Surviving Day by Day (Book 3): Still They Come (30 page)

As the creatures collapsed to the ground, Colt lit the fuse and began to make his way around to join the others. He was surprised how in less than a year’s time they had all become so desensitized to killing humans.

Colt glanced into the rearview mirror just as the canyon entrance blew. Rocks and rubble showered his car as he hit the gas a little more to get out of the way of the fall out. As Colt pulled up to join the others, he didn’t see Alden’s truck. As he got out, he looked around more, still not seeing it. “Alden, the entrance is blocked so they are going to have to go out on the west side. We should be safe for some time before they figure it out, and once they do, they shouldn’t head our direction. Where’s Beth?”

Ceara and Charlie were both taking shots, putting wanderers down. Tabitha set her rifle down, patted Alden’s shoulder, “I got this one.”

Tabitha joined Colt and pointed to the sky, “She’s gone Colt, you knew she was planning something and she did it. Beth is with Jessica and Heath watching over us. To be honest, I think they are all telling us to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

Colt stood silent with a blank stare for well over a minute, “How?”

“Does it matter?”

“Who?”

“She did it herself, that is how she wanted it.”

Colt sucked his teeth and looked out to the canyon, “Where’s Alden’s truck?”

Tabitha sighed, “Fine, you want to know… Colt, she drove Alden’s truck into the canyon. She waited for all the fuckers to be crawling all over it and then….”

Tabitha looked at Colt, “Good enough, or do you want more details? Her tone was flat, cold, and heartless. “Beth didn’t want you knowing so you couldn’t stop her, so you can take that look of blame off your face.”

Colt looked into Tabitha’s eyes, “I know it was her choice, all of it. I don’t blame anyone, just a little numb. Give me your rifle, I want to take out a few Beth missed.”

Tabitha held onto her weapon, “I’m not so sure that is a good idea, not altogether sure you would just aim at the deadheads.”

Colt pulled out his revolver, “If I wanted to kill anyone here, they would be dead, myself included.”

Alden stepped out of nowhere, “WRONG ANSWER!”

Suddenly Colt was on his knees, his wrist painfully bent back as Alden took the pistol out of his hands. Alden handed the pistol to Tabitha then nodded to the rifle on her shoulder, “Take that and get back to work.”

His voice was cold and calm. He released his grip on Colt, and pulled him to his feet; “I’ve seen this before. You’re pissed and in shock during a tense situation. You ain’t thinking straight, and by all rights, no one could blame you. I want you to sit right over on that rock until we finish this. Then if you want, I’ll give you an empty gun, a box of bullets, and vehicle. You can decide if you want to stay, go, or blow your fucking brains out.” Alden turned to walk away then stopped, “Just don’t forget why Beth did what she did.”

Colt stood stock-still for over a minute, staring at Alden’s back. A punch in the arm brought him out of his fantasy of putting a bullet in between Alden’s shoulder blades. Colt looked to Tabitha, “What was that all about?”

Tabitha’s eyebrows lifted, “What was it for, oh I don’t know, maybe I know the thoughts that are going thru your mind.”

Tabitha swung her rifle around off her shoulder, she checked to make sure it was cocked, and then looked back to Colt. “You knew when we were at the house, Beth had something planned, don’t pretend you didn’t. Beth made sure she took out as many as those things as she could. You don’t like how she did it? Well, that there sounds like a personal issue. You get your ass over there on that rock, sit down and think about what she did, and how you choose to respect her, or just say ‘fuck you’ to her memory.”

Tabitha rejoined the group to help finish of the stragglers, Colt rolled his eyes and started for the ledge to join her. He looked to Alden, “I’m not sitting anywhere; I know why Beth did what she did. You all seem to think that I am a God damn moron. I knew, and I understood! I admit that suicide crossed my mind, but shit, look at what I have gone thru!”

Alden shot two more wanderers as Colt finished up and glared at Colt, “I call them as I see them, you want to act like a dumb ass; I will treat you like one. Now, if you want to continue this fight, I’m all for it, but not till we get out of this! Either get your ass shooting at wanderers, or start walking, I don’t care which.”

Alden woke to the sun shining in his eyes, as it had every morning since they had arrived at the ranch. The sun had risen on another day. As he sat up, he realized he had fallen asleep in a chair on the porch. Looking down, Tonto was lying by his side; eyes wide open, staring off into the desert. Alden looked out and saw what had caught Tonto’s attention. Colt was sitting on the wagon, his rifle across his lap and his head slouched down. Alden knew he was asleep.

Getting up, he went to the fire pit and started the coals. Soon the coffee was brewing. He poured a second pot of hot water into a wash pan then added some cool water so he could wash and shave. When he finished, he walked over to the van and retrieved some clean jeans and a blue denim shirt, changing right there. As he placed his dirty clothes in a bag, he turned and saw his reflection in the side mirror. The lines on his face seemed deeper, bags under his eyes along with the redness, showed the exhaustion he was feeling from the previous days trials. Brushing his hair with his hand, he shook yesterday off and returned to the fire pit.

Pouring two cups, he walked out to where Colt was. As he neared him, he watched to make sure he didn’t startle him. Setting the cups on the wagon, Alden reached slowly and pulled the rifle from Colts lap, then woke him gently by touching his shoulder, “Colt… son come on, it’s time to get up.”

Colt jerked and grabbed for where his rifle had been. Alden continued to speak softly, “Relax son, I have it. It’s safe for now.”

Colt looked at Alden then out to the desert. As he looked back, the tears came once more to his eyes. Alden reached over and put an arm around his shoulder as he sat next to him. “She’s gone…. She’s gone…,” Colt sobbed

Alden gave his shoulder a squeeze, “Yes she is, but she will never be totally gone as long as one of us lives. A part of her is in each and every one of us, just like Heath and Niz. We all have a part of them in our hearts and as long as we live, a part of them lives also.”

Colt looked at Alden, “You really believe all that shit, or are you just trying to make me feel better?”

Alden reached over and handed Colt a cup of coffee, then took a sip of his own, “Larry Byler, Carl Faila, Dave Balzi, Ed Gerhke, Robin Hamm, and Roy Allen, I served with every one of those men in combat. Some made it back... others didn’t. Larry gave us this place of safety for a while. You see each of those men live on through me. As long as I am breathing, I carry their memory and part of them with me. The words I speak, the things I do, the lessons I have I taught you and the rest. These are all part of those men who now live on through you and the others, even though you have never met them. When I’m gone, I will live on through each of you, and those who you teach what I have taught you.”

Colt wiped a tear from his eye. Of all the things he thought he knew about Alden, he had somehow missed this one thing, “As tough as you are, you’re still one soft hearted son of a bitch.”

Alden took a sip of coffee, “There’s a pan of wash water by the van along with my razor and some soap. Go get cleaned up, and I’ll get the others moving”

As Colt hopped down of the wagon and started for the van, Alden called to him, “One more thing, you tell any of the others about our little talk, and I’ll cut your tongue out.” Colt smiled and winked, then turned and headed towards the house.

As the sun pierced in through the window, the light woke Tabitha up. Laying there for a while, she watched the shadows dance across the walls as the birds were beginning to chirp outside. The small things started to mean something and now that Beth had joined Heath in the afterlife, Tabitha did not want to waste what life she had remaining down here on earth.

A few more minutes passed by quietly when she heard the door open in the front part of the house. Throwing back the covers, Tabitha sat up then and started to get dressed. Memories of Heath were finding their way into her mind and this caused her to smile, but it turned to a frown when she realized that she should have been thinking about Beth. While going through her morning routines, both of her dear friends seemed to be with her...even more now than ever before.

Tabitha was not about to allow sadness to engulf her life anymore. People begin to die from the moment that they are born. It wasn’t about the quantity of time that she spent with those that she loved, but the quality of it.

Stepping out of her room with her boots in her hand, she almost ran right into Alden. “Morning cupcake, Ceara and Charlie are up, Colt’s around, and the coffees outside on the fire pit.”

Tabitha smiled, “Morning back at you, Alden. How’s Colt doing?”

“He’s ok.” Alden called back over his shoulder, while he made his way to his room.

When she got to the front door, Tabitha saw Colt standing by the fire looking hard into the flames. Tabitha jumped and bounced into her boots, not taking the time to sit down to put them on. She made her way outside and over to the fire, “Morning, Colt,” she called.

Raising his head, Colt spoke softly, “Morning, Tabitha. How are you doing?”

“I’m good. I was thinking about maybe going fishing today. I haven’t had any fish in a while and if you would like to join me, you’re more than welcome. We lost all the fish we caught the other day.”

Colt looked over at his Rover then back to the fire. He really didn’t want to do anything, but after what Alden had said, he didn’t want to shut himself off either. He did have a headache from the night before, and had slept very little.

As he began to rub the front of his head, Tabitha realized what was going on, “Hang on Colt, I will be right back. In the meantime, why don’t you go over to the Rover to see if your tackle box is in there so we will take that.”

As Tabitha made her way back to the house to get some Tylenol, Colt looked back at her and shouted, “I didn’t say I wanted to go.”

Tabitha stopped, turned back and replied, “I didn’t ask ya… I told ya.”

When she got inside, she saw Alden was at the sink washing his hands. “Hey, you got any Tylenol?”

Alden reached up into one of the cabinets and pulled out the bottle, “No, but we have Ibuprofen. How many you need?”

“Just a couple,” answered Tabitha, as she held out her hand while Alden handed them to her.

Ceara and Charlie were making their way into the kitchen, just as Tabitha was heading back outside.

Tabitha started for the fire but Colt was gone, he was now sitting sideways in the passenger side seat of the Rover, with the door wide open. “Just what are you doing, Tabitha?” asked Colt.

Tabitha gently placed the two pills in the palm of Colt’s one free hand, “Here take these, you need them.”

Colt looked down at the pills, popped them in his mouth and took a sip of his coffee.

“How’d you know?” he asked.

Tabitha leaned her back up against the truck and looked back at the house, “You’re eyes look like marbles, not to mention you did not eat anything last night. Oh and there is one more thing, you rubbed your forehead. So putting two and two together, I would come to the conclusion that you have a headache.”

Colt took a couple of more sips of his coffee, “Thanks Tabitha, now if you want to go fishing, we can. Just do me a favor, let’s not discuss yesterday. It isn’t that I don’t ever want to, but not yet… ok?”

Tabitha jumped into the driver’s side, “Deal, just fishing.”

Ceara was watching out the window as they drove away.  When Charlie joined her, he said, “Tabitha trying to get Colt to talk? It won’t work.”

Ceara leaned back against Charlie’s chest pulling his arms around her, “Why wouldn’t it work?”

“Charlie kissed her cheek, “Because he is a man, honey. Men, don’t do the touchy feely crap that women do.”

Ceara turned in his arms to face him, “I’m not touchy feely! Not to mention that it wouldn’t hurt you guys to say how you feel a little more.”

“Ok, Ok, not trying to fight, just stating fact. The honest truth is that I may have to take a punch or two before Colt finally opens up.”

Ceara got both a concerned and confused look, “What’s that mean?”

Charlie turned to head to the yard, “Because he will bottle it up, and at some point some stupid little thing will set him off, and the fight will be on.”

Ceara followed him outside, “But last time you beat him?”

Alden came around the corner, “Charlie, you trying to explain men to her?” Charlie grinned and nodded, Alden winked at Ceara, “You won’t understand men any more than we understand women.”

Charlie started laughing, “Amen!”

Ceara scrunched up her nose, “We are not that hard to understand, Beth said….” Her voice trailed off.

Alden gave her an understanding look, “I know it’s hard, it won’t be easy for a while, but to refuse to speak about her will make it worse. Now, what did she say about men.”

Ceara swallowed hard and continued, “She told me that if men would just learn to open their mouths, and women would learn to shut theirs; there would be a great deal more understanding in the world.”

Charlie grinned, “Amen to that, too.” Charlie looked to Alden, “So what now? Are we staying, going, or what?”

Alden picked up his coffee looking out at the yard, “I said it a couple weeks ago and I should have listened to myself, we need to get moving. I think we let things settle for a couple days, but after that, we leave. I want to go see Running Buffalo to let him know that what we leave behind, they are welcome to take.”

Ceara stepped up, “Are we going to have any type of service for Beth?”

Alden shook his head, “Nope, nothing formal, I think we all need to say our goodbyes in our own way.”

Ceara nodded, “Would it be okay if Charlie and I went for a ride?”

“Sure, don’t see why not. Just take one of the dogs with you.”

“We can take Crixus; he is taking after Tonto a lot.”

Alden smiled, “Yeah, he is going to be a good dog. You guys get going; I want to have a meeting tonight to talk things through.”

Alden sat by the radio as it scanned through the channels. He wrote down the bits and pieces of info he could gather as the signal would fade in and out. Taking out his atlas, he plotted the locations as he figured out where the groups were. The information was vague and amateuristic.

He knew the groups that sent the safe passage locations were mostly coming from what used to be California. He chuckled to himself on these, “Yeah Pedro, I’m sure you’ll just share up your tacos and lettuce, while you shoot us all in the back.”

A few others were more believable. Over the weeks, Alden and Charlie had figured out that the ones that proclaimed religious views were the worst of the bunch. Most of the chatter that had come from Utah had been proven, within just a few short days, to be nothing more than traps. Some fortunate souls who had survived had put out warnings every day until their signal finally faded out.

Alden had figured that group had headed north towards Idaho or even Canada. Some of the scuttlebutt had said that Canada had been cleaned. That the borders had been shut down within days of the breakout, unlike America’s southern border which had been an unprotected sieve since way before the horror started. Some chatter had even blamed the disease on the illegals that had been pouring across for the last couple of years.

Alden turned the radio off and leaned back placing his hand behind his head. He heard Tonto walk up to lie down at his feet. Sitting up, he reached down and scratched him behind his ears, “You know old friend, with winter only a couple of months away, it might not be a bad idea for us to move north. Get our asses somewhere up into Colorado, outside one of the little towns at the beginning of the mountains. We could stockpile some wood and with the supplies we have, we would only need some meat.” Tonto shook his head then flipped Alden’s hand and gave it a lick.

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The stream was very pleasant to listen to as Tabitha and Colt began approaching it. “Tabitha, I just don’t think that I am going to be up to this right now, to be honest with you.”

Tabitha found a spot to sit and silently placed her stuff down then slowly walked her way over to Colt. “I won’t ask you to think. All I do ask is for you to fish and try to live just for this moment.”

Tabitha looked down as she saw a few trout and bass flow by, then she looked back up to Colt, “I know that Alden HATES trout, bass is liked by most, and I sure know that I would love to catch some damn catfish. Have a good old fashion fish fry.”

Colt stood there for a moment as a smile began to appear at the corner of his mouth. “When Jessica and I would go off on one of our hikes, we would sometimes end up setting up camp for the night. I am a bass man, but Jessica loved catfish and that woman could fry them up almost as good, if not better, than my bass.” Chuckling softly then feeling bad for even doing that, he bent over, picked up a pebble and chucked it off across the stream.

Tabitha stood there, put her hand on Colt’s shoulder, “You know, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, and you sure as hell don’t have to be afraid of breaking down in front of me. I’m your friend Colt, so let’s just sit down and catch dinner.”

Colt looked over at Tabitha, kind of amazed; she wasn’t the type of woman to talk about things. She was more like a tomboy, than a girlie girl. There was no doubt that she had been through so much in her past; Colt began to wonder just how much. It didn’t matter now, Tabitha was right, dinner needed to be caught and all the talk about fish had caused him to get hungry.