Surviving Day By Day (Book 1): So it Begins (26 page)

Beth stood and brushed herself off. Her legs were tired but she felt more like continuing with her introduction while standing in case she was going to be attacked eith
er by them or the infected, she w
ould be able to get away quicker.

“So most of the new personnel t
hat they brought in were young
er
;
under the age of twenty five who
m spent most of their past time
playing Left For Dead but instead of bombs being the way to get rid of the world
’s enemies,
well…. these idiots decided to use
b
io-terrorism. We survived plagues, smallpox and most recent before all hell broke loose small outbreaks of anthrax.

Together with state & local health departments, poison control centers, & other public health professionals were able to pin point and get rid of all traces before too many civilians lost their lives. Grant you, th
ere were a few that died. That wa
s to be expected. However
,
with how fast our agency ran we were always right on top of it within the first 72 hours.
”

Beth knew that just as she had with Colt she was once again rambling

“
Now, as your aware Alden, which I think you are, given the fac
t of how you made reference to us
as being
‘c
upcakes
’.”

Beth thought immediately of the term
the young man said
he used when she began to bring up the recent events and thought that would be a good reference to show her side of the case.

“The CDC lost a lot of seasoned peo
ple and the young ones or as you call them, ‘
cupcakes
’ were
left them to run
around not only untrained but unsupervised. I believe this is what caused
this global disease or outbreak.
”

She needed to shut up, she needed to find out just how other survivors would see her, but at the same time she wanted to defend herself.

“
I had the day off when the outbreak hit and was told about it from one of my co-workers
who, unfortunately,
had been working that day. Now, I don’t think that it started in our branch but I have my suspicions that it started up north and with the way that it spread there would of been no way to contain it in the first 72 hours. By the seventy second hour probably a third of the population had been infected
. T
hose who were attacked were infected at the first drop of blood, scratch or maybe even kiss. I don’t believe that it is airborne or we all would not be standing here right
now
talking to one another. I don’t know what actually happened that caused the outbreak but I can tell you that the last text I got from was from one of my co-workers Chad Evert and he simply said, “It’s o
ver…. Get out and save yourself;
it’s too late for us!”

Charlie stood and listened to the new
girl’s
background
. He looked to Ceara who was just staring with tears in her eyes, then to Tabitha who looked well… just pissed. Alden on the other hand sat sipping his water just listening. He showed no emotion
.

Charlie thought, “That man must be made of steel or stone.”

He looked towards the new guy and could tell he had heard this before and was still uncomfortable with it. As Beth finished Charlie went to step forward and Ceara grabbed his hand. He turned to her, “I’m okay I got this,” turning back he mumbled, “I think
…
”

He picked up a piece of wood and put it on the small fire. He looked to Alden once more and their eyes met. He knew Alden would make the final call so blowing up at this point was not an option but he had to say something, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?”

Alden took a sip of water, “Charlie enough,” he said in a quiet but firm tone.

“FUCK BOSS
,
DID YOU HEAR WHAT SHE JUST SAID.”

Alden stood and reached for Charlie’s hand in a fatherly fashion, as he took hold he grabbed Charlie’s thumb and twisted it back causing Charlie to go t
o his knees, “OWWWWWW”

Alden looked down “
I said
…
enough.”

Giving Charlie one more look, Charlie backed down, “alright
,
alright you don’t have to tear my thumb off.”

Alden released him and looked first to Tabitha who was both fuming and frightened,
and then
to Ceara who was holding herself back. Alden was more worried about Ceara than Tabitha. Tabitha was angry and she was not hiding it, Ceara on the other hand was plain pissed and hurt, he felt she could go either way, sit down and cry or jump and claw the new girl’s eyes out.

He walked over to her and reached down taking her hand in his gently. “It’s alright” was all he said to her as he wiped a tear from her eye. Charlie got up and went to Tabitha, “What the fuck?” he whispered to her, “He damn near breaks my thumb but tr
eats her like a little kitten?”

The rage in Tabitha was mounting to the point that if she would of been an atomic bomb she would have been ready to hit the earth and be a mushroom cloud. But after seeing Charlie back down
when
Alden showed his authority
,
Tabitha remembered what he was like when she had her first run in with him and really didn’t want him to get rough with her. After Charlie whispered in her ear Tabitha patted him on his knee saying, “You play nurse to your thumb there and I got this one….”

She began to pace back and forth in front of Beth just glaring at her and before she could engage her brain Tabitha’s mouth shot off, “Ya know… Beth is it??”, she asked sarcastically then continued, “A lot of the fucktards out there in the world needed to be gotten rid of and I totally get that
,
but to wipe out the whole entire world is a bit fucking much if ya ask me! Then ya stand there blaming the so called President for his budget cuts and spending shit is about the same as the; he said, she said crap, and I am about sick and tired of that too.”

She stopped pacing and stood right in front of Beth looking her straight in the eyes. With her hands on her hips leaning into her, nose to nose, “We have been put through hell
,
Beth! We have lost our loved ones….at least my friends here did… I did not have anything to lose so I gain a whole hell of a lot right here. I am not mad at you per say but what I am mad is the fact that everyone around here or that use to be in the world use to respect and look up to government agencies. Hell, even the mother fucking Police Officers and now you tell me that the whole reason that this shit is going to hell in a hand basket is because the whole government FUCKED US?!?!!? Well if that don’t take the goddamn
cake I don’t know what will!!!”

Colt walked over shoving Tabitha, looking at Alden, “Is this the way you welcome everyone?”

Pointing back toward Beth, “Did you all MISS that she said it wasn’t in her location??? Yeah when she told me earlier today I was pissed but she lost her family too! Let me ask you guys this…. Did any of you vote for that guy? Did you put him in office? My wife did, does that mean she is responsible for this shit too?”

Colt walked to the edge of camp, “You guys are acting the same way I did so thanks for showing me what an ass I was!”

Beth looked over her shoulder to him to see if he mean
t what he said and he shrugged,

“Sorry about earlier, still ain’t happy about where you come from, but you can’t control the world! So I will just judge you for who you are
now and that seems okay to me.”

Ceara just stood listening and she knew someone was to blame for this but really
,
did it matter now? What the hell good did it do to find who was at fault? She glanced to Alden whom seemed amused by the newbies.

Ceara finally stood,
“Ok, so we kind of know how it started
,
but we still have no clue how to stop it and to me that seems to be the more important objective.”

Tabitha was spitting nails still
,
so Ceara went to her, “Tab
itha
, listen I know you want answers and you ain’t no different than we are. It may just be me
,
but it kind of seems like a good thing we got her with us, we are a bit more informed now right?”

Tabitha glared at her, and it was Ceara’s turn to shrug, “Alrighty then, Alden
, do you think I
am
right in this?”

Alden smiled at Ceara as Tonto and Maximus stood and growled at the new guy, “Yeah cupcake two, you
’
r
e
right. Beth
,
you and I are going to talk a little more in depth later.”

He turned to
Colt;
the young man looked like he’d be more at home behind a bank counter than out here in the woods. Getting right up to him, face to face
,
Alden’s voice deepened and went cold, “I’m going to give you a pass this one time but don’t you ever lay a hand on any of these ladies again.”

His eyes were almost narrow slits when he stepped back, “Now as far as how we treat and greet. I’ve had to kill several men
already who wanted to make nice-
nice with me and Charlie here. So we just ain’t up to all the Hi
,
how are ya’s.
Let me be the first to inform you, t
his ain’t no Lions club pancake breakfast.”

He looked to Beth and then back to Colt, “I’m guessing you two kind of found each other the way we have, so now we’re all here together. I know what Beth has seen and that information is handy. Now, how about you? You got anything to add? Cause frankly Charlie and I know enough to scare the bejeezus out you.”

Colt didn’t back down from the old man, “I wouldn’t have had to do anything if your girl there, hadn’t seemed ready to attack. I
’m
damn sure am not the type to put hands on women
,
so you can take that for what it’s worth. But
just
like you
,
I am not going to just sit back and let one of mine be attacked. Wouldn’t be much of a man if I did, now would I?”

He went and sat by Beth, “I have a much shorter story, the virus hit, the monsters attacked, my wife died and here I am.”

He leaned on his knees and picked up a stick drawing in the dirt then looked back to Alden, then to the others in the group, “Seems to me, we’ve been answering the questions, what abou
t you guys. What’s your story?”

Alden glared at the young man, then smiled a little at Beth. He sat back down on his log and Tonto walked over and sat right beside him
, h
is chest broad with the reddish and white markings
dancing in the fire light
. Maximus taking Tonto’s lead sat next to Ceara. Alden picked up his water took a big long drink then he began to tell Beth and Colt, all about the fights from when he left his little place back in Arkansas up to the last battle. He let them in on the Military groups he had encountered.

“So you see kiddies
,
not everyone or everything is as it seems to be. Preachers can be murderers in this day
in age
. Now we have a nice little camp here but it’s getting a bit crowded. We got some left over fish over there, it’s a bit cold but you can warm it in that skillet. Then my suggestion would be we rest, clean our weapons and get to know each other. I’ll check my traps later see if we can rustle up rabbit or squirrel for tonight’s meal. Tomorrow we need to find some more permanent structures to hold up in. Tents and trucks and vans just ain’t secure enough for my tastes.”

Colt looked to Beth and she nodded, and he spoke up. “Well we spent last night in spot about an hour’s hike from where you found us. It had three cabins and we already cleared them once. There’s like two bedrooms each and the middle one had this big garage or shed out back that this motor or engine thing in it.”

Alden got up walked over to the cooler by the truck and took out a beer. Walked back over to Colt opened and handed it to him, “Well now cupcake five you just made my fucking week.”

He walked away smiling shaking his head and looked at Tabitha, pointing back to Colt, “A big engine thing,
t
hat’s great. We could use a little electricity.”……….

Alden woke before the sun
came up; he just laid
there letting his brain clear
. H
e heard the first chirp of the birds greeting the new day. Rolling out of his bag he stood and saw Charlie nodding off by the fire, he had drawn last watch.

He smiled a little and headed to the shower house making sure the screen door didn’t slam. After relieving himself he went to the wash basin and turned on the water and splashed it on his face. “Oh Ugh,” he moaned as the mineral water with its rotten egg smell washed the sleep from him.

Walking back out he went first to the fire to grab his coffee pot
,
then to his truck to get it
to fill it
with fresh water. As he added some wood to the
fire Charlie sat up with a jerk,
Alden was quick with a hand to his shoulder
.

“It’s alright son it’s just me. I’m getting the coffee on it’s about five a.m. if you want to, go crawl in my bag and catch a few winks. After yesterday I think the rest of the cupcakes will sleep till seven or eight.”

Charlie stood, “Sorry boss
,
for sleeping on guard duty.”

Alden chuckled, “Go… if it was guard duty I would have tied your shoe laces together and thrown water on you to teach a lesson.”

It didn’t take long for the coffee to boil. He poured a cup and went to the truck taking out a map of the park he walked over to the picnic table and laid it out. The sun was breaking through the trees and he could tell that it was going to be a warm day. Taking out a pencil he marked four different sets of cabins on the map
,
one he X’d off, as it was off behind where they were
,
which left just three.

Studying it and using the land marks he
had seen as he evaded the dead
heads
,
he was able to mark off one more leaving just the two.

Taking a sip of coffee he reached into his cargo pants and pulled out a tipped cigar and lit it. “I hope one of the new kids paid attention or this will be a long day hunting for those cabins.”

He walked back over to the fire poured another cup and turned on his log to face the sun rise. “Yeah it’s
going to be a good day to die.”

The scent of coffee passed through the air and landed right in Beth’s nose. While taking in another deep breath she slowly began opening her eyes. Surprisingly she had survived the night and was amazed that no one from the group had killed her.

Beth
had still
felt some of the tension
hanging in the air
before she had drifted off to sleep.
However with the smell of coffee
and seeing Alden was an eye opener. She didn't realize she had been living with complete insecurity. With his presence there was now
a
security she hadn't felt since it all started weeks ago
.

Unzipping her bag Beth pulled her legs up to her chest and began to
rub
the sleepiness out of her eyes. Then as she ran her fingers through her hair
;
Beth started to stand up and stretch quietly. Looking around Beth noticed that everyone
except Charlie was
still sound asleep and she didn’t want to wake any of them, especially Colt.

For some reason Beth felt so sorry for him because of his loss of Jessica. She even felt responsible in some way, but knew that the events that took place weren’t her doing. However she still felt ashamed, especially when Beth the thought of what she had to
do to her family back at home.

Slowly she made her way over to the shower house and when she had passed Alden
,
Beth nodded and softly said, “Morning, I will be right back.”

Once inside she went about her usual morning routine of just going to the bathroom.
She had planned on brushing her hair and teeth but she realized
she didn’t have a tooth brush or even a brush so when she was finished she made her way over to the mirrors and turned on the water.

Quickly she did a cleanup of herself and tried as best as she could to make herself half way presentable. When finished she made her way back out by the camp fire and rubbed her wet hands together. “Alden, I trust that you slept well. I did as best as I could.”

Shying
as she spoke her last word,
Beth really did not have any idea of what to say to Alden because for one
,
he was completely unreadable last night
, T
wo
,
she felt she had said enough and thought if Alden wanted to talk he
was capable of doing just that.

As Charlie
was getting situated
into his sleeping bag Ceara woke up, “Is it morning already?”

Sleepily she rolled over toward him, he covered up relaxing back on his pillow, “It’s morning but you don’t have to get up just yet.”

Ceara hugged her pillow, “Good, coffee may wake others up but sleep does m
e wonders.”

Both closed their eyes and nodded off. Colt had heard the short conversation and his thoughts went to how comfortable this group sounded around each other.
He got up and headed for the tree line.

Beth was at the fire with Alden when Colt had got back from Mother Nature’s bathroom. He saw the map on the table, “Sir, is this the park? What are the circles?”

Stifling a
yawn, “Ok, maybe that will wait…
mind
if I have some of that coffee?”

Alden stretched and t
urned to smile at Beth first, “
No worries Miss, I was just meditating I do it every morning that’s why I didn’t say anything.”

He stood and looked at Colt, “Go ahead and grab a cup of my lifer juice, and please do not call me Sir again. I am
a retired First Sergeant, a Non-
Com we worked for a living unlike the officers I served under. I’m glad you two are up I need to be able to prick your minds as to where these cabins are.
”

Alden looked over to Colt, “
I know things got hectic for you two right before we showed up. Get some Coffee both of you and come back here to the table. Beth over there in that wood box by the truck you’ll find some powdered cream and sugar if you need it.”

He set his mug dow
n and took a seat at the table.
Beth saw the mugs lined up on the adjacent log that was
right
by the fire. After making her way over
she picked up the tin army mug, turning to the
coffee
she
began pouring
and the smell made it feel like this was nothing more than a campout
.

With her coffee now in hand she made her way over to the picnic table blowing it to cool it down along her way. Taking a sip Beth remarked, “Alden, you make a great cup of coffee if I do say so myself.”

She never liked cream
,
sugar or any of the foo foo stuff. “As for the condiments Alden, I like mine black but thank you kindly for the offer. I never was much for that stuff and when we were
in college
we didn’t have much time to add a splash of anything. All we had time for was just hoping it was hot and getting to our next class as soon as we had too.”

Finding her seat Beth took in the beautiful sunrise then looked down at the map. Colt nodded to Alden, “Thank you si… ummm Alden, I’ll join you in just a sec.”

He went to the fire grabbing one of the turned over tin cups in one hand and the old tattered dish towel that was thrown over the log in the other to get the hot pot of coffee. Once he poured his cup he went to the back of the truck to look for the cream and sugar. Picking up this and that, looking in and around other things, muttering under his breathe, “Damn what don’t this guy have in here? Well
…
everything
except
cream and sugar.”

He turned back to Alden, “Sir, where did you say the cream and sugar is?”

Alden rolled his eyes, and smiled at Beth then turned. “Next to the rear tire there is a brown wooden camp box, lift the latch, open the lid. Inside on the left hand side you’ll find the cream and sugar.”

Looking back to Beth, “Please tell me he is just waking up and ain’t really that dense.”

It was more of a statement than a question. Colt went to the side of the truck retrieving the cream and sugar. He glanced back to the table wondering if he would ever like the old man, seemed to him that Alden was just a little to prepared for the whole world to go to shit. With his coffee made and the condiments replaced
,
he joined Alden and Beth at the table.

He took a small drink then set it aside and began looking at the map, “How did you come across a map of the park?”

Alden looked at him then at Beth, “When you
first
came into the park there was a little Ranger shack
;
right outside was a rack full of maps. Didn’t either of you think to get one?”

He chuckled took a sip and smiled at them, “and now with the whole world gone to shit, the poor yuppies with their GPS units are just shit out of luck ain’t they. I always told my troop’s one of the most important things I’ll ever teach you is how to read
a $2.00 compass and use a map.”

Listening to Alden talk about all the yuppies
caused Beth to damn near spit her coffee out of her mouth
because she herself, had used her phone’s GPS to get out
.

“Well, I haven’t quite heard it put that way but I can
tell you Alden that even a Tom-
Tom makes errors big time when it tells you to turn right and if
they
would turn right then they would sometime
s turn into a brick wall. O
ne time when I was going north to Illinois I was using mine and it said “Turn right in 20 feet and I was just going across the mighty Mississippi River. I was like, “Seriously?” “How?!?!”

Beth was trying to lighten the mood just a bit, n
ot wanting Colt to feel uncomfortable because she knew that all he was trying to do
was find out what was going on.

Colt smiled, “Well, GPS isn’t what I was concerned with and
believe it or not,
I do know how to read a map.”

Tapping the map, “We’re here, I see that and you marked that cabin site off. A bit
too
far north and considering that we came from the south that stands to reason to mark it off. We came in on this road.”

His finger trailed a road several miles from their camp. Beth broke down I would say about here.”

He showed Alden where he thought her car was with the rest of her supplies.

“We didn’t go more than a few more miles so I am guessing this is the site.”

Colt circled one of the sites, “Least I think I’m right with that guess.”

Alden smiled, “Good job son. You’d be surprised how many people wouldn’t even been able to remember where there car broke down let alone where they came in at.”

He stood and walked over to the fire and poured another cup of coffee. Then turned to the couple at the table he motioned with his hand to put theirs over their ears. Both looked at him puzzled till they saw him pull out a shiny whistle from under his shirt. It was attached to a chain which held Alden’s dog tags. Beth and Colt took the hint and quickly covered their ears just as Alden blew hard three times.

Tonto jumped up and looked directly at Alden and went to his side and started to bark. Maximus jumped up and landed on top of Charlie barking wildly. This caused Charlie to try and jump up but with the dog on him he could only manage to roll and yelled, “GODDAMN, SON OF A BITCH WHAT THE FUCK???”

Ceara tried to move but Maximus’ paws were holding her bag down. Alden yelled out, “RISE AND SHINE CUPCAKES; DROP THE COCKS AND
GRAB THE SOCKS IT’S MORNING!!”

Ceara yanked the sleeping bag out from under Maximus, “Get OFF!”

Maximus took off to pace by Alden still trying to figure out what to do when that sound happened. Ceara reached over grabbing her jeans and shoved them down into the sleeping bag to get dressed. Laying down she pulled them up and unzipped
the bag and threw the top back,

“Nice Alden! What would you have done if EITHER of us took a gun to bed and just started shooting?”

She sat up running her fingers through her hair and smacking her lips. Morning mouth always drove her crazy. Crawling to the end of her bag she finally stood
,
stretched and yawned.

Glaring at Alden,
“I’ll be back.” She went to her jeep and grabbed her bag then headed to the shower. Fifteen minutes later she was back at the campfire. “Ok I cooked last night,
who’s making breakfast?”

Tabitha was slipping into her jeans while everyone was moving about camp. Watching Ceara get all stirred up about getting the crap scared out of her caused Tabitha to laugh out loud. Smelling the coffee made her quickly gather her stuff together from the night before and neatly placed it over at her own little corner of the camp.