The ground was covered with patches of frost during the following week, and there was a definite chill in the air, particularly in the early morning and after sunset. Tyreese and Noah ventured out into the forest and felled some trees. Once they brought their rough lumber back to camp Tara, Gabriel and Eugene busied themselves chopping the large timber into smaller, more manageable pieces, and then removing the smaller branches and putting them into a separate pile.
"We can use this," Rosita said as she carried out a large piece of canvas she'd found out to the "chopping" area, "to carry and distribute the wood to the various fireplaces."
Carl and Rick gathered small amounts of the cut wood and placed them in the discarded pup tent Rosita had found. "Good thing there aren't any Park Rangers around," Rick chuckled, "we could get arrested for desecrating a National Forest!"
"Remember that story you told me about driving to the Grand Canyon when I was a baby," Carl said to his father.
"You mean when you turned into Mt. Carl, the Barf Volcano?" Rick asked with a smile. Seconds later his mind wandered back to that trip… with Lori… It surprised him to realize that he hadn't thought about her in such a long time, until Abraham got his cold and now this. He remembered that vacation trip…how he'd argued with Lori about the wisdom of driving 2,000 miles in a car with an infant. "It's a historic landmark, it will be educational for him," Lori had told him. "Educational?" he remembered countering. "He's a baby, he doesn't even know his A-B-Cs yet!" Lori had looked imploringly at him. "Rick, I need to get away. I need to see something other than rural Georgia. I've barely left this house since Carl was born." His stomach clenched up for a moment at that memory – how he'd thought for a fleeting second that Lori would have preferred to leave Carl with her parents or someone else and just go off on a road trip without him.
"Gross, Dad," Carl's voice brought Rick's mind back to the present. "I was gonna ask if the Grand Canyon was a National Forest, too."
"There are National Forests around it," Rick replied, "but the actual Grand Canyon is a National Landmark."
"What's the difference – " Carl started to ask before Eugene interrupted him.
"The fact is that the Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. The gorge is more than one mile deep and was created by over 250 million years of erosion. It is often referred to by geologists as 'The Basement of History'".
"Wow," Carl was impressed. "What's 'erosion'"?
"It's the wearing away of soil and rock over time by various forces of Nature, particularly water. Primarily the Colorado River."
"No wonder my dad used to complain if I didn't shut the faucet off properly and it dripped," Tara quipped as she bundled up the canvas filled with wood.
"Hold on, let me give you a hand," Abraham called out when he saw her struggling with heavy load. Together they carried the bundle to the rack that had been moved nearer to the front doors of everyone's living quarters.
"How's your cold?" Tara asked as they stacked the wood. Abraham seemed to be sneezing less, but she did notice with some amusement that his nose was almost as red as his hair.
"I guess I'm on the mend," he replied hesitantly. "The sneezing seems to have subsided a bit, but all is not well mucous-wise…I'm having to blow my nose so much I'm suffering from skin chafage."
Tara tried not to smile. "Suffering from what?"
"Chafing of the flesh on and around the nose," Abraham almost barked at her.
"Oh," she replied. "I think Beth has a large jar of Vaseline that you could probably use to treat the chafing."
"Maybe," he said, eyes closed in pain. "I don't know if any over-the-counter unguent can cure this. I only hope that my facial flesh won't start rotting away like that of the Walkers…."
Tara was about to ask the man if he hadn't had a common cold at least one time when he was a kid, but she paused and remember the conversation she'd had with Allison a few days previous while they were doing laundry.
"Are you sure Abraham's going to be OK?" Tara had asked. "He's a big muscular guy, and was in the military, so if he's complaining so much his symptoms…. I dunno, are you sure it's not pneumonia or something? And can the rest of us catch it?"
Allison smiled as she scrubbed a pair of Daryl's trousers and noticed some holes that would require mending. "Trust me, he'll be fine. It's a cold, it hasn't infected his lungs and he'll recover." She rinsed and squeezed Daryl's pants. "I remember many patients similar to Abraham barging into the Emergency Room where I was working who insisted they were dying of West Nile Virus or E-bola or some other dreaded disease, simply because they were coughing and sneezing and they were producing a lot of mucous…sorry, not to gross you out…. But anyway, many of them were policemen or ex-military who'd, according to them, survived gunshot wounds by walking it off. So when I told them after I examined them that what they had was just a cold or maybe a sinus infection they got absolutely irate. As if there was no way they could succumb to such a common ailment as a 'cold'! They wanted more tests!"
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In the days that followed, only Rosita and Eugene seemed to have caught Abraham's cold. They were less fussy as patients, and it made sense to Allison that they'd become infected since they were the two who stayed closest to him. But still, Allison wondered…during those times on guard duty when her mind had time to meander… Usually the cold virus had to be transmitted from one infected person to another… But then colds had always been a medical mystery…how many times had she heard someone remark "We can send men to the Moon but we can't cure the common cold!"? Nevertheless, the virus had to have started from someone or some place… They'd all been living in such an isolated community for so long… Why, after all this time, did someone finally come down with a cold? She made a mental note to interview Abraham when he was feeling better and more patient and receptive to her questioning.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
Glenn and Maggie were taking advantage of a rare afternoon when they were all alone and neither one of them had an assigned duty. Maggie clutched a handful of Glenn's hair and pulled his head against her bosom. He had difficulty taking one nipple into his mouth since most of his brain function was focused elsewhere, as he bucked against Maggie and she raised her hips and ground against him. Moments later Glenn's tongue had to let go so that he could concentrate on grunting with almost animal pleasure as Maggie reached her climax. She entwined both of her hands into his thick, luxurious hair and pulled his lips down to hers, muffling her moans of pleasure into his mouth.
Glenn collapsed on top of Maggie, trying to catch his breath. Maggie gently caressed his cheek and then whispered, "You are so beautiful," as she gazed into his eyes.
Glenn kissed the tip of her nose and then said, "I think that's supposed to be my line." He rolled over onto his back. He tried to fight off the sleepiness that was engulfing his brain. He cuddled close to Maggie and kissed her cheek. "I know that you think I'm beautiful," Maggie's voice was barely audible as she spooned against Glenn. "You've told me many times. But I want you to know that you are…beautiful….to…..me….." She fell sound asleep, but it didn't matter because Glenn had started snoring a few seconds ago.
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"If we're going to stay here for the next month or so," Carol commented to the group at dinner, "maybe we should start saving some of the canned goods that we have and rely on what meat and vegetables we can find here."
"You mean keep a stash of canned soups and vegetables packed away in case we need to evacuate on a moment's notice?" Eugene clarified.
"Yes," Carol replied. "Before the ground gets frozen, we should probably scavenge as many vegetables as we can and store them for the Winter." She glanced at Noah. "Didn't you mention before that you'd found patches of carrots and turnips and potatoes growing while you were out and about?"
"Radishes and mushrooms, too," Gabriel commented. "We've all seen lots of edible vegetables growing throughout this park. Might I suggest that we start harvesting whatever edibles we find while out on guard duty? Maybe carry bags and spades as well as our regular weapons to collect food."
"Makes sense," Merle acknowledged. "Between me and Daryl and the kid"- he nodded at Carl – "we'll probably be able to hunt enough meat and fish to last us."
"Before the temperatures dip below freezing," Noah hesitantly spoke, as if he automatically thought everyone would doubt his expertise, "we could dig some deep holes and line them with straw and grass and stuff…make a sort-of freezer."
"What do you mean?" Tyreese asked.
"I read about it in one of my National Geographic magazines once…how people in freezing climates would use the ground as a natural freezer. You just pack the meat or whatever in some hay or grass or…whatever… and store it in the ground below the frost level."
"Who'd-a thought that those ol' National Geographic magazines were useful for anything more than looking at topless native women," Merle laughed while slapping Noah on the shoulder in a "congratulations"-type gesture.
During the following weeks, helping to dig a subterranean food storage unit was added to everyone's daily list of chores, along with finding vegetables, hunting for game, and maintaining guard duty.
‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡ ‡
On the day that the group had decided would be Thanksgiving, they feasted on three Canadian geese that Merle and Carl had hunted. Actually, they'd brought back five geese. Merle had gruffly instructed Carol, Sasha and Tara to "pluck and clean" the other two and store them in the "freezer". "Just in case," he'd added, "we don't find more meat before Christmas."
Gabriel invited everyone to join hands at the dinner table while he gave a brief blessing. "Maybe we could, while we enjoy this bounty – " he paused because everyone had started digging into their food immediately after he'd said "Amen" – "each share a reason to be thankful on this and every day."
"I'm thankful that we're all still here, together, as a family," Glenn commented. "Sometimes I think back to the beginning of this…whole thing…on the roof of that office building – " He quickly glanced to his left, where Merle was sitting, hoping that he hadn't inadvertently stepped on a hornet's nest by bringing up that handcuffed-on-the-roof incident. " – I found Rick, or he found us….anyway, we found each other and we've come a long way since smearing ourselves in Walker guts to make our way to safety that day."
"You would've never met Maggie if I hadn't been shot," Carl piped up.
"That's true," Rick said. "And thanks to Hershel and Patricia and Otis you survived."
"And Mr. Hershel was kind enough to take us all in," Allison added. "Such a huge group just more or less showing up on his doorstep…" She didn't bother to mention actual numbers, lest the memories of Shane, Andrea, Lori and the others they'd lost would cast too much of pall on their dinner.
"That's just how Daddy was," Beth replied. "He was a Christian man and he helped anyone who needed it, whether it was an animal or a human."
"I'm thankful that Sasha and I found y'all. After staying with other folks along the way who turned out to be not what we thought, it was a blessing to find decent folks who all got along and treated each other with respect."
"Amen," Sasha murmured.
"I'm thankful for Allison stitching up my face and ear with that glue stuff, and also for Merle bringing me lotions to prevent scarring." She smiled almost bashfully while glancing sideways at Merle.
"Um," Merle was visibly embarrassed by her praise and everyone's eyes turning toward him. "I'm thankful that Gracie, er, Allison was there to treat me when I got shot."
"Just doing my job," Allison demurred, "and Mr. Hershel was there helping every step of the way."
"I'm thankful that I met Beth," Noah commented. "After my dad and I had left our house looking for help, I ended up at Grady Hospital. After a while I had no idea what was going on 'outside', I only knew what Dawn told me." His eyes clouded over momentarily. "Then Beth came and told me about the group she'd been with… That there were people that were…nice…" He closed his eyes and swiped away a tear with one hand.
"I'm thankful that there's a shit load of asswipe rolls in storage here so that I don't have to use my shirtsleeve to blow my nose," Abraham barked in an effort to lighten up the atmosphere.
"I am thankful that we've all learned how to defend ourselves against Walkers as a team," Carol stated. She glanced around the table. "I know some of you remember me when I was completely ignorant when it came to weapons…" Rick and Daryl understood her meaning; they both recalled the days when she was still skittish and afraid of almost everything, thanks to her abusive husband. "…and I'm grateful that you've all been patient with me while I learned how to handle a variety of guns."
"I'm grateful for the friends I've made since…well, since the whole prison thing," Tara said. "After I lost my dad and my sister, I never thought I'd have anyone close enough to me again that I'd call 'family'. I was wrong."
"I, too, am appreciative of this protective cocoon of people that we have amassed…" Eugene started to say.
"Oh, for Christ's sake," Rosita interrupted him impatiently, "just call it what it is. A family."
"Amen," the entire group said in unison.