Surviving Day By Day (Book 1): So it Begins (20 page)

She had another bite before she had barely swallowed the first. “So what do we do now? We know there are deadheads out there
,
so do we have to stay up all night? I ain’t trying to be a wimp
,
but I don’t know
that I can keep my eyes open.”

Tabitha walked over to Alden and looked down to see the steaks. Her mouth was watering and she wasted no time in making her selection. “This
one looks pink enough for me!”

Then she scooped a few of the mushrooms on
to
her plate. Tabitha giggled when she saw the tops of the mushrooms and she remembered how Ceara looked when she told her about what they looked like.

After her plate was fixed she walked over behind Charlie and jokingly bent down and whispered in his ear, “Later tonight you ought to have Ceara over there tell you all about the little talk we had about mushrooms.”

Standing up Tabitha walked over and sat down then winked at Ceara. “Don’t them shrooms taste mighty salty in your mouth with that margarine melted on them?????”

Ceara turned bright red and looked at Charlie without realizing it. “TAB SHHHH”

She was thanking the Goddess that it was dark out!
Charlie took a bite and looked to Tabitha then to Ceara, “So what’s she mean, did you girls have a little chick time out there
or what?”

Alden was listening and watching the whole thing, he first thought was Tabitha and the magic mushrooms, but he quickly discounted that
;
Ceara was to naive to have been involved in that kind of stuff. As he took a bit he saw Ceara blushing and his mind changed gears. These people have got him pegged to be
just
an
old
man, “Boy did
they miss the mark” he thought.

Almost choking on his steak as Charlie asked his question he grabbed his beer and washed it
down quick. Then eyed Tabitha, “Charlie,
I’m guessing from my a
ssessments of my partners here,
that our street-wise Ms. Tabitha took time to explain to our smurfette, the physical similarities between a
mushroom and the male anatomy.”

Charlie looked to Alden, “I’m sorry but err…. what the hell are you talking about?”

Ceara herself was now as red as a prize winning rose. Alden finished the last of his steak and stood walking to the trash can to dump his plate. He looked at Tabitha and raised an eyebrow and grinned at the way they were all coming
together,
like when he was letting them know that things were not what they appeared to be. “Tabitha you are a mischievous one aren’t you?”

He walked over grabbed a metal canteen cup and poured him some coffee from the pot by the fire. He walked to the edge of the woods his back to the group, shaking his head and chuckling as he went. He mumbled something but no one
could quite make it out.

Tabitha looked at Alden and then without missing a beat looked right back at Charlie with a big smile on her face, “Ohhhh ya, you
probably
wouldn’t have any idea about that. Well
,
let me show you…”

Reaching over to grab some slices of the mushrooms Tabitha stacked them on top of one another and formed it just right. “This part
right here is called the shaft”

A
s she slide her fingers u
p
and down the sides of the mushroom. Tabitha began snorting a little because she noticed Ceara
trying to make herself disappear
where she was sitting. Quickly she place
d
the mushrooms down again
and continued, “Well, I
am stuffed and I got to clean up here
,
I will
just
let you
finish
explain
ing
to Charlie boy the rest…”

Standing up with her plate she began to turn then stopped, snickered and said, “I’m sure Charlie might show you
if you asked him for a visual!”

Charlie looked to Tabitha then to where Alden was standing and finally to Ceara, “ I repeat my question. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT?
Would one of you please clue me in. “

Tabitha stood right there and immediately thought that Charlie was m
ore back woods then Red was
!

“Well hell!!!” Tabitha busted out laughing, “Well it appears that Red here knows what I am talking about and Alden over there knows exactly what I am talking about
,
so let
me ask you something Chucky boy. Y
ou want me to draw a picture or do you just want Alden to explain it to you??”

Ceara quickly stood, “NO, no pictures no nothing!”

She threw her plate away tossing the bone to
Maximus;
she walked over to Tabitha, “I can’t believe you did that! Oh my god
,
he is going to think I am j
ust wanting to sleep with him!”

Tabitha raised an eyebrow, Ceara sighed, “I think we have more to deal with tha
n worrying about getting laid.”

Ceara left her standing and went to Charlie, sitting beside him on the log, “Really Charlie it wasn’t
anything
, she was just making fun of me and it kind of got out of hand.”

Charlie didn’t say a word and just finished eating, Ceara rubbed
her hands together
to get warm
from the cold, “Sorry, I’ll leave you alone.”

Charlie looked at her, “Ceara I have no idea what those two
were
talking about. Let’s just let them have their little fun. I’ve been the butt of many jokes and it really doesn’t bother me anymore.”

He got up and went to his van returning with
the
wool blanket with
the
wolf’s head on it. “I know you said you were tired but there’s no reason you need to be cold
too
. All you got to do is ask and whatever I have
,
I’ll share with you.”

He looked towards Alden then spoke softly to Ceara, “I used to
listen to
some old Veterans who would come to the church for the evening meal we served. They talked about some of the guys having something called a thousand yard stare. I never knew what that meant till I met him. It’s as if he is searching the world for any danger that would harm us. He knows
it’s
there and he knows they know were here. It’s
like
a
game of who can see who first.”

Alden turned as if he had heard Charlie and walked back to the fire.

“Well kiddies
,
we had our evening meal
and
I wish we had cookies and milk but alas we don’t. So this is how the sleeping arrangements will go. We will have what
is
call
ed
a fire watch. That means
just
what it says. Cupcake two
,
you have first watch
. Y
ou will sit and make sure the fire does not go out, but again I don’t want a roaring bonfire keep it low and warm.”

Looking at his watch he saw it was 9 P.M. You will sit and guard our happy camp till 2300hrs”

Pausing he looked as she stared blank at him, “That’s 11 P.M. for you. Then you wake cupcake number one, Charlie your watch will be end at o100 hrs, that’s 1 A.M. for you. I’ll take third watch and will wake cupcake three at o400 hrs.,” looking to Tabitha,
“
that’s 4 A.M for you. Then you get to make the morning coffee and get everyone up at about o600hrs. Are we clear on that.?”

Everyone
n
odded, Charlie smiled at Ceara and
w
hispered,
“keep the blanket to stay warm,
I’ll see you in a couple of hours. If you need me
,
I’ll be right over there.”

Alden looked at Tabitha and motioned for her to follow him
,
he reached in the back of his truck and pulled out two army sleeping bags. “Here you and Charlie can use these, and Ceara can use Charlie’s when he relieves her.”

Tabitha smirked at his choice of words and even giggled a little. Alden smiled “well your intentions were to get them into the same bed…….”

As Colt scooped out the last spoon of
soup
he smiled at Beth, “Damn if I didn’t know better I would think this was pretty nice.”

He stood taking both his and Beth’s bowl heading to the door when he heard gunfire. He stopped looking out to the woods, “You hear that? It sounds like a gun fight?”

Beth nodded but just watched the woods too. Colt set the bowls on the porch walking out into the open
area;
he wanted to try to see where the shots were coming from. There wasn’t just one or two shots, there were many and overlapping each other. Beth joined him searching for the location too. Colt pointed northeast, “I think they are that way.”

He looked to Beth, “Question is, are they shooting at the monsters or each other?”

The gun fire slowed to a stop, “Well good or bad it’s over. Do you think we need to set any traps? Honestly I have no clue how to, so I am kind of hoping the answer is no
, unless
you know how to do it
?”

Beth stood looking into the
woods;
she looked up toward the sky. “I guess we could take a walk in the woods to see what is out there but it will be getting dark soon.”

Folding her arms around herself she thought about other
people
that may be out there and if she was one of them, well, she sure would want someone to come to her rescue just as Colt did when he showed up in his land rover.

“Tell you what Colt
,
we do have flashlights and lanterns. If you want
to,
we could take a walk out and see if we can hear voices because with that gunfire there have to be survivors out there somewhere
;
because knowing what we know the ones that have become infected cannot fire a gun
, or
hold one for that matter.”

He nodded, “But who’s to say they were fighting monsters Beth? They could have been in a camp and others tried to join them, but they didn’t want no more people. They may be short on supplies and not wanting to share.”

He walked back to the porch grabbing the bowls, “I say we wait t
ill morning if we do anything.”

Beth still stood there while Colt walked back. Her mind was a million miles away. All of the people, friends and family that she had were lost all due to the laziness of men that was running this country. She wondered if there
was
anyone
who had survived from the CDC. Part of her blame herself for not trying harder to stop the incompetence at work; h
owever
,
the longer she thought about it there could not be anything that she could have done to stop the inevitable from happening.

Beth was a lot smarter than Colt knew and she wanted to tell him her whole story but with his loss
,
she did not want to make matters any worse than they already were. She even knew that it wasn’t her fault and she knew who was actually responsible for this whole mess. All she could do right now after assessing their current situation was do what Colt had suggested.

It had been a long day and she was in fact wore completely out. As a gust of wind passed by her face Beth turned and remarked, “Colt, I couldn’t agree with you more. We haven’t really had the time to rest let alone settle down for the night and it is kinda getting chilly out here now. So I say let’s hunker down for the night and maybe we can
keep
a little fire inside th
e
fireplace
and
bo
lt ourselves in for the night.”

C
olt built up the fire in the fireplace, “I’m going to head out to grab some firewood, be right back.”

Colt went out on the porch and stretched, then looked around it was all quiet. Stepping off the porch he headed to the car first to grab the flashlight out of the back-end. It was obvious he had never planned on having a flat at night because the flashlight was under the spare tire. Once he had it he hit the button and could see clear enough around him. The wood pile behind the first cabin he had searched, supplied him with all the wood they would need. He turned off the flashlight stuffing it in his back pocket, every step caused it to hit him in the back, but he had the wood and
was heading back to the cabin.

Suddenly there was an explosion; it was in the same direction the gun fire had been from. Colt ran up the steps getting inside, “DAMN BETH!!! Did you hear it? They are blowing shit up now!!”

Beth could not help but hear the explosion
,
it shook the cabin and almost knocked her off her feet because it surprised the hell out of her
,
she
had been
tiding up after super.

“Well, it can’t be the infected causing that
,
so there has to be more survivors out there.” Beth had no idea what she should do. One thing that would be hard as hell would be trying to get to sleep now because with that kind of commotion out there, if there were infected lurking about they would have to stand guard all night.

Quickly she looked over at Colt and he looked as frazzled as she was inside and that was not a good thing. Beth ran over to the door and shut it softly behind Colt. “Ok, Colt, calm down. Let’s take a
m
oment
to
think about this
.”

Slowly she calmed her breathing down and looked directly into Colt’s eyes as she began speaking, “With the gun fire out there a while ago and now that the explosion is over it goes to tell us that somewhere out there in the woods are survivors.”

Gently she touched his shoulder and could feel how tense he was but having him all nervous and freaked out was not going to help their situation at all. “So let’s just say that many of the infected have been taken care of and with night falling we will more than likely see the lights from the fires if there is anything out in the woods. I say we barricade ourselves in for the night and keep watch out the window.”

As Beth took her hand off of Colt’s shoulder she went over to the window and looked outside. Scanning the perimeter she did not see anything in her line of sight but did see some birds flying above. “Let me ask you Colt….. You ever been to a lock in? Let us just pretend this is a lock in and we can play some games and keep watch.”

Beth wanted to just get him calmed down because she knew that if she didn’t and if he started car
rying on like ‘WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE’
that Beth would start getting paranoid as hell. However
,
she did want to know what Colt thought so she turned slowly and saw him standing behind her, “Or if you want we can take our flashlights and go check on
things out there if you like?”

“I like the idea of a lock in, not so much into walking blind into the unknown. You stand watch for now, I don’t know if I’m right
,
but the monsters always
seem
head to any noise. So I think our neighbors just kept us safe for the night. I think for tonight
anyway,
we are safe.”

He knelt down by the fireplace
, dropping the logs he had brought in,
tossing a couple of logs in
to the fire
,
and then
poked around to get the flames to catch again. He smiled
over at
Beth
.

“See I am good at fires, Jessica use to love them. I swear it could be a hundred and ten degrees but she wanted a romantic fire.”

Colt laughed looking in the fire, “I would be sweating my balls off but she was happy, so I was too.”

He looked back to Beth as if realizing what he said, “Sorry about the crude language, just voicing memories.”

Beth sat quietly at the window listening to Colt and when he referred to his sweaty balls all that she could do is giggle. To be quite honest
,
it was actually the first time she had laughed in a while and it did feel pretty good. She could tell that Colt was beginning to feel a little more comfortable and she kind of wanted to keep the humor flowing because it had been
too
serious for
so
long,
she
quickly
replied
, “Naaa, don’t have to be sorry,
I mean if I was a guy and had to be sitting in
sweaty
ball soup
,
I don’t think I would be to comfortable either. Hell, I use to hate it when I was a kid growing up down by Kentucky lake and the humidity down there on a hot summer day would cause
your
underwear to go up in the crack of
your
ass and you would feel like you were digging for gold tr
ying to get them out of there.”

Colt smiled at her, “Yeah I kind of had times like that too, course when we were kids we didn’t mind digging for gold did we?”

Standing up, dusting his hands off, “I think we should call it a night, if you really think we need it I can stand guard first and wake you up about midnight, I saw some blankets in the hall closet and that couch looks comfy enough. I think we should both stay in here.”

He held up his hands, “No funny business I swear!”

He grinned, “See I am just the boy next door.”

Beth smiled as she went around the couch and down the hall, “Colt
,
I don’t think you have any perverted thoughts so don’t worry.”

She got the blanket and
lay
down on the couch, covering up and snuggled down, “Hmmmm not bad, wake me when it’s my turn to watch. Oh and don’t do the fucked up gentleman thing and let me sleep all night, we are in this together. I don’t need you dead on your feet tomorrow.”

She giggled, “No pun intended”

Colt smiled and went to the window to let Beth sleep, this would be another long night.