So wherever I go, I'm very careful. I don't let smoke come out of my chimney, instead dispersing it out the doors and window — and only during the day. The wires go through to trips with bells inside the cabin. Not loud bells — no sense in broadcasting to one of them that they just shambled through something significant. The biggest danger is the shed, naturally — hence trying to make it airtight. Unlike just about everything else, however, that problem's going to get easier as it gets colder. There's going to come a point where I'll be chipping dinner off with a chisel, but at least the danger of smell leaking out the cracks will drop right down to nothing.

Once everything's secured for the night, I eat my meal in the last of the daylight, with the last hot cup of coffee of the day. I set aside a little food for the morning. I do not stay up late.

The windows are all covered with blackout material, naturally, but I still don't like to take the risk. So I sit there in the dark for a spell, thinking things over. I get some of my best ideas under those conditions, in fact — there's something about the lack of distraction that makes it like a waking dream, lets you think laterally. My latest notion is a sign. I'm considering putting one up, somewhere along one of the roads, that just says THIS WAY, and points. I'm thinking if someone came along and saw a sign like that, they'd hope maybe there was a little group of people along there, some folks getting organized, safety in numbers and that, and so they'd go along to see what's what.

And find me, waiting for them, a little way into the woods.

I'll not catch all of them — the smart guy in the car would have driven straight by, for example, though his girl might have had something to say on the subject — but a few would find my web. I have to think the idea through properly — don't know for sure that the others can't read, for example, though at night they wouldn't be able to see the sign anyway, if I carve it the right way — but I have hopes for it as a plan. We'll see.