Beth and I have been getting some things together to make the journey. We should have plenty of snacks and drinks to take. Sid should easily lead us to Charlie. We’ll just leash him and let him follow the scent. Beth is optimistic we may find survivors. I’m kind of hoping we just find some real ammunition, though the place probably only has blanks for their staged shows.
DAY - 55
I'm finding myself to be more arrogant towards this hell we are apart of. I locked the doors to the building, of course, as we left out before sunrise this morning and attached the keys to one of my other belt loops. They have been jingling all day. I didn't care one bit that I was giving away our position to whatever might lurk in the forest. I was actually hoping something would come to us. I really didn't want us sneaking up on something. With Sid on his leash and Beth and I lugging stuff with us, I just didn't like the idea of being caught in a position needing quick reflex. That and the fact that we may grow tired of hiking would be our demise should we come upon an unexpected fight. The jingling keys would have brought anything with ample hearing out enough in the open to give us more reaction time. Again, this was pure arrogance, and ashamedly, I admit it cost us.
I guess it was about noon when we had all reached the bottom of the mountain and had begun to scale the next one. The new mountain proved to have more of a rocky terrain and was much harder to climb. It made us slower and nowhere in any position to react to any kind of threat. The jingling of the keys had unknowingly led to us a more efficient threat than we had yet to encounter - a better hunter and a much worse ghoul of an animal - a bobcat. It waited until we found ourselves all atop a nice, flat 3 foot ridge in the rock, and then it attacked us. It was in much better shape than most of the animal ghouls we had seen so far. The bobcat was still nimble despite the cold - maybe it had just recently turned. It was everything Beth and I could do to keep our balance on that ridge. Sid, however, was much more nimble, and he yanked the leash from Beth and finally displayed the courage he had probably always had in him. He took to growling, barking and gnashing his teeth for our safety. Had Sid been just a bit less courageous, either Beth or myself could have taken out the bobcat in one shot. Sid was just too close. The bobcat kept close being combative also. Finally, the two tore into each other. Sid was pinned down at one point to where I got a shot off that completely tore the bobcat’s head in half and sent it rolling down the mountain.
Beth has been crying ever since. I usually wear a few t-shirts at once, so I took one off and made some bandages for Sid.
We have been struggling to bring him up the mountain and have finally reached the safest part of the peak that levels off a bit. I started a campfire quite a while ago and hope it won’t bring us anymore unwanted guests. Sid’s breathing is heavy, and he isn’t moving much at all. Beth and I are basically letting Sid suffer - not that we really want to, but we don’t want to really let go. I think we’re both still full of false hopes for any different an outcome.
DAY - 56
Somehow Beth and I found ourselves falling asleep last night.
Neither of us intended to. I especially feared falling asleep for the mere thought of Sid turning as soon as I did fall asleep. I would have been an easy meal - leaving the same fate to Beth, probably. But this morning we awoke to a dying fire of mostly hot embers and no Sid in sight. He’s gone. My first thoughts were that most animals do tend to wander off when they know it’s their time. I’ve always wondered why, but it has never been explained to my knowledge. I guess they sense that a cleaner goodbye is more appropriate - a walk off into the sunset, sort of.
Beth wanted to find him, and I struggled with her for quite some time to keep her from doing so. I do feel her pain, but I also sense something much more uncomfortable about it. I mean, what if Sid has only set a trap for us by looking for him? He would never intentionally do so, but it could turn out that way. I eventually got Beth on track with what we needed to do, and as we took our first daylight view over the other side of the mountain, things got a good bit more complicated. We saw over two other smaller mountains into a valley - the valley with the old west, ghost town attraction.
My eyes aren’t perfect, but I could see something moving there. I told Beth that we could either go back to our safe building or press on to that place which definitely has threats to deal with. Beth simply walked away from me and down the mountain, still on pace to reach the old west town. I know that I keep questioning her strength in certain situations, but I do it out of respect and for her safety - and she keeps stunning me with her confidence and grit. I love her. I’d love her anyway, but I’m passionate about her will to beat our every odds lined against us.
Just before dark, we spotted Charlie. We actually tracked his movement through the forest before we clearly saw him. In doing so, he actually led us around one of the smaller mountains on a path of sorts and up to a mid-peak rounding of the second mountain. Just as we rounded the second mountain, the entire old west town was much more visible at an angled birds-eye view. The layout is quite like those in the movies - just one street, really - probably only 20 buildings in all. My brain began devising a plan instantly. Beth then decided that she was going to attempt getting closer to Charlie for once. I’ll be damned, she actually just walked up to him, grabbed his reigns and tied them off to a tree.
I’ve started a campfire again, and actually, I used the last two matches I had to do so. Beth has been sitting upright on a rock Indian-style, just staring at Charlie with her hands gripped firm on her shotgun lying across her lap. I’ve tried to make her come lie down, but she is being either stubborn or psychotic in staying put. Something is on her mind, but I can’t figure it out. I’m going to sharpen the sword up just for the hell of it. I’ve got a town to clean up tomorrow.
DAY - 57
I really have to get a sleeping habit that’s safe. I awoke to a shotgun blast from Beth. Sid had tracked down Charlie and attacked him. Beth shot twice more before I was ready for fighting, and she had taken off one of Sid’s front legs and further wounded Charlie. I screamed for her to stop and raced in front of Sid as he was barely dragging himself towards us on the ground. Beth looked very distant. She clearly only wanted to kill him and be done with it. I wanted to send him off differently, though. I just needed a good moment to look at him in that horrible state to convince myself that he needed to be put out of his misery. I made it a quick beheading with the sword. Beth then walked up to Charlie and point blank shot him in the face. Charlie hit the ground quick - blood everywhere behind him. There was absolutely no compassion on Beth’s face. I made it a point very quickly to console her.
She didn’t seem to respond to anything I said or did until I kissed her long and hard. I needed her to keep it together. I need her to stay sane, or else I’m not far b
ehind her.
By late morning, we were finally done with Sid’s makeshift grave. Beth finally broke down into tears. I shed a few myself. I’m going to miss him. Soon after, we began scoping out the town from our bird-eye view. I told Beth that with the wide, dirt streets we could have it pretty easy. The snow is melted quite well, the dirt streets were more than likely thick mud and there should be plenty of reaction time for us. Whatever ghouls were there would almost definitely come after us - out of the woodwork for a meal.
We finally stepped foot onto the muddy street of the old west town. We had our guns ready and our blades ready as well. I swear we stood firm for the longest time. Nothing was coming. I was more worried than I had ever been because I knew there was something here. Finally I just led us to what was a hardware store. It was truly set up like the old west, but it had real items on the shelves. I got more matches. They have some canned foods and candies. There are even some very ornate hunting knives inside a nice glass case - it was a nice case, but then I broke it to pocket a few of the knives. We have since been inside this one store, and although the structure of the door and windows didn’t seem even halfway secure, we were warm in here and began eating like pigs.
Then a ghoul came stumbling up to the door. It was dressed in full western wear minus the hat. The thing looked slow but had a real metal pistol in its hand and was about to start hitting the window with it. Instead of making our presence fully known in the darkness that had set in for others to come our way, I decided to open the door and let the thing lumber inside the store. Beth understood my reasons, too. She readied herself with one of the new knives and her hatchet. I was about to pull my sword until something hanging on the wall caught my eye. I may be just sadistic or completely losing it, but the thought of using an axe seemed to appeal to me. I grabbed the axe and began to chop away at the ghoul, which proved to be a tough job - like chopping frozen meat again. Beth helped me kick the pieces of it back outside. I don’t plan on sleeping much at all tonight.
DAY - 58
As much fun as the axe was, I didn’t grab it this morning when I awoke to two ghouls leaning and looking in through the store’s bay window. I grabbed my sword and moved slowly to the door. Beth was sound asleep, or so I thought. As soon as I went to open the door and dispose of the ghouls, which were women dressed like old school marme’s, Beth fired twice from her shotgun. Her aim, deadly accurate, shattered their heads and the window everywhere. I yelled at her for firing from behind me again. She didn’t care - just started getting more clothes on for warmth and gathered her things.
Her face distant and emotionless, is becoming less human to me. We need out of this place - to go back to our mountain lookout and hold up where I can take much needed time to console her. I made haste in getting my other clothes on and things together. I feared the shotgun blasts would just be a dinner bell for other ghouls. We took to the street - the ground much dryer. The sun was bearing down a lot, and I swear the temperature was a good 20 degrees above yesterday. I was getting warm in all of my clothes. Beth then decided she would just walk straight to the end of the street. She seemed to be taunting anything that would be near. She made it, though. Nothing showed itself at first, as I stood a good hundred yards away from her. She just stood there and turned to me with that blank look on her face. Then they came. There were more than either of us cared to count, we emptied our shotguns all too fast, and then we dropped them to run. Beth retreated into what looked like a stable. I took off to my left. The ghouls separated between us - two meals to choose from. I ended up in the town’s mock saloon. It has the swinging doors and everything - wholly authentic to old west details. I began knocking over the wooden chairs and tables and threw them over to one side of the huge room. I was worried about the huge windows of the saloon, but the ghouls all still came through the doors instead. I sprang upon the bar and began taking golf swings at the fuckers. Soon enough I had to jump back behind the bar and start swinging sideways for their heads. For every head that I managed to separate, I got the quick pleasure of seeing them roll off down the bar like bowling balls on a lane. Soon enough I was taking a quick count of eleven ghouls that I had made a mess of. I made my way to my shotgun out in the street and removed my last 3 shells to load it. I took off for Beth at the stable. Now, Beth isn’t the kind of girl that I ever would have had the pleasure of dating. I say that not to be modest, but because she is so tough that I look less like the man sometimes - the intimidation would have kept me away. But my girl, Beth had easily made her way up to the loft of the stable. Just as I entered the stable I saw her toss down a pitchfork into one of the ghouls head taking it down. She saw me, and then stopped. She just smiled. There were only two more ghouls that she had yet to take out. I readied my sword and let the two come a bit closer than usual, but I swung as hard as I could and cut deeply through their necks. The ghouls fell down, still squirming until I kicked their heads numerous times to fully rip their spinal nerves apart. Beth came down from the loft and began showing me how she had dispatched 13 ghouls herself. She had tossed down a shitload of steel horseshoes at their heads and the results were like tossing melons from a three story window - messy. As dark set in, we both decided that the loft was a nice place to sleep tonight.
Beth is letting me hold her, and I’m hoping it’s not just for warmth.
DAY - 59
Daylight reaches the stable loft a bit later than I am used to.
This valley that the old west town is set in really doesn’t get much decent light until what seems to be later in the morning. Case in point, we awoke at what seemed a later time this morning, but it was nice. Then the heat of the day really started to kick in. I’ll bet that it was about 70 degrees or warmer. Beth and I actually stripped down to just pants and T-shirts. And then, the heat started getting to the dead bodies of the ghouls. The smell was just a little bad, but we knew it would soon get worse, especially if this type of a heat wave was to keep up. I decided the smartest thing for us to do was to fully inspect the town, make sure we took out every ghoul and then find a way to start taking everything we could use back to our lookout building.
Late afternoon seemed to come quick, but at the price of seeing no more ghouls, it didn’t bother me as much. Beth came running from one direction she had checked. She was very excited and almost dragged me where she wanted me to go.
She then stopped behind the western most side of town behind the buildings and pointed up to the mountainside. There was the mining cave that was in the brochure about this place.
Better yet, she grabbed my head trying to direct my eyes in certain directions until I finally saw exactly what she wanted me to. There is a rocky, dirt road that somewhat ascends the mountain from behind it and then to the mining cave. Upon further focus, I made out what looks to be the top of a truck or SUV just over the
mountain parked on the other side of the makeshift road. The look on her face told me that she was more than game to trek up the mountainside to that vehicle.
We gather a lot of canned goods, some snack crackers and small, wrapped foods from the town store that I think must have really been serving as the snack bar/deli for tourists, and we also grabbed the knives and a few tools that looked somewhat helpful. Our backpacks and some old, burlap potato sacks now held our supplies. To save on lugging so much weight around, I decided to part with my shotgun and stick to my sword - still easily hanging in my belt loop. Beth gladly took my shotgun shells for her own as she still had about 7 more herself. She still has her hatchet, too.
We reached the mountain road and that particular crest of the mountain to witness a beautiful sunset over mountains as far as our eyes could see. The light oranges and pinks colored the few clouds that were in the sky. Beth wasted no time in checking out the vehicle - a Jeep SUV. We found ourselves lucky again. The Jeep had keys in the ignition but wasn’t turned forward any. Had it been different, we could be sitting still with a dead battery. As it turns out, though, Beth drove us from this mountainside road back onto a onelane highway. We’re still heading west, but at least this seems like a major road. I really haven’t paid any attention to road signs yet. We’re doing well on gas so far, but with this road there are sure to be some gas stations close. I’m actually not minding the thought of siphoning fuel. What is doing me in right now is that I had forgotten how reading and writing while in a moving car can make you feel nauseous.
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