One thing Eugene learned from his sojourn in the town near the church is that he's immensely tired of traveling. It becomes rather easy to take it slow around Senoia, hiding the Excursion amidst everything else abandoned and gleaning more supplies from the town and surrounding farms. October passed between leaving the others and coming to Senoia, and the digital watch he pilfered tells him it's Friday, November eleventh.
He and Belle are in the next town over from Senoia today, scavenging in a sporting goods store for ammo for the air rifle. Guns are noisy and never fail to trip him up somehow, but he's a Texas boy. Pellet guns are as familiar to him as breathing.
"The most glorious part of our endeavor here, Miss Pepper," he drawls, smiling a little goofily when her ears instantly perk up at the sound of his voice, "is that no one seems to look for our undeniable treasures at all."
The most complicated part of picking up the cans and boxes of pellets is silencing them so they don't rattle like he's summoning everything ravenous in a quarter mile radius. Belle snuffles his hand as he carefully breaks the seals and pours the pellets into leather pouches that muffle any noise. Pausing to scratch at her ears, he studies the aisle. There are always random things that get shuffled aside because the various looters go for the big and obvious, not always thinking of the pure usefulness of things that aren't flashy or easy.
"Bet we can utilize that paracord somehow, too. Only the tiny blades left in the knife section, but looks like someone missed a multi-tool. Those are far more handy to a tinkerer like me than some big ole hunting knife." The running commentary keeps him from going completely bonkers, and unlike everyone else he's ever met, Belle is actually enchanted by his babble.
Scavenging whatever looks useful, he fills his backpack fairly easily before making his way to the clothing area. Without fail, he can always find plenty of socks and underwear in these abandoned stores, and honestly, it's almost better than trying to wash them while on the move. Just as he hooks a net bag of underthings to his pack, Belle growls softly, tilting her head, and he freezes, listening intently.
They cleared the store while Eugene still had Belle tucked in the baby carrier on his chest. She'll be too big for that soon enough, but by then she'll be fast and nimble enough to outrun most of what might chase her. The sound is muffled, outside the store, so he isn't surprised Belle heard it first.
"Highest probability is that our unwanted noisemakers are walkers." Hell, the odds are more on walkers than humans, but Belle doesn't care. She doesn't dart off - he's trained her too well for that - but there's no doubt she's headed toward that sound.
The single dock door rattles, but it's locked from the inside, so whatever wants in is out of luck. Eugene is just fine with whatever it is staying outside, at least until he hears a muffled curse. Belle responds by whining, too cautious to bark, and running to the door as if she can scratch it open. Dull thuds and grunts tell him someone's fighting off walkers outside.
"You better hope we're not letting in a more terrible monster than the rotted ones that want to make tender morsels out of the pair of us."
Although after Terminus, he reminds himself that it doesn't just apply to the dead. He finds the latching mechanism that holds the door down and raps on the door once, hearing the "holy shit, thank god" and smiling just a little.
"If I unlatch this, can you drop to the ground and roll under?"
"Yes, dammit. Open the fucking door!"
Scooping Belle up and dropping her into the carrier with ease of practice, he unlocks the door and rolls it up about two feet, praying nothing dead drops to its knees to invade. A pack is shoved under, followed by a blonde girl rolling, but when he starts to close the door, she frantically grabs at it to stop him. Before he can demand to know what the hell she's up to, another pack slides under the door, followed by a cursing brunette who screams at him to shut the door fast.
It's an order he can happily follow.
They're both breathing hard as they get to their feet, something he recognizes as the combination of terror and adrenaline from his own close encounters. He's been very careful - and very lucky - since finding the puppy so that he doesn't get swarmed. Having Belle is a bonus to him always thinking ahead, because if he fucks up, it's not just his life on the line, and somehow, risking her is far different than the adult humans he traveled with for months.
Once the surge fades, they both eye him warily, and he doesn't miss that the brunette's hand hovers near her holstered gun. She scans him, noticing the knife on his belt and the air rifle strap across his shoulder. For once, he's glad his general appearance is non-threatening, and he makes it even less so by hooking one hand into the baby carrier strap while the other pets Belle gently.
"Store's secure," he says. "Just me and and the impeccable Miss Belle here inside. Doubt you'll need to call me anything, but Eugene works just fine if you do."
The rest of it doesn't matter anymore. Not his last name, and certainly not the education he wasn't lying about to Abraham, even if his career was nothing like the research one he planned when he got his doctorate. He's just Eugene now, best pals with Belle, and still planning on that Florida beach for the winter. Hopefully, the women have some place to go and just got caught out on a supply run or something.
To his surprise, the brunette defers to the blonde, taking her eyes off Eugene to look at the girl. In contrast to the brunette, who was more intent on any danger he might present, the blonde meets Eugene's gaze evenly. He squirms a little, noting she's not much older than the last students he had, before everything went pear-shaped, and he isn't sure why it feels like their ages are reversed. There's just something old and weary lurking behind those blue eyes, and he wonders how dire her life has been to age her so drastically.
After a moment, she tilts her head and makes a huffing sound that he doesn't recognize immediately, but her expression makes him think she's laughing. There's just no sound, and accompanied by the scarring on her throat, his concern about that world weariness grows even more. Kindness wasn't widespread even before the dead outnumbered the good.
At the blonde's nudge, the brunette speaks. "I'm Amanda, and she's Beth." No last names or details from them, either. He doesn't mind. Beth nudges Amanda again, accompanied by an exasperated eyeroll, which signals Amanda to speak again. "Thank you for opening the door."
"You're certainly welcome. I may not be anyone's definition of what a gentleman ought to be, but it was the decent and neighborly thing to do."
Belle wriggles and whines, and at the reminder, he slips her out of the carrier, completely unsurprised when she lopes over to Beth to snuffle at her boots. It takes exactly three seconds for Beth to fall for Belle's fluffy, tail-wagging cuteness. She kneels to pet the puppy, and Belle's contented little grunts and yips make even stoic Amanda almost smile.
"Are you alone?"
Amanda's question draws Eugene's attention back to her, and her tone is still suspicious and a little interrogatory. He shrugs, debating how much he ought to share, but before he can formulate an answer, Beth is on her feet and digging out a small notebook from a pocket on her cargo pants. She scribbles something down and holds it out for him to read, her expression hopeful.
Where Amanda puts him on edge, he finds he doesn't mind answering Beth's inquiry. "I haven't laid eyeballs on any living soul other than small wildlife and Bell since I've been perusing the area, but it's only been a fortnight. We were further north before we decided winter is better spent as far south as you can travel."
He considers Rick's group for a moment, but no one seemed to be looking for anyone, at least not after Terminus. Some of them couldn't seem to wait to have a reason to leave the area, at least until Eugene admitted he was leading them all on a wild goose chase. There's no telling where they are by now, since he never saw any sign of them near the church after he slipped away.
Beth closes her eyes, taking a deep breath before opening them again and writing something new.
Logically, though, he thinks about the tidbits the others shared. He'd realized he was in the area where the prison was when he stumbled across a former guard's home, but since none of Rick's people showed interest in returning to where they'd suffered such losses, he didn't figure they'd return. What are the odds that everyone found their way to Terminus? Pretty damn slim. There are probably plenty of survivors the others just didn't stumble across.
"What's your sister and brother-in-law's names?" he asks, hoping he's wrong that Beth was part of Rick's people.
When he's prepared to lie, Eugene has one hell of a poker face, he knows, but the consequences of months of lying seem to have burned the ability away. He doesn't even have to answer before both Beth and Amanda know from his expression that he recognizes the names Beth jots down on her notepad. Lying would be preferable to the truth. How does he tell Beth that her sister not only didn't look for her at all, but was willing to leave the state entirely?
"They were alive, both of them, last I saw them. Hale, hearty, and intent on each other like two lovebirds ought, end of the world or not," he says, hoping the partial admission will be enough, but knowing it won't be.
The joyful expression on Beth's face tells him the partial fib is worthwhile. The spiteful part of him is glad he doesn't know where Maggie is at all.
"Where?" Amanda demands, tugging Beth close when the girl starts to cry silently, still smiling.
"Up closer to Atlanta, what I approximate to be a suburb much like sprawls around Houston. Their people had taken up refuge at a church, but they weren't planning to stay there."
"Other than Glenn and Maggie, who else?"
Eugene lists off all the survivors, watching as Beth cries harder when he mentions the baby. She mouths the name over and over, interspersed with something he thinks might be "she's alive." He'd thought, with the way Rick snagged the baby as if his life depended on it, that the baby was Rick's, especially once Carl seemed to take over Judith's care. But Beth seems more emotional about Judith's survival than her sister's, so he wonders if the baby belongs to Beth. Rick wouldn't be the first older man Eugene's known to hook up with a girl half his age.
It's stupid of Eugene, a dumbass move to even consider returning to anywhere Abraham might be, but Eugene can't help but remember Tara's encouragement that he could be more than dead weight to whomever he traveled with. He's kept himself and Belle both alive for more than a month now with no one's help.
"I could lead you to where I saw them last. Blaze the trail, so to speak. Maybe they left some indication of where they'd head next?"
He doesn't blame either of them for their wary looks, but then Belle yips and nips at Beth's bootlaces, drawing Beth's attention. She squats down and picks up the puppy, cradling Belle even as Belle does her best to lick away all evidence of tears. To his surprise, Beth steps away from Amanda and comes closer, studying the empty carrier on his chest before easing the puppy into it and gently rubbing her hand across Belle's ears.
With a flourish of her hands, Beth shoos him toward the front of the store. He chuckles softly as he leads the way through the aisles, glad the place isn't as massive as the big superstores for sporting goods. Amanda is still wary, but for whatever reason, she's willing to let Beth take the lead, but he isn't surprised that she takes the rear position to guard their backs.
"Do you two have transportation of some manner?" he asks when they reach the registers. He hangs back, scanning the area he can see. Whatever walkers pursued the women seem to be still behind the building, but he won't take any chances. The moment he clears that front door, he's flat out running to his SUV.
"Yeah, but not near here," Amanda says. "Safer not to leave it in the open. Saves fuel, too."
It makes sense to him, so he nods before pointing to the abandoned restaurant across the street. "My safe haven on wheels is in the overgrown shrubbery behind the pizza place. I can give you a ride, or we can agree where to meet up."
He doesn't actually expect them to take him up on the offer. Something about Amanda screams wary professional, and he's betting she was military or law enforcement in her former life. She exchanges a look with Beth, who just smiles and reaches out to pet Belle once again.
Amanda sighs and surprises him. "Might as well hitch a ride. It's about a mile south hidden in a garage."
The coast remains clear, so Eugene eases the door open, looking each way and still seeing no walkers emerging from either side of the building. When he takes off running, they keep up easily, which isn't a surprise. He's lost weight in the last six weeks and shaped up out of necessity, but he's still nowhere near where he needs to be to survive in this world properly.
When they reach the Excursion, Amanda studies it for a minute, frowning. "This thing ought to burn through fuel like a tank."
"Ought to, yes, but I've reliably modified it to guzzle vegetable oil instead. Plenty of that sitting around rancid, and I save the viable diesel for starting the engine and warming the biofuel." Even as wary of walkers drifting their way as he is, he can't stop explaining the modifications. He hasn't had anyone but Belle to share them with.
Beth walks around the vehicle, head tilted and studying it before nodding approvingly. She exchanges a look with Amanda as Eugene unlocks the Excursion, but when they are still just watching when he puts Belle and his pack inside, he realizes they're waiting on him.
"Front passenger seat is still factory standard, but the back is where Belle and I live these days. Our little home away from home, if you want to get specific. Rear passenger side door doesn't open because that's where my bed is. One of you can flip it down to sit on, or maybe just settle on a box or crate."
With the invitation given, Eugene climbs into the driver's seat. Amanda climbs into the back from the driver's side, dragging a crate up so that she's right behind the console, with Beth taking the passenger seat and coaxing Belle into her lap. It's just in time, because the walkers that chased the ladies have finally fumbled their way around the left side of the building. Eugene pulls out, easily outdistancing the dead, even if he does keep a wary eye on his mirrors. Amanda describes the house they left their car at, leaving Eugene to navigate without any other input.
Within the reasonable safety of the vehicle, Amanda and Beth exchange notes back and forth on a larger notebook, but whatever the discussion is, they don't share it with him. Part of him feels left out. The rest just accepts it's probably none of his damn business. He's just their guide to find Beth's people, and as soon as he gets within eyeball range of Abraham, he's making a U-turn and heading back south.
"Do you happen have possession of a map?" he asks after they pull up to the house and Amanda checks that no one has been by the abandoned place. It's a good choice to avoid looters, since a storm brought down a big elm tree that crushed one side, but spared the small one-car garage. "I should mark what I remember in case we get separated."
Or if he loses his courage, because right now, leading them back seems like the right thing to do, but honestly, he knows they could find Gabriel's church without him. Amanda might even send him on his way once she has that information.
Amanda passes over a well-used road atlas, and Eugene flips the pages to find the correct one and marks it. When he hands it back, he remembers the remaining Terminants and shudders. He feels like that's information they need to know.
"When I first came upon Glenn, he and a companion were traveling to find a place called Terminus. They'd heard a message on the radio, and he surmised that maybe any survivors would head there."
"We heard those messages," Amanda admits, frowning. "But it was further than we were allowed to explore."
"Good thing you didn't." Eugene quickly explains the cannibals and Carol's ballsy rescue, feeling a semblance of the gut-churning fear he'd felt when they were trapped in those railroad cars. He was lucky, not one of the ones pulled into the abattoir, but it doesn't mean his imagination can't fill in all the blanks.
"Jesus Christ. And I thought my people went batshit crazy. At least we only ever ate guinea pig."
"Does it taste like chicken?" Eugene can't help but ask the question, especially when somehow it makes Beth try that breathy, soundless laugh of hers while she shakes her head.
Her answer is unmistakable, two fingers up and bouncing across her opposite hand like the Little Bunny Foo Foo children's song. Eugene laughs, Beth smirks, and Amanda makes an exasperated sound before suggesting they all get on the road after passing him a handheld radio.
"It won't have much range if you get very far away, but just in case."
Before leading their tiny caravan, Eugene thanks her and lays the radio on the seat next to Belle. She's perched to look behind them, obviously intent on keeping her new best friend in sight, which makes Eugene laugh again. The radio settles something in him, because it shows they aren't just going to drive off and leave him once he's no longer useful.
It's just too damn bad he knows he won't be welcome when he finds Beth's people for her again.