Surviving Day By Day (Book 1): So it Begins (25 page)

The kids looked at him and Charlie spoke up, “What about you
,
boss?”

Alden grinned
,
“
you don’t worry about me. Me and Tonto have be
en in this type of shit before.”

He looked to Ceara
,
“
and you don’t worry, your dog’s smart
,
he’ll stick with us
. N
ow
is everybody ready?
”

They all nodded. “The let’s kick off this Rodeo.”

He turned and pulled his
45
and fired three sh
ot and three deadheads dropped.
Ceara ran as soon as Alden fired the shots, jumping over logs and finding a large tree that she could somewhat hide behind. She stole a quick look and saw the people were trying to see where the new shots came from but at the same time still fending off the attackers.

Several of the dead heads were heading toward Alden; Maximus was helping draw the attention by barking. Whispering Ceara leaned a head on the tree, “Maximus please be ok after this.”

She spun around the tree and saw that the people had a good path; she fired the gun three shots and
waved for them to come her way.

Colt heard the three shots and looked to Beth praying he wasn’t imagining the noise, “I think we may have allowed them to find us!”

Turning he fired at another monster as Beth took out a couple on her own. Several minutes later a three shot gun blast made them both look in Ceara’s direction, “Come on Beth!!”

He took off shooting as he r
an toward the girl by the tree.

After hearing those three shots the adrenaline that was running through her veins caused Tabitha to think of nothing else but getting this quest done and getting the fuck back to camp. Stopping right in her spot
,
Tabitha saw the two people heading toward Ceara just like Alden had said they would. But out of the corner of her eye of to the right Tabitha noticed a couple of zombies
going
right at them.

Quickly Tabitha peeled off and came up from behind the one that was in the back and with one swipe of her tire iron she
swung
it right down the center of his head. She thought that was fairly easy but she noticed that retracting the iron was a bit difficult. Without thinking and while still having a death grip on the iron Tabitha raised her foot and used the zombie’s body as a wall she pushed off. Once the iron came out she then dashed over to the other one and swung at his head like it was a fastball. “Batter Up!!!” she yelled while she watched the body of the zombie hit the ground then made her way up behind the lady that was running beside the man.

Charli
e
watched as Ceara did her part
first
and got the new comers to move toward her. Firing two shots quickly he looked again and saw Tabitha turn and head to help Ceara, “damn” he said, “Fucking Alden has got this shit down.”

Turning he fired two more shots and took out three deadheads as two of them were so close the
y
looked like one. Their heads had almost been side by side so the blast got half of each face. He watched Alden who was moving and shooting.
He
had the bulk of the dead heads were moving towards him now despite all of the other shots that had been fired. He watched as Alden fired then reloaded his clip as fast as lighting. Charlie could not believe how smooth his actions were. Charlie started to hold back making himself less and less visible to the deadheads till he was sure he could back track safely to the group and h
elp the girls get back to camp.

Turning, he moved as quickly and low as he could back up the trail. It took only a couple of minutes and he could hear Tabitha and Ceara ahead talking to the new people. Charlie slowed and stood up he wanted to make damn sure Tabitha knew it was him before he came crashing through the trees. It was the new girl who saw him first
,
she screamed and he yelled just as Ceara turned and almost fired at him. “CU
PCAKES DON’T SHOOT, ITS ME!!!!”

Ceara turned
and leveled the gun at the dead
head the new girl
had
screamed over until she saw Charlie holding up his hand. “Damn Charlie I damn near shot you! Did you
guys
get’em all? Are we clear to head back to camp?”

Charlie nodded looking over his shoulder, “Pretty sure
,
Alden will bring up the rear like he does.”

They started walking back to the camp, Ceara turned to the two new people. The man seemed to be clean cut, well as much as he could be, his hair was dark brown with a little wave to it, medium built and not as tall as Charlie. He was covered in blood it was even in his hair. The girl had light brown hair and a very small build but she walked with a sort of self-confidence.

“Ok, so I guess you guys are cupcake four and five but my name is Ceara, this here is Charlie and
the girl up there is Tabitha.”

Colt looked to each and pulled Beth closer to him, “I’m not trying to sound ungrateful for your help but…
but
this day in time I don’t just trust people just because they are willing to kill people.”

He looked around at all the carnage they left behind, “Seems to me you people are more than good at it.”

He walked Beth a few steps away from the group, “Look Beth, I ain’t so sure these are the kind we want to be around but I’m going to leave the choice up to you.”

Beth looked over his shoulder at the group, “Colt look, we are better in numbers and seems like they have some good numbers and weapons. I think we go and we can leave if we see anything we really just don’t like or trust.”

Colt nodded, he slid his hand into Beth’s as they rejoined the others. “Ok we are going with you, I’m Colt and this is Beth. Oh and thanks for the help, we were in a lot of trouble back
there.”

Charlie stuck his hand out to Colt and shook it, “We ain’t as good as you think it’s just that we have a real good teacher. You’ll meet him soon enough he’s… he’s…”

Charlie looked to Ceara and Tabitha then continued. “Well he’s different.” he said with a smile
;
c’mon
let’s
get back to our camp we’ll all be a little safer there.
”

Charlie took the lead and began to move cautiously back up the trail. Ceara looked at Tabitha,
holding her gun up and waving it,
“I’ll take the rear since I got the gun,”

Tabitha grinned, “Just don’t’ shoot Alden you know how he gets when we make a mistake.” Tabitha moved next to
the new kids, “C’mon cupcakes.”

Alden moved quickly trying to keep Maximus in view
,
the last thing he wanted
to do
was to lose Ceara’s dog. They reached a clearing and Alden bolted across, turned and knelt when he reached the tree line and pulled Tonto next to him. Maximus did as he expected and joined him on his other side.

Wrapping his arm around Maximus he pulled him close and grabbed his snout, “shh boy shh” Maximus growled at first then stopped
and watched the deadheads
.

As the deadheads reached the clearing they became confused. They could not see any living meal. They began to calm down and simply started milling around
again
. Alden crept backwards still holding Maximus’ collar, “C’mon boy, c’mon
leave’em be, just leave’em be.”

Tonto got down low and was almost crawling on his belly as they all backed out. After a few minutes Alden was sure they were safe enough he turned back towards camp and snapped his fingers. Tonto took off like a bullet with Maximus right on his tail, neither one was barking or growling. Alden Picked up the pace thinking to himself, “Damn we may be able to train Maximus too, he likes to follow Tonto.”

Ten minutes went by with the pack of them almost running before they caught up to the rest. Tonto stopped and began to wag his tail facing back down the trail. Alden and the dogs had actually got around and ahead of the group. He walked out onto the trail and knelt down his head hanging down as the sweat poured off of him.

Within a minute Charlie came walking around a bend. “Holy Shit Boss you okay?”

Alden looked up and smiled, “Yeah, I’m just waiting for my Cupcakes….” He stood and smil
ed as the rest came walking up.

Charlie turned around to the others, “Colt, Beth, this here is Alden. He’s the reason we were able to save you back there. Alden this here is Colt and Beth…. or as you would call them cupcake four and five.”

He smiled big when he said that then turned and patted Tonto on the head. “Good to see ya boy
;
glad you brought the boss back.” He then turned and petted Maximus, “Ceara’s going to love seeing you boy.”

Colt held out his hand to Alden, “Not real sure I follow the cupcake stuff but I appreciate the help, I really do.”

Ceara went to Maximus smiling, knelt down hugging the dog, “Hey, this here is Maximus and that big guy over there
lying
down is Tonto. Oh and the cupcake thing is Alden’s
. H
e
doesn’t
much care for names so we kind of got named as we got here.”

Colt laughed, “Ok so this is all there is then? No others, since Beth and I are cupcake four and five?”

Ceara stood up joi
ning Charlie, “Nope, we’re it.”

Alden turned and snapped his fingers, once again Tonto was up. “Let’s move out and get back to camp
,
we can all have a little chit chat back there where we are safe rather than out here. I lost the deadheads but there may be more.”

He turned and headed toward camp
,
his legs taking long rhythmic strides. It only took fifteen minutes and they were home. Alden went to his truck and pulled out his canteen first pouring it into a bowl for the dogs then refilled it from a large black bag and took a long drink himself.

Turning to the group he walked over and sat on a log. “Okay I need to know where you came from
,
who you are
,
and what you may have seen or not
seen over the past few weeks?”

Beth stepped forward and reached out her hand, “My name is Beth and I just am thankful that you all
were willing to
help us out back there.
”

She looked over to Colt and still felt that there may be a small bit of tension between them, but hoped that it would go away especially after the kindness that he showed her when they were almost killed earlier.

She felt that if he had still held a grudge that he could
have
just thrown her to the infected but he didn’t and that told her something.
Now she wondered if she
should she come out and tell these total strangers the information that she had recently told Colt? If she did, what would their reaction be?

There were
too
many questions and she remembered once again the oath that she
had taken,
along with the agreement that she signed. Saving lives and protecting people
; this allowed the government to
saving money through prevention
. That was
what had been bore into her
mind for years
and yet the very organization
that
she worked for was
,
to her knowledge, the reason for what was going on now.

These unknowing souls had risked their own lives to save theirs and now the question that Alden had asked along with his demeanor told Beth that he had some formal m
ilitary training of some sorts.

Slowly Beth turned around and went to sit on a nearby tree stump. After taking a deep breath Beth looked at Alden dead center in his eyes and continued with a very authoritative voice, “There is no easy way to say this but
to
just come right out and lay
all of my cards on
the table,
As I said, m
y name is Beth Canter and I worked for The Center Of
Disease Control here in the U.S, I was
part of the Southern Division.”

The looks from everyone were all different, some were shocked and some were really irritated but Alden seemed totally unreadable.

That told Beth that he was
either highly trained at hiding emotion or just he just plain didn’t give a damn. She felt
more comfortable talking to
someone that was reserving
judgment
,
she continued.

“I know what you all must think….you all think that we failed everyone and well yes…. the organization that I worked for had failed but not on its own. Readers Digest version, when our Commander and Chief took his office he set out to cut the budget
in
every way that he could possibly think of. Many of the long time
d
octors were given a severance package and sent quietly on their way. To replace them they brought in people that were not as qualified to work in such a facility. They would
have
been better cleaning up cigarette butts on the ground of any burger throwing franchise around in my opinion. However,
I was one of the under fifteen year
employees and if I would have been hired just
a few
years earlier I would have been sent packing.”