The Ultimate Primitive Survival Camp: Erika’s colony

Erika’s colony may be more than the ultimate primitive survival camp. It’s one where the people live in constant vigilance from outsiders.

Few saw the terrorist attacks that upended America and the West coming. Even fewer believed a young woman would serve as a small town’s lifesaver. Erika didn’t have much, but she had a shack with overgrown land and a lake around it following her severely physically and mentally-impaired parents’ and brother’s deaths.

After the attacks occurred, Erika offered for the survivors in McConnellsville, Ohio, to use her land as a refuge. While they had little, the land and lake provided wild game and spots to prepare it. It was vast enough to house dozens of tents. And, considering the conservative right-wing area McConnellsville was, plenty of guns and ammunition for defense.

This let the colony at least live on a subsistence level. They also had all-terrain vehicles that let its members patrol and take care of dangerous outsiders lurking near the area. Drifters — loners who’d kill and take anything that they could — were constant threats.

Everyone except Erika looked like they’ve been to hell and back

Ironically, despite her backwoods upbringing and being the daughter of a third-generation inbred couple, Erika looked like a leader. She kept herself clean, her hair remained shiny and black, and her light but slightly sunbeaten skin contrasted well with her usual form-fitting black tank top and jeans.

That said, the rest of the colony was the exact opposite. None of them washed regularly, they wore the same clothes for days on end, and they made the most of what they had. Mainly patchwork tents and basic living supplies. Those rotating on their council slept in the shack, where Erika kept a room to herself.

But this wasn’t Erika’s choice. Very early on, the council decided to hold Erika to a higher standard. They now lived on her land, and she wasn’t to lower her standard of living. Erika would have gladly made it to where she too slept in primitive tents and lived at a basic level, but the entire colony insisted otherwise.

Erika, always a generous soul no matter what

As a trade-off, Erika gave everything she could to her new colony. Anything in that old shack that they could use to make their lives easier. Her shack had little — just old farming tools that nobody had used in years. But every last bit helped.

Erika shows off her generous spirit once more when she meets survivors of another colony in Beyond the Lost Assault. A nearby colony that Quinn Cozens started calling home after a daring midnight ride from Jefferson County, Ohio to Morgan County.

Catch that midnight ride in Beyond the Lost Horizon before you meet Erika and her colony in Beyond the Lost Assault.

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