting it back to camp, he made a mental note to secure the cabin when he got back, now that he knew that he wasn't alone in the area.