Surviving Terminus (BOOK TWO IN THE SURVIVING THE WALKING DEAD SERIES)

Earned My Keep

     "How far out?" Rick asked Noah.

     "Five miles." Noah answered. Rick lifted his radio and placed it to his lips hiding under his manbush.

     "Hey, Carol."

     "I'm here." Carol answered back.

     "We're halfway there. Just wanted to check the range."

     "Everybody's holding tight. We've made it five hundred miles. Maybe this can be the easy part."

     "Gotta think we're due. Give us twenty minutes to check in."

     "We don't hear from you, we'll come looking."

     "Copy that." We all went over the plan at our last gas stop back in Reidsville, North Carolina. Rick, Tyreese, Noah, Michonne, Glenn, Scott, and I would take the lead car and scout the location while the others hung back until we gave the okay. Scott was hesitant on leaving Samantha behind, but I reassured him that Daryl and the others would protect her with their lives. Besides, this was his chance to prove himself useful and trustworthy to Rick, he had to take it.

     "I've been wanting to tell you something." Noah said to Tyreese.

     "What's that?" Tyreese asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

     "The trade. It was the right play. It worked. It did work. Just something else happened after."

     "It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to."

     "I never wanted to kill anybody before."

     "I've wanted that." Tyreese looked over at Noah. "But it just made it so I didn't see anything except what I wanted. I wasn't facing it."

     "Facing what?"

     "What happened, what's going on. My dad always told Sasha and me that it was our duty as citizens to the world to keep up with the news. When I was little and I was in his car, there were always those stories on the radio. Something happens a thousand miles away or down the block, some kind of horror I couldn't even wrap my head around. But he didn't change the channel, he didn't turn it off, he just kept listening, to face it, keeping our eyes open. My dad always called that the high cost of living."

     "My dad called that trainin'." I butted in. "My dad used to do the same thing to me, except he'd turn it into some kind of lesson. Said you can learn different ways of survival from every horror story the news spits out. Man gets murdered by a gang, ya learn to fight multiple people at the same time. Woman gets raped, ya learn to get the upper hand and escape. Shit like Fukushima happens again, ya learn to store food and survive without turnin' into the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

     "What happened to your dad?" Noah asked.

     "He shot himself when I was a kid."

     "I'm sorry." Noah sighed. "I know what it's like to not have a dad. I still got a mom and a couple of twin brothers. I hope."

     "I hope so, too." Tyreese smiled.

     "Two more miles."