Date: 2014-10-03 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Fiction; Post Apocalyptic; Apocalyptic; Dystopia
Description: The eighth and final book of Adrian's Undead Diary. "Well-rounded and intriguing story arcs, three dimensional characters, and the perfect blend of humor and horror create the exquisite amalgam that is Adrian's Undead Diary. Philbrook earns his place in The Bookie Monster's hall of fame best reads." SHANA FESTA, THE BOOKIE MONSTER & AUTHOR OF TIME OF DEATH "A realistic account of the zombie apocalypse that sucks you right in. A great series!" T.W. Piperbrook, author of the Contamination series. "Walking Dead Adrian's Undead Diary series is a must have for your zompoc collection. The only time

ADRIAN’S UNDEAD DIARY

Chris Philbrook

Book Eight

CASSIE

Adrian’s Undead Diary: Cassie
Copyright © 2012 Christopher Philbrook

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

Published in the United States of America

First Publishing Date December, 2011

All characters in this compilation are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover design and interior layout by Alan MacRaffen

"A kick-ass protagonist. Bad-ass zombies. A cool-ass thrill ride. Adrian's Undead Diary is easily one of the best zombie tales out there. Chris Philbrook is on my keeper shelf." Rachel Aukes, best selling author of 100 Days in Deadland.

"Well-rounded and intriguing story arcs, three dimensional characters, and the perfect blend of humor and horror create the exquisite amalgam that is Adrian's Undead Diary. Philbrook earns his place in The Bookie Monster's hall of fame best reads." Shana Festa, The Bookie Monster & author of Time Of Death.

"It’s been a wild journey down the Adrian’s diary rabbit hole. I am a huge fan of the diary entry format, which works exceedingly well for this series. Chris has also managed to do something with his books that most authors cannot do; keep the story fresh! Each of the characters has earned a place in my head for their strengths and frailties. The good guys are well written and complex. Likewise the antagonists often have logical reasons for what they do; this sometimes paints them in a grey light that blurs the lines between who is good and who is actually evil. The characters make the story compelling and many a night I’ve stayed up late to read ‘just one more entry’ to find out what becomes of them. Now that the series is winding up what shall I do with my evenings? Oh yes, the author’s other series, Elmoryn or Tesser will do nicely! I look forward to reading all of the future labors of love by Mister Philbrook and when I am at the end of ‘Cassie’ I am sure I will be both sad to see it end and satisfied with how it ended." Mark Clodi, Author of The Zombie Chronicles.

"Walking Dead < Adrian's Undead Diary. The End." J.C. Fiske, author of The Renegade Series.

"Adrian's Undead Diary series is a must have for your zompoc collection. The only time I only put it down was when the battery on my Kindle died. Adrian is the kind of hero I want on my zompoc team." Ben S Reeder, Author of The Zompoc Survivor Series.

“Why did I not know about this? I recently met up with Chris, and of course talk turned to our perspective novels. Chris was kind enough to get me started on his series … and Holy shit… Are you looking for some good hearted zombie romping fun with a side of mushy romance, but still able to keep thing politically correct? Well, then stay the hell away from this set, Adrian's Undead Diary is fast, action packed and covered in zombie flesh. Chris Philbrook has masterfully brought you a gem of an old school zombie war log that will keep you burning the pages until your fingers are numb.” W.J. Lundy Author of The Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Series.

“Surviving unfiltered from an unlikely hero, intense from the first word. A must read.” Dave Lund, author of the Winchester Undead Series.

"A realistic account of the zombie apocalypse that sucks you right in. A great series!" T.W. Piperbrook, author of the Contamination series.

“Ever read a book that's been sitting in your Kindle (or on your shelf, if you're still reading them that way) and kick yourself for not picking it up earlier? That's exactly what I did when I got a few pages into this one. At first, I didn't really like Adrian, but the story sucked me in and the character grew on me. Eventually, I realized that Adrian was one of the most real characters I'd ever come across. He's flawed (aren't we all), makes mistakes, and regrets them. He speaks the way you'd expect a thirty-something year old guy to speak and has realistic skills for someone with his background. The entire story had a great flow with plenty of tension and excitement. The best aspect of this book was the way Adrian's writing style changes slightly as he becomes more alone. By the time it ends, you can really see the effect that being so isolated is having on him. As someone that drove a truck over the road for a little while, I can tell you from experience that being alone with your thoughts for too long can have very strange results on the old noodle, and Philbrook does a fantastic job of portraying that. Don't put this one off like I did. It's a great book and you should read it now!” Ian McClellan, author of One Undead Step.

Also by Chris Philbrook:

Elmoryn - The Kinless Trilogy

Book One: Wrath of the Orphans

Book Two: The Motive for Massacre

Coming Soon:

Book Three: The Echoes of Sin

Reemergence

Tesser: A Dragon Among Us

Coming Soon:

Ambryn: The Cheaters of Death

Adrian’s Undead Diary

Book One: Dark Recollections

Book Two: Alone No More

Book Three: Midnight

Book Four: The Failed Coward

Book Five: Wrath

Book Six: In the Arms of Family

Book Seven: The Trinity

Book Eight: Cassie

Don’t miss Chris Philbrook’s free e-Book:

At Least He’s Not On Fire:

A Tour of the Things That Escape My Head

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy map

Auburn Lake Vicinity map

December 2011, Continued

December 24th

December 26th

December 28th

December 31st

January 2012

January 2nd

January 4th

January 6th

January 8th

January 10th

January 13th

January 15th

January 17th

January 20th

January 22nd

January 24th

January 26th

January 28th

January 31st

February 2012

February 1st

February 2nd

February 4th

February 7th

February 9th

February 11th

And the Bombs Fell

February 14th

February 16th

February 18th

February 20th

February 22nd

February 24th

February 26th

Cassie

February 28th

March 2012

March 1st

The Crucible

March 5th

March 12th

March 19th

About the Author

Additional Online Content

AUD Merchandise

Free Short Fiction by Chris Philbrook

December 2011

Continued

December 24th

Oh the weather outside is… mediocre. We’ve had a bit of a warm streak here. The days have been right around 45 or 50, and the nights are staying at about 30. Feels like early November, not almost January. Not almost Christmas.

Officially, we are shut down for the next few days. All we are doing is preparing food for tomorrow, performing basic security tasks, basic maintenance tasks, and being human beings. I’m sick of us being human “doings.” We never relax anymore. We push, we work, we slave, and reap the meager benefits of that massive amount of labor. I’ve said this several times already, but it is SO MUCH work to just exist right now. I’d like to do the math sometime on how many labor hours go into each calorie we consume. I bet the ratio sucks.

Despite my ranting and raving, I am in a very good mood, and I have precious little to actually talk about. Our young guest Sylvia has dramatically reduced her violence against us when she sees us. We post a guard at her closed and locked door, and when we go in to feed her, or talk to her, she used to attack quite literally on sight. Now she sits patiently on the bed, clearly in fear of us. Michelle has taken the lead in trying to make verbal contact with her, and she has stopped attacking Michelle entirely now. Every once in awhile she will try and bite or scratch the guard at the door, but if we recoil or fight back, she’s been dropping her attempted aggression and calming down after a few minutes.

I guess that’s progress. Michelle and I have had lengthy conversations about her over dinners or lunches, and whether or not she’s a project worth working on. Michella maintains there’s no choice in the matter. We HAVE to help her. I maintain that she is a lot of work, and she is taking away from the greater good. Most of the people guarding her want to break her jaw. Hell, I already tried. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm talking about Sylvia, not Michelle. I just re-read the last few sentences and realized it could've been taken either way.

Michelle is back to teaching, which is funny, because we gave the kids a few days off for the holiday. I think it’s Hanukah right now too, so we decided to give the kids a week off. So yeah, she’s back to teaching, and yeah, she just sent the kids on break. Two steps forward, and all that jazz.

We are planning some light festivities for Christmas. A breakfast and early dinner spread for everyone. Some of the folks went out and cut down a few trees to decorate for the different dorms, and a really big tree for the cafeteria where we are gathering for the actual day. We got some toys and age appropriate gifts that the youngins should appreciate, so it should be fairly normal. Well, what passes for normal now.

Should be fun for the kids. I'm somewhat impressed and saddened by the fact that we have no practicing Jewish folks here, or practicing Buddhists, or Kwanzaans. Literally all we seem to have for folks who are interested in actively pursuing their faith is Christians. I don't like that. It's too one-flavor. Not enough variety.

No violence to speak of on or off campus. The Factory is doing okay. With all this rain they have plenty of water in storage, and despite their relative proximity to the city, there have been precious few undead. So few undead in fact, that they are actually reporting it as being “creepy.” I've made an active effort as well to stay off the inter-site internet, and avoid watching their cameras. I feel dirty when I do it, and that's not good for anyone.

MGR has been the same. We’re rotating staff regularly now to give people breaks. The only people living there permanently are Renee and Mallory. They’ve chosen the tower as the home they want to stay at permanently. Mike and Patty, previously in charge of MGR have essentially relocated back here since I got shot. I think they wanted a fresh start away from all of this, and once they were gone realized they actually want to stay here. A lot more resources here I suppose, as well as real estate. I wonder how much of it is them wanting to be closer to Abby. Their short amount of time together at the Factory was a huge step forward in gelling the three of them. Mom and daughter are back in the swing of things, and Mike is no longer the enemy. All is well in Williams-burg.

Speaking of which, tomorrow marks the one year anniversary of the arrival of the Williams family. Only Abby and Patty are left. A good batting average. Wish I was only playing baseball.

We haven’t seen a single undead near campus or on any of the video feeds in days. We are all thinking about how Sylvia may have been leading undead to us all this time. It makes sense. If she was coming and going, and not putting any undead that saw her down, then she was likely just leading them to us the entire time. I think we were lucky that she didn’t lead more to us prior to when the walls went up. Although, it does make sense that she was leading them to us all along. How else were they getting up here?

Well, I guess the whole “led and powered by evil” argument could be thrown into the mix.

But that’s depressing as shit. I don’t want to think about that just hours from Christmas, on the first Christmas Eve in some time that seems even remotely normal. I didn’t get anyone any gifts. I feel weird about that. I feel like this year, there are people I should’ve done something for. I can’t really hit the mall or anything, but I guess I could’ve gone old school and drawn a cute sleigh on some construction paper and made some cards for people. Ghetto gifts, courtesy of Adrian Ring.

I’ll wish people some Merry Christmas tomorrow, thank them for all they’ve done for me, and do my level best to show them how much I appreciate them. Maybe that’s what this is all about after all. Less about gifts, and more about showing people you care. I’m like Bob fucking Ross, only for wisdom. Getting back to basics, with Adrian Ring. Public access channels, and hopefully, if I go big, I could make it onto the PBS stations too. Maybe even the BBC.

I could be famous.

I want to write more. Nothing is stirring, except for some mice, and I am not quite tired yet. I saw a few kids running around in head to toe snowsuits the other day when we had an inch of snow, and it made me think of the last time I ever wore a snowsuit. It’s a funny and horrible story.

I think I was in third grade, and the weather had gone south during the winter. It was the last school day before Christmas break, and it had been raining and sleeting all day while we were in class. My entire family was home sick except for me, so I had to walk home from school on my own, without my brothers and sister. I don’t think Becca was in school then either, so I think she would’ve been at home already. When the weather was crappy my mom made me wear an old snowsuit that had been passed down to me. It belonged to Caleb. The feet had been worn out from years of sledding, so my mom cut them off, and I wore classy black moon boots instead. Those were also hand me downs, and had some pretty sweet duct tape patching. You remember moon boots? Later in life my brothers and I called them 'virginity guard boots.'

Anyway, the elementary school I went to at the time was at the top of a hill, and with the cold temperatures, and sleet, walking down the hill all alone (Caleb had run ahead, as he always did, and the younger brothers walked in a pack behind me) in my head to almost toe snowsuit complete with worn-down moon boots was a real motherfucker. I remember taking inch steps for the entire mile long walk trying to stay upright.

When I was about two thirds of the way home I suddenly felt my stomach lurch, and I knew instantly I had a case of the ninja shits coming on, and in a hurry. I was puckering like a fucking Olympian trying to keep back the brown tide while still making forward progress on the sidewalk that was more skating rink than anything.

Our house was on Main Street, across the road from the school geographically, and when traffic stopped to let me cross I booked it as best I could across the way. Of course Mr. Journal if you have ever tried to run while squinching up to keep from shitting yourself, you know it’s a stiff legged process. You’re more or less walking on stilts while keeping every muscle below your nose taut as hell to prevent slippage into your fucking drawers. Terrible to do, fun to watch.

Anyhoo, as I cross the street and start up the walk way to the front door I see that the entire way is covered in solid ice. It was smooth, and glassy, and the snow on both sides in the yard was far too deep to trudge through while I was so close to shitting myself. I couldn't risk bending my legs, not even an inch. Just as I took the first the step onto the surface, my mother opened the front door, and waved to me.

It was a tease and I knew it. I was so close to the safety of wooden, ice free floors, and yet the final twenty feet were clearly the most treacherous of them all. I slid my moon boots inch by inch on the glassy ice all the while yelling to my Mom, “Open the screen door! Open the screen door! Get out of the way Mom, I gotta GO!”

Of course my Mom had no damn idea what I was yelling through the storm door, and when I finally made it to that door, she opened it for me, and I started through it, trying to get past her to the blessed bathroom where I could purge the pressure that was still building behind my asshole.

But by now Mr. Journal… you already know something goes horribly wrong.

As I stepped over the threshold of the house past my mom, both of my feet slipped on the last few inches of ice. I remember distinctly the sensation of soaring up into the air, my legs straight out in front of me as my sphincter gave in to the poop. I literally can remember seeing both vertical tips of my toes against the screen of the television. I think GI Joe was on. As I dropped down onto my back I felt the shit squirt powerfully into my snowsuit, past the back of my thighs, down my calves, and all the way down into the torn feet into my moon boots. Right after that wonderful sensation I slammed my snow hat covered skull into the icy walkway, and the tears came.

I bawled like a bitch.

I stood up, completely ignoring my mother’s attempts to pick me up and find out what was wrong. At the moment, all my crap was contained by the suit, so all she knew was that I'd fallen. I pushed her out of the way, still screaming and crying and ran directly into the shower, where I stripped out of the snowsuit, and revealed my shit covered lower half. My mom saw the wreckage, snorted something halfway between a sob of grief, and cackle of laughter, and pulled the bathroom door shut so I could clean myself off.

Yeah so I don’t like snowsuits anymore. Or moon boots for that matter.

Funny story now. Not as funny back then. Especially when all my brothers and Dad made fun of me for shitting myself in a snowsuit. Every Christmas one of those assholes remembers to bring it up. I think every one of them asked Cassie if she'd heard that story every Christmas.

Fuckers.

-Adrian

December 26th

I’m kind of uncomfortable today. Not a whole lot makes me uncomfortable. I’m one of those, “I don’t give a fuck,” kind of people. Clearly I do give a fuck, but when I actually become uncomfortable, I do a damn good job of hiding it, thus keeping my true feelings hidden. Nature versus demeanor.

Why am I uncomfortable Mr. Journal? Because I got a LOT of Christmas presents yesterday. More than I deserve in my opinion, and quite a few more than I think is okay, and “normal,” especially considering the times we live in.

I can’t recall exactly who gave me what as I sit here writing this, but I received all manner of strange things. Obviously they are all homemade or scavenged, but I got a LOT of gifts. It was creepy.

I woke up fairly early Christmas morning because we were putting on a big breakfast for the kids in the cafeteria. I wanted to get down there early to help. I checked the video feeds out of habit, and radioed to Hal and Abby who were on graveyard shift last night to check in. Both said they saw nothing all night other than a few stray animals in the woods. Abby said she thought she saw an actual dog, but Hal thought it was a fox or coyote. I might check the tapes later to double check, but I have a case of the fuck-its right now.

Anyway, I took a quick shower after turning the generator on and letting it warm the hot water tank. I gave myself a celebratory morning beat-off session while that was going on (it IS a holiday after all), and once I was dressed up and ready, I left Hall E. When I got to the cafeteria, there were piles of wrapped presents piled under the large tree. I guess something should be said about the amazing amount of Christmas wrapping paper people had stored in their homes. A few of the team went house to house and picked up the rolls in closets to get this all done. Thanks to them, the kids got everything wrapped. It was a sight to see. Beautiful stuff.

Anyway, I smiled, and went about helping the fairly large group of people already there. The breakfast was pancakes with what turned out to be still good maple syrup, fresh eggs, fresh bread, fresh milk, stale coffee and tea, and some of the last of the orange juice concentrate we still had. The kids rolled in, excited as balls, and the remainder of the adults that weren’t committed to safety and security came in as well. Many of the folks brought more presents, and by the time we were all there, all accounted for, there had to be a hundred presents there.

After breakfast, the wrapping paper saw its demise. Melissa, Amanda and Michelle disseminated the presents to the people they were gifted to, and time and time again, presents were brought over to me. I took a seat far off to the side, out of the way, and they kept bringing them over to me, stacking them higher and higher.

When it was all said and done, I had presents stacked waist high, surrounding me.

Yeah, I felt a little uncomfortable. Of course everyone else there was super happy that I had so many presents, and I seriously think that they all sat there, waiting for me to start opening mine before they began to open theirs. I obliged them. Seemed like the things to do at the time.

In my presents I had jams and jellies made from the berries we’ve picked from the campus bushes. I had loaves of fresh baked bread, small sweet cakes made with the eggs from our chickens, and the little bit of flour we have left. I got gloves from the Air Force guys (Nomex, thank you very much dudes), and a pile of CDs to burn into the laptop here from Abby. Turns out while she was doing house searches she was collecting discs. I listen to a lot of music, and the new stuff will increase my overall level of musical culture.

I received homemade cards thanking me for giving people a safe place to live, and food to eat, as well as a nice new maglite, and a container of lotion from Kevin. Turns out, he really does know me well. I could've used that lotion earlier yesterday.

I feel like a major league dick for not getting anyone a gift.

I also feel… very weird about all the attention, and the gifts. It seemed like everyone felt the need to give to me to thank me for what’s happened here. I appreciate the sentiment and all, but it’s just… odd. I felt like these people were leaving offerings at my altar for Christ’s sake. It was fucked up. It boils down to me feeling uncomfortable with the attention.

I guess I’ll get over it. I left all the food downstairs in the kitchen here in Hall E so the other folks living in the building could reap the benefits. All I’ve smelt since yesterday is the scent of toast and jelly. It’s a nice smell.

Sigh. I wonder if this is how Kings got egos. When the people in charge have their asses kissed as much as I get mine kissed, you can’t help but get a little egotistical about things. It’s empowering. It’s a great feeling to have so many people look up to you. To feel like a success finally. To feel important just for being you.

Well, to feel like a success despite my largest single failure. I’ve been thinking a lot about Cassie since Mallory and I went splitsville. It’s probably because with no regular sex I’ve been thinking a lot about the sex I’ve had with others. Cassie was the person I had the most sex with… so that makes sense. It also makes sense that I’d be thinking of her more because of the holidays. The last real Christmas I had was with her, and opening presents yesterday made me think of the last time I opened presents. Which made me think of her, and you get the drift.

She’s been on my mind the past couple of days, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how I never went to see her, or find her, or whatever that day. It still haunts me. All these long, hard months later and when I am alone, I go right back to that one big mistake. It's a curse I don't think I'll ever escape, or forgive myself for having made.

I wonder if that was all part of this master plan on the part of… God or whatever. Have Adrian make one huge judgment error so he can survive the apocalypse and become the savior of fucking mankind. Have Adrian make one huge error so he can torture himself when he tries to sleep at night, and when he wakes up and night, and when he eats just one serving of food, alone, yet again. Have Adrian survive so he can lay in a cold bed, alone, listening for noise outside every single night, for the rest of his life.

I guess this will bother me forever. At least when I was fucking Mallory I forgot about it. I wonder if I could talk one of the women here into fucking me regularly so I could squash down these memories and feelings of guilt. Bury myself in passion so I can ignore how I feel on the inside.

I’m also seriously thinking about doing some dangerous outside the wall runs to get the adrenaline flowing more, shake the case of the pussies I had, and to distract myself. All my jogs, and pushups, and sit ups and shit are getting my body back into shape, but they are leaving my mind unoccupied far too much every day.

Sigh. It’s good that I can rant here in the journal. If I shared everything that haunted me I’d ruin every sense of confidence that anyone had in me. Outside of this bedroom and one step away from this laptop I need to be bulletproof. I need to be the man that got shot, and got up like it was a mosquito bite. I need to be the man that doesn’t pull the trigger on a girl because it’s the RIGHT thing to do, and not because he was too afraid to do it.

I need to be stronger. I need to be a… dammit. I need to be a role model.

Ha. There’s the big cosmic fucking joke of them all. Adrian Ring, arrogant, mean bastard, and failure at most-things-in-life, the role model. The leader of men and women, the supposed savior of mankind. If anyone here is the savior it’s Michelle, or even Kevin. Fuck Abby would be a better person for that job than I am.

I’m far too flawed to be a good role model. I feel like I’m faking it every day.

I feel like I’m being far too goddamn melodramatic the day after a pretty sweet Christmas.

There have been some interesting developments today. MGR is reporting a slight surge in the undead presence downtown. Previously they’d been seeing perhaps one or two a day, far off in the distance moving about, but for three straight days now they’ve seen as many as twelve a day. They have gotten good at paying attention to the individual undead they are seeing, and keeping detailed notes on them too, so when they say they’re seeing new undead, they mean it. These are NEW faces, brought in or moved about from elsewhere.

Kevin and Mike brought up the attacks on MGR by the living when I was out, and how we never really tracked the last of those people down. We have no idea if they are out there still, or if they are part of a larger group of survivors that we need to be worried about. I'm not worried about the aggression of independent stragglers or bandits. I'm far more concerned about organized groups that are working together against us.

As a result of the increased undead presence near MGR we’re seriously considering adding more bodies there for regular security. We’re restocking MGR early in the New Year, and we’re likely leaving one extra person and adding a few hundred rounds of ammo to their stockpile on hand. Martin is also drafting up ideas to fortify the lower entrances yet again in the event the building is assaulted once more.

Either way, we’re devoting extra time on the video feeds to making sure we’re aware if anything happens there. If they’re hit hard and are unable to radio for help, we want to see it, and respond in force with our QRF.

Hell will have nothing on us.

-Adrian

December 28th

Lots to report on here. I’ve inserted myself into the rotation for things to do outside of the wall again, against the wishes of Doc Lindsey, Ethan, and Roger, and it’s nice to get out and get my hands a little dirty again. I haven’t had to pull a trigger yet, but being outside the wall on an operation still gets the blood pumping, and allows me a few moments of fear to try and work down that feeling of paralysis I had the night I almost shot (check that, didn’t shoot) Sylvia.

Yesterday I went for a walk through the woods to the cabin Sylvia’s family died in. We had wanted to remove the wood stove in it since we found her, and that’s what we did. Ethan, back from a long stint at MGR drove the school’s four wheeler with my dead body trailer attached, and myself, Kevin, Blake, and Quan went on foot.

It was nice to be on foot patrol again. If it wasn’t for the cold, and the light snow on the ground, and the green forest, it would’ve been exactly like doing a foot patrol in Iraq. I know that sounds completely different, but what I’m really saying is that it FELT the same.

Walking intentionally spaced out, weapons up, Nomex gloves on, fully kitted with body armor and weapons, watching everyone else do the right things at the right time… It felt nice. It felt comfortable. It was dangerous, but with those people at my side, it felt safe. I asked the guys to do a combat breach of the cabin, and we formed a stack like the good old days, and went in for the clear. I felt really rusty doing this with guys that have a LOT more active duty time. They were spot-on precise, far faster than me, and I made a couple minor blunders which didn't help. Kevin assured me they were minor, and not a big deal, but ANY mistake around guys like that seems magnified a hundred times. It came down to me not trusting people, and wanting to point my weapon everywhere. In a room clear, you own the area you're assigned, you don't attempt to do everything. It's how people get shot accidentally.

I did feel like I was much more of a part of the team after the breach though. The guys saw me in action for the first time, and I wasn’t a FNG. I held my own enough that they knew they could trust me if the shit went south.

I really needed that for my ego. The go that counts. The ego that needed the boost after getting shot. I really needed to get that look on their faces that they approved of me. I CAN do this. It felt great when I saw it on their faces. I didn’t even know I was fishing for approval from these people, but I certainly was. I could FEEL the relief spread inside me.

Blake was a bit behind, but held his own as well. He’s only just getting back into shape himself, and he came along mostly for engineering smarts on the stove removal. Speaking of which, that went well. The trailer on the four wheeler was large enough and strong enough to hold it, and with our group of terribly manly men, we were able to get it off the wall, and move it out of the run down cabin and into said trailer.

We pulled the entire stove pipe, wall mounts, and the bricks the stove sat on too. It slowed the four wheeler down to a fucking crawl on the way back, but in reality, we were moving at foot speed anyway, so it was a wash. Right now the stove is in storage. We don’t NEED it in any of the buildings right at the moment, so there was no sense in installing it. For some reason I thought we were getting it for Hall D, but they got a stove installed at some point when I wasn't paying attention. For now it’s in the gymnasium near the hydroponics set-up.

What else? Let’s see. While we were out getting the stove, work on clearing the path to the waterfront for the tower resumed. It’s slow going, but steady work. We’re cutting the trees down with chainsaws, dragging them out with the backhoe, and cutting them down to lumber size chunks. It’s a bitch making lumber with the tools we have, but we’re making it work. I’m guessing we have about ten or twelve full days of cutting to go before we are reach the waterfront. Somewhere in there we need to rip up stumps before the ground freezes (that or ignore them until spring), then build the damn tower itself.

That’ll be a motherfucker as the weather turns south on us, which could be any day. So far, this winter has been far milder than last, which is great. We can use every single day of warmer weather we are given.

Oh, and another minor pain in the ass is dogs. Legit dogs. They’ve been skulking around at the gates the past few days as a pack. I guess the video feeds have been accurate. I’d say it was a non issue, but the damn things are barking at us when they see or hear us through the gates. I don’t want all that noise, especially late at night. Now that sounds stupid in my head when I know we’ve been running chainsaws and hacking trees down with axes, but you get my drift. I just don’t want animals drawing in undead.

Plus I fucking hate dogs now. The thought of dogs here inside the walls makes my fucking skin crawl. I’d like to start a holocaust on all dogs taller than the middle of my calf. If it can reach my groin, I want it gone.

Yep, I’m a hater. Deal with it.

Not much else to report from the last couple days. School starts again tomorrow for a few days, and campus other than the dogs barking nearby has been quiet. MGR continues to see a slight increase in the amount of dead, which tells us that when we do restock them in a few days, we’re probably going to leave an extra body behind for staffing. I hate to spread ourselves so thin, but additional personnel aren’t exactly around for hiring, and even if they were, our food situation is bad enough as it is.

99 problems... right?

-Adrian

December 31st

Well here I sit. It’s New Year’s Eve. I’ve had some beer. I may or may not have had an Irish Car Bomb. Or two. Feeling a smidgy tipsy right at the moment here.

I’m in a good mood, mercifully enough. Not too sad, or angry or bitter or nothing.

FUCK DOGS dude! They are still hanging out and about, barking their asses off every time they see shit. We need to come up with a plan like, tomorrow and shit to deal with them. Either bring them in and feed them something, or send their asses to doggy heaven.

There’s a question fer ya. Where did the animals go when they died? Are they stuck in the shit other world, or has this affected them at all? Is it effected? I can't remember. Fuck dogs man.

Otis for the win.

I love my cat.

He’s chilling on the bed with me right now, not fucking barking. Nor does he eat a lot. We have cat food for him for a year if it doesn’t rot first. Fuck dogs man. My nuts hurt. What would we feed dogs? We didn’t collect dog food all this time. I bet it’s all rotten and shit. We’d have to feed them our food, and fuck that man. We need all of our food.

We need a plan. A good one. One that doesn’t involve me doing shiznat, because all I’d do is head to the top of the wall with my new weapon, and shoot the strays that could bite me in the dick. The small ones can stay, but if they keep barking, I’ll punch them in the dick.

I love beer.

I hope next year is better than this year was. I want less of my friends to die next year. That’s all I want. That’s all I fucking want.

I want my friends to stop dying. That's my New Year's resolution, if anyone is paying attention. I wanna prevent any of my friends from dying.

Cheers to that toast.

-Adrian

January 2012

January 2nd

Well. I didn’t get a hangover the other night. Despite my best attempts to the contrary. I definitely saw some folks hanging their heads low the next morning though. I can’t decide whether to praise or curse Kevin and company for raiding a beer distributor in Bangor before coming here. Normally I’d say hallelujah, but from the looks on people’s faces on New Year’s Day, I’d say a curse is more appropriate a reaction.

Having said all that…

As you might imagine, we haven’t been terribly productive here on campus. Today was our first day back to the grind. We have two projects on hand that are taking up the majority of our time and effort. First is the school being back in session. We’ve dedicated a handful of people to running that, and with the kids now doing that all day, we’ve lost a fair amount of our labor force. To attempt to balance the loss of labor, we adjusted the school hours to 11am to 5pm. It’s easier to teach the kids in the dark, rather than in the morning when we have daylight, and can see outside. It’s getting dark at about 4 or 5 every day, so having them start later means they can wake up and work for an hour or two, then go to school. They complain, but they also like eating, and for the most part, we’ve got the kids working with Ollie on the farm with the animals, or with Ryan and Becca on the hydroponics in the gym, so they’re pretty invested. It’s easy to motivate people to work when the results of laziness is hunger.

The other project is the path to the waterfront for the last tower. We started hitting the trees again to clear the way, and I’d guess we have four or five more days to clear the way. We started ripping up stumps today with the backhoe while the tree cutters worked ahead. Good times. With all the branches and leftover wood from this we will be far more comfortable when it comes to wood for the stoves on campus here. I have been paranoid that we will run out of good, dry wood over the winter, and this makes me sleep better at night. Once we get the path clear, and we have enough lumber roughed, we’ll be all set. I am pretty sure we have enough concrete still for the base of the tower too. Remind me to ask Blake or Martin to check on that Mr. Journal. If we don’t, I remember a place I saw on the other side with Gilbert we can hit for a few extra bags. If it's still there.

We did have a minor injury today out in the woods. Well, it wasn’t entirely minor. Fitz was working on the tree clearing crew and I guess a branch snapped somehow and a shard of wood about five inches long went right into his forearm going the long way. Wrist to elbow direction. Which if you know your anatomy, is a bad place to get a splinter that size. Fortunately Roger was there, and they were able to get the shard of wood out and get him patched up. He said it’d be a week to get him back to good health, so for the moment, it looks like Fitz is on video feed duty. I expect him to lose his mind in two or three days.

I spent lunch over in Hall B at the school room with Michelle to check in on our rabid guest. Michelle says she’s doing much better. No violence the last two days, and with all the extra food we made for the holidays, Sylvia is eating like a beast and putting weight on. Michelle has left her with books to read, and other things that are more remedial, like coloring books and markers to draw with. She’s hoping she draws some pictures that might illuminate what happened to her. God forbid she starts writing.

I like Michelle. She’s smart, warm, and caring. She reminds me a lot of Cassie. I think I have been trying to hang out with Michelle more lately half out of interest in the projects she has going on, and half because she makes me feel like I’m talking with Cassie. Well, Michelle doesn’t have the fire that Cassie had, but you get the point. I like her. She’s cool. She makes me calm.

What else?

Oh yeah, fuck dogs man. I may or may not have mentioned a few times in my recent entries that we have had a bit of an issue with dogs barking and being at the gates. Guess what? We had a few of them try to dig under the fucking rear gate the past couple days to get inside campus. One of them had to be put down, he was far too large, and one was a yippy little bastard terrier that ran around for an hour, nearly got shot, and was finally scooped up by Andrea and brought to Hall A, against my irrational wishes to the contrary. She has named him Ralph. Ralph the terrier. Whatever. I don’t think he can bite my balls, so for now, he can stay. If he even comes CLOSE to my crotch though, I’m putting 10mm’s through his yippy trap. He's on watch.

Yeah I’m bitter. Come at me bro.

So we formulated a plan for the dogs yesterday after fixing he fence. We have a guard posted at the back gate with a .22 rifle to make sure no dogs dig their way under. If you’re curious, the guard is Danny Jr. He turned 15 the other day, and he’s a great shooter, and he’s also committed to doing his school work during the evenings to make up for missed class time. I really like that kid. Dan and Angela did a great job with him. Angela still is. At some point here I need to give him his dad’s gun. I get the impression I’m not done with it yet. More justice needs to come out of its barrel I feel. Reaching out and giving folks a little bit of his dad’s law and order, if you get my drift.

So the ongoing plan for the animals is to shoot any that try and get in. Beyond that, we are going to try and bring some in over the next few days to see if they are feral, and lost to us as pets or animals of use, or if they can be brought in and given a home. As it turns out, we have a rather large amount of dog food on hand. The stuff lasts if it is kept dry, and fortunately there have been enough containers of it sealed this whole time that insects didn’t get into it, and were kept dry enough that it didn't rot. I guess Patty and Abby were hoarding the shit in one of the dorm basements when they were doing house clears while I was out.

Women.

So yeah. Dogs. Here on campus. My groin is throbbing from bad memories.

We still have some issues with growing undead populations downtown. MGR has been keeping a close eye on things, and they’re reporting a slow but steady increase in the presence of the dead. Things haven’t gotten out of control yet by any means, but I am still concerned. Any time movement increases there is a cause and effect. Why are the numbers increasing? What is causing it?

There is almost a sure guarantee that whatever the cause is, it’ll be a problem for us at some point. That bitch fairy just LOVES to put it to us.

Still worried about the survivors that attacked MGR that we haven’t tracked down yet. I am almost certain that the undead presence has been stirred up by the living moving around, and we just haven’t seen them yet. The folks over at the Factory haven’t seen anything moving near them, other than the void of undead. They’re saying the population around the building has been strangely gone the past few days, which may explain why we’re seeing more here now. Maybe a few groups of people leaving the city have dragged them this way. Who knows? Without an eye in the sky, we’re operating on guesswork. Also as you may or may not recall Mr. Journal, we've unconsciously abandoned the goal of getting a small plane in the air. Kate and Nick are obviously pissed about their primary skill sets being shelved for the season, but with all the work that needs to be done, there's no time left to dedicate labor hours to getting a plane ready for flight right now. In the spring, when we don't need to worry about plowing an entire runway, we're gonna talk again.

I’m still very nervous about shooting, but I am better. I’ve been having bad dreams about gunplay off and on since I woke up from the other side. I see myself in situations with undead in my dreams a lot, and every time I need to, I feel like I can’t pull the trigger. Ever have one of those dreams when you were a kid where you were in a fight, and when you hit the other person, your punch did nothing? Or no matter how hard you try, you just can't get the punch to land? It feels like that. I feel impotent, afraid, exposed, vulnerable. All bad things to feel when you’re in a bad situation.

It’s fucked up that I can’t dream of the living. I feel so alone in my dreams. I have no allies to encourage me in those moments. No Kevin, no Abby, no Michelle. Just me and my weapon, and sometimes even that isn’t there. I hate it.

Oh well. The next time I am faced with a slowly rotting corpse that is trying to eat me, or eat those with me, I best be ready to do what is required, and fast. If I truly want my friends to stay alive this year, it will certainly come down to me making that happen myself.

I’m off. We’ve got a lot to do the next few days.

-Adrian

January 4th

From frying pan to fire, right? Fuck that fairy. I’ve decided on a resolute course of action for myself and the community here for a few days. I took a stand, let them know how I felt about things, and that’s that. Remember back when I was first talking about whether or not I’d lead by committee, or if it was my word was law or whatever? Funny that with all these people here I’m not really doing what I said I would do. Or thought I would have to do, for that matter.

I guess that’s because I’m surrounded by people that aren’t total assholes. I was so worried I’d be surrounded by people who would challenge my authority, and do things that were dumb. I’m pretty lucky. Minus a few dicks here and there, and one head wound, I’ve been blessed with supportive people that see things the way I do. It’s made leading pretty easy. Now if I could get over the guilt of when I make a bad call, and folks get hurt or die…

We restocked MGR earlier today, and it was my first taste of violence in some time. We rolled out in what is now our standard movement package of HRT, and double humvees. I rode shotgun in the HRT in the lead, with Caleb driving, and we had Abby in the back. In the two humvees we had Kevin, Blake, Roger and Quan, plus Alex and George who were switching out with two folks there. We were restocking their water and food, as well as dropping off some additional weapons gear and supplies.

MGR hasn’t been engaging any of the undead they have been observing. Noise brings in more of the dead, and with possible living people out and about, there has been little reason to risk drawing them in either. Up to this point, it has been simply safer to sit back and observe. Of course when we roll in to visit them, there are some undead milling about, and our vehicles made enough noise to draw in more beyond that, so we naturally had to deal with some action on the surface streets.

Caleb drove over a zombie as we pulled into the parking area near the building, and we dismounted quickly to set up a perimeter. There were perhaps 4 or 5 undead danger close to the vehicles. I hopped out and walked over to the zombie Caleb had hit. I had the halligan on me from the HRT, and as Abby got on the roof of the HRT to provide additional cover for me, I took a deep breath, and brought the halligan down onto the skull of the still crawling dead man. His legs were shattered and twisted something awful, and he wasn’t any danger to anyone, most importantly me at that moment, and that’s why I did him in the way I did. I needed a bunny to get back on the gravy train, to break myself back in. The sound and feel of his skull breaking under the halligan’s weight was sickening. Like smashing a flesh covered, brain filled coconut. I tried really hard to avoid looking at his eyes. I think looking at his eyes might've been too much for me. I don't want to admit this, but it was a welcomed feeling for me.

Abby gave me a quiet golf clap from the roof of the HRT as I pried the halligan free. I laughed at her. I was a little pissed at her, because her clap made me feel like she knew that was a big moment for me. I’m just self conscious about it. I need to face that.

The rest of the group fanned out to make our perimeter and put down the zombies in the vicinity, and once we’d made it safe, thankfully without having to fire any shots, we proceeded with the restock.

Not a ton of news to report on that. We took their garbage, refilled their water and food as needed, and dropped off a few hundred extra rounds. We had been waffling on the idea of upping their staff, and when we were there I made the decision we needed to. While we were inside the building I took time to check the world around it for movement, and to be honest, I saw far too fucking many undead in the streets. That's the disadvantage of being able to see the big picture: sometimes it's scary. A fair handful of them wandered over to the building while we were there, so the folks pulling security at the door had steady work on their hands.

Something also felt… off. I can’t place what it is yet, but every time I looked out the windows there, I had the feeling that I was missing something. Ever had that feeling Mr. Journal? It’s like when you’re about to leave the house, and you just feel like you’re forgetting something? Like you left the stove on, or forgot to brush your teeth or something. Same idea. I just had this fucked up feeling that I was missing some detail.

Anyhoo, seeing Mallory again was awkward. I don’t think she expected to see me either, because ten seconds after she saw me, she disappeared to “check on something.”

Chicks. So much drama.

When we cleared out I left them with the fact that I’d be back tomorrow. Thinking about McGreevy’s rifle the other day, and being on top of that building made me want to take some shots. Plus, Alex and George are there now, and they’re both decent shots, as is Mallory, so I feel pretty comfortable getting on a balcony, and putting lead downrange. I know I’ll draw in a lot of the dead, and I’m counting on that. The herd needs thinning, and I need safe trigger time.

We also discussed the temperatures. It’s been really quite cold, and MGR isn’t staying all that warm. We still have that wood stove from Sylvia’s cabin, and I’m bringing it back to MGR tomorrow. Ethan has agreed to come to the tower with me to stay while I’m there, and that’ll make getting the stove in and up the stairs to a central location that much easier. Martin will come back a few days later to get it all hooked up. I don’t think one stove is enough though. Being there for a couple hours earlier today showed me the building is not designed to stay warm without lots of electricity. I don't know how the folks who lived there as long as they did managed life. I’m thinking after I get done with a few days there putting dead down, we launch a mission for those bags of concrete, and a couple wood stoves I know are out there in folk’s basements.

Disadvantage of putting of wood stoves in a fourth floor apartment? Visible smoke. Also, we'll need wood on the fourth floor of a building.

Campus is bland. We are dealing with dogs now in a remarkably positive way. We are opening the outer gate at the rear of campus, and bringing out a small amount of food. When we feed the dogs that approach, if they take the food in a calm and friendly way, we know that they can be rehabilitated. Brought in as pets, warning alarms, whatever. What do they call it? Food bowl aggression I think. One of the dogs tried to bite the hell out of Angela today while we were gone, and she put it down on the spot. I and my two swinging testicles celebrated a small victory on that one.

We’ve only taken in one dog, a mutt that looks like it might be part Rotty. I don’t like it, but we’re keeping it near the barn where the cows are, and that’s a good distance from where I tread typically. The dog that got put down was a small thing. I didn’t see it, but Angela said it was like a beagle mix or something.

Angela also said they’ve counted the dogs, and there are 11 left that have been somewhere near Bastion regularly. I don’t know why they’ve suddenly made their way to our home like this. My worst worry is that whatever brought the undead back into town has scared the animals into the outskirts.

I wonder what might’ve led the undead to town, or stirred them up? You know I'm sitting here thinking about it, and I wonder if Sylvia had been feeding them at her dilapidated cabin in the woods all this time? It makes sense.

Headed to MGR in the morning with Ethan. I’m bringing the trusty laptop there in the event I can’t sleep. At least I’ll have something to do. I’ll be shooting by noon if all goes well.

-Adrian

January 6th

Shooting from an elevated position with a high powered rifle is an art. Working with Ethan the last couple days here at MGR has showed me exactly how little I know about long distance shooting. Happily, I can report that he has educated me quite a bit, and I am now a far more technically precise shooter with the Savage.

There are so many variables that go into shooting long distances. Wind at the barrel, wind halfway there, wind at the target… Then there’s the heat of the barrel itself, because a cold barrel fires differently than a hot barrel. Let’s not forget estimating the range accurately, the relative elevation of the target to you, as well as little things like the actual rotation of the earth. Because if you didn’t know Mr. Journal, when you fire a bullet a really long distance, the earth is still rotating during the bullet’s flight, and when the bullet gets to where you wanted it to go, they might have moved. BECAUSE THE EARTH MOVED UNDER THE BULLET.

Crazy shit huh?

I don’t pretend to be a sniper. Actually, I have talked some shit like I was a serious sniper, even though I'm not. (My apologies for talking shit.) That’s Ethan’s job, and he is motherfucking good at it. Watching him on the roof and balcony working his rifle the past few days has been a real eye opener. I’m a good shot. Shit, I’m a great natural shot, but he is a professional with natural skill to boot, and training out the fucking ass. He can get the dope on a shot in seconds, adjust, fire accurately, and move to the next target without even thinking. He can easily kill someone from a thousand meters away if he wanted to. Easily. And the sonofabitch keeps a shot log for every shot he takes. It's a little green notebook with all the information relevant to the shot. He's detail oriented in a murderous way.

I am so frigging glad he is on my side.

We arrived very early at MGR yesterday driving a humvee. We managed to fit the small cabin stove into the back hatch, as well as the chimney pipes. It felt a little strange going anywhere in a single vehicle group, but the roads were pretty safe, and with the camera feeds we can actually see a LOT of the trip before we even make it now. I’d say maybe 40% of the way to downtown is visible on cameras for us.

We arrived and found the area around the base of the tower largely empty of undead which was a pleasant surprise. We fully expected a prolonged pain in the ass engagement to clear (see: Jinx fairy), but there was only two or three and we were able to smash their heads in safely. I put the last one down myself, which was a nice confidence booster. The folks at MGR helped us get the stove inside and up the stairs to the top floor where it sits waiting for Martin and Blake to make sweet, sexy love to it. The two of them are coming tomorrow morning to install the stove somewhere, and when they are done, we’ll road trip back to Bastion with them. Incidentally, it is cold as a bastard in this building at night. Well hell, it’s cold during the day too. The people who live here were not exaggerating at all. There just isn’t enough heat to keep all the spaces they’re using warm. They need this stove, and at least one more and I think that's the barest of kindnesses we can offer them. Of course that raises the issue of stocking them with frigging wood too… Sigh.

That statement about going home with Martin and Blake should tell you we are largely done here with the thinning of the undead herd. Ethan and I immediately got to work yesterday on the shooting once we went over emergency planning with the folks here. Essentially we were going to start firing on distant undead, and as they approached, continue to engage them until we’d shot everything wandering our way.

I brought the Savage and a hundred rounds of .30-06 as well as my M4A1 and a full combat load. Ethan brought his issued M24 and about a hundred rounds for that, as well as his own M4A1 and a full combat load. The rest of the crew here had their guns and such, so if things were to get out of hand we’d be able to hold our own for some time until the QRF from Bastion arrived. It felt good to be so over prepared for a fight.

It was cold as fuck yesterday. Blustery winds made being on the top of a five story building much worse and did not help our situation at all. Not only were our fingers and toes miserable, but gauging the wind while it was moving was a bitch. My face was freezing off as well. Luckily as the day went on the wind calmed down, and we only wasted a total of maybe fifteen rounds on windage issues. I’ll go on record and say at least ten of those misses were mine. Ethan’s a far better shot, as I’ve already said.

Ethan saw my first rounds go downrange to no effect. I was shooting at about 500 meters or so, and with the wind it just wasn’t happening. He stopped firing, and started spotting for me until I got back into the swing of things. The info on a shot is called dope. The wind, the range, the elevation, all that. It’s called dope. I never really used the phrase but working with a guy that graduated sniper school he said it a lot, and now it’s in my head like the lyrics to some catchy pop song. Anyway, he kept feeding me the dope and within three or four rounds I was firing accurately, and blowing skulls up at the range I was aiming for. The whole time Ethan kept writing in that incredibly detailed log about every shot he took, and most of mine as well. He noted ranges based on physical details, swirls of wind, cloud cover, target descriptions, you name it. So much information is in that little green notebook.

I’ll go on record and say that shooting like this was a very cathartic event. I’ve been scared and worried I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger when I had to, and being in such a safe place, shooting at such distant targets, with a confident and incredibly skilled buddy right beside me really helped me settle back in. It was like a video game, and with someone else right there, it was awesome support. He’s a funny guy, that Ethan. Originally from Colorado.

We talked about his family (1 sister, Heather, older), and how he enlisted to get out of the small town he was in. He always wanted to work in or around planes, and when he took his ASVAB and enlisted, the recruiter asked him if he wanted to be a hero instead.

Well fuck right? What red blooded 18 year old American says no to that? Our culture revolves around hero worship. Basic training completed, he rolled straight into the Pararescue qualification course. He said it was hard, but worth it. He planned on returning to Denver most likely after his next enlistment to work at a hospital. With his medical training (18D, if that means anything to you), he’s basically a fully qualified physician’s assistant, with a huge edge in trauma medicine. The fucking guy has done amputations in the field, as well as tracheotomy's under fire, extreme damage stabilization, and more shit in Latin that I didn't even understand.

Broken eggs and spilled milk now though. He said at some point he’d like to try and make it back to his hometown eventually to see if his family is still alive, but we both knew that was a bit of a pipe dream. The fuel required for that trip would be epic, and let’s not even go into how dangerous it would be to drive that frigging far. I can’t even imagine trying to navigate the drive from here to say, DC, or Chicago, let alone fucking Denver.

So he has questions unanswered, as we all do. I hope he and the rest of the guys aren’t tormented by their questions like I am by mine.

Anyway, sitting up there on the roof and then later the balconies with him was nice. I hadn’t gotten a lot of time with Ethan, and I definitely hadn’t properly thanked the man for helping remove the bullet from my neck. He and Roger did the surgery, and if it weren’t for them, more than likely I’d be dead or at the very least still in a coma.

Ethan said it was, “No bother brother,” and that I should, “Do what Michelle and Kevin think you’re here for.”

Yeah, no pressure there. Those two think I’m the savior of the world. I’m barely keeping my own shit in check and I’m supposed to be the guy that fixes the joint to boot? It makes me uncomfortable when people say these things. I don’t even like thinking about it, and when it’s brought to my attention that others know that I’m supposedly this super important person, and that so much rides on me, it puts this giant magnifying glass over my head. I feel super critical about myself already, I don’t need the scrutiny of others too.

Bitch bitch bitch right?

I’m just another turd circling the drain, waiting for the cosmic toe to push me down.

I digress. Our shooting started fairly slow, taking down the small gathering of walkers off in the distance. Within ten minutes of our first shots, more walkers were coming in from all directions, on all surface streets. I’d say we had two or three coming towards us consistently for about four hours before it turned into a trickle. We stayed set up on the south facing of the building for an hour, then switched to the east, and so on until we’d taken out pretty much everything we saw.

I’d forgotten what a high caliber round does to the head of a person. Explosive is a good word. There’s just tattered head bits, and pick or grey flesh spatters left when the round impacts. The bodies keep moving forward for a small moment too, like they don’t quite realize their head is gone. Then the body goes down like a sack of bricks, completely dead. It’s horrifying, and satisfying at the same time.

Of course a few of the zombies had gotten to the base of the tower, and we had to take them out with our M4s. Luckily leaning over a balcony edge with the AimPoint sight made head shots remarkably easy. Ethan grabbed my belt and I would lean over. We’re fortunate zombies don’t move much, and when they do, it’s painfully slow and easy to adjust to.

Ethan’s little green log at the end of the day today said we’d put down 76 walkers. That’s good stuff. Not as many as I’d hoped, but that’s still a really large number of dead off the streets. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about the bodies. Most of them are far enough away from the building that they aren’t a health concern, and with the cold weather here, the bodies should freeze and hopefully rot by spring. I suppose the humane thing would be to bring them back to campus to burn, or try and bury them in a park nearby. I’ll think on it.

Staggering thought of the day: how long would it take for all the survivors in the world right now to bury or burn the bodies of all the dead?

Oh. Yeah. I almost forgot the biggest thing of them all. Last night as well as tonight just as the sun started to set, Ethan and I both noticed tiny pillars of smoke curling up into the sky in the distance. Maybe three or four miles out, possibly less. I counted four fires in four different, distinct locations, and Ethan the same.

It seems unlikely that there would be four random small fires in four random places all popping up at about the exact same time. If it were house fires, they’d be raging infernos, enveloping entire structures. These were small, controlled fires, barely putting smoke in the sky. If it weren’t for our good eyes, we might have even missed them.

More survivors.

I wonder if they’re the friendly kind of people? I’m starting to think getting my confidence back is a real priority. I might need to be on point in short order, and I can’t risk making a mistake that will cost anyone their life.

Tomorrow, Blake and Martin make love to the stove. Should be a good time for the stove.

-Adrian

January 8th

When Blake, Martin and crew arrived at MGR the other day we were in trouble. Our shooting spree the previous couple of days had drawn in a fair amount of undead over the night, and when we woke up, we were greeted by radio traffic from Bastion letting us know we had a long morning ahead of us.

Abby said that she saw something along the lines of 30 undead move into the vicinity of the tower over the night. She didn’t bother to wake us because shooting at night would’ve been more difficult (but not impossible, thank you night vision optics courtesy of the United States Air Force and USSOCOM). Instead, we were woken up at the ass crack of dawn with her telling me they were sending a small crew with Blake and Martin to assist us in clearing the entrance.

Ethan and I saw that as a challenge. We didn’t need anyone’s help. Granted, arrogant and stupid as fuck on our part, but realizing that I had the balls to step up and drop the hammer on short notice gave me a hard-on that lasted an hour. Nice to feel like I have balls again.

Ethan and I kitted up as fast as we could after hearing the radio transmission from Bastion. It was just like the days back in Iraq with Kevin when he and I were part of a QRF force. You get the call, and you get your shit and move immediately. No time to “get ready” if you get my drift.

Ethan and I went to the second floor balcony that overlooked the door that Martin built. We used that spot to set up a shooting position to thin out the crowd of undead that had gathered there. Ethan did a quick count and said we had forty one to drop.

Easy peasy.

Because we were only maybe twenty feet from the heads of the dead folks we were shooting at I went with the M4A1 on semi, with the suppressor attached. The AimPoint sight is perfect for short range fast shooting, and I was happy to see that the rifle performed excellently. If you’ve never shot with an AimPoint, it’s a clear round sight that projects a small holographic red dot in space where the bullet will go. They’re fantastic for firing accurately, and quickly. You lift the weapon, shoulder it, and as soon as you see the red dot inside the square on your target, you fire. It also cuts down on the pesky projected laser dot that the old beam style sights made.

When I started to shoot I actually asked Ethan to give me the floor for a bit so I could get some rounds out of my gun to get it broken in. He said that was fine, and I went to town.

I took the time to line up my first few shots very carefully. I picked zombies that were extra sedentary, and put that red dot right on their face, or forehead, or even the top of their head and took the proper deep breath and slow finger squeeze. No trigger slapping thank you very much.

The first few rounds popped skulls like I’d hoped. I intentionally started firing deep into the crowd to avoid us making large piles of dead bodies to push out of the way. The bodies crumpled to the ground one after the other. I’ve said this before, but the nice thing about having the first few bodies drop, is the other undead start to trip over them. They are too stupid to look down and adjust where they are stepping to stay upright. You should watch the fuckers navigate a set of steps. Hilarious shit.

Anyway, it got to the point where there were so many undead moving about that it was actually a relief when they started to trip and fall. It cut down on all the heads wandering about and let me focus on the task at hand.

We reached a point where Ethan had caught on to how I was shooting at the furthest away and slowest moving undead, and he started to spot for me. He’d call out something like, “Tall blonde three o’clock,” and I’d zone in on them and lo and behold, they’d be the exact kind of target I was looking for.

I think I’d put down about thirty of the dead we’d seen, and we had another ten or twelve wander in from the other sides of the building when we realized that we had to leave the balcony. The indent where the welded steel door was gave us a really shitty line of fire, and we essentially HAD to go down to street level to get the last of them put down.

Ethan and I wandered to the steel gate and assessed the situation. We sat and watched quietly in the freezing cold morning air as the rows of zombies reached through the bent metal bars at us ineffectively. Ethan pointed out how strange it was that they didn’t breathe. I knew they didn’t breathe, but watching their jaws reflexively close and open over and over again without seeing their breath come out was definitely strange. No one chews at the air like that. Ever. It's an entirely unnatural gesture. I guess one upside to the cold weather is that it deadens the smell somewhat. Now they just smell like cold, stale dead bodies.

I drew the Kimber and flicked it to 'danger mode,' and Ethan drew his M9 and did the same. We took a few steps back up the steps, and started shooting the undead at the rear of the group, one by one. I really like firing the Kimber. The 10mm recoil is powerful and satisfying, but not overwhelming. The weapon is smooth too. Super well made weapons firing powerful calibers are a wondrous thing. I will say that my eardrums did not appreciate going from the sweet, soft whisper of the M4 with suppressor to the 'bang on a giant steel drum with an explosion' cough of the 10mm. Loud as FUCK in that hallway.

I just wish the magazines held more rounds. No worries. I rarely fire the pistol in the first place, and if I have to, I will rarely need more than what the weapon holds. If I do, I’m probably fucked no matter what I'm carrying for a backup weapon anyway. I suspect the Jinx Fairy has reared her ugly head at that point, and shat on my cornflakes.

Anyhoo! We plowed through the skulls of the undead pressing against the metal doors Martin made, and just as we were finishing up, we got the radio call that the crew was inbound, and they were pulling up. They wanted to know what all the gunfire was about…

I simply replied to them and told them that we’d taken care of the work that they came to do, and that all was well, and thanks for all the fish. We needed more help clearing the bodies out of the way than anything. In some ways, they were pleased, but in other ways, they were pissed. No matter how much we say we hate violence, there’s something satisfying about getting into a good fight. Especially a hugely one sided one. I am really glad I can say that. A few weeks ago, my tone about a fight would've been different.

Fortunately for all involved, two passes with the HRT pushing bodies out of the way and the entire street was cleared out. I will say that all the noise had to have been heard by the survivors living at those fires we saw the other night though. When the group arrived I touched base with them and made sure we were pulling extra special guard if only for them. I wasn’t too worried about the undead presence, I was definitely more concerned with the living. Yet again the living are my concern.

Once we felt everything was stable, we moved on to the tasks at hand. The primary task at MGR before I left was the installation of that stove Ethan and I brought. Martin and Blake, handy motherfuckers that they are, got the stove placed in an apartment lickety split, and got the hole put in the wall for the stovepipe within about two hours. Like we’d been doing, we built a backstop and floor in made out of bricks to catch and reflect the heat as well as prevent the walls from overheating from the stove itself. They were also kind enough to bring multiple stove loads of wood, which will hopefully get them through a week of slow burn. They’ve also got a pretty substantial amount of furniture from unused apartments they can burn, which is all spare really. We aren't going to need a hundred coffee tables for a very fucking long time.

Mallory was the first person to toss a match onto the paper in the stove, starting a fire that hopefully will stay burning for some time. It felt like the lighting of the Olympic torch, or the returning of civilization to a savage land. Once they were up and running, we left, and returned back here to Bastion.

What’s new here Mr. Journal? Well for starters, no undead shambling horde at the gates, which is a change of pace from the last couple of days at MGR. Speaking of which, it definitely feels to me like MGR is our FOB. You leave the rear here at Bastion and head out there, outside the wall for the action. Maybe I’m silly, but it certainly feels that way. 'Injun country,' was the old expression. Yes I know that's racially insensitive. Not MY expression Mr. Journal.

Anyway, the largest accomplishment while I was gone was the road/path to the last tower construction site near the water being cleared out. All of the trees are down now, and all that remains for that is to have the last few stumps pulled with the backhoe. The ground is pretty well frozen hard by now though, and I guess they aren’t giving up the ghost all that easily. They should have the stumps up and out by the end of the day tomorrow, and the tower footings in process by the same time. We'll see how it goes.

I touched base over lunch in Hall B with Michelle. She said school is going well, but Syl had a bit of a relapse with her violence. I guess at one point while she was being brought dinner, she kind of snapped on Harold, and charged at him. She slapped the plate of food away, straight out of his hand, and made a pretty decent effort at clawing his eyes out. I guess Abby was there helping him, and she punched Syl up side the head and sent her sprawling on the floor. They grabbed her hands and feet and held her until she calmed down. I guess she’s been on edge since then. This won't make me sound any more sensitive after the injun country remark, but how about my Abby? Punching kids like it ain't no thang.

She hasn’t really talked at all, nor has she drawn any pictures that illuminate her mental state. We were hoping that she’d maybe drawn something about her Mom and Dad by now, but nothing yet. Michelle says she’s been very calm and almost affectionate towards her later in the afternoons after school closes down, and if she can stay safe for a few more days, she is thinking about letting her out of the dorm. So far, her entire life amounts to being kept inside a barred dorm room, and the four or five trips a day to the bathroom down the hall, complete with armed adult escort. Not much to be excited about I suppose, but at least she’s safe, warm, and fed. And we care. Dammit, we do care.

Kevin came to the Hall to join us late into the lunch, and as soon as he sat down, I knew something was on his mind. He was kind enough to let Michelle and I finish our conversation before starting in though. Michelle must’ve picked up on his intentions, because once she and I were done, she turned to him and said, “You have the floor Kevin.”

Kevin snickered and said something I’ve been waiting to hear for a very long time from either him or Michelle, “We need to figure out what this whole Trinity thing means.” He went on to talk about how we’d been together for some time, and if we really are meant to be something special, to do something special, then we need to get our acts together, and get cracking. "What are we doing? Where are we going? What's the big picture?" He asked.

Michelle and I simply nodded. He was right. We hadn’t talked about it hardly at all, and with me being hurt for so long, it kind of got pushed under the carpet (but not down the drain). So many other things that were important in the moment took over the stage, and have dominated it ever since. Now that things seem fairly sedate here at Bastion, and he’s 100% right, now is the time to start having the “what the hell are we doing” dialogue.

We made a plan to sit down and really, seriously talk about it on the 10th. All three of our schedules seemed clear, or could be made clear for that day, and it made sense to give all of us a day or two to really think about it before sitting down and discussing the whole “saving the world” thing. Seems like the thing we should invest some thought in.

In the meantime, after the three of us had that short but important talk, I asked Kevin if he thought we could get a small team together for an outside the wall run to a house about ten miles away to get a woodstove and a few hunting rifles. One of the houses I saw on the other side was likely still untouched, and I really want to get another wood stove for MGR. Despite the one stove there already, and thermally sealing off most of the building, it’s just a large space that’s tough to heat, and having two stoves running at lower temps in different areas will be better than one stove cooking hot all the time. Not to mention it gives them additional ways to cook, which will cut down on their electricity consumption, which will cut down on their gas consumption, which will fix the hole in the ozone layer, and yada yada.

He said he could easily have a team of six shooters with three vehicles ready to hit the house I told him about by two in the afternoon, and that’s our plan for tomorrow. Most of the school is staying back to work on the path and the farm and all that shit, but we’re taking six bodies, myself and Kevin included, and we’re getting some rifles, some ammo, and a wood stove from a house.

I feel like we’re going to be very successful.

Fuck you, fairy, I’ve got this one by the balls. Yeah that's right. I just taunted your ass.

-Adrian

January 10th

There is a lot of ground to cover here.

I’ll start with the mundane. Yesterday Kevin and I led a small team outside the wall to find a stove in a house. I saw the stove when I was snooping around on the other side with Gilbert, and I had a good feeling the stove would still be there. So far my expeditions with the wiley old fella have paid off several times, and it seemed worth giving it a shot again.

When we left Bastion the team was Kevin, myself, Martin, Roger, Angela and Quan. We left the rest of the folks behind in the event that anything happened either at home, or at MGR. The fires Ethan and I saw the other day on the fringes of downtown were weighing heavily in the back of our minds, and we wanted to make sure we had enough muscle to deal with whatever we might encounter while we were out. Fortunately, that still leaves us with enough shooters for a solid QRF.

We left at about 8am in two humvees and the HRT. It was kind of a sad moment when I got into the HRT. Not only was it cold as the devil’s balls out, but I managed to catch a glimpse of the Tundra sitting there in the parking lot, left alone and unused. No one has touched it in months. We’re trying to use Diesel vehicles only to conserve gas. I miss that truck. I miss its cracked windshield, broken headlights, fucked up grill, and all the success I had while driving it.

Oh well. Maybe one day I’ll bronze it. Turn it into a fountain in a courtyard somewhere.

The six of us rolled out through the gate and down Auburn Lake Road heading to the house with the stove. Auburn Lake was clear, and I think a few of us got the heebie jeebies when we drove over the bridge and saw how much ice was covering the lake. It won’t be much longer before we can walk on the ice, which means animals, undead, and the living can too. Speaking of which that reminds me that we have had to cut down on our construction time on the tower near the water. It’s been brutally cold during the day, something like 10 to 15 degrees, and we don’t want to risk frostbite. We’re rotating everyone in hour shifts right now, which has cut our production by half. It's worth it though. Building a tower isn't a worthy task to die for.

Anyway, the road leaving was clear of undead, and we turned off onto some of the side country roads heading towards Westfield. The house itself was a fairly new home built far off the road. It was a contemporary with skylights, and neat angles, and split levels. Very open concept. The dirt driveway was about a hundred yards long past a steel fence, and curved slightly to the left. I hopped out, opened the fence, had everyone drive in, then shut it behind us. Luckily there was little to no snow in the driveway for the vehicles to contend with.

The house was dark and cold, and I expected there to be at least one or two undead in it. When I saw the house on the other side I just had a weird feeling about it, and my suspicions were confirmed when we saw the bottom floor windows boarded up. Sheet plywood nailed or screwed over the glass, and the front door had several 2x4s spaced across it to prevent folks from easily getting in. It looked hasty, but it would’ve bought the people living here a day or two to let things simmer down. Of course… things didn’t go for them as they’d planned.

But what does?

Quan and I got the boards pried off the doorframe in short order and after going around looking in the windows as best we could and going over the layout of the interior again to the best of my memory, we kicked the door in and breached the house.

Kevin was first in the stack, I was second. Both of us were engaging immediately. Straight forward in the house was the kitchen, and on the floor crawling towards us was a dead woman, her lower limbs chewed apart and left ragged and meaty. Kevin walked slowly and professionally inside the house, called out contact, and popped one round into her head, giving her some peace. He moved into the space to the right, continue making it safe.

I went left into the living room just as he was firing and saw two more zombies scratching at the window closest to the driveway, where we parked. It was a pretty clear father and son duo. The dad might’ve been fifty, and the son fifteen, give or take. I can happily report that after calling out contact myself, I snapped off a round into the son’s ear, putting him down and staggering the father on the through and through, and then put another round into the dad’s silent, wrathful face. I think he might’ve realized I shot his son. Hard to tell what’s left of the person inside when they’re the walking dead.

The rest of the house stank, but in that cold, dry stink, like meat gone bad in the fridge. The toilets were overflowing with human waste (which curiously smelled better than the dead people), and the food was all gone. None of the three minus the mother or wife had any visible signs of cause of death which led us to conclude they’d died of sickness. Mom probably lived through the illness, and paid the price when her son or husband ate her legs. Shitty way to go. Also, see: importance of medical care.

We found the rifles in the house as I expected us to, but not in the gun cabinet as I saw on the other side with Gilbert. Things can change from what I saw versus what they are now, and this was just more proof of that. We got three bolt action hunting rifles, one .30-06, one .223, and another .270. Popular caliber it would seem. Angela found about thirty rounds for each weapon scattered across the house, often stacked in small groups on windowsills. We also found a 9mm Taurus pistol and about forty rounds for that, which I didn’t find on the other side. Must’ve been a new addition, or maybe I just didn’t see it when I was looking around.

Once we secured the whole house, basement included, we opened the rear bulkhead, and got to work on getting the stove removed. The stove itself was intended to heat the basement, based on where it was placed. I hadn't thought of it when I suggested visiting this home, but the owners had turned it into a bit of a wood shop, and the tools and raw materials in there were pretty impressive. We took all of them. We also took all the wood, which was a nice addition to our raw materials supply. Good times I suppose.

The stove was fairly large, and getting it out took almost all of our muscle. Angela, thank God, was pulling security for us when we were loading it into the back of one of the humvees, and she called out contact on the driveway. One lone zombie was shambling his way up towards us, and she shouldered her AR and popped him down with one shot. Of course all the rest of us just froze solid, holding the goddamn stove up in the air, waiting and watching to see what the contact was. It was a scene straight from a zany heist movie. Like the crooks are standing still, watching a security guard walk past while they hold all the bags of money. We got a good laugh out of it.

It didn’t take us long to get to that point, and that left us with some time to check out the houses nearby. There were only two, and we hit them fairly hard and fast. I didn’t recall anything inside from my snooping before, but it turned out to be worth it. There was a tiny bit of food there, as well as two more handguns, some lumber, shingles and 2x4s, some 4x4s, a handful of concrete blocks, and a few other things like kitchen tools etc. I forget exactly what we got, as I was taking a shit in the woods behind one of the houses when we were emptying them. When nature calls, right?

Is it odd that I missed taking a shit with someone covering me? Felt like good old times.

The run back to Bastion was clean. Nothing in the road, nothing dangerous happening. We passed along the message to the MGR people to let us know if any fires were visible, and on the way back, right around 3pm or so, they called out that a couple of the fires had perked back up again. Based on Ethan’s assessment, the fires were in the same spots as when he and I first saw them. I’m glad they aren’t moving. It makes me feel more confident about the fires being at places where people are newly living, rather than just random fires set by vindictive pricks. Or something worse.

We left the stove in the humvee for delivery to MGR at a later time, and did a quick mission debrief before going our separate ways. No complaints by anyone on anything of note, just a general sense of impressiveness over me knowing where things were going to be in the house. More Adrian mystique added I suppose.

Last night we relaxed, and cleaned our weapons, and I went over in my head what exactly I’ve got planned here. Some of my decisions don’t make sense on the surface, and I realize that. I don’t share everything in my head with people, and I also don’t write it all down here. Sometimes I make what looks like a bad decision strictly to see what happens. Like for example, why are we going to use wood stoves at MGR when the smoke plume will give our position away? Maybe I want to force contact. Maybe I want to bring people to us. Maybe it’s because when they run lights at night there on the top floors, they stand out like a fucking pink feather boa at a funeral.

The way I see it, the smoke isn’t us tipping our hats to anyone observing. If they’re observing, then they already know we’re there. I asked Martin yesterday when we were out getting the stove if he could engineer some improvements to the door at MGR, as well as come up with some security enhancements for the building in general. MGR is far more likely to get hit than we are here, and even if we are hit here, we are far more capable of dealing with an assault. I guess looking at my decision in hindsight, we definitely should’ve upped the security first, but I can’t take that back now.

I slept like shit last night.

Michelle, Kevin and I agreed we’d meet over dinner today. I spent the entirety of today alone, trying to assemble my thoughts around what it meant to be who I supposedly was, and who they were, and what the fuck we were intended to accomplish now that we’re together, healthy, and actually capable of doing anything.

I have no good answers. When the three of us snuck off to eat dinner by ourselves here in Hall E, all of us looked sheepish, like we couldn’t believe we were about to talk about what we were about to talk about. Lot of words beginning with the letter W in that sentence. Yeah, you just re-read it didn’t you? Clever fucker aren’t I?

I’m dodging the issue.

Michelle started the conversation. She was clearly the person to do it, and I think she knew it. She’s so smart, and intuitive, and she’s had the most “contact” with the powers-that-be of the three of us.

Michelle simply stated that she felt we three were gathered together to redeem mankind. We were the ones that were given the guidance and the chance to rebuild things in a better way. Restart culture and society to share more common bonds, reduce prejudices, racism, sexism, and our fucked up consumer centered existence. She felt that we were tasked with restarting the world, simply put.

Kevin’s take on it was very predictable, considering his skill set, and life experiences. He felt that we were united together to eradicate the undead. Simple as that. In order to free humanity from the scourge that was testing us, we had to pass the test by winning it. Kill or be killed, destroy all the undead and we would be set free.

What he said there hit a chord with me. I get the idea that he is “The Warden” and is the protector. Of what I'm not sure, but I get that. He’s the warrior that keeps us safe, and fights no matter what, and all that jazz.

What doesn’t make any sense to me, is how Michelle is “The Savior,” and I’m “The Scribe.” She also said I was “The Soul.”

What the fuck does that mean? When I asked her how the “titles” had meaning, she told me about how this all started. I feel like I’ll do it no justice writing about it here, but the basic idea is that she and her research associate were studying burial rights and ceremonies in Africa on June 22nd.

She was taken to a small gathering deep in... the Congo I think she said, and there she and her associate saw a burial ceremony go awry. I guess midway through the process the temperature drops like a rock, and the smell of blood coppery pervades the space. Then some creepy ass voice tells her that it, “All starts here,” and that humanity with be, “Judged,” and that she will, “Bear witness.”

Some old guy dies (I guess he was probably already dead huh? Hence the need for the funeral), and stands back up. You can guess where it goes from there. No undead attacked her in the jungle apparently. She fled, her partner dude died shortly therafter, and she started to walk/run away. She was eventually escorted by a small dead kid that kept her out of trouble all the way to Morocco, where she met Kevin and his group. She said his name was Oudry. Apparently, he was able to tell her that.

She had dreams of The White Room, as did Kevin and I. Of course for whatever reason, her dreams were far more informative. She spoke to her father, and even heard voices that apparently were the voice of the… Creator? God? Ronald McDonald?

Who fucking knows.

Exceptionally long story short, she goes on and on, and finally says that she believes that humanity lives or dies based on me. Perhaps not me and me alone, but maybe a decision I make. Maybe whether or not I survive, or if I become a better person myself. I am the tipping point. The fulcrum, as it were.

She thinks that because I am no one special, and that I am the generic male, with no specific religious beliefs, or political leanings, I am the perfect person to base this on. If I succumb to evil, and remain a shithead, or get killed, thus preventing me from passing whatever test it is that's out there waiting for me, then humanity will be judged as having failed, and we’re all fucked, and we get pushed down the cosmic drain by an awfully big fucking toe. Kevin is here to make sure I don’t get killed while I figure my shit out, and Michelle, as the “Savior” is here to give me guidance, and be there for me. Whatever that means.

Keep in mind Mr. Journal, this conversation reached the five hour length, and only just recently finished. So clearly, I am paraphrasing here.

I don’t know quite what to make of this. I also didn't know that I knew what paraphrasing meant. I kind of knew this was all coming, but to be honest, none of us really know what to do about it. Understandably, Kevin wants action. He wants to go out, find and enlist more fighters, and start a fucking full on, full fledged war against the undead. Kevin is one of those 'find him a problem' kind of people. He understands the idiocy of this, but also believes part of our making it through this is not giving up, and bringing the dead to a full state of rest. He thinks active effort is better than being passive.

Michelle thinks we are already in the end game. She thinks we are winning this game or battle simply because we are surviving, and starting a new, hopefully better world. She thinks a big part of the Trinity’s purpose was to unite, and persevere through adversity, and prove that humanity deserves a second chance. We are an example of what can be. We are hope, personified.

If that’s the case… why are the dead calling her the Savior? And why, why oh why am I the Soul? What the hell does that mean?

At the end of the discussion we’d reached a cordial stalemate. None of us fully agreed with the others, not out of argument, but out of confusion. We had no idea who was right or wrong. Frankly, all of us felt that each of us was a little right. I think that’s part of this. It’s kind of like having faith. If you had proof, your faith wouldn’t be faith, it’d simply be knowledge.

Sometimes you just need to feel what you’re doing is right for it to matter.

Sigh.

Winter is upon us, and we have many domestic issues to contend with. Food will be tight as is, and we now have multiple groups in the town that are likely to vie for the remaining resources in houses and businesses. Even if they are friendly, bringing them here to Bastion, in any way affects our ability to survive. We simply can’t afford to feed many more if we want to be healthy, and survive as a group through the whole winter.

We all did manage to agree that for the moment, simply maintaining was a good idea. Investigate town, work on fortifications, increase our food production and resource retrieval, and when warmer weather came, hopefully we’d have a better idea of what we were supposed to be doing. I think all three of us were secretly hoping for more dreams between now and then that would lead us to the promised land, so to speak. We could use some serious insider intel.

Gilbert, if you’re listening, I could use a call.

Our plan for the next few days I’ve already shared. We’ve got the space and the gear to expand the hydroponics in the gym, and that’s what we need to do. We’ve got some design ideas for hydroponics that don’t require any electricity, and we’re going to build some. I've allocated manpower to Ryan and Becca to help get it done as soon as possible. We need to fortify MGR. We also need to install the second stove there, and probably increase their electricity on hand. Kevin, Ethan and I all foresee us expanding the number of people living there, so we need to gear up for that.

Construction on the waterfront tower must continue. Watching the ice freeze a little bit more every morning has made people very worried about an attack from that direction, as unlikely as it may be. We also need more wood to burn. Syl needs to be rehabilitated, the school must stay open and operational for the children, and we need to make more babies. I know we’re having a rough time planning on how to feed who we have now… but we need to make more babies if we as a species are going to survive.

I’ll end on that note. We’ve got to fuck more. Maybe that’s my role in this. Maybe the Soul has to knock some boots to save humanity.

Right. Like that’d be the case. I'm not that lucky.

-Adrian

January 13th

Ethan came over the radio yesterday afternoon, calm as a cucumber, with gunfire in the background. Those of us with radios reacted immediately to his short, simple message.

“Taking heavy fire at MGR. One casualty, critical. Requesting immediate QRF support.”

I haven’t heard a message like that in a long time. I mean years. I’d forgotten how badly it chilled you to the bone. I also forgot just how fast it got your heart pumping.

Kevin came over the radio in response just a few seconds later, “Copy that. QRF gathering and enroute. ETA 20 minutes.”

It took us just five minutes for our pre-agreed upon QRF force to gear up, saddle up, and get the fuck out of the gate. As we piled into the two humvees and the HRT there was a mixture of fear and adrenaline coursing through us. We knew we were driving into danger, but we also wanted to be there for our friends, and nothing, nothing at all would get in the way of us getting to the people we cared about.

Caleb drove the HRT with me in the shotgun seat. In the humvees we had Kevin, Quan, Kate, Roger, Nick, and Joel. Pretty much the majority of our heaviest hitters. We left a good number of our second tier shooters behind for security in the event the school was attacked. Abby, Mike, Harold, Angela and Patty for example. Calling them second tier isn't fair either.

“Out of the gate. ETA ten minutes,” Kevin said as we pulled away, gunning it up Auburn Lake Road. We'd made up time.

Ethan responded a few seconds later, “Better hurry. We’re going to have a KIA here shortly.”

Never something you want to hear. KIA. Killed in Action. A dead body. A dead friend. My resolution broken already, just 12 days into a 365 day long year. A fool's dream it was, right?

“Roger that,” Kevin said.

The roads were clear right up to the area where the police station was. In the road there we swerved and ran over a couple of dead that were walking towards the sound of the gunfire at MGR. Right about as the rear tires of the HRT were bumping over the smashed corpses Kevin asked Ethan to switch to the more secure military comms and give us an update. Ethan’s quick report came into our ears, crisp, calm and clear, though he sounded like he was running.

“We’re taking fire from the north and west. You’ll be coming in from the south west if you take the normal route, so be careful. As best as I can tell, we’ve got three or four hostiles in both locations. They’re got high powered rifles, and are firing accurately. I’m more or less suppressed at the moment, but I'm maneuvering to a different window to get a shot off. Right now I believe they are maneuvering on us, trying to get to the base of the building. If they get to the gate, we’re in deep shit.”

Kevin replied to him, “Roger that. We’ll adjust course to approach from the west attacker’s rear. Maybe we can flush them out. Who is the wounded and what is the severity of the injury?” Kevin asked him.

“Mallory took a round to the left arm just above the elbow. Lower arm is trashed, severed. I’ve got a tourniquet on her and the bleeding pretty much under control and an IV in her. She’s in a lot of pain, and lost a lot of blood. She’s gonna need fluids stat, and I can't offer her care while we're under this kind of fire.”

As much as I may or may not be angry with her for leaving me, or wanting to be happy without me in her life, I did not wish ill upon her. I always deep inside understood what she wanted. She didn’t deserve to get shot like that. No one deserves to lose an arm. My skin went all prickly as Ethan talked and I had that sinking feeling of despair, mingling with anger at the same time. I was in a bad place mentally, no lie.

The PJs exchanged some fancy medical jargon that I won’t even try and regurgitate. I didn’t understand it then, and I certainly won’t do it any justice now. Over the comms we discussed driving hard into the back of the western shooter’s positions, and engaging them with overwhelming fire superiority. Shock and motherfucking awe.

We saw them and they saw us pretty much at the exact same time. Two shooters were crouched down behind a car parked on the side of the street. They were behind the engine block, which means they were smart, or lucky. Both of them weren’t firing when we turned onto the street, but as soon as they saw our vehicles rumbling down the road at them, both shooters spun, and leveled off to shoot at the windshield of the HRT. Caleb ducked like a mongoose and not one moment too soon. The windshield spider webbed right where his face was and a massive round punched through the glass. I heard a loud “PUNK!” noise as it passed out the back of the HRT. Must’ve been a heavy duty round. Big enough to kill a deer, and definitely big enough to kill my brother.

I had my window down already and as soon as the round hit I leaned the weapon out the window and thumbed it to full auto. I pulled the trigger and fired as a tight a grouping as I could into the space where the men stood, sending plumes of dirt and snow into the air as rounds skipped off the pavement at them. The two men dove over the car as we slowed down and Caleb was able to sit up. They got to their feet and ran with all their might around a corner. We pursued, stopping the vehicle at the small intersection near MGR. We got out and pulled security, having watched the two shooters run as fast as they could away.

Our main concern at the moment was Mallory. Chasing down the attackers was secondary seeing as how they’d ran so fast. Ethan came over the radio as we started to form a perimeter saying the north side attackers had retreated as soon as I started to fire on full auto. I guess there’s a certain instinctual thing about when you hear the tearing noise of 500+ rounds per minute coming out of a gun that isn’t on your side of a fight. I imagine it's a lot like showing up to an afterschool fight and watching the offensive line for your high school football team show up for the other guy.

Once the other guys were sure we were safe for the moment, we got our PJs upstairs to Mallory, and they stabilized her. I remained outside on the north corner of the tower for security. I was useless to them inside. I’m better at hurting people than fixing them, sadly. I wonder if the powers-that-be thought about that when they made their picks in the end of the world draft? Makes me wonder if I'm the good guy's or the bad guy's draft pick?

We remained at MGR as a force for an hour while they got Mallory patched up enough to travel. It was clear after talking in depth with Ethan and the folks at MGR that the attackers had some skill. The attacked on two fronts in an L shaped action, used accurate suppressing fire to free up movement elements, and had a clear and concise plan to attack the tower to get inside. I won’t go so far as to say they were professionals, but they clearly had a very good idea of how to do what they wanted to do. Not a good sign at least. This is where I talk about regret in doing things hastily.

We had to get Mallory back to campus pretty fast, and we also had to beef up the numbers at MGR, so Kate and Nick, our flight crew folks elected to stay there. We also left them with their M4s, as well as a SAW and a thousand rounds or so for it. If they need to suppress attackers, that gun will buy them time. We were very lucky we left yesterday with just a single wounded person. Granted, Mallory is now down her left arm forever, but I’ll chalk that up as us being a little lucky. Had that bullet hit her about eight inches to the right, it would’ve ripped her chest apart, and she’d be dead.

She’s stable right now in the clinic. I spent some time with her, but they’ve got her sedated pretty good. I can’t imagine the pain she went through. Poor woman has already been through so much, and now she’s without an arm. No more cutting hair, unless she gets creative. Life’s a bitch right?

Kate and Nick are still at MGR as of right now until we come up with a more stable, solid plan to staff the location. We are now working on having two people on watch 24 hours a day there. It isn’t enough to just have the cameras. Speaking of which, we saw just a little of the attackers on tape. They stayed pretty far out, and the cameras aren’t the best anyway, so we saw very little of use. In good news, I don’t think they knew the cameras were there, and we saw them exit to the north towards the area where we saw the most of the fires the other day, which may or may not mean that’s where they are. We’re also debating mounting a recon-in-force to those areas to see if there’s a hornet’s nest to kick.

We’ll see. Security first.

What a rush though. Felt good to be a part of the team that kicked some ass, despite not actually shooting anyone. I guess that’s the fight we want to win right? No one died, and we all walked away, as did they.

Martin finished his plan to upgrade the doors yesterday as well, which was sheer coincidence. We’re making a plan to upgrade the doors using his plan immediately. I think we decided to do it tomorrow, but I’m not entirely positive. Kevin and Mike were working on it.

What I can certainly say is that with the clear need to upgrade the staff levels at MGR we need another generator for there, as well as increased food on hand, and food production either on-site there, or here to be delivered there. We also need a better sewage system than just bagging it and dumping it back here. We can throw it out the windows, but that isn’t sanitary in the least…

Of course an apartment building in a town with no electricity or running water doesn’t have a lot of options. We’ll see. I’ll leave that plan to someone far smarter than I. I should talk to Ollie about it. That's the kind of problem he'd crush in ten minutes.

We’re moving a few of the hydroponics stations to MGR. We’ve got a few that are already well growing that can spruce up their fresh food on hand right off the bat, and we can also relocate about ten chickens there as well. I think they can build a coop on the roof to make it work. Feed for the chickens might be difficult, but fresh eggs will be good. Water will be a concern there too, with added mouths, but… We’ll figure that out too. We’re also probably going to have to abandon the construction on the waterfront tower due to a sheer lack of manpower. As important as it is to build the towers, dealing with actual threats as they come to light is more important than a guard tower overlooking a lake that hasn't seen a soul on it in nearly two years.

Fucking logistics of all this shit kills me. There’s just no easy solution to anything.

Jenna came to me right after dinner and pulled me aside. I hadn't really taken any time to talk to her since we had the missing food incident. I immediately felt bad. I was talking to Michelle about how Syl was doing at the time, and for a moment, I thought Jenna was doing some kind of jealousy power play (which might be the case, as I’ve clearly shown, I’m a fucking giant dildo when it comes to women).

Jenna raised the concern that we’re going through our canned goods at a pretty good clip, and the chickens aren’t laying as many eggs the past few weeks as they have been previously, so we’re actually not looking good on the food stores at all. She said she wanted to show me more of the deal, and I said I’d see her tomorrow, depending on how the day went, and whether or not we went to MGR to supply them, and start the work on the door upgrades.

I’m very tired, but we’re all sitting here, tapping our toes and twiddling our fingers waiting for the radio to fire up again. I am sincerely hoping that the idiots that attacked us the other day don’t attack again, but if they do, we’ll be ready for them.

I just hope they aren’t ready for us.

-Adrian

January 15th

MGR was forced to engage another small round of attacks late this morning. Ethan, Kate and Nick were ready for them this time, and when the tower took fire, they returned equal or more fire accurately, with one confirmed KIA on the enemy.

Apparently they were attacked by the south this time by a group numbering somewhere between 4 and 6 hostiles. They maneuvered on the tower providing cover for each other while Ethan observed them from the roof. Eventually the team radioed us that they were about to initiate contact, and when Ethan felt they’d run close enough, he pulled the trigger. One man was running across the street at about a hundred fifty yards out, and Ethan put one round through the guy as he crossed the yellow line in the middle of the street. Well, where the middle line was under the snow. We got some serious snow the past few days, and it’s still all over the place.

Anyway, the report is that the man went down in a heap and stayed awful still. Ethan said he put the round through the man’s chest, and any weapon in that kind of caliber hitting a target that close, that’s not wearing any kind of body armor… Well. I’d bet the man’s lungs and heart were scrambled like eggs.

The dude face plants in the road, and the rest of the group stops cold, taking cover. See: the power of the sniper. Ethan held his fire and waited, letting them sweat it, and after… I think he said a full minute, the man got back up, and he turned, looking for his other friends. This time, his intent was not to help them, or continue his part in the attack on MGR, but to eat the people he came there with alive. Good guy attacker, changing teams in the middle of the fight for us.

Showing some compassion, Ethan put one round through the man’s skull, blowing it clean off his shoulders. What’s left of his body is still in the street down there right now, and that was about eight or ten hours ago. The rest of the group slinked away, staying in decent cover for their retreat, so Ethan wasn't able to hit them, and haven’t returned yet. Our three at MGR felt like it was a better tactic to let them escape and think over what happened, and how we handled it, than simply dropping them as they ran. Lord knows, Ethan and crew could’ve put at least one or two more of them down, of that I'm sure, despite him saying he couldn't get a clean shot off. After dark Ethan or Nick are going to slip out to retrieve the fallen dude's weapon and check on their route in or out. I’m guessing we might have some footprints or tire tracks we can follow out. Of course it’s a little windy right now, so there’s a good chance that’s a fool’s hope. I'm hoping for a trail of breadcrumbs.

But, let’s face it. I am not a profoundly lucky dude. I can safely say I spend more time looking up from the bottom of the drain at the toe, than being the toe.

MGR didn’t require a response from us, and judging from their accounts of the events, they handled it well. Unless these morons that keep attacking us come up with a new tactic, or find some kind of serious firepower, I think we have them handled for the moment. Famous last words, enter the Jinx Fairy.

Mallory’s arm is doing well, and she’s finally out of the medication haze they had her on. She lost everything below the left elbow though. The stub, or whatever you want to call it is healing well, and she says the pain is manageable. She says she can still feel her fingers. Says she can still move them. Sucks to see her like that though. It’s certainly weird to see someone that previously had two arms doing things without one. Well, trying to do things with just one. She’s got to learn how to do a lot of things over again. I had this pang of guilt or something while seeing her. I almost wanted to ask her to “take me back” or something, at least so I can help her or something, but that’s all that white knight bullshit again. She doesn’t need emotional complications on top of healing issues. There are plenty of people that can help her here that aren’t going to mess with her head at the same time.

I met with Jenna, and she’s 100% right. Our food stores are going down faster than we’d anticipated. I think the births of the children, the Syl theft, as well as just feeding Syl might have a lot to do with it. We’ve also had some sick kids, and we’re feeding them twice quite a bit. Once for them to throw up, then once again slower and with frustration so they keep it down. I also don’t think anyone had an idea the impact of Kevin and Michelle’s group was going to have on us. Granted, they brought some food with them, but it wasn’t much, and now they’re eating out of our stores. We can barely keep up with demand on egg or milk production right now. MRE's aren't designed for sharing in the same way grown food is.

Food is a serious concern right now for me. It was bad before when Syl was stealing from us, but now that we’re into the thick of winter, moving around off campus is a bitch, and there’s little left to search for anyway. We’ve pretty much got what we’re going to have. Grow it or go without shall be our motto. I talked with Jenna and Ollie while Patty and Abby were there, and after taking a pretty careful stock of the situation, we’re looking at maybe putting the oldest cow down for meat.

James has also said that he will double his efforts outside the walls to try and get us a deer, or something we can eat. Of course he dropped a fair amount of deer already, and I’d hate for him to hunt the area’s deer extinct or something. Although, I can’t imagine more won’t come through here eventually, and if we have to hunt them into oblivion for a year, it’ll be worth it to get us through to the summer where we can plant far more crops to get through the following winter and so on and so forth. I do know that this is robbing Peter to pay Paul, but people might die if we don't.

We’d start fishing too, but the lake is freezing over. The ice isn’t thick enough for us to ice fish on either just yet, so that’s kind of a shit situation too. We’re discussing better ideas on rationing as well, and we've talked more about amping up Ryan and Becca’s hydro production, but we've had to put that off because other fires have sprang up on us. We can start on assisting them in maybe three or four more days, depending on how things settle out at MGR. Downside to that, is listening to my sister bitch at me about how badly they need more help, how important it is what she and Ryan are doing for us, and how I'm 'not seeing the big picture.' Insult, and injury. I want to yell at her so badly, but she doesn't deserve it, and on many levels, Becca is right. I cannot deny her the passion she and Ryan have for what they're doing.

Despite the snow, the cold, and the shitty road conditions we might deal with, we need to try and get some supplies one way or the other. We need at least two more generators. That's feasible for us. One needs to go to MGR so they have extra electricity, as well as a second generator in the event the first dies, and we also need a spare generator here in Hall E. The solar panels and batteries in this dorm are going to start shitty production with the snow on the roof, so we will need to run more generators to stay warm. The wood stoves help all over our little 'town' here, but some of these dorm buildings are deceptively large, and get pretty cold, pretty fast, no matter what we do.

I know a place sort of near the other house we hit a few days ago where there’s a big generator. Diesel powered if I recall, which will be clutch. It will be a tough drive if the snow is as deep as I think it might be, but we can manage. We still have that technology. I forget what else is in the house, but the generator alone is worth going for. I think there’s two other houses right near it as well, and despite thinking long and hard about it… I can’t remember what’s in them. Like the fading memory of a dream, what I remember searching for while on the other side is leaving me. I feel like I’m on a clock here… Everything I did on the other side is starting to leave me. Better get moving eh?

We’re meeting to plan the run tomorrow morning, rehearsing everything, getting some other shit done, attempting to free up at least two people to help Ryan and my sister, and then heading out. If MGR has a set of tracks that we can follow, then we’ll change plans, and possibly launch a heavy recon to find out where the attackers are coming from.

Either way, it’s time for Adrian to kick some doors in again.

-Adrian

January 17th

MGR found no tracks that were suitable for us to follow. The wind was blowing a little too hard, and with the walking dead moving about as well, there was no way to get a clean follow on them. Certainly not worth it in the face of so much needing to be done. With nothing to go on for that, we opted to hit the house with the generator early yesterday afternoon.

Because of the overall level of tension with everyone, we came up with a plan that made everyone feel safe. We wanted to send a team of people that had experience, was able to work together, but one that also wouldn’t leave Bastion unprotected, nor would it totally neuter our ability to respond to MGR fast. Kevin, Mike and I got The Factory on the line, and they’ve committed to sending assistance if needed, but they don’t have the firepower, nor the vehicles. They've already got their own fish to fry, as you might imagine. Plus, coming from the edge of the city is scary, because if the undead presence is flaring up, they can’t respond either.

They are unreliable, but in a pinch, I believe they’ll send us some help. How much help, who knows.

Anyhoo, we opted for a team I was infinitely comfortable with. Myself, Patty, Abby, Angela, Harold and Blake. We’d roll out in the deuce, and the HRT. The humvees would be left back for the QRF if needed, and Kevin’s entire team minus Hal was then still available to pull security for Bastion as well as respond as the QRF should MGR be attacked again. If that happened, we’d abandon our house clear, and head back to staff Bastion immediately. Like one of those little puzzles where you can only move one little square at a time.

We left the campus at about noon, anticipating we’d need twenty minutes of transit, two hours of clear, and then twenty minutes back. In reality the house was closer than that, but with the snow, we figured it’d take longer.

It did.

The side roads the house I took us to were all still covered in about six inches of smooth, ice crusted snow. You could hear it crunching under the wheels as we went. As long as we took it slow, we were fine on the roads. What was disturbing though, was the presence of undead on the side road.

The house was maybe two miles down a tiny road that connected two slightly more major streets in town here. One of those old cow paths that people built farms on a century ago. As time went on, less cows walked on the path and more wagons, then cars, and here it is now as a poorly paved town road with five houses on it.

Anyway, with just five houses on it, there was little intelligent reason for there to be about fifteen undead walking up and down the road. It was also strange because the snow surface on the road was still fairly smooth, indicating that the undead hadn’t wandered there recently. Very odd.

The first couple of undead we saw were in the road, and I simply drove the HRT right over them. The plow blade makes for a highly effective zombie smashing weapon as we've proved time and again, and it also saves us the effort and physical risk of getting out of the truck. When we got close to the house in question, I realized that we were in a bit of a pickle.

The house was nestled in the elbow of a corner in the road. The driveway was small, and opposite the house was a twenty foot drop to a stream. We had damn little area to drive the vehicles. I parked the HRT in the curve of the road, completely blocking it, and Angela parked the deuce in the driveway. I don’t know how she managed to turn it around so smoothly and back it up perfectly, but she did, and it was awesome. Team Vagina, breaking stereotypes every day.

Right at the house as we were parking we saw three undead. Two of them immediately started at the vehicles, trudging through the snow as fast as their disorganized, frigid bodies could move through the snow. I slid out of the HRT, walked around the front of the truck calmly, took a breath, got rid of the heart in my throat and bad memories of being shot in the head, and put the first one down. Lining up that beautiful red dot on a head makes shooting quickly so much easier. The first bodies impacted the crust on the snow, and nearly disappeared under it.

Abby was out the other door of the HRT simultaneously, and she needed two rounds to put the second zombie down. Hers fell sideways into an overgrown hedge at the front of the house and never quite made it to the ground. It was a pretty, young woman in a thin summer dress. She looked very out of place in the cold of January. The reddish grey mist of her brains looked very strange painted across the porch behind the hedge.

What a world.

From the driveway behind Abby and I we heard Patty snap off a round from her AR at the third undead coming down the road. She was accurate on her first shot I can happily report, and within a minute, we were ready to breach. I remembered the layout of the house pretty accurately, and I knew it was narrow hallways, and lots of small doors. It was an old house, and if you’ve ever been in old, small houses, they are kind of claustrophobic. When we checked inside the windows we could see a few moving figures, so we knew the breach would be violent.

As a result, I decided I’d breach the house on point with a 12 gauge. Nothing against the M4A1, but I wanted the knockback power of a shotgun. The 5.56 rounds are so high velocity, they can frequently buzz right through someone and barely stagger them. However, buck shot from a 12 gauge to the chest… does a bit more than stagger someone. And besides, close is often good enough with a shotgun.

We breached with a team of three. I was on point, Harold second, and Abby third. Abby and I are a pretty well oiled machine for this, and Harold in the middle was added comfort. He’s a good man, and a very good Marine. Royal Marine to be specific. Have I mentioned I dig his accent? It reminds me of watching Guy Ritchie movies. Note to self: Watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels soon. I had Angela make noise on the far side of the house as we prepared to go in the door. Hopefully she would attract the undead inside away from us, or at least get them turned around to buy us a few seconds.

I pried the door open with the halligan and we were in. The house was tight, just like I thought I remembered from the other side. The main hallway led straight, then hooked right sharply. To the left was the kitchen and living room. Bedrooms were all off the right side of the hallway, with the stairs up after the hook right. Does that makes sense to you? Makes sense to me. I hate describing shit like this, I feel like I suck at it.

The hall was clear, and I went left into the kitchen. An older lady was in the doorway at the end area of the room, facing towards the dining/living room. She was gone, and after calling out contact, I bucked her up side the head with the 12 gauge. Her head disappeared, and I stepped over her body into the dining room. Immediately after stepping through the doorjamb I saw two more zombies turning from the windows to face us.

I saw Angela through the window, and after racking another shell into the chamber of the shotgun I motioned for her and hollered for her to get down. I didn’t want her to catch any errant shotgun blast bits through a window. Once I saw she was out of danger, I blasted the dead older man in the upper chest, disconnecting his head from the rest of his body. What was left of him went down on his knees for a moment before falling chest first on the hard wood floor. The other undead in the home was just a young teen boy. He’d been bitten several times on the neck and chest, and judging by the blood on his grandparent’s faces, they’d done it to him. I pumped the scatter gun one last time, and put him down, breaking the window behind him in the process.

The rest of the house clear was fine, although very cold. The broken windows from all the shooting let in the cold air from outside. We took our sweet ass time checking the upstairs, as each door was locked. The whole house smelled bad too, so there was no way of telling if a room had a zombie in it just by smell alone. No fun. Fortunately, no injuries, no deaths, no problems.

We radioed Bastion all was well on the breach, and started clearing the house. As usual, Patty and Abby took everything not nailed or screwed down. Blake and I focused on getting the generator in the basement out of the bulkhead door, which meant shoveling an assload of heavy snow, covered in crusty, sharp ice. Unpleasant work, that.

The generator was a beast though, and was diesel, which is nice two-fer. It took Hal, myself as well as Blake the better part of twenty minutes just to get it into the back of the deuce. Heavy fucker. The old guy who I assume owned the place also had some pretty awesome handyman books in the basement too, which we grabbed. Blake was impressed by them, which meant they had the how-to on stuff he didn’t know… how to do. New information is great. As I’ve said before, Google is still down.

Which reminds me… we need to hit the town library. I’m sure there is a ton of useful information still there. Books on practical knowledge that we really need. Farming, agriculture, construction, electrical engineering, all that jazz. Maybe there’s a book on how to build a small hydroelectric dam, or solar cells, or something that’ll help us out as we slowly and steadily run out of resources that are left behind.

Gotta be renewable Mr. Journal, or we've got to figure out how to make it continually again, or why bother?

We were on site for longer than we figured, about three hours. As you might know, anytime you are anywhere longer than you want to be, you’re opening yourself up for exposure, which means attack. Luckily the only thing we saw was a scattered walker or two out in the road, meandering towards the noise we were making. Nothing really pressing that we couldn’t deal with. Most of our haul for the day was the generator, bedding, a few tools, nails, screws, bolts, the books, and a 12 gauge shotgun with ten shells.

I was unable to turn the HRT around in the narrow road, so we had to drive the long way home. The roads we took led us very close to the area of town where I saw a few of the fires from MGR, so we naturally were nervous we were driving into an area that had hostiles. We saw nothing moving, nor any fires, and we didn’t encounter any hostility, so that was nice. I didn’t really feel like getting into a prolonged firefight after having to lift that motherfucking generator. I’m still sore today.

Not much else to report. We left the generator in the deuce for delivery to MGR in a day or two. I am not looking forward to hauling that fat bitch up the stairs. I wonder if there’s a way for us to hook it into the power grid for the entire building in the basement. There's gotta be a way to do it. One floor down is a lot better than five floors up. Of course one more generator running means more fuel consumption, which is shitty, but at least this one will be eating at our diesel supply, instead of our gasoline reserves. But, the electricity there will help them get through the winter.

The dog situation here has been sorting itself out nicely. Angela and Amanda have been doing the rear gate feeding thing, and the animals have been much quieter, and far more obedient as a result. They are now largely staying at the gates, waiting patiently for us to feed them twice a day, and they’ve even barked a few times when an undead came nearby. They are serving as an excellent auxiliary warning system for us. I just hope we have the food to maintain it. Some of the kids are getting attached to the nicer, cuter dogs, and that scares me. One more thing we can disappoint the kids over. I guess let it ride as long as we can.

Syl is the same. Michelle said she’s getting better at being around people. We can now have two people in the same room with her and she won’t get violent. Doesn’t sound like much of an improvement, but it’s something. Michelle also had James and Mike trudge over to the cabin to get some photos and keepsakes for her. Now her room is far more “homey” and maybe that’s what is helping.

Mallory is the same. Getting better, getting used to having just one arm.

MGR is quiet, for now. We are setting up a plan to establish ambush points to get the jump on the folks if they attack again. There are a few small storefronts we can get inside, and when and if they try to come at the tower again, surprise motherfuckers. We’re behind you, on the surface. Hard to retreat through gunfire with no cover.

Granted I’d rather they just disappeared off the map entirely, but I’ve got the sinking feeling that isn’t in the cards for us. These people are aggressive, crazy or desperate, and if losing one of their number wasn’t enough to scare them off, not much else will. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Something I noticed yesterday that I didn’t say anything about was Abby and Hal. There was a moment when the two of them were inside the house, alone, and I caught a glimpse of them through a window. They were talking, and when Abby turned away to go do whatever, Hal gave her a playful pat on the ass. She turned, DIDN’T glare at him, and then walked away.

There’s something in the air between those two. I am not displeased by this. I’m hoping that Abby moves on from Gavin, and if she’s going to, Hal is a damn fine man to do it with. Kevin has said nothing but good things about him since they got here, so I’m sure he’ll be worth her time. I give it my blessing.

Kids.

We've dedicated two adults to helping Ryan and Becca in the gym. You may remember Angie, LaFrenz's girlfriend, and Jeanette, one of the ladies who came over from Westfield. The two new ladies to the gym are working on taking on the feeding and maintenance of the hydro units while Ryan and Becca work on building the new setups. This got my sister out of my colon, and put a smile on Ryan's face, and I consider that a win/win.

I might take a few day shifts at MGR here just to relieve some people there. We’re slated to move some folks in tomorrow, and I can easily insert myself into the rotation when we bring the generator and supplies. We’ll see.

I’m off like a prom dress. Widescreen porn awaits.

-Adrian

January 20th

I took my three day shift at MGR a few days ago. I’m writing this from Bastion though, so if you do the math, you probably have figured out that I didn’t finish my three day shift. Mr. Journal, we had yet another run in with the “bad guys” at MGR, and there was gunfire.

I think I am being reckless. I felt like I was making a good, solid, tactical decision the other night but in retrospect, it now seems foolish. I feel like I was taking an unnecessary risk, despite it actually being a very solid idea in a military sense.

I’m no master tactician, and I’ve forgotten most of what I was taught in the military already, but I consider myself a fairly bright guy with good instincts. Flanking an enemy is key to breaking them, that much I can remember. Allowing them to assault our immobile position repeatedly, no matter how well fortified it may be, will eventually result in it failing. It’s simply mathematics. Do they have more assaulters than we have guns in the fight? Can they simply bleed us dry of resources in a siege fashion? What if they surround it? Attackers will test a defense repeatedly until they find the weak point, and then they will attack it with enough force to accomplish what they need to do.

We haven’t been able to find their tracks yet, and with the rain mix lately the snow on the ground has turned into a slippery, slushy mire everywhere. It’s that shit kind of situation where every step gets your entire foot soaking wet and freezing cold. Even the rain seems to soak directly into your soul in seconds if you’re not completely covered up. Shit ass weather.

Anyway, because we’d had no leads, and because we had a reasonable expectation that we would be attacked again at the tower, when I arrived on the morning of the 18th and after we helped Martin and Blake install some more serious doors and locking mechanisms on the ground floor windows and doors, and get the new diesel generator placed in the basement, I decided I’d use the cover of the rain and darkness to leave MGR on my own, and insert myself and my partner in crime Ethan into a hide about two hundred yards north east of MGR.

Two hundred yards north of MGR you are more or less out of the real downtown area, and into a much more residential area. Downtown isn’t much in my little village here. The area I chose for my hide was a small duplex that sat back off the road about twenty feet. It was a split level two-family with the doors to both units side by side in the center of the house. Red siding.

I left MGR with Ethan right after dark and we moved as fast as we could on foot using the NVG gear. It was pretty thrilling. Running in an urban environment at night with everything in that green filtered field of view brought me back, that’s for sure. We chose the home based on the elevated second floor, and the large bay windows that overlooked the street. It was also wide and clear there. No cars for cover, and a lot of real estate to cover should I need to open fire.

Ethan and I breached the front door using the M4A1s with the suppressors attached. It was a good thing. Right inside the door on the floor was a completely gutted zombie, on his back, looking at us and slowly trying to get to his feet. Luckily his innards were outtards, and they were all wrapped up around his shoes. As he struggled to get up at us, I snapped off two quick shots, thunk-thunk, and one of them ripped the side of his skull wide open, making a hell of a mess, but killing him.

We opted to go up and clear the upper floor first, which was fortunate as that was the only place there was danger. In the kitchen were two small kids, both dead but not all dead. They came crawling in our direction and as I walked up the few steps to the living room I did my best to remember that I HAD to kill these kids, and I squeezed off two rounds at each kid. My first two shots weren’t lethal on the little girl. They did stagger her long enough for my second two shots to put the little boy down and for me to return to her, and put a more accurate round into her face. The memory of her young little teeth gnashing at me in raw, feral hatred will sit with me for some time. It's unusual for me to miss a point blank target like that. I chalk it up to still unsettled nerves.

The rest of the house was empty. Ethan helped me set my shooting position up at the kitchen counter deep inside the house. We also used a shitload of bedding from the house to completely cover me and set up dark partitions to make the interior of the house almost opaque. At night, it would just look like a dark interior to a home, and at day, the same. However, there was enough of an opening for me to see the entire street, and have an excellent field of vision in the corridor we wanted to dominate. Ethan left me late that night, returning to MGR and I was alone.

Cold fucking night Mr. Journal. I had to do a serious gut check to get through it. Luckily we had some of those little packets that are hand and foot warmers, and those combined with a thermos or three of hot coffee and fresh chicken soup straight from Melissa’s kitchen got me through the night, and the day until shit hit the fan.

It was dusk, just about at the end of the day when the sky is turning gray and blue, and your vision sucks. It isn’t dark enough for your eyes to adjust yet, and it isn’t light enough to really see shit. I was sitting there, thinking long and hard about how I hadn’t gotten laid in a very long fucking time when I saw movement out in the street. I immediately snapped into hardcore mode and radioed out movement over my throat comm.

Ethan, Kate and Nick responded in the affirmative, and they were ready within a minute at the tower. I watched from my hide as three more figures crept down the street. They were wearing heavy winter clothes, and were armed with a variety of publicly available weapons. Not ex Guard, or Army, or anything military. They reminded me a LOT of the folks that came at us from the Factory way back when.

They were also all wearing large backpacks that looked full of stuff. I thought that was suspicious, and called that out too. When they reached the point of no return, my people at MGR opened and engaged. I heard the short gun-battle. Ethan called out three shots fired, Kate fired one, and Nick two. From what we pieced together after the shoot out, Ethan downed one guy that was danger close and lighting a Molotov cocktail. I guess his round hit the fucking bottle dead nuts by sheer stroke of luck, and it exploded in the guy's hand, showering the dude in his own bomb. He went up in flames, and Kate took the second shot, putting his ass down. Letting him burn alive would not have been cool.

I guess there was some panic moments where the remaining attackers tried to light more cocktails to throw at MGR, but Ethan’s follow up fire as well as the other rounds either pinned them, or forced them to drop the bottles. Either way, their plan to set shit on fire was dashed, and they ran like fucking hell to get away, directly down the street I was set up on. The tower passed the message along to me where they were heading, and when the two still upright and alive folks passed through my kill zone, I fired two fast shots, center mass, as they came across my sight picture. The bay window shattered into a million pieces, completely giving my position away. If I missed them, I was fucked.

I hit the lotto though, and the breaking window didn't send my rounds too far off. Both tumbled down, doubled over, kicking and screaming in pain. I'd hit them. They lost their long guns into the slush, and I called out that I needed support at the house, and I had two enemy casualties that needed medical assistance. Ethan called out that he was on the way in the Prius (which did really well in the snow).

I moved outside to the street with my ruck and hollered to them to sit very fucking still or they’d get shot again. They didn’t sit still in the least, but judging from their groans and moans of pain, they were no threat. I decided I’d start medical care.

I cleared the vicinity for threats while Ethan was on his way, and I ripped the jacket off the closest casualty. It was a woman. She was young and frail, no more than maybe twenty two or twenty five. I checked her for bombs or grenades (Iraq memories), and made sure her weapon was well out of reach. I got all pervy and ripped her shirt off to check for the wound. I had a single round entering her left torso and exiting through the back on the right, just above the kidneys. The entrance wound was tiny, like she’d been stabbed with a pencil. Her exit wound was much larger, about the size of a small orange. I could see her insides through the hole, and I used her shirt to plug the hole and make a pressure bandage to stem the flow of blood, and keep her guts where they belonged.

I ran to the man on the ground about five yards away and did the same check to the guy. Both of my rounds struck him in the torso, both going from left to right, same as the girl. My first round hit him in the hip, and had no exit wound. The second hit struck his left arm just above the elbow, pretty similarly to Mallory’s wound the other day. The high velocity round mangled the poor bastard’s bicep and more or less severed his arm. Fortunately the PJ guys had given me premade tourniquets, and I slapped one on just above his elbow, and the ragged flesh. He started slipping into shock almost immediately.

Luckily Ethan and Amanda arrived just a minute or two later, and Ethan went to work. He’s a helluva guy that one. A professional. Within fucking heartbeats he’d gotten IVs into both of them, and had much more impressive bandages in place. I covered him and listened to Kate radio back to MGR for our QRF to send the HRT. Shit that’s a lot of acronyms.

We didn’t want to move the guy due to his hip wound. Ethan was petrified (rightly so, after a more thorough examination) that his hip was destroyed and moving him without a proper stretcher would aggravate the injury. We moved the woman onto a porch and comforted her. She was freaking out at her injury as well as the sheer terror of suddenly being under the sway of three total strangers that had just hurt her. Amanda did a good job of keeping her from completely losing her mind while Ethan kept the guy alive.

Our QRF arrived maybe twenty minutes later. HRT plus two humvees in force. Roger and Joel leapt out and started to work on the two injured while the rest of the crew pulled security for it all. I went inside the duplex and removed all of my shit, throwing it in the HRT. My home away from home it seems.

We casevac’d back to Bastion after making sure MGR was safe. We high tailed it as fast as we could back to the school because we were incredibly concerned this was a feint to get our QRF out of the way for an attack. Fortunately, nothing hit us while we were dealing with us. As we learned together, there wasn’t really anyone left to hit us.

Last night I spent the entire evening in the clinic with the PJs as they stabilized the guy and patched the girl back up. She suffered a perforated intestine, and she’ll have a bitching scar from the exit wound, but she’ll survive. The guy on the other hand is probably fucked. We got a ghetto xray on his hip and it’s shattered. My round pancaked flat on the bone and just busted the fuck out of it. It looks like his hip socket got obliterated, and broke the leg bone as well, with the ball joint of the bone still in the socket. He also lost the left arm. The guys were able to save the arm from just above the elbow up, but… he lost a fucking arm. Life sucks.

We don’t really have the ability the put him back together again. According to the PJs, he needs a fully equipped orthopedic surgeon to get him rebuilt to have any quality of life. I don't think I need to bring up how dangerous the risk of infection would be with such a significantly invasive surgery either. At the moment, he’s on a morphine drip that’s powerful enough to get one of our fucking cows high as goddamn kite. We need to make a decision about him in the next day or two. If he lives through this, he’ll never walk again, and probably be in severe pain that will worsen over the years. It might be the most humane thing for us to simply give him a painless death so he doesn’t suffer.

I don’t want to talk to Michelle about this. Or maybe I do. Maybe I need her counsel on this. The PJs are advocating that we pull his plug. Triage. They don’t want to waste time and medical supplies on him. These supplies aren’t exactly growing on trees nowadays.

We posted guard on them all night.

This morning I woke up early, enjoyed a nice hot shower in Hall E here, and headed over to check on our patients. The woman was awake, and was talking to Doc Lindsey as she ate some breakfast. She looked ravenous.

I checked on the man, giving the woman time to see me, and assess me. Get comfortable with me and my manner. I didn’t want to just bum rush the side of her bed and intimidate her. Apparently, I can be a frightening guy. I imagine the Mohawk and tattoos might play into that. Anyhoo, I checked on our mangled man, grabbed a small cup of water from a pitcher, and headed over to say hi.

Doc Lindsey introduced me as, “Adrian, the guy who runs the show here.” I got a small laugh out of that. The young girl seemed intimidated despite my attempts to achieve the opposite, so I pulled up a seat and sat down. I also made sure to swing my M4A1 around to my back so it wasn’t in her face. The same weapon that put a bullet through her stomach didn’t need to be in her presence.

I introduced myself, explained a little bit of my background, told her a small bit about Bastion, and then dropped the bombshell about how I was the person who shot her. That got a pretty sharp raise of the eyebrows and a small recoil out of her, but less than I was expecting. I apologized, and explained how and why I pulled the trigger that day, and how we HAD to protect our people, and the places we’d made safe. We felt she and her friends were part of the group that had attacked us several times, and we couldn’t keep risking their attacks on us. At some point, enough is enough.

She cried. Quite a bit really. It was the better part of a half hour before she was able to get herself together enough to talk again. Doc Lindsey was A+ awesome as the comforting older woman. Mr. Journal, she’s right up there with Michelle in the “can ease anyone with a few words” category.

Speaking of which, Michelle also visited the clinic right about then, just as Danielle (the girl) started talking again. I should say Danielle looked about 23. Maybe 25. She had brown eyes and brown hair that was long, and needed a wash. She was fairly pretty, in that forgettable way. If that makes sense Mr. Journal.

Danielle spilled it all fast. So fast we had to stop her several times to say things again. In between nose wipes and her clutching her fresh stitches in her stomach in pain, she told a tale that I’d heard before. Remember Lindsey? Not Doc Lindsey, but Lindsey, Doug’s wife. Remember Doug? The guy who shot me in the safe house that I shot? Same Doug that visited me in a dream and led me to his wife and kids? The other Lindsey living over on Jones Road?

Lindsey’s tale of returning from the north to a safer more southern place to try and survive was recanted here. Some details were changed, but the basic idea is the same. No resources up in the mountains anymore, and the few survivors that are thriving up in that neck of the woods have had superior places to live and firepower since the jump. There’s no competing with them. No air left to breathe.

She and her small group left the north over a month ago, and headed south with the little remaining diesel and gasoline they had, and started south, returning here to the town they left back in June of the year before last. The figured they’d make it to their homes, where they at least felt safe, tough out the winter, then head really south as spring hit. Like, Florida or Georgia south. Fuck winter is the theme of their trip.

I’ll summarize. The north is being run by a few large groups of survivors that managed a modern day equivalent of a “land/resources grab.” They have it all, and fuck everyone else. Contribute to their quality of life or fuck off and die. Pretty simple really.

There was/is a mass exodus going on. Many of the folks that ran north to escape the initial explosion of undead are now starving and freezing to death this winter, and are making last ditch efforts to head south to try and find somewhere, anywhere that is better than where they were. Here where we are is better than there by the slimmest of margins. I’ll explain why in a second.

Danielle said the city was utterly and completely teeming with the dead. She said they slipped by the city going as fast as they could in their small caravan, but they saw tens of thousands of undead moving about on the city streets, doing nothing but waiting for anything alive to make its presence known so they could kill it. According to what Danielle said, they lost two people on the interstate heading south when one of their vehicles got stuck in some snow. One of the earliest snowstorms I’d wager.

She also said that without a single exception, every living person or group they encountered either attacked them, or was so defensive and standoffish they were practically hostile. No one trusts anyone anymore. When they got here and they saw lights and smoke at MGR, they avoided it as long as they could, then when things got desperate, they figured they’d attack us first before we attacked them. Diplomacy wasn’t even on their mind. Fucking sad.

Why is here only slightly better than up north? Me. Us. We’ve nearly drained every single resource from this town. The grocery stores, convenience stores, gun stores, houses, businesses, etc have all been looted by us already. There’s simply nothing left to take, and if there is something, it’s meager. Had we not killed several of their number in firefights the past few weeks or whatever, Danielle said they certainly would’ve starved anyway. It wasn't that they were so scared of us that they felt they had to attack us. They attacked us because they had no other alternatives.

99 problems Mr. Journal.

Danielle did some math for me and said that in a three house stretch on a street kind of on the very edge of town she thought there were three more people from her group surviving. One kid, a mom, and her sister. They are all alone for the most part, and will have already started to worry themselves about it.

Michelle and I agreed that we needed to go get them and hopefully bring them in. They’ll starve, freeze, or get eaten out there on their own. Of course that makes us another four mouths heavy on our already thin food requirements, but…

I gotta do the right thing here. I gotta. I feel responsible for putting them in such a shit situation, and I know it's reckless on some level to bring in more mouths to feed, but is it really any better for me to let them starve out there?

No, it isn't. I'll eat tree bark. I'll go without if that is what it means for them to survive.

We’re formulating a plan to try and visit them tomorrow. We’re also going to decide Ben’s fate. He of the busted, mangled, destroyed hip.

Sad really.

-Adrian

January 22nd

Our visit yesterday to the north side of town was productive, yet also momentarily horrifying. After speaking with Danielle at length and in onerous detail, we opted to mount a mission to that part of town to try and retrieve the three wayward travelers. We’d give them the option of joining us here at Bastion, or at MGR, or even potentially over at the Factory. They could also choose to remain where they were.

I asked Danielle to hand write us a note to show them saying that she was safe and sound (minus the perforated intestine), and that we were telling the truth. Doc Lindsey handled that task admirably once again. She and the girl have formed a pretty intense bond pretty quickly. Michelle has had a hand in it as well. Both women have spent time in the clinic talking to her about the plight of their group as they survived up north and during their trip down to this part of the state. Michelle told me some of it, and I tell you what, how these people survived up to this point would make one HELL of a movie.

Their brazen, foolish attacks on us make a lot of sense when you compare their desperation versus the potential danger. It looked a lot like do or die to them.

We rolled out in a fairly standard group. HRT plus two humvees. We didn’t want to appear like we were rolling in, ready for a fight, but we also wanted to project enough force that the three would KNOW that if they started something, it would be foolish. It’s a fine line to get someone to respect the force you project versus being entirely intimidated and scared by it.

The neighborhood was almost identical to the neighborhood the duplex I held up in. The three house stretch was exactly as Danielle described, and we stopped across the street from it, parking our three vehicles about twenty yards apart. I got out of the vehicle on the passenger side (Caleb was driving with me in the HRT) and walked behind the engine block to go around the front.

I no sooner got to the very front of the fender of the ambulance when we heard the BOOM of a shotgun blast coming from the middle house, the one identified by Danielle as being the house the three would be in. A millisecond after the roar of the shotgun I heard and felt the pinging of the pellets crash into the door of the HRT right near me. I knew there would be a dozen or more tiny dents in the metal after. I crouched and from what I saw, we all took cover. Caleb nearly plummeted to the ground through my door to take heavier cover behind the truck. It was kind of funny to watch my brother do a forward head roll out of a tall vehicle, and smash into a pile of snow on the ground a few feet below. It’s always scary to get shot at, but you get your laughs where you can. Better that than crying about it.

I went on the comms and asked everyone to hold fire. After a full minute of quiet, I screamed as loud as I could at the house, “HELLO! WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU! WE WERE SENT BY DANIELLE!”

Silence of course. I hollered the same exact thing again, and added that I had a note from her that explained everything. I even dug the note out and waved it around above the hood of the HRT like the white flag of surrender. Silence once more. Kevin suggested we simply wait and give them time to think, and that seemed decent. He also had Joel and Fitz running down the street and through the woods to get behind the house to ensure they weren’t running off through the back.

It was almost exactly when Joel said he was in position that a window in the front of the house creaked open, and a woman’s voice hollered back to me, “Who are you people?”

I explained who we were. Survivors trying to reclaim town, and survive. I also explained that we were the people they had been attacking, and that we had injured some of their folks in a fight the other day, and that we had their injured back at our place, and we were taking good care of them. I also told her we were offering to take them in. That, or at least tell them that they were welcome to stay in town, as long as they weren’t violent any more. We wanted to at least be cooperative, instead of antagonistic. I didn't use those words. In the moment I wasn't nearly as eloquent. Hard to be eloquent when you're yelling over the hood of a huge, rusty armor-plated ambulance.

The woman asked for the letter, and I stood up to walk it to her, but Caleb yanked me back down behind the HRT. He said to me, “Hell no, I got it,” and took the letter from my hand. After sliding his rifle around to his back and making sure he didn't look any more dangerous than he already did wearing body armor, he jogged pretty fearlessly through the slush and snow across the street and up the yard to the door, which opened for him. I saw the tiny glint of black gun steel poking out at him, and guessed that the woman had her scattergun leveled at him, should he do anything funny. I don’t think she realized just how many weapons were aimed at where she was standing in the dark house. If she pulled that trigger, she’d have more holes in her than the plot of a Michael Bay movie.

Lucky for her, a hand reached out of the door, took the note, and Caleb walked away cautiously, keeping his hands in very visible places. We’re fortunate I guess in the fact that Caleb is a good looking guy. It never hurts to send a reasonably attractive messenger.

It was maybe ten minutes before we heard from them again. The same female voice yelled out to me asking, “How do we know you didn’t force her to write this?”

I thought about it, and came up with a decent solution that I thought would appease her, “Would you like to talk to her? I can get her on the radio in just a minute or two.”

“Yes!” she yelled back at me.

I thought some more before replying, “Alright, but no shotgun. I’ll come to the door, but if you point that weapon at me, I’m gonna think you’re up to no good, and so are my friends. It’ll make for a very unsafe situation for everyone okay? So no gun for you, no gun for me, and you’re welcome to talk to her.”

“Deal!”

I left my M4 on the seat of the HRT, but left my Kimber in the holster at my side. I took Caleb to the door with me, and he kept his rifle on his back, slung far out of view. The woman who came to meet us was small in stature and about fifty. She was the woman we were told was the “aunt” character. Her name is Diane, and she’s just as thin and frail and sad as Danielle was. Graying hair, sunken eyes and face. She had a thick smoker’s cough too. Reminded me a lot of my own aunt's coughs. At least she didn't smell like butts.

She came to the door with no shotgun in her hand, which was comforting. I introduced myself pleasantly, hands raised and a smile on my face, and she gave the Mohawk a strange look. It’s hard to take someone with my haircut seriously. I accept that.

I shook her hand gently, apologized for the whole mess our groups had been through, and explained to her that we could get Danielle on the radio back at Bastion. She said, “Okay do it,” and I got on the walkie. Abby and Patty were running the show back at home, and Abby was able to get out of what she was doing and run over to the clinic. After a short explanation to Danielle about what was going on, and a short explanation by me to Danielle about how important it was that she not give our locations away over the radio, we put the two on, and they spoke for nearly twenty minutes.

Many tears were shed by Diane and Danielle, not surprisingly. Diane motioned after maybe five minutes for the others to come to the walkie, and a young boy of maybe 12 and the kid’s mother, a woman of perhaps thirty joined her. The kid looked like death warmed over, and the mom the same. I don’t think any of them ate for shit the past few weeks, and it showed. Bony shoulders and cheeks.

The radio reunion was a huge success. Before they even got off the comms they had decided to leave with us on the spot, no hesitation. They packed their shit with our assistance in about fifteen minutes, gave us their guns willingly, without us asking for them, and almost with joy, relieved to be free of them. They packed in to our rides, and we all rode back here.

You can imagine how the physical reunion went in the clinic. Hardcore waterworks. Of course it was marred heavily by the sight of Ben’s unconscious form in a bead nearby, but it was still joyous nonetheless. There was clear celebration.

We brought them some fresh food, fresh water, and even some coffee and tea, and made sure they didn’t gorge themselves. Roger and Doc Lindsey gave them an intense physical going over to make sure they weren’t sick, and Roger said he thought Diane had either a bitching case of bronchitis, or maybe some kind of heavy duty chest or head cold. Turns out she doesn't even smoke. Not that there are many cigarettes around anymore. We’re making her stay in the clinic for observation until we’re sure what’s up with her.

The kid is a sweetheart and reminds me a lot of a toned down Randy. Like what you’d get if you scared the asshole out of Randy. Abby I think saw the same in him, and I watched her watch the kid for some time. I think she excused herself from the situation towards the end because she couldn’t handle the resemblance. The kid’s name is Warren. Warren’s mom is tall, almost six feet tall, and if you can overlook her emaciated body, has an athletic look about her. Her name is Jackie. She has short brown hair and like I said already, is super thin. She’s pleasant though, but reeks of being tired for too long. She has lines of worry on her face no one her age deserves.

We put the two of them in Hall A with Angela and Amanda and Danny Jr. They’ll keep an eye on the new arrivals while Diane gets better in the clinic.

Oh, other sad news; Ben was…. assisted along to greener pastures at noon today. Diane, Warren and Danielle said there was little sense in saving a life that would be full of suffering, and when no one here objected (Michelle included, which I was a little surprised by), Roger cooked up something to put in his IV that’d give him a quick and painless death. His body should be just about burnt to ash by now out on the pyre. It's sad that this man's life will only be remembered by a small footnote in my little diary here. I don't know him, but he had courage when it mattered, and that should be remembered.

Not much else new. As you can imagine, MGR has been quiet since we took in the new people. A few sightings of undead, and far to the south they can still see a couple of plumes smoke from other survivors, or random fires, though these are spread out and look pretty distant. We’ll need to investigate those soon I imagine.

Our plan for the moment is this: take a few days of slowness to check over our new additions. We need to properly vet them, let them meet us, let us meet them, and then see if they’ll fit in. If all goes well, they can stay here, and hopefully become productive members of our growing society. They better be productive, because we NEED to produce. If they don't fit in, we'll look at giving them a suitable door prize, and a graceful exit. We can set them up as a satellite place ala the Factory, or simply move them to where they'll be a better fit, like the Factory, or MGR, or something else.

If the weather holds or gets better we’ll go back to finishing the waterfront tower. That’s another week or so of work, depending on how much time we can devote to the labor. We’ve got school to run, MGR to restock and staff properly, and a shitload of work on hydroponics to get done as well. We NEED to roughly double our hydro food production I think in order to comfortably survive winter. Having the two women help Ryan and Becca seems to be helping speed it along well, but no matter what we do at this point, it’ll be tight. We will have some small plates over this winter, no doubt about it. You should see Ollie's face right now every time the subject of food comes up. Being the father to a newborn is a bad enough job in the state of the world we're in, but the guy lost his father just recently, and he's more or less our go-to guy for food. No pressure bud.

Hard to say how things are going. Well I think. I feel like we’ve dealt with a huge problem (for the moment) and we’ve brought something good to light. Michelle seems very, very happy with how things panned out, and was practically beaming at how I handled it. Turns out, she might actually think I am not a creepy perv.

It’s not all bad.

-Adrian

January 24th

Things have been quiet here on the home front. I’m happy to report that we are currently enjoying a period of rest, and productivity.

Unfortunately, that time has shown to me without a doubt that we are in deep shit when it comes to food. Jenna has been on top of our consumption like an ace, and I am not liking what I am hearing from her. She's like the bad news fairy for me. We’re pissing through milk faster than our cows can make it, and none of our female cows (heifers? I don’t know what the right word is) are pregnant at the moment. Ollie has been trying to get them fucking, or inseminated or whatever to keep it rolling, but no luck just yet. After all, if there are no baby cows, there is no milk.

Our chickens continue to crank out eggs at an acceptable pace, and they’re making chicks at a nice rate now, so we are upping our chicken consumption. Right now as a whole, we are eating two chickens a week on campus, and I made the call to go up to three a week for the next four weeks. Hopefully that doesn’t outpace our chicken creation rate. I’m not happy about having to do it, but it is what it is.

James has been outside the wall with his bow every single day looking for deer, or moose, or any kind of game at all, but he hasn’t seen shit. He’s done a really good job up to this point getting us some venison on the regular, but lately it’s been nothing. He is taking Blake and Joel across town to the area near The Farm to hunt in the backwoods out that way. As best we can tell, since our run-in with them, there hasn’t been anyone out in that vicinity for any stretch of time. Theoretically, the deer should be there, frolicking in the forest, begging for us to shoot them and eat them. They could be wearing signs around their necks by now that say as much.

Delicious deer. Two deer would almost completely offset our food shortage for a month. Just two deer. Hopefully James bags one in the next day or two and makes my overall level of stress and worry drop.

I’ve tried to have a few meals with the new people since they arrived. Danielle and Diane are both still living in the clinic due to injury and potential illness. Jackie and Warren are in Hall A, and we’ve gathered together in the clinic for lunch and dinner the past couple days. Lunch has been somewhat boring, but dinner has been interesting. I say so because Michelle has been attending dinner to get to know the others, and I like having her around. Michelle is also terrific at asking interesting questions that don’t seem prying, but always manage to get a shitload of information out of people. In another life, she’d be a phenomenal detective. She always seems to know what’s inside someone’s head. It’s creepy and awesome at the same time. She never talks about herself, and that makes her that much more interesting to me.

The line of questioning that I most frequently want to pry into when I'm talking to the new arrivals is the number of undead that they saw when their group was traveling through/past the city. That information intrigues me. From everything they’ve said, the entire urban area of the city is now overflowing with the dead. Their descriptions say that the surface level streets off the exits and ramps nearer to the center of the city and such were shoulder to shoulder undead in some places. It sounds like there are thousands of them packed into the city. Tens of thousands.

None of us could come up with a viable reason for how or why so many undead herded themselves into the same area of the world, and then stayed there. It’d take a concentrated effort to lead that many into a place. It’d also take a fucking miracle working ninja (ala Jesus, Buddha, Bob Villa, or Chuck Norris) to lead them into that space, and then slip out without them following you to your final destination.

Why is the city turning into a veritable necropolis, beyond the basic idea of it having a larger population to begin with? What’s behind all this? When we left dinner earlier tonight Michelle and I stopped to chat about it here in Hall E over a cup of tea. Fuck Kevin but he’s got me hooked on that Chai tea again. Motherfucker. It’s a pretty yummy alternative to coffee, which we are also running low on. Tea on the other hand, we’ve still got a shitload of. Tea bags are everywhere we look it seems.

At any rate, Michelle and I both shared the opinion that this localized explosion of undead in the city had to be conspicuous. It couldn’t have been done by the living. Just couldn’t. It was either good, or evil. Far too heavy a hand and far reaching an effect for us mere mortals to have orchestrated especially in the light of the trinity being so close. It's a beacon. Gotta be.

But why? Why would either force gather so many of the dead in a single location? What’s the game? What's the play here? Is evil trying to fortify the city for a purpose? Is good trying to gather them in a single location to free up real estate for someone? Us maybe? Or maybe gather them so we can dispose of them en masse?

Neither of us had any concrete answers. At this point, there’s just too little information. It’s also scary to try and think of how we’d get intelligence. The Factory’s cameras can’t see any of this horde, and sending someone into that area would either be a death sentence for them, or if they were successful, we run the risk of leading a ginormous population of the dead right back to our little town here, which would suck beyond imagination. I’m sure Kevin would love to head in, guns blazing, but that’s not the solution to this. This one will require some brain cells and putting two and two together.

I like hanging around with Michelle. She’s funny, super smart, intuitive, pretty, etc. More or less the full package. She reminds me of a cooler, calmer Cassie. Well, she isn’t a redhead either, but that’s nothing to hold against her. I've said all this already, but it bears repeating. I’m kinda wondering if she and I are like, developing something. She’s kind of religious and stuff, which is odd for me. I don't do religion. She’s also got morals, which could be a total deal killer in the big picture. I dunno.

I mean there’s the whole, “I’m a shitty person to be in any kind of relationship with,” factor. I don’t want to burden anyone with the stress, regardless of how horny I am, or how pretty or great they are. I can’t involve anyone in my shit and expect them to just weather the storm. It isn’t fair to them.

I also sit here after recently talking with Mallory and realize that I never really had… “that” feeling with her. You know the one Mr. Journal? That tingly feeling? That sensation when you see a person that makes you nervous and excited, and warm and all fuzzy and stuff? And that other feeling when you don’t see them? The little tinge of sadness and disappointment and that lingering wonder of what they are doing, and how they are? It’s also mixed with that tiny touch of anticipation for the next time you see them and how great you know you’ll feel.

I never had that with Mallory. I just never did. I never really realized it until just now. I cared about her, sure. I lusted after her, definitely. But that certain spark, that desire that went beyond the needs of the flesh wasn’t there. If I fucked her, great. If I didn’t, meh. Sex was great, but there was just something missing. That connection wasn’t there.

The last person I had that link with was Cassie, but you already knew that. One thing Mallory was great for was distracting me from the whole Cassie ordeal. My guilt, my thoughts. I dwelled on my redhead like there was no tomorrow, and I literally mean no tomorrow. Thoughts of her and what I didn't do that day consumed me. Consumes me. Eats me alive. Being with Mal gave me a respite from those thoughts. They didn’t entirely go away, but they were muted. I guess that's something positive to look at, and think on.

I wonder if I’ll ever be able to love anyone again. I wonder how the fuck I get over Cassie? How do I get closure and move on, and enjoy my life?

Large questions for a day when I don’t have to worry about the lives of everyone around me I guess. Something I’ve got to solve on my own I suppose as well.

Michelle said the school is doing well. Kids are attending willingly, behavior has been great, and the folks teaching their subjects are enjoying it. I hope we can sustain it. Michelle also shared that Syl has begun to draw pictures, some with words. Most of them involve her and what appear to be her parents doing typical family things. When Syl appears agitated or scared, the pictures tend towards the violent. Based on the picture Michelle thinks one parent died and killed the other, and Syl had to kill both parents. Of course until she can verbalize that to us, we’re just guessing. Poor kid.

Incidentally, she hasn’t bitten or hit anyone in about a week I think. Serious progress there worth celebrating. Michelle said yesterday afternoon, they let her eat with the group in Hall C’s common area, and she was a little nervous and it got a little dicey, but she ate well, and returned to her room to get some space. Also a large step in the right direction.

Work on the waterfront tower has been slow. Freezing rain the past few days has been a bitch, and frankly, we’re all focused on working on the food situation. We’ve thrown in to help Ollie with the cows and the chickens, and a few extra folks are working with Ryan and my sister on building new hydro racks. Eta on them being up and operational is unknown, but Ryan guessed at maybe another week or so. For them to get the expansion finalized and open for business. What a success story that kid is.

In the meantime, MGR is keeping an eye on the two visible remaining fires to the south. It seems like there are two separate groups in that direction that have taken up residence there. No violence towards us as of yet, and in another few days, if we can manage it, we’re going to make a supply run in that direction, and hopefully we can track down the source of the fires, and make contact. Ideally, peaceful contact.

We’ll see. Gonna clock some z’s. Really feeling tired. Think I’m catching some kind of cold.

-Adrian

January 26th

More conversations with our new people raise more and more concerns. It’s funny how the scope of life now can change very quickly. Danielle, Jackie and Diane have all given us absolute gold for intelligence about the north. Sadly, when you get intel that seems really bad for you, it doesn’t seem much like a fucking gift, or a helpful fucking insight. Sort of a, “Yeah, you’ve got some shit coming down the pipe, and it’s shitty shit. You should probably start masturbating now to make the pain go away before it gets too bad.”

The discussions with the new folks here have been largely about their trip to get here. Mostly in fact about the city itself being overrun with the dead, and the terrain traveled between here and there. I really want to know what it is like in the area between the city, and town. It could be a big deal down the line, especially as we travel more and more outside the city to gather supplies that are becoming more and more scarce.

Yesterday and today however, with the one meal we could spend each day together due to other issues that consume our precious time, I was able to hear more about the situation up north. I tell you this Mr. Journal, I do not like what they told us.

Remember the story that Lindsey told us when she arrived from the north with Doug? Prior to Doug shooting me, and me shooting Doug? That a batch of National Guardsman had taken over a ski resort and were taking all the supplies and forcing folks out? Well I guess that group has absorbed a few others, and they are spreading across the more remote northern areas of the state. They have a bio diesel plant at one of the resorts (if not more), and with a more or less continual supply of fuel, they are able to move far, move fast, and take what they want. In war, we are taught to death that mobility and speed wins. Out maneuver, out flank, be where you're least expected consistently, and you win. Pretty simple.

From what they describe, their motives haven’t changed either. They take whatever they want from whoever can’t defend it. The age old principle of might making right. Diane and Danielle said they watched as less able people had their gardens “confiscated” to be relocated. They also said that one “base” of these people was being far more generous, allowing folks to keep their animals and gardens, but they had to pay a tax to the base for “protection” that never really materialized when it was needed and called for.

This creates a whole new set of problems. Eventually these pricks are going to start moving south, especially when they really run the areas north dry. I suspect with winter being as harsh as it is right now, they’ll be running out of a lot of supplies in the coming month or two. That means they’ll head to more urban areas, and that means sooner or later they’ll be heading our way.

Judging from what the women said about the size of the settlements these people have, and by their descriptions of vehicles and whatnot, they have at least 300-500 people in their collective communities, at the very least. After talking to Kevin, he’s thinking there are as many as 800-1000. With no eyes on, there's no way of knowing.

As of this writing, we have about fifty eight people here between Bastion and MGR, plus the what? 30 odd folks still living over at the Factory? That’s less than a hundred people using all my fingers and toes to count. We’d be outnumbered at least 4 to 1 in any scenario. Now assuming of course that the vast majority of those people are not shooters, the numbers come back down to a far more acceptable 2 or 3 to 1, but that’s still fucking terrible. If you factor in experience, and their military grade weaponry, and the fact that at least ten of our number are fucking kids, we’re pretty much done in any large scale engagement with these groups unless we start to train, arm, and expand to match them. It’s classic escalation. They build a better crossbow, we do the same.

How do we do that? How do we feed the potential army we might need to survive when we can barely feed the mouths we have as it is?

Do we become predatory like them? Or do we find another solution that allows us to maintain some semblance of the humanity that I so frigging desperately need? Kevin is of course advocating for an aggressive spread out and absorb strategy, and Michelle wants us to do the same, only with hope, and food, and good wishes and such. I suspect our solution will be somewhere in the middle.

The people fleeing these groups in the north are struggling like our new additions did. There are no gas stations with fuel left, meaning any trip you make with a vehicle is most likely a one-way trip, food is no longer easily obtained when you are on the move, and undead are clogging the roads where the navigation is already treacherous. Where there were accidents on that day, there are still packs of undead, lingering, waiting for a flat tire, or an empty fuel tank. Never mind the fact that Danielle and Diane also said that the few times they ran into the living, they were violent, and wanted their shit. No one wants to be a fucking hero, and do the right thing anymore it seems.

Maybe that's my job.

More news soon, hopefully.

-Adrian

January 28th

When it rains, it pours. That’s the expression.

We are dealing with three enormous problems right now, all sort of working in concert to bend us the fuck over. It seems as if our good intentions and good will has brought serious problems upon us. We are paying the price it seems for doing the right thing.

Some kind of miserable flu bug has taken strong root here. Ethan and Roger both think that the new people brought it in with them, and that does make a lot of sense. Diane has been hacking and wheezing ever since she arrived, and it appears that whatever she had has spread beyond her.

Ethan and Roger aren’t sure exactly what it is, but seeing as how it’s pretty catchy, they’re thinking it’s viral as opposed to bacterial. Pneumonia hasn’t been ruled out yet, but we haven’t done a lot of testing as of yet. It starts as a headache, aches, and runny nose. Within maybe five hours of that, your temperature skyrockets, and your sinuses go haywire, filling your chest with thick mucus and phlegm. Vomiting seems to be frequent when it really sets in. A couple of our sick folks also have sore throats, but that doesn’t seem to be the case across the board.

As of right now, the following people are sick: Julie and Chester (Martin’s wife and son). George (but not Alex yet), Andrea (Lindsey’s little daughter), baby Jeffrey (the new kid named after the Lt from Westfield and Jeanette’s baby), Doc Lindsey, Jenna, Veronica (she of no last name), Roger the pj, Kyle (one of Kev’s guys, and arguably our best humvee wheel man that we leave behind far too often), Becky, Shelby (Becky’s daughter), stoner Ryan (I should never call him stoner Ryan, he deserves better than that), and Diane. That’s a grand total of fourteen sick I count as of right this moment. Jeanette is having a fit leaving her sick baby with Becky, but she understands the dangers of sickness. And Becky has a British accent, which makes everything okay anyway.

We’ve got them in the clinic right now under quarantine. We didn’t have enough beds there to deal with this volume of patients, but in the basements of one of the dorms the school had some cots for emergencies. As of now, the clinic is looking a lot like a refuge camp. They’re being cared for by the sick Roger and Doc Lindsey. It makes some sense to have an ill medical professional deal with it, though I’m sure the care we’re giving them in this fashion is somewhat lacking. Fresh fluids are in good supply right now though, and that’s a huge thing. We put down three chickens this morning to make massive amounts of chicken soup for the sick people, and they’re doing their level best to consume it as we bring it to them, although over the radio it sounds like they’re cleaning up a lot of vomit as well.

We’re hoping the quarantine measures prevent it from spreading any further.

Helping us in the newly created quarantine department is royally shit weather. Freezing rain, sleet, and wet, thick snow have brought everything to a horrible halt. The freezing rain is a fine mist, and as soon as it hits any surface, it seems to freeze instantly. The walkways and roads here are glassy smooth ice right now. In order to get around, we have to smash our feet through the crust of ice over the wet snow. It seems to be coming in cycles with wet snow too, which is miserable, chill you to the bone cold.

We can’t really drive anywhere at the moment because of the ice. We can’t sand or salt effectively to get around safely. Hell, walking around campus at all has cost us a few spills just within the past three or four hours. We don't have enough salt. Plenty of sand, but no salt. I was watching out the window of the common room in Hall E earlier as Angela tried to walk from Hall A to the cafeteria. She ate shit three times after just trying to walk twenty feet. Luckily she didn’t hit her head or anything, but she still turned her ass around and crawled back to the dorm.

We aren’t staffing the gate or the guard towers tonight. It’s a risk, but there’s just no way anyone with any sense would be willing or even able to attack us. MGR and the Factory are reporting the same shit weather and icy conditions too, so I feel like the entire world has kind of ground to a halt for a bit.

Good times.

The third and most disturbing factor that we have on our plate is the food. We are still chewing through it, and there has been precious little progress on our hydro production front. Ryan and Becca had some of their new stuff break on them, and he’s also sick, so there hasn't been shit happening for about three days. Not that we’d miraculously have tomatoes and potatoes and green beans grown by now if we had the three or four days back, but it’s the frustration of there having been NO progress for any period of time. Becca is trying, but she's still learning.

It pisses me off. This whole fucked up conspiracy of bullshit makes me wonder if the Jinx Fairy is a card toting union member of the Jinx Fairy local 401. That bitch might have backup. Scary thought eh Mr. Journal?

For the moment myself I’m sitting here in Hall E, fighting the small cold that I hope doesn’t turn south on me into the plague that’s ravaging the clinic. Lucky thirteen is bad enough, I don’t want to be number fourteen. I’m drinking an assload of water, and I’ve got a pretty large thermos of that soup (mostly broth Adrian, let's not class it up too much) we made earlier. It’s really quite good.

I’m very tired. Kind of achy. I’m the tired where I don’t even want to masturbate. I just kind of want to lay down, and close my eyes, and let the sinus pressure drift away after I take one of these supposedly “non drowsy” sinus pills. That’s a damn joke. I take one and no matter what…. I’m loopy. The shit works though. I always feel better after taking them.

We’re in a holding pattern yet again for the moment. I’m hoping I can check in after a day or two and happily report that we have people starting to feel better, the weather has moved off to fuck someone else over, Ryan has built more hydro stations, and Ollie impregnated a few of our cows.

I should say that Ollie has successfully encouraged our male cows to impregnate our female cows. The way I wrote that last bit could be taken in a really dark and weird way.

Good news would be an awesome change of pace.

-Adrian

January 31st

We almost lost it all this morning. All of it.

Every last person here could have died, and it’s only by some profoundly good graces we still have as many people living here as we do. This is my nightmare. My hands are shaking. Bad.

Late in the night last night, the sickness that had incapacitated thirteen of our residents became fatal for someone. We don’t know who died first. We haven’t pieced that together yet, but we know who is dead now. Looking at the bright side, our winter food problems just became much more manageable.

God I’m an asshole.

I was woken up by the sounds of gunshots this morning just as the sun was turning the sky that faint shade of dawn blue. Just enough light so you know the day is coming, but still dark enough to know that it isn’t quite morning yet. I sat up immediately with the Kimber from under my pillow and grabbed the walkie. I asked what was happening.

I pulled my pants on, and my shirt on while I waited for an answer, and over the radio I heard Angela’s voice, “Something happened inside the clinic, some of them died, and now they’re out. They’re moving around towards the dorms. We need help quick.”

Undead inside the walls again. Moving about as they wished. It was like a fucking bad dream. I had an immediately flashback to the night I spent on the roof of admissions, and the afternoon in the classroom building where I shot round after round into the mob of undead here, trying to scrape out a safe place to live in this fucked up world. It seems we (I) came a little full circle this morning.

I finished dressing as I heard more and more folks wake up to the single gunshot and join the radio traffic. The Factory and MGR joined in, asking if we were okay, and collectively we asked them to clear the air, and let us figure out what we had on our hands. I had the tactical guys get their military comms online, and we got off the wide band radios.

We made a quick plan, and via the various comms gear we got a headcount on the people who were NOT put in the quarantine in the clinic. Everyone was accounted for, and the only variables were the folks from the clinic. We had no radio traffic from them, which meant Roger’s walkie was never used. We’re still putting together what went down in there, and it’s hard. I'm tearing up.

In the moment, our plan was to open windows in the buildings we were in, and fire using rifles at anything on foot that didn’t respond to verbal commands. Least amount of risk that way. I saw nothing from my bedroom window. I would’ve thought something would’ve crossed in front of Hall E or the cafeteria where my line of sight is, but nope. Angela over in Hall A, which is right next to the old admin building the clinic is in, shot four times, killing four of our own. Well to be fair, she wasn’t killing them. She was putting their reanimated bodies to rest.

From Hall B Blake took a single shot with his Enfield, putting someone else down, and after that we saw no one and nothing from our windows. From there we formed into small teams that were dorm based, and we moved out and into the campus to scour every inch for the remaining undead or survivors. Every person had to be accounted for. I needed eye contact and an, "I'm fine," or a dead body. From Hall E I formed up with Caleb and Abby. Our plan was to sweep the campus in a rough circle shape so we weren’t converging and firing on the same spaces. Last thing we wanted was to meet in the middle, and be firing at each other. We swung south towards the clinic itself. Hall A put no team out because there just weren’t enough bodies. We crossed in front of them and immediately saw George clawing at the door that led to the apartment he shared with Alex. Angela had no window or angle to see him to shoot him, and for whatever reason, he wasn't interested in the noise she was making. Curious that he went directly to the door his loved one was behind.

He’d been bitten three or four times in the chest and neck, and he was covered with fresh, sticky blood. He hadn’t been dead for long. When we rounded the corner I was the one facing him, and once I was sure he was dead (look for the whites of their eyes, as the old saying goes), I put that red dot on his face, and sent him back to oblivion where he belonged. I hope these people are getting rest wherever they are. Shooting him was not pleasant for me in the least. All I could think about was how Alex would feel.

We moved down the road to the clinic and I prepared for the worst. We swung around the building to the entrance that I went in through back when I was clearing the building originally. It was the door facing the admissions building, near the bridge and campus exit. The door was ajar, and after making a quick plan, we breached our own fucking clinic.

I am not sure how much detail I can even go into here. It was fucking carnage inside. Blood and gore all over, glistening in the light of the growing dawn. My friends. My people. Death everywhere. I hollered out for anyone alive to reply, and from the upstairs we heard a woman yell that she was in an office. The same office Abby holed herself up in that day. Funny how things come full circle.

In the open clinic area on one of the beds was Jenna. Jenna was hooked up to an IV bag that Roger must’ve gotten on her. She sat up when we came into the room, and got off the bed, dragging her IV hangar behind her, slowly opening and closing her mouth, her face twisting into that same silent rage I’ve seen so fucking much. I liked Jenna. She helped me so much, and she was a real asset for us here. I didn’t have the heart to physically hit her in the head, so I simply lined that red dot up one more time, and sent the back of her head all over the bed she died on. She’d been bitten several times.

I hate my life sometimes. A lot.

Here’s a list of the confirmed dead, all from inside the clinic. Our locked doors and reinforced windows held all across campus, protecting everyone that stayed inside thankfully:

Julie, Martin’s wife. Deceased.

George, Alex’s partner.Husband.Deceased.

Andrea, Lindsey’s daughter, age 6.Deceased.

Jeffrey Daniel Langston, not quite 1 year old.Deceased.

Doc Lindsey.Deceased.

Veronica of no last name, age 5.Deceased.

DianeDeceased.

Sgt. Roger HallidayDeceased.

Kyle FishmanDeceased.

I could cry. I will cry. A lot. The heartbreak here right now is motherfucking epic. Everyone has been touched by this, and it will take a long time to shake off the aftereffects of the deaths of so many loved ones. Things we could’ve done differently, finger pointing, all that jazz I’m sure is not far off. Anger and rage will be right after that, and we need to keep emotions in check as best as possible. Michelle is soothing nerves as best she can, and Kevin is putting everyone straight to task with Fitz. If people are busy, they are less likely to shut down, or freak out.

In the upstairs office we found Becky, Shelby, Ryan and Chester. They are the lone survivors of the carnage in the clinic. Right now they are in Joel’s care in Hall D's kitchen, and Ethan will be returning from MGR tomorrow morning to assist. We are going to lose them too if we don’t get some serious fluids into them. They are fading fast, and we are dangerously low on IV bags. We can’t get fluids into them fast enough. They can’t keep them down when they drink.

I know there was an ambulance on the side of the road between here and Westfield. It’s off the road in fact, down an embankment on a side road. I saw it when I was walking around on the other side with Gilbert. With any luck, the ambulance will have enough good IV bags to get us through the sickness here, and buy us enough time to formulate a serious plan on how to get more medical supplies for the future.

I talked to Joel about whether or not we could make our own IV bags and they looked at me like I’d grown a third eye. We have no sterile environments to make any in, and without very specific raw materials, we would essentially be making germ and bacteria bags for direct injection. We’d kill people faster by giving them homemade IVs. I figured it was worth asking. No stone left unturned.

We’re leaving first thing in the morning to check on that ambulance. The weather has been clear for a day now, and the roads are probably good enough. We’re going in just the two humvees as soon as Ethan gets back here from MGR to beef up our numbers. I’m hoping we find the ambulance with no trouble, and it is still filled with usable medical supplies.

And hope. We could seriously use a huge bucket of hope right now. We’re running on fumes at the moment and could use it.

I’m very much out of sorts right now. This is one of those things that's going to stick with me.

-Adrian

February 2012

February 1st

Do you remember when I stashed an “oh shit” bag halfway between here and Westfield? Back when I was doing my recon work when Sean was still alive? Mr. Journal we were right near there earlier today when we left to scour for my ambulance.

Our team heading out today was myself, Kevin, Fitz, Abby, Hector, and James. Hector and James really wanted to go to get outside the wall, and the rest are pretty self explanatory. We’d been leaving the Westfield soldiers behind more often because they’re less used to breaching operations and house clears, and because they’ve gotten into a great rhythm with the security at the school. Not to mention Hector has been tapped for vehicle maintenance and James has been in the woods hunting. This was their opportunity for a change of pace.

With three souls in each vehicle all heavily armed and pretty experienced, we felt good. Kevin also mounted M203s on his and Fitz’s M4s, so we had some serious squad support weaponry if need be. The roads heading over to that neck of the woods was decent. A little slippery, but not bad. The ambulance was right there on the side of the road, buried under the entire winter’s accumulation of snow. The tree cover on that spot was heavy as well, so there was little to no melting. Also, like a collective bunch of fucking bosses, not one of us remembered to bring a snow shovel. All we had were entrenching tools from the humvees.

We parked in the road, which of course hadn’t been plowed at all the entire winter (no surprise seeing as the DOT hasn’t been in operation of late). We had to rotate out the shoveling duties due to how hard it was to chip out the icy layers and thickly packed snow. It was shit work. We were grunting and groaning to the nth degree, making a ton of noise, and we managed to draw in two zombies in the seven hours we were there.

I happened to be pulling security both times the walkers came at us. Both came from the direction away from the main road, and they were struggling to trudge through the snow to get to us. I think it’s funny that the undead always use roads and streets to move. You’d think as mindless creatures they’d simply move in a straight line towards noise, ignoring the constructs of human society, but noooo… They always seem to stick to the roads. Residual memory? Effects of the evil powering them?

At any rate, I watched as the two male zombies shuffled their way towards us, knee deep in thick, crusty snow. They fell over at least three or four times as they came up the road. At one point Abby was standing next to me watching, and she shook her head sadly and walked back down the embankment to the ambulance. It really was sad and awkward and whatnot. I finally put rounds through their heads when they got to about thirty yards away. Made no sense to risk them getting any closer even if it would've taken them ten minutes to get to us.

The good news out of the shooting of the zombies was that they were the drivers from the ambulance. They had more medical gear on them, as well as the remainder of the keys to the compartments in the rear of the ambulance that were still sealed. We did of course have to shoot a patient that was long dead and strapped into the back of the ambulance though. The guy had a bite wound on his arm I believe, and I’d guess he turned on them, caused a ruckus, then caused the crash that killed the two EMTs. I don't know why trying to piece together how people died is something I think about so much. Overactive imagination.

We did manage to salvage a lot of medical supplies from the mostly tipped over van. Our largest need was met only sparingly. We desperately needed IV bags to get fluids into the bodies of our sick survivors, and in the ambulance we found only six bags. Fortunately, Ethan said the bags were still good, so that’s something. Those bags will get us through a couple of days as we essentially force feed fluids right into their bloodstreams. Better than nothing.

After we got everything out of the ambulance, we stopped at the house I stored my shotgun and Sig at, and retrieved them. They need some tender loving care to get rid of some rust, but they’ll work fine with some attention. It was nice to see the Sig again.

On our return we got the supplies to Ethan and Joel, and they did what they could to tend to our sick. By the time we returned the clinic had been cleaned out. I could see the smoke rising from the back of campus from the fresh flames on the pyre. The bodies had been moved.

Ugly work I imagine.

Bastion is on its end, on tilt right now. Martin lost his wife of fourteen years. Fourteen fucking years. He’s been with his son, lost to his emotions since everything happened.

Lindsey lost her six year old daughter. I don’t need to explain to you what that would do to a mother. She’s living right next to Angela and Amanda in Hall A right now instead of the farm on Jones Road so she has company and is surrounded by support. I bet Doug is weeping somewhere.

Jeanette lost her baby boy. She’s also with Amanda and Angela. The Westfield people as a whole are hurt very very much by the loss of the child that was named after the man that helped to lead them. That baby was a symbol, and now he's gone.

Everyone misses Doc Lindsey.

I miss little Veronica. She was a bubbly little girl that died far before her time was due. She had no family we could find, no name, and she left the world just as anonymously as her family did. The only thing that marks her life now are the mentions of her in this fucking journal. Pathetic. Inadequate in every way.

Diane, the woman we believe brought all this upon us is also dead. I wonder if this is karma for having shot at us when we arrived to try and rescue them? I wonder if this is karma for us too. I suppose this is all moot.

Roger is dead. He was such a good guy too. One of the nation’s most highly trained military men killed in his sleep (we think) by someone who died under his care. We really needed him here, and it’s clear now how close Kevin’s group really was. As a team they survived some hellish circumstances, and traveled an awfully long way to get here. They are all in mourning over his loss.

I don’t think I need to explain how badly Kevin is missing his buddy Kyle. Kyle was Kevin’s driver on their last op in Jerusalem, and he was an excellent team member before that, and since then.

Alex has shut himself away trying to get over the loss of George, his boyfriend. His husband. Michelle has been trying to talk to him to get him to come out and be with the rest of us, but he can’t sustain it. Ten or fifteen minutes of attempted socialization and he overloads with emotion, falls apart, and leaves. He just can’t take it. He and George had been together for years. All of them happy as I understand it.

Michelle shut the school down for a few days to let everyone digest the past couple day’s events. Ollie has rolled down the amount of labor he is asking of the younger people as they struggle to cope with the sudden large scale loss of life. We’re an emotional wreck right now, myself included. The less I think about what just happened, the better off I am.

Strangely enough, I don’t feel like I failed this time. So many of our bad incidents have felt to me like they were my fault, but I really feel like this time we made good decisions. If anything, I feel like our medical people underestimated the seriousness of the sickness that we’re dealing with. I’m not laying blame here Mr. Journal. Our medical people are top notch. But, we are not in a real hospital, with full diagnosis equipment, and a real lab to run real tests. It’s a lot of educated guesswork. Things like this are going to happen no matter how many precautions we take and no matter how good we are as people.

Where do we go from here?

We need more IV bags. We also need more medicine. We also know that there are no good places to find these things in town, or in Westfield. Furthermore, there are no good places to find these things in any of the small towns around here. We’ve already cannibalized the pharmacies and the local clinics.

Our last resort is the city. The same city Danielle and Diane told us were overrun with a mountain of the dead.

Our discussions about what that means will be tomorrow morning.

-Adrian

February 2nd

After conferring this morning, we decided we were going into the southern fringe of the city early tomorrow.

We are going to the Factory first to drop off some supplies they need, and then we are heading south down and around the city through the suburbs. Once we get a fair distance south, we’re cutting across the edge of the city and then heading north to a moderately industrial section of town near the airport. There’s a fairly large pharmacy there, as well as a small medical supplies business in an industrial park just off the airport perimeter road. There aren’t a ton of houses there either, so we’re hoping the body count is manageable.

With the snow on the ground, the undead should be slow moving, hopefully buying us time to shoot any large hordes of them efficiently and safely. We plan on raiding the pharmacy of whatever it might contain, then hit the medical supplies business nearby for the same.

If things get hairy, we bail. We’ll manage the illness without the supplies. Or we won't.

We are taking the two humvees, plus the HRT. We’re rolling with nine shooters, three per vehicle. Kevin Fitz and Quan are all rolling with M203s which will be a nice force multiplier, and Joel is rolling with a SAW, which is a huge asset for us. We’ve also got the two turret mounted SAWs on the humvees, which needless to say are going to be a big deal should things get sticky.

In an ideal world though, we’d be in and out without making any noise.

We’ll see how ideally things go. I’ll try and check in as soon as I can. After we get back Mr. Journal. Wish us luck.

-Adrian

February 4th

Well. It’s official. The city fucking blows.

Big time.

Any kind of clearing action into the urban areas is going to require an absurd amount of ammunition, and careful planning. I think we managed to drop somewhere around six or seven hundred undead yesterday based on the number of empty magazines we counted, and that more than likely was just the tip of the zombie iceberg.

After visiting the Factory and dropping off some ammunition, water, and some foodstuffs, we moved along due south down the side of the city, then cut east across the very southern edge. Most of the area we moved through was vanilla suburbia. Very similar to the area surrounding MGR in town. Mostly two or three story buildings strung down the main corridors, backed up by neighborhoods of varying monetary valuations. There were a few trailer parks, as well as a few five star neighborhoods. I saw one gated community off in the distance before we got into the area of the airport’s flight path and that made me wonder if that should be our next major operation. Pop the gate, secure it, clear the houses inside… and we’ve got a premade mini-Bastion to work out of, right on the edge of the city. That line of thought also led me to the realization that there could be quite a few survivors in gated communities all across the country.

Food for thought.

During the drive we passed at least a hundred undead. Because the roads were still thick with crusty snow still, we couldn’t swerve much to hit them with the HRT plow blade. We also didn’t want to shoot and make unnecessary noise, nor did we want to just drive past them. They would follow us for sure, and we didn’t want to dredge up another massive wall of the dead to drive home through.

Our solution was to slow down to a crawl, and engage them with our suppressed 9mm pistols. We are still heavily stocked with 9mm, and it was excellent shoot-on-the-move experience. I’d wager a bet and say just on the drive there we put down… eighty to a hundred undead. We wasted a fair amount of ammo on misses, but the overall level of satisfaction dropping them cowboy and Indian style from the moving stagecoach was excellent for us. Improved morale ftw.

The areas closer to the airport were far more troubling. Milling about, stuck in the snow and making their way towards us were far too many undead for comfort. At a point where we realized we would be in trouble if we kept moving without thinning the threat level, we upgraded from suppressed M9s to using our suppressed M4A1s. Far more firepower, range, accuracy, and all kinds of goodness. We were far more able to put lead downrange and we churned through another eighty or so undead I short order. It looks like a complete shitload of people went to the airport before it all went to shit. Makes sense though. Airports usually mean escape. Lots of cars on the road, crashed, pulled over, etc. Traffic was a bitch to weave through.

At the major intersection leading into the airport perimeter road area, leading to the industrial park where the medical supplies building was, we implemented our top secret plan. “Operation Lady in the Red Dress.” Or if you prefer, “Operation Androgynous Singer That’s Worked Before.”

From the roof of the HRT I hung a large radio playing… you guessed it, Lady Gaga on a traffic light. The light was clearly too high for the undead to reach, and with the duct tape and strap I used, it wasn’t falling anytime soon either. I set it to repeat “Lovegame” and we got the hell out.

We didn’t head directly into the city airport. It isn’t a huge one, but neither is it a small one. We stuck to the perimeter road, and headed directly into the business park. The park itself was only about fifteen structures, arranged along the circular perimeter road. None of the businesses were worth raiding immediately yesterday, but we took note of what was there. It was a fluke that one of us remembered seeing the name of the business in the first place, giving us a reason to make the trip.

We saw the sign for the medical supplies business (ANJ Medical Supply Wholesalers, if you’re curious Mr. Journal) and we pulled in. We were ecstatic to see that we had tremendous visibility in all directions, and that there were so few undead in the industrial park. Before we got five feet from our vehicles, we engaged the foot mobile visible undead and secured a perimeter around the vehicles and the building. Because we brought so many people on this run, we had extra bodies.

Twelve made the trip. It left us a little short on home security, but we felt the risk was necessary. By vehicle we had; Caleb, Abby, Hector and myself in the HRT. In the second humvee we had Kevin, Amanda, Quan and Ethan. In the third humvee we had Martin, Fitz, Angela and Hal.

All in all, a great team.

We posted four outside on foot strictly for security, three at the vehicles as drivers in the event we had to leave in a serious hurry, and we took the remaining five into the building for the clear. A good sized stack. Visibility into the building was limited. The only windows were in the front, and they were intact (a good sign), and they looked into a set of offices. The warehouse where our prize awaited was obscured by a series of mundane offices.

The main door of the building was unlocked, and after pulling it open as if it were still open for business, we went in and made the building safe. A central hallway ran straight for twenty feet or so, then turned left for ten, then straight for twenty more, terminating in the double fire doors that opened into the reasonably small warehouse. I could easily throw a rock from one side of the warehouse to the other and hit the wall on the fly. The offices were entirely abandoned and devoid of anything dangerous. Heading into the warehouse though, was a little more frightening. With no way to get natural light into the space, Kevin and I decided to clear the entire warehouse using NVGs instead of with flashlights. A little untraditional yes, but we were reasonably sure the warehouse would be empty. After going up and down the warehouse rack aisles for nearly twenty minutes in the dark, we had the place made safe, and we got the light into the building. After opening the rear dock and getting a couple of our large lamps turned on deeper inside the giant space, we were in business.

I am happy to report that we found a LOT of usable bulk medical supplies. Syringes, bandages, first aid supplies literally out the fucking asshole, casting equipment, saline solutions of various concoctions, and all manner of things I can’t even remember today. We filled the HRT floor to ceiling, front to back with supplies, and we left a LOT behind. We took the most essential supplies only, and after securing the warehouse we moved on. While we were inside (I think about two or three hours) the team outside had to put down about seventy to a hundred more undead closing in from the airport area. They seemed to be heading from the airport itself towards the sound of the music.

Our perimeter team was equipped with suppressed weapons though, and they attracted no undue attention to the building we were in. Wrap your head around those past few statements. Our security people put down a HUNDRED undead, and I'm saying that wasn't an unduly large issue. Hilarious.

A relatively quick swing around the park and down another exit off the perimeter road, and we were on the street where the pharmacy was. I could see the front doors were smashed out, so we didn’t expect much on the inside. The parking lot and immediate street were peppered with undead heading our way. The density of them was bad, but not so bad that we needed to bring out the heavy guns yet. All of us with suppressed weapons firing in a coordinated fashion was enough to keep us safe.

We were pretty far and out of Lady Gaga hearing range, so we had no distraction to pull undead away from our position as we worked. The sound of our vehicles running was also a big draw so this was a much more hairy operation. The firing outside during the breach was constant, and we had to pull our vehicle people to bolster exterior security. The breaching team of five was all action the entire way through. The pharmacy was a large one with about ten aisles, and we had undead in almost every aisle. I was firing on lead or Kevin was. Our guns never stopped snapping off suppressed rounds for a solid ten minutes as we crossed the tops of the aisles, firing down the length at the undead shambling towards the registers at the front where we were. By the time we got to about the eighth aisle the undead were coming out the end of the ninth and tenth aisle, and the rest of our team had to open up to keep them off of us.

Sadly, the remainder of our team did not have suppressed weapons, and the sudden roar of their normal weapons firing was deafening in the store. Previously the loudest noise was the sound of a zombie dropping dead and knocking some shit off the shelves on the way down. The noise hurting our ears was the least of our problems though. From outside our team informed us the gunshots were just as loud, and very likely to draw in more trouble.

The pharmacy in the back mercifully was still sealed. The steel shutter had been dropped exactly like the pharmacy in town, and after repositioning the HRT in the store opening and attaching the winch to the shutters, it came down with little effort. We also were able to grab multiple plastic bins from the shelves (pretty much the only things left in the store), and we headed into the pharmacy.

Ethan had a boner a foot long. The shelves were obviously raided already (he guessed by an employee, which made sense because the gate had been shut after the theft), but at least half the medications were still present in some usable quantity. When we were half way through emptying the remnants of the pharmacy, a call for assistance came from outside. Abby and I responded.

Our gunfire had drawn in well over a hundred undead. When Abby and I stepped outside and took stock of it, she went left, and I went right. I had my gun up and firing almost immediately, putting the walking dead down that were closing in on us like a vice. It was practically a wall of zombies in a circle around us. The visual of so many zombies was nearly paralyzing. It squeezed the hope right out of you. After maybe two magazines of my own fire I hit my comms button and asked Hal and Hector to open up with the SAWs on the humvees. Noise wasn’t an issue anymore, and we needed some fucking help to catch up.

The ripping fire from the light machine guns sounded like the earth and sky being torn in half. We’d been firing the nearly silent suppressed weapons the entire time and when those loud ass fully auto guns started barking… Mr. Journal I tell you it sounded like God himself had started tearing the storm clouds from the sky and throwing them down on us from on high. The effect on the encroaching plague of undead was immediate and devastating. The bodies started crumbling to the ground with exploded skulls like a violent tidal wave. Just ten seconds of accurate, intense fire from the two men with the turret mounted support weapons annihilated the danger. I felt so powerful as they let up on the triggers, leaving a few mangled, twitching bodies in their wake. The exterior security people were then able to move into the crowd, and finish the wounded undead off with halligans.

We returned the interior to help emptying the pharmacy.

About fifty more undead visited our location while we continued to fill and remove containers of pills, fluids, and medical supplies. Everything was handled. We are very much set for basic medications for some time. Shit, we could start a meth lab with all the shit we got there.

After packing everything into the back of the humvees, we rolled out fast, and went back for our radio, still suspended from the traffic light in the middle of the intersection near the radio. A light rain had started, and when we arrived at intersection, the visibility was getting bad. It also didn’t help that it was late afternoon, and the sun was setting on us.

The intersection was entirely filled with a tightly packed HORDE of undead. There were no less than four hundred undead there. I guarantee you Mr. Journal there were at least four or five hundred. It was horrifying in the worst way. I haven’t seen that many undead mobbed in one place in a damn long time. Not since Bastion was laid siege to back in March of last year. We rolled up on them and came to a halt about a hundred yards away.

I hit my throat mic and said one word quietly, “SAWs.” It took maybe five seconds for Hal and Hector to get their guns up and firing. The mob of undead had turned in our direction by then and were starting to shamble our way. Sadly for them, they were no match for 800+ rounds per minute out of two barrels. Hal and Hector were accurate enough that they were hitting at head level consistently, and the bodies hit the freshly packed flat snow like tipped over grave stones. Both men had to load fresh belts of ammo, which tells you they were firing for quite some time. I’m sure a lot of those were misses, but with that overwhelming amount of 5.56mm flying out into a crowd that packed in, you KNOW they were mostly hits. You can't miss in those conditions. You might not kill, but you can't miss.

It took all day for that crowd of undead to form, and it took us three minutes to put every fucking body in that crowd face down in the fresh red and gray snow. It gave me some hope that one day we might be able to actually clear the fucking city once and for all. We just need about… 125,000 rounds of ammunition and some armor plated vehicles.

No problem.

We drove over the dead bodies, retrieved our radio from the traffic light, and took a wide route home through empty neighborhoods and areas that have long since been abandoned. We didn’t want to be followed home by someone with ill intentions, especially while so many of us are still sick.

We were greeted like epic heroes of old. Then we got down to work emptying the vehicles, getting the medicine stored away properly, and getting the fresh IV bags double checked, and into the still sick. Things are bad with them, but like wilting plants, they spruced up within an hour or two of having the fresh fluids inside them. Crazy how that works.

I’m wiped. I can't hear shit. Just this WEEEE noise. I’ll say things are still shitty here, despite our good fortunes in the city’s edge. People are still depressed, withdrawn, scared, and disturbed by the deaths the other night, and it’s only by the virtue of Michelle, Melissa, and Kim, and our terrific haul downtown that folks are keeping it together.

I’m hoping our supplies last us for a bit so we can focus on getting somewhat back to normal.

Normal.

Ha.

-Adrian

February 7th

I’ve been very overwhelmed by life of late. It’s almost as if the little things have started to pileup so high they’re finally surrounding me. I feel…

Trapped.

I think my priorities are fucked. The things that should matter most today as I write this are the things that are not on my mind. I am bothered substantially by some shit Michelle said last night, and not by the strife and turmoil that has enveloped my people here. I think I’m being selfish again. I don’t know quite what to do, or where to start. It sucks being a drama queen.

Our trip into the very edge of the city was a phenomenal success. No one was hurt, we got the supplies we so desperately needed, and we put down hundreds and hundreds of undead in the process. It could not be a more impressive victory on our part.

Our sick have stabilized and are now getting better. The IV fluids and medicine Ethan and Joel are pumping into them have returned them to life. They’re still in the clinic, under armed guard and constant medical care, but all signs as of today point that they are going to survive. Another clear victory on our part.

We’ve posted as heavy a guard as we could since we returned, and our long circuit home that led past the Factory hasn’t brought anyone back to our location. The security cameras there as well as the people there haven’t seen anyone following our tracks. We also ran back past MGR, so we had multiple places watching our trail. No one followed us, no undead seemed to have followed us, so once more it appears that we scored a victory.

We have held our ground on the morale issues. Alex is still very withdrawn and sad over the death of George. Poor guy must’ve been so in love, and seeing him mope around, lonely and alone is murderous. The same can be said for Martin. Martin’s sadness and his dedication to being a father to little Chester right now is heart breaking. The kid is torn up over his mom dying, and Martin is torn up over watching his son. On a selfish note, without Martin’s labor and how-to knowledge, there is a lot of shit that’s not being done right now. However, I just can’t get myself to the point where I ask him to get back to work. I just can’t ask him to put everyone else before his grief, and before his son. I know I should be pushing him, but I can't.

Jeanette is struggling with the loss of her baby boy. There’s nothing I can say that’s more impactful than that.

I don’t even want to go into the other people right now. It’s just total crap.

Having said all that, after our return a few days ago we decided to have an event to celebrate our achievement, and mourn the loss of the dead. Basically we wanted a large gathering to give us a reason to eat, drink, and attempt to be merry.

It didn’t make much sense in a logistical way though. Food has been tight, and even with all my jokes that our food consumption “got better” from all our bad luck of late, we are still stretched a little thin. Having a party where we indulge and overeat and drink is stupid. However, trying to bring us all back together and a little happier is a bigger deal. We are running the risk of dying of emotional starvation long before we physically starve.

Michelle led the charge on this, and she did a great job. She decorated the cafeteria, organized everyone (even the sad and distraught), got the food and drink ready, and made sure everyone showed up on time and was as ready as they could be to have a good time. Michelle even somehow found the time to light a large candle for each of the dead. I don’t know where she found all those thick white pillar candles, but there was one for every person who died the other day. They were lined up on a table, off to the side, silently flickering, reminding everyone of why we were there last night, and why it was important to celebrate their lives, instead of just being sad, and hurt. Less mourning, more celebration.

The shindig was awkward. It felt forced, and a little contrived to me, but with so many ex military guys, it all starts to come together when the booze, beer and wine sets in. Old Army stories come out, brothers in arms share tales of their boot camp woes, and then we get to this point where we all sit around quietly near each other, heads hung low, and start to really remember someone. You talk about how they laughed, how they cried, moments when they stood by you, no matter the danger or the stupidity, and you remember just how fucking much someone really means to you. Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they don’t still mean something to you. It makes me realize how much I love my friend Kevin. Being with him at the party last night and reminiscing about old times, and listening to him talk with his crew about the death of Jaden and Roger and Kyle made me realize how much I enjoyed our times in the Army together.

That’s neither here nor there. I’m still hung up on the real issue that’s bothering me.

A handful of us got completely plastered. You’ve probably gotten that much out of my disorganized ramblings.

I was just about three sheets to the wind when I caught Michelle’s eye from across the room. She was watching me talk to Kevin I think, and I raised a can of beer to her and nodded. Sort of a “tip my cap” to her moment. She’d done a decent job at getting this going. Immediately she got up and started over towards us, and despite being pretty fucking drunk, I remember her being really tipsy as she crossed the floor with the music playing out of some kid's shit stereo a little too loud. Kevin managed to stray away just as she showed up, and that left Michelle and I standing there, more than a little awkwardly.

She and I talked for a few drunken minutes about the party, and how bad things were, and how she hoped that this would bond everyone, and give us a collective “chance to mourn.” Which I should say she said in a very drunken, yet professional manner. Long pauses to say very calculated things. I'm sure you've been there.

Somewhere after that, not too long after, but also not exactly the next thing, we managed to walk over to a side cafeteria table and sit down. Then she starts asking me, “What my plan for myself,” was. I can’t exactly… you know... remember what I answered her, having a head swimming with booze at the time, but I remember going on and on about how I was worried about doing the wrong thing, and how I felt like I had to “make things right” for all my mistakes and shit, and she sat there, staring at me intently. Then out of the blue she reaches up, gives me this… sweet and awkward caress on the cheek, leans in and gives me a kiss. It wasn’t quite on the cheek, nor was it on the mouth. It was… I don’t know. Affectionate and also innocent at the same time. I remember being totally shocked as she pulled away slowly, looking at me.

I can’t tell you a damn thing in detail about the shit us guys talked about last night, but I will remember the words she said to me next until the day I am old and grey. Michelle sat there, hands in her lap, looking me dead in the eye, and she starts talking without taking a pause.

“Adrian I was told by many that you and I would fall in love. They said we’d be together, and when we first met I thought about how wrong they were. You are rough, raw, vulgar. Your actions can be rash, and your heart sometimes makes you do the wrong thing. But now that I know you, I see you for who you are. I see the sweet man who wants to be there for those he cares for, and to protect anyone he can, despite how dangerous it might be to him. I have watched that man struggle with the weight of leading, and the crushing weight of his own guilt. Adrian I’ve talked to people about you and your story. I’ve heard how you hate yourself over what you did. How you hate yourself over leaving your girlfriend behind.”

I remember feeling flush. Michelle stood up at that point, and caressed my cheek again, holding her warm palm against the cool skin of my face, “Adrian I’m falling in love with you. Not because of some prophecy, or just because God wants it that way, but because you are a tremendous man that I want to learn more about, and to be closer to. I see you for you the man you are, and the man you can become. But until you get closure on her, and until you forgive yourself fully for what happened with Cassie, there’s simply no room in your heart for anyone, especially not me.”

And she left.

I don’t even know what to do about this.

-Adrian

February 9th

I think Michelle was right. She’s rarely wrong. I’m not saying she was right simply because she’s rarely wrong, that should be clarified. She’s right because she’s right. I’ve never given myself closure on the whole Cassie thing.

I need to move on. I need to forgive myself. I need to understand that despite my mistake that day, I am a person that deserves to enjoy his life. I deserve to love again. I deserve to give Cassie’s memory rest and peace if only in my own mind.

I just don’t know how to go about doing that.

It’s on my mind now though. On my radar like a goal for Bastion. Something I WILL achieve, not something I will discard, or put off forever.

What does throw me for a hardcore loop is the whole “I’m supposed to fall in love with you” story Michelle gave me. Who the fuck says that? I haven’t slept good since that night, and I haven’t really seen her either. She’s been avoiding me, and I’ve been avoiding her. Feels very high school. I don’t think she ever intended to tell me about that, and in her alcohol haze it came out.

Mind fuck, am I right? Like, serious fuck with your head bullshit. I look at her in an entirely different light now. I used to think she was pretty, and intelligent, and warm and caring and wholesome and all those things that I see as unattainable. I see her as someone that I could ruin, instead of someone that could make me a better person in the long run. I don’t see her as someone I could make happy.

That’s how my mind works now.

God I’m really fucked up. Like legitimate head case bullshit. As if I didn’t have enough shit to think about, now I am nearly obsessed with finding out if being with her is a possibility. It’s the first thing I’ve thought about when I open my eyes in the morning, and I think about it late into the night when I try to fall asleep. If I fall asleep at all.

Do I have a fucking crush now? Is that what this is? Jesus. How old am I?

I can’t let this get in the way of getting things done. As much as it would be amazing to be… intimate with her, I can’t let my physical and emotional needs get in the way of being a good leader here. I have too many people relying on me, and too many decisions to make. Too many other people to let down.

I wonder how I’ll get closure on Cassie. Do I need to go… find her? I mean fuck. Our tiny foray into the city the other day came out way in the black, but hell, it could’ve gone really fucking south, really fucking quick. A real trip to the center of the city to the office building she worked at to try and find her would be a goddamn logistical nightmare that’d require every ounce of manpower we could bring to bear to accomplish.

And for what?

So I can sleep better at night and get my dick wet without having a gigantic fucking guilt trip? Yeah that’ll fly when I explain it to people here. It’ll be like a wet fart in the middle of a fucking funeral service. I’ll be walked out the back by a bunch of angry men who'll sodomize me to prove a point.

Sigh. I need to put serious mental effort into figuring out how exactly to do that without being treated like a selfish moron.

Can’t worry about THAT trip into the city right now. I need to worry about the trip that’s necessary at the moment. We need far more medical supplies, and the only place that we can think of is the hospital in the city. It’s near the college where Becca went, and it’s on the far side of the city. The east side. We could skirt downtown the same way we did to get to the pharmacy near the airport, and according to our people who have been there post-that day, we’ve got a fairly decent and attainable route.

I should say that our sick folks are now much better, but it took a LOT of the fluids we obtained to get them there. We’re still what Ethan and Joel describe as being “dangerously low” on bags, and they’re being pretty insistent that we get a move on to get some more. All of our sick are now off the drips, but if we get a strong hit of that bug again, or we have some folks badly injured we’re going to be bent over and on short notice to get unfucked.

So we’re formulating a plan to head into the hospital. Tomorrow we’re sitting down and starting to look at maps to make a planned route in, as well as setting up areas as “noise traps.” We want to use a similar idea to the radio on the traffic light to draw them out and away from the hospital. We aren’t quite sure if one will be enough, so we’re going to do some measurements on how sound carries tomorrow to see if we need to set up multiples. That’ll draw extra trouble our way though, but it might be less trouble than not setting up these traps. Plus, we can roll up to these noise areas after we’re done (assuming we aren’t running at top speed for our lives) and lay down some HEAVY lead to put the entire mob listening to whatever music we’ve got playing down for the count. Worked last time.

Distraction and organization for more efficient removal. Now if we could figure out a way to kill them without wasting serious ammunition, that’d be great. Unfortunately, fragmentation weaponry is not that effective, nor is fire. Launching a series of grenades into the crowd will likely knock a bunch of them around but not kill them. You see shrapnel usually kills a living person by doing internal damage to organs and blood vessels. Most folks don’t die in a bombing or explosion due to head wounds. It’s either lacerations to organs, or tremendous overpressure that ruptures your shit. Zombies laugh at that crap. Kevin said they did extensive testing in England while they were there and all that's a known commodity. An explosion is useful for destroying buildings, or knocking them down, but it isn’t reliable for killing them.

Fire as I’ve clearly explained sucks my hairy balls for pretty much the same reason. Fire doesn’t destroy the brain nearly fast enough, and you’re left with an enormous crowd of zombies that are now on fire. A mathematician would describe that as clearly a “less than” situation. Now if we had something like a… MOAB, or even just a handful of 105mm artillery shells that we could detonate right on top of the motherfuckers, we’d be in a different boat. That’d cause enough overpressure to crack skulls, scramble brains and kill these bastards. Sadly… the collateral damage to structures nearby would be high, but it’s not like we’re going to be using these city buildings any time soon.

I’ve got the brain trust working on a more efficient kill solution than “spray and pray with the SAWs.” Killing four or five hundred like we did the other day was outstanding, but it's a drop in the bucket when weighed against the 125,000+ people who are probably in the city and are dead and angry.

Once we have a solid plan in place, we will put it into action, and head into the city once more to secure more medical supplies for Bastion.

If that goes well, I’ll be far more informed about a trip to find closure.

To find Cassie.

In the meantime… I need to stay occupied so I stop thinking about a certain blonde woman that I am supposed to be falling in love with. Or is supposed to be falling in love with me. I'm confused.

-Adrian

February 11th

Here’s the plan:

We did noise tests, and the radios we can bring to make noise can be heard in about a fifty yard radius. That’s not that far at all. That means we need a minimum of four radios set up in a perimeter at a bare minimum of 100 yards outside our AO. That gives us a hundred yard noise buffer from where we will be, and where the radios are making noise theoretically keeping the zeds off our back. Four radios are ready to go, and we’ve got four CDs fully prepped up. Noisy songs that will play for a long ass time and can be set to repeat incessantly. If we can’t kill the zombies with gunfire, we will annoy the fuck out of them with 1970s disco, Swedish death metal, early 90's gangster rap, and some old yodeling music we dug up.

Shit if I had to listen to the mix CDs we made, I’d fucking kill myself. Shotgun mouthwash just to make the pain go away. You also might ask yourself Mr. Journal why we took the time to MAKE a special mix CD for this, and to be honest, I can't give you an answer beyond; it seemed like the thing to do.

Our road plan will be exactly the same as before to the Factory, and then we will switch to roads one or two off from our original route so as not to let anyone set up an ambush if they are anticipating us returning. From there we will continue forward, leaving behind a fifth noise maker in a major intersection that we can skirt around later on if need be. That way on our return, if we have critical injuries or just need to get the fuck out fast we can drive around any mobs of undead that might be there. Plus, it’ll help with us being followed by any undead into the city. Does that make sense? I feel very… rambly or something. Too much thinking the past few days.

Been good about thinking about Michelle too.

Ah fuck. Kiss of death. The Jinx Fairy works in mysterious ways.

We are rolling with an additional vehicle on this trip, and three more shooters than last time. We’re using the same exact team from the pharmacy run (Caleb, Abby, Hector, me, Kevin, Amanda, Quan, Ethan, Martin, Fitz, Angela and Hal) plus new bodies in the form of Amanda, Mike and Patty. They’re going to be riding in the deuce and a half. We debated bringing the box truck, or the heavy duty military tow rig, but the logistics of those vehicles didn’t add up to the value the deuce gave us. They’re built to take a pounding in the worst situations you can throw at them, and they've been doing it since World War Two.

We roll in a perimeter of the hospital on arrival, assessing the situation and if all seems well, we post our noisemakers as planned on traffic lights or street lamps, and contract in to the hospital’s rear docks to breach through the doors there. We can secure the alley/street the docks are on fairly easily, and we’ve got exits in both directions we can use. On the street map we have of the city, the alley looks like a nice defendable location for us with minimal exposure. Granted, not much of an escape route, but you can't have everything.

We have only our memories of the inside of the hospital to go on, which is bad. We have no internet to use to try and find a floor plan of the joint. We are expecting a nightmare inside. A full on plugged tub requiring our toes to bring it to order once more. The Jinx Fairy doesn’t even need to show up for this to be a fucking disaster. We’ve got some internal breaching plans to help minimize our risk, and we’re getting the supplies ready for that now. For example, we’re anticipating the ER area of the hospital to be chock full of the dead, and the docks where we are going in are pretty far from that area of the hospital. We’re going to bar the doors that lead to that section, and attempt to simply avoid the majority of the fight going near there would bring on us.

Downside to this plan: we are pot committed once we’re in the shit. There’s no QRF to call for help if things go south. We sink or swim on our own on this, so pretty clearly we’re shitting bricks and hoping this goes well. The alternatives will be very bad. Not only for us if we die there, but for the folks who are being left behind at Bastion here. They're going to lose a LOT of experience, and a LOT of gear if we fail.

Having said that, we are super excited. This is a serious operation and will test our limits to get things done in a tactical sense. The payoff could be huge too. A hospital, even one that was in crisis when it was last open, has got to be full of good shit. We’re hoping for lots of IV bags and medication. Bandages, sterilization equipment and chemicals, surgical tools and soaps, blah blah blah. Basically anything medical that is consumable will be huge for us. This is our big game. The Championship.

The other downside is that the hospital might be completely empty of everything we're risking so much to go there for, and we’re doing this all for nothing. What a shit moment that’d be for morale. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

One thing I am definitely doing this for… is that if this goes well, we’ll be very informed on how the city is on the interior. I’ll know just about exactly what to expect if I want to go deeper into the city to Cassie’s work. Searching for closure and all that jazz…

We are leaving first thing in the morning on the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow we finish gathering supplies and working on things we need to bring with us. Kevin is spending the entire day doing weapons and gear prep with Mike. Apparently I am finally getting my M203.

Huzzah.

-Adrian

And the Bombs Fell

“This keeps getting worse,” Lancaster grunted out loud. No one was even in the room to hear him, but he spoke anyway.

Lancaster stood at a wall of streaming information deep inside and below a government building that was still safe. Whatever safe passed for now from the plague that was ripping his country apart one dead body at a time less than a hundred yards above his head. Lancaster was an old man, and tired. He’d fought in Vietnam before college, and still had a long ragged scar on his neck where a fall into a shit covered stake pit had nearly ended his life. His white hair was thin and wispy and completely gone at the very peak of his skull, where the skin was smooth and shiny. He was short and squat, with wide shoulders and hips. He wore the remnants of a suit, the jacket and tie long since discarded earlier on in the crisis. Decorum was far from important now. His white dress shirt had stains from coffee and stale donuts. They weren’t blood stains, but they certainly were the signs of a long battle he had been fighting.

Lancaster stood with arms crossed in front of a wall of flat screen monitors. The dozen streams of images all came from military sources today. On other days he had the few tech nerds hack into traffic cameras, or security cameras in other government buildings that were still accessible to their network. Each screen today was the feed from a high altitude observation plane that kept watch on one of the cities that were to be bombed that day. American cities. American bombs.

Lancaster reached out and punched a few keys on a keyboard, switching the image feeds from the planes to the satellites much higher above. It took nearly a minute for the computers to link up and form a strong connection for him, but they did. On almost every screen against the surface of the ground below, small clusters of shapes approached the dense urban sprawls of the cities. He could identify the different shapes easily from experience. Most of the shapes were workhorse B52 bombers, with their long wings, but some were B1 planes, and on one screen there was a pair of elite stealth B2 bombers. Those looked like flying Batman symbols. Cash and the unaffordable cost to get this done wasn’t an issue anymore. This wasn’t about the economy, or the foreign debt, or trade deficits. This was about the pure survival of the species, let alone the nation. Home of the free.

Lancaster sipped cold coffee that tasted like soot from a cardboard cup as the planes racked up and headed in for their bombing runs on the cities. The logic behind the bombings was simple, as flawed as it sounded to him. Some American cities were already abandoned by local authorities. The police, National Guard, and local military forces were simply unable to contain the massive crowds of undead and the sickness that caused all the death. After careful deliberation, it was decided that in order to have any chance at reasserting control over these lost cities, the dead had to be put down by overwhelming force that didn't put the men and women of the military at heightened risk.

Enter the capabilities of the vast American air power.

Previously dominant in many a conflict across the world against conventional living targets, America’s enormous fleet of well-armed air craft and highly trained personnel were uniquely skilled at bombing runs very similar to what was needed now at home. The first runs today, the runs Lancaster watched live right then, were intended to hit the massive crowds of undead in the urban centers and thin them so ground forces could re-enter the cities and mop up, giving them a leg up on the hordes.

Boston was the first city where he watched the bombs fall. Not by much, Lancaster mused. Just a hop, skip and a jump away, D.C. was about to be pummeled and Charlotte as well. Lancaster watched with dry eyes as the B52s flying over one of America’s oldest cities lined up and took their final ordnance delivery corrections. Lancaster switched the Boston satellite feed to the C2 bird’s eyes just as the bombs left the bay doors of the massive bombers. The C2 plane was lower, and had a more detailed view.

He listened to the chatter amongst the air crew and the brass leading this particular bombing run as he waited for the massive MK84 2,000 pound bombs to impact the streets below. He didn’t have to wait for long to watch the results. The massive bomb’s initial ground impact was invisible to the naked eye. The instant after they hit the ground, they exploded, sending a visible shockwave into the air like a dome of energy released from a superhero’s hands. Trailing behind it a millisecond later was the deadly shrapnel and flame that would tear bodies, buildings, and cars apart. The intensely powerful camera on the command and control plane showed tiny human bodies flying through the air, end over end, spinning so powerfully limbs came off from the centrifugal force. If you forgot that each explosion was destruction and chaos, each bomb hitting looked like the flowering of a delicate rose, spreading its petals quickly to catch the fading light.

It was horrifying.

Lancaster’s stomach churned as he thought about the families of the already dead being torn and rendered apart below him. The bean counters estimated that as of the beginning of this week, the second week of August 2010, approximately fifty percent of the country’s population was dead. Somewhere around one hundred and fifty million people dead and looking to make the other hundred fifty million people dead just like them too.

How many bombs is it going take to us to kill that many people? A thousand? Ten thousand?

His eyes wandered from the Boston screen to the Charlotte screen where the massive explosions were starting. He looked to the D.C. screens and they too were filling with the dust clouds and shockwaves brought on by the massive bombs being dropped with precision onto enormous gatherings of the flesh hungry undead. It seemed that thirty seconds was the delay in the length of life for each city. No more, no less. Each of the cities targeted for “eradication” had a similar story pan out as the day went on. Bombs fell, and the dead were pulverized.

In all, fourteen cities were bombed the first day. It would take the analysts a few days or scouring the satellite photos and reading reconnaissance reports to figure out how effective the bombs actually were.

*****

“So explain this to me again. We dropped how many bombs the other day?” The President asked Lancaster and the group of military and civilian experts via video conference. The aged intelligence officer sat in the back of the room watching it all pan out. Lancaster knew a lot, but even he didn’t know where the President was. On the other side of the screen it appeared that the president was in a nondescript conference room nearly identical to the one he sat in. The President could be anywhere.

Lancaster replied to the highest politician in all his land, “I’m sorry Mr. President, we weren't able to find the exact number due to failures in the communication systems, but we believe it was approximately 500 to 550 2,000 pound MK84 bombs sir. Some of the birds left light and some of the planes were carrying mixed ordnance so the exact number is unavailable. We're trying to get a better answer.”

The President lifted some papers off his desk that had been faxed to his location earlier. It had much of the information the analyst team had just shared. The Commander in Chief didn’t look pleased in the least. He thumbed through the five or six page document as Lancaster and the rest of the group watched on. Even with the grainy video feed he could still see as the man in charge skimmed numbers on the paper he didn’t like.

“Correct me if I am wrong, but you’re saying the bombs only appeared to be approximately what? Thirty percent effective? What exactly does that mean?”

An Air Force general a few seats down spoke up. Lancaster noted that he had three stars on the shoulder of his impeccable uniform. He hadn't skipped out on decorum. ”Mr. President this is Lieutenant General Foster. Thirty percent effectiveness means that of the rough number of estimated targets in a given environment, after visual assessment post-bombing, compared against visual assessment pre-bombing, about thirty percent of those potential, available targets appear to be destroyed.” Lancaster noted that this Foster guy appeared knowledgeable. Well spoken too. He watched as Foster organized piles of papers on the large conference table they were arrayed around. Everything seemed to have a place in front of him. He was meticulous.

“So one hundred walking dead in a pretty, green city park pre-bombing, seventy walking dead still moving around after?” The President asked easily, already knowing the answer.

“Correct sir,” Foster replied.

The President's face went sour, and he sighed. “That’s damn terrible. How could the bombs be so ineffective?" The President picked up a stack of photographs and rifled through them. He held several up for them to see, "I can see on the follow up pictures there are holes in the streets ten feet wide. How could they get up and walk away from that?”

Foster replied once more, “Well sir to be honest it’s pretty easy to understand when you look at it scientifically. Bombs typically kill with mixture of shockwave pressure and shrapnel. As we know, these things are only killed by fairly large scale trauma to the brains, and the likelihood that the bombs would send lethal shrapnel into the brains directly and consistently is fairly low. The pressure created by a bomb explosion as well typically kills living people by rupturing organs, and as you already know, these things have no need for their internal organs. If I may speculate sir, I'd suggest that the targets have their bodies riddled with shrapnel, and are liquefied on the inside in many cases, but if we don't hit their brains dead center, all we're doing is poking holes in them or throwing them around. I would like to point out sir that a thirty percent destruction rate is actually fairly good. It may not seem like it right now, but if you look at page four of the document you’re holding, we’re estimating that the bombing runs three days ago destroyed somewhere between one and one point three million targets. Not to mention crippling injuries. They might not be dead, but I’m sure we took the legs off a large portion of the targets, and that'll help our ground forces considerably.”

The words ‘destroyed’ and ‘targets’ had replaced ‘killing’ and ‘the dead.’

The President flipped through the document as the gaggle of aides surrounding him did the same. They all digested the information and murmured amongst each other, waiting to see how the President would react. It reminded Lancaster of parrots.

“Where do we go from here?”

“If I may, sir?” Foster asked the President politely.

“You may General, go ahead.”

“Sir, it is my strong belief we as a nation are beyond the tipping point here. We have lost this country’s urban areas already. Bombing them now to make them easier to recapture I believe is futile and a waste of our country's dwindling resources, both civilian and military. We already have so many other problems to deal with in the rural areas in regards to maintaining the nation’s ability to survive past this summer. Frankly I think we need to turn our efforts away from military actions such as this week’s bombings and shift to a more defensive and preparatory tactic. We need to build fences, secure croplands, sources of fresh water, and critical manufacturing facilities. The missions need to be fortify and secure sir. If we continue to commit to more bombings in the near future, they need to be done in such a fashion that they are supporting our efforts to make it through this summer and winter sir. I’ve drafted a document detailing everything. My office can send it to you if you’re interested in giving it consideration.”

The President asked a question quickly, without hesitation, “What kind of bombing action would support your strategy General? Give me an example.”

“Sir, at this point it is my firm belief that we need to make the cities that are overrun by the dead islands. Cut them out surgically like a cancer. I think we need to bomb surface roads and bridges to prevent the exit of these things and give the suburban areas nearby a chance to move into more rural locations where we can support them. Population centers are lost sir. We need to make safe what we can, while we can, with what we have at our disposal.”

“Your ideas are duly noted General, thank you for your suggestions. Have your people send your plan to my aides and we'll look at it. Right now we’ve got several plans to go over. In the meantime let’s continue with this plan for one more run on our tier one cities. I think there’s little harm in one more large scale bombing run to thin. Thirty percent more eliminated while we sort this out will come in handy at some point. Ladies and Gentlemen thank you."

And so the next week was decided.

*****

Air Force Lieutenant General Foster rested his head on the thin white pillow in the bed he had slept in since the world came crashing to a halt. The thin mattress gave his old warrior’s back little support, but such was the lifestyle he’d chosen so long ago. No sense complaining about hardship when a hard life was the one he’d chosen. His small bedroom was more of a cell than a place of rest. The only difference between the room he now lived in and a convict's was which side of the door the lock was on. Like the old warrior he was, once he’d achieved a safe place to rest, he fell into the comforting embrace of deep sleep.

Foster’s dreams since the world came crashing down were strange. Before the end of the world he would dream almost exclusively about the things that were happening in his life that day, or that week or that month. If he was struggling with what to make for dinner the next day, he’d dream about grocery shopping. If he and his wife had just made love, he dreamt of resting in her arms, spent, sated, and sweaty. If he had just chewed one of his assistant’s asses out, he’d dream about doing it different ways.

Not anymore. Foster dreamt of dead relatives, and memories long since forgotten. He dreamt of shooting and killing the dead. Just that very morning one of his men commented that he too had been dreaming of similar things. Strange coincidences previously laughed at were now considered seriously. When the dead walk the earth eating the living, the impossible becomes very malleable. Reports were being turned in daily by people who analyzed their dreams now.

Foster’s dream that night started out with him resting in his home in the D.C. suburbs. He had a nice house. Not ostentatious or excessive, but a nice home his military salary afforded him in good neighborhood. In the dream Foster was armed with his service pistol, his finger extended straight alongside the trigger, and he was walking about in his living room looking for the zombie he knew was there, somewhere. The pale orange light cast by the street lamp just a dozen yards outside his front bay window turned the interior of his house into a toxic environment. Normally his curtains were pulled shut, but for some reason they were cast open, illuminating the room in the caustic electrical glare. In the distance, he heard something moving upstairs. He moved through his living room and began to walk carefully up the carpeted staircase. He'd done the carpet installation himself just a year before the first attacks.

At the top of the long series of steps Foster stood silent, listening to where the noise might still be. Still unaware he was in a dream he felt his heart race. He thought it was strange that the temperature upstairs was so cool. Normally in August his house was an oven upstairs. He needed central air, but he couldn’t afford it just yet.

Foster’s ears twitched when he heard something come from the end of the hall in his son’s bedroom. His mind bolted like a racehorse out of the gate as he tried to remember where his son was. Was he alive still? Was he in school still? Would he be just getting home from baseball practice? He couldn’t remember, but he knew there was something ominous in the home, and it was his duty to protect his house and his son. Where was his wife?

Foster pushed the bedroom door open and stepped inside, his pistol sliding back and forth in the air searching for a dead body to shoot in the head. His weapon’s sights froze on the form of his teenage son resting in bed on his back, flipping through a bible. Foster thought it was strange his son was reading a bible.

“Hi Dad. I’m glad you came up. Do you have time to talk?”

Foster’s mind wandered in the dream, confused. He suddenly couldn’t remember quite why he was even in the room in the first place and the memory of the living room was already gone like a morning fog lifted. The pistol in his hand was gone. Foster smiled, already unaware that he'd even had a gun in the first place, happy to see his son. The Air Force man pulled out the desk chair across from the bed to have a seat. “I have time for you Leo, where's your mother?"

Leo answered with an unsure lift of his slight shoulders. He was still lanky, and growing into the adult's body that he would own for the rest of his life.

"What’s on your mind pal?” Foster asked his son.

“Well Dad. I guess I’ve been thinking about what I would do if I knew people were making mistakes?” Leo said, never taking his eyes off the well worn bible. Dimly, Foster couldn’t recall Leo even having a bible, let alone a used one.

Foster tried to think of what his own father would say. “Well I guess you’d have to help them right? Show them the error of their ways and help them make the right decision.”

Leo nodded like that was the answer he expected his father to give. “What if they were unable to make the right decision? What if you couldn’t get them to change their mistake but could correct the mistake and tell them about it later? Like, what if you found out Mom wrote a deposit slip wrong but you were already at the bank?” Leo asked, finally taking his eyes off the book.

Foster smiled at his fifteen year old. “Leo that’s easy. Mom wouldn’t care, and that’s an easy mistake people make all the time. I'd fix it and let her know later.”

“Okay that’s a bad example. What if one of your fighters is about to bomb the wrong target based on bad intelligence? You can change the target on your own immediately, or you can let the bombs fall and hit the wrong place. What would you do then?”

“There are protocols for that Leo. But I’m able to call off the strike, change the targets and reissue commands if need be. Last thing we want is to kill innocents or to destroy a structure that doesn’t need to be destroyed.”

Leo chewed on this information for a good long time, digesting it. “That makes sense. Dad can you promise me something?” Leo looked at his father with hope in his eyes. He looked five years old again, and wanting a puppy for his birthday like his life depended on it.

“Of course.”

“If our bombers are ever going to hit the wrong place, make sure you stop it. I like knowing my dad helps innocent people from getting hurt.”

Foster smiled, happy to see his son be so compassionate. “Of course.”

Foster opened his eyes in the real world. His room was black, save for the red glow emanating from the alarm clock on the tiny bed stand next to his head. His skin was still prickly from the chill in Leo’s room in the dream. He lifted his arm and looked at his watch. Five hours had gone by in a blink.

Foster liked dreaming about his son. He just wished he hadn’t died ten years ago in a car accident. There was something positive to be had out of all these strange dreams after all.

*****

Foster sat with two Air Force technical Sergeants inside a command and control room deep inside the same government building the conference with the President was held in. It had been two weeks since the President had ordered an additional bomb run on the cities that were declared overrun. After several day long and grueling meetings via the video conferencing equipment, the President and his advisors declared that the idea of sealing off the cities was not the tactic that would serve the country best. He ordered weekly bombing runs on the cities nearest large military installations to give the forces that could be mobilized a chance to reclaim them. In the President's mind, winning the morale of the nation by taking back the cities was a goal that the government couldn't be seen walking away from.

Cities in the northeast, furthest from the largest of bases were abandoned. Boston, Hartford, Portland, Manchester, Springfield, New Haven, New York, and a dozen more were all left for dead. Foster couldn’t imagine the death toll in the cities, let alone the rural areas surrounding them. There would be no government assistance for them anytime soon. New England was forgotten, left to rot in the late summer sun.

Foster watched feed after feed streaming in with the two Sergeants. They observed, recorded and reported the information coming in. The two young men sat distracted, taking notes and interacting with the disintegrating world outside only as often as absolutely needed. It was very late in the day, and the repetition of bombing runs and the overall downtrodden and lethargic mood of the survivors in the bunker as a whole had caused hope and morale to steadily decline. Even Foster felt ambivalent at best about the mission he had been tasked with.

The older General hadn’t slept a wink in weeks. His gray eyes were bloodshot, and no matter how much he shaved, his face always looked shadowed and sunken. His dream in his house with his son had continued to recur to the point where it had become more of a nightmare. His son's request to him was now a challenge. The dream was a declaration to Foster that night after night, he couldn't escape. Foster felt deep inside that the dream was a subconscious reflection of his distaste for the President’s decision to continue to bomb the cities. His son kept asking him, night after anxious night to do the right thing and save lives. Foster knew these bombing missions were not saving lives. He knew the explosions obliterating increasingly smaller amounts of the walking dead were having no impact on the likelihood that anyone would survive the rest of this calendar year. Sure, the cities were becoming less dangerous with each fallen bomb. That wasn't the problem. The issue was that not enough resources were being dedicated to the support of the nation to survive the collapse of the infrastructure. Too much was being wasted on simply killing the dead.

“You look sullen Foster,” a leathery older man’s voice said to him from a few feet away.

Foster’s heart stuttered. He was surprised the source of the voice had gotten so close to him, so quietly. He turned and saw the Department of State official named Lancaster. Lancaster was a spook. Ex-CIA possibly. He was one of the men that dealt with the government's problems that no one was made aware of. His name and paycheck didn’t appear on any payroll that the public saw. He didn't exist in any official capacity. Foster was creeped out by the man.

“I’m tired Lancaster. Don’t you have a house to haunt?” Foster said, not hiding the disdain he had for the DOS string-puller.

“Ha. I hate to break it to you Foster, but we’re all ghosts now. We’re just haunting an empty world. How’s the pogrom going? Hitting some large piles of our greatest nuisance?”

Foster sighed before replying, “Well. We’re hitting stuff but the return numbers are terrible. We’re wasting fuel like there’s no tomorrow. Sad thing is I’ve already said that if we keep wasting fuel like this, there won’t be a tomorrow. Waste of time. We're polishing the silverware on the Titanic when we should be using the tables to build more life rafts.”

Lancaster had this horrible habit of clucking his tongue when he was thinking. Foster’s lip curled into a tiny sneer as he listed to the old man’s bad habit.

“I read your report," Lancaster finally said. "There’s a lot of sense in it. If it makes you feel any better, I threw in some support for you at our last briefing. I think in another couple weeks we’ll be able to shift resources. Just need to be a little patient.” Lancaster took a seat at the swiveling chair next to Foster. The old man sipped on his trademark paper cup of cold coffee before putting his feet up on the counter covered in keyboards and controls.

Foster was taken aback by the man’s statement. It was uncharacteristic of the old man to share something. His eyes wandered to a monitor just behind Lancaster that showed a small unit of soldiers moving through an urban area near Charlotte North Carolina. Charlotte was one of the cities tasked to be cleared first. The tremendous amount of military bases in the region made it a good choice. Foster watched as the fire teams moved from door to door, taking cover, providing cover for one another. He laughed to himself as he watched them practice a useless tactic over and over. Zombies don’t have firearms. There’s no point in taking cover from them.

Foster looked away just as one of the soldiers was taken down from behind. A trio of mangled dead walkers had burst out of a small recess in a building, grabbing at him. The rest of the unit fired repeatedly, killing the undead as well as their own. Foster wondered how long it would take for the rest of the undead to swarm to the sounds of their fire.

“They aren’t rotting,” Lancaster said absently.

“What?”

“The dead people. They aren’t rotting. They should’ve started to disintegrate by now. Especially in the heat of the south. But they aren’t. They’re still pretty much the same as when they died. Of course, more and more are dying every day, so it’s hard to track, but DOD has some Onset Day bodies in quarantine, and they’re still fresh. Doesn’t make any sense. Breaks science.”

Foster didn’t know what to do with the information he was just given. It seemed like Lancaster shared it for a specific reason, but he couldn’t fathom why, yet. “What exactly does that mean?”

“In the light of the fact that they haven’t found any bacteria, virus, or germ in the bodies that’s unusual you mean?” Lancaster said, slowly raising his eyes to lock on to Foster’s.

“Yes. In light of that too I suppose.”

“It means there is no scientific cause for any of this. And it also means, these bodies are defying the normal progression of decay for no good reason. It means that with all our best remaining minds at work on trying to find out what's going on, we know no more about what's causing this than the moment it began. It means that there is a far larger power at work than a simple plague, my friend.”

Foster kept Lancaster’s gaze as long as he could, but had to look away. The old man’s eyes were intense, like blue daggers piercing into him. He shivered.

“That seems silly. We just need more time to get to the bottom of this.”

Lancaster looked away, back at the monitor feeding the Charlotte video. Now the entire unit was engulfed by dozens undead, surrounded on every side with no way to escape. The unit’s Lieutenant was calling in air support directly on his position. Lancaster and Foster listened as an Apache flight crew in the air nearby responded. Soon the terrible helicopter would rain down 20mm chain gun fire on the men, tearing the dead and alive apart with impunity.

As the explosive rounds began their awful work, Lancaster stood and pointed a stubby finger at the screen. “Foster, time is one thing I do not think we have a lot of.”

*****

Eight days later Foster sat at the same table, this time alone. The decision had been made the day prior to let non essential personnel go. The younger men that had sat here babysitting the monitors wanted to go home to their families, and Foster had let them do that. The bombing runs had been cut down to just once every three days, and today was one of those days. Foster dreaded the mornings when he knew the planes would take to the air.

Disorganization had taken over the past few days across the country. Rapidly deteriorating local conditions around military bases as well as local commanders making decisions to ensure that their personal commands would survive had slowly eradicated the larger government’s ability to achieve anything substantial. Instead of one voice, one mind, and one goal, it was now a hundred muffled voices crying out, a hundred muddled minds losing track of the world, and more goals than anyone could hope to keep track of.

Foster wasn’t in denial about it though. He’d seen the writing on the wall, and had already taken steps to ensure his nation would survive this. He had his country's best interests in mind. He wasn't the selfish one. The benefit of sending the sergeants away early was that he could make adjustments to the sorties with little to no supervision. Previous checks and balances were already abandoned, and today, as Foster sat in the room alone, if he issued a command directly to the plane, the pilots would take his order immediately. If he wanted an elementary school obliterated, he could make it happen, and no one would be the wiser until the pilots returned home. Even then it was unlikely there would be any repercussions for Foster. There were precious few who he answered to now.

Foster pulled a small notebook out of his shirt pocket. Last night as he avoided the dream of his son once more he’d gone through every major bombing sortie for today. He dredged up new coordinates for every single city being hit, and as he reached out to the first pilot with the new instructions, his instructions, he felt the room chill. The air around him became crisp and dry, as if the air conditioning units had fired up full blast again. They'd been off for weeks to conserve energy. Instantly Foster’s mind dipped back to the image of his Leo on the bed in the upstairs of his house. Fear was the first reaction he had, but then Foster felt vindicated, emboldened. In the dream Foster’s son had asked him to do the right thing, and now that he finally was, the very air around him was showing him that he was following the right path. It was as if his dream was coming true, and his son was watching him, approving of what he was doing.

Foster issued his commands to the pilots and watched his breath materialize in the cold air. He sat back, content at last as the steam disappeared. After today, the cities would be contained, and the rest of the country could have a real chance at making it through this apocalypse.

The first target he instructed his pilots to destroy was the largest bridge exiting Boston. The Lenny P. Zakim Memorial Bridge. The first bomb hit the bridge like a cosmic sledgehammer, smashing any chance of vehicles leaving the city heading to the north. The second bomb that hit ensured that the collapse of the bridge would be imminent. A few more bombs in a few more places, and Beantown would be crossed off the list of dangerous places. As the second bomb’s dust settled in Boston, the first bomb fell in Philadelphia. As the last bombs fell in the city of Independence, the first bombs fell in Albany.

Foster thought of his son and smiled.

From ten feet away Lancaster watched silently from the doorway. He watched as the bombs fell, removing the urban settlements from the nation's equation like a surgeon would remove a series of malignant tumors.

Anyone still alive in the cities were now on their own. Escape would be nearly impossible. He feared for the living left behind on the newly formed islands.

*****

No longer tormented by the cursed memory of the dream, Foster slept like a baby that night.

His son was sitting at the desk chair in his bedroom. “Wow Dad, great job. I knew you could do it,” Leo said to his father, as he looked at his collection of Foster’s handed down baseball cards. Foster knew there would’ve been some value there, if the world hadn’t gone fallen apart.

“Thanks Leo. I just hope when this all pans out I’m not seen as a traitor. I’m a patriot. I want my nation to stand strong for the generations to come,” Foster said the words almost robotically. Even in the dream he felt stiff, like the words weren’t entirely his own.

“I’m proud to be your son, Dad,” Leo said without looking up.

Foster watched his son shuffle through the cards, lingering on some Baltimore Orioles cards that he remembered were his son's favorites. Something inside him felt strange. Deep down in the place where love and trust began he felt a tiny amount of suspicion and doubt. Something was wrong with Leo, and the father felt it. He asserted his feelings.

“Son, why won’t you look at me?” Foster asked, moving to sit on the bed beside the chair where his boy sat. He looked at the poster of a Tomcat F14 launching off a carrier on the wall above his son's bed. He used to tease Leo that the Tomcat was a Navy plane, and he should've had a poster of an F16 instead.

“No reason Dad. It’s just that since Mom died that day, my feelings have been messed up.” Leo shrugged.

Again the feeling returned. It crept up his spine like a spider under his shirt. Something was off about his son. His flesh and blood. Foster’s skin started to ripple and chill to the same temperature as the room. He felt exposed. He reached out and touched his son firmly on the shoulder. “Look at me Leo. Show me your mother’s eyes.”

Leo stopped moving entirely for moment, then reached over and set the well taken care of cards on the desk. Foster noted how cool Leo’s skin was under his hand, even in the chilled room. It seemed as if the source of the chill was his son. Leo took a deep breath and turned to Foster.

His eyes were blacked over. Not blackened from a punch, but black from corruption, black from the presence of something other. Black from something from within.

Leo's mouth moved. “Hello General Foster,” a voice that was very much not Leo’s said. The voice was invasive, insulting, and judgmental. Foster’s blood thickened and churned in his heart.

“Who the hell are you?” Foster asked the thing that was not his son. He moved away out of instinct, and immediately felt guilty for doing so. That was his son sitting there. He should never flinch away from his own.

“I am not a bad dream. I am the architect of the end. I am the solution to your problems Foster.”

“Bullshit. Where is my son? What have you done with him?” Foster’s fear was slowly being replaced by anger. He leaned in to the thing that was impersonating his baby boy.

“He is dead. I apologize for using the image of your son to get messages to you. I feared you would not be able to listen, and do the right thing without gentle coercion from someone you trusted.”

“Do the right thing? You mean bomb the cities into isolation?”

“Indeed. There were still hundreds of thousands of souls still in those cities. Now they have even less of a chance to survive my work. I have you to thank for a job well done.”

Foster was putting two and two together. Dream or not this was far too vivid and horrible to not be real on some level. Foster swallowed the rising bile and listened as the voice continued droning on, aggravating the very core of his being.

“You’ve done excellent work General. Your son would be proud, do not let my deception remove that fact. You know your son... you know he would approve of your plan. I have come clean to you tonight to ask of you one more thing that would make your son proud. One more task to ensure your legacy among men for all time.”

Irrationally Foster’s ego listened to the strange voice. Deep down inside he knew that the plan he’d put into action was the best plan. He knew it to his core. It was his idea. His thought. His intellect and foresight. The voice, strange and invasive as it had been, spoke to him now. He felt less ill at ease.

Or so he thought.

“Foster you have one more chance with your planes. They’ll be on to you by then. In fact, the one named Lancaster is already aware of your work. In three days your last chance to seal off the cities forever and ensure the survival of your nation will come to you, and you must do the right thing. This is your Thermopylae. The last stand of the patriotic.”

Foster’s mind raced back to the great Greek battle. He knew the seriousness of the association and leaned in to listen to the voice. In his ear the voice now sounded institutional. Resolute and wise like Sun Tzu, or Napoleon Bonaparte. He felt trust in the voice. He felt the need to impress it now. To show it that he was able, capable, and strong.

“What cities do I need to hit? Do I need to bomb more west coast cities? I’ve been thinking that I should hit some of the tertiary target cities. Places like—“

The thing that wasn’t his son cut him off, “Foster when you wake up you will have written down what you need to do. What is most important to remember is that there are many cities that cannot be sealed off. Many cities that have no bridges to bomb, or that have too many exits. These cities require different weapons. Longer lasting weapons.”

“Nuclear?”

“Even you do not have access to those weapons General. What other weapons could your planes drop that would have an effect months and years later?”

Foster thought long and hard about his munitions options. He thought about what weapons were stored at what bases and what he could get loaded without requiring anyone else’s approval. His mind checked down a memorized list of ordnance as if it were a menu at a restaurant. An idea came to him quickly, “What about cluster bombs? We could drop anti-personnel munitions all over those cities. When the dead walk they’ll trip them. That might buy us months in the cities. That’s genius. We don’t need to deal with clearing the munitions for years either. Why didn’t I think of that already?”

“It wasn’t time. Other things needed to be done first. Foster, when this bombing run is completed, you must know that there are some that will come for you. They will accuse you of being a traitor, and worse. Your legacy will be tarnished if they are allowed to slander you. I already have a plan ready for you. Trust in me. Trust in your plan. Trust that you will make Leo and your wife proud. You are a hero. Never forget that.”

Foster nodded, feeling a strange sense of comfort and safety from the blackness in his son’s eyes. The voice was sweet to him. He could feel an odd form of affection growing in him for the thing that he conversed with. He considered that he was perhaps speaking to God. It would explain the good advice, and the gentle trust that he was feeling now. Maybe he was finally finding God at the end of it all?

“I’ll do my best. Hopefully everything works out.”

His son leaned in, a flare of color appearing deep inside the black orbs that had washed over his son’s baby blue eyes. The same eyes his wife had. Leo’s body leaned in and placed a cool, flat palm on Foster’s chest. The palm flared with unnatural warmth and Foster’s heart leapt a few beats. He felt strangely energized by the surreal moment, and the contact with something so powerful. When Leo sat back in his desk chair Foster knew he had been given the strength to persevere. Strength from his son, and strength from the Almighty.

“Be strong Foster. You must do the right thing. For the sake of your nation. For the souls of your son and wife.”

Foster was awake before the words finished processing in his mind. He was sitting up in his bunk, his small tattered notebook in one hand, his dying pen in the other. He’d written down fifteen target cities and the words ‘cluster munitions.’ He smiled.

Foster sat the notebook down and put his hand over the spot on his chest his son had just had his. He took a deep breath, filled himself with conviction, and began to plot how he would follow through on his resolution.

Foster had always wanted his name to go down in history as one of the world’s greatest, and this was his moment.

*****

It took considerable effort on his part to conceal his research over the next few days from the few staff still in the bunker as well as to avoid Lancaster. Foster did some digging into Lancaster to try and squash his paranoia, but found nothing. The man simply didn’t exist. That didn't help his growing anxiety over having the old spook wandering about. When nothing could be found on his perceived nemesis, Foster opted for subterfuge.

A few more people were let out of the facility over the next few days, and the day to day affairs of the facility became increasingly disorganized with each tearful, frightened departure. The two a day meals dropped to one a day, then it was MREs delivered, and then it was nothing unless you went to get it yourself out of a darkened closet. Rooms were left unlit, trash began to overflow, and dust began to accumulate. Foster heard word that Lancaster finally left to go to his wife and family. When that news reached him, he knew his final preparations would be enough.

Foster knew enough about the communications gear in the building to be dangerous. He limited the emails, faxes, and calls going in and out of certain offices and sent faux messages to the men and women across the country at the bases still under his control. He explained the new plan to the people he could trust the morning of the first bombing runs after Lancaster's exodus, and sat back in the main control center to orchestrate everything. It was perfect.

As Foster watched the dwindling number of satellite feeds still available to him, his excitement caused his heart to beat heavy. He was sweaty with nervousness, and his breath escaped him every so often. He knew today was the day as he drank from a stale bottle of water, trying to moisten his parched mouth. He didn't even notice that his own body gaunter than ever, and that his veins were raised, and throbbing. He himself had become cancerous in his own way.

“How many planes are in the air today?” A leathery voice that shouldn't have been there asked him. Foster’s heart thumped in response.

Foster rotated quickly in his chair, spinning back to see his enemy Lancaster, his trademark white button down shirt still stained from too many long days and nights in the facility. Foster noticed the spook held a small automatic pistol pointed at the floor casually. The gun reminded him of a James Bond movie. He wondered if Lancaster had a license to kill. If Foster moved, he’d be shot. He steadied the spinning chair with his feet on the floor. "You should be gone. You shouldn't be here. I— I thought you went home to be with your wife and children?"

Lancaster shook his head, clucking his tongue softly. "I'm not the kind of man who can keep a wife General Foster. Nor would I be suited to take care of a child. You could say I'm married to my job."

All Foster could manage in reply was an unhappy grunt. A streak of pain moved up his spine, and over the top of his head. He twitched.

“Cluster bombs Foster? What’s the game here?” Lancaster asked.

The old man knew a lot if he was already aware that the planes were armed with the special bombs. Foster swallowed, finding no moisture in his mouth. “Lancaster if you read my plan, you’d know that the cities are lost. Dropping these munitions now simply allows us to have a long-term effect on the undead in the cities, disrupting them while still allowing us to task resources to securing the rest of the country and the resources we need to survive.”

“Interesting theory. You realize that there are hundreds of thousands of people still in the cities that won’t be able to leave if you drop these bombs? Maybe millions of people? Are you aware of the amount of damage you could still do? How many people will be left for dead?”

Foster had a pang of guilt as his heart fluttered. He felt stabbing pains shoot up and down his arms like pins and needles from heat suddenly restored to a cold limb. In the headset he wore he heard the first of the pilots call out the release of their bombs. Somewhere on the east coast. The new ringing in his ears kept the words garbled. Foster pulled the headset off with an increasingly weak hand. He noticed for the first time that his arm was emaciated, and withered. He dropped the headset on the keyboard beside him.

“Lancaster you wouldn’t understand. I’ve been contacted by greater powers. I’ve been dreaming of all of this. I’m on a miss—… I’m on a mission…” Foster’s voice failed.

Lancaster walked into the room and past Foster. His eyes never left the officer, watching the sweat stream down his sickly face. Lancaster picked up the headset and donned it.

“Foster you think you’re the only person who is having dreams? I hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of folks nowadays that are seeing some particularly strange things at night. The trick is figuring out where your dreams are coming from.” Lancaster tabbed some switches on the controls and sent out curt radio communications to the bombers that had yet to drop their payloads. The pilots took their instructions without argument and turned away, heading home.

As Lancaster did this Foster’s body continued to fail. He'd been abandoned. The sweat ran down his face in streams and his voice was gone. He struggled to keep his eyes lifted. Foster’s face was twisted into an expression of extreme pain. Lancaster had seen this all before.

“You’re having a heart attack Foster.”

Foster looked up at Lancaster’s face, scared and in pain.

“You have no history of heart problems. You’re good enough, drinking plenty of fluids, and yet you’re showing extreme signs of advanced sickness. Cancer probably. Something very aggressive is eating you from within. Do you find it strange that you’re suddenly dropping dead? Leaving a corpse behind inside a government facility just a few moments after issuing orders that you claim to have received in a dream from God. Sounds like a perfect way to disrupt one of the last places that still has some semblance of control over the country.”

Foster’s eyes were rolling up and into the back of his head as his body continued to fail on him. Lancaster sighed and reached into his pants pocket, producing a short, thick suppressor for the pistol he held. A few seconds later it was threaded onto the barrel.

“Sorry Foster, but I think you’re playing for the wrong team, and I won’t let you die and run around turning folks here. You aren't the only one having informative dreams you know. Nice try bad guy.”

Lancaster grabbed the arm of the swivel chair and pulled it out a few feet from the counter filled with electronics. He planted a hand firmly on Foster’s back and pushed him onto the floor, where his face hit and bounced, leaving a bloody smudge on the cheap government linoleum. Lancaster pointed the pistol at the back of Foster’s head and pulled the trigger once without further fanfare. The gun went off with a muffled thump and Foster’s head cracked into the floor, the insides of his skull leaking out the new hole in his eye socket. His body stopped moving immediately. It was an inglorious ending for the decorated General. A puppet tossed away after the play.

Lancaster turned and surveyed the screens, trying to figure out which cities had the cluster bombs dropped on them.

Lancaster pushed Foster’s leg out of the way and sat down in the swivel chair the general had been sitting in. He accessed the files of the video feeds from just moments prior and got exact GPS locations on the cities and streets the bombs had just fallen on. Indeed, some of the routes into and out of America's largest cities were entirely destroyed now, but other places would now just be even more dangerous to enter or exit from. It didn't look to be a total loss. The man with a lifetime of dark deeds sat back in the chair and let out a series of his now infamous tongue created clucks. He sighed deeply and rotated around to look at Foster’s body, its head still leaking blood out on the hard floor.

“Fuck you, Foster.” Lancaster sat his pistol down on the counter and leaned back, looking at the off-white dropped tile ceiling. He wondered how far above he’d have to go find salvation for everything he'd done for what he believed in. For what he felt was the best course of action. “Well. I tried. Guess the endgame is in their hands now.”

Lancaster stood up and left the room. He still had much to attend to. Dreams to follow.

February 14th

There is no way I can fit all of what I need to write in one sitting. Far too much detail to cover. A lot of it is good. Some of it is very bad. Sad. The question becomes, where do I begin? For starters, a miracle took place and the weather held. It was actually fairly nice the entire trip out and back. Solid 45 degrees during the day with sunshine, though it dipped down pretty damn abruptly when the sun settled.

Vehicles on the run to the hospital and their passengers:

HRT: Myself, Caleb, Abby and Hector

Humvee One: Kevin, Amanda, Quan, Ethan

Humvee Two: Martin, Fitz, Angela, Hal

Deuce: Amanda, Mike, Patty

Fifteen souls.

Our plan worked so flawlessly for so long we felt like geniuses. We felt like we had the whole city by the balls. Our first real issue was when we stopped to plant our first noisemaker for our return trip. Remember how I said we’d leave one set up at an intersection to draw zombies off our trail? We’d managed to accumulate a small posse on our ass by then, so we knew leaving the radio was a good idea. The Deuce was best suited for putting the radios up. The bed in the back was high up, had no roof, and had space for us for when we got our loot later on, and with a small step ladder we were more than able to get the ropes up around the lights and get the radios hung. Other vehicles pulled security, and everything was fine.

The problem when we hung that radio was not the encroaching of the dead. Kevin called out movement to the south and half of us swung our guns in that direction. I wished I had my ACOG on my weapon at that moment, but I didn’t. The AimPoint was mounted still. Several of the folks with optics said later on that they saw human movement. Faster than the undead, moving from cover to cover, watching us from a good distance away. Kevin said it was two people, one male, and one female. They never did anything threatening to us, and when we felt things were stable, and the radio was playing, we left. A few undead followed us from the radio, and we put them down after a bit. The idea was to leave as many hung up on the radio. We’d adjust our route and plan home on the move.

After that we had smooth sailing for some time. The hospital is right beside the college campus. Same campus that Becca was at when the world shit the bed. The medical building is shaped more or less like a giant horseshoe. Inside the U are the loading docks we intended to breach the inside of the building through. The ER that we wanted to avoid is on the wing of the hospital, near the large parking garage.

Our initial plan was to do a full loop around what amounted to a four block area. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it’d give us a damn better idea as to whether or not getting out of the vehicles was even a good idea. While not the center of the city, we were perhaps ten blocks away from what you’d call the center. Where all the tallest buildings and the financial areas are. Downtown if you will. That area is where Cassie worked.

Our drive in and the loops we did around the hospital showed us it was feasible. Surprisingly the amount of undead around the hospital was very low. Incredibly low in fact. Swerving the HRT back and forth slightly Caleb was able to hit and run over almost every single walker in the immediate streets. That bought us a tremendous amount of time when we hung our four other perimeter radios. Our noise beacons, if you will.

Because we wanted nothing to see us drive away from the radio hanging, we dismounted from our vehicles, and those of us with suppressed weapons engaged immediately. As I said, there weren’t that many undead. I think at each of our four stops we had to put down less than a dozen walkers, which by my estimation is another motherfucking miracle. We put holes in heads, and rolled out. Nothing new to report there.

The alley/street that the inner portion of the hospital was on was large. During days of regular use, it was where the hospital parked their MRI truck, and where they took deliveries of supplies. We figured the docks would be right near the storage areas of the hospital. It didn’t make sense that they would cart shit all over the place when they had a dock. We were right, for the most part.

On the alley we parked a humvee at each end for security. We put two bodies at each end of the street as shooters. We parked the deuce and the HRT right at the dock, and proceeded to get the operation on.

Five shooters stood in the back of the deuce, pulled away from the dock. Nothing falling out of the dock could land in the truck, and nothing on the ground could reach up and into it. They’d have to climb in, and as we’ve seen over and over, dead folks can’t climb for shit. They're not smart enough, not coordinated enough, nor strong enough. Martin bored a large hole into the metal dock doors with one of our more industrial drills, and he slipped a steel rod attached to a chain through the hole. The rod-anchor's chain was attached to the rear of the HRT, and with a slight push of the gas pedal, the heavy metal dock door came screaming off the tracks. Caleb drove the truck forward, pulling the door well out of our way. Worked like a charm.

When the door opened, we knew right then and there we were in for a long fucking day. The door blasted away and we saw three undead standing where the door used to be. They must’ve been drawn to the sound of us drilling the hole in the door. I snapped two dead right off the bat, and Ethan put the other one down. They fell over the lip of the concrete dock and landed head down on the pavement below. Their necks and heads smashed into strange shapes when they landed. There was no time to fix their fallen bodies.

We cleared the door off the chain, picked the chain up off the ground, and got the HRT situated out of the way of the humvees should they need to move to either end. We left the deuce right there, away from the dock, the wall, and anything that could touch the bed, and we left Amanda in the back with a suppressed M4 to cover the center of the alley, and the docks should something slip behind us. Our own mobile gun platform. As I heard once before on a television show, if we lost the dock, we were fucked. We’d have to fight our way out the front of the facility, through whatever was out there.

So if you do the math, two shooters at each humvee plus one shooter at the dock left us with ten for the interior. That’s a really large team for any kind of building clear, and at that point we’re looking at substantial risk for friendly fire problems. It’s easier for three people to avoid shooting one another. It’s a lot harder for ten people. Walls aren't always bulletproof.

The interior of the dock was a receiving area still largely filled with supply filled pallets. A quick check told us the pallet contents were useless. Inside that and to the right side was what I’d call a dirty warehouse, and then a clean warehouse. The dirty warehouse stored linens, bed sheets, uniforms, etc. The clean warehouse on the other hand… was a goldmine. It was far enough inside like the medical warehouse we've already raided that the temperatures stayed stable. The doors were also heavily locked, and we needed to use halligans and a lot of muscle power to get the doors open. Quan campaigned heavily for us to let him blow the door, but I thought the noise would be a risk, and the explosion might destroy some of the stuff we'd come for. There were clear signs that someone had tried to get into the cleaner rooms too. Scratch marks on the metal frames, hack marks in the door itself, and smashed knobs. Lucky for us, their patience ran out before the doors gave up the ghost. Yay for strong doors.

We almost filled the entire deuce in the first hour we were there. IV bags by the sealed case, boxes and boxes of medication, and highly valuable hospital supplies of every sort. I cannot emphasize how large a haul that single secured storage area was. We could've and should’ve stopped there, but we were prepared to go deeper into the building, and we had another area to check out.

Right outside the “dirty” warehouse was the main hospital corridor. Sitting on the inside of that door listening for movement was the closest thing to being on a landing boat during D-Day I can imagine. Or the moment right before everyone leapt up out of the trenches to charge the enemy back in World War One. Impending doom just inches away, and the only thing keeping you from it was a moment of courage, and an inch of cover.

We opened the door once we were sure there was nothing on the other side. Well, nothing standing right on the other side. Ethan tugged the door inward slowly with Martin as muscle behind him should we need to slam it shut fast. The dark hallway beyond the door was cavernous. Kevin and I were in the space of the doorway with barrels up, waiting for anything to come into view. Nothing did, so we cracked green chemlights and threw them down the hallway in each direction like little cylindrical light grenades. One went about ten feet and stopped, the other skidded for quite some time. I poked my head around into the hall and surveyed the scene.

The shorter chemlight direction had about five undead moving our way. I barked out contact as fast as I could and got my weapon up. The first two or three rounds shot true, hitting faces and heads, but my next few sailed. I stepped into the hallway further when I saw Hal and Abby moving to cover my back, and once I was in the clear in the hall, I steadied myself, got calm quick and put the others down. For a moment there, my mind went to a dark place, but I rallied. Too late to be scared. Further down the hall in my direction I saw more targets, and I opened up on them as best I could in the shitty light. Behind me as I engaged targets I heard Hal and Abby open up with their weapons. Fortunately we were all equipped with suppressed guns, and our hearing wasn’t utterly demolished by firing in such a confined space.

I turned to see in their direction and still cover them and watched as they shot down body after body. I think our headcount in that hallway alone in the first thirty seconds was fifteen. From there we had the emergency exit maps on the walls, and we knew where we were going. Our main goal was the cafeteria. We felt there had to be food inside it, or at least it was worth checking on.

The cafeteria was on the second floor, fortunately well away from the wing of the hospital that had the ER area. Judging from the appearance of the crashed cars and ambulances on the ER side when we were doing our perimeter sweep, we KNEW that side of the hospital was going to be bad news.

The corridor we were in ended with a set of double doors, then turned right after that set of doors, and proceeded down past the radiology department to a large emergency stairwell at the end of the building. In all, it was maybe fifty yards of walk. Not that far, but in a zombie infested building, you might as well be running a fucking marathon. You fight for every inch.

Doors doing in directions we were not heading were sealed with either chain and a padlock, or a special iron bar/hook that Martin made up for us. It slipped through the handles on double doors preventing them from opening, yet could be removed easily by us when we needed to get through that door. We barred all of the doors going away from us, and shut every other door that would stay shut without a living human trying to open it. That allowed us to move further into the hospital as a complete team, posting less sentries along the way to cover the ground we'd just passed through.

The second corridor after the double door was better than the first. I think our headcount in that area was maybe a dozen, and the hallway was longer so they were more spread out. By this point in the operation we were starting to get a good feeling. I know that’s just stupid. Literally giving the Jinx Fairy a plate at the dinner table, but dammit it really felt good. Our plan was going more or less flawlessly.

That’s when we got radio contact from the humvees. Caleb was the voice. He said, “We’ve got live targets moving on us. We’re taking sporadic inaccurate fire. We might need an additional body out here if they get closer or start shooting better.”

We stopped, evaluated where we were and how we were doing, and decided to send Hal out to support them. He was a good shot, and quite frankly, inaccurate fire can kill you just as easily as accurate fire. Hal left us and went out to cover Caleb and Hector.

Inside, we moved on. The bottom floor was cleared by us in twenty minutes. We secured the doors and entered the stairwell heading up to the cafeteria on the second floor. The stairwell was empty of everything, so that went quickly. A huge feather in our cap as we were about to enter the second floor hallway was the small, narrow window in the door allowing us to look in. It gave us a line of sight to see some of the action on the other side in the hall. I smashed out the small window with a halligan and that drew the attention of the walkers on the other side. Kevin’s M4 had a flashlight on it, and he held his rifle over mine, illuminating the shuffling dead for me. The tricky part was that the door we were at was an emergency exit door with a bar to open it. Meaning once they reached the door and started pushing on it, the door would open out straight at us. We put two solid feet on the base of the door, and started firing fast through our tiny window.

It was mathematics at that point. I went through a magazine and a half putting headshots through the window, never even opening the door. Once we were reasonably sure the vast majority of the zombies were dead, we opened the door (or more accurately, let the dead bodies stacked up against the door push it open for us) and we were in the corridor that led straight to the cafeteria.

Martin didn’t have to seal the cafeteria doorway to the hallway. There were stacks and stacks of tables and chairs blocking it off already. It looked like a pretty classic last stand barricade. There were three or four mangled zombies unable to walk, and we put them down with melee weapons. Fortunately the cafeteria had a ton of floor to ceiling windows, spanning almost the entire room, and the natural light streaming in meant we saved batteries and chemlights. The kitchen was wide open, and after a sweep to clear the space, we checked the kitchen and the stockroom.

We found nothing. The place had been emptied. Every single last bit of food had been eaten by the people in there. It looked an awful lot like the people in the hospital had fallen back to the cafeteria, blocked off the entrances to the area, and lasted as long as they could. Smart. Clearly the majority of them didn’t make it. Some of them could’ve escaped from the stairwell we came up in, but there’s no way of knowing how many did. Sadly, the vast majority of these people died right here. Trapped in a hospital.

That’s when things started going to shit rapidly for us. Fitz was searching the body of a cop that had died in the cafeteria, taking his service pistol, handcuffs, pepper spray and all that jazz, when gunfire spidered several of the windows of the cafeteria.

Fitz was crouched down, emptying the stuff into a small black duffel when he got broadsided by the gunfire. He was right next to the windows, and the shooters outside must’ve seen him. Kevin started screaming in anger, and the rest of either dived for cover, or went to the windows to find the shooter. Ethan, Kevin, Quan and myself all moved fast into shooting positions, and we saw the shooter within seconds.

I cannot stress to you how nasty we got. All four of us dropped our sights on some motherfucker crouching down behind the trunk of a black Chevy Impala and went cyclic. No mercy. The suppressed weapons made no noise, but the bullets smashing through the glass made a racket. I can’t say for certain how many rounds we sent into that car and the prick trying to hide behind it, but I know I swapped mags once and I was half out at the time, so at least 15 rounds from me. More from the rest of the guys.

Protip #1: trunks do not stop 5.56.

Protip #2: no trunk in the world can stop that much 5.56.

The man dropped to the ground bleeding out. Ethan dragged Fitz into the middle of the cafeteria and started to administer first aid while we searched for more targets. We were perfectly facing the area of the city where Caleb’s living targets were, and from the second floor, we had an excellent elevated vantage point to fire accurately on them.

I know I put down three. I watched my little red dot walk across their center mass, and I felt the recoil, and I watched them fall. I know three went to the great beyond using a ticket I punched for them. I am fairly sure Quan and Kevin put one more down each, likely more. Had to be more now that I think about it.

I called out to Quan and Kevin to go help Ethan and I pulled over watch through the windows to cover people outside as well as in. From the ground I worked with Caleb, and had them move out to check bodies and finish off the wounded as needed. We took no more fire from living targets that day.

Ethan, Quan and Kevin were unable to save Fitz. He took a large caliber round straight through his liver. We can’t put a band aid on that kind of injury and no amount of fluids can prevent liver failure. It fucking blows to lose a good person, especially for no good goddamn reason. Not happy. Kevin's all fucked up right now. He and Becky are with Shelby, trying to take some time to deal with it. The other guys are all messed up too, but they're all professionals. They'll do their job, and cry later.

No survivors on the street level.

We managed to accumulate a rather large collection of good weapons and ammunition from the attackers though. Still not sure why they attacked us. If we head back into the city again, we’ll be damned sure to be very careful. These people had decent guns. They weren’t that good with them, but beneficial accidents happen. They were good enough to kill Fitz.

We got the fuck out after that. Morale was broken. Searching the rest of the hospital was pointless. We wanted to get Fitz’s body back home, and get back to sort through all of our shit. Plus, time was a factor, and the longer we were there, the worse it would be for us trying to leave. It didn’t help either that the locals shot the joint up and made a fucking ton of noise, pulling many of the undead at our noise beacons away and toward us at the hospital.

The road back to Bastion was flush with the undead. Caleb driving the HRT helped. He’s played an awful lot of Grand Theft Auto, so he’s really good at hitting things with a car. At least he's got that going for him. We completely avoided the first radio we set up on the return trip. We saw more living folks there earlier in the day, and we felt that might have been a precursor to the attacks later in the day. Ergo, we said fuck it, and made a wide berth around that area to skip any kind of ambush they might've prepared for us. In fact, with little to no snow left on the ground we even avoided the trip past the Factory, and drove straight here.

Our first order of business was stripping Fitz of his gear, cleaning him up and putting him on the fire. Not a good scene in the least. I won’t go into how the guys all reacted to it. How we all reacted to it. Michelle said some very nice words as Fitz went up in smoke. I know this sounds bad, but she really looked beautiful as she spoke. Just beautiful.

Fitz will be missed by all.

I already said the shit was a haul. Meds, blah fucking blah blah.

As I said Kevin’s been incognito with Becky and under the radar since the trip. We’re all giving him space. Emotionally we’re all fucking wrecked right now. Ever since the damn clinic night we’re all beaten up, now even Kevin more so. It blows.

We’ve withdrawn from the world at large quite a bit. Laying low, sorting our shit and trying to be supportive of one another. Focus has shifted back to the school and helping Michelle, as well as helping Ryan and Becca on the hydro gear. Hector, Martin and Blake are doing oil changes on our vehicles, and assessing our fuel supplies. Low on gasoline, if you’re keeping track Mr. Journal. We looked at some gas stations we drove by on the way into the city the other day and all the lids were off the tanks. Not a good sign at all.

With the relative success we had the other day at the hospital, I think we’re able to mount a small unit insertion into the city. Deep into the city. I don’t think I can do it alone though. I will need some help setting up distractions. I think I’m getting close to closure. I think I can finally do this. I think I can get over Cassie if I can just find her body, and put it to rest. Move on. Restart my life for real.

In the cafeteria, on the table next to where Fitz died was a small single stem vase with an unopened, bloodstained card near it. It had a cheap silk rose in it. Whoever had bought it picked it up out of the hospital gift shop the morning everything went to shit I'm sure. A gift ungiven. I snagged it, the flower and the vase for whatever reason at the time when we were clearing out. I put it on Michelle’s desk this morning. It’s not the best gift, but it’s something.

It’s Valentine’s Day after all.

-Adrian

February 16th

I’ve made the decision to go into the city to Cassie’s work.

I have sat up the past few nights, soul searching, sleepless, thinking long and hard about it, and Mr. Journal, fuck it. I need this. I need this because I need to move on, it’s the right thing for me to do, and Michelle is right. I’ll never be able to fall in love until I move on.

I want to be in love again. Not like Mallory and I’s relationship either. That was based on lust, and desperation, and not wanting to be alone. She and I didn’t meet under the right circumstances, and we certainly didn’t do things the right way when we were getting our ball rolling. I don’t regret Mallory and I for the relationship. Not for a moment. I regret Mallory and I because of my emotional detachment, and the way my lifestyle and choices compromised her ability to trust me and love me as a person.

Mallory if you ever read this, I’m sorry. I wish I'd been a better man for you.

This evening I asked some of my closest friends to a private dinner in the upstairs of Hall E. There’s an open space up there that used to be a common area, and I wanted privacy and their opinions on how I could do a run into downtown in the city as safely as possible. My initial plan was me alone, but very quickly that got shot down.

I am part of a Trinity, and the other two insisted on going with me. I complained and complained, but the two of them simply would not take no for an answer. I told them I’d just slip away in the middle of the night, but both Kevin and Michelle said they’d simply follow me. They knew where I was going anyhow, and if we didn’t roll together with a solid plan, by leaving alone I’d just be guaranteeing that they’d arrive at the same destination in a much less safe manner.

Within ten minutes of me telling them I wanted to go alone, the idea had blossomed into a full-fledged, Bastion-wide operation.

I could not allow all these people to help me on this without some secondary benefit. It was unwise, and simply retarded. Selfish beyond belief on my part. The question became what secondary benefit would be enough to make it worth it, and what secondary benefit would motivate people to help me on this? It had to be meaningful, and real. Something worth dying for.

Nothing I could retrieve from the office building where Cassie worked would be worth it. Stacks of white copier paper, and files on her company’s clients would do us no fucking good whatsoever. There were a few restaurants in the area we could raid, as well as some surface street businesses that arguably could something left. Nothing concrete came to mind. It became apparent to us that the assistance they provided during my “quest” or the benefits gained in preparation for said “quest” would be the activity that gave us the secondary benefit.

This would need to be done in stages to work right. No run into the city could be done without massive front end work to draw large amounts of the dead out of the center of the city. Putting Lady Gaga and Steely Dan on a CD player and hanging it from a few traffic lights simply wasn’t going to cut it. We knew from our Diane and Danielle that some areas of the city were literally shoulder to shoulder with the dead, and moving that crowd out of the way, or terminating them entirely would be essential for any level of success. I didn’t want to die carrying this task out.

But where to draw them to? And what to do with them once we got them there? We didn’t come up with a concrete answer tonight, but over the course of the next couple of days, that’s one of our brain trust's problems.

Something we all agreed we wanted to achieve in this: capture and fortify the gated community we saw south of the city. It’s a second settlement we can theoretically guard, as well as being very strategically positioned for us. It’s within radio range, positioned in an altogether different cardinal direction of the city, has tall brick walls surrounding we think ten to twenty houses, and has a very sturdy iron gate that we can park a truck behind to secure. Once we’re in the place, we can clear each of the houses at our own speed, and viola… we’ve got Bastion 2.0 in a whole new place. Water will be a concern (what's new?), but with the large yards and the fact that it is gated, we can easily plan an ass ton of crops in the spring, and by summer’s end, have a local harvest on-site to sustain whoever decides to move there.

The motivation to take over a fairly well secured settlement will be very popular. If only to use as a big old Plan B should this place burn to the ground, or we get overrun by Jinx Fairies. Either way, it’ll be good.

We can use the new settlement as a staging ground for incursions into the city as well. We can send one group in from one location, and a second group in from a second location. Distract the undead, divide and conquer, all that jazz.

Sound good so far? No? Yeah. It is a bit of a reach, eh?

I can’t think of much beyond the second settlement that’s worth working for. Quite frankly, that’s huge in and of itself. Now the second large reason to do this is simply for sheer eradication’s sake. Eliminating the undead for the sake of eliminating the undead. If we can figure out a good plan and work on it for a few days to get it rolling, we might be able to lure out a buttfuckington of zombies, and get rid of them en masse. Kevin and Martin and all them have been working on a plan for this for over a week now, and they’ve got some good ideas that might be worth putting to work. We simply cannot shoot them all. We do not have a hundred thousand rounds of ammunition left, and there is simply no way we can risk trying to kill that many undead with melee weapons. More on that later.

When it was all said and done at the small table meeting I told everyone that their help was amazing, and how much I appreciated them all as friends and family. Abby and Hal (who incidentally sat next to each other at the small dinner, and are clearly giving each other the “look”) both said they would come with me. Actually Abby said she’d go, and then Hal said, “Well if she’s going, I’m going,” and that was the end of it for that pair. Mike and Patty said they’d love to go, but they thought they’d be better off staying, and we all agreed. So that makes five. A small fire team, but one of good experience. Michelle is a little bit of a bump on the proverbial log, but for some reason I really feel that she needs to come for this. Savior of my soul that she is supposed to be.

Speaking of Michelle, once everyone cleared out and started heading either to their individual rooms here in Hall E, or back to their rooms scattered across Bastion, Michelle was the last to leave. She lingered upstairs, gathering dishes and empty glasses, picking up, and then she brought everything down to the kitchen where I was putting the small amount of leftovers we had away. We had this really awkward moment when she was done, and I was about to head upstairs. We hadn’t spoken at all since I gave her that flower, and to be honest, as elementary school as it was, I knew it was a big gesture on my part, in the wake of her drunken confession at the shindig we had. Assuming of course she even knew that I was the one that gave her the flower…

“So I had a question for you,” she says softly so that no one else on the first floor can hear her. She wasn’t quite looking at me when she spoke. I think she was still washing a cup at the time. My heart got all giddy.

I stopped doing what I was doing, leaned over near her, danger close, and said back, “Yeah? What’s the question?”

She stops, thinks for a good long moment of awkwardness, and then says back to me, “I got a small rose on my desk the other night. A silk one. A little bleached from the sun but still very pretty. Any idea who might’ve given that to me?” As soon as she finished saying that, she looked up from the sink and right into my eyes. God, Mr. Journal that woman is just captivating. Her eyes were almost, desperate to hear me say that it was me, and yet also afraid to hear the answer if it wasn't. It’s hard to explain just how much she was saying with her eyes. Or how much I was reading into her eyes.

“Well, when we were out the other day I grabbed it off a table at the hospital. I didn’t know quite why I grabbed it at the time. When we got back I figured I’d give it to you.” I was blushing. Hot faced like a motherfucker. Nervous. Had that little butterfly feeling in the pit of my stomach. Fear too maybe.

She smiled. Just a tiny, knowing smile that told me she already knew I was going to say that. “I thought as much. Does that mean we’re Valentines?” She looked at me again, this time a tiny bit more playful, smiling.

I couldn’t help but smile back at her. I said, “Well I realize you are probably more used to dating guys with Master’s degrees, and Argyle socks, but in an apocalyptic setting I felt pretty good about my chances. I have fresh water and a kitty cat, and can shoot a gun straight. Hope I wasn’t out of line giving that to you.” Go with humor. Always my first response. Well, humor or threats of violence. This seemed like a humor moment.

Michelle looked at me for a few seconds, put the cup she’d just washed in the dish drainer, and dried her hands on a towel. I was leaning against the counter next to her, trying to stay close so our voices would be low. With her newly dried hand, she reached up, gently ran her fingers around my ear in the sweetest way, making my skin prickle up, and said, “Not out of line in the least Adrian Ring. You and I can be Valentines any day,” and she leaned in and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. One more smile later, she put her coat on, and left the dorm for her bedroom near Syl’s in Hall C.

I’m in deep shit with this woman Mr. Journal.

Deep shit indeed. I don’t want to push it down the drain though. This is the kind of shit guys like me need to get in.

-Adrian

February 18th

We have a plan. It is without doubt risky, but if it works, we’ll be heroes. Cape and all.

Kevin, Mike, Patty, Michelle and Abby went around the past couple of days and built support up with the locals for a deep incursion into the city. I am shocked to report Mr. Journal that everyone was willing to lend whatever assistance we needed.

Kind of shocking. I didn’t expect everyone to be willing to help. I mean, obviously there are people who have little to nothing to offer for a task like that, but for so many to simply offer up whatever they had to help is very humbling.

Step one of the plan is roll to the gated community and clear it. We’re going to roll out in a large team of about ten with the deuce so we can get inside the gates, and set up camp after we clear it out. We’re anticipating clearing out the exterior areas and a single house on day one. We’ll batten down the hatches overnight in that house, and then we’ll start clearing the rest of the houses in the neighborhood immediately on the day following.

Once the entire neighborhood is clear, and we’ve assessed the situation as far as supplies and fortifications are concerned, we’ll initiate step two of the plan.

Step two is preparation for the lure. We need a large set of lure locations that will draw in from a wide area. Therefore, we need it to be either very loud, or very visible, or both. Now wherever we lure the undead to needs to be where we can kill them, preferably efficiently. As I said a hundred times, we do not have enough bullets to do this with guns.

Our initial idea was to lure them to the Factory, and kill them there, Alamo style, but quite frankly, we have no frigging way of killing hundreds let alone tens of thousands of undead there. I mean our options at the Factory basically boiled down to throwing rocks off the roof to kill them all, or taking the HRT out for a spin, and attempting to drive over a few thousand packed in undead.

All aboard the failboat, if you please.

We spun through multiple ideas. Lure them to the college basketball arena? Wasn’t feasible. Too many entrances and exits to seal, too many levels and stairwells, plus there was too high a chance that the arena became an emergency shelter that day, and was still filled with the dead. Opening it would make our lives worse. What about underground? There’s a small traffic tunnel under a highway overpass we might be able to block off one end of. Lure them in then… what? Blow the overpass up and collapse it on top of them? Besides, the tunnel had zero visibility, which was part of the plan.

Fire? Fuck fire.

So we started thinking of places that we could either seal off, or allow us to use some of our existing supplies or weapons in a vastly more sufficient manner. We’ve already learned bombs and explosives are marginally effective, see my fire comments above, and I already said we don’t have nearly enough bullets. However… Kevin has an ample amount of Semtex on hand from his time in England. Semtex is plastic explosive, and plastic explosive, if used correctly, can easily bring down a whole building.

Quan is the closest thing we have to a demo expert. It also helps that Martin and Blake are technically intelligent. These three men working together gave us the inspiration for the plan we’ve settled on. The only way we can efficiently use the Semtex to kill undead is to create either enough shrapnel to guarantee strikes to the brain, or to create a situation with the explosives that will result in a catastrophic event, destroying the entire body, or so much of it that they won’t be a threat anymore. We need to make something really big blow up.

We needed this all to happen in a place that didn’t need significant clearing before hand, and preferably was nearby the downtown area I’d be heading into. A shorter trip to the explosion site would hopefully mean we'd catch more in it.

I thought of our time at the hospital, and the surrounding geography, and immediately had the perfect solution. Well, let's settle on calling it a good idea. I asked how much Semtex we had, and how much Semtex we’d need to bring a building down. We had enough for a few decent sized buildings, or one really large one. It’d depend on whether or not we had the time to place the explosives appropriately into the load bearing supports of the structure. We’d need a construction drill, which fortunately we had.

I asked if we had enough explosives to bring down a parking garage.

Turns out, we do. Two or three easily Quan said.

And after going over a few details, and ironing out some questions, our initial plan was in motion. We are going to move to the parking garage at the hospital, a mere ten blocks from Cassie’s workplace, as well as the parking garage sort of near the Factory for two large apartment buildings on the edge of the city. The hospital garage is four stories tall, and the apartment garage is four or five stories.

On the top floor of the garage we are going to build a massive fire. Quan says he has some ideas on pyro shit he can mix up to make the fire burn very bright, and last a good long time. I should note that he said that with a very peculiar smile on his face. While we set up the fire on the top level, we are going to drill and load explosives into the concrete pillars on the first two levels, ensuring that when we blow the explosives, the entire garage goes down in a heap. We’ll do this of course when the garage has drawn in a few thousand undead, hopefully ten thousand each or so. To assist in the overall lure factor, we are going to bring some spare working car batteries, find a car in the garage with a car alarm, jury rig the car with the new battery, and set off the car alarm. Blake has assured us he knows how to set them up to go off indefinitely.

Once we have a full house of undead moving up to the top floor of the garage, Semtex goes boom, pillars go kaplowie, the garage collapses, and we make zombie brie. Worst case scenario, the explosion and collapsing garage structures will make such a tremendous racket everything in a five mile radius will come a-shuffling to find out what’s going on.

While all that’s happening, we slip into the heart of downtown, and I try to find Cassie, or at least some kind of information as to what happened to her that day. I have a sinking suspicion that I won’t have to search too far and wide for her body. My bet is I’ll find her crashed car nearby, or she’ll be a starved husk in her office kitchen.

Not sure what I’m going to do if I have to put her down. I might need to lean on my friends to get that done for me. I’m now very glad Kevin will be there. If there’s anyone in this whole world I want there with me to do this, it’s him.

I know this sounds hasty, but we start tomorrow. We’re packed and ready to go with the HRT, one humvee, and the Deuce to visit the gated neighborhood. While we’re doing that, another small team is heading to the Factory to get ready for a quick recon from there of the parking garage close to them. For the first time in a long time, we’re not worried about making too much noise.

We’re worried we might not make enough noise.

-Adrian

February 20th

I’m writing this from Spring Meadows. Spring Meadows is the gated community that we’d been eyeing for some time, and visited yesterday. As you can clearly tell, I’m still alive, and I am happy to report that we met some survivors that didn’t shoot us. I think I might look into having them Sainted.

I’m not sure quite how we made it all the way to this phase of the planning without having the realization that there could be people living in the community, much like we ourselves wanted to. Silly in retrospect that none of us even considered the possibility that someone else was using the area already.

When we arrived at Spring Meadows yesterday morning we knew immediately there were probably survivors inside the walls. Spring Meadows is large, 18 houses large, all on about two acres each. It’s a central road leading into three cul de sacs arranged like a cross, or ankh. Six houses on the straight road in, then four houses arranged on the circles at the end of each of the three roads branching off. Surrounding all of this luscious, previously high valued property is an eight foot tall, two foot thick concrete wall covered in red bricks and ivy, and topped with ornamental wrought iron spikes. Looks classy from a distance, but it means fucking business.

The main gate to the community is also wrought iron looking, but is actually very sturdy steel with a coating to age it with a neat looking patina. Just outside the gate is a guard house with the controls to open the gate. When we arrived the controls were inoperative, but the gate opened with little fuss. Especially when we asked the locals politely and talked to them. Insert smiley face for avoiding violence.

Our first huge tip off to the presence of survivors was the number of dead bodies arrayed right at the gate. Not undead bodies mind you, actually dead bodies. I’d guess at twenty or thirty, all close enough to have been killed with melee weapons from through the gate. It told us someone inside had killed undead outside, and likely fairly frequently, and recently based on the condition of the corpses. Dead bodies rot pretty fast, and many of these looked mighty fresh.

So with our team in the front of the gate like that with likely survivors, we formulated a new plan: try and talk to the people.

I mean talking has gone so well for us in the past right?

I sent one of the humvees away and around the corner of the brick wall so it was out of sight of the main gate, and obscured by some trees, but in a spot where they had a healthy line of fire, and approach should we get shot at. Once they were set up, I got on the HRT’s loudspeaker and let out a quick holler, announcing our peaceful presence at the gate, and asking if anyone on the inside would be willing to talk to us via radio, or in person if possible.

As you’d suspect, we received no reply for several minutes. Long enough for them to gather their weapons, and get themselves into shooting positions at the two closest houses of course. Ethan was with us, leaning over the hood of humvee twenty feet behind me, and through his M24's scope he had their two shooters eyeballed long before they were ready to fire on us. Finally, after sending my second message out, a tall man and woman came down the straight portion of the road towards us. I was going to go out to greet them but Kevin told me to toss his salad, and he went out instead. The Warden takes his job seriously, despite his clever use of the English language.

The couple were tall as I said, and both blonde. They looked Nordic. Swedish or Norwegian or something. Hawkish facial features, long arms and legs, and very clean. They looked like they’d managed to get all this way after the end of the world without missing a single shower. Pretty folk, especially considering the state of the world. Both of them had a blade and a pistol on their belts. They had slate-like faces until they got to about forty yards away from the gate. Once they saw the humvee, the deuce, and the military issue hardware all over us, their expressions changed immediately. They had confidence before, but after that moment, you could feel their unease. I knew immediately that these people were used to being safe, and having the upper hand. Now they looked like they felt the opposite might be the case with us. Some folks are easy to read.

Kevin had his throat mic turned to on, and we could kind of hear them, but the sound was utter garbage. The man spoke first. He introduced himself as Anders, and the woman as Agnes. They politely explained that the Spring Meadow area was their area, under their control, and they were unable to share any of their dwindling supplies, and that they had ample ability to protect themselves should we object with them. They were polite, but insistent. Kevin tried to talk to them in circles, similarly to how we'd talk to English speaking locals in Iraq, asking them the same questions over and over again in different ways to see if we'd get a different answer. I felt like he was losing them though. After about that I had enough and walked up to talk with the two of them myself. Ethan shat an acorn on the spot and thumbed his safety to off. If either of their shooters in the houses did anything funny, they’d be dead.

I introduced myself as Adrian. I watched their eyes judge me. They saw the Mohawk and instantly thought less of me. I feel very… Road Warrior-esque when I meet people. They don’t see the fun and humor in having a Mohawk. They take it sheerly on face value. They only think “likely violent and or flesh eating moron who is immature.” I might need to rethink this haircut if we keep meeting people.

I told them plain and simple that we were from a settlement outside of the city, and we were making runs for supplies into the city, and we saw their community, and thought it would be absolutely perfect as a secondary place to reinforce and stage from. Walled, gated, large houses that were well spaced, and lots of lawn and garden areas that could grow a lot of food. I essentially framed my talk about how it was awesome that they had already secured the place, how happy we were for them, and how much of a shame it was for us that they were already there.

Agnes and Anders both agreed with me on all counts, and were civil and pleasant. After asking a few questions about us and our and various locations, they became far more comfortable, and started to ask us about how we able to go into the city. I told them we had military men on our side, and fuel still, as well as ammunition and whatnot. Without sounding threatening, I made it clear that we were armed, able, and willing to do whatever it was that needed to be done to stay alive, and help others around us stay alive. I exuded confidence, and competence. I tried to avoid seeming arrogant.

That’s when they opened the gate, and invited us in. Three of us went inside and headed for the first house to get out of the street. Just about at the same time a few undead had managed to catch up with us, and they needed to be dispatched by one of us with a halligan. It made a lot of sense for us to all move inside the gate, I asked them if that was okay, and they agreed, so we did.

Inside the first neighborhood house Kevin and I sat down with the two who’d met us, as well as a few others. Three more adults all armed with side arms, though not holstered, as well as two younger teenagers. They looked hungry, and a little cold, but they also looked hardened. Like survivors. Like people who’d been through it and were still kicking. I had respect for these people right from the jump.

From what I gathered, there are four families left in the neighborhood. Agnes and Anders are the Jessen family. They have two kids, a 13 year old boy, and a 14 year old girl. Other families include the Winthrops (mom and dad plus two kids and an uncle), the Cartwrights (mom and dad plus two kids), the Whites (mom plus two kids), and the Littrell family (mom and dad plus four teenage kids). That’s a grand total headcount of 22 souls. Most of which are less than 18 years of age.

Luckily, the youngest of the kids is just 10, so even the littlest of them is still somewhat productive.

An hour turned into two, two turned into four, and before you know it, they’re sharing some of their small amounts of freshly made beer with us, and we’re sharing some of our fresh food with them. It was really pleasant. We had brought enough food for days with us, so as a gesture, we gave them lunch out of our stocks. We ate chicken salad made with Melissa’s new homemade mayo, and some potato salad, also made with the mayo. These people absolutely, positively devoured our food. I don’t want to say they were starving, but I think they hadn’t had chicken in a very long time.

After the food and the subsequent stomach aches from eating all that food, we asked them about their situation. The four families still here have been here since that day. They happened to be home that day for whatever reason, so they didn’t get caught up in the bullshit in the city. They also managed to miss the large scale bombings late in the summer of 2010. (Which apparently were enormous and loud. From the sounds of it, there were several runs late in the summer on the city, and based on their descriptions of the noise of the bombs, it was probably a huge drop of cluster munitions. They’re pretty unique when they go off.)

Anyhoo, they knew shit was bad, so they got some chains from their sheds, chained the gates shut early on, parked their Escalades and Expeditions against the gate to prevent ramming, and hunkered down. Lucky for them many of the nice homes in the community already had large organic hobby gardens in the back. They had a ripe harvest that first fall, and with careful rationing, they made it through to last spring. They expanded their gardens over the year, and now they’re essentially vegetarians, and self sufficient. Miraculously, they have been able to save rainwater and snow for hydration up to this point. Of course it’s been really dry the last week or two, so they’re starting to redline a bit.

I wonder how you make a pond?

They have had to fend off several groups over the last year and a half. Many more than us, but with such an excellent wall and gate, as well as multiple firearms they’ve managed to do well for themselves.

They were still jealous of our chicken, and I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for them. As we were winding down into the early evening they made the offer for us to stay in the house inside the community to talk more with them. They needed some technical help fixing things the next day, and we didn’t want to drive back in the dark unless necessary, and frankly, having the bulk of today to spread our people out and bullshit with them was super helpful in coming to the agreement we just came to with them.

They want to join our “network of friends.”

Essentially they wish to become like the Factory is to Bastion. A linked but separate settlement that can offer assistance both ways when needed. An affiliate I think is a good word. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. Plus, they’ve got a solid ten or twelve acres of land that we could easily transform into farmland for them when winter is over. God forbid we have more crops growing, right?

We told them we were preparing to mount a large mission into the city within a week or two, and that we’d love be able to use Spring Meadows as a launching point to help us with timing the operation. We didn’t say what the mission was for, but they were more than willing to assist us. A chicken leg helped seal that deal, I shit you not.

We’re still here tonight, socializing and whatnot. These are nice people. People that had money before the end of the world, but people that worked for it. New money people. Workers. Self made. Not trust fund assholes. They’re still here because they busted ass, and made good decisions that day and every day since.

It’ll be a pleasure slowly bringing them into our fold. If tomorrow goes well, we’ll leave them with one of our walkies. Not our military comms, but just a walkie. We can’t quite reach Bastion from here, but we can contact the Factory, and the Factory can contact us at Bastion. Better than nothing, and it’ll give them some much needed reassurance.

They aren’t alone anymore.

Yesterday while we were moving here a second team of our people moved into the western edge of the city to the parking garages to scout them. Contact was very heavy, and they were forced to stop and engage over a hundred targets on the way in and out. Fortunately they brought a SAW in the turret, and that was the ultimate equalizer. I’m not too happy about the timing on the noise, but I can’t complain. A hundred dead bodies is the idea here.

Mike and Patty (who were in charge of that run with Blake and Quan) said the garage is perfect for the idea we have. It’s only four floors, which means easy in and out for us, but also enough floors to cause some serious fucking damage when that Semtex goes boom. Quan said it’d take him maybe six hours to get the loads in, and he might be able to shave that time down with some assistance on drilling, and some really specialized prep ahead of time.

We return home tomorrow.

-Adrian

February 22nd

Is this a fucking leap year?

Hm.

I’m sitting here looking at my ghetto style homemade calendar, and I’m pretty sure it might be a leap year this year. Not that it’ll be the end of the world if I fuck it up, but I want to be a proper scribe, or Scribe, if you prefer. I think in the admissions office I can check and see. I don’t trust the calendar on the laptop here. I’m not sure if it updates without the internet properly. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Where was I? Where were we?

Scatter brained tonight something fierce. Otis has been up in my ass like a bike seat all damn evening since I settled in my room. He’s smashing his face into me, and rubbing his little wet nose all over the place. Plus he’s been tossing around this little catnip mouse one of the kids got for him like he’s sky high on Walter White's blue meth or something. Miss my buddy. Seems like he misses me too.

Here’s the good news for the day: Nothing bad is happening here at Bastion. Nothing. Like, nada. Becca, Ollie and Ryan are making serious headway into our food situation on two separate fronts. Ollie has managed to get one of the cows pregnant, which is HUGE. Not sure exactly how pregnant the cow is, but if he can get two more knocked up in a jiffy, we’re going to be buried in milk and meat. Gotta increase our livestock!

Ryan and Becca have managed to get four hydroponics stations fully built with Blake's undivided attention and assistance. He’s fully rehabilitated finally from the sickness that nearly killed a dozen of us (and led to the deaths of more), and he’s being super productive. Each hydro station is about the size of a large freezer, and a half. You know the kind you’d find in a basement? The hydro stations don’t require electricity, operating solely on gravity feed, and they seem awesome. They are quadruple tiered, with tubing linked from level to level in places so they only need to be hydrated in a few different ways, and it's efficient enough that a single person can do it in half the time. He’s got them seeded already, and he’s already working on building more. My sister Becca has split off and is tending the hydro units already up and running, and there’s been no drop off in food production. She’s also organizing planting cycles on this crazy spreadsheet so we’ll have stuff coming into season year round. She’s so organized. Proof that a college education is good for something. I don't think she had this in mind when she started out, but if you're given lemons, squeeze them in the eyes of your enemies, and run as fast as you can away.

School is going well. Syl is really starting to come out of her shell. She’s managed to join the school two days a week, and is working with Blake’s wife Kim one on one. She’s also talking, and is now able to converse more or less as normal, as long as we don’t bring up her past, or her parents. She shuts right the fuck down if we do. If we keep the conversation in the moment, or focused on an acceptable subject, she's fine. Michelle couldn’t be happier. The other kids and the adults surrounding her have taken her in and made her feel welcomed and wanted, and that’s done a lot for her. The amount of compassion that child is receiving is stellar. It’s important that we all learn to be nice to everyone. If anything, she’s teaching us that.

Here’s the bad news of the day: Both the Factory as well as Spring Meadows have been receiving what they classify as “above average” contact from the undead. I think this has very mundane reasons behind it. Both areas have seen additional foot and vehicle traffic the past few days, and we have been making quite a racket as well. We went into the city from the Factory the other day, and we spent several days making noise at Meadows as well. Perfectly legit reasons for increased contact. Both areas are reporting that the contact is manageable with melee weapons, but the higher presence was alarming enough to report to us.

All things considered, I believe we are in the calm before the storm. I think because we are heading into the city tomorrow to set up the first parking garage as our major lure site, we are getting a basic reprieve here. It’s my firm belief that we’re going to be absolutely, positively SMASHING shit down the drain tomorrow, and this is the powers-that-be giving us a few days of easy street to get us rested, or to let us get all nerved up so we fuck up royally.

As I just said, we’re leaving bright and early, crack of dawn style tomorrow to roll into the city edge to the parking garage that was scouted the other day. We have an insertion plan and everything. Should be pretty slick if we don’t encounter a mountain of undead there, or living folks with guns that want us gone. If we do, that’s not even the worst thing that could happen. I mean that’d be a distraction, and we’re all about distractions right now.

We had a bunch of our younger kids work on splitting wood and loading the deuce up today. We’re setting up multiple large piles of wood on the top level of the garage in a manner so when one is about to burn out, the second pile next to it should be just getting going. We've also got some left over pallets to burn. If it goes well, the fires will burn visibly on the top levels for about six to eight hours. We’re not sure how long the car alarms will go off for, but we’re betting it’ll be long enough to draw in a fucking absurd amount of undead. Either way, we’re going to do our best tomorrow to get that garage ready.

Large team of experienced shooters, multiple vehicles, a good plan… Should be horrible. I am not giving that bitch Fairy anything to work with right now. She can suck my fat cock.

Headed to bed. Early morning, and I still need to clean some of my weapons for tomorrow. Again. Can’t deal with a dirty weapon…

-Adrian

February 24th

I’m glad I’ve got a big toe. Big feet. Large size, complete with large toes at the end. Large piles of shit require large toes to stomp them down the drain when necessary.

How large a pile of shit? Allow me to go into some detail.

Our team left Bastion fairly early yesterday, in force. We left with pretty much every gun we could muster and headed straight to the Factory. The roads between here and the Factory were largely clear of undead. I think we might’ve had to steer to and fro ten times at most to hit and kill a zombie. It was a pleasant change of pace, and very much unlike some other driving moments later in the day.

As we rolled into the area surrounding the Factory we encountered a rather large amount of the dead. They weren’t ranked up tightly per se, but everywhere you looked in the surrounding streets there were walkers. I’d guess and say no more than ten to fifteen feet of space was between any given undead and another. That’s a lot of targets. You could say it was a rich environment for shooting opportunities. To clear us some space to work Caleb punched the HRT and literally plowed us a straight line into the area right in front of the old nightclub. Once we were close to the building, Abby and myself got onto the roof of the ambulance and we sat down crosslegged and started plinking away with .22 rifles in one direction. At the same time, our two humvee crews dismounted and began to lay down heavy clearing fire in the other direction, emptying that space of threats at a fast pace. After perhaps ten minutes of steady fire, we were able to move on with the plan, and pick up three more Factory shooters who volunteered to help.

Two younger men, both around 18, and then Barry. You remember Barry? The poor kid from the car dealership way back when? Good kid. Apparently he's been a fine upstanding citizen according to Lulu.

We checked on them for about thirty minutes, getting a face to face update with them, and then we headed out to the apartment building's parking garage that was our actual target. The garage was several city miles away from the Factory, so we got going without taking too long. On approach we knew we were in for a rough trip. Tough enough that we almost called it off. The undead were packed in fairly tight around the garage, and just driving into the garage was going to be a challenge. However once we talked over the radio we decided it was worth a shot, and at worse, we could drive to the top, drop the wood we brought for the lure fires, and then take off before things got any worse.

Caleb behind the wheel of the HRT yet again meant we were making zombie pate. He loves hitting those things as they walk along. Sometimes he calls out his score when he hits them. The entrance to the parking garage barely fit the HRT. And by barely, I mean we lost the horn off the roof as we drove up the concrete slope into the first level. I nearly shit a brick when it ripped free with a rending screech, but Kevin in the humvee two vehicles behind us called out what had happened. I elected to move forward, and Caleb drove on.

Inside the parking garage there were perhaps a third of the vehicles it could hold on a busy day. Many of the vehicles still had their doors open, and the concrete floors right below them covered in dark stains of old blood. These stains are nearly two years old now. I’m sure many folks running from their places of employment met their demise fumbling with keys, or trying to start their car back in June of two years ago. Imagine building the nerve to run out of your office building alone, run through the crowd of undead, into the garage, and reach your car, only to butter finger your keys onto the floor mat long enough to have a zombie yank you out and then forcibly and eat you? What a shit way to go. How do you play that? Do you wait in the office for it all to blow over? Hm.

To help buy us some time the third and fourth vehicle in the group started ramming parked cars across the entrance to the garage. The fourth vehicle was a humvee, and with the powerful motor it was able to push a few small cars into the way, forming an impromptu roadblock for us. Security on the first floor was obviously our greatest priority and the roadblock was step one.

The HRT and the Deuce went all the way to the top floor, stopping as needed to take down any and all undead we saw. Frankly Mr. Journal, I’m surprised at how many there were just wandering around the damn garage. I’m not sure if they were lost, or that they hadn’t been lured out by any other noises the entire time. I mean shit, who knows at this point?

Anyhoo, I found the overall amount of targets inside the actual garage to be higher than I would’ve liked. We had no difficulty on the upper levels clearing as we went up. Staying in constant radio contact with Kevin and the first floor crew meant we were only a minute away from supporting them, and vice versa. We were worried that at any point more of the assholes who shot at us the other day would return, opening fire, but in reality the only threat we faced was undead. Lots of them too.

On the top floor we emptied the entire back end of the Deuce onto and underneath a pair of parked cars. The two cars were in adjacent spaces, and we arranged the wood to burn on top, inside, and on the bottom. As three of us did that, two more went vehicle to vehicle with hoses and gas cans, draining car gas tanks.

Amazingly enough, most of the gas tanks on that level still had fuel. So much fuel in fact, we started prying trunks open to try and find more fuel tanks to get the fuel. I forget the exact amount of gas we pulled out of there, but we brought every single one of our fuel cans, including the fat ass tanks in the humvees, and we filled every single one. I’d comfortable say we left with 200 gallons. Now if we had brought our 55 gallon drums…

Makes me want to postpone this trip into the city just to get the damn fuel. By now though we’re pot committed. We made far too much noise shooting, drilling, yelling, screaming, and farting yesterday. The garage should be crawling with undead, and we need that population to get smooshed by the decks when they collapse.

There will be more vehicles with gas tanks, and the gas inside those cars will be useful to literally add fuel to the fires. Plus Blake has little to no time to filter the fuel right now. He’s far too busy working with Martin and Quan, learning explosives. Does that sentence scare the shit out of you like it just did me? Damn.

Speaking of which, while my crew was upstairs on the top level, Martin, Blake and Quan plus a handful more were downstairs using the concrete drills to make holes to sink the plastic explosive into. Quan was paranoid as balls about the Semtex due to its age. I guess it was old, and old explosives are… fickle. He insisted no one touch them but him, and he simply linked all the charges and hooked them up as needed. Martin and Blake simply drilled holes where he marked them while the rest of the team provided security.

I guess they had multiple very close encounters with zombies crawling out from underneath vehicles. On the second occasion of one of them dragging themselves out from under a fucking parked car, Kevin radioed up to us, freshly shat brick in hand, yelling for us to watch out for more where we were. We got really lucky up top, not gonna lie. Several of us spent many a minute on bended knee at a gas cap getting fuel. We easily could’ve lost someone to a surprise bite out of nowhere.

I listened carefully to the radios the entire morning and into the afternoon until we’d finished with our fire piles. We didn’t light them yet, we just got them ready. Lighting them will be for when we’re about to go, which will be another couple of days. Four days maybe, not positive just yet.

We relocated to the third deck and called for Blake to join us. He grabbed one of the humvees, drove up to us on the third level, and one of my crew switched out with him so they had full staffing and vehicles on the bottom floor. Fortunately while we were doing the swap, we had a brief lull, and no one was in extra danger.

Blake grabbed the spare car battery we brought along and popped the hood on a car that we knew had a car alarm. It took us two or three tries to find a car that didn’t simply have a starter kill feature, and an actual car alarm. In case you were wondering Mr. Journal, car alarms are useless. I can’t even tell you how many times I heard a car alarm going off in the distance and did nothing about it. Now starter kill on the other hand was far more effective. Anyway, Blake got the battery into the car, jury rigged it, and after playing around with a few wires, the car alarm went off, loud as shit and right on cue.

Noise maker now effective, we packed up and went downstairs to back up Kevin’s team as Quan and Martin finished working on the explosives. Quan was wrapping up the final wiring on the radio controlled detonator when we arrived. We were pushing the two cars blocking the garage out of the way less than twenty minutes later, and after smashing through a few dozen undead milling about beyond the car-roadblock, we were back on the road, all in one piece.

I know I drew the lucky straw upstairs with my group setting up the fires. I also know that was entirely intentional on Kevin’s part. He’s trying desperately to keep my safe, yet also putting me near enough the action so that if something really bad DOES happen, I can be there to help. It’s a fine balance. On two fronts really. He’s trying to keep me safe while still using me as an asset, as well as keep me in the loop, but not offend me all at the same time.

I am also sure a huge portion of this is Michelle’s handiwork. I doubt this is happening without those two colluding on the matter.

We ditched the Factory guys back at their base of operations with a heartfelt thank you, and took the long drive home in shitty weather. While we were inside the garage the weather turned south on us. Sleet and freezing rain were the order of the later day, and the roads were treacherous. We had one gut buster moment just as the sun was done being useful. A zombie was coming down a side road right near Gilbert’s old warehouse. It must’ve heard us coming from a bit away, and just as we were crossing the road it was on, the damn thing slipped in some freezing rain and went down hard on its back. I think it cracked its skull too, because it was still very still when the fourth vehicle passed it.

I guess it’s good to be lucky every now and then. I take that as a good sign. Zombies are now killing themselves when we roll through.

Things here at Bastion are quiet. We’re prepping for our next trip to the other parking garage near the hospital. Not sure exactly what day that’ll be, but I’ll let you know as soon as we iron it out.

Ollie and Melissa are well, as is their baby girl. Kim is well, as is little Adrian Gilbert. Sylvia is behaving better than ever, and the school kids are learning. Our hydroponics facility is running well, our walls are built, our gate is built, and our camera system is running flawlessly. We are eating better than we anticipated we would (And I hate to say its because we lost Fitz, but that did help. Fitz if you ever see this, wherever you are, understand I mean you no disrespect brother. I'd skip a meal a day to have you back.) and things are stable. More stable than ever possibly.

Getting nervous Mr. Journal. That went fairly well yesterday, and I’m sure that despite how crappy it actually was, that was still just the calm before the storm.

I'm going to kill the lights here, and try to stay focused on relaxed. Maybe I'll do some deep breathing, and think positive thoughts to unwind. My adrenaline is still lingering. I may or may not think about Michelle when I turn out the lights. Otis wants some company, so I’m gonna turn this laptop off, and give my homeboy what he’s jonesing for.

A scratched tummy.

-Adrian

February 26th

I find it rather impressive how much work this trip into the city is taking. Never mind the trips into the city themselves, I’m talking about the preparation for these little trips too.

Primarily I’m speaking of cutting wood. We have a pretty steady crew of kids and adults that stand there chopping wood all day, every other day or so for the stoves, but we need a solid cord or cord and a half of wood for each of the fires we’re intending to set on the top of the parking garages. The kids spent all day today and much of yesterday chopping the wood up and loading the back of the deuce up for our next trip to the other parking garage. And if you didn't know, chopping wood means you need to take trees down, which in and of itself is an undertaking.

Never mind the weapons maintenance, magazine loading, medical supply preparation, and the two hundred other things that need to be done here at Bastion on a daily basis. I definitely feel selfish having all these people devote this much time to something that mainly only benefits me. I mean sure, if this parking garage bullshit works out and kills a few thousand undead, we’ll be sitting much prettier. However, if you look at the odds, look at my luck, and then weigh that against this being successful, we’re already bent.

Yawn. I’m tired. Little cranky too. I’ve been a smidge under the weather for a couple days now. Since we returned from the last downtown run really. I didn't sleep well that night, or since. The weather has been drizzly and cold, forming some black ice here and there, and I think the time outside coupled with meeting the new folks over at Spring Meadows has given me a wee bit of the cold. Irritated. I’m just a little sniffly, just a little achy, with a touch of a headache, and a tiny bit of an upset stomach. Just a little irritation, but it's all over. I'm on my man-period.

I’ve been resting for the last two hours here in my room with Otis. We’re doing well as a team. Otis is buried in my crotch as I lay here on the bed, laptop on my chest, and I have a thermos filled with venison broth made from a deer James dropped yesterday. That was a nice present for us.

My mind is running a mile a minute and I can't stop it. I’m having a very hard time keeping focused on the things I need to pay attention to. I’ve got a small notebook I stole from the office supplies closet in the administration building that I’ve been writing notes in. I keep double checking to make sure things are getting crossed off in the book, and it is starting to look like more is getting added than crossed off. I am heavily debating popping an Adderall to try and get an edge on it.

It doesn’t help that my mind is halfway between fear and hope with the tasks directly ahead. I’m scared to find Cassie. I know she’s dead, but HOW dead? Dead and resting dead? Or dead and walking around dead? I’m not sure what’s worse.

I’m also petrified about Michelle. I really like this woman, and I’m scared of what that means. I’m concerned I’ll hurt her, or get her hurt on this fucking quest of mine. I so want her to not go, but I also know deep down inside… she should be there for this. If this Trinity nonsense means anything, we need to make sure we’re together for the big things, and this feels like a very big thing. The biggest thing. The worst thing.

I keep thinking too about what Gilbert said on the other side about how Cassie was like, off limits or something. He warned me over and over to not try and contact her when I was down in la-la-land, and like he asked, I never did try and get in touch with her. I knew she was dead, and theoretically just a “call” away, but I was so scared of being confronted by her, and I knew Gilbert wouldn’t have told me not to unless it was vitally important. It was easy in retrospect. I was a coward yet again when it came to her.

But if evil has her somewhere for safe keeping… then this is very clearly a big thing. This could be my moment. The single event that determines whether or not I fail at this whole “saving humanity” crap. Do you think that's possible, that something so simple, could be so important?

I’m not sure how to play this. I’m not sure what’s going to happen. I hate the unknown.

Sigh. I need to man the fuck up here and get my shit done.

Speaking of shit to get done, I’m going to head to bed. It’s far later than I intended to be up, and we’re heading back into the city tomorrow morning to hit the other parking garage. First up we’re swinging by Spring Meadow to check in with them. They’ve had some additional contact with undead above and beyond what they’re used to, and that’s our fault. We wanted to drop off some bread, some milk, and a few eggs for them. Neighborly gifts and whatnot. Speaking of bread we are getting really low on flour. No solution for that right now.

After we say hi to them, we’re headed to the parking garage near the hospital and prepping it to blow in a few more days.

Remember what happened last March 3rd here at Bastion? The hundreds of undead with all the books? The thousands of dead? The strange visions and dreams of Cassie? On the third hour of the third day of the third month?

If all goes well, I’ll be reaching Cassie’s work by March 3rd. I don’t know what hour I’ll be there at, but if I was a betting man…

I bet we get there right around three, and won't that change how important I think this will all be?

Peace Mr. Journal. To spread it, I need to find it inside myself.

-Adrian

Cassie

The car ride to work was always tough in the morning. Fresh from bed, facing the entire day at work, the sun in her eyes the entire way, it was never an easy drive. Cassie attempted to enter the zone every morning, and listen to music until she parked her car at work, letting the ride fade away. Cassie’s phone rang suddenly, scaring her. As she fumbled with her purse near the shifter, fishing the smart phone out, she wondered why she’d been so startled. Adrian always called her at the same time every morning as he drove home from work. She didn’t even have to see his name on the phone to know it was him. It was their routine.

“Hey baby. Good morning,” Cassie said, her voice still a smidge dreamy. She’d only been awake an hour or so, and she’d forgotten to make coffee at home to boot.

“Hey. How’d you sleep?” Adrian asked her. He sounded almost as sleepy as her. Sometimes she thought he pretended to sound tired just to try and trick her into turning around and going back to bed with him. He’d be heading home and hopefully straight to bed after his night shift at the private school he worked at. It wasn’t the best job. He could do better if he really applied himself, but it wasn’t the worst either. The pay was decent, the benefits were good, and the drive to work was short.

“I slept okay. Wish I slept more, but what’s new? How was your night? Monsters sleep through it?” Cassie wasn’t that interested in hearing about his night, but this was their routine and she loved hearing from him before she started her day. His work stories were never interesting. The kids almost always slept fine.

“Work was fine. Same as usual. Hey did you have the news on while you were getting ready? Did you see all the shit about the attacks and crazy people in Europe and Africa? Asia too I guess.” Adrian’s tone was mildly alarming. Normally he was able to scour the internet at work all night and find the truth about anything. The fact that he seemed unsure of this was weird to her.

“Yeah I watched some. Looks like bullshit to me, babe. I bet this is some hacker nonsense, or some viral movie promotion from Hollywood. Something some ad executive cooked up to scare the hell out of male horror movie fans in their early 30’s who stay up too late at night.”

“Ha ha. Funny. I dunno Cass. It looked pretty legit to me. I’m not like, running to the hardware store just yet, but this could be weird. Can you listen to the radio for me during work today? I’m headed to sleep hopefully right when I get home, and if you start to hear that this shit is for real, then you head out. Please? Okay?” Adrian was serious.

“Yeah no problem. If this turns out to be an actual zombie attack you’re never gonna let me live it down that I don’t like guns in the house, are you?” Cassie poked at him.

“Never. I will harass you until the end of time. Though I won’t regret having never armed your temper tantrums,” Adrian replied teasingly.

“That’s fair. Alright. I’m coming up to the dead spot, I’m gonna lose you.” It happened every morning in the same valley. Always in that magical place in the middle of the cell tower zones where things went gray for a moment. A space between. Their call was always interrupted. A forced goodbye to end one day, and start another.

“Alrighty. Be safe, and come home early if you can. Love you.”

Cassie brushed her bangs back over the top of her ear. “Love you too.”

It was the last time they’d speak to each other alive.

*****

“Hey Cassie do you have the information Alan needs for the DuGuay meeting? He’s having a meltdown because it’s not on his desk,” Cassie’s boss Melanie asked quickly, her head poking over the top of the beige cubicle wall.

Cassie looked up slowly, drawing out the immediate response Melanie wanted into a long, pregnant reply. Before Cassie’s eyes even reached Melanie’s her boss was already barking out a second request, “Christ Cassie seriously. He’s pissed off and about to take a nitro.”

Cassie smirked and watched the vein in her boss’ temple throb. “Melanie relax. He’s had the file for three days. It's on his desk. I put it there. If he doesn’t have it right now, then he lost it on his own.” Cassie was frustrated yet again. The damn VPs in this company were morons.

Melanie looked around at the sprawling farm of cubicles in the office. The large glass windows of the sixth floor were letting in good mid-morning light, and it irritated the mid-level executive. “Can you re-print everything you did? I bet that old fucker lost the file on us. I’d also bet he forgot to even look at the damn report you wrote. Bring it straight to the conference room and bring your coffee. I want you in on this conference call. I need someone who knows it inside and out in the room with me.” Melanie shook her head, clearly pissed at her own boss. The brass always shoveled shit downhill and expected everything to be perfect. She looked at Cassie and wondered how often her own employee thought the same of her.

“I’m on it Mel. Gimme five minutes. No- wait. Give me eight minutes. I want more coffee first. Nothing is more important than more coffee. He’ll just have to take another nitro,” Cassie said, gathering up her coffee mug and a small yellow legal pad. She grabbed her mouse and started to dig for the file on her computer to print it yet again.

“I’ll tell him I saw him bring the file home last night and maybe he left it there. That’ll buy you coffee time. Thanks Cass. I hope this doesn’t ruin your day,” Melanie said apologetically. She smiled at her favorite employee and skittered off, trying not to trip in the new heels she’d bought.

Cassie sighed. She saw this coming. She opened the file she’d prepared about the DuGuay account, sent it to the printer near the conference room, and scooped up her coffee cup. As she walked away she stopped to turn off her little desktop radio. She thought of Adrian, and how he’d asked her to listen to the news today. She sighed softly and hoped he was getting good rest at home. If the world was coming to an end, it was going to start in the conference room for her. Cassie snagged her light sweater and headed out, mentally preparing herself for the hours of mundane meeting ahead.

She barely noticed the cluster of coworkers surrounding the television in the break room. She also didn’t notice the serious looks on their faces. Somewhere deep in the back of her primitive mind she was reminded of the tragedy of 9/11, but she lost the thought as she scooped up the papers off the printer. Coffee beckoned to her.

*****

“Alan it’s right there,” Cassie said quietly, pointing to a small set of numbers buried deep on a spreadsheet she’d spent hours working on. Alan, the absent minded Vice President lowered his glasses to the end of his nose and looked where her finger pointed. He nodded like he'd seen it all along. Cassie and Melanie’s patience for this meeting had long since run out. The meeting about the DuGuay account had gone from the promised and assured fifteen minutes all the way up to the two hours and twenty minute mark they sat at. They were now very late for a lunch they both wanted very much to eat. Both women knew the meeting had been dragged out needlessly due to their boss’ lack of preparation, and unwillingness to figure it out without their help. The two women were caught, no different than a fox with its leg caught in a trap. Cassie knew she'd be the first to gnaw her foot off.

Cassie listened to the Vice President of her company drone on about returns on investments, and expenditures in foreign markets like an expert. A gray haired but boring expert, but an expert nonetheless. The redhead stood up and quietly plodded over to the small table Melanie had coffee brought in on. Cassie’s earlier recharge had long since run out.

The carafe’s scent was enough to put a smile back on her face as she poured the dark contents into her mug. As the Ethiopian blend slowly filled her mug she looked out the floor to ceiling glass windows and down to the city streets below. She noticed the flashing street lights first. As her eyes wandered down the yellow line in the center of the street from the light, she noticed multiple vehicles pulled to the side, their doors left hastily ajar. Further down the street she saw an accident at the intersection right at the base of her building, right where the entrance to her offices was.

The accident was brutal, and her sharp intake of breath attracted the attention of Melanie, still at the conference table behind her. Cassie heard Melanie push her chair back on the thick rug and urgently yet quietly come over to join her at the window.

Four people crossing the street had been hit by a car. The car was gone, but the human wreckage still lay behind. It must have happened only minutes prior because as they watched, one of the city’s black and white police cruisers pulled into the intersection, blocking traffic in all directions. Its siren was muted through the thick office glass. Of the four bodies arrayed across the street, three were obviously dead. One person’s head was no longer round, broken and battered into multiple indistinct pieces all issuing forth a small river of blood that people trying to help stepped around gingerly. The other two bodies had heads fully intact, but broken limbs and large dark puddles of what only could be blood surrounding them. The single panicked survivor was being attended to by several passersby who stopped to help.

“Ow, motherfucker!” Cassie said as the black coffee lapped over the top of her mug, burning her fingers. She'd poured too much. She winced and set the mug down, spilling more of the lava-like imported coffee on her already raw fingers. Melanie looked at Cassie’s fingers for a moment and shared a sympathetic look. She turned back to the crash scene below, leaving Cassie to deal with her reddened digits.

“Do I need to remind you two that there is a teleconference going on here? We’re on speakerphone girls,” Alan said from the long satin finished table. He took his finger off the mute button of the phone as he shook his head in disdain.

Go fuck yourself, Cassie thought silently. She turned back to the window just as Melanie reached over and clutched at her forearm, covering her mouth in horror with her free hand.

Cassie looked down to the street, following the line of Mel’s eyes. Her vision landed on the dead body of a young man, previously splayed out in a grotesque manner. Not any longer. The man had sat up, not dead but alive, and he’d attacked the man and woman who had been sitting over him, rendering him first aid. The man helping the accident victim had been bitten severely on the arm, and he’d launched himself backwards and away, clutching at a tattered, torn hole where the inside of his elbow used to be. Blood saturated his pale skin and the khaki pants he wore to work that day. The man’s screams didn’t reach up six floors and through the thick glass, but the look of terror and pain on his face was unmistakable.

The woman that had been helping the injured man was struggling with him now, wrestling, attempting to hold him still as the newly arrived police officer took stock of the situation, and radioed in for medical assistance. Even six floors away both women could see the younger cop’s mild panic and confusion as he tried to put two and two together. Just as he finished up with the radio attached to his collar, the woman holding the man down lost her battle. An errant hand that was half balled into a fist struck her in the eye, momentarily dazing her. When she recoiled, defenseless, the injured man grabbed at her, tugging her down and biting her severely over and over. He bit her face shoulder, and neck, tearing away her blouse in the process. The young cop finally reached the terrible assault and grabbed the woman, yanking her away from her assailant.

The teeth of the man were still lodged in the soft meat of the inside of her arm. A massive lump of bloody pink flesh tore free as the policeman yanked her away. Neither woman could hear the lady’s blood curdling roar. The cop’s noble attempt to save her, doomed her. The artery in her arm had been severed, and a jet of fresh blood sprayed the ground errantly. The cop tumbled to the ground, the dying woman fading quickly on top of him.

Things went from horrible to completely wretched then. Melanie and Cassie grabbed each other and looked away as the woman and the man quickly turned on the cop and the witnesses gathered around. The officer pulled his weapon out and shot hastily from the hip several times as the man who bit the woman chewed away at the cop's legs and arms. He pulled the trigger rapidly as the dying woman twitched, and spasmed, hitting his intended targets as well as a few of the innocents. None of his shots seemed fatal, despite tearing through the chests of the man scratching and biting at him. As his gun clicked empty, he succumbed to the score of fresh bites on his arms and legs. The small handful of people he’d shot accidentally were either collapsed in the street clutching at their wounds, or were already actively seeking out those around them they could harm. It was like a switch for maliciousness being turned. Death triggering a homicidal rage towards any and all nearby. The woman who died in his arms was already getting to her feet, murder in her eyes.

Cassie knew what was happening. She'd seen it before in countless bad horror movies. She backed away towards the conference table, holding Melanie’s hand firmly until both women bumped into the sturdy wooden furniture. They stared at the window as if the horror on the street below would somehow climb its way up the side of the building and smash a window to get inside straight to them.

“Ladies I’m going to ask to you to leave if you can’t respect this meeting. Your rudeness is appalling,” Alan said with irritation in his voice, his finger on the mute button of the phone once again. His look of utter disgust was palpable.

Cassie turned and looked over Melanie’s shoulder at the pompous prick. She let go of Melanie’s hand and walked around her, casually and confidently removing his finger from the mute button. She stared him fiercely in the eye, daring the man to say a word to her. He was shocked at her imprudence, but he didn’t.

“I’m sorry, but there’s been an emergency here in the office, and we need to bring this meeting to a close. We apologize for the abrupt end, but we really must go.” Cassie ended the phone call with another button, never taking her eyes off the man who signed her paychecks. “Alan, several people were just killed outside the building downstairs. A policeman was one of them. We need to go watch the television to find out what the hell is happening outside. We might be in a lot of danger.” Cassie had learned how to scare people years ago watching her boyfriend Adrian. As a bouncer and soldier he had developed a hell of a knack for it. It helped he was a big guy, but she was a redhead, and could fake crazy like it was a hobby. Cassie was hoping she was a quick learner.

Alan’s eyes furrowed into anger, “Ms. Mackenzie, this had best be serious business, or you can consider this your last day at this firm.”

“Alan, this might be the last day at this firm for everyone if it’s as bad I think it might be. Go look out the window.”

*****

The phones died less than ten minutes later. When the three office workers departed the lavish conference room they found an office almost completely devoid of coworkers. The cubicles were empty like dug graves in a cemetery. The few remaining people were gathering their coats and most important belongings off their desk and leaving like rats scurrying off the proverbial sinking ship. It looked like a bad disaster movie to Cassie. It felt like a horror.

The feisty redhead went directly to the break room where the television entertained and informed no one. What remained of her coworkers stood there, slack jawed as the news played out in front of them. The morning’s reports of attacks across the world had become far more serious. In the morning it was still a joke, still “unconfirmed” and still “speculative.” Now the world had evolved into an emergency response footing. Now they were giving out evacuation instructions. Now they were giving out locations of where you shouldn’t go. Where it was worse.

Cassie sought out the remote as Mel started to rant, “Why didn’t anyone come and find us? Why did they all leave us here alone? Everyone must’ve known what was happening. I don’t understand!” Mel’s demeanor was slowly coming unraveled. Watching people die in front of your face could do that to you.

“They didn’t know we were supposed to be in the conference room Mel. Impromptu meeting? They probably saw our empty desks and just figured that we’d left already. Shit, everyone left here in a fucking hurry it’s not like anyone took the time. Alan, can you try the phone on Mark’s desk right there and see if you can dial 911? I’m getting the local news.” Cassie thumbed the black plastic remote a few times, scrolling to the local news station she liked the most.

The female anchor was resolute. You might even say stoic. She delivered the news of the city and state falling apart as if it were a solemn tragedy that had already happened. The state border had been sealed for a brief time to keep it out, whatever “it” was, but that seemed to be failing. Reports were coming in from various locations across the state indicating that whatever was happening was going to happen here no matter how well guarded the borders were. Cassie’s gut feeling was correct. Any death resulted in gory, horrific reanimation just like they'd seen in the street below. It was just like one of Adrian’s silly horror movies.

“The phones appear to be dead,” Alan said with detached emotion. He sat the useless handset in the cradle. He stood between the two women, staring blankly at the screen.

“Did you try a cell phone?” Mel asked him quickly, almost desperately.

“No— I... I didn’t.” Alan reached into the pocket of his expensive slacks and fished out a black touch screen phone. He unlocked it and dialed his wife at their house. After a few attempts, he put the phone away in his pocket and simply shook his head. "Dead," he said. Both women sighed in unison.

“We need to leave here. We need to get out of the building and get home. If this is real, then we need to get out of the city. We should leave right now,” Mel said to Cassie. She’d already disregarded the presence of the lost company executive.

“I think we need to wait a bit Melanie. There’s got to be ten of those things down at the main entrance already. We have no idea what the rest of the city looks like,” Cassie said, thinking hard about what Adrian would tell her to do. She wished he was there right now. He’d be calm, in control, ready. He’d have a plan.

"How did it get this bad this fast?" Mel asked, watching the anchorwoman deliver more bad news.

Cassie had a good idea how it became so terrible. "People don't take it seriously fast enough. It's a joke. Or faked for a show. Or they try and help, and get bitten like that woman, and that cop. We haven't started fighting back yet. So more die trying to help. What do you think is going to happen when the paramedics arrive down there?"

Mel didn't answer. Everyone knew they'd try and help, and probably get killed trying. “What about the back exit from the lobby? We zip downstairs, and head out the back?” Mel said. Cassie looked at her and saw the desperation in her eyes. The plan wasn’t the worst. It made sense. They could even avoid the lobby area by taking the service elevator…

“Let’s try it. Gather your stuff.” Mel and Cassie scattered, leaving Alan to catch up moments later.

*****

Ding, went the elevator door as it opened. The smooth stainless steel doors slid open slowly, revealing a burnished metal interior that was empty of either the living or the dead. The madness had yet to invade the elevator. The three coworkers slid into the small metal box and hit the button labeled “G.” When the door hesitated to shut immediately, Mel started machine gunning the “Close Door” button. The elevator responded to her rapid fire finger and sealed them into their doom.

As the cables above reeled them down slowly the three leaned against the walls of the elevator. The motion of descent made all of them feel safer, like progress was being made. It made them feel as if they would survive.

From somewhere else, far outside the building they felt a brief impact. A slight tremor, a slight shake. Something had happened that shook the building so powerfully that they could feel it, deep inside the concrete bowels of the tower they were attempting to escape from. Something far above them let loose a metallic, grinding screech. The floor they stood on vibrated intensely, like an earthquake was happening right below them, and the elevator lurched to an abrupt stop. The two women and one man had enough time to look each other fearfully in the face before the lights flickered, and went out for the last time. They’d never see the light again alive.

In the pitch blackness of the industrial coffin they were trapped in, Cassie’s voice said everything any of them could’ve mustered.

“Fuck.”

*****

Mel hit the emergency call button almost immediately. Her heavy breathing and sweaty brow was enough to alarm even the calmest of people, but she retained control enough to sit with her hands knitted together tightly. The emergency phone in the elevator went unanswered. No firemen picked up to offer their help. The emergency lights never came on either. Cassie cursed at the dead plastic panels in the ceiling for hours upon hours under her breath as they used the screens of their phones for light. After four hours they decided to go without. There was no reason to have light all the time. Plus on the off chance the cell phone networks returned, they wanted some battery left to make the phone call that might save their lives.

As Cassie looked at her phone’s clock tick past ten pm, she knew things were bad, very bad. Mel and Alan had long since slipped into sleep. Alan had taken the situation with a shrug of his shoulders. Neither woman could tell if he simply didn’t care, or if he was incredibly confident in the emergency services. It didn’t matter. He sat there quietly, listening to Mel talk incessantly about her ten year old boy and how she needed to get home to him.

The two women had tried to pry the roof hatch open, as well as the elevator doors, but both were sealed shut. They had no tools, no weapons to speak of, and after both women had shattered almost all their nails trying to pry either exit open, they sat down in the dark, defeated. Mel succumbed to exhaustion an hour after Alan.

Cassie sat awake and very much alone for many hours after, waiting and hoping someone would come to them.

*****

Thirst is a terrible enemy. It persists, growing in power every hour until is unstoppable, and unavoidable. It takes away your strength, your stamina, your focus, and eventually your dignity. Hunger may seem worse to the mind, but it's thirst that will kill you first. Thirst’s power is so inevitable that unless quenched, it doesn’t take long to succumb to.

After the first few days (or was it just a day? Or a full week? Cassie couldn’t tell anymore) they had the suicide discussion. The phones were still dead, the air in their box was rank, and the elevator doors were no closer to being open. Was it better for the three of them to just unravel separately, at their own pace, and hope for the best? Or was it better for them to find a way to die simultaneously?

Mel wanted to fight, to stay alive as long as possible. Alan wanted to take the small container of nitroglycerine out of his pocket, and simply slide the contents under his tongue, sending his already rickety heart into a tailspin. Cassie wanted to wait, to fight the dehydration for another day or two and hope that help came.

It was hard to tell the hour of the day. They’d given up checking for the time anymore, and so many days into their isolation the lack of water and food had taken its toll. Cassie had fallen asleep, that much she knew. Her stomach had stopped growling and gnawing at her insides finally but her head had been swimming. It was hard to listen, and harder still to form sentences. Her tongue was swollen. It felt thick, and cottony in her mouth. She knew it was the lack of water. It didn’t help that they’d been using Mel’s purse as a shit receptacle either. The stench in the elevator was nearly unbearable.

Cassie was woken up by a strange noise beside her.

The noise sounded wet. It sounded like someone eating. She heard a soft squishing noise followed by something akin to the sound of a celery stalk being eaten. Her empty stomach convulsed as her nose caught wind of what she imagined to be exposed bowels. Someone had died in the elevator. Alan most likely.

“Oh no—“ Cassie planted her palm over her mouth, trying to stuff the escaped words back in. It was too late. She heard a sudden void of noise coming from where the original sounds of eating came from. Something had stopped to listen for her. Cassie's hand had been played, and she was about to be eaten alive too, just like the poor bastards in the street so many days ago, when this all started.

A new sound came. In the darkness Cassie’s mind raced to fill in the visual. She thought it had to be two blood soaked hands being rubbed together in dreadful glee at the prospect of a new victim, a new dish. Her mind jumped again. Instead this time the noise was a red, slick tongue sliding across and around gore covered lips. Either scenario made her sluggish heart rumble to life.

Suddenly the temperature in the coffin-elevator dipped. She thought at first the goose bumps on her arms were a reaction from her fear, but when the air started to bite at the inside of her nostrils and lungs with bitter cold, she knew something powerfully strange was afoot. Cassie prepared herself for death in the cold blackness. Then, speaking to her through the chill, a voice from beyond time, beyond life and certainly beyond death spoke to her. The grating voice shook her.

“Oh not now little one. Not now. We’ve so much to discuss before you come to me.”

All alone in the dark, Cassie started to cry.

*****

The Voice spoke to her from the dead bodies she shared the elevator with for hours, days maybe. There was no way to know. Sometimes the Voice came from Alan’s body, and sometimes it came from Melanie’s body. Cassie couldn't tell the difference in the Voice when it switched bodies, but she knew the Voice used both. It did it to prove a point. To show her that everything dead was its plaything. Today it was inside Melanie’s body. Regardless of who it came out of, it was always the same. Sometimes the Voice’s tactics would change slightly, but the goal always appeared to be the same. Cassie was gaining some level of satisfaction playing hard to get, and ignoring the Voice’s bullshit. The fight was all she had left.

“Where is he? Why hasn’t he come?”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason. Maybe he was asleep all day, and when he woke up he was surprised by too many and died. I just hope if he died, he died quickly. Not like I'm dying.”

“Oh nonsense Cassandra. He’s still alive. He’s at his work. Making a safe place to survive. Nesting like a bear going into hibernation. Selfish isn’t he?”

“I don’t believe you one bit. He might be making a place safe, but he isn’t selfish.”

“Why shouldn’t you believe me? You’re talking to the corpse of your former boss. You believe that this is happening, why wouldn’t you believe I’m telling the truth? Is it that much of a stretch?”

“Go fuck yourself. Why are you doing this to me anyway? Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the one pulling all the strings my dear. Every last one.”

“Is this all about good and evil? End of the world bullshit?”

“Something akin to that, yes.”

“What the hell does this have to do with Adrian and I? We’re just normal people for Christ’s sake. We put our pants on every morning just like everyone else.”

“That’s exactly why. Humanity will suffer for its transgressions. If a select few can be made to fail before all are eradicated, then the full bounty will be collected. The future of the human species will be decided partially by his survival, and how he chooses to survive. Poor start if you ask me, leaving the one he supposedly loved most behind here to rot.”

“Eat shit and live you frosty bitch. He didn’t leave me behind.”

“Perhaps if he ever builds up the courage to find you, you can ask him why the long wait yourself. Sadly, I don’t think you’ll survive that long. Your meeting with him could be… decidedly violent.”

“I’ll kill myself before I hurt him.”

“You’ll hurt him even more dead. You can hurt him the most when you're dead. In fact, I’ll see to it that you’re quite ripe by the time your man ever comes around. Time to get your strings, puppet.”

The tiny woman felt the cold invade her, rape her, sliding in her nose, mouth, eyes, pussy and ass. She tried to stand, to escape, but it was pointless. There was nowhere to go. No escape to be had. The black, the cold surrounded her soul with bitterness and anger so real and physical it was as if a vice had been placed around her heart and turned over and over squeezing everything good inside it out. Cassie fought. She fought as hard as her dying body would allow against the frigid evil, screaming and clawing at her own flesh but in the end she succumbed to it alone, violated, sitting in the elevator flanked by two of the undying.

Her Lieutenants.

Cassie’s dead white eyes opened and saw nothing but darkness. Unlike the other undead birthed and shat out upon the world the past weeks, her mind was still dangerously intact, though changed. Made perverse and evil. She looked to the elevator doors, now knowing full well how to open them, but knowing it was far too soon. Her dark friend with the voice, the darkness now inside her had told her days before there would be bombs, and she shouldn’t leave until the bombs fell, and the survivors nearby killed each other and starved to death.

The corrupted remnants of Cassie wanted nothing more than to see her man again, and ask him why he had left her so alone to die. She wanted to see him, and to press her lips against his body… And bite. Tear and rend and destroy with as much anger as she'd ever had love.

She had time. All the time in the world.

*****

Cassie’s mind, the original one, the kind and loving one, flowed in and out of one deathless state to the other. Some moments her mind existed inside the corpse her soul left behind angry and vengeful, and some moments she slipped into a dreamy state where she was content, and calm. The vast majority of her time was sitting in the dark, her mind slowly churning with bitterness over her lot. It seemed to her that on the nights she was positive about her life and the memories she had of it, she could push her mind away from her body, and get some much needed rest in dreams. She loved those moments, though they were incredibly rare. In those moments the Voice was gone, no longer poisoning her soul, and making her existence an unliving hell.

Cassie’s mind was adrift in dreams when she was reached out and touched by another soul. Cassie’s dreams were strange. Very few people were ever in her dreams when she had them, and when a person did appear, it was a rare and wondrous occurrence, much like a shooting star. Cassie always sought the person out, but just as she was about to talk to them, or wave hello, she felt the icy grip of the Voice yanking her away, back to the oubliette she suffered in.

Tonight (or was it today?) in her dream she was back in her company’s office, sitting at her desk. She was shuffling idiotic paperwork for the Nth time and wishing she was home with her man. Day in and day out she missed him more than anything, but she knew things were forever changed. She knew even if he’d come for her the chances of him making it, let alone finding her in the elevator were slim. He’d be more likely to see that shooting star at noon she felt. Cassie longed for his smile one more time.

“Hey are you really here? Are you? You know… finally free?” A woman’s voice asked quietly from behind her.

Cassie spun in her office chair and saw the gentle, round face of her dead boss Melanie. Melanie was alive in the dream, still plump and whole, with both her cheeks uneaten. Cassie’s heart began to hammer out an enthused drumbeat, realizing she might actually have an interaction, fictional or otherwise.

“Melanie holy shit. Are you here too? Is this a dream? Are we okay?” Cassie stood and clutched Melanie’s arms in a half hug. The two women’s eyes started welling up. It was a moment to relish.

“Cass baby I’m here, wherever here is. We’ve been trying to get to you, trying to talk to you, reach out to you, but you’re gone so much. It’s like your soul has been kidnapped, or worse. It's like we're all floating in the ocean and you bob to the surface for a moment, and we go to you, but you sink back down again before we get to you. Almost all of us are here. We’re dead, we’re waiting for all of this to end, but we’re okay. Everyone is so worried about you.”

“Why worried?” Cassie felt a strange fear suddenly. It felt like she was falling. Since her death in the elevator, fear hadn’t been a part of her life. What else could there be worth being afraid over?

“Well your mortal soul might be at stake here babe. You’re being used by the dark forces. The Devil himself has your number.” Melanie said it so calmly and flat. She said it like she was reciting her shopping list. Mel rubbed Cassie's arms, still holding on to her in the cubicle.

Cassie laughed nervously looking around the office as if there might be someone who could come to help her. “Why me though? This evil fucking voice keeps talking to me all the time, and it’s dodgy as hell. Keeps saying this is about Adrian and I. The voice keeps trying to turn me against Adrian. It tries every single day to make me angry at him. I don’t understand it one bit.”

“Well it’s not really about you dear…” Melanie said as if she was telling her daughter about a lost puppy. “It’s about him. It’s about how you’re being used to get at him. That’s what we all think at least.”

“Why is my boyfriend so damn important? I mean, I love him, and that’s important, but this seems so unreal. I mean… unreal in a world filled with the walking dead. Damn it, you know what I mean.”

Melanie let her friend’s body slide away a bit from their hug but Cassie held firm. She felt rooted by Melanie’s embrace. Grounded and normal. Mel thought for a moment, her eyes looking to the pale white tiled ceiling before responding, “He is a part of this. Like a rat in a maze. He's the rat, and some of us are the walls in the maze. Moved around to get in his way before he gets to the cheese. This is all about us failing the world, and being shitty people. If Adrian can survive this, we get a second chance. If Adrian fails, or maybe even just dies… Well, then we all die. We know he’s part of a small group. Three people. A Trinity. They’re all equally important and have special roles to play. Most of us don’t know the whole story about the others yet, but we hear a lot about your man. Apparently he’s the most important of all. He’s supposed to be documenting this so the people who come later can learn all about it. He's a historian, in a way.”

Cassie let slip a sigh that bordered on being a sob. She knew Adrian would eventually come and try to find her, and she knew now that was the Voice’s plan all along. She wanted so desperately to tell the man she loved to move on, to give a new life a chance, to avoid the trap that was being laid for him, but she didn’t know how to. She didn't want to be the lure that would be his undoing.

“Have you tried to speak with him yet hun?” Melanie asked, almost reading Cassie’s thoughts as she had them.

“I wouldn’t know how.”

“Think about him really hard. Right now. Dream of him, and where he might be, and if you try really hard, like Dorothy clicking her heels together, you’ll be zipped to him. There's no place like your man. There's no place like your man. He’s probably pretty easy to find. The big people are like lighthouses in the fog here. Big beacons of hope, quite literally.”

“No shit? You think that’ll work? You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to talk to in these dreams. I've been so alone for so long. It's madness," she said sadly. "If I try and talk to Adrian, I bet that evil cocksucker will yank me away like every time before.”

Melanie chewed a lip for a second. “Baby if there was a night, tonight’s the night. Something is happening. It’s like the calm before the storm right now. I think the Good Lord above is stirring the soup up to make things happen, despite what the little man below wants. I think if you tried really hard, you could do it. But if you’re going to, you gotta do it right now.”

Cassie gritted her teeth and nodded. She wanted one more minute with the man she loved. One minute more might be worth eternity in Hell.

*****

Cassie closed her eyes and concentrated powerfully for minutes. Melanie hovered over her, never taking her hands off Cassie’s shoulders, providing a powerful fetter that gave her confidence. After seeing his eyes, his face, and his hands in her mind’s eye, she suddenly felt the world spin around her as if she was strapped in to a carnival ride. She went with it, letting the swirls of vertigo come and pass, knowing that it was the price she had to pay for the road she needed to walk. When her reality stopped moving, she opened her eyes once more. She was laying on her side in a strange bed beside him. It wasn't their home, or the bed they shared for so many years, but it was comfortable, if only because he was in it. He looked thinner than ever, and weary. His eyes were closed and he was resting peacefully, though his eyebrows were furrowed, showing that even in dreams, his worries of the day never left him.

Cassie leaned in and kissed his cool forehead, pressing her body against his.  Despite being a shadow of his former thick self, she felt so much strength and warmth come from his presence. When she lifted her mouth from his forehead, she saw his eyes were cracking open. In his dark brown eyes she saw recognition. She saw loneliness. Her heart ached for him. They sat there for what felt like hours in an infinite dawn. Golden rays of sun kissed across the room through the window, bathing them both in warmth that felt perfect. Cassie knew the little slice of heaven was short lived. The darkness would come eventually. Soon. If she wanted to talk to him, it needed to be now.

“Adrian, it’s almost time to wake up.”

Adrian shook his head, still half in a dream within a dream, “No, there’s still plenty of time left to be together.”

She winced. His need for her hurt like a physical stab to the heart. She wished there was more time. Cassie knew now was the time to inform him softly. She knew he had to hear what she needed to say, if only to try and save his life. Not only was humanity’s existence in the balance, Cassie simply wanted the man she loved to survive this. To be free of her. To get away from what she represented to him. The redhead gently caressed Adrian’s ear and let out a sigh that took all her breath. “Our time is over baby.  There’s someone else out there for you.”

Adrian’s half asleep eyes widened, taking Cassie in. The two of them looked at each other longingly, like the years they spent together, slowly falling in love. Cassie watched as he replayed their entire relationship, and realized what she meant when she asked him to move on. Only one thing would lead her to tell him that; her own death.

Adrian’s connection of the situation was crushing to watch. He closed his eyes and put his head back on his pillow as hot tears streamed from his eyes. The moist stain on his pillow grew impossibly fast as Cassie put her hands on his chest, trying to make him feel alright. When he opened his eyes again, all she could do was nod and wrap a thin arm around his chest. She squeezed him and they lay like that for some time. Cassie felt the warmth of the sun peel away off of her back like a cloud had passed between. She knew instantly something was amiss. Nothing happened randomly in this lost existence. Cassie almost blurted out the last thing before the cold suddenly overwhelmed her.

“Adrian you must prepare yourself.  Trials and tribulations are the way of the world now, resting is not part of what judges our worth.  Everything happens for a reason Adrian.  Sometimes we don’t understand when things happen, and sometimes we never understand.  Just understand I always loved you, will always love you, and that you are needed by more than just me now.  Someone must be the memory.”

And like a candle being blown out, the world went dark and cold. Cassie was torn out of the strange bed she was sharing with her love, and thrust back into her corpse body violently, like being slammed forward in a massive collision. The transition was painful, and her dead body ached like it never had before.

The Voice was angry. Angry with her. “Stupid, stupid woman. For this he shall suffer. Your foolish arrogance will be the end of him. He’ll never make it to meet you and see your dead face now.”

“He won’t break. He’s too strong. He understands now that he can move on, and love another. I told him everything. You don't know him."

“We’ll see. I suspect he’ll make the trip to you no matter what you’ve said. You see… his guilt over failing you is greater than his love for you ever was. He’ll eat himself alive until he puts you to rest, and when he comes to you… oh dearest Cassie he’ll have to deal with all of it, every single ounce of his pain, all at once, and all while staring his dead, rotting love right in the face with her white eyes. Do you think he’s so strong to walk away from that?”

Cassie’s corpse would’ve wept if it could.

February 28th

A wise person once told me in order to gain courage in life, you need to face your fears first. Everything you face and conquer gives you confidence, strength, and courage for the things you have not faced yet. Courage is funny like that.

We went into the city yesterday to the other parking garage next to the hospital. I can safely say that I’ve gained a lot of confidence after this trip. Sadly, I’m still a little scared.

We left here in a four vehicle convoy heading straight for Spring Meadows literally at the crack of dawn. By the time we were rolling past MGR the sun had crested, the sky above had turned a lighter shade of blue, and we could see easily. The weather had finally broken, it was dry, and things looked good. It was an auspicious morning.

The ride getting to Spring Meadows was gravy until we reached the primary intersection somewhat near the airport that we’d left a radio hanging at. We had skirted that area on our way here the other day, but this time we decided to check the intersection and see just how successful our radio hanging off the traffic light was.

As it turns out, pretty fucking successful.

We stopped around a hundred fifty yards out from the gate at the community when we saw the fucking mob of undead, milling about in the center of the crossroads where we hung our very first radio. I want to give the Meadows people a high five for saying that this number of zombies was just 'above average.' I’d guess and say there were between three and four hundred undead wandering to and fro. Of course once they heard our motors running, and saw us pull into view, they started our way. They're good like that. I pulled Kevin up on the comms and told him I wanted to try my M203.

If you’ve never seen one before Mr. Journal, they’re a grenade launcher attachment that sits under your M4. You slide a single 40mm shell in, sort of like loading a shotgun with a hormone problem, slide that bitch shut, and seconds later you’re lobbing a fun and exciting explosive high through the sky towards your enemies. I hadn’t fired mine since Kevin hooked me up with it, so I wanted to. No real reason otherwise. I had a toy, and wanted to use it.

I fired three 40mm shells into the mass of undead. I wasn’t sure on the effective range of HE rounds, so I sent them about a hundred yards out, and hoped for the best. The three shells hit and blew with a powerful thump, bringing back memories of hot days in the sandbox. I missed the sensation of hearing and feeling the small projectiles explode at range. It’s strange I know, but true. Like riding a bike.

When the shells hit they sent multiple walking dead sprawling. The force of the explosion wasn’t tremendous, but their balance is terrible, and even a slight push can topple them. Abby and Caleb were spotting for me, and sadly, almost every one of the knocked down zombies got back up. The 40mm shell doesn’t have enough shrapnel to guarantee a lethal head wound. I hate to say this, but as an anti-zombie weapon, the M203 is lacking oomph. We'll just have to use them versus the living. Shucks.

The SAWs have no such drawback. They kill everything equally well. Ethan and Hal were in the turrets yesterday, and when they opened up on full tilt the bodies started dropping to the pavement faster than we could count. It was disgusting and exciting at the same time. So many shattered heads and skulls, and faces. But, each dead body was one less threat. One less mouth full of teeth that wanted to sink into our flesh. Sort of the soldier’s conundrum isn’t it? You must kill to save lives.

Once we’d smashed in enough skulls to ensure the vast majority of the dead we’d shot into were down, we hopped back into the vehicles, and using the HRT’s plow blade, we cleared a path through the dead bodies and continued on.

Not too far away from that, Spring Meadows had a small crowd of undead at their gate. I think ten, maybe twenty stayed and didn't come towards the sounds of our shooting. We popped them off from about twenty yards out, dragged their bodies out of the way, and the locals let us in. They were stoked to see us, the liberating force. They’d been laying low, trying to make as little noise as possible hoping the undead would simply leave. It was a decent plan, and many of the dead had in fact walked away towards the sounds of our dying radio. Unfortunately, they’d made enough noise to keep this little pack of them around.

Not much else to report from them. We dropped off our care package of supplies, garnering endless glee from the locals, and we shipped out fairly fast. We didn’t want to stay too long after making all that noise, and lead whatever might be following us to them. Always better to have the threat chasing the dudes with the most firepower. When and if they ever catch us, we’re prepared for them. See: famous last words. See also: Jinx Fairy.

Our first order of business approaching the hospital where Fitz died was checking on the perimeter radios. We had two radios near our approach to look at, and to a lesser degree they were packed with undead. We knew that any kind of operation at the parking garage with those populations nearby would be met with failure of the higher possible level, so we took the time to smash into them with the HRT and mow them down with fully automatic gunfire. Yay us. It’s amazing how much easier doing this is when you have weapons that fire 800+ rounds per minute and people experienced with shooting them.

I laugh at how hard it was to just drive ten minutes a year ago.

Getting the four intersections cleared on all sides of the parking garage was short work. We started in the south. Of course we also knew that our noise clearing the southern two intersections would draw the undead down from the northern two intersections. It was just a matter of time for them to shuffle, feet dragging all the way down to us where we were in the garage. Getting them moving isn't the worst problem, as often as not, that means they're spread out, and can be easier targets. After some suppressed M4 action to the south, then some suppressed M4 and M9 action to the north, we wrapped up the exterior street work with halligans and crowbars. It took over an hour, and was dirty work, but from the safety of the vehicles, and at range with people you trust covering your back, it was more methodical than frightening.

We got to work after that, as best we could. Sadly, that wasn’t all that well. The parking garage at the hospital was far different than the one at the apartment buildings. The ceiling clearance that allowed us to drive our trucks in at the other place was sadly missing here. When we started down the slight dip to go into the parking garage it was immediately apparent we would never get either the HRT or the deuce to the top floor, let alone just inside the damn garage.

We started to think of scrapping the plan. We knew we’d have another wave or two of undead on us sooner rather than later, and with no ability to drive our wood to the top floor, we’d take hours longer than the last time to get anything done. Ferrying by hand or in a jump started vehicle wasn't a pair of option we cared for. That’s when Blake’s eyes lit up like Christmas trees.

Blake saw that the Deuce was almost perfectly the right size to plug the vehicle entrance to the parking garage. The concrete barriers and fences would make for a pretty flush fit on the garage. If we shut a few of the doors and barred them, we’d be in business for keeping things shut out. We could easily transfer all the wood to the backs of the two humvees, drive that stuff upstairs, set the fires up, and lo and behold, we’d be done.

We elected to move forward using that plan.

Caleb parked the HRT in the street, well out of the line of fire should we need to open up on the encroaching undead. Martin pretty expertly parked the deuce across the entrance, ensuring that only undead that were smart enough to crawl under the deuce could get through. We solved that riddle after one of the humvees pushed a pair of cars behind the deuce, inside the garage and more or less blocking the path through entirely. For better or for worse, we were trapped in the garage.

Yesterday’s work was back breaking. Unload all the wood from the deuce, drive it up to the top deck, unload it, stack it on and inside the vehicles we wanted to set on fire, simultaneously getting all the fuel from the gas tanks we could, and all the while, shoot and take down the undead that were trapped inside the garage with us. Which, I might add, was a considerable amount.

We had to stop on every single level to get out and take down walkers, very trip up, and every trip back down. It was something else. The second level of the garage, which was just above ground level was the deck that fed into the main level of the hospital. It had nearly three dozen zombies wandering about, and it took us the better part of an hour to find them all and kill them on the first trip up. Unlike last time, we took the few extra minutes to check underneath all the vehicles. Yeah, it was a pain in the ass, but it was damn better than getting our ankles bitten. Abby's shin guards notwithstanding, we wanted to be sure.

We split up the groups into pairs, Ranger buddy style. One shooter/worker, one spotter. Four of us worked on the fire building, six of us worked on the drilling and explosives, and the remainder of us took firing positions from the middle of each level, taking down anything walking in our direction. We actually elected to use our suppressed weapons for this task. Despite wanting to make noise, at that exact moment we kind of wanted to be a little off the radar. With the living shooters we dealt with the last time we were there, it made sense to keep as quiet as possible. Says the guy who can't hear well today because of the concrete drills.

Quan did not approve of the garage here. The floors were much more densely made, and because the garage was linked to the side of the hospital, he felt collapsing the space was going to be a far more difficult project. It took a full hour longer than we anticipated to get the extra explosives put in. I mean shit, Quan put enough Semtex into that fucking place to level it twice over and he still wasn't sure it would be enough. Kevin disagreed with him, but who really knows? Quan it said it would likely work, but he wouldn't guarantee it. Too late now though.

Of course in order to drop as many floors as possible, he put the explosives on the second level, and not the first. The entry level was sunk into the ground a bit, as well as attached to the hospital, so planting the shit to blow that floor was a bad idea he said. He opted for the next deck up, which appears to him to be the way to go. I have absolutely no idea how to do anything related to explosives, or building demolition, so… gonna go with him and hope he’s right.

Our exit from the garage was a bitch. Despite posting shooters and having them be fairly busy the entire time we were there, a disturbingly large amount of undead had made their way to the base of the garage at the Deuce. After discussing logistics, Kevin and I made the call to shoot them. The basic problem was getting over the cars parked behind the Deuce, then INTO the Deuce itself, all without causing any excess danger to whoever took one for the team to do that.

So all of us piled into the middle level, and opened fire over the railing and down on the mass of undead down near the Deuce. We didn’t all have suppressors though, so we raised a hell of a racket. Not SAW kind of racket, we left those on the turret mounts. Just M4s and AR15 noise. Not that those weapons are particularly quiet. We’ve also been trying to rotate our suppressors out. They don’t last forever, and if we don’t take them off and maintain them, they blow out early and become useless. We remembered to take them off the weapons before opening up. They'd already pushed enough out.

After the first massive burst of fire we sent a team running in the humvee down to the entrance. A chain hooked to the tow hook of the humvee yanked the two cars out from behind the Deuce, and the spare shooters popped off the zombies that had fallen or crawled underneath the Deuce. Within less than five minutes we’d gone from surrounded, vehicles trapped inside, to smashing our way out of the downtown area in our full convoy.

The population had started to encircle us pretty good on the surface streets, and that was no more apparent than during the drive out of the city. Undead had managed to crawl their way into the streets and they made our trip out a little more frightening than the trip in. Fortunately they were spread out enough that the HRT was simply able to ram them over and out of the way. We hauled major ass through a totally new route to get back. It was sort of the same way as towards Spring Meadow, but also far enough south that it wouldn’t draw any attention to them. We certainly couldn't afford to run a trail of the dead that large to them.

Unfortunately, we hadn’t really scouted the route out well enough in advance, and we ran straight into the road being blocked by a three or four car accident at the south city limits. From memory it was a fire truck that had t-boned a semi, and took out a few cars in the process. Fortunately, there were just a few undead around the accident, and we were able to push the ass end of the semi truck out of the way before the zombies on the surrounding streets were able to close in on us. God bless Martin and his plow welding skills. We were also able to raid the fire truck for two more halligans, as well as multiple first aid kids, tools, and other assorted goodies. Blessing in disguise? You be the judge.

The remainder of our trip home was mercifully without incident.

Remember at the beginning of all this, I spoke about courage, and fear, and all that bullshit?

Late last night I had a strange dream that wound up with me sitting in a vague white room, at a small round table. The White Room.

It took me a minute or two to remember where I was, and what it meant when I was sitting there. Once I realized where I was, and what was probably coming, I took a few seconds to close my eyes, and soak in the warmth and glow of the room. It felt physically and emotionally reassuring to be in that space. Sort of like the memory you have of being in a parent’s embrace as a child, or when you’re sitting in the sun on a summer day, next to the girl you have a budding love for. All is right in the world. Things can't get any better than they are in that moment.

It felt good. Really good.

When I opened my eyes again I was no longer alone at the table. Arrayed across from me was Gilbert, and Fitz. I was not surprised to see Gilbert, but I was definitely sort of shocked to see Fitz there. He had been a... well, tertiary character in the world of the weird so far, and to have him show up in The White Room of all places, and so soon after his death was odd to say the least.

Both old warriors sat at the table, smiling at me, waiting for me to talk.

“Hey fellas,” I think I said to them.

“Son,” Gilbert replied. Fitz simply sat there, watching. He had a strange look on his face, like he was watching and waiting for something to make this all go away, like it was an illusion.

“Another dream eh? Something noteworthy around the corner huh?” I said.

Gilbert chuckled, and Fitz joined him. “You could say that Adrian,” Gilbert said.

“What pearls of wisdom are you here to share with me today? Good news I hope,” I asked him. I remember Fitz leaning back in his chair, looking back and forth between the two of us.

Gilbert shrugged like it was a matter of opinion. “You’re getting ready to go try and find her,” he said to me.

I thought for a bit, and finally nodded back at him. I didn’t know what else to say. He already knew the answer. I knew how much he'd probably already seen and felt on the other side. Something as big as what we'd been doing would leave ripples there. Echoes.

“You realize this is something that could break you? Destroy you. You know that if you see her left behind, dead and broken, eyes as white as bloody sheets your very soul could go rotten from the guilt you carry?”

Again I thought long and hard about this. I knew it would be difficult to face her if I found her, but I wasn’t expecting to lose my soul over it. I stood my ground. “Gilbert I need to do this. I need to either see her alive, or see her dead and somehow make amends. I can’t live my life anymore not knowing. I need to move on somehow. Closure man. Closure.”

This time Fitz spoke up, “Your bullshit here will get someone killed, you know that right? These trips you’re taking into the city are dangerous. Beyond stupid, and incredibly selfish. It already got me killed. There’s no reason to do this other than you cleaning up loose ends in your own goddamn head Adrian.”

Gilbert interrupted me as I tried to respond to Fitz, “Fitzy my boy, that’s what this is all about. It’s about everyone else supporting him. It’s about pulling together to save the soul of all mankind. Can’t you see? That’s what so much of this has been about, all this time? Trying to find something other than themselves to live or die for.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I simply answered Fitz, “Man I know this is selfish. I tried hard to get people to not join, I tried hard to do this alone, but they wouldn’t let me. You know Kevin. Michelle. They don't take no for an answer once they've set their mind. I don’t want anyone to get hurt or die for me. Enough already have.”

Gilbert let Fitz chew on that before starting to talk again, “Adrian this must be done for you to move on. It’s taken all this time for you to get where you need to be. Spiritually, physically, and emotionally. You've been tested all along. It’s taken this long for you to find a real and true reason to move on Adrian. Yourself. Your worth. Promise me one thing son. You lean on your people. You lean HARD on your people. They love you more than you can imagine, and without them by your side, all this is for naught.”

Michelle.

He was talking about Michelle.

I had no good reason to force myself to move on until now. I didn’t have the desire to purge my feelings for Cassie until I found someone I wanted in my heart as much as her. I made excuses, I made up reasons, and I definitely kept myself unhappy, and drowned myself in self pity. I wasn't worth it. I was arrogant, foolish, selfish, lazy, and not worth the food I ate, the water I drank, or the air I breathed.

But I see it for what it is now. I see this as the struggle. The whole struggle up until now, from June 23rd 2010 to the moment I write this, the entire struggle was me trying to make myself a better person. All my pain and suffering served as my crucible. My great test to make me the person that deserves to survive this, and deserves not only to love, but BE loved again. To believe I was worth it.

I’m not the piece of shit I think I am. Not the piece of shit I was. I’m a good person, with a future next to someone that I think is falling in love with me. Someone I think I’m falling in love with too.

There’s just one more hurdle to step over.

Cassie, forgive me, I love you, but I’m coming to finally put you to rest.

-Adrian

March 2012

March 1st

I feel large and in charge. I feel like a wise and omniscient military commander on the night before a large battle. I feel like General Eisenhower in early June of 1944. So much energy in the air tonight I can hardly breathe. I’m nervous, and excited, and scared, and a whole bundle of emotions I can’t even find the right words for right now.

At the same time I also sort of feel like instead of being the toe, I might actually be the shit circling the drain. It’s hard to tell right now. This is easily our most impressive and dangerous operation to date, and anything ambitious usually costs us pain, and lives. Ask any military strategist that. Calculating the likely amount of death in any operation is a sad requirement. What’s the return on investment?

My return might be high. I could find Cassie, and get closure, allowing myself a better chance to be a normal person again. But at what cost?

He asks no one in particular.

As it turns out, this is indeed a leap year, so we had an extra day, which was last night. I thought it was fitting that we started this operation on a day that occurs once every four years. It’s a rare occurrence on a rare day, and it seemed very fitting to me.

We just returned from two separate trips to our pair of parking garages. We have a small insertion team staged at both the Factory and Spring Meadows, and at roughly the same time, they went into the city to light the fires at the top of the parking garages. We had to time lighting the fires to coincide with nightfall. Otherwise the fires aren’t anywhere nearly visible enough to attract attention. I wasn’t on a team going out today. Kevin and Michelle both thought it was bad karma to participate in lighting the fires for whatever reason. Michelle kept saying she, “Had a feeling,” that if I went into the city so close to heading in to find Cassie something wouldn’t be right.

I’m not going to second guess her. She's the Savior. Not so soon after a White Room dream either. Not so soon after Gilbert told me to lean on those around me. Not so soon after Otis sent me off with a strange rub of his head on my leg. I can’t say what was strange about it… it was just strange. Like a… I’ll see you soon head butt.

Not that cats can send that much information with a head butt.

At any rate I cannot say exactly what happened on those trips, because it was all just told to me second hand. Kevin led the team into the parking garage at the hospital, and Joel led the team going into the apartment building garage. From what I heard from Joel’s team on return, their garage was a total clusterfuck. Covered from top to bottom in undead already, likely from the noise we’d made the other day. Joel said it was creepy as hell too. Like they were there, waiting for his team. An ambush. All of them were facing the road, blocking the path in to head up. I guess he had to hit them with the humvee leading, and floor it up to the top floor at top speed, driving right over the broken bodies.

The side of his humvee got smashed apart as they fishtailed around a bend and collided with a concrete post, but the vehicle survived. At the top, they hit one of the large piles of wood on a vehicle with some of our remaining lighter fluid, and torched the shit out of it. Once the fire had taken and they felt comfortable getting out, they blitzed down to the middle deck, and Blake hit up the car he’d set the car alarm in. Joel said the bastard went off immediately, straight according to Blake’s plan, and they mounted up, and got the fuck out. I guess they ran over a few dozen more undead on the way out, but they managed to scram back to the Factory with no injuries other than a few minor dings from the humvee crash.

The second team out, led by Kevin out of Spring Meadows had a fairly similar experience. No humvee crash on this run, but one of our guys, well, gals actually, took a ricochet to the leg. Not sure exactly how it happened, but it seems like a round skipped off a bumper or some of the concrete in the garage, and hit Angela in the calf. Nothing too serious, just some blood, some swelling, and a shitload of pain. She’ll be limping for weeks while that muscle mends, but shouldn't have any long lasting problems.

Kevin and team made it to the upper level, got their own supply of lighter fluid on the wood, and got their fire going fairly quickly. Things got very hairy for them when they dropped down a level to start the car alarm. Blake wasn’t there to do exactly what was needed, so it fell to Hector and Martin to try and figure the shit out. Hector, despite being Hispanic, is not that experienced with disarming car alarms. (Yes, that’s racially insensitive, but he said it to me just a few minutes ago himself, so I’m repeating it for the sake of history.)

Fifteen minutes from what I’m told. Fifteen minutes to get the car alarm to go off. Now the first trip to that garage, we had that place on fucking lockdown while we were working there. Entrances blocked and guarded, plenty of guns in the fight to pull security, all that jazz. This trip out the undead were almost waiting for them, so the ensuing firefight while the two men were getting the car going was by all reports, epic. I wish I'd been there. We sent all lower profile vehicles to that garage due to the entrance height, and all the vehicles took up defensive positions on the middle level. They fired across hoods over and over, mowing down targets as fast as they could acquire them. At one point Kevin said a few undead had gotten right on top of them while a couple of magazine changes were going down, and he had to draw his handgun to put them down before swapping his magazines on his main rifle.

They are so fucking lucky no one died. It sounds like they were minutes or even just seconds away from a complete wipe. I was getting sweaty just listening to them tell me the story. The kicker is; Kevin wasn't going to call for help. He didn't want us to march in after them as a QRF because he felt if their mission failed, we'd call the whole thing off, and that would've been for the best. I was so angry with him.

Anyway, that was earlier this afternoon and into the evening. Both teams made it out okay, with just minor injuries that are pretty normal for combat situations. Pinched skin, small cuts and abrasions, burns from flying brass, that kind of bullshit. There is always going to be a reasonable expectation of injury. Name of the game.

It was actually sort of funny to hear the AAR from those guys with Michelle and the Spring Meadows people right there. They were HORRIFIED to hear from Kevin and Hector how dicey it was. I think after the story the Spring Meadows people thought we were super heroes. I think they thought we could accomplish anything, anywhere, anytime.

I hope they’re closer to right than wrong.

We’ve got the fires set up to cascade into a second pile of wood on top of an adjacent car. The fires should work out that way. We’ve also got the fires set up to torch the interior of the car, and we’ve got some gasoline in the tanks that should blow as well, helping to set the second car off. Now when the second car catches, the same process should happen again. In theory, if we’ve done our jobs right, we’ll have almost 24 hours of fire and smoke, as well as maybe 6-8 hours of car alarm going off too. If the fires take properly, and burn out for a good long time, when we roll into the city to try and hit Cassie’s work, both parking garages will be absolutely full of the dead.

Now as far as blowing the explosives go… We need to get closer than where we are right now. Our detonators don’t have the range to go off from here (part of the problem of dealing with stolen shit, as opposed to proper load outs of new gear), so we can’t blow them until we’re within a half mile or so. This is what I’m told.

So we will depart, then when we are in range to make the Semtex blow up, we’ll hit the detonators. We have to be in two teams again to do this. Kevin, Michelle, Abby, Hal, and myself will take the detonator for the hospital. Joel will send another team into the area of the other parking garage, and at roughly the same time, we’ll all hit the switches, and if Quan and company did their job right, the garages will explode and collapse, hopefully killing all the undead meandering about inside them, or at the very least, trap them for a good long time.

As long as the explosives blow, we should be okay. The loud noise, dust and debris, and collateral damage of the Semtex going off should create such a diversion that even if there are no kills as a result, we’ll benefit. Smoke and mirrors baby.

From there on we head into the center of the office buildings, and straight to her office on the sixth floor. With any luck, we’ll catch a break and see her car outside on the street, and her body will be there in it.

We both know Mr. Journal that is not what will happen.

I can say with certainty this is likely to be the most difficult thing I have ever done, in a life filled with difficult experiences.

One way or the other, I plan on this trip being the end of my journey. Either I return a better man, able to move on, and start anew for real, or I don’t return at all. All in, is the expression.

I’m hoping for the first option, but let’s be honest… it isn’t up to me.

The people that are going with me to the city have been amazing. Abby and Hal are very supportive, positive, and reassuring. Hal’s wisdom is deeper than his years would indicate, much like Abby. The two of them are a cute couple. I’m glad they’re going with me, with us. Just having Abby’s face in the mix here has helped me stay calm.

Michelle has been no more than ten feet from me since we arrived here. She’s always watching my face and my body language to see how I’m doing. She is constantly putting a soft hand on my shoulder, or my arm to let me know she is here for me. When no one is looking, sometimes she scratches my back. I want to stand up and put my arms around her, pulling her close when she does these things, but it wouldn’t be right. Not just yet. Kevin is Kevin. Stoic, resolute, focused on the job at hand. When he senses I’m nervous, he picks on me, or cracks a joke, reminding me of who I am, and where I’m from. He keeps me grounded.

I’m a very fortunate person to have the friends I have. I love them.

We’re heading out under the cover of darkness on the morning of the 3rd. Hopefully the fires and car alarms have attracted enough attention that this will work. Otherwise, we’ll be making a very short, and very horrifying trip into the city.

If this trip ends with me dead, then let this be my farewell. Abby has instructions to take over for me should this happen and she survive. If we both die... then Mallory knows the password, and even with just one hand she can see to it who becomes the next Scribe.

If anyone does read this, thank you for taking the time to do so. It validates me. Gives me greater worth than I deserve as I write this.

Wish us luck.

-Adrian

The Crucible

Adrian’s eyes snapped open in the dark of the room he’d fallen asleep in just a few hours prior. He wasn’t in his bedroom back at Bastion, and that was disorienting. He was on a musty, dusty couch in the den of a large home inside a gated community. Spring Meadows was the name on the expensive sign that was affixed to the brick wall that surrounded the place. He was safe.

Weeks prior Adrian and his team of survivors had ventured to this very gated community to clear it out of undead and make it their own, but they found survivors inside. Unbelievably enough they were friendly survivors. Adrian could count the number of friendly people he’d met in the year and a half since the world came crashing to an end on his fingers. It’d take a lot a fingers, more than he had, but the number of fingers he’d need to count the assholes he’d met would be far, far larger. Miracles did happen.

The locals invited them in, and after breaking bread, drinking wine, and spending hours hearing of their mutual suffering, friendships were made, and an alliance struck. The two groups of survivors would bond into a cooperative union. Adrian was very pleased. The gated neighborhood was a fortress so long as the gate held. A ten foot tall thick brick wall surrounded the entire property, and the current inhabitants had cleared the interior of the undead that were everywhere roaming outside.

This night, this morning, March 3rd, 2012, Adrian and a small group of his closest friends were using the neighborhood as a staging ground to enter the nearby city. Adrian was to set out within hours to find some closure on something he’d put off for far too long. He was going to find the girlfriend he never tried to rescue that day. The day the world stopped living.

Cassandra.

The redheaded, pretty girl he never deserved. The feisty woman of Scottish heritage that he left to die when the undead began eating the world alive in city-sized bites. His guilt over the abandonment was epic. The months that had passed since that day were filled with self loathing and finding increasingly difficult ways to try and make amends. Adrian had nearly died rescuing others, killed to make it safe for those he cared about, skipped meals, and suffered so that others wouldn't have to. But Adrian had never taken the final, most critical step;

Try and find her, dead or alive.

He still wasn’t sure why it had taken him this long to build up the nerve. Was it the constant stream of crisis and nightmare the world thrust on him? Just getting by day to day in a world with no power, no grocery stores, no police, no fire department, no schools, and no safety was an emergency. Doing anything remotely selfish like trying to find personal closure was a pipe dream. A nightmare.

But not any more.

Adrian had committed to the trip to her work, where she was when it all came crashing down. Adrian tried to form a plan to go alone, but the people closest to him simply ignored his pleas. He threatened to leave alone. They threatened to follow him anyway.

A plan was formed.

It was a reach, this plan. It required weeks of preparation, dangerous trips deeper into the city than they had ever been, and lots and lots of explosives. To distract the undead in the center of the city while they searched for clues of her, they had established two “lure sites.” Two separate parking garages on different sides of downtown had been prepared to create a visual and aural diversion and trap the dead. Fires were lit on the upper levels, car alarms were triggered on the middle levels, and they’d used almost everything they had that could explode to rig each garage to blow. Two detonators were now in hand, one in Kevin’s hand, Adrian’s best friend, and one in Quan’s hand, the wily Vietnamese demolitions expert that had come halfway across the world with Kevin, searching for peace. When Adrian’s small group ventured into the city, the two groups would blow the explosives, theoretically collapsing the garages on the horde of undead that had gone to investigate the fires and the alarms.

As he dust settled, Adrian’s team would head as straight as they could to Cassie’s work. They would try to find her as fast as they could, and once satisfied, they’d leave. And there would be no leaving until Adrian was satisfied.

If all that went reasonably well, few would get hurt getting it done, and fewer still would die getting it all done. Adrian had little optimism everyone would walk away from today intact. Injuries were a guarantee. Death was almost certain for someone.

Adrian rolled his head to the side and picked up his watch. It needed no batteries, charging itself with the motion of his hands and arms each day. It was a good watch. It would've been expensive for him when the world still used money, and he worked for a wage. He already knew what time it was. 3:33 in the morning.

Threes. Everything important came in threes now. Adrian was a part of the Trinity, the mythical, impossible trio composed of his old Army buddy Kevin, and Michelle, a beautiful woman who happened to be an expert on religion. Adrian was the Scribe and the Soul, the man intended to document the suffering of those after the fall of mankind. Kevin was the Warden, the protector of the three. Michelle was the Savior, and the Soul as well, the one intended to help lead Adrian to salvation and redemption, thus freeing all of the remaining survivors of mankind from final judgment at the hands of the dead. It sounded illogical, impossible, and made Adrian laugh more than once. But it was real. Too much had conspired to prove its truth.

Strange things happened on March 3rd of the previous year. On the third hour of the third day, of the third month no less. It was no surprise to Adrian when the clock showed him it was 3:33. Threes.

It was the perfect time to start what might be his last day alive.

*****

“Are you sure you still want to do this? We don’t have to, you know. We can blow the garages, chalk it up as a win and move on to more pressing matters, like finding more food, and shooting the motherfuckers that shot Fitz,” Kevin said. Kevin and Adrian sat on the steps of the lavish five bedroom home they’d spent the night in. The sun was aglow in the east, the sky clear, and the wind was still. The weather was decent, even at five in the morning. The powers-that-be had given them good weather for their precarious journey.

Adrian spooned a hot mouthful of his MRE into his mouth and chewed it. Chicken and dumplings. It wasn’t bad, he thought as he mulled over Kevin’s suggestion. The food and his idea. He swallowed, took a swig of water from a hard plastic water bottle he carried and replied to his best friend as he dug another mouthful out of the pouch. “Kevin you already know one way or the other I’m not resting again until I get to her work. If I go and find nothing, at least I can say I tried. But I can’t NOT go. Not any longer. You know that.”

Kevin used his own spoon to dig a mouthful of hot MRE meal from his own pouch. The two men had shared more mornings like this than they could remember. They’d had a lot of meals in Iraq, right before missions that were more sensible than the one they’d be taking soon. Doing the impossible was the soldier's way.

“It was worth a shot. You know Adrian,” Kevin said as he savored the bite of food he’d heated up just minutes before, “I owe you everything man. You gave up your military career for me. I’d be nothing if it weren’t for you. I had a good life because of what you did for me."

Adrian shook his head, dismissing the notion. “That’s bullshit Kev. I gave up a career in the military for my best friend. I’d do it again if I had to. I did just fine once I got out. You had a lot more on the line when we got busted after RIP brother. I bounced back just fine. You don’t owe me shit. I hope you’re not doing this today because you think you owe me some retarded debt. We're even. More than even."

Kevin laughed. “No man. I’m doing this because I know you need it. Because it’s the right time to do it, and because it needs to be done. And because I love you like a brother. I’d do anything for you man. Hope you know that.”

Adrian looked over the tall, strong man that he’d nearly died for many times. The old adage that you “die for the man next to you” was very true. In the heat of war, the only motivation you have is to ensure that the people you went to war with came home safe with you. The bonds of blood have very little on the bonds of war, and strife.

Adrian felt a burst of warmth course through him he felt far too infrequently. He acted on it, “I love you man. Seriously.”

Kevin turned to Adrian, chewing a new bite of food. “Fag.”

Adrian shrugged, dismissing the insult from Kevin.

“I love you too man.”

Adrian nodded, knowing all along. The tall Mohawked leader of men scraped the bottom of his pouch clean and tossed it back into the bigger MRE bag. He stood tall, revealing the lean and powerful body that had been honed by nineteen months of hard work, and dangerous living. Even being shot in the neck hadn’t stopped him. He wore the ugly scar near his spine like a badge of honor now. The scar said to anyone who saw it, "This didn't kill me. What makes you think you can?" He looked as the sun rose on March 3rd, casting a golden glow on the world. Adrian stretched, and took a deep breath. Content to be with his friend.

“Alright motherfucker. Let’s get this done.”

*****

Adrian’s group for this fateful march towards possible doom was small. Much smaller than groups they’d had for trips less critical. Adrian insisted the bare minimum of life be risked on his foolish venture. He took with him the two other members of the Trinity, Kevin and Michelle, as well as one of his first allies and friends since the end of the world, the teenager Abby. Abby’s new boyfriend Hal, a British Royal Marine that had traveled with Kevin from England, insisted on making the trip as well. Budding love was a powerful motivator.

As Adrian climbed into their up-armored heavy rescue ambulance, he wondered how much of the trip into the city today was really due to his own budding love. He’d been slowly building a powerful attachment to Michelle, the blonde college researcher that was supposed to be his savior. She was warm, caring, intelligent, and most of all, patient with his bullshit. She understood him. Accepted him for who he was.

He wasn’t entirely sure he deserved time with a woman like that, but he knew how being with her made him feel. Adrian wanted to chase that feeling, to become exhilarated once more, but before he could do that, he needed to cut loose from the harsh memories and burdening guilt of leaving his last love behind.

“Ready old man?” Abby asked him. The tiny blonde was settling into her seat in the back of the ambulance. While the vehicle was moving, her job would be to fire out the small windows in the rear doors. Her boyfriend Harold was already in position, his M4 resting on the frame.

“Ready as I can be. You put your bib away for this? Got your pacifier? You didn't forget your binkie again didya?” Adrian joked with her. Abby was like his little sister, and he treated her that way. He watched her smile, watched the way Hal smiled when she did it. It’s the little things, Adrian thought as he pulled the seatbelt in the driver’s seat across his chest.

Michelle climbed into the rescue truck through the passenger door, brushing her hip against Adrian’s shoulder as she passed. Adrian caught himself making the same smile as Hal. He shook his head in amusement at himself. Michelle sat in the center of the ambulance on the edge of the stretcher. She had no weapons or shooting skills. Michelle’s presence was largely for moral support, and as Adrian imagined, she would be far more important than any of the actual shooters realized. Before this day was over, Adrian suspected she might be the most important person here.

Kevin pulled himself up into the truck through the same entrance and shut the steel plated door. Martin, their resident welder and handy man extraordinaire, had secured steel plating to the sides of the truck in an attempt to divert small arms fire. They’d been shot at enough by other groups of survivors to know every advantage mattered. Kevin rolled the window down and rested his M4 on the door. The two men exchanged looks and nods, and the tall man with the Mohawk in the driver’s seat got the heavy diesel engine stirred to life. The massive motor grumbled powerfully under the large hood, right behind the steel snow plow affixed to the bumper. The plow was designed to smash the bodies of undead to the side, not remove snow. Adrian rolled down his window and leaned out, addressing the small handful of Spring Meadows residents who’d gathered to see them off.

“Thanks again.”

Agnes, the tall platinum blonde wife of and co-leader of the community smiled up at Adrian, “It’s our pleasure. We’re all cheering for you. Be safe.”

Adrian grinned. “If I wanted to be safe, we wouldn’t be going. I’ll be smart instead.”

Anders, Agnes’ husband, put his arm around his wife and they both nodded with a smile. They knew this very well could be the last time any of them saw each other alive. But every goodbye was the same now. Such was the way of the world.

Adrian put the truck in gear and moved it slowly towards the gate. Two of the residents pulled one side of the gate open for them as two more provided basic security with hunting rifles. Luckily the fires and car alarms at the parking garages had wicked away the small number of undead that were normally near the gate. He'd heard the faint electronic bleating of the alarms when it was dead in the night, but now the batteries of the vehicles were dead, and the city was silent, save for the noise they were making. Adrian hoped it would be a safer drive into the city as a result of all their ground work.

When the gate was fully open, Adrian gassed the truck and it and its human contents slid out into the wilds of the open world. No walls to protect them, no gate to hide behind to keep out the madness.

When the gates fully closed behind them in unison Hal, Abby, and Kevin each charged the bolts on their rifles, and thumbed the safeties to semi. Kevin reached over and flicked the safety on Adrian’s weapon at his side for him.

No one said anything.

*****

“Half a mile, no more. We’re using old shit here Adrian,” Quan said over the walkie, miles away. Quan was part of the second team moving into the city from the west, moving towards the second parking garage they intended to blow.

His accent has gotten a lot better. “Alright then. We’ve got a few miles of road to go. Anything else you wanna share with us? Other than what we went over in the briefing?” Adrian let go of the transmit button on the heavy police walkie and put both hands on the wheel. The rescue truck shuddered as Adrian drove it straight into a pair of undead standing in the street. The undead never tried to get out of the way.

Michelle winced in the back as the vehicle shook ever so slightly as the bodies tumbled round and round against the plow blade, eventually skipping to the side and around the squat vehicle. Each collision with a body was a resounding thump that shook her. Michelle had seen more than her fair share of nightmare, but this was different. Almost every time when she was in danger, they were running FROM it, not TOWARDS it.

Quan responded to Adrian with good news, “Nothing big guy. We’re two miles out staged and ready. We can be in range in less than five minutes. Population is pretty clear too.”

Kevin leaned in slightly, never taking his eyes off his section of the road for danger. He spoke to Adrian, “We’re maybe five minutes out as well. They can probably move.”

Adrian nodded, steering the truck over and into another shambling dead body. The dead woman wearing a barista's smock bounced off the plow blade with a metallic bang. “Alright, if you want to move now, go for it. Kevin says we’re about five minutes from detonator range as well. Barring traffic of course.”

“Ha. Copy that. We’re moving.”

Adrian clipped the walkie on his belt and returned his hand to the steering wheel. “We won’t be in walkie range when we reach detonator range on the hospital garage. We’ll have to relay messages through Spring Meadow. Even then it’ll be dicey.”

Kevin smirked. “This plan is awesome. Remind me again why I’m doing this.”

“You have a crush on me.”

“Oh yeah. Totally forgot about how much I am fixated on your dick. Just can’t imagine a life without it.” Kevin’s delivery was monotone.

“You two are something else,” Michelle said from slightly behind them. She was laughing, as were Hal and Abby further back in the ambulance.

Adrian agreed with her, “We are indeed Ms. Lewis. We are indeed.”

*****

The sound of the parking garage exploding on the other side of the city was incredibly loud, even though they were miles away. It echoed and rumbled the chest. No radio warning forecasted the demise of the massive concrete structure, so when the series of explosions rocked the sky and sent the birds soaring from their perches, all that Adrian could mumble was, “Holy shit.”

Kevin leaned down and looked to the left across Adrian and saw the plume of smoke and dust jetting into the sky several miles away. From the size of the cloud of debris issuing upwards, Kevin judged that the entire structure had succumbed to Quan’s careful placement of explosives. “Well, I’d say 'operation blow that shit up over there' went down successfully. Hopefully everyone made it okay.”

Adrian scooped up the walkie off his belt and transmitted, “Quan? Ethan? Can you guys get this?” There was no response. Adrian tried a different tactic, “Agnes? Can you read this?”

A few seconds later Agnes came back over the walkie. Her delivery was awkward, like she hadn't used one before, “Yes— Adrian.”

“Can you try to get Quan or Ethan on the walkie and see how they’re doing? We’re further out than you from them. Need you to act as our pony express.” Adrian tilted his chin towards a few undead shuffling across the street fifty yards ahead of them. The three zombies moved with intent across the street, heading towards the very distant explosion, ignoring the lumbering rescue truck. It was working.

“That’s a great fucking sign,” Kevin said quietly. Adrian nodded, waiting for Agnes to respond. A few moments later she did.

“Adrian, Ethan just radioed and said they were on their way back to the Factory, and that everything went well. He said there were a lot of zombies in the building.”

“Fantastic thank you. Tell them I said thank you please,” Adrian put the walkie away on his belt.

“We’re about there, man. We can hit the detonator.” Kevin looked over as he reached down to a small backpack where he’d stored the small explosives detonator. He pulled it out quickly and looked it over, confirming how to operate the device.

Adrian down shifted the truck and brought it to a rest in the center of an intersection. Hal and Abby leaned over the sights of their weapons, looking out the back door windows, preparing for the stop. They were always in greater danger when the vehicle wasn’t moving. Adrian lifted his carbine from the floor and rested it on his own door after rolling the window down. He scanned for targets as Kevin put the batteries into the detonator, and prepared to hit the switch.

“Grab your britches kids,” Kevin said softly, and he hit the switch.

Nothing happened.

Kevin hit the switch again, and the same as last time, nothing happened.

“What the fuck?” Adrian asked, looking back to Kevin quickly. Kevin looked up to make sure nothing was approaching the vehicle, then back down to the detonator. He checked the batteries to make sure they were in the device, and then tried the switch again.

Suddenly a thump hit the passenger door of the truck. Kevin leaned into the vehicle as a hand covered in dried blood and bile reached high to drag nasty fingers along the edge of the window frame. A zombie had approached in their dead spot.

“Fuck,” Kevin said, drawing his sidearm. He postured up, getting a good look down at the corpse trying to claw and climb its way into the ambulance. He thumbed his Beretta’s safety off and popped off a round into the face leering up at him. Inside the truck the snap of the gun going off was incredibly loud. Michelle covered her ears as a reflex. The body crumpled to the pavement, fully dead. Kevin slipped the pistol back into the holster on his thigh, and triggered the detonator again. Nothing happened.

“What do we do?” Michelle asked, sensing the sudden change of events. She watched the spent shell casing from Kevin’s shot spin like a top on the floor of the ambulance.

“We should abort. I don’t think the single building collapse is enough of a distraction. I think we need both,” Kevin said, searching the outside for more undead sneaking up on them. He didn’t look to Adrian for his opinion. He already made up his mind.

Adrian looked at Michelle. She had a mixture of fear and dejection on her face. Somewhere deep inside her Adrian could sense a huge amount of disappointment over having to cancel the trip into the city. She wanted Adrian to find closure almost as much as Adrian wanted it for himself. Both of their hearts were on the line, stupid as it may sound in his head.

Adrian already knew what was next. “We go forward. The first explosion is more than enough. The second location has already drawn in enough for us to make it downtown. The explosions were always overkill anyway.”

Kevin slowly rotated his head to his friend. The slow speed of the motion and Kevin’s upraised eyebrows told Adrian everything he needed to know.

“You don’t have to go. No one else has to go. It’s okay.”

Kevin guffawed, “Yeah fuck you, like that’s an option. I’ll go.”

“We were in this today no matter what Adrian,” Abby said quickly.

“Aye mate. Sink or swim,” Hal said, fully in league with his woman as well as Adrian.

Adrian looked to Michelle, already knowing what she’d say, “Adrian I’ll be going wherever you and Kevin go today.”

“So be it. Thank you.” Adrian rested his carbine next to his thigh, put the truck back into drive, and gave it the gas.

*****

“Contact left, five,” Kevin said loudly right before he shouldered his M4 and snapped off a rapid series of shots, dropping two of the zombies he’d just called out. He would've hit more, but shooting while driving was harder in real life than it was in the movies.

“Contact rear right, three in an alley,” Abby said equally as loud, and with just as much confidence. She brought her AR up to her own tinier shoulder, and fired a handful of shots, almost as accurately as Kevin. Michelle sat in her centered spot, her hands over her ears again, trying to protect her hearing from the incredibly loud gunfire, made that much worse by the tight confines in the vehicle.

Adrian didn’t respond as Hal called out contact in his sector as well. Adrian looked to his left and saw a handful of the walking dead shuffling out of the storefronts and alleys they drove past. The sweat on his eyebrow stung as it dripped into his eye. He wiped it away and felt the plow’s blade impact more of the shamblers in the street. They were surrounded, and the further they drove, the worse it got. Looking ahead he could see dozens of undead scattered in the street, closing in on them like piranha at a feeding frenzy. Soon there would be too many to simply drive through.

“Fuck this. We need to find a better route in. Get 'em on our heels,” Adrian barked out, aiming the heavy ambulance towards the next street he could turn on. The easiest, most clear route was east, towards the hospital garage where the explosives had failed. This would be an uncharted route for the group.

"GO GO GO!” Kevin nearly screamed, rattling off the remainder of his magazine at the thick front line of the army of the damned, amazingly hitting almost a half dozen zombies in the head. Adrian was peripherally aware of the amazing shooting display and felt a rush. He heard Abby and Hal’s guns barking constantly as they made the turn towards the hospital. Adrian wished the area near the parking garage was clearer than the area here. Hopefully the noise and fires created a void of undead they could slip through.

Adrian gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles lost all their color.

*****

“He comes for you.”

Cassie’s body jerked to life in the silent, pitch black elevator. Her sluggish, mostly dead mind struggled to wrap itself around the idea of the man she loved coming for her. Like water and oil her thoughts circled and clashed. The corrupted, rotten portion of what was left of Cassie wanted blood, hot flesh torn from the bone. It wanted vengeance. The underlying sweetness and purity of Cassie was both excited to see the man she loved, and fearful of how little control she had over herself. That part of Cassie knew with certainty the other part would try to hurt him. The Voice would see to it, and there was precious little she could do about it. She could fight, but it would a war.

“Go to him. Use the old one’s body now like good puppets.”

Melanie and Cassie’s bodies creakily got to their feet, and reached out with blind hands until they reached the body of Alan. Alan’s corpse was lethargic, stirring only slightly as the two female zombies began to yank and pull on one of his decayed and weakened arms. Melanie leaned down in the darkness and began to eat away at the shoulder meat, biting the flesh open for it to tear free easier. After several minutes of frantic, uncoordinated tugging, and biting, the arm came loose from the shoulder. Melanie took the arm and slowly began hitting the elevator door with it. The exposed shoulder bone eventually chipped and cracked, breaking in half and splintering into a jagged edge. One half of the arm fell to the floor where Cassie picked it up.

Melanie took the sharp shard of Alan’s arm bone and crudely jammed it into the gap in the doors of the elevator. Cassie’s corpse wedged her bone into the space as well, and the two zombies slowly began the process of prying the doors apart using body parts.

Minutes later, the two dead women had the interior door of the elevator apart. The escape from their wretched prison was in full, rotten swing.

*****

“It’s clearing up. We’re about two blocks from the hospital. Right near one of the radios we hung from the traffic lights. Should be smooth sailing from here to there, then we cut north and go about five blocks. Let’s try to go guns silent for a bit,” Adrian yelled out. Kevin nodded emphatically, wiping his brow of sweat and swapping the magazine in his weapon. Abby and Hal did the same in the back. Adrian was incredibly thankful they’d brought so many magazines.

“How are you not all deaf? All this gunfire is so amazingly loud,” Michelle said, rubbing her temples.

“What?!” Adrian asked back, turning to look at her.

“I asked how are you not all deaf?!” Michelle said again, louder this time.

“What?!” Kevin responded back to her, looking to see what she said.

“Oh real funny. Hilarious. You two are a bunch of clowns.”

Kevin and Adrian shared a grin, and both turned forward.

That’s when the world rose up on them, heaving the pavement six feet high underneath the rescue truck, flipping it on its side as it careened down the street out of control, twisting metal and plastic into unrecognizable shapes. Something incredibly powerful had just exploded underneath the truck. The humans inside were tossed around like blood filled ice in a drink shaker.

The world went dark for the five occupants of the shattered vehicle.

And Michelle thought the guns were loud.

*****

Michelle opened her eyes and immediately realized something was wrong with the right eye. Everything was pink, and it stung like an angry bee had gotten trapped inside it. Her mouth tasted coppery, and she spit blood. The taste in her mouth reminded her of the night she witnessed horrors in the Glade. She blinked repeatedly, winking blood free, returning her vision to something approaching normal. The  taste lingered still. She was atop a cabinet affixed to the side of the ambulance. The ambulance itself had been turned on its side from what she thought must have been an explosion, and the entire front of the vehicle, where the engine was, had been demolished somehow. She looked out the shattered windshield and saw nothing but motor parts, bent steel, and what remained of the hood.

Her head hurt very much.

Adrian was still strapped to his seat, dangling into the center of the vehicle, knocked unconscious. She watched as a steady stream of blood pitter-pattered from his jaw across the truck. It drizzled across the cabin to where Kevin had sat, hitting the ground outside near where his head should have been. But he wasn’t in the seat. The window and door where he had been sitting was gone; only pavement remained. A pool of Adrian’s blood the size of a dinner plate was now staining the street.

Michelle panned her head around the cabin, seeing where Kevin’s body came to rest. He was face down just half a foot from her, still inside the safety of the vehicle. She gently shook the cobwebs from her head with a few deep breaths, and reached down to touch his neck. She felt a strong thumping against her finger, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Behind her she saw Abby, who had just sat up and rubbed her forehead. She was free of injury, but from the look on her face she had been shaken badly by the surprise that had just been unleashed on them. Abby shook Hal’s leg and he roused shortly after. Michelle awkwardly stepped over the debris scattered in the vehicle trying to get to Adrian. She stepped on the stock of his weapon and for no good reason picked it up. She had no idea how to use it, but she knew stepping on it was bad.

“Adrian, babe you gotta wake up,” Michelle said, kneeling near him, trying to avoid the blood coming from the large gash on the underside of his chin. She shook his shoulder slightly, and he jerked to life, scrambling to get to his sidearm. When his eyes locked onto Michelle’s he stopped moving immediately, staring at her, assessing the situation. He looked past her and saw Kevin sitting up, shaking his rattled brain back into place.

“What the fuck happened?” Adrian asked, still hanging sideways in the driver’s seat. He grabbed the bent steering wheel to shore his halted, falling body.

“IED maybe. Mine. Not sure. Something fairly big hit us. Or we hit it,” Kevin said softly, gathering his M4 from the side of the vehicle he sat on. He checked the action to ensure the weapon was functional.

“Fuck my life,” Adrian said, spinning his torso to right himself. He put a foot on something sturdy under what was left of the dash and clicked the belt free. He caught his weight with his hands and slowly lowered himself to the pavement that was covered in his own blood. Michelle looked around and saw a large bandage that had been knocked free of a cabinet. She reached up and pressed it to his chin, staunching the steady flow of blood. The white bandage turned dark.

“Gather everything we might need. We need to move fast or we’ll be surrounded big time. That explosion will draw in some serious bad news and time is a factor,” Kevin said as he gathered medical supplies and two of the satchel style bags of spare magazines they’d brought. He reached up to the side of the vehicle that passed as the ceiling and popped the latch on a long cabinet. A long, tubular weapon dropped out, and he caught it deftly.

“Seriously Kevin? You brought a fucking AT4?” Adrian asked incredulously, taking his weapon from Michelle as she affixed the bandage to his chin. He seemed groggy to the others, but was focusing fast.

“You’re asking that question like bringing it WASN’T sensible brother. If I had an aircraft carrier and a hundred shit-filled slingshots I’d have brought those motherfuckers too. Carried the sumbitches downtown myself.” Kevin said nonchalantly. “How’s the back look Abby?”

Abby leaned over and peered out the small windows in the back of the ambulance. “It doesn’t look that bad, maybe ten or twelve out there. Nothing we can’t handle. Wait, wait. Maybe twenty.”

“Alright, everyone ready?” Kevin asked.

“We’re still moving on the target right?” Adrian asked. He leaned back slightly to see through the small openings through the wreckage. He saw a small number of undead coming their way.

“What the fuck are we going to do when we get there? Do we seem combat effective to you?” Kevin asked, looking at him.

“Not much has changed man. We're all upright. Just buy me time. We aren't far, and I won’t be long.”

Kevin looked around the inside of the truck, looking for something that might inspire him. He looked for something that might give him an idea that’d allow them to finish this godforsaken mission. He saw Quan’s failed detonator propped up against a broken crutch and picked it up. He thought for a few seconds, and then an idea hit him. “We can do this if we split up into two groups. One group heads out to wherever the fuck you think Cassie is. I’ll take a second group to the garage and see if I can’t get the damn explosives to go. If I can blow it, we’ll be on easy street. At the very least, I’ll chuck some grenades and see if I can’t steal a fucking car for the ride home.”

“I’ll go with Adrian,” Michelle said.

After a moment’s conversation Hal added, “We’ll go with Kevin. He’ll need cover to fix whatever is wrong with the explosives.”

Adrian nodded, feeling his waist for the walkie that was miraculously still attached. He pulled it free and started talking, “Agnes, you there? Anyone receiving this?”

“Yes Adrian go ahead,” the tall woman responded, her voice scratchy from the distance. She sounded less awkward.

“Our vehicle has been hit by some kind of explosive device. We’re on foot. If you can pass the message along to the others and get them informed that’d be great. We’re two blocks due west of the hospital parking garage. If they send anyone, have them get into radio contact with us when they get in the area.”

“Okay I’ll call them right now,” Agnes said. Adrian turned down the radio as he heard her pass the message along to people who he couldn’t hear.

“I thought you said you didn’t want anyone else to risk their asses for this?” Kevin said, checking to make sure his weapon was still working.

“I don’t want anyone risking their ass for me. I want them to come pull your asses out of this fire. I could give a shit if I burn and rot,” Adrian said, motioning for Abby and Hal to get ready to open the double doors at the back of the ambulance. “Here, take this,” Adrian said, freeing his Kimber 10mm pistol and magazine pouches for it from his thigh and belt. He handed them to Michelle and helped her strap the weapon on.

“Thanks. I don’t really know how to use it though,” Michelle said, looking at Adrian’s big brown eyes, showing him her fear of the weapon.

“The safety is off. Point it at what you want to shoot and pull the trigger. When it clicks dry, push this button, pull the empty mag out and put a new magazine in. Then hit that button. Even if you can’t hit the head the muzzle velocity of the round should send them stumbling for a few seconds. It’ll give us time.” Adrian showed her how to swap the magazine quickly before sliding the pistol into the holster. Michelle nodded, fearful of the weapon of war.

“Ready?” Kevin asked.

“I didn’t bring any condoms. Oh well, let’s go anyway. Any port in a storm.”

“Let’s rawdog this motherfucker. Fucking A. Abby, Hal, lead the way.” Kevin shouldered his weapon as the young couple lowered and lifted the rear doors of the lopsided ambulance simultaneously.

The crowd of undead at the rear of the ambulance were still yards away, except for two who were danger close. As Hal and Abby raised the barrels of their rifles up to take them out, they were blinded and deafened by the road exploding again. Thirty paces out and on the other side of a parked car the pavement and part of the sidewalk vaulted into the air, sending a pair of the dead pinwheeling into the air, their bodies mangled. Most of the dead bodies approaching the tattered group of survivors were tossed to the ground from the explosion.

"Holy fucking shit!" Abby screamed as she shielded herself from pieces of falling dead body, and black chunks of scorched asphalt. It rained down with loud plunks on the now flipped over ambulance. It was a stroke of mercy that they were all still inside the vehicle. Were they out, they'd have been hit by falling debris.

"Mines? What the bloody fuck?" Hal yelled out as the undead got to their feet.

Two undead had made their way to within feet of the back door. A male and female zombie were shambling forward, teeth grinding and fingers clawing, dressed in blood soaked business casual. Hal acquired one face, pulled the trigger, found the second face and did the same. The undead couple weren’t even face down on the ground by the time he was out and looking for more targets. After a quick 360 degree check of the environment he dropped to a knee and started firing as fast as he could find heads to shoot at. The explosion had only bought them seconds.

Abby and Kevin were on his heels, covering his back and taking down their own targets. Adrian walked into the sunlight out the back of the ambulance, holding Michelle’s hand without realizing it. The air smelled of cordite, ozone, and burning flesh. He watched as his three shooters absolutely decimated the thirty or so undead surrounding their position in the street. He suddenly felt a perk of hope in his heart. We might be able to do this.

“Holy fuck, look at the road in front of the truck. What are those? Is that what just blew up?” Abby said as she pointed down the street. Every five feet or so were small craters or tiny unexploded bomblets. They were scattered about as if they’d been dropped randomly from the sky. They had a faint menace to them, like an angry wasp in the air hovering near your face.

Adrian took Michelle around the side of the ruined rescue truck and looked. His eyebrows perked up in surprise. “I think those are unexploded cluster bombs. The Spring Meadow people said something about this. Who the fuck approved dropping these here in the city?”

Kevin looked over his shoulder at the bombs, and then went back to his shooting. “Some retard general most likely. Brigadier General Lead Paint Chips and his aide-de-camp Captain Sex Withmuhsister. Everyone be careful where you step. Adrian, you and your runway model need to get moving.” Kevin snapped off a few more rounds as more undead came into view.

“Kevin, comms check in thirty seconds. Switch to the military gear,” Adrian said loud enough for his friend to hear him over the gunfire.

“Roger that. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Make good decisions. Be handsome,” Kevin said back.

"Anything else?" Adrian asked his best friend.

Kevin shook his head and shot a zombie fifty yards out. "No, you already said you didn't have condoms."

"That I did. See you three soon," Adrian said, and he took Michelle's hand. The Souls took off running, Adrian letting go of her small hand to put his free hand on the M203 slung under the front of his M4. He slowed his pace for a few moments, steadying himself, snapping off a few rounds at a few undead that were in the direction he and Michelle were heading. Michelle was taken by surprise at how easy the large man made the shooting look. She always knew Kevin and his men could shoot; they were professionals by trade. Adrian had never shown that level of skill to her before. She suddenly felt the same pang of hope that Adrian had felt moments before.

The two of them reached a small side street that’d allow them to cut towards Cassie’s place of work. Adrian dropped to a knee and put his red dot over the forehead of a teenage zombie that was missing an arm. From waist to shoe one side of his dead body was covered in dried, crusty blood. He stroked the trigger of his weapon smoothly, and ended the teen’s days of shambling aimlessly. Adrian wondered if the kid shambled aimlessly when he was alive too. “Kevin, radio check.”

“Loud and clear. Raise hell. See you when this is over.”

“Roger that brother. Sua sponte,” Adrian said back quickly so he could snap a round off at a zombie that had gotten uncomfortably close.

“Make it happen.”

*****

Cassie walked out of the elevator and into the hallway of the abandoned office building, flanked by her two Lieutenants. Both Melanie and Cassie clung onto a portion of Alan’s shattered arm as if they were weapons to be used against the living. Cassie looked around the empty hallway, her dim intelligence and the guiding will of evil steering her towards the stairwell where she could head lower in the building towards where her love approached.

Her hunger for him was on many levels, good and bad, and it was powerful.

*****

The herd packed into the parking garage was second to none. Kevin had visions of the day Mildenhall fell to the undead as they rounded the corner, but this seemed worse. There were variables here that weren't present in England. A wall of flesh was packed into the concrete structure from front to back, and side to side on each level visible from the ground. Thankfully the undead were preoccupied with something inside the garage, and the trio of warriors had not yet been discovered on their approach.

“Oh holy fuck,” Hal said softly. He wiped more sweat off his black brow with the back of his wrist as he caught his breath.

“Oh shit,” Abby said softly as well. She turned to check their rear as the three gathered ideas for what to do next.

Kevin slid his weapon around to his back as he dropped to a knee. He sat the AT4 down on the ground and slipped a small pair of binoculars from a cargo pocket on his pants leg. He scanned the structure for a solid minute, looking for a solution to a problem that seemed insurmountable.

“We still trying to blow that place?” Hal asked, taking a knee and sighting the garage through his rifle mounted ACOG scope.

“Fuck yeah. Didn’t come to the prom to not dance. The good news is the bottom where all the explosives and wiring are is pretty empty at the moment. If the bombs aren’t blowing, my bet is one of these dead bitches tripped on a wire or something and somehow unhooked the wiring Quan did. If we go in silent, using suppressors and move really fast looking for loose wires, we might be able to do this. Thoughts?” Kevin turned to ask the other two what they thought.

“I’m game,” Hal said quickly.

Abby nodded without hesitation. “My AR doesn’t have a suppressor. I’d need to borrow one of your pistols, or one of your M4s. Other than that, I’m down. Adrian needs this diversion, and at this rate, we need it to get the fuck out ourselves.” Abby looked both men in the eye, showing her resolve and strength. Kevin smiled, amazed at how strong this young woman was.

“Alrighty then. Take Hal’s M4. Hal you take mine and the 40mm grenades for the M203. I’ll go with my M9. I'll do the wiring shit when we get inside. Abby I can carry your AR, hand it to me.”

“You’re already carrying your rocket launcher Kev. I’ll carry it fine,” Abby replied as she took Hal’s fully automatic weapon from him.

Kevin handed his carbine to Harold and drew his pistol to affix the suppressor. “Okay. Slide in and out, stay quiet. In and out as fast as we can.”

The two men quickly got to their feet and began sprinting towards the base of the parking garage, Abby just a few feet behind them. The parking garage’s lower level was half below ground. There was a four foot opening running almost the entire perimeter of the bottom floor that looked into the space that Kevin moved to. The entrance for vehicles was on the opposite side of the massive garage, and slipping in through the gap was much faster. He cleared the space directly below where he’d drop with his pistol, and slung his body through the space. He hit the concrete floor softly, and came up, looking for targets and covering Hal and Abby as they followed his lead. Nothing saw them enter the garage, and the closest zombie was a dozen yards away.

“Spread out and clear the threats. Let me shoot first. Check for breaks in the wires,” Kevin said softly. His pistol was quieter than the higher velocity M4s.

Abby and Hal responded by moving in different directions, looking for the wires that linked all the charges planted inside the pillars and supports.

Kevin lifted his pistol and put the small dot of the front sights on the head of the closest zombie. He exhaled slowly and pulled the trigger, feeling the gentle bucking of the gun’s recoil. His mind registered a fine grey and pink mist blossoming from the back of the skull of his target as it crumpled to the concrete. He heard the metallic ‘ting’ of the shell casing hit the hood of a sedan beside him. He smiled and moved forward, feeling the predator inside him urge him on.

From far behind him Abigail Williams heard the ‘thwip’ of the pistol going off as well as the metallic clinking of the spent shell hitting the ground. She was shocked at how the metallic noise of the casing hitting the ground was actually louder than the gun going off. Military silencers are quite advanced, she thought to herself.

Abby’s eyes darted from ground to chest height as the wire dipped up and down. She traced it from pillar to pillar as she moved further and further away from the two men she was with. Abby stopped every few steps to turn and scan the garage nearby. The last thing she wanted to do was walk into a wandering zombie and die from stupidity. Adrian would find her, dead or alive, and smack the shit out of her if that happened.

Abby came to the main pillar at the far corner of the garage where Quan had left some box connecting several of the wires together. She saw clearly several wires had been yanked or kicked free, and were curled out into the floor of the garage, right out in the open. Abby took stock of the situation and saw nothing even remotely close to the wires.

Abby reached up and triggered the transmit button on the expensive throat microphone they were all using. She heard her own voice in the tiny ear bud in her right ear, “Kevin I found several wires loose over in the… south east corner of the garage. Near that boxy thingy Quan left. I’m gonna grab the wires and drag them to the box if you want to come over and have a look at it.”

“Sounds good Abby. Hal can you collapse on that position and provide cover for us?”

“Aye. Headed your way now,” Hal said quickly.

“You guys found the problem with the explosives?” Adrian asked over the comms network. All three people in the garage could tell he was huffing and puffing hard. If Adrian was winded, Michelle must be dying from exhaustion.

“It appears so. If you hear the world crack in half in a few minutes, consider that confirmation. You two okay?” Kevin said as he moved slowly towards Abby, his pistol up and ready in the event anything moved. He saw a zombie standing in the street thirty feet away and slowed slightly to pop a round into its head. The pistol recoiled gratifyingly, sending a round into the throat of the dead man. The hit staggered him, but missed the spinal column. He stopped entirely and put a second more accurate round into the corpse’s temple. Kevin was moving before the dead body hit the street.

“Yeah. We’re running a bitch of a Mogadishu mile though. Getting thick as black flies in spring out here. Any kind of loud ass noise would be highly fucking appreciated riki-tik.”

Kevin smiled as he reached Abby and crouched, taking the wires she’s collected and looking to make heads or tails of them. “We’ll do what we can brother. Use your suppressor, we’ll start to make noise to help in less than a minute I think.”

“Roger that.”

“Great job little woman. You can fight in my squad any day,” Kevin said as he took the wires from the teenager. Abby nodded. Statements like that didn’t even give her pride like it used to anymore, such was her confidence. Now she simply appreciated being appreciated. “Simple fix too. If you want, go help Hal, and pull the suppressors off after the first few shots. Any noise we can make now will help Adrian and Michelle.”

“You got it Kev,” Abby said. She left Hal’s M4 with Kevin and took off at a jog to join her man, unslinging her AR as she went.

Kevin took quick stock of the situation and saw the solution. Three wires had come loose, breaking the circuit on the explosives, rendering the detonator useless. Rewired back in, the explosives would be back in business. He started repairing the problem immediately.

Hal’s suppressor was off by the time Abby reached him. He’d already put two and two together regarding the noise making. He was a smart man.

“Hey Hal, why don’t you take off the supp— oh, never mind,” Abby said as she reached his position behind the trunk of a Cadillac. “Looks like maybe four or five up there?”

“Yeah. Not too many. I think taking those down will draw some attention away from Ring and Michelle. Shall we? I’ll go left to right?” Hal offered to his girlfriend. Abby nodded and gave him a playful pat on the ass. Both leaned over the trunk and opened fire slowly, picking their distant targets carefully.

Their gunfire was very loud, and was heard by more than an army’s worth of the damned.

*****

“This three shall fall.”

“We will see. I have some faith in this one.”

“But not the others? He is but one, and even if he makes the correct choice today, there are still many who can fail.”

“Perhaps, but I will be very pleased by the success of this one. He has come far. Further than the others.”

“I will not allow him to succeed easily.”

“As you should. That is your task. Unleash yourself upon mankind and force them to redeem themselves. You exist to test them. To not do as much would make your existence moot.”

“Indeed.”

“Unleash your legion upon him and the others. If he succeeds, so be it. I shall be proud of what he has done, and if he should fail, I shall be proud of the effort he put in. Even in failure he has shown cause for some leniency. We’ve six more souls to attend to.”

“As you wish.”

And in the real world, hell quite literally broke loose.

*****

Abby lowered her weapon as the last zombie in sight went down in a heap at the bottom of the ramp. She could hear the soft, distant scrapes of uncoordinated feet coming down the ramp in great numbers, but Abby and Hal had plenty of distance on their potential attackers, and the zombies would be moving so slow. It helped that they'd just made a knee-deep pile of corpses for them to navigate over as well.

“Nice shooting gorgeous,” Hal said.

"Are you hitting on me?" Abby asked, feigning anger.

"Absolutely. I'm aiming to get a little naughty here if we survive," Hal said as he pulled a dry magazine and slapped in a fresh one. He gathered up all their spare mags off the concrete floor. Couldn't afford to leave them behind.

“Well in that case, thanks. Right back at ya.” Abby reached up and thumbed her transmit button once more to pass along the message that they were all clear for the moment. Just as she was about to start talking a breeze picked up through the garage that chilled her to the bone. It felt as if winter was doubling its efforts. Immediately her skin tightened and she shivered intensely. The cold was unnatural, and it churned her stomach as if it had pierced her like a dagger. Hal turned to her, his face giving away that he felt the very same evil chill. As the wind whipped Abby’s ponytail into her face, she let go of the transmit button, seeing a wall of undead pour around the ramp ahead of them. Hundreds and hundreds of undead came around the bend, each stark raving mad with more emotion and rage than any of them had ever seen in the walking dead. It was as if every negative emotion had been poured into them and heightened tenfold. Abby’s stomach fell further than possible to her feet as an enraged battalion of the dead marched on them.

“Kevin, we have a serious fucking problem here,” Hal said into his microphone. “I think they’ve found us. Something's changed.”

A hundred feet from where Hal stood, Kevin double checked the wiring he’d just repaired and got to his feet, looking over to where his two teammates were standing. Kevin saw the massive influx of walking dead coming their way at a much faster than normal clip. He felt the cold, and as the hair on the back of his neck stood, he too knew something was changed. He reached up and thumbed his microphone, “We’re wired up. All good. Head to the exit and I’ll meet you there.” Kevin noticed that the communications were scratchy, almost as if they were being interfered with somehow, but that was impossible. No one should have that kind of technology now.

Hal, Abby, and Kevin all started sprinting towards the garage’s vehicle exit. As they ran Kevin wished he had brought a SAW from home. Thirty seconds and a full belt of 5.56 would literally chop the entire horde down at the knees. Sadly, no light machine gun meant running was their only smart option. As the three met each other at a run on the exit ramp to the ground level, they didn’t let up one bit. The undead behind them were less than a hundred feet on their heel and the surface streets ahead were spotted with more. From broil to bake it seemed.

“We need a hundred meters! A hundred meters and some cover and we blow it! Run as fast you can!” Kevin screamed as the three escapees tore up pavement. Abby slowly lost ground behind the two warriors, though she didn’t fall far behind. All three fighters kept their weapons up as best they could, snapping off rounds at the zombies that approached them. They could outrun everything behind them but the threats ahead must be dealt with. Kevin selected full auto and simply let loose a short burst into the upper chest of his targets. Following suit Hal did the same. Angry coughs of high speed 5.56 knocked the undead backwards or killed them outright when a lucky round walked up and hit their faces.

All three were nearly spent when they reached the corner of a small bookstore about a hundred yards from the parking garage. Hal slowed to a walk and capped three closing undead in the forehead as Kevin freed up the detonator and readied it to level the building.

“Guys, I could really use a loud noise right now,” Adrian said over the comms. He sounded… urgent.

“Twenty seconds,” Kevin said over the network in reply. “Behind the building,” Kevin said to Abby and Hal. He looked around the corner of the bookstore at the garage, seeing the front edge of the undead was just thirty feet or less from reaching the safety of the street level.

“Eat my ass motherfuckers.” Kevin ducked behind the cover of the building, readied the detonator to blow quickly, and with a grin, triggered it.

Like a gift straight from heaven, carried on the thunder and lightning brought by the angels he heard the ear splitting detonations of the Semtex. It hurt him deep in the chest and ears as the sound of skyscraper sized dominos toppling whipped dust, broken glass and concrete debris past them harmlessly. The wind was biting and frigid, but the satisfaction of destruction, and buying time for their friend kept them protected and warm. The trio waited a full minute before peeking around the corner to see their handiwork.

Kevin popped his head around the edge of the building and saw what he feared; the garage was damaged, but not toppled. Giant slabs of concrete had been shed off the structure, baring the structural steel below, and in one corner an entire level had collapsed. But the garage stood defiant, daring the three warriors to do more. Deep inside it through the dust the three watched as the undead army struggled back to its feet, ready to head their way once more. It was very literally like stirring the wasp's nest.

“Fuck my life,” the Ranger whispered.

*****

Adrian and Michelle were absolutely surrounded by the dead. More than a hundred were ahead of them, and the route back towards the other three seemed more and more likely to be their only choice. Adrian had just radioed to Kevin in the hopes he could make some kind of distraction, some kind of diversion to buy them time.

“We need to hunker down. Get inside a building, maybe move a street over to shake these fucking corpses. Get them running in circles,” Adrian said, shouldering his weapon and dropping three quick undead that had gotten too close to them. Michelle stepped back, dodging the hot casings that ejected from Adrian’s gun. She looked on as dozens more undead stepped up to fill the void they'd just left behind.

“What about that restaurant?” Michelle pointed at a pizzeria right nearby. It was close, mostly glass fronted, but the door was ajar, and if they could get through the building quick and out the back exit, that might buy them enough time. It wasn't about fortifying a place. It was about creating obstacles.

“Go!” Adrian said, exploding the jaw and head of a short, dead woman that had stumbled their way quickly. It seemed like the dead were moving faster than normal. Fevered. The two took off at their own sprint, flinging the door of the pizzeria open. Adrian shoved it shut after they got inside and twisted the lock. That done he spun fast and scanned the interior of the restaurant for targets quickly. It looked empty. Michelle's heart pounded as she tried to fill her angry lungs. They were both covered in sweat, and flecks of blood and gore.

The world shook. Adrian reacted on instinct and grabbed Michelle and sent her to the floor roughly, trying to have her land on top of his own body to prevent injury to her. A funneled blast of air and shock came down the street, rattling the windows of the eatery to the point of nearly breaking. Adrian watched as pots and pans in the kitchen swung to and fro slightly from the shockwave of the explosions at the garage. Dust fell everywhere like snow.

“You ok?” Adrian asked his companion, checking her for wounds. She was still on his chest.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Michelle said, looking around in the restaurant with a slightly shocked look on her face. She pushed off of him with a frightened smile and looked at her arms and legs for injury.

Adrian activated his transmitter to talk to the rest of the group, “Kevin, you guys ok?”

“Building didn’t come down and it’s chock full of pissed off undead. We’ve certainly done something to piss someone off being here brother. They're moving faster. Smarter. I’ve got an idea though. If it fails… it’s been swell, and I’ll see you on the other side,” Kevin replied quickly.

“Quit being a dramatic bitch. Drop me a line when you pull your ass out of the fire,” Adrian said as he got himself up into a crouch. The line was strangely filled with static. Kevin didn’t respond.

“ADRIAN!” Michelle yelled, pointing over his shoulder deeper into the restaurant.

Adrian’s instincts kicked in and he tossed his body in a barrel roll forward. He went away from where her eyes pointed. He felt contact on his hind quarters, shoving him forward and knocking his weapon free to the side out of reach. Michelle let loose a hand-stifled scream as she scampered away from the sudden melee. Adrian finished his propelled roll forward and spun around, his ass smacking into the tile floor of the restaurant hard. If he survived, it'd be difficult to walk the next day. As he turned to face whatever it was that Michelle screamed at, he heard and felt a wet thump as an overweight male zombie crashed into the ground nearly between his legs. Wild arms and scratching fingers gripped powerfully at his upper leg, right near the scar the dog gave him so long ago. It felt like he had been struck with a metal garden rake. In a moment of clarity the large warrior realized that if he’d been wearing his thigh holster for his beloved Glock, the zombie would’ve grabbed on to it at that moment. He made a mental note to be appreciative for the weapon's jam, and his switch to the Kimber now on Michelle's hip. Adrian grabbed the home made knife his uncle created off his belt from the old K-Bar sheath and swung it in a sidearm hook motion. The blade punctured the zombie’s skull at the temple and sank nearly five inches in, rendering the enormous attacker still and silent. Its girth fell to the tile floor, and Adrian pressed the dagger in deeper, ensuring the brain was destroyed. He pried it out of the thick skull only after the twitching stopped. He wiped it clean on the shirt of the dead man, and sheathed the blade.

Adrian panted as he grabbed his M4 off the floor and scanned once more for targets. He checked to ensure the weapon wasn’t damaged. The moment he caught his breath he exchanged looks with Michelle. She was wide eyed, traumatized a bit, but would be okay. She was tougher than this moment. Michelle watched as he crept to the front window of the shop to peer over the edge and into the street. After a minute of silent observation he turned back and scurried over to her.

“Okay, it looks like—” Suddenly the outside world was punctuated by more epic sounds of destruction. Unlike the first blast this noise was sharp and short, and caused no shockwave. The two of them could hear the blast echo in the hollow city streets. Far in the distance there was a brief lull in the gunfire from the friends that had split off to try and blow the garage up. Adrian spun quickly to look out the window to assess their new situation, only to hear and feel a tremendous grinding, followed by a resounding eruption of noise and vibration. It sounded to both of them as if the garage had finally been toppled. More snow dust fell.

“Kevin?” Adrian asked over the comms. “Abby? Hal?” No response came back, just static drowning everything out.

“Are they okay?” Michelle asked him, her eyes fearful.

“I don’t know. We should move to the back and try and see if we can slip out. The two explosions might’ve bought us enough time to get this done. Hopefully they’re okay.” Adrian felt rotten inside. He had a sinking feeling they weren't okay at all.

Michelle nodded and got to her feet. Together they walked through the small pizzeria and through the kitchen, Adrian leading the way with his M4 up and searching for threats.

The back door of the restaurant was a sturdy steel door with deadbolts. Adrian painfully twisted the deadbolts as slow as he could so as to make no sound. The last thing they wanted was to make the tiniest noise and draw attention back to them.

“The end of the alley here, towards the left will put us right on the street Cassie’s work was on. There’s an intersection, then on the opposite corner is her building. It might be a hundred yards. Tip toe to the end of the alley, then if it’s pretty clear at the intersection, we run to the door of her building. Hopefully it’ll be safer inside.”

“I’m tired, but I can manage that.”

Adrian smiled and turned back to the door. He gently twisted the knob and pressed ever so slightly to crack the door. He peered out for a few moments, listening to the street before pulling it closed. “It’s clear to the street. Ready?”

Michelle smiled, clearly exhausted. She looked dirty, grimy, and set. Adrian thought she looked beautiful. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Adrian smiled back at her, pausing. “I really appreciate you coming for this. You didn’t have to do this. I just… I thought you should know how much this matters to me.”

Michelle lit up with a smile that fluttered Adrian’s heart. He hadn’t seen that smile in too long. Michelle reached up and gently touched Adrian’s cheek. “Adrian I believe that I did have to do this. If not for everyone else in the world, then for my own selfish reasons. Adrian sometimes it’s the right choice to be a little selfish.”

Adrian shrugged with a smile, and the two slowly crept out into the alleyway, heading for a final showdown that neither of them could have expected.

*****

“There’s one support of the garage still holding strong. Cover my back,” Kevin barked, reaching to his back to fetch the AT4 anti tank weapon. Hal and Abby were already pointing their weapons and firing at undead that seemed to be multiplying exponentially. His request was not needed, and unheard over their gunfire. They were surrounded in nearly every direction by threats.

Kevin, still on his knee, readied the heavy anti armor weapon to fire. He’d shot these several times before, and the memory of firing one came back to him promptly. He thanked his training as he looked to his back to ensure he wasn’t about to scorch Hal or Abby with his back blast. Both of his friends were engaged, shooting at targets approaching from his rear. If he shot right there, he’d burn them fiercely with the weapon’s exhaust. Kevin leapt up, jogged fifteen feet out into the open, and dropped to a knee again.

Kevin lined the weapon’s sights up on an untouched concrete pillar near the center of the garage. The explosives weren’t planted there due to a shortage of both materials and time the other day, and that single column of concrete and rebar looked to be the lone piece of structure keeping the entire building upright. Given time, the building would crumble from the oppressive, immutable forces of gravity and rain, but time wasn’t something they’d brought extra of. Kevin hoped his guess was right, and fired the AT4.

The 84mm projectile rocketed out of the weapon, hurtling forward invisibly fast, impacting the pillar near perfectly and exploding with catastrophic results. Immediately the level of the garage where he'd hit filled with concrete dust and shrapnel, shredding the bodies of the undead close to the pillar. Kevin tossed the empty tube to the ground and swung his M4 around, not waiting to see what would happen next. He shot a zombie that had gotten to within ten feet of his crouching position, then turned back to watch his assault’s effects unfold.

The building visibly shifted to the side slightly, and with a groan that sounded like an army of giants retching out a dying moan, the building imploded, collapsing on itself with the rumble of thunder and the shake of an earthquake. Concrete dust jetted out in every direction as the building annihilated the dead inside it. Kevin started hooting and hollering as he ran like hell back to his two partners in crime. Even though a few thousand undead had just met their demise, thousands more were roaming, and both Adrian and Michelle were still out there. They needed help, and Kevin, Abby, and Hal were the only help coming.

*****

The last massive explosion signaled the end of all movement where the Soul and Savior were. The Warden’s work had seemingly emptied the entire section of the city where they were of undead, and the two walked carefully through the abandoned alley to the street beyond. The explosion had created a perfectly timed vacuum that they walked silently through.

“Do you feel that?” Michelle asked quietly. “A strange chill in the air?”

Adrian looked around, testing the environment with his senses. “Yeah. Strange is a good word for it.”

“The last time I felt cold like this, Evil appeared. Evil spoke to me. Adrian we could be in a lot of danger.” Her voice was shaking, and that in turn made Adrian more than a little nervous. She was normally so resolute, and confident. Michelle reached down and pulled the pistol free of Adrian’s holster on her thigh. She’d never fired a gun before, but she suddenly felt like it would be necessary. Adrian noticed her holding the weapon and swallowed. He’d never seen her scared enough to use a gun before. It shook his resolve.

“Well Michelle, we’re here. No turning back now, whatever might appear.”

The pretty woman nodded and kept her pace next to the large man.

Adrian reached the street and peeked left, his weapon searching for threats. Michelle was a step or two behind him and stopped cold when she saw the look on his face.

“Adrian? Adrian what is it?” Michelle took another step forward and looked to where he had his gun pointed. Her mouth widened in shock.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, packed hundreds deep as far back as they could both see, were the standing bodies of the dead. No number could be put on the size of the legion; a number was pointless, and served only to ruin hope. Standing one step in front of the rest was the dead body of Alan. Adrian recognized him instantly as an executive with Cassie’s company, despite missing an arm and being ravenously thin. Adrian and Michelle looked to the right where the intersection was that marked the corner where the entrance to Cassie’s place of work was. Standing lockstep, shoulder to shoulder to one another in that direction too was at least the same amount of dead, if not more. One step ahead of that wall of evil flesh Adrian recognized was Melanie, Cassie’s direct boss. Her normally plump body was sagging and deflated. Drained of all the charm Adrian remembered her having.

Ten paces in front of the massive army of the dead and Melanie stood a solitary, dead woman. Michelle knew who she was. Her eyes were milky white, and her flesh sunken and withered, but her hair still had an unmistakable warm red color. If she were still alive, she would be very pretty. Michelle's heart sank in defeat as she realized that Cassie herself stood before them.

All the color drained from Adrian’s face as he lowered his weapon and walked into the arena of the damned.

The last piece in the game was moved into check.

*****

“Drive fucking faster,” Ethan said to Blake. The two vehicle column was speeding across the city at top speed, fifty miles an hour or more, trying to reach the area where Adrian’s group was.

“This truck only goes so fast Ethan,” Blake said back, his eyes glued to the road. Both sides of the road for whatever reason had been littered with undead making their way out in front of them. Blake had simply hit them with the humvee, disregarding them as mere nuisances. No more a hindrance to them than falling snowflakes. Suddenly, the zombies froze solid, turning towards the center of the city as if some siren song had been started that only they could hear. It was eerie, and spoke of foul deeds.

“You seeing this?” Blake asked, slowing the vehicle instinctively.

“Yeah. You get the sudden sick sensation we’re watching the end of times? For real this time?” Ethan said back, worry thick on his face.

“Let’s just hope the ending is happy,” Blake said, applying more pressure to the gas pedal. They had friends that needed help, and time was slipping away.

*****

Back at Bastion in the school house in Hall B the children all sat, listening to Melissa teach a simple class about world history. Melissa believed adamantly that the mistakes of the past be taught to the children. How else would they know what not to do in the future?

In the back of the class, Sylvia sat almost alone at a small writing desk that had been brought in just for her. She was no longer feral, just quiet, and strange. Beside her in a chair was Kimberly, Blake’s wife. Kim was Syl’s aid every day, all day while she was at school. Despite her recent safety, and increased communication with adults and other children, everyone felt safer when Sylvia had someone to be there for her, to anchor her to sanity, and society.

Syl turned and looked out the window suddenly, looking east towards the city.

“Sylvia hun, you gotta listen,” Kim said, gently trying to redirect the young girl back to the lesson.

“I am listening. I dreamt of this,” she said dreamily.

“I’m sorry what Syl? Dreamt of what?” Kim asked, concerned. Sometimes Syl would spout nonsense right before she became mentally disorganized. The girl's tone was frightening Kim.

“I dreamt of today. What time is it?” Syl turned back to Kim, asking sweetly, almost happily.

“It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon,” Kim said without looking at her watch, still curious what this was all about.

“It’s begun then. Guess we’ll all know if we pass this test in a few minutes. I hope Michelle does the right thing,” Syl said cryptically. Sylvia shrugged, and turned back to Melissa talking.

Kim didn’t want to know what she was talking about. She thought of her baby boy, and the man she loved, who was out there right now, playing his role, protecting the people he loved.

*****

Gilbert sat on his porch, rocking slowly, watching the sun start to dip in the west. He looked over at the small wooden table and wished it had a tumbler on it filled with something strong. He could use a drink right now. That and a buddy to drink it with. He exhaled softly, and took in a breath of cool air.

Gilbert felt the temperature of the air sit in his lungs a moment too long, tipping him off to the presence of Evil. Gilbert got to his feet and hiked up his loose pants. He smiled and grabbed the AK47 he’d been babysitting since Adrian went back to the land of the living and racked a round into the chamber. He knew what day it was. He knew what the cold air meant.

“Get it done son,” Gilbert said softly, and sat back down in his rocking chair. If judgment came for Gilbert, they’d have to take it from him one bloody inch at a time.

*****

“Cassie?” Adrian posed to the corpse standing in front of him as still as a morbid statue. The man had become oblivious to the danger surrounding them. In every direction the entirety of the undead presence was immobile, frozen in time as if paused. The only movement belonged to he and Michelle. He already knew the answer to the question he asked. Her response was not required, she was dead, though one was given, shocking him to the core.

“Adriannn…” the corpse hissed at him breathlessly. Dried up lungs that hadn’t been tasked with the work of speech in months, years, struggled to make the words needed.

Adrian’s eyes filled with moisture as he saw the woman he’d loved for so long stand before him, dead and yet still alive. Adrian’s knees gave out on him as the emotion, the guilt, the love, and the horror took over. He dropped to the pavement in the center of the intersection hard, oblivious to his skinned knees and the trickle of blood that came from them. His weapon lay forgotten at his knees. “Oh sweet shit Cassie I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so fucking Sorry. I can’t believe I didn’t come that day. I’m so sorry—”

Cassie’s corpse cut him off, “Adrian, it isn’t too late to make things right.” This time the voice was different. Lighter somehow. Sweeter and more real.

Adrian let his weapon hang on its sling as he wiped the tears away from his eyes. “What? How can I fix this? What can I do?” Adrian looked into her eyes, begging for absolution, begging for an answer. His mind was lost, delirious. So much of his built up angst, anger and fear all unleashed in a single moment.

“Adrian, don’t listen to her. She’s not the Cassie you fell in love with,” Michelle said strongly, stepping forward, feeling her conviction and confidence return as she felt the presence and influence of Evil around her. She could feel herself rising to the challenge for the man she wanted to fall in love with. The man that deserved the forgiveness he so desperately needed.

Cassie’s white, lifeless eyes rotated out of sync to aim at Michelle. After a few moments of judgment her eyes returned to Adrian. “Who is this woman? Tell me you aren’t seeing someone already? Tell me you still love me, and I’m the only one.” Nails on a chalkboard. Screams of pain from a child. Her voice cut him.

Adrian looked over his shoulder at Michelle, unsure of how to answer the woman he'd loved for so long. His confusion and pain was as deep as could be. He turned back to Cassie, stammering, “I don’t… I... You were gone so long, and I was so… so lonely, and I knew you were… you were gone. I needed support, and she—“

“Stop,” Cassie said uncaringly, her body still frozen still. “You don’t love her. You love me. I understand. She’s just some girl you’re fucking. You can forget about her and return to me. We can have forever together.”

“Return to you?” Adrian asked, confused. Tears streamed down his cheeks and flooded his vision. His nose was thick with snot and he wiped it away absently.

The Savior spoke again. “Adrian, please don’t listen to her. She’s being used by Evil to confuse you. Trick you. These are not the real Cassie’s words Adrian. Listen to me,” Michelle pleaded desperately, inching closer to the man on his knees. She stopped when the ranks of undead inched forward ever so slightly at her approach. Any further intervention on her part would bring certain death upon them all.

The whispers of a succubus. The call of temptation. “Return to me. Join me. Tell me you were wrong, and that you made a mistake, and that you are not worthy any longer, and walk away from all this nonsense. Why have hope for this world? We can have our love forever if you just join me. Walk away from this shit world. Walk away from all the unworthy. You don't have to fight anymore,” the redheaded zombie whispered to the sobbing man. Cassie’s voice sounded more sinister to Michelle.

Adrian’s eyes lit up, sensing a solution to all his worldly problems. “Join you?” He asked her softly, his eyes and voice trailing off. Adrian grabbed the knife from his waist, still stained rusty red from the zombie he’d stabbed just minutes prior. He looked down at the sharp blade’s edge and then at his wrist. He looked up as a child might, seeking the approval of the woman he loved.

Cassie nodded slightly, approving of his decision. She urged him forward, “Yes Adrian. Kill yourself. Abandon hope for this world and all the people in it. Walk away from this senseless existence and realize you’ve failed. Give everything up for our love. Be selfish. Make us whole again. Just you and I forever.”

Michelle’s blood was beyond boiling. She heard the faint words emanating from the body that belonged to Cassie, but she knew they were lies spat out to trick him, evil will made into language to consume him. She knew that if Adrian abandoned life for Cassie in this way, they’d all be condemned. Every single soul rested on this one young man. Adrian needed to make a different choice, the right choice right here, right now, or everyone would perish.

Michelle closed her eyes and focused every single ounce of effort her fatigued, worn out body could muster. She rewound her memory to a moment in time that brought her to a better, happier place. She thought of the scent of lilies, a warm breeze in the air, and the taste of honey on her tongue. She immersed herself in the memory, believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that each and every sensation in her mind was as real as the pavement she stood on, and the air she breathed. She had faith. She believed.

Suddenly, as Adrian rested the blade on his wrist the cold wind shifted. It was mystical, almost magical. The gathered brigades of undead began to shift uncomfortably as the warm wind moved through their ranks. Michelle opened her eyes and inhaled deeply, the actual taste of honey on her lips and tongue once more. Her spirit was restored. She was righteous. She looked to Adrian and took a confident step towards him. The undead held their ground, almost afraid to challenge her. To challenge what she represented.

“Adrian I know you believe in a power greater than you," she said to him. He lifted his head, her voice giving him some clarity. She continued, "I know you believe that everything you’ve fought for every single day since June two years ago was the right thing to do. I also know you believe that I can love you, and you can love me. Real love. Lasting love. True love. Yes, everyone makes mistakes, yes, you are flawed, yes the fight to save this world isn’t anywhere near over, and yes, you love Cassie and always will. But you also know that slashing your wrist and letting your blood flow will be our death sentence. And I will NOT let you kill yourself for Cassie until you speak to the real Cassie.”

Michelle looked up from Adrian’s pleading, lost eyes and over to Cassie. The flame haired corpse stood defiantly, her posture changed from statuesque, morbid pillar to evil, dominating temptress. Michelle spoke with conviction and power that came from places she never knew she had, “Let slip the strings of Evil Cassandra. Show the man you love how you truly feel.”

Michelle’s words were like a lightning bolt. Cassie’s decayed knees gave way just as Adrian’s had and she dropped down in front of her still living love. They were close enough to touch now. Both Adrian and Cassandra’s eyes locked to each other, and they went silent. Still.

Michelle looked around at the thousands of undead, all their eyes trained on the trio gathered at the center of the intersection of streets, waiting patiently to see what happened next.

Michelle kept believing.

*****

Adrian couldn’t quite recall how he got to where he was. It was a warm summer day, very warm in fact, and he was kneeling in the center of the intersection in the city next to where Cassie worked. The moment he realized where he was, he looked around, and saw her kneeling not five feet in front of him. His redheaded beauty was as shocked to see him as he was her.

Adrian got to his feet at the same time she did, both of them rushing into each other’s arms. The tall, wide man put his strong arms as far around her as he could manage, fully embracing the tiny woman he had missed for so long. Cassie’s desperate hands ran along his strong back, pressing the flesh of her beloved into her body. She buried her face deep in his chest, inhaling, absorbing, and immersing herself in the scent of his sweat, the scent of his body. She hadn’t even begun to realize how much she’d missed him. They held each other like that for a very long time, holding each other, ushering out any chance that anything could disturb them.

Cassie broke the embrace first, pushing him far enough away to look up into his eyes and pull him down for a soft, slow kiss. Both of them had their hearts race at the sensation of soft, warm lips, and familiar, desired tastes. This was home. This was love. “Where are we? How did we get here?” She asked softly, never taking her sparkling green eyes off of his deep earthy browns.

Adrian thought hard, laboring to put the confusing pieces together. Finally the gears locked into place and his memory revealed itself. He tried to explain it to her, “Michelle and I came to you. Came to find you. I was talking to your dead body, and then… we were here.”

Cassie nodded, understanding. “We were given time. Time outside of the Voice. Out of the cold. That woman's work, I think. The one who came with you. Adrian I’m sorry for all this. I’m sorry if I said anything… evil. I would never hurt you.”

“Nonsense. I deserve to hear the worst. I gave up on you. I gave up on us. You have every right to be angry at me. You died because of my cowardice.” Adrian looked down at her, remembering all the times he had looked into her eyes when they were together, when they were alive. He felt the rush of emotion come again, and his eyes sprang forth more tears.

Cassie smiled at her man. “Adrian, nothing is cause for me to be evil. I was angry, I’m still angry, but your place isn’t with me anymore. I can… remember a girl. The woman. A pretty girl. Who is she?”

Adrian felt powerfully ashamed. “Michelle. She’s one of the Trinity. One of the three of us who are supposed to save the world. They call her the Savior. I like her a lot Cass, I'm sorry. She’s… the only person I think I’ve met since you died that I think I could fall in love with. I’m so sorry if that hurts you. Really.”

Cassie put her hand on his cheek lovingly. “No. Don’t be sorry. I’m glad for you. Glad for her. I told you already once in a dream that I wanted you to move on, and I’m glad you’re starting to. Adrian, forgive yourself. Things that day happened for a reason, not all of which were under our control. I forgive you. Move on, love her, make beautiful babies, live a long life, save lives, be a hero. Do all the things the world needs now. Our love was wonderful, and I’ll always celebrate it, forever, but you need to be happy, and do the right thing. Baby, even the best life is filled with fucking regret. Don’t regret our love. Don’t regret what you’ve done, or what happened. Don’t regret one mistake, no matter how big you think it might be. You’re a good person Adrian. The best. You just need to understand it yourself.”

Adrian, even here and now I can feel her. Her very essence is on you, your mutual attraction, your love… it’s real. Go, give me the peace you can, and love her. Love her twice as much as you loved me, in my honor. Name a daughter after me. Cherish what we had as much as I do.”

Adrian’s tears ran hot down his cheek as he nodded, listening to her. A sob slipped free and he shook with grief.

“I love you. I always will.”

Adrian got some words out through trembling lips, “I love you too Cassie. Maybe I’ll see you one day?” Adrian said, rubbing her sides affectionately. He couldn't see his eyes were filled with so many tears.

The pretty girl nodded her head up and down slowly, “I think one day we’ll meet again. I hope so at least. Now go. Be strong. Save the world.”

Adrian closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of a flower he couldn’t quite place. He could swear in this dreamy moment he’d sipped on something sweet as well… honey maybe? He smiled as he inhaled deeply once more, feeling the summer sun on his face. When he opened his eyes, he was back in the bleak, gray world, surrounded by the thousands of undead. Michelle was an arm's reach away. He could feel her like the heat from a stove fending off the winter.

Instead of sparkling green, Cassie's bleak white eyes stared at him.

*****

Adrian rose to his feet, never taking his eyes off the kneeling woman in front of him. He wiped the tears from his eyes and cheeks. He smiled, remembering the discussion that he’d just had with her. The real her. Not the bitter, corrupted, dead Cassie that tried to make him kill himself to find forgiveness and false peace. Adrian knew what he had to do, and reached down to draw his pistol. It wasn't on his thigh, or his hip. He forgot he’d given it to Michelle.

Adrian turned to where he knew Michelle was standing and was surprised at how close she was. The Kimber was already in her hand, the safety off. Michelle offered it to him, somehow knowing that he wanted it, and knowing exactly what he planned on doing with it.

“Here,” she said, handing the smooth, gleaming weapon to him. She looked pained.

“Thanks,“ the Mohawked man said with a gentle smile, looking at the blonde’s gorgeous eyes and face. Her face wasn’t the same as Cassie’s, but he felt the same stirring of emotion when he looked at her. Adrian could still feel the warm sun lingering on his skin, despite the overcast sky here in the physical world. Somewhere, somehow, the light was shining on him, and he felt it.

Adrian looked around, taking in the sight of thousands of undead poised just a few arms’ lengths away. He wondered what would happen when he pulled the trigger.

He didn’t care. He believed.

Adrian stood in front of Cassie, leveling the powerful pistol between Cassie’s dead white eyes as Michelle put her arm around Adrian’s waist, giving him the support he wanted, and needed.

“Cassie, may our love guide you to peace.”

Adrian inhaled deeply, the scent of a sweet, warm flower warming his very core, and pulled the trigger.

*****

Gilbert sat on his rocking chair, listening to the roar of silence that cloaked the world he’d existed in since his death at Abby’s hand. He didn’t regret his choice to ask her to end his life. It was the right thing to do. This was the path he’d chosen, and he’d walk it as long as need be because Adrian’s task was far more important than Gilbert’s happiness. He'd suffer forever for the boy if he had to. He hoped his wife wouldn't suffer the same fate though.

The screen door of Gilbert’s house opened with a familiar creak. The old man spun sideways, surprised at the unexpected noise. He looked up, his old reflexes straining to get the muzzle of his rifle up, but he stopped when he saw the face of his one love in the doorway. His wife.

“Dinner is about ready. Do you want to come in?” His wife asked him, clearly oblivious that her presence meant that this was all over.

He was thankful for her lack of awareness of the events of the world. Gilbert felt a rumbling deep inside that he hadn't experienced in a very long time. It warned him his emotions were about to be set loose. His lower lip trembled as he thought of everything that had happened, and everything that Adrian had just accomplished. He started to shake with happiness mixed with pride.

“I’ll be right in,” he told his wife.

His wife opened the creaky door and went inside. Gilbert heard the tweeting of birds in the trees for the first time since arriving here, in this strange place. Although Gilbert felt he was no longer where he’d been spending time.

He took the magazine out of his weapon, removed the round from the chamber, and put it in the rocking chair where he hoped it’d remain for the rest of time. He leaned his AK against the house, and promptly forgot about it. Gilbert opened the creaky screen door and went inside to see his wife again. Dinner smelled wonderful. She always could cook.

Retirement would be good.

*****

Kevin, Abby and Hal were running literally as fast as their legs would carry them. They’d heard nothing in the direction Adrian and Michelle had headed, and that seemed bad. Kevin wondered if the lack of gunfire was a sign of their death. Adrian wouldn't go down without taking something with him.

“Adrian? Adrian? Do you copy? Give me a sign motherfucker,” Kevin stammered as he ran. The three warriors running to their friend’s aid came to a sudden stop as they rounded a corner. The world was filled with undead on this street. Each was facing away, their attention fixed on events Kevin Hal and Abby couldn’t see. All three of their weapons were up, ready to fire, though no one pulled a trigger; the undead were too silent, too organized for this to be mundane. None would risk a shot and ruin whatever was happening. This was beyond the pale.

Kevin looked to the sidewalk and launched himself up on top the concrete stanchion that supported a traffic light. He shimmied up several feet until he could see over the hundred rank deep crowd of undead. In the center of the intersection a few hundred feet away Kevin could see Adrian and Michelle, her arm around him as Adrian pointed his prized Kimber pistol at the face of a zombie on its knees in front of him. The zombie was a woman, and had red hair. Kevin knew exactly who she was. He faintly heard Adrian say something softly, and then pull the trigger.

The single pistol shot rang out like the sound of a great door shutting. The report of the weapon went beyond vibration through the air. It was on every level imaginable and many levels unimaginable. Kevin watched the force of the gunshot pass through the world like a nearly invisible wave, watching it hit the rows and rows of gathered dead like a tidal wave, pulling out the reanimating force that made them so wrong, and so deadly. They collapsed to the ground, bodies finally with freed souls. Kevin felt it hit his body as well as his soul as if it were immersive, purifying energy. As this nearly imperceptible wave of energy passed along the world, the zombies continued to fall to the ground, sapped of the evil that powered their existence.

As the moment passed further and further out more and more undead fell, all across the city, all across the towns and countryside surrounding Adrian and his people, all across the state, across the country, and the continent.

Adrian had, with a single pull of one trigger, with the weight of one difficult decision made, and with the belief that all could be well, that all would be well, seen to it that judgment day had come, and passed.

Humanity’s second chance had been assured.

March 5th

I’m having a hard time imaging this being over.

Or, depending on how you want to look at it, maybe this is really all just the beginning? I’m not tired at all. I should be exhausted, weary, ready to rest, but I’m not. I think that’s fortunate, though I know that attitude will change as I actually get down to work.

Where to begin? Do I tell this in dramatic fashion, dragging out all the details in sinful fashion? Or do I cut straight to the chase and drop the biggest of all bombs?

I suppose as the Scribe I should record history. History tends to start at the beginning, so I guess I’ll follow suit and do the same.

Abby, Michelle, Kevin, Harold and I all went into the city to find Cassie on March 3rd. I woke up early, shockingly at 3:33 am that morning in one of the houses in Spring Meadow that the locals gifted to us as a home away from home. Kevin and I joked that it was our “embassy.” Sort of funny, but also pretty accurate.

After staying in bed, thinking the day to come over, and eating an early morning MRI with my brother Kev, we got our gear packed up, checked, double checked, and we loaded into the HRT. We coordinated with Ethan and Quan’s group as they started out towards the western parking garage at the apartments. Our plan was to reach detonator range at roughly the same time so the explosions were more or less simultaneous. All went well up to that point.

We heard Quan blow the other garage before we tried to blow ours. Operative word there is tried. The explosion towards the Factory was incredibly loud, even over all those miles with all those buildings in between. We saw some plumes of dust and debris rising up into the sky and we knew the explosion was successful beyond the shadow of a doubt. Very exciting shit for sure. We were in detonator range on our own garage, and Kevin hit the switch.

The Jinx Fairy struck.

Clicky clicky went the detonator, but no boomy boomy went the bombs. We had a minor, spirited debate as to whether or not to scrap the mission, but I put my foot down, and with the support of the others, we opted to move forward. Everyone else was onboard, though I know Kevin was skeptical. We were watching undead shuffle off towards the location of the explosion, even with us in the HRT right there moving, so I felt pretty confident we would be okay. One downed building would have to be enough of a diversion for us.

I don’t necessarily want to say I was wrong… but my judgment could’ve been better. It was a “grab your heels and brace for anal impact” kind of day that day, and I think no matter what my call would’ve been, things would’ve been bad, or worse. The third day of the third month was the when this had to happen, and I’m glad I pushed forward.

I think we made it fifteen more minutes before the roads started to close up on us. We were engaging undead from the windows on a constant basis and the HRT’s plow blade was seeing some robust work smashing walkers from the road in front of us. It got to the point where we were pissing through ammunition fast enough, and there were enough bodies in the road ahead of us, I made the call to change our route to something safer. We'd reach where we were going, but we'd be out of ammo when we got there.

We knew we had the car alarms as well as the fires in the garage making noise to help us, and despite it not blowing up, I had a good feeling the undead would still be inside the garage. That creates a bit of a vacuum right? A few thousand undead from the city packed into a single structure means a few thousand undead off the street in that area.

I was right. Sadly, the route we took to head us towards the hospital we hadn’t been on yet, and there was a nasty surprise waiting for us. To be honest I don’t remember what happened. I have no recollection of the moment itself. The first thing I remember was coming to, hanging on my side in the driver’s seat. The HRT hit something explosive, and we were tossed on our side IED style. Thankfully I was wearing my seat belt, otherwise I would’ve been tossed around like a goddamn ragdoll. Kevin got chucked from his seat, and as it turns out, he’s got a sprained wrist and has so many bruises he looks spotted like a fucking leopard today. Tough kid.

Michelle woke me up, and after shitting a bit of a brick I got myself under control, and undid my seatbelt to get out of the seat. We discovered later on that the entire street we had been driving on was covered with both exploded as well as unexploded cluster munitions. Michelle told me after the fact yesterday that I’d taken my eyes off the road for just a few seconds to crack some dumb joke about Kevin or something, and that was long enough for me to hit one or five with the HRT.

Abby and Hal were shaken up, banged and bruised but alive and still in the fight. Michelle had her bell rung, and I already told you about Kevin. At that point the Jinx Fairy was balls deep inside us. We had no vehicle, we were out of radio contact with Ethan and Quan’s group, we were all alone, and utterly, and completely surrounded by the dead.

I radioed back to Spring Meadow and told Agnes or Anders to pass along the message to the other group that our vehicle was down. I gave our approximate position, and went back to unfucking our lives. We debated a plan, and decided we needed to try and blow the garage to create a powerful diversion to not only pull undead away from Cassie’s work so I could get there, but also to try and kill a bunch of these dead motherfuckers. One of them tripped a cluster bomb right near us, and we watched as the damn thing got launched in the air like Wile E. Coyote. Not good for the zombies, not good for us either.

Kevin, Abby and Hal took the detonator and an AT4 anti tank weapon and went to the garage. I gave Kevin mad shit for having brought the armor piercing weapon (it seemed like overkill, plus the fucker didn't tell me he brought it), but it turned out to be a good decision on his part. More on that later. When we exited the now ruined HRT (and I mean ruined. The entire right front of the vehicle was blown to smithereens. I think the only reason we survived is that it looked to me that the charge blew on the plow blade, and not under the tire where Kevin was sitting.) there was forty or so undead in all directions. We laid down fire to clear the streets, and we split up.

Michelle and I headed northwest to the center of town, and Abby, Hal and Kevin headed southeast to the hospital garage.

Here’s the story I pieced together from the trio that went thattaway;

Because of the relative vacuum created with the zombies in the garage, the run to the garage was fairly good for them. They reached the garage with minimal contact, and made a plan to suppress their weapons and head into the still fairly empty bottom level to try and find out what was wrong with the explosives.

I don’t know SHIT about explosives, but I guess Quan had some central detonation system on the bottom floor that all the different charges were slaved to. When they entered the bottom floor of the garage and cleared it, Abby found some loose wires that had been disconnected from the box, thus breaking the circuit I imagine.

Kevin switches with Abby, Abby and Hal lay cover for Kevin. At that point Michelle and I were getting gang raped by an army of the dead. I’d pissed through three magazines just moving down a street and a half and I had at least that much further to go again. By that point I would've had five magazines tops left. I cried like a bitch to them to start making noise to get us some breathing room. They dropped their suppressors, and within seconds the gunfire started to distract the undead for us.

Back to them.

So like, two minutes into their louder shooting, they reported feeling a cold wind pick up. Like, creepy cold wind. I can remember the same feeling somewhat, but not quite to the level they described. I guess just seconds after... the entire parking garage filled with undead starts coming down at them, right on their head. All three shit enough bricks to build a new parking garage, and they take off running literally for their lives.

They make it to cover out of blast range (read: theoretically out of blast range) and Kevin hits the switch. Kamotherfuckingboom. All the Semtex goes off, thankfully. Quan’s fear of the stuff being unstable turned out to be unfounded, which is clearly awesome for us.

So anyway, this garage was the one Quan didn’t like. It was squat, with thicker floors and columns, and the bottom floor was half sunk into the ground as well. When the explosive blew, they didn’t take out enough support columns to topple the building immediately. Kevin said it was well on its way to collapsing, but with all those undead marching right the fuck out, he needed to bring the building down right then and there.

Enter the AT4.

Kevin jacks that pig up, lines up a shot straight into the center of the parking garage, and threads the fucking needle. The projectile goes right through a four foot gap at three hundred feet, and hits a pillar dead fucking nuts. Luckily the explosion took the entire pillar out, and like a flick from the finger of fucking God, down went the garage.

I heard the building shit the bed where we were, and wow did that buy us some time. Michelle and I had ducked into a pizza shop that I knew Cassie ate at every once in awhile for lunch. We’d gone in there to take cover and let the noise pull the undead in our area away. My hope was to slip out the back exit into a street or alley and then weave our way to Cassie’s work while the undead went to the sounds of the explosion.

Of course as Michelle and I were getting up from taking cover, I get tackled by a fat undead prick. Michelle warned me just in time, and I sort of launched myself forward as he hit my lower back and legs. When I landed I sort of spun sideways, trying to get to my feet quickly, but he was literally in my junk and grabbing at me. My first thought was Kimber, but I gave the pistol to Michelle to use, and I also realized I wanted to be quiet. I snatched my knife off my belt and stabbed him in his fat head, managing to hit something grey inside there, killing him.

Talk about a close fucking call. My lower back is sore as hell, and bruised something fierce, but I'm not dead, and that's good.

Michelle and I caught our breath, had a nice moment where I built up the nerve to thank her for being there for me (whereupon she touched my cheek, giving me a thrill), and we scooted out into the alley in the back of the pizza shop.

The alley was clear. We made it all the way down to the street that Casse’s work was actually on, and that’s when things went to shit. Well... went to shit isn’t the right expression. Went to weird is more apt.

Standing to one side of the intersection we walked into were... thousands of dead. Tens of thousands, all shoulder to shoulder, standing in foul rank and file. Just a bit ahead of them was Alan, some asshole VP that Cassie hated. He was standing there, missing an arm and had this… malicious look about him. Normally the dead don’t have facial expressions, they don’t show emotion, but I swear to you Mr. Journal that bitch had contempt on his face for me. There was an intelligence there I'd only seen in the worst of moments, like when that fucking zombie was tapping his watch. Creepy fucker.

I looked right, and the other directions had an equal amount of undead. Cassie’s direct boss, a woman named Melanie was standing in front of a wall of the dead. Her and Alan were there like… well, they were like sergeants or lieutenants.

In front of Melanie was Cassie.

She was dead. Very dead. Emaciated, drawn, bony, pale, sunken. She looked horrible. Her eyes had lost all the green intensity I’d loved to look at. There instead was that filthy, milky, pus like white.

I won’t lie, nor will I posture like a tough guy here. I lost it. I straight up dropped to my knees in a whole different place in my head and started to apologize over and over and over. I couldn’t say it enough or say it fast enough. I begged for forgiveness. I utterly and completely lost my shit.

Then Cassie spoke. Out loud. I… can’t remember all of the conversation, but I do remember feeling so strange about it. I remember being cold, very cold when she spoke. I remember the clouds coming in, and feeling like I’d finally gotten a chance to make things right by her. I remember her asking me to join her, to go to her in… the afterlife or something, and I remember hearing Michelle there. I remember Cassie seeing Michelle too, and I remember feeling so torn and confused and ashamed. I wasn’t in my right mind. I was lost. Blowing back and forth in the wind.

Luckily Michelle kept it together. If it wasn't for her…

I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember when she started talking, the air became warmer, and sweeter. I remember looking down at my hands and seeing my knife resting on my wrist, starting to dent the skin from pressure, leaving a red mark on me. I was moments away from trying to kill myself to join Cassie. Moments from actually killing myself.

I remember Michelle saying one thing before the world got turned around on me. She said something to Cassie about, “Letting slip the strings of evil.”

Next thing I know I’m back on the other side. Teleported, transported, whatever you want to call it. All the undead are gone, and it’s just Cassie and I standing in an empty intersection in the frozen world of June 23rd. The sky is sparkling blue and sun is warm. It’s like the last nineteen months of guilt never happened. It’s like I went to her that day, instead of taking care of just myself like a coward.

We embrace. We kiss. It’s beautiful. It’s everything I’ve wanted. But it’s fleeting. I can feel it no different than watching the sun set on a beautiful summer day. It must come to an end. I know it, she knows it.

She tells me to move on. She tells me all the same things she told me in that dream a year ago. She tells me I am a good man, and that I deserve to live, and I deserve to love. She tells me she can see and feel the connection Michelle and I have, and that embarrasses me. I feel very… guilty about how I feel about Michelle. I want to love Cassie, to still be in love with her, as well as fall in love with Michelle, but that’s not possible. Nor is it healthy, or what the world needs.

I know then, in that moment what I needed to do. I need to give Cassie peace, to set her free from the constraints of whatever hell that’s holding her, and give myself fully to someone who I want to love, that wants to love me back. I'm crying at that point. The whole time really. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I’m facing her dead body.

Michelle comes to me, hands me my Kimber and puts her arm around me, and with her support and presence, I was able to do what I didn’t think I could.

That’s what this is all about right? Leaning on our fellow man and woman, and believing that in the end, all will be well. Believing that somewhere out there the faith you have in whatever you believe in is being rewarded by something. Something bigger than you. Something that wants good things for you and for those you love.

It’s about having faith in those you know as well, your loved ones, and having hope that those you do not know well will treat you better than you could wish, despite our failings and flaws. It's about being a better person every day, or trying to at least.

When I pulled the trigger everything changed. I felt a weight come off me that I didn’t realize I was carrying. I watched—no, I felt a tangible outpouring leave me, and leave Cassie, spreading out into the world like ripples on a still pond. As the first ripple met and passed the ranks of undead, they fell to the ground like dominos. Each and every corpse standing fell to the ground.

Behind them, clutching to the pole of a traffic light I saw Kevin. With him he had both Abby and Hal, and they were slack jawed, staring at what was happening. We exchanged looks, and everyone knew…

It was over.

We checked many of the bodies to see if they were still animated by… Evil, but they weren’t. They were simply dead bodies now. No more murderous intent, no more hunger for the flesh of the living. No more fear of dying, no more fear of the dead. Peace.

There was much embracing.

Together we started walking back. I remember handing my pistol back to Michelle so she could holster it. I also remember taking her hand and squeezing it, holding it like I never wanted to let go again. Our fingers entwined for the first time, and I am still thinking about that feeling. Probably because I didn’t want to let go then, and I still don’t want to let go now. She’s in Hall C still, but I want to ask her to move to Hall E. I feel like we’re at that point.

Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I think fifteen minutes into our slow walk we heard radio chatter over the walkies. It was Ethan and Quan’s group rolling into our area of the city, and they were looking for us. They’d seen the dead fall, and were wondering if we were okay. We told them we were fine, and directed them to our location. They picked us up, and there was more embracing. Tears of joy. Relief.

It’s amazingly easy to travel in the city with no traffic, and no zombies. Kind of amusing how easy it was. We stopped at Spring Meadow for an hour to eat and tend our wounds. I’ve got a motherfucker of a cut on my jaw from the HRT’s demise. If I figure out who dropped those cluster bombs I’ll punch his ass in the hairy beanbag. Fucking moron.

The other team that blew the other garage had zero injuries. Not even so much as a frigging hangnail. I’m so glad for that. I just purged a shitload of guilt, I really don’t want to pile more on.

Sua Sponte is the Ranger motto. It means, “Of their own accord.” It is supposed to reflect that Rangers, as an elite fighting force, is entirely composed of men who volunteer multiple times over and over for progressively more difficult and more dangerous training and duties, simply to be a better soldier, and to help their nation, and the man standing next to them. They volunteer because they can, and because they know that when the job needs to get done, they will be there, willing to give everything necessary to get that job done. I never made it into the Rangers, but I think I understand what that motto really means. What it means to me.

De Oppresso Liber is the Green Beret motto. It means to free the oppressed. To set free those who have been bound into situations that are contradictory to democratic values, as well as human values. It means to help those that cannot help themselves. I think I understand that one too now.

That Others May Live is the motto of the Air Force Para Rescue units. It speaks for itself. PJs are trained, and one might even say naturally inclined to put their own lives on the line to save the lives of anyone. They do what they do, so that others may live when they would otherwise die. Seeing our PJs here shows me that motto is truth. Watching them makes me realize and understand what it really means.

The Marines motto of Semper Fidelis means, "Always Faithful," or "Always Loyal." I don't need to tell you that my brother served as a Marine. That he lives that every day. Faithful to his family, and to the people here at Bastion.

Why am I rambling on about these mottos? Because we’ve got Rangers, one wily Green Beret, a Marine or two, and a handful of Para Rescue men here taking part in the events that may or may not have just given mankind a second chance. These are the men and the creeds that we’ve lived by, and that many of us have died by. My friends. My family.

I hope as time goes forward we continue as citizens of this new world to live by the creeds that the best of us tried to live up to. My hope is that I am a better man today, and that my fellow survivors are better people as well.

It appears that we have earned our second chance.

Now what do we do with it? Do we rally everyone under our banner, and attempt to lead whoever is left to the Promised Land? Or do we seal ourselves off and try to do this right, alone?

We’ve got a lot of meetings going on here. Trying to figure out where we go from here. Do we continue to fortify? Are the other groups going to continue to be threats to us? Is it safe to plant crops outside our walls again?

I’ll chime in when we’ve figured some of this out.

-Adrian

March 12th

I’m sorry I took so long to write an entry. Things have been so different around here at Bastion, and with all that was up in the air I’ve had precious little time to sit down in front of the laptop and bang out the details of how life is right now.

Again Mr. Journal, I apologize.

The dead are gone. Well, the dead bodies are still here, but they are no longer animated, hateful, and violent towards the living. They have simply fallen where they were on March 3rd, and that has been the end of them. Somewhat anti-climactic I think. That’s not to take anything away from the events of March 3rd. I think we all came out of that alive only by the grace of… something much larger than us.

Since then, nine days ago now, things have been eerily quiet. The folks at MGR haven’t seen a single threatening thing since then. Nothing, not even another living soul. The folks at the Factory though have heard and seen some folks moving around the city area near them, though there hasn’t been any contact just yet. Spring Meadows reports the best kind of silence.

We haven’t seen anything here at Bastion either. In fact, the weather has been beautiful for the most part, and we’re spending a lot of time outside, getting some fresh air. We’re still building that last guard tower at the water, and we’re still keeping both gates locked tight. As much as I love my fellow man, far too many of them have tried to take my life these past nineteen months for me to just forgive and forget entirely.

Trust is earned, and right now, I don’t trust this new and strange world yet.

We’ve made three trips into the city. We have seen no one on our trips out, but we project a fairly massive presence with two humvees and the deuce. I miss having the HRT. One good look at the turrets on the trucks and I’m sure anyone watching us pass changes their mind. I’m frankly surprised no one has come out to talk to us expecting us to be the National Guard returned or something. It’s odd. I wonder if that’s an indication of the behavior of the Guard in the waning days of society, or a general indication of paranoia on the survivor’s part? Or something else entirely. I’m fricking spitballing here.

Our trips out were to, in the following order: Three large grocery stores on day one as well as salvaging the contents of the HRT, stopping at a large gun store on day two, and a series of gas stations on day three. The grocery stores were complete dry holes for us. No food of use whatsoever. I guess that can’t be a surprise to anyone. Everyone hit the stores hard before it all shit the bed, and I’m sure since then folks were sneaking in and out as they could to take what was left.

The gun store was a much better trip. The doors were reinforced with heavy duty steel bars, and we were able to winch the thing right off the front of the building. Inside we found several bodies that had all died from what appeared to be self inflicted gunshot wounds. They were scary thin, and the back of the business outside was piled up with MRE wrappers, so I’m guessing the folks there that day simply locked up shop, and ate MREs until they ran out. Rather than face the world outside (which was also littered with a LOT of bodies on the ground, some long since dead) they decided to take care of themselves all on their own.

They left us a treasure trove of weapons and ammunition. There were also plentiful reloading supplies, as well as holsters, slings, hunting equipment and the such. Kevin and Mike each sported an erection three feet long for days while they inventoried everything. It was a pretty big store. I’m glad we got to it before anyone else.

The gas stations were also largely good news. We can’t verify the quality of the small amount of remaining gasoline that’s still there just yet, but Martin and Blake are guessing there could be around 400 to 500 gallons spread out amongst them. We’re thinking fuel treatments and additives might be a solution to stale gas, but that’s beyond my pay grade. We also found a LOT of diesel, which is great news. Again, I’ve no goddamn idea if it’s any good, but other people are going to make that call, or make that happen, so I’m incredibly hopeful. We could use some good news on the fuel front. I’d like to bankroll security in our vehicles operating for the foreseeable future.

We don’t really…. Have any horses. Or any meaningful alternatives to vehicles at the moment. I suppose we should get on that.

What else? What am I forgetting?

Um… old age is a bitch, I’ll tell you that.

Moving forward? Well that’s a great question. Collectively, and by collectively I mean the big decision making folks here, we’ve decided that we are going to be active in the world. Active means helping those that need it. Active means protecting those that need it. Active means feeding those that are hungry, and liberating those that are oppressed.

I think Gilbert would be proud of us. That might be my decision barometer moving forward in life. WWGDD?

I have had many dreams of my friends lately. The living ones. Not just the dead people. That tells me an awful lot. That tells me the poor souls that were hung up on the other side have moved on. I don’t know where they went, or if it’s a comfy cloud or hot as hell in a lake of fire but I think they’ve gone on to where they were supposed to go.

I could not be happier about this. If I am proud of anything… I think I am most proud of that. I am happy that all the people hung up in limbo, waiting, watching, are now where they belong. I guess I am also proud of the fact that it appears that I was part of the group of people that gave this world peace from the dead, and a second chance to do it all over again, hopefully correctly.

Michelle and I are moving forward. I asked her to move into Hall E sort of out of the blue the other day, and she took a day to think about it. She agreed to move in, and she does so tomorrow. I’m so pleased to have her move closer. It’ll be nice to have at breakfast in the mornings with her, as well as just be able to see her later into the night. We aren’t going to be in the same room yet.

I really want to kiss her.

I know I’m in deep emotional shit here because I’m not even thinking about sex. Talk about horrifying. When it comes to getting a man to do something, Evil has nothing on love.

Our immediate plan here at Bastion is additional stability. Accumulate the resources we previously couldn’t because of the undead, and then see what happens. That group that attacked us in the city and killed Fitz we think is still out there, and one day, I’m sure we’ll cross paths with them. I don’t want to sound vindictive, but they owe several of us a pound of flesh for what they did, and I plan on collecting.

Maybe that’s a bad attitude, but I see it as justice. I’m not a perfect man.

I’ll end this with a summary of a conversation I had this very morning with Sylvia. Little Sylvia has come out of her shell like no other since the 3rd. She is bouncy, beautiful, and talkative. She has seemingly walked away from her strange behaviors and rejoined us as a largely normal young girl.

Why the sudden change you ask?

Interesting story. I was sitting over at Hall B, enjoying the warm sunshine and talking to little Shelby when the kids were on their lunch break from school. Shelby is doing well, thank you for asking Mr. Journal. Kevin and Becky are raising a good young lady.

As Shelby and I are talking, Sylvia comes over and has a seat on the ground in front of the bench we sat on, and patiently waited until Shelby and I were done talking. Shelby smiled at Syl, and after telling me all about how she finished some project in school, she left to go back inside.

Sylvia looks up at me, and smiled again, very warmly. Then she says this, “I’m so sorry I was so mean to everyone. I was just so scared about you guys, and wanted to be nearby, and I didn’t know how to make the dreams stop.”

I smiled and sort of brushed it off as some of the weirdness she’d spouted off before. The women in the school have said multiple times she can go off on these weird tangents.

Then she says this, “When I dreamt of how you and Michelle were surrounded by all those dead people, and then when I saw you, and then her, and then Kevin… I knew I had to stay around to help protect you. I don’t think I did in the end, but I’m sure happy Michelle did was she was supposed to do, and you and Kevin did too. A lot of people are now safe because of you guys. Imagine all the babies that will born now because of you three.”

So apparently she had dreamt about the three of us. I questioned her softly, and she agreed to as much. She had been having detailed dreams about March 3rd going back for months. A year really. Dreams of the living. I guess they were White Room dreams too, which is strange. I don’t know quite what to make of all that, but it was amazing to hear.

Then, after our long-ass conversation, she drops this atomic bomb on me…. “ I just hope the others make their decisions as well as you did.”

The others? What fucking others right? I was tweaking. Like, heart in my throat tweaking. I leaned down to her and asked, “What do you mean others? I’m confused.”

Sylvia stood up, brushed her jeans off of the grass she’d picked up, and looked up at the blue sky above us. Without looking back down to me she said, “Three is like… a perfect number. It’s got something to do with math. Michelle told me about it. People in The White Room talked about it too. A lot of religions use the number three to symbolize very important things. The third hour of the third day of the third month Adrian? Three is important.”

“Yeah?”

Then she looked down at me, still smiling and oblivious to the enormity of what she was about to say. “The only number that could have more importance than three would be nine then, right? Nine is perfect too. More perfect that three really. Nine is three threes. You guys were never the only Trinity Adrian. You think the force that runs all of creation and makes bunnies would trust everything to just three people? Oh well. I'm sure you saved millions. So many people will have a chance at happiness because of you three. I’d be really proud if I were you.”

I’m like, floored and shit. I have no idea if she’s right. I have no way of knowing, and after talking to Michelle and Kevin about it… they agree with her. It makes a lot of sense to all of us. So many different kinds of people across the world, some societies are more likely to fail than others.

Is it our job to help these other, hypothetical Trinities?

I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it right now either.

I’m done writing this. I’ve been the Scribe for a very long time, and I’m weary. I’ve written so much I’ve forgotten how to live without trying to remember everything that happens. I’ve poured my heart, my soul, my life, and my sweat into this journal, and one day I’ll share it with people so they can understand what I went through, what we all went through to get to where we are today.

I am no longer the Scribe, I think. I might still be the Soul, but I think all of us are now responsible for that part.

I am just a man, trying to be the best man I can, and trying to lead other men and women to a better life the same as I. Time for me to try and be happy. Time for me try to love again, sincerely this time.

Someone else can be the memory now.

Otis is profoundly happy. This means far more lap time for my homeboy.

-Adrian

March 19th

Remember me?

Abby

THE END

- About The Author -

CHRIS PHILBROOK is the creator and author of Adrian’s Undead Diary as well as the fantasy series Elmoryn and Tesser: A Dragon Among Us.

Chris calls the wonderful state of New Hampshire his home. He is an avid reader, writer, role player, miniatures game player, video game player, and part time athlete, as well as a member of the Horror Writers Association. If you weren't impressed enough, he also works full time while writing for Elmoryn as well as the world of Adrian’s Undead Diary and his newest project, Tesser; A Dragon Among Us.

- Find More Online -

Visit adriansundeaddiary.com to access additional content. Learn more about Adrian’s world, contact the author, join discussions with other readers, view maps from the story, and receive the latest news about AUD.

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Read more by author Chris Philbrook in The Kinless Trilogy. Explore Elmoryn, a world of dark fantasy where death is not the end. The story begins in Book One: The Wrath of the Orphans, available in print, Kindle, and online. Visit elmoryn.com to learn more about Elmoryn, view concept art, and much more.

Follow Chris Philbrook’s latest epic series as it unfolds in Tesser: A Dragon Among Us. Meet Tesser, the Dragon. He who walks in any form, and flies the skies free of fear. He has slept for millennia, but now he has awoken in a world ruled by human hands, where science has overshadowed even the glory of old magic. Follow Tesser as he seeks to understand why he slept for so long, and where all the magic has gone. Visit adragonamongus.com to learn more.

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