The Last Resort: Adrian's March Part Two
Author: Chris Philbrook
Date: 2018-10-24 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Apocalyptic
Description: The zombies have been banished for almost a year now, and Adrian Ring's greatest threats are starvation, and strangers. He can feed both problems away, but a full belly doesn't always lead to trust. With the Northern Valley Cooperative shored up as allies, the future looks bright for Adrian and his family at Bastion. They've added tanks, machine guns, a helicopter, and a hundred trained National Guardsman to their assets on hand. But why is Adrian so uneasy? Why are the refuges from overseas coming in such large droves? Why are they so hungry, and afraid? Why are they so happy to find the Trin

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

September 2014

September 9th

September 11th

September 13th

September 14th

Rachel and Mara

September 17th

September 19th

September 21st

September 22nd

September 25th

September 28th

October 2014

October 1st

October 3rd

The Ghost in the Boiler Room

October 5th

October 6th

October 7th

October 8th

October 11th

October 13th

October 14th

October 16th

October 17th

October 19th

October 22nd

October 25th

October 26th

October 27th

October 29th

October 31st

Fetters

November 2014

November 4th

November 6th

November 7th

November 8th

November 10th

November 12th

November 12th, (2nd entry)

November 13th

November 13th, (2nd entry)

November 14th

November 16th

November 18th

Sanctuary

November 21st

November 24th

November 27th

Ernest Goes for a Walk

About the Author

Also by Chris Philbrook

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September 2014

September 9th

It’s been about a week since we landed on the peninsula of land that is a part of Shoreham Port. We are establishing a serious foothold here to give us a base of operations to do some good, and help people, but Jesus fucking Hoo-ha is it a real bitch. The steady stream of undead to the peninsula hasn’t overwhelmed us yet, but it’s constant, and we’re using melee weapons as much as we can to conserve our ammo. We can’t afford to expend all our resources just holding onto or clearing out a pinprick on a map. And make no mistake; we’re still clearing out the area we own. There are at least a hundred buildings, some of them quite fucking large warehouses and manufacturing buildings that we’re still moving through one at a time, securing as fast and as safely as we can.

It’s not just because the undead are faster, and… like, I guess a little more clever than we’re used to, but because what we have to do for adequate defenses against them is just that much more work. Our sailors and marines can’t just fucking slap a piece of plywood over a window frame, or a hole we shot in the walls of a building and call it good enough. There are just too many of them, and they’re too fast, and aggressive for that meager a defense to hold for long. If we’re using wood, we have to reinforce it with lumber framing, and we should use steel as much as can, when we can. The extra labor really adds up, and slows down the whole process.

It’s not an option though.

Lucky we threw down on the fucking intersection with a steelyard on it. Securing a concrete company and a power plant in the process, and both of those businesses are increasingly critical for our mission. There’s a large fuel-storage building on the inland side of the port too (not on the peninsula we’ve made safe, but across the water), and from what we can see, it has diesel.

LIKE I FUCKING PLANNED THAT SHIT.

I sort of did, but only a little. This is one of those moments when they’ll look back on it in a hundred years and someone really smart will say, “If you can disregard his obsession with pornography, anime from the early 2000s and his complete lack of decorum, or patience, his choice of landing site clearly shows Adrian Ring’s tactical brilliance.”

A motherfucker can hope.

So we plan. And we weld. And we shoot or stab every fucking thing that comes close to us that isn’t speaking like Austin Powers, or Gandalf the Fucking Grey, or that vampire woman from Underworld. Beckinsale.

You know she spoke like eight languages in real life? Super smart.

We could use her right now. I guarantee we’re gonna encounter people speaking languages I don’t know shit about. I blame the American schooling system for failing to offer me language classes at an early age when it easier to learn. For reals. What percentage of teenagers are JAZZED they need to learn a language to graduate? I scraped by with a D average in Spanish. Just enough to order at a Taco Bell drive through.

I miss Taco Bell.

Okay, so I need to recap the last week before I get too lost and ahead of myself. Sorry I haven’t written more the last few days, Mr. Journal, but I’ve been working such long hours, and the sleep is real shitty lately, and I just haven’t had the faculties or time to make an entry happen. At least the weather has been nice. Mostly sunny, some clouds, no rain to speak of.

Our peninsula is pretty safe. The amount of steel that we have in that steelyard has given us a substantial amount of raw material to work with, and when that runs out, there are warehouses and ships nearby that we can dismantle for more. As long as we don’t run out of acetylene and stuff like that, we’re golden for a damn long time.

Reuben James and Crommelin both had several sailors with cutting and welding experience (thank you US Military for providing people with educations on this kinda stuff, because you just never know when you need to spot-weld something together in a fight) and they’ve been working 16 hour days building us not only fences, but defensive emplacements, and a complex gate system for coming and going. We’re lucky these faster pricks can’t climb. Not yet at least. They are wily enough to walk along a fence until they find the end of it, so it’s imperative to keep them pulled to a safe spot as well as have a sturdy, able defensive force working to protect builders as the fence gets put up. It goes real fast when we can move shipping containers and just drop them as fifty-foot wall sections, all at once. Plenty of those kicking around here.

We’ve discovered some… future issues as it pertains to coming and going.

Our location at the end of the peninsula means there’s a single avenue of approach; from the east. That’s good. It means we can stack up the bulk of our guards in a concentrated area, filled with overlap and redundancies. We’ll never be able to fully ignore the shoreline until we get it blocked off or fenced off; they’re still washing up from when we shelled this place with the guns on Reuben James and Crommelin. Beach patrol is a bitch assignment right now. Seaweed covered zombies is some old school 80s horror movie shit. Anyway, one land approach also means we only need to build a single avenue of entrance and exit for land movement.

But that means… we only have one way in, and one way out. And, if the undead get stacked up on us at that gate, and with the speed that this European undead dingleberries hustle at, that’s a real problem for a gateway system with a single door.

We open the gate, they flood in, game over. Can’t open the gate because we’ll get flooded? Game over for the people stuck on the other side.

So we need an airlock system. An inner gate that remains shut, while an outer gate allows entry and exit. We shut the outer gate, kill all the zombies from the outside of the airlock through the fencing, then we open the inner gate to let our vehicle/vehicles in.

The mechanical science was left to the people who’re good at that, and right now they’re working on it, and doing some really clever, and imaginative shit.

Get this: we’re anticipating having to use school buses, or lorries to move. They’re diesel, diesel is in abundance here (there’s a fuel distributor right near our peninsula we haven’t checked yet), they’re rugged, relatively easy to fix, have good ground clearance, aren’t too big to get bogged down all the time, and we can up-armor them with our skills and supplies here. In a perfect world, we’ll steal another HRT-style vehicle, or some humvees, but that’s unlikely.

So, they did some measurements, and designed the outer gate to be spring-loaded. Like… industrial fucking coils the size of my thigh on both sides, so when the buses/lorries are returning, they’ll drive into the gate with their front bumper, and the gate doors on each side will open (held against the side of the bus initially by men and women on opposite sides using ropes to add some tension) and then the doors will hit springs on the inside of the airlock space, and prevent the doors from being pushed in. The brainiacs assure me and Captain Rosario it’ll take two dozen zombies pushing with all their might to budge the door off the side of the bus or truck as it pulls in. Even if they do manage to push it in, it’ll give us a buffer of time to control the movement, and an automatic way for the door to try and close itself.

If our outer door is compromised, we can leave the fucker open, and have our vehicle occupants exit out a roof hatch, and cross over the top of the fence to an elevated mezzanine using a bridge that’s being built (ala a drawbridge built on the side) and then just purge the living shit out of the airlock area until we can shut it safely. We’re using a combination of welded steel bars/rebar, and shipping containers as walls. It’s gonna be RUGGED.

At no point, ever, will our cleared area of Shoreham Port be open to the mainland again. At least not until we get all of these damn zombies put down.

So yeah, we have a team of smart people building the gates, mezzanine levels, defensive positions, hinges, gate doors, springs, and all that shit. Once that’s all built (they’re saying two weeks) we can start thinking about actually driving vehicles to and from here.

But we ain’t got any. So there’s that to worry about.

Right now we are not in dire need of supplies, or ammunition, or really anything other than ground transport. William has been vocal in our senior officer briefings that his chopper will run out of fuel sooner rather than later, especially if we start using it for sorties at all, so that’s an issue, but a secondary one to fencing/gates/and ground vehicles. I’ll say it again: William’s Seahawk isn’t an option because we’re low on fuel, and can’t risk a patrol flight deep north. No known places to land, no known source of fuel, no idea what the ground situation is like at all… lots of reasons why we need to be cautious with the bird.

We’d like to get on-shore bedroom and living facilities set up, but supplies for that aren’t on board the ships in our little fleet, and going off the peninsula to get a fucking twin mattress is just about the dumbest fucking idea possible. Might as well wear scuba flippers that honk as we walk through downtown London. Squirt ketchup or malt vinegar all over ourselves so the British zombies can enjoy the taste of our flesh a bit more.

So, we sleep on the boats, or in our defensive positions as needed, and we work the problem at hand; securing ground transport, and patrolling the nearby areas so we can start a real plan for heading to Croydon, where Hal’s family was.

Maybe is, if we get lucky.

He’s not optimistic about it at all, but neither was I about my family, and look how that turned out.

Looking at you, Tommy. I know you’re out there somewhere.

I came here not just to help save the world, and help the Trinity here unfuck itself, but because one way or the other, I’ll make my way to Afghanistan, and I’ll find you.

I am not dreaming of you.

Not here, not there, not once, not ever, and that means you’re still alive, and if you’re alive…

I’m going to find you.

I’m tired now. Gonna try and get some shut-eye. Will check back in with how everyone is doing, and let you know how goddamn weird my dreams have been since we entered this hot zone.

-Adrian

September 11th

Still not sleeping well. Otis is… unnerved by it all. You know, back in the day when I was looting houses on Auburn Lake Road, and Jones Road, and Prospect Circle, I’d come back once in awhile, covered in blood and guts from the occasional confrontation with a zombie, and he’d avoid me like the fucking plague until I took a hot shower. Thank God for forced artesian wells and generators.

Now, he’s avoiding me like the fucking plague most of the time. He’ll hide under the chair at my little desk in the cabin I share with Kevin until I shower, or behind the small litter box I have for him near the door. Once I’m clean, he’ll return to normal, and I’ll say this: when I wake up at night (which is often) he’s not on me, or beside me, he’s hiding again. When I’m not dreaming, I wake and he’s with me.

It’s like…. It’s like he can sense that my dreams are fucked, and wants nothing to do with being near me while I dream.

I am pretty sure that back in the day (which was a Wednesday, btw) when I dreamt strange dreams he’d be near me, like when he lies in the sun on a sunny day. Get to the warmth. Stay near the warmth.

But now, it’s like my dreams are the exact opposite.

He knows. My little fuzzball KNOWS.

No bueno. Any of it.

I can only dream of the dead again. But, here’s the fucked twist: I can only dream of the dead that died HERE since 2010.

I can’t dream of my friends who died at Bastion, or in Westfield. I haven’t seen a familiar face in my dreams in… well, since we had that crazy night of storms when we were crossing the Atlantic.

Okay, I lied; I’ve seen the faces of the few sailors and marines I know died here.

The poor bastard who sank to the bottom of the port when we were landing… I’ve seen him a hundred times.

Always wet, no matter where he shows up. Always sad, and disconsolate, always in the background. Never lets me get close enough to talk to him when I do recognize him, and try to take some control of my dream over. He’s always just… there. The few others I know who went down taking the port back… I see them too. They’re just as disconnected as the man who drowned. They wander in the background of whatever I’m dreaming, like they’re lost, and as soon as I become cogent, and aware of their presence and identity, they’re gone. The dreams shifts somehow, and the setting changes, or the scene twists, and they’re gone. Like a backdrop on a stage play. Here, then gone.

I can only assume that the other people I’m seeing in my meandering dreams are the people who’ve died here. Extras from this side of the pond. In this Trinity’s territory. Makes some sense, right? We hopped the fence into the zoo, and now we’re dealing with the issues that fence kept in.

Dreams here are meaningless. Lots of wandering in places back home, but with no context or meaning. Once in a while, I’ll get a glimmer of a moment where a scene from my past will play out, but with the wrong cast of characters. I’ll be hitting the Farm house, right after Gavin’s death, and instead of Gilbert and Blake at my side, it’s two fucking assholes I’ve never seen before. One was wearing a Lycra bike outfit and the other was wearing a military uniform that I didn’t recognize. Tall prick wearing darker camo.

Right place, right number of people, wrong people.

So many zombies too. I dream about them almost every night. White eyes, blood-stained faces, drawn, gray skin. And anger, so much malignant malice in their way, in their meandering, wandering, shuffling predatory movements.

Someone once said to me that humans were the ultimate kind of predator; patience and endurance predators.

We don’t have incredible physical power, nor can we set traps naturally. We’re not parasites either. We hunt by outlasting what we want to eat, or need to kill. For millennia we followed herds of… fucking anything for days and days until one or two of them got tired, and then we killed those tired bastards, and we ate them. When we were done shitting, or drawing on the inside of the caves we dropped a deuce in, we’d get back up, and patiently stalk the next thing that couldn’t outlast us.

Zombies, man. If we were the apex predator on the planet; most patient, highest endurance, biggest brains… They’re the very tip of the pyramid we once were the top of. Humans can’t outlast them, and we certainly can’t be more patient than a predator that NEVER tires, and NEVER gives up, so long as prey is in its sensory range.

I am not a patience predator. I can endure a lot, though. I’m not sure where I fall on that spectrum. I once tripped on a root sticking out of the ground and ate shit while approaching a body on the ground.

I am a shenanigan-based predator. I slaughter my enemies with buffoonery and shit luck.

My friends on the other hand… some of them are stone-cold killers. I don’t deserve them, and yet here I am, surrounded by people I admire, and look up to. People I literally can’t live without.

I promised a check-in about them, so I’ll itemize;

Chris Fagan is still doing well. He has expressed many times that he misses his kids, Christopher and Natalie, but he’s keeping his head down, and staying busy. He’s gotten jacked doing so much labor, and physical activity. He volunteers to guard the workers on the fence at least one shift a day, and he’s putting his halligan to hella good work. By the time we’re done here, he’ll have the high score on undead, and you could make the case I killed most of North America myself. Hasn’t lost a second of his sense of humor, and his… horticultural skills have been appreciated by the cast and crew of Operation Unfuck Europe. He’s been working with his shirt off outside a lot, and I think he’ll be one of the first few hundred people in world history to get a tan in England.

Joel is kicking ass and taking names. I say kicking ass, but mostly he’s just working as a medic to support the mission. As can be expected in a high-tension, heavy labor environment, we’re racking up a lot of minor injuries. Sprains, broken fingers, lacerations, deep bruises, that kind of shit. He’s working hard, right out in the second rank of it all, M4A1 slung over his back, slapping rigged-up band-aids on people, and dosing out Motrin and water like a proper medic in war does. He’s a machine man. Out there twenty hours a day some days, I swear. Never stops. Never stops telling people to hydrate.

Kevin is my general, though he refused any rank when I signed onto this shit. He answers to me, but everyone else gets to answer to him. He is working with his brain more than his trigger finger setting up defenses, and work charts, and making sure we have coverage in all directions. He sleeps in the same cabin I do, still, and I know he’s not sleeping either. Most of the time when I wake up, he wakes up just after, or is already awake when I do. He’s told me the same things about his dreams I already told you about mine. He’s not sleeping for shit, and he’s so tired, and spent, and he misses his kids, and Becky so much.

And he’s here.

I’ve caught him crying more than once, and I hate to say this about him, because he’d probably shit a peach pit if he found out I told anyone, anywhere about him crying, but that makes him no less a man in my eyes.

Anyone’s eyes.

And if anyone ever, EVER says that a man who sheds tears over who he loves is less a man for it, FOR ANY REASON, they can come fucking talk to me and can get real emotional together. Kevin is the hardest, hardest motherfucker I know (well, maybe my brother Tommy, but that’s like asking which knife you got stabbed with felt sharper) and that he chose to endure the pain and suffering of missing his family to save the world says more about him than any compliment I can ever give him. He’s a hero, and he’s suffering like heroes often have to. Often are asked to.

Hal is Hal. Even keeled, sweet, attentive. I feel like I never have anything special to say about him, but that does him no justice at all. He’s so fucking calm, and composed, at all times. He never projects that… macho hardness I’d expect from a guy with his past and profession. He’s thoughtful, always reading in his spare time, and always being a good dad to Gavin. He’s pulled back from huge hours working on building stuff, or providing security to spend time with Gavin and Abby. When we go inland, we can’t bring the kid, so they need all the time with him they can get. They have found someone that they trust to take care of him; Lucinda, the Marine who came ashore with us and was around for the final hours of the first massive fight. She’s hot shit, and Gavin loves her. Hal is our North Star. He is constant. After the racist shit that went down on the boat, I’m feeling very protective over him. Not that he needs it, but… well, I guess I feel responsible for him. He deserves better.

My girl Abby is killing it. She’s still the disseminator of truth-in-chief, and she carries Gavin in a sling on her chest everywhere she goes on the ship. She still doesn’t trust our defenses on the ground yet, which I get, so the little guy stays on Reuben James. But yeah, she’s staying close to home to be with him more, and making sure people are informed as best as possible. She’s telling stories about everything; building up the myth of who we are, and what we’ve done, and what we are here to do. She’s building morale, and building cohesiveness among the people who are still trying to accept us.

Don’t forget; I’m like two weeks past beating several of their shipmates into a pulp over dropping the N-bomb. Made some enemies that day, but fuck those people. I made a stand and I’ll do it again, damn it.

Naked, dick swinging in the wind, warts on my ass bared to the sky, I’ll beat those fucking dipshits into a fucking pulp ALL DAY.

I’m like, amped up today, huh? Too much shitty military coffee. I think that’s how they got us to kill. Take us from home and family, give us violence-spiked coffee of questionable age and freshness, Ripped Fuel, and take our booze away. Ah, the good old days. My balls are sweating just thinking about the good old days.

Abby is good. Last few days she’s been a bit down, due to her dad’s birthday being on the 8th. I know I get a little sad on my parent’s birthdays, and I don’t know if I actually liked my parents.

She’s also naturally worried about leaving Gavin behind even for a day or two to do anything with me, but she’s more worried about not being there if something bad happens, and me failing. She’s a believer, you see; the worst kind. She thinks that the world really does hinge on me getting this done.

She drank the Kool-Aid. Nothing scarier than a person who truly believes in a cause.

Nothing better to have than someone who truly believes in you. Not sure I’m a cause to believe in, but I’ll take her support all day, everyday. I just need to see her smile, and see her set her teeth to know everything will be okay in the world.

Kate’s still doing Kate things. She’s officially attached to William’s ass as a trainee on the Seahawk. She has a career’s worth of time in the cockpit of C-130s, but hasn’t flown a chopper on her own, and was never certified to do so. But, many of the fixed-wing skills transfer quickly to rotary, so she’s another pilot for us in the making. She stays busy learning like she’s at the academy, and grunts and groans in dismay when she’s disturbed by anything other than a pretty woman.

Who am I forgetting? I’m always forgetting someone. I once forgot I had a brother, and more than once I miscounted how many I had. There are many reasons why I don’t work in a high-tech environment, the least of which was the apocalypse.

I think that’s my squad.

Captain Rosario is doing good work, leading. Having to deal with my retinue of people has to be irritating, but she’s handling it with grace and flexibility. Our footprint is large, both in a leadership manner, and in a big swinging dick way. We push in whatever direction we want to, or need to, to get things done, and we answer to no one. She just has to trust that what we’re doing is the right thing, and when she has an issue, she brings it to me, and we work out a solution together.

I say this on the heels of her grounding me in my cabin for laying a bunch of her people out for spewing racist bullshit.

Maybe I overreacted.

Nah, fuck ‘em.

My brother William is solid. He isn’t flying right now to conserve fuel, and also because there’s just no reason to fly. We don’t need eyes in the sky for anything pressing, so he’s working on his secondary duties on the ship, and helping out in assembly and defense as needed. He is also pouring his heart and soul into getting Kate ready to be a co-pilot, and hopefully a full pilot at some point. Those are his main events right now, after all. I’m trying to get more time with him here on the ship, to catch up, shoot the shit, vent, whatever, but he seems to disappear into his work. I know he busted ass to get where he is, and become a pilot, but a little time with my little brother would be nice. I miss him, and he lives like, thirty feet from me now.

Lancaster is in the background, acting as diplomat and grand facilitator. For someone who I am sure was some kind of assassin in the past, he’s a smooth, calculating operator able to interact with almost all levels of our populace. Grunts like, him, officers like him, civvies like him. It’s creepy. Like William, he’s been busy at all times. I can’t tell if he’s busy because he’s coordinating things going on, or if it’s because he wants eyes-on everything that’s happening so no details can escape the vacuum of his brain.

So that’s my dream and crew update.

Next up is spending long hours trying to figure out how to explore the local area on foot without getting overwhelmed and eaten alive. Few speed bumps to work over in that task, so we need to be real careful, and real capable when we commit to something.

Right now the whole point of exploring is to find us a working vehicle or three so we can be mobile. At least, more mobile than being on foot is.

England is like, the size of California, and we don’t even know if ANY of the new Trinity is here. We came here to get Hal some closure, and to get Kevin north to look for some of Becky’s family. As we do those two things, we will do the work of the Trinity as I think it should be done, and we will try to find them and help them come together to do whatever it is they must do get rid of all these damn zombies.

They’re fucking up property values, after all.

-Adrian

September 13th

Captain Rosario just asked me to come up with a process to name Shoreham Port. Apparently as ranking officer, it’s a duty that falls in my lap.

What the hell do I name this place? Should I put up a ballot box? You never give enlisted people a ballot box. The suggestions will be HILARIOUS, but none will be usable.

I gotta think on it.

Part of me wants to come up with something really ironic, because it’s like we’re colonizing England, and they’re like, one of the world’s original colonizing powerhouses.

Oh how the tables have turned. Gotta get some rest. I helped clear out the power station at the end of the peninsula all morning and afternoon, and I have a briefing later tonight after dinner in the galley.

-Adrian

September 14th

Okay. Here we are, about to… step off the ledge, and into the unknown. We have our reasons.

Reason one: the undead are no longer at the gate. Like, none of them. One or two yesterday, one or two today. It’s like the tide went out, and the beach is looking real nice right now. Not sure why they’re all gone, but they are, and we should move in the environment when there’s a reduced threat. It’s unlikely that they’re smart enough to set a trap for us, so….

Reason two: William flew a short five mile perimeter patrol flight over the inland yesterday morning, and his crew reported that the streets near here are devoid of undead wandering, confirming reason one. Kate was lengthy in her description of the empty streets, overgrown lawns/gardens, and overall entire lack of visible activity.

Even after a full day, and night, and most of today for the undead to follow his flight path here, or to come to the noise his chopper made landing, there has been no uptick of dead pricks beating at our gate. I should note that William’s flight path is deliberately misleading, as most military flights try to be; he heads out over the sea several miles away from our actual position, then approached to land on Reuben James coming in directly from the sea.

Maybe the smell of the three dead body fires we have burning outside the wire are keeping them away. Zombie citronella? Man, wouldn’t that be great.

We will be doing a VERY abbreviated foot patrol/loot run deeper into the peninsula of Shoreham Port (new name still TBD) towards the mainland. Mostly, we want to make some noise, and see what comes running at us.

We used to call it ‘patrol to contact,’ in Iraq, which is a polite way to say, ‘wander around until you’re fucking shot at, then shoot back at it.’

More or less what we’re going to do tomorrow.

No air support, slip out of the gate on foot in a small, mobile group, supported by snipers on elevated positions, and push out maybe a thousand feet to where the road hangs a left, and heads inland. I can see some kind of inland, manmade body of water just past that, like a lake, or a lagoon or whatever, but I can’t see boats in it. We’re gonna go that far, post up for a bit, then backtrack. Try to clear a building or two that’s just beyond where we have our exterior gate, then see what happens. We already cleared the building we’re using as part of our gate/blockade (was a gym), but we need to clear out the other buildings beside it. I think one is a night club, and there is at least one place that’s a home improvement shop of some kind. Lots of businesses here. No residential near us on the peninsula. We gotta head a mile inland for that, and that my friend, I am not looking forward to.

We can’t clear it all. I don’t think we can, at least.

That problem is not tomorrow’s problem. Tomorrow, at the first sign of serious trouble coming our way, we fall back inside the wire and handle it with several inches of steel between us, and the sharp teeth trying to bite the shit out of us.

I’m excited, and I know I won’t sleep well tonight, and right now, I see that as a win/win. My dreams suck anyway.

-Adrian

Rachel and Mara

“Have you ever seen it so empty?” Michael asked Rachel from the window the moonlight poured through. His skin was cast in white under the pale luminescence; whiter than the night the undead got inside Buckingham Palace.

At least in the moonlight here, now, this night, his skin wasn’t covered in red splotches of blood like it had been that night. Nor was she consumed by rabid, all-encompassing terror at the carnage that ruined the best situation she’d ever had.

“Rachel?”

“Sorry,” she whispered back. “Lost thinking.”

“It’s alright. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

She stood up from the couch in the flat they’d taken shelter in. A few steps later she slid in beside him and put her arm around his waist. He was right; the streets of south London had never looked so empty. Even at this hour of the late night, near to midnight, the streets should’ve had someone walking them. At the very least, drunks should’ve been stumbling sideways into a wind that wasn’t blowing as they headed home from too many at the corner pub. She squeezed him into her side, and he put his arm around her shoulders.

“The question is why,” she said after some time.

“Why what?”

“Why the streets are so empty. There damn sure shouldn’t be any living people running around, or pedaling their bikes, but we should be seeing the dead version of them in spades. Mums and dads all over the place, dragging their dead kids behind them, but nothing. Not a damn thing to be seen. Why?”

“Fucked if I know,” Michael answered. “Do you think it’s over?”

“Does it feel over to you? Does this feel like a happy ending in a fairy tale?” Rachel said, adding a sigh as she waved her hand over the upscale flat they’d found unlocked. Someone else’s family photos hung on the wall. They seemed happy in the pictures. Lots of smiles.

“Ask me again at dawn. If we’re still alive, it’s a far better ending than most got.”

She sighed. “I’m tired. I think need to knock off and sleep,” she said to him. “If the streets are still empty in the morning, we should consider moving further south. We’re just about out of food in here and Croydon is still a good walk away.”

“Why don’t we just nick a car?”

“You know how to hot-start one?”

“They call it ‘hotwiring,’ and no, I don’t know how to, but we could look for car keys. Search flats for people’s key rings. One of these places has to have a set hanging off a hook.”

“Same one that has ten zeds in it,” Rachel shot back at him with a wink. “On foot is so much safer. Eat some of those custard creams on the table. They’re still fresh from the packet. You’re not eating enough and your energy has to stay up. If we need to run, you’ve got to be fueled, right? Don’t stay up late.”

“I won’t.”

The lady walked carefully down the dark hallway, feeling her way with fingertips on the smooth walls, just above the wainscoting. The bedroom door was still ajar from earlier in the evening and she saw into the room to the wide bed at the center. Everything was well lit from the moonlight and she found her way to the side of the bed she’d chosen.

Rachel felt the crushing weight of weariness on her forehead and eyes, and by the time she finished pulling the thin fleece blanket up to her chin, sleep took over.

Something else took over not long after that.

Sweet, delicious terror took hold of her from inside out. Like the creeping shadows that spread from the setting of the sun, stealing the warmth of the light and day, what was once Rachel was forced to flee until her inner light could find a way to shine again.

Her heartbeat matched the thrumming inside the creature that lived inside her. The thing learned how to inflate, and deflate her lungs next, setting off a frenzy of late-night coughs that threatened to wake Michael, who slumbered unaware next to the awakening monster.

He had no idea what transpired in the breast of the younger woman he loved; and loved her, he did. The darkness in Rachel could feel it in him as surely as it could feel the empty voids in the bodies of the undead. Undead it had kept at bay to keep the meat safe while it carried them closer to where it wanted to be. His love threatened the thing in Rachel; it could be the light that banished the shadow, and brought her back.

Best that his light was tempered into a tool used for other things. Best to temper that light sooner, not later.

The monster taking over Rachel played with her muscles, one strand and fiber at a time, flexing each individual finger joint, each toe joint, each wrist, ankle, elbow and knee. Stomach muscles rippled like the coiling flight of a snake over sand. Her face came last; and on this task the leviathan presence inside Rachel spent the most time.

The demon had felt Rachel exist as she was for some time, sensing her movements, her motions, her stance, her tone of voice, the way she smirked and the way she blew the hair out of her face when a lock of it escaped from however she had it stored away. The monster had learned like a blind person feels the face of a stranger, though from the inside, peering through her eyes as if they were windows to the outside, real world.

Now, in the bed, beside the oblivious, unconscious Michael, the monster asserted control over her eyes, her mouth, her nose, and her ears. It experienced the physical world as she did; with all her flaws, and all her gifts, as they were.

But perhaps most of all, the entity she’d created felt her crushing guilt, and ignored self-hatred simmering inside her, giving the monster agency, and power with every moment passed. The creature sat on that wellspring, pulling free every miniscule mote of power and intensity, all stemming from the rotting center inside her; the one filled with guilt, and self-loathing.

The monster had grown strong feeding off her.

Strong enough to walk the Earth it was destined to destroy the inhabitants of.

The Rachel-thing threw the thin fleece blanket off and sat on the edge of the bed a little too fast to pass for normal; it would have to slow down to seem natural to the living people watching it move. It noted this.

Rachel-thing put its thin, dainty feet on the cool wooden floor of the flat in the dark of the silent summer night. The wood creaked as it tested the functionality of the feet it had never used before. They seemed sturdy, and it stood her body up with a forced grace no different than how the elderly must move as their bodies fail. That wouldn’t do either. It would need practice.

The demon inside Rachel feared nothing beyond being revealed too soon. Too soon and it would have a much harder time infiltrating, manipulating, and corrupting. It could not wither the grapes on the vine at a distance; it had to be within the vines themselves.

The Rachel-thing walked on the balls of her feet out of the silent bedroom, padding down the now black hall, and into the living room of the expansive city flat. While useless for the world, the two humans had found a good place to hide, and the Rachel-thing expressed some emotional appreciation for the nicer furniture, pleasant décor, and the views of the city below.

The Rachel creature went to the same large window that Michael had watched the streets below through, and came to a stop at the second-story frame. It rested her hands on the sill and stood. On the other side of the glass, as still as the statues of long-dead murderers that littered the courtyards and plazas of human governments sat a spotted cat. White, with black patches uniformly arranged on its face, neck and paws, the tiny beast perked up when the Rachel-creature arrived. Delighted at the opportunity to touch the animal, the Rachel-demon undid the window lock, and lifted the old lower pane with deliberate motions.

The cat stood and its tail perked straight up to a vertical flagstaff. It swished back and forth, and a calming, sonorous humming started to vibrate from its throat. It seemed unafraid of the height it dared to fall.

“This sound is called purring,” the Rachel-demon said to it before reaching out with a slow hand. “It’s such a pleasant noise.”

The cat leaned its head into her hand, and pressed into the borrowed palm. The fur felt magnificent to the monster; natural, and soft beyond any words it had ever had to use in its short lifetime. The thing curled Rachel’s fingers and began to scratch at the cat’s eager head. Both animals—all three, counting the distant, hidden Rachel—felt a release of pleasure from the interaction. The monster kept at it, scratching and stroking the black and white cat over and over, over and over in all different ways, trying to find the best stroke to please the happy feline.

“What’s your name?”

The cat didn’t reply; couldn’t reply, even though physiologically it was one of the closest animals to speech on the planet. Maybe they would be chosen for ascension when the humans and all they wrought was no more than sand. The monster nodded, accepting the silence.

“That’s okay. Not all creatures have a name. I don’t have one, really,” it mused. “I am not born of this meat. I live within it, and feed off its guilt, and self-hate. I am now a piece of her, but we are now two; fractured pieces of what was once whole. We are Rachel, or… were Rachel,” the thing said, using different aspects of Rachel’s throat and mouth to alter the sound of her voice, to experiment in finding its own, should it need to speak and be heard as what it was, not what it had to pretend it was. “I should name myself. She has an identity to others. I should also.” The monster went back to petting the cat, thinking about who it wanted to be, and how it wanted to be known.

This went on for some time. Long enough that the sun’s approach threatened the edge of the world that hid behind the nearby buildings, turning the sky in the east a deep blue hue.

“Little cat,” the demon said with Rachel’s face, “it has been very nice patting you, but I must return to bed. There are appearances to keep. Ruses to maintain.”

The cat sat on the high sill as if in defeat.

“Yes. It is disappointing, I know. You should leave now. Maybe you can follow me? I am heading south to the family of this meat. I’m going to end them. We could do it together. Cats have a history of being near death.”

The cat meowed in distress, but bonked its head into the hand of the Rachel creature.

“You’re safe,” it assured the cat. “I am not here to kill the animals; you’re quite pure. Operating as intended. It’s these humans that have to go, you see. And as long as I have control over little Rachel, there’s so little that they can do to stop what must be done.”

The cat meowed once more.

The monster leaned out the window, past the sitting cat to look down into the streets below.

Arranged as thick as cornstalks in a field were a thousand undead. Warriors conscripted into the ranks of the damned. They stood still; swaying in the dead breeze as their master and commander preened on a cat in a window above. They were emotionless; unaware of the situation, yet compelled and transfixed like the moths that gather to the lights they cannot touch, or consume.

“Be gone,” it whispered to the Dead city’s inhabitants. “Ride in my wake, and as my crest. Keep this meat safe from those who would not listen, and those still alive who would seek to take advantage of my vehicle. Be unseen. Be gone.”

They turned, and shuffled north and south to do the thing’s bidding.

“Wait…” the monster said, and the damned below froze. Some turned to look at Rachel’s body as it spoke. “I am two entwined, one to be followed, and one to be carried. I am, and this voice shall be known as… Mara.”

The monsters standing in the streets of south London did nothing with this revelation, and after waiting several seconds for… nothing, they shifted back into the directions they had been heading.

Mara patted the cat one more time on the head, and relished the sensation before shutting the window.

Now, in firm control of the body she had usurped from the diminished and dominated Rachel, Mara would sleep next to Michael, and then lead him south to Croydon, where Rachel’s parents hopefully lived in hiding. It would torture them, spill their souls into endless oblivion and then find new ways to corrupt humanity so as to turn them against one another. All while wearing the face of their precious, beloved Rachel; their precious little lamb.

You see, it wasn’t enough to murder them all; given time the soft-skinned, two-legged herd of sheep would all die out if things were left to simmer, and then catch fire to burn. It—Mara—had to corrupt, and ruin them, forever proving that humanity was as lost at sea as their creator suspected.

The monster had to ruin their slim chance at redemption by making them irredeemable.

Mara sighed in the meat’s voice, then laughed softly in the meat’s voice, and made her way back to the dark hall that led to the less dark room the bed lay in.

Mara sighed, before hissing a soft laugh in the meat’s voice as it made its way back to the darkened room. It cast a glance over the sleeping form of the man, unaware of the darkness lurking within the meat it loved so dearly.

“So trusting. So blind.“

Mara crawled into bed, and shut her body down to sleep a moment after she shut Rachel’s eyes.

Tomorrow would be tiring. They had a lot of walking to do.

Mara had tragedy to orchestrate.

September 17th

I’m not sure where to begin on this, so I’m just gonna start at what I think is the beginning, and we’ll take it from there. Forgive my description of geography. After-action reports are not my strong suit unless I have a map to draw on with a crayon. Several crayons, preferably. I muscle down on those sumbitches with my mitts when I draw, and break ‘em.

Need a whole box just to write my damn name.

Two roads come down our peninsular from where it connects to the mainland. The road on the left (inland near the harbor) goes to the traffic circle inside our gate, where it splits into two and goes deep into our territory. The right hand side road outside our gate (shore side) is a dead end that terminates right at our newly-built wall of shipping containers. On the shore, right at the sand heading down to the water’s edge there is a long straight row of connected businesses. Storefront, a nightclub, etc. No alleys between buildings, just one long wall of shops. Street sign calls it the western Esplanade.

Left side road (our main entrance road), has a sign on it naming it Basin Road. That’s our main street. We went to the end of Basin Road, where it makes an abrupt left hand turn to head inland. That means we have two roads, with businesses to the right, businesses in the middle between the two, then businesses on the left. Both outer perimeter edges are water. Sand on the southern right approach, wharf/pier on the left. That’s our hard, safe edge. The zombies can’t climb up and out of the water.

Basin Road has warehouses on the right; metal and brick structures with lots of garage doors for loading and unloading freight. Ground level doors. Lots of them, most shut. The right side buildings are RIGHT UP ON THE STREET. Like, no sidewalk to speak of.

Left hand side warehouse is behind a thick iron fence that’s been painted blue. Runs the whole length of the street all the way to the end, which cuts our clearing area outside our gate into two parts. Everything on one side of that fence (left, inland, north, near harbor), and everything NOT on the other side of that fence (right, south, shore-side).

We discovered all of that after our first half hour of hoofing it around and getting the lay of the land. Remember, Mr. Journal; there’s no Google Earth kicking around, and we have shit for local maps. William and his flight nerds drew some maps, and made some pretty detailed notes from their time in the air, which have been helpful with letting us know where accidents, or road damage are. But, it’s an incomplete picture, and we gotta do things on foot, half-blind at best, until we can get some local roadmaps from gas stations, or glove boxes, or office desks, or whatever they call those things here. Fanny. Boot. Whatever.

We had six shooters up on the top of our shipping container stacks at the gate. I had them under Joel, who was our spotter, and primary eye in the sky. Should something go south on us, he would also be nearby to drop down two levels and provide us medical care inside the gate. Our guys did struggle with the sun all morning, as the only positions they could get looked straight into the sunrise, but it passed quickly, and we had no threats early anyway.

Inside the gate, as a QRF force I had six more marines. As luck would have it, the guy named Antonio was available, who I have subsequently identified as Sgt. Antonio Botelho, and after his time with me when we took the port in the rain, I had a good feeling about making sure he was in charge.

Kevin, Hal, Abby, Fagan and myself departed stage right out the steel gates after we poked three or four undead in the face with the steel spears we’re keeping there. It’s an easy bottleneck, as long as our gate security team removes the bodies to burn them. They’ll stack up big time if we don’t. Luckily, when it’s quiet, they’re retrieving bodies, and disposing of them.

Fires haven’t stopped burning until yesterday.

We ran as fast as we could around the parked trucks and cars, most with flat tires, some crashed into the walls or fences with dead folks behind the wheel. One or two undead folks, still strapped in with their seatbelts. We stopped and did them in as we passed them. No sense leaving a known threat behind you, even if it’s tied up.

We also shut every garage door we found open. Took a few minutes to find the release cords or switches, but we dropped them down to about knee height, and then propped them open with shit we found lying around. Tires, broken off bumpers, and in one case, Abby’s halligan.

It was smart of us to do that, but more on that later.

We ran to the end of the street, stopping only to do those things. No gunfire, melee weapons only to finish off the undead in the cars, or disabled ones we hadn’t been able to shoot days before on the street. At the end of the street were more businesses, all still surrounded by either one big continuous steel fence, or separate iron fences that abutted, creating a single solid wall.

I’m not talking about chain link, Mr. Journal. These fences are strong enough to stop a car hitting them. Iron vertical bars as thick as my fucking middle finger, bonded top and bottom and cemented into the ground. Best fences we could’ve hoped for, even if they’re only six to eight feet tall.

The inland water area I saw? It was on the other side of a giant hedge wall, which I hacked a window through using Hal’s machete. Big manmade pool, and on the shore of it, I saw several small, model sized boats. I think it was a place people sailed model boats. I also saw a sign that labeled that area beyond as the Western Lawns, so there’s that if you needed to know it.

Okay, so the road opens up left to the mainland (taller buildings and apartments visible at the end of that road, running parallel to our peninsula) and to the right is the road that leads to the Western Esplanade, and to a road that heads along the shoreline, which we don’t care about right yet.

Businesses there had fences as well, and the coast was clear (literally, you see; we are like, a hundred feet from the coast, lol) so we rushed to the side and swung the gate on the corner shut. There was a chain to tie off, but that left the entrance pretty wide open to a barely clever zombie. Hal and Kevin went into the parking lot of the business (fishmonger, I think) and found a car they could put into neutral and push over to block the entrance.

They pushed a small cargo van over. A weird, non-American Ford model as I recall. No markings on the side. They got it lengthwise, blocking off the gate and leaving no space to get around, and we were able to secure the fence to the side of that van using zip ties initially, then a pair of handcuffs, which we’ve decided to carry a few pairs that we liberated from Reuben James’ brig, just in case.

Handcuffs make for great padlocks, and the keys are universal, so anyone with a key can undo one, and they’re fucking handcuffs. We can secure someone’s hands if we run into a sketchball, or we can cuff ‘em and have kinky sex with them, whichever happens first. Then second.

So that gate sealed from the inside using brute force and dedicated ignorance, we now had the inner track against the wharf/pier side isolated from the mainland, building interiors included. That could now be cleared at our leisure with snipers in over watch, and that became our plan. I had our squad backtrack on foot all the way back to the building closest to our gate so we could clear it.

Lobster crates. Blue metal warehouse building filled to the fucking brim with lobster crates. Well, I think lobster. I’m no fisherman, or crabber, or whatever the fuck uses the crates they had there, but the traps were used to catch shit that crawls on the seafloor. Bet these fuckers could scoop up a few chicks I dated way back when. That, I deduce. Two buildings, both still open on the side opposite the street, and both open floor plans with a few offices, snack rooms, and shitters. Nothing complex or even remotely challenging to clear. Fagan watched our ass as the other four of us did the clearing, and he called out a few stragglers coming out of either trucks parked in the back, or open doors down the wharf where zombies had wandered into, or where people had died inside.

It’s not as simple pulling guard like that as it used to. These fuckers MOVE. They see a person to kill, and they take off at a jog at you. If you’re gonna take ‘em down, you gotta make a decision fast, and act on it. He did great. Called out the threat over the radio correctly, (usually with a ‘homie,’ or ‘bro’ added in, but that’s his way) and got a shooter’s eyes on it fast. In one case, when we couldn’t respond fast enough, he brained a dude with his halligan, and called out clear.

Hardcore Fagan Style. No jelly dongs, but the bidness was conducted, if you know what I mean.

Our six shooters stationed above and quite nearby took out I think eight zombies while we were searching and looting the first few warehouses, Fagan did one himself, and both Abby and Hal popped a skull with suppressed weapons.

We did good work, did it quieter than I thought we would be able to manage, and we did get our hands on some maps, and generic office/warehouse furniture and equipment. There was no food, some fuel we left in place, small amounts of medicine, but not much that we felt the immediate need to take. There just wasn’t much stuff.

Few dead bodies, few undead bodies, etc.

I elected to have our security cordon push outward to defend the inner section we cleared over the course of the day. We had strong fences, and the only soft spot was the gate we swung shut and parked a van in front of, but let’s be real here: my line of defense for a real long time at ALPA was two vans parked diagonally on a bridge with no guards, or even a fucking flashlight nearby.

I asked for three shooters, one on a nearby rooftop and two on the ground to guard that access point, and two more guards to walk the fence/wharf perimeter (which was overkill) with orders to fall back immediately if any sizeable population of undead moved close. It’s been about six hours since I came into the cabin here (Otis less sketchy than recently, of late) and there have been no calls for help or even signs of trouble.

Huge chunk of territory captured today, and done so safely. Damn near boring, I’d say.

No haul of goodies, but if anything, it was a great practice run for us as we extend our perimeter deeper into the city, creating a safer zone for us to move about, and perhaps meet locals, and find the members of the Trinity we came here to find.

Shit. Traffic at the far van gate. Living.

Later.

-Adrian

September 19th

Today would’ve been Cassie’s birthday.

Just throwing that out there like a brick at a birthday cake.

I’m so fucking tired. Sleep remains fleeting, and no matter how tired I am when I put head to pillow, getting any kind of meaningful rest after that is dicey at best. Visions of the dead do me wrong, Mr. Journal.

Sigh.

The plot thickened, as I’m sure you’ve surmised by this point in the entry. I’m still writing, which should lead you to believe that our encounter at the gate wasn’t fatal for me, though dying hasn’t stopped a lot of people from doing a lot shit lately, so maybe that’s not the conclusion most apparent.

Uppity fuckers, these dead folk.

Living people were chill though.

Our sentinels at the new outer perimeter were flagged down by four survivors approaching at a slow clip about an hour before sundown. Legit waving white flags taped to mop handles and brooms, they came down Basin Road, moving slowly, spinning in circles and lifting their shirts to show they had no hidden weapons. I guess they’ve seen a few episodes of COPS in their day. What they must think of America, or what used to be America.

United States, that is.

Four survivors. Thin, gaunt, unwell as a whole. No substantial medical care in a long time, but I’ll throw an asterisk on that statement for later consideration. They were stopped by our guards twenty meters out from the van-gate and stood in the middle of the street, with weapons pointed in their general direction. They waited until someone with decision-making capability showed up, and on the main stage of The Shit Show (tickets available through Ticketmaster), I’m the headliner.

I woke Kevin (who somehow was getting decent sleep, and I hated to wake him, but when you’re going into a potential confrontation, you bring the fucking Warden, right? And we hoofed it in full battle rattle. Not long after I reached the main gate and the wharf area we’d cleared Hal caught up to us. Apparently he heard us leaving in the cabin he and Abby share.

Not sure how, but I’m glad he was there. It just feels better when he’s there. He’s rapidly assuming Kevin levels of trust with me, and that’s saying something.

We are keeping those three shooters in an elevated over watch to cover both ends of the peninsula. One watched the harbor and water side to ensure no floaters wash up in a dangerous spot to become land sharks trying to bite our asses, and to also prevent aquatic incursions at the boats, or on the less-defended/less gated sides of the land.

The other shooters are posted up at the top of the container walls, watching the ground approach and providing potential cover fire to the guards at the gate. Center shooter can reposition to support deeper in the peninsula if necessary, but if that’s necessary, we probably ought to fire up the guns on Reuben James and Crommelin. The destroyers we have with us have cannons too, but those are dead last resort. That being said, we cannot lose the port.

Make no mistake; we still got ammo for all them loud fuckers.

We cannot lose the port.

I scoped the survivors, still standing in the middle of an empty street heading towards us, shifting around nervously, looking in every direction at all times for a pack of running undead. I saw two adult women, one adult man, and a male teenager of about sixteen or so.

Nervous in the service, as my dad used to say. I get it; these people have been in complete lockdown, moving only when completely necessary, no firearms, no gun experience, nothing. And now, here they are, standing in the street, in broad-ass daylight, with foreigners pointing a SHITLOAD of guns at them, just a couple weeks after BLOWING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE PORT AND NEIGHBORHOODS THEY LIVE NEAR.

Surreal for them, for sure.

After watching them stand around for a few minutes (mostly so I could see if they had weapons on them beyond the two cricket bat, and baseball bat the men carried), anxious as all get-out, I said fuck it, and took Kevin and Hal out to meet them. We pushed the weird Ford van out of the way, and hopped over the fence into the street.

Mind you, this street is a two-way street. Two ways ONLY. One way into the city, one way straight towards us. If shit happened, they would have to run into the teeth of the zombies behind them, or straight into the teeth of our guns. No running sideways. Giant, dense hedges to the east, giant fences to the west. Their pants-shitting nervousness was all the clearer to me when I made that realization.

The three of us walked down the street, guns at the low ready, body armor on, fully kitted, and I turned to Hal, and told him he’d be our lead. A familiar accent seemed like a smart thing to bring to bear at our first interaction with locals. Anything to reduce the risk of violence, right?

Alright, so you gotta like, imagine that all this happened in a British accent, because I’m not typing in a British accent. Lots of ‘innit’s,’ ‘decko,’ ‘squiz,’ and ‘whot, mate,’ and shit like that. Couldn’t understand a damn thing once they got going real fast, and American speech started out from these people. Kinda like how we made pugs from wolves. Crazy. At least Hal seemed happy.

“Keep your weapons handy, and if we get rushed from the city, run to the men with weapons you see behind us,” Hal started when we were about five yards distant from them. “We’ll cover your retreat, and meet back up behind the fences right over there, yeah?”

“Brilliant,” the adult guy said, eying the area Hal indicated. Five foot ten. Slim. Dark hair, dark eyes. Reminded me of Captain Pasta. Immediately put me on guard, but his accent sent that packing. “I figured you all from America, but you’re not.”

“We came here from there, but not all of us are from there. Croydon here,” Hal said. “Trying to get home, at present, actually. Hal Parker here, that’s Kevin Whitten, and the strange haircut is Adrian Ring. He’s in charge.”

He nodded. “I’m Joey SIlvaroli. The girl with the glasses is Fish. She’s our goldmine. The mom is Misty, and her boy is Aidan. Mess of noise you make. Cannons, helicopters, all that. So if that guy is the one running your show, why are you talking?”

Fish was a woman, not an actual fish. Average height, slim. Glasses like I said, shorter, curly hair. Quiet, but had bright eyes. In a different world, she’d have been my type, I think. Now no one is my type. At least, no one deserves to be my type. Never ends well.

Misty is like most apocalyptic moms; eats too little, worries about her kid too much. Smiles like she’s scared of what’ll happen after. She clutched the much larger, heavier, and well-built Aidian to her like he was a toddler, but he dwarfed her. He stood in a way that put his body a little in front of hers, so if we did something off, he’d be able to protect her. Brave.

I instantly liked them both. Their fierce defiance told me about their souls, and I mean that.

“He told me to talk,” Hal answered him. “And when Adrian Ring suggests you do something, you take a listen.”

“I see,” Joey said. “Are you here to stay? Is this part of a wider effort to help us? Do you have news of the world? We’ve a million questions.”

How to unpack the next hour? If I typed it all, this entry would be like, twelve pages long, so I’ll paraphrase it in the extreme: You already know what I know, Mr. Journal, and we told them everything, except for the Trinity stuff.

I like them, but I don’t know if I trust them yet. Look, I like buttered toast. Getting me to like you is easy. Doesn’t take much. Toss me a fucking Twinkie, you’re in. However, my trust is earned, and the time investment and blood investment to get that trust is a steep fucking slope to climb, even from the point of being liked.

They didn’t like the news I gave them. America is good, recovering, rest of world is likely a shit show, and we were the only help coming, that we knew of. The entire world… a handful of ships. Maybe three hundred people.

From their perspective, it’s like saying we came to paint your whole fucking house but showed up with a paint brush.

Just a paint brush. No paint, no ladder, not even a fucking wooden stick to stir paint with. Yet here we are, paint brush in hand, and eager as hell to get this bitch painted red. We’re working the details of this paint job out as we go.

The four survivors we have here are the last four people remaining in a large apartment building right near the water. It’s visible from where our fleet is parked in the harbor. They told a VERY brief story of the apocalypse from their perspective, and it didn’t sound good at all. They also said that it’s gotten worse over time. They described the zombies as getting faster, and more able with each passing season, more or less. Like… the clock is ticking faster, I guess. The longer it takes for this area of the world to get their shit straightened out, the more difficult it’s getting for them.

Thank God I got my ass in gear when I did.

Anyway, these four clowns are living high off the hog (note the malnutrition I mentioned earlier) in this thirty unit building, all to themselves. Misty said they’d moved a floor up every six months or so, and now they’re on the top floor, and have blown the walls about between three units so they have a single dwelling they can protect each other in. I don’t know if that’s smart or not yet. I guess they have several exits to descend through, so that’s good. Joey said they cut a hole through the floor in one place so they can just drop down a level if need be.

Here’s the good news: Fish, in her unassuming manner, is a stone cold UK Bandit of the highest order. If the Queen is still around, she’d slap a sword on that bitch’s shoulders twice and call her a Knight or Dame or some shit. Fish (no idea on a real name yet, not pressing, because frankly Fish is sort of awesome) worked at a pharmacy in the center of Brighton back before, and when the shit hit the fan, she kept her cool, locked the front doors, and looted the motherfucker all by herself.

The entire pharmacy, down to the shoe inserts and the shitty candy in the back of the shelves. She even stole a truck to put all the shit in, and to me, that’s got hero written all over it. Fish has managed to dole out the meds since day one to the people in her building in exchange for food and supplies, so she’s managed to fairly keep everyone as healthy as she could, while staying fed and taken care of. She has plenty of meds still, but they’re bingo on food, and they reported that their rooftop gardens are lacking. Not enough proteins.

Joey installed signs for a living. Like, he’d drive a company van to a new business, and climb up some ladders, operate a lift, and install giant signs of the electric and plain variety. Handy with tools. Not like Picarillo yet at all, so he stays. Kind. Desperate in a respectful way. Honest about it, ya know?

Misty and Aidan lived together before everything. She worked in an office, doing office things, and Aidan was in high school, or its equivalent here. Played rugby, which makes a lot of sense, based on his stature. Big kid. The moment I said, “bad ass,” when his mom said he played rugby, his harder stance and posture softened up, and I knew we’d be good to go. He reminds me of the Ginger Assassin back home, Danny McGreevy. The two of them were home the day it happened, and have been around since, trying to keep their heads above water, and help as much as possible. Aidan has been working his ass off doing labor with Joey, and they’re tired, man. Damn tired.

I offered them medical care and food, and they accepted on the spot. I felt safe enough after our almost two hour bullshit session to invite them inside our outer cordon and they came with. We got the swing gate shut (the one with cuffs), the van parked in front of it again, and we fell back to the last warehouse before the actual container wall. Furthest we could get from the first line of defense.

We chatted for a few hours. Cooks on Reuben James brought out fresh meals for them, which they ate voraciously, and thankfully. They told us more of themselves, and more of their story, and we listened, and learned.

I can’t relate all of it right now (I’m spent) but the general gist matches up with everything the refugees told us back in the States; it’s shit here, and it got that way fast and stayed that way. Not enough guns, cops died early, military didn’t roll out fast enough, whatever. Oh, and bombing. So much bombing in the big cities. They’ve been suffering a far worse situation than I had to deal with, and my heart goes out to them.

After the late afternoon came and went, and the evening settled in, we were standing and sitting in a goddamn parking lot, in the dark, and I offered them shelter in one of the buildings right there. Within our outer perimeter, within our protective reach, but not inside our safe area. I couldn’t in good faith ask them to leave in the dark. No night vision, too much danger.

They accepted, and a bunch of us gathered up some spare mattresses that we’d found in the buildings on the peninsula. Only needed four.

Four British citizens.

Our first four. We didn’t rescue them. We joined them. These are now my people. The people I came to help, the people I came to learn from, and the souls that deserve a second chance.

I’m excited in a new way.

Oh, and they said something else that intrigued me; we seem to have created a void in the undead presence here; Joey, Fish and Misty all reported that no undead have been visible since we dropped the bomb a few days back, and cleared out the place to come to shore.

I reckon we made such a clatter with the ship guns, and the constant gunfire, that we’ve drawn in every undead that could hear us, and we took them out. If we can stay quiet for a while, we might be able to operate in that void for a few days before the undead infesting the surrounding areas start to bleed back in.

Good fortune?

I’ll take it. Just keep the hammer ready to smash that Jinx Fairy if she comes a-flying with her shit stick magic wand.

Aidan told me a funny story too, but I’ll save that for another day.

Bedtime.

-Adrian

September 21st

I started writing on September 21st, 2010.

Four years. Crazy.

-Adrian

September 22nd

The locals are still within our outer wire, and we still haven’t seen any undead coming closer. To better prepare ourselves for deeper trips into the city, and eventually the country, we’ve been trying to pry as much intelligence about the lay of the land and its people from our new friends as humanly possible, within reason. We’re not pushing them hard enough to driver them crazy, or feel interrogated, but we’re steady.

They’re incredibly helpful, and we owe them a debt.

We have maps now. That’s big. We can measure and plan, and with their on the ground info, we know what doors to kick, where the undead tend to come from, and which doors to leave closed, or secure to contain the contents of. We have been moving forward conversationally with them regarding where we should search to obtain vehicles we can fix to use, and they’ve led us in a couple directions.

Trucks and vans on the sides of the street have either been damaged to the point of being relatively useless, or are in such tragic disrepair that the work needed to bring them back to life isn’t worth it. A month to get a shitty Mercedes van up and running isn’t worth it, on the net. So we really need to find a depository of vehicles that have been maintained, or at a bare minimum, shielded from the ocean side elements. Salt water and winter weather is pretty harsh on cars, Mr. Journal. There’s a lot of undriveable metal with flat tires around here.

So, where to look?

Joey, Fish, Misty and Aidan gave us the approximate locations (plus or minus a few numbers on the street) of several car dealerships that might have vans or trucks on the lot, as well as where they thought garages might be that worked on similar vehicles.

Our next step is to make a plan to explore the first of the stops and see what’s good there.

The greater Brighton metro area is dense, and packed along the coast. We landed to the west of central Brighton, right in the thick of the sprawl. The road we want to get to eventually (the one that heads north to Hal’s family in Croydon) is called the A23. Heads straight from central Brighton to London, with Croydon two thirds of the way to London. I don’t want to go ANY farther north than that, unless we’re setting sail and hoofing it around the coast.

To get to the A23, we can head directly into the center of Brighton (prolly not an A+ idea) or we can head further west to a highway our local friends says used to be clear that skirts the whole metro area. That’s the A27. We can also risk pushing straight north to the A27 through the suburbs of Brighton, which appears to be a trip of about… like a mile. I could run it, if there’s room to maneuver.

Big fucking if.

Without heavy trucks that can push debris or mobs of undead out of the way, we’re not in good shape. On foot, slow isn’t smart either, right? Can’t carry enough shit, and then it means we’re sourcing vehicles far from the port, with no way to get them back to the port for repair. We’re then, what? Clearing garages and we have to bring a mechanic with us? Well… then we’ve got to bring some tools, and at least two mechanics, because two is one, and one is none, and they’ll need food, water, weapons, ammo, clothes, yada yada and then all of sudden we’re rolling fat and loud, and drawing in too much attention. Speed is our friend with this.

Only way to balance the equation is to find wheels within a mile of where I’m writing this. More specifically, getting wheels in a direction that gives us the chance to clear out an area for the rush north when it happens. Site prep, as it were. Only way out.

Misty pointed out a garage she knew worked on trucks and delivery vans.

Joey pointed out a fire station that was operating trucks as recently as four months ago.

Fish knew of several dealerships clustered in an area maybe a half mile inland from where our peninsula meets the mainland.

Aidan remembered the specific locations of a few trucks he saw on the streets.

We also have multiple vehicles options here on the port, but thus far, none have been salvageable in a way that works for us. I’m hopeful we find one or two, but… we’ll see. I’m not holding out hope. Lots of rust, and a lot of flat tires like I said. Big tires. Ones that will be a challenge to replace, because most of the easy tires we can get are flat too.

Our first stop will be the simplest; the garage. It’s on a relatively wide road, not too far from here, and as they could explain it, the space between should be easy to navigate on foot if we do get into a situation. Plus, it’s within sniper cover range for the first half, which makes my ass less itchy.

Speaking of itchy asses, do you remember when I said that Aidan kid told me a funny story?

When we were sitting around the other night, getting to know each other, Kevin made a comment about how important it was to be ready at all times for an “operation.” Then he said something like, “Can’t have the ninja shits getting in the way when it’s go-time.”

“Whot’s the ninja shits, matey?” Aidan says or something British-y like that, and Kevin laughs, and explains it’s diarrhea. Sneaks up on you like a rectal assassin.

I shit you not, the kid starts to cry on the spot, and Misty goes to comfort him, and the kid is a damn mess. It’s a classic ninja shit social moment. Verbal diarrhea, as the case may be.

Kid starts laughing after a bit, a smidge hysterical, and then his mom laughs too, and we’re all sitting there, dicks in hand, not sure what the fuck to do, because talking about diarrhea just sent this kid and his mom off on a tearful journey to fucking Miserable-istan, population two camels, a bunch of crying people, and some awkward social engagements.

After like, five solid minutes of emotional tragedy, the kid wipes his tears of laugh-sadness away, and says something like, “My dad slipped and fell down the stairs in our building when the zeds came.”

And we’re all silently like…. Cool story, kid.

“He wasn’t feeling well earlier in the day, and he shat himself as we ran, and that’s what he slipped on. Fell down the stairs and broke his neck. Stopped the zeds for a second and we slipped away up to a higher floor.” More laughing tears.

Oh… yeah… now I see what’s up.

“And you saying it’s the ninjas shits is funny, cuz it means he didn’t die of an accident, it means his ass assassinated him,” he said, with each word turning further into a hysterical string of laughter.

I mean, that shit IS pretty funny, literally.

I thought back IMMEDIATELY to my slip and fall accident in the snow suit, and I got up from the pallet of dockside shit I was sitting on, and I went to Aidan. I beckoned for him to stand, and I gave him a too-long, too-tight, fully awkward hug.

“When I was in third grade, wearing a full snowsuit, I got the shits, and slipped on the ice. I shit myself so much the snowsuit filled up and ran down my neck like I was a Diet Coke with a Mentos dropped in it. Your dad sounds awesome. I would’ve liked to have been his diarrhea friend.”

He cried some more, then thanked me.

“Tell me more about him. Soon?”

Aidan nodded, and I smiled.

He and I will get along.

Sucks about his dad though. It sounds like he went quick, and probably died of a head injury, and probably didn’t come back. That’s good. He may have shit his pants and died as a result, but his kid is rock solid.

That’s more than a lot of us get to say. His dad’s name was Nicholas, if you care, Mr. Journal. Forever more, I shall refer to him as Daddy Ninja Shits. I pray he looks over me as we wander this wasteland of tea and crumpets.

It’s a term of endearment.

We’re observing the area of the gas station as best we can from the ground tonight and tomorrow, and rolling out to hit the place on the 24th.

-Adrian

September 25th

Empty.

The streets were empty…

No undead anywhere.

Dogs running around, keeping their distance, and barking now and then, cats skulking in the thick grasses, staring over their shoulders as they escape, but no zombies. No undead roaming at all.

Frankly, I’m terrified at the thought of this; it’s never, ever been good when things go wonky like this. When a few hundred undead start shuffling in a specific direction for no good reason; evil is afoot, y’all, guard your butthole.

This feels no different.

We exited under the cover of about six shooters with long distance rifles at the crack of dawn. Despite their offers to accompany us, we asked our local friends to stay put. Brave souls, they are.

The garage is on the mainland, set a bit off the shore of the inner harbor our boats are docked in. It’s almost directly north from where Rueben James is tied off, but to get there, we went on foot to remain silent. At our backs we had two zodiacs ready to zip across the harbor to rescue our asses, plus William had his bird on standby to provide a vertical means of escape should it get real ugly.

We didn’t need anything, except maybe a fucking wheelbarrow. We stalked our way there, using cover and bounding, and being sneaky, but we fucking walked back. Not a damn threat to be seen, beyond the movement of curtains in houses our local friends said were occupied. We brought two backpacks filled with cans of food to drop off where we knew we’d be crossing close to, and on those cans, we handwrote little notes explaining who we were, and what we came here to do. We placed them where the hiding survivors could get to them as safely as possible, and we pushed forward down the road.

Kingsway, by the way, as if that should surprise you, Mr. Journal. Most of our transit was along a street called the Kingsway.

Fucking England and their monarchy shit. America needs more roads called Congress Ave, and Senatorial Street, and FULL AUTO DRIVE. Actually we have most of those already. I take my snark back. England, you do you, you royalty-having, colonial bastards.

We saw a TON of ropes connecting buildings at higher floors. Pulleys too. Pretty quick we figured out that the people in the buildings were able to pass stuff to and fro safely high above, using the rope system. Not all buildings were connected in this way. Smart people.

Garage was actually damn big. I don’t know what I imagined, but it was bigger than I expected. Four bays street side, two in the rear down an alley into a parking lot. Surrounded by fencing on all sides, the parking lot was filled with cars that were fixed or about to be fixed. A few trucks/lorries, as Misty indicated during our conversations.

The overhead doors were all closed, so we breached the front door with a halligan and cleared the place like we would any other. First room in was a sitting room; about ten chairs arranged against the walls, magazines on low tables, a black television hanging on the wall, obscured by cobwebs as thick as falling snow. Whole place was thick with cobwebs. I picked more out of my hair in the shower an hour ago.

That’s another red flag we need to cognizant of; if an interior space has a ton of cobwebs, nothing has moved through it in a real long time, and it’s likely to be safe. Now… no cobwebs… well, you’ll see.

Breached interior door into an office with a glass window to the waiting room for a cashier. Empty office, cobwebs.

Breached the next door into a small cafeteria space and found a dead male body in the corner, and a zombie banging at the far door. The mostly rotted out corpse was kitted out as a cop, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chin, and a series of deep bites on one forearm. Jaw and front of the skull gone. MP5 and a Glock in his lap. Some ammo, not much, but some. That’s all ours now, vest, radio, and cuffs included.

Door in that room had a big glass window in the top half, and bumping, almost smashing up against that was the face of another dead cop. He kept biting at the glass, snarling in that… airless way, scratching with nails that did nothing, and staring… staring with those vacant, empty, white eyes.

Hal went to the side of the door, and got its attention, and when it pressed its head against the glass, trying to eat him, I put the spike of my halligan through the glass, and into its forehead. The poor bastard went limp, and his weight pulled the head of my halligan down through the safety glass with a six inch crunched line down to the bottom of the frame. He fell of the spike and went to the floor, blocking the door.

We had to shove the door hard to push him out of the way to get into the garage, but we profited another MP5, and another Glock out of it. England is treating us well, so far, it seems. The garage was empty, free of low-hanging cobwebs, and filled with parts, and cars, and fluids, and all matter of mechanical goodness.

No suitable vehicles for us to steal, not even the ones in the rear parking lot.

No idea on how the cops got inside, or how they met their paired demise, but we know it had something to do with zombies, and the end of the world, and beyond that, I guess the details just don’t matter. Two more bodies in a dark building.

We spent a few hours examining the cars with our relatively limited vehicle skills (As it turns out, Fagan knows cars well, and impressed us with his ability to assess the vehicles in the shop), and we picked up some light loot that the engineers on Reuben James asked us to look for. Gaskets, belts, lubricants, that kind of stuff. Stuff that doesn’t age well, or is expendable, basically. We made them happy yesterday.

As I said, we made our way back with far less anxiety, and we even noticed that our care packages had been retrieved while we were at the garage. We watched the windows we saw movement in earlier, and the curtains had been pulled back, and some people even waved.

These people have been holed up in apartments for how long? Isolated, living off of what?

We must look like bat shit crazy madmen (and woman) to just walk down the street, regardless of how many weapons we’re carrying. I can only imagine the psychological trauma our hard landing at the port caused. Turret guns going off all day, gunfire for hours and hours… Bullets flying as thick as bees coming out of a smoked hive.

We’re either saviors, or conquerors to them. Time will show them we’re trying to be the former, but often enough, you come across as the latter. It’s gonna take distinct effort to make sure we’re seen as being helpful at all times. I don’t want to make these people feel anymore threatened than they already have been.

The rest of today is a day of rest, and planning. I’ll cuddle up with Otis, spend some time with baby Gavin, and make sure my weapons are clean, because that’s what I do when I feel like I’m due to start using them on things or people trying to kill me.

Tomorrow morning, at the crack of dawn yet again, we’re headed to the dealerships that Fish mentioned. It’s a further trip out, and on the way I think we’re going to deliver our friends back to their apartment building so they can gather some supplies, and check on things. From there, we’ll head beyond, and check the dealerships. I’m not sure, but I think they want to stay in their homes. They’ve been staying in the warehouse offices we cleared, on beds we found on the peninsula. Not homey, not in the least.

They were safe though. That’s something.

If our venture to the dealership neighborhood goes south on us, it’ll be a helluva run back to the port while William spins up his Seahawk to cover us from above. Our backup plan is to go up to the roof of a tall building we’ve identified as a suitable point to ascend to, and extract that way, up and out. We can also fall back to the building our friends live in, and deal with the issue in a more ‘nuke it from orbit’ fashion.

Good run yesterday. Tomorrow’s gonna be a good day too.

I still need to come up with a name for the port. People asked me again today. Mr. Journal, like I don’t already have enough shit to think about.

If you’ve got any ideas, let me know.

Leaning towards Beertopia.

-Adrian

September 28th

Been a hot minute since I wrote, Mr. Journal. Been a little confused on how exactly to report what’s been going on.

Our delivery of canned goods to the local’s doorsteps (ala the retired profession of milkman, but with less 50’s housewife boning jokes) while out on our loot run to the garage seemingly dragged out the entire local population.

Not like, everyone, I don’t think, but enough that when we were on the way to and from the dealerships, we passed by multiple wanderers who were slipping around, trying to get into, or out of places they’ve probably wanted to go to for years, man. There was a desperate glee in their faces. Saw it clear as day.

Like they’d say, “Holy shit, I’m outside, and nothing is trying to kill me.” Then they’d hit the bricks, going where they knew someone dropped a fucking pocket knife in the grass two years ago to go pick the fucker up.

Some of them waved at us as we moved, but most went to ground like meerkats into a hole. We try to present as not intimidating as we move, but that’s a fucking figment of our imagination. A half dozen of us, all armed to the teeth, wearing body armor and full kit as we stalk our way through a ruined city. We are the epitome of a scary group of people, and that’s just fucking reality.

Many of them still waved.

The dealership was a bust. So much of a bust that we learned a bit about the town, and at least one group within it.

The dealership had been looted. And when I say looted, I mean fucking LOOTED. The parts rooms, the tire warehouse, the car key lockers, the popcorn machine in the lobby, all of it. ALL OF IT. Even the fucking tool carts, carjacks, and the tanks of fluids in the ground were drained.

Someone… took the whole of the goodies from the four dealerships, and relocated it somewhere. This is not a small task. It requires multiple strong men and women, plus additional men and women to protect them while they work. Wherever that is… wherever those people are, we’re gonna find our vehicles. Let the barter begin.

Hidden bright side to having your target buildings looted already: they were cleared of undead already. Cleared, and locked back up again, which might be a tip to the idea that whoever looted the place wanted to be able to return at their leisure, and have it be safe when they got back.

Also… no undead in the wilds of west Brighton.

Not a fucking one. Saw a shitload of long-dead corpses all over the place, but didn’t see a single undead anywhere in the open.

That’s a big deal. If it weren’t for the fucking zombie cop I brained with the halligan in the garage the other day, I’d say we arrived, and all the undead keeled over out of sheer terror of the size of my cock, but that’s not true. Neither part of that is true. The primary emotion my dick gives anyone is disappointment.

Runner up emotion: remorse.

Look, we went deeper into Brighton than we’ve ever gone (further proof we’re definitely not talking about my dick), by a good-ass distance, and still no undead. Our loud landing must’ve drawn in the mobile undead from a very long ways away. And that could mean… that if we’re quiet, it’ll still be quite some time before we encounter any sizeable amount of threat from the undead.

Call me a silver-lining Sally, but I swear that the people we saw (despite their clear fear of us) seemed like, relieved to see humans walking. Fearless humans, I should add. Hopefully we inspire them to be brave again.

Brave, not reckless. With all I’ve done with my life, I’m pretty sure I know the difference between the two by now.

Pretty sure.

So that was that. We’ve been kicking back, watching the locals come out of hiding (quite a few, to be honest. Maybe a hundred survivors) and move to and fro. Occasionally we’d see them cross each other’s paths, and most of those encounters were peaceful.

Here’s the menu of interactions:

Eye contact: awkward backpedaling, often fueled by evident fright.

Eye contact: careful approach, careful conversation, measured retreat.

Eye contact: jovial, familiar recognition, loving embrace, sometimes then a parting, sometimes they’d leave together.

Eye contact: aggression.

That was rare though. Only a few moments where someone reacted that way. Rocks thrown in one case, and then screaming, running, chasing off perceived (or actual) enemies with knives, axes, whatever. None of our observers saw anyone get killed, but we did see someone get whacked in the back with what was likely a machete. We had a very short debate as to whether we should help them, and the guys at the gate unanimously decided to send help from our QRF team. A small team of our shooters, led by Joel went out to render aid, but all they found when they got to the alley near some apartments was a trail of blood that disappeared.

No sense chasing that down. We want to help, but we’d be putting too much at risk. Our guys could run into an ambush and get taken out, or, Oprah forbid, we get into a scuffle where we take out a shit ton of locals. Us losing a few people is bad, but the public relations nightmare of turning into a hit squad is incalculable. All that being said, they returned safely after a couple hours outside our wire. They left a small first-aid care package near where the attack happened with a note to come down the street towards us in a specific, non-threatening way to receive medical aid, food or water.

I should bullet point that menu thing above, shouldn’t I? Would that be the professional thing to do? Is this writing thing a professional endeavor? I’ll think on it. Until I make my final decision, it shall remain as-is.

So yeah. Locals are moving about, no undead moving about, dealerships were a complete dry well. No injuries or deaths in our people, and we’re planning the departure out for the fire station on August 1st. Before we head out to do anything else, we’re going to take a few days, lay low, and take care of business here on the peninsula. There’s a lot of rubble and debris to pick up, and we NEED more fencing on the shoreline.

Every day, and every night, at least one or two zombies float onto the beach, stand up, and start heading inland. Thus far, our snipers and security teams have been able to stop them, but it’s a matter of time before one of the floaters gets into the center of our AO and starts plugging the drain on us.

I’m onto you, Jinx Fairy. Put your wand where the sun don’t shine, you rabid, life-wrecking whore.

-Adrian

October 2014

October 1st

I didn’t exactly think about this issue enough, when we were setting up shop here at the end of the peninsula, but with the vacuum of undead in the local area, and the first aid kit and welcome letter our little EMT run left out in the wilds, we have created a… well, it’s a good thing, so I won’t call it an issue.

Let’s frame it as an opportunity.

I last wrote a couple days ago, and since then, in a steady, measured line down the street, we’ve had over a hundred people seeking medical assistance. This has created a tremendous set of challenges for us, but it’s also dropped so much opportunity in our laps, it’s going to take me a week to sort through it all.

Needless to say, we’re all-hands working on taking care of everyone coming to us. Moving parts to this are substantial; all of our medically trained people are providing direct care for mostly small issues, up to Joel giving people what amounts to simple surgeries/splints/casts/stitches, etc. They are being supported by a dozen warm bodies, all busting ass.

To protect the people rather patiently waiting in line to be seen by our limited medical staff (with our limited supplies) we have another dozen shooters who are in the street, lined up every ten feet or so to provide water, and security. At the end of the street, near the apartment building our first friends emerged from, we have four shooters, led by Hal, as our hard point. Looking over all of it are our regular elevated shooters. Pucker factor to keep these people safe is HIGH. Dog-whistle farts, if you get my drift.

Supporting those assholes are four more men. They’re been lugging water back and forth by the case, and filled sandbags to build a defensive emplacement where Hal is, in the event someone decides to make a run at us.

Diplomat-in-chief is Abby, who has been walking up and down the line of people waiting, introducing herself, explaining the basic situation, explaining our chain of command, our intentions of providing help and security (she skipped the Trinity talk, because that sounds crazy, and no one has said anything to us about weird dreams, or conversations with the dead yet) and how we’re looking for more vehicles to make doing all of that easier.

That was all day yesterday, and all day today. I just ate here on the ship, and I’m writing this in the cabin Kevin and I share. I’m about to wreck the fucking head here. Something I ate earlier is churning in the basement, if you know what I mean.

Let’s be honest: we’re all gonna get sick the next few days. New people who we’ve never met coming into close proximity always spread germs. Let’s amp up the vitamin C and Zinc I guess.

Oh, almost forgot with the angry turd burrowing towards my anus: once people heard from Abby that we were looking for diesel trucks/lorries, etc, we got a string of tips about vehicles at businesses or in streets for us to check out. Abby had one of the civilians she’s gotten close to take notes on that, and we’re sitting down tomorrow night to look over that list.

The other list we need to look at is the list of addresses that all our new friends told us had undead in them.

There are… so fucking many. Abby came by after I got out of the shower earlier and showed me the filled notebook of apartments, houses and businesses people knew had undead within them, at some point in time, recently.

I don’t know if we need to clear each and every one of those locations. I mean, we can’t. We just can’t. There aren’t enough bullets, or melee weapons, or time. That’s reality. Call it triage if you want. We came here to help, and whether or not these people know it yet, getting the Trinity assembled, and on-task is what will end this most effectively. Anything else we do is a potential delay that’ll cost more lives in the long run.

There will be places that we MUST clear, for a variety of reasons, but those will be assessed as we go. It’s not gonna be fun to tell these people no, when they ask us to kill the undead that’s been banging on the wall of the apartment beside theirs for two years, but as long as that wall is holding up, there’s no real reason for us to do it.

It’s all so complicated. We’re gonna let people down, and disappoint them. I hope we can explain it to them in a way that assuages their fears.

Assuages. Where the fuck did that word come from? Awfully fancy language for a guy who can’t do long division without a fucking tutor and rubbing one out before hand to relieve some stress.

Anyway, I’m starting to sweat, and that means my poop just entered the batter’s box and is about to swing. I’m gonna sign off, push Otis’s fat, furry ass to the side, and go wage war on the bottom of the shitter down the passageway. If you hear screaming, batten the hatches.

May the force be with me, and if can’t be with me, let it be behind me, propelling my digestive issues downward and away.

-Adrian

October 3rd

Other than my ramping sense of anxiety (I like to call it my ‘impending doom sense’) nothing has changed. Our line of people seeking medical attention has diminished only in the barest sense, and our heightened stance of security to protect those exposed people hasn’t changed either.

There have been no sightings of undead.

I’ll say it again for you, in case you were distracted by porn, Mr. Journal: we haven’t seen any roaming undead in days.

It’s creepy to the EXTREME.

When I said impending doom, I meant it, no joke, no exaggeration. Every last one of us is sitting around, utterly and completely convinced that we’re about to be overrun by thousands of rampaging, murderous undead. You know what, Mr. Journal? Our fears are not misplaced.

Those bastards are OUT THERE. There is no fence keeping them away. Just time, and as time passes, they’re getting closer. By rook or by crook, those rotten bodies are going to wind up here, and they are going to kill a lot of these Brighton folks.

I’ve been rotating into the street-level security teams to make a showing of myself to the people in line. Only fair I carry my load. As seems to be the case, always, my name and reputation proceed me, and I find myself ‘forced’ to live up to expectations. I blame Abby, and her constant talk of heroics and whatnot. I say this, and please remain aware of the fact that we haven’t discussed any of the metaphysical bullshit. For the locals, there is no Trinity yet, at least no mention of it from us.

So up and down the line I go, Lancaster never far from my side as both bodyguard and social assistant, playing politician and doing a shitty job of it. Maybe that makes me good at it? I’m unvarnished? I’ve put my life on the line to save them. I continue to do so. I’m handsome.

I know this because my mom told all us Ring boys we were good looking. She also had a bit of a drinking problem, but she wouldn’t lie about us being good looking, would she?

People seem to like me. I’m getting a lot of thank you’s and all that, so… that’s good. They’re very appreciative, and they’re frankly… well, I guess I’d say they’re stifling jubilance. British people are understated, according to the stereotypes, right? Stiff upper lip and all that, so to see them smiling without being half-cocked in a pub makes me inclined to believe they’re real happy to be out of their apartments, condos, flats, whatever, and interacting under the sun (or in the case of rain, falling water) with other human beings that aren’t trying to kill them, and take their shit.

Relief. They’re relieved. They think it’s over.

I keep telling them it’s not, and that they need to be VERY cautious, because the undead will be back, and sooner rather than later. Mostly they nod in agreement, and I think they believe me, but it’s hard to say. I just keep repeating myself, and telling them to remain vigilant, and to take all precautions, and to tell us about everything and anything they can that might help us.

We continue to make our list of places with active zombies. We’re running out of paper.

The good news, is that we encountered a local fireman who confirmed to us that the fire station we’d planned on raiding for vehicles is still stocked with those vehicles. He said there should be a ladder truck, a pump truck, an engine of some sort, and a larger ambulance.

I smell a new HRT, Mr. Journal. My heart soars.

It’s a low brick affair, with four glass garage doors. Attached to that is the community area, which is a two-story multi-windowed building. People describe it like it’s typical of mid-60s design.

If the vehicles are there, and the fireman thinks they are (he told a story about a really bad incident that happened right at the fire station, occupying the firemen and possibly blocking in the trucks too. He wasn’t sure. Heard it from a bloke who heard it from a bloke. Arr, matey, and shit.

Wait, no. That’s a pirate, not an Englishman.

What does that Venn diagram look like? What percentage of pirates were English, back in ye olde pirate days? I’ll never know. Google continues to be unresponsive to my attempts to look up stuff on it.

I’m trying to look up important stuff. Educational stuff. I swear.

Tomorrow we’re making the mile trip out. We can’t wait any longer, and we’ll be rolling towards where the bad guys will likely be coming from; inland. If we’re going to encounter them here at the point, then we’re going to encounter them a mile inland first. If we see a wall of undead marching south towards us, we’re gonna bang the biggest U-turn (pronounced yoo-wee, up in my neckadawoodz) and get all these people to safety, and lock our port down faster than how quick a date can end when you say, “I live in my mom’s closet.”

I was going to go with mom’s basement there, but the economy was in shambles before the zombies, and living back at home with your parents was just fiscally responsible to consolidate utility bills, and rent/mortgage. Now their bedroom closet on the other hand, that’s creepy. Making pillows out of her old nightgowns, and covering yourself with polyester slacks that she wore back in the late 70s… that’s creepy.

Tangent aside, I and my A-Team is leaving first thing in the morning on foot, with no local escort; just a few maps, of which, I’ve memorized the way. Lancaster made a short argument to come along, but I told him I needed him to remain behind to help with the QRF, should we call for it. It’s his Rangers, and some Marines.

I should just call it the RF, not the QRF. They’ll be on foot heading our way to help us, should we need help.

East along the waterfront to Wish Road. North on Wish Road until it turns into Coleman Ave. East then North to connect to Bolsover Road. Road width tightens up there until we reach a dead-right turn at what is likely to be a fence, as the rail is just beyond. Cut fence or jump fence, (we’re bringing bolt cutters) cross the railroad line, then straight through a huge chunk of Hove Cemetery.

Yeah. A fucking cemetery. In the zombie apocalypse.

Our rationale is that the undead in the caskets below are likely not animated, nor could they claw their way out of those boxes, then the vaults, then six feet of ground. They would never start screaming for brains after that.

Right?

Mom said I was handsome.

Send. More. Ammunition.

Just north of the cemetery we cross Old Shoreham Road, and head North on what we think is a road called English Circle. Yes, English Circle. There should be visible signs of the fire station there, and if there isn’t according to our maps, the station overlooks the northeast edge of the cemetery. We can just push to that spot in the graveyard, and the place should be right in front of us.

Case the joint, make it safe, check everything over for salvageability.

Remember when Chief Brian shit a brick over me taking the fire trucks up to Bastion? Said that I was being selfish, and taking away resources that belonged to the town, not to me? Not that we did shit with the fire engines, in the long-term.

I wonder if it’ll happen again?

I wonder if I’ll make friends again.

Gonna rest. Oh, and poop update: feeling fine. Whatever was bothering me passed like a freight train in the night. I suspect I ate too much Navy food.

-Adrian

The Ghost in the Boiler Room

September 2013

Time in Erfurt Germany passed, as it had before, and still would. Many people died. A few babies were born. Hope lingered in the Citadel, nestled in the German city of Erfurt.

When the cold weather crawled out from the deep earth, and fell down from the skies, unseasonably early, Tommy woke up in his room. He had a simple room on a high floor, with several tall windows in the expansive building on the citadel’s ground that the American contingent of survivors called home. He shivered, and saw his breath in the light coming in.

“What the fuck?” he growled before sitting up on the edge of his bed. He slipped his feet into his looted slippers, and looked out the windows at the growing blue light of dawn. A tiny snowflake fell just outside the window, and he watched it flicker back and forth before it disappeared below.

“Freezing,” he muttered before getting up and walking over to the desk chair at the window where his pajama pants hung. He took his slippers off, put his pants and a t-shirt on, slung his weapon over his chest, grabbed a lighter out of a drawer, and exited, slippers freshly replaced on his feet.

He was going to find out why the heat hadn’t kicked on.

The old stone building had been updated many times since its construction in the early 1900s. New wiring, new heating, better windows, all that. One of the more advanced upgrades put into the building was central air conditioning, and a basement boiler that provided powerful in-floor heating to the massive structure. The prior two winters were comforting to the point of being deceptive for the Americans; they’d expected harsh European snows, and bone chilling cold that would force them to shelter inside buildings, warmed only by wood-fed fires.

Despite looking like the baby of a warehouse and a castle, the building they called home let them live in relative opulence. In this world though, safety was an excess so few could afford. Living by itself was a luxury.

Tommy descended down the concrete and steel stairwell several floors until he slipped beneath the windows, and into the basement level. He pulled the red fire door open and entered the long hall with walls lined with various kinds of pipes. Hot pipes, cold pipes, pipes filled with wiring. All of it was lit by sparsely hung, thick pillar candles. That they were lit meant someone had already come down to the maintenance levels to do something.

Tommy hung a right down the passage that led to the boiler room, moving with calm caution all the way. Standing at yet another red fire door was his friend Dennis. The tall and slight German was trying to pry the door open to no avail.

“Here for the heat?”

Dennis froze, and turned. The German’s expression told Tommy he’d been surprised.

“I nearly had a heart attack,” Dennis said, his hand going to his sternum to comfort his heart beneath it. “How do you walk so quietly?”

“It’s the slippers,” Tommy said, lifting a fuzzy foot. “They’re tactical.”

“Quite effective,” Tommy’s local friend said. “And yes, to answer your earlier question, I am here for the heat. I came down… oh I don’t know now, an hour ago maybe? I can’t get this door open, and I know it’s not locked. I think it’s blocked.”

“How do you fare opening pickle jars?” Tommy teased.

“Reasonably well,” Dennis said with a chuckle. “Help me?”

“Of course,” Tommy said, and stepped up to join the fight.

The two men worked shoulder to shoulder for several seconds, twisting the handle on the red door, then pushing it, and pulling it. Both remarked on the warmth of the metal against their bodies. The presence of the heat there told them the boiler likely still churned on the other side. After moderate force failed to achieve anything, Tommy pressed his shoulder into the door, and pushed with his powerful legs. Dennis turned to join him in the maneuver, and their faces were close.

They grunted, pushing into the door in unison. After a few team-level shoves, the door started to slide inward, as if something heavy in the extreme were blocking it. A metal drum, or the equivalent. Tommy opened his eyes after the exertion, and Dennis was just an inch away. His eyes were open, and he met Tommy’s gaze.

“Uh, hey,” Tommy said with a smile.

“Hello,” Dennis said. “I’m sorry. I’m too close.” He inched away.

“It’s okay,” Tommy reassured him. “I don’t mind. I just… wasn’t expecting it.”

“Oh, good,” Dennis said, and once again Tommy read the man’s expression; relief.

I think he likes me, Tommy thought. I didn’t think he was gay. Huh. Not the worst problem. “Dennis, we’re almost through. Something is definitely blocking the door. Few more shoves, and we’ll be in.”

“I’m ready,” Dennis said, and the two men rejoined their efforts.

One push turned into thirty, but after several minutes of shoulder-bruising work, they got the door pushed in far enough to reveal a midnight-black space beyond, and a smooth concrete floor below marred by scratches they created pushing the door open. A pressing current of warm air came out of the room, causing their candle flames to dance.

“Wait here,” Tommy said, and brought his rifle up and around to the opening. He turned the fore grip-mounted flashlight on, and a brilliant white beam slashed through the darkness into the boiler room. Thick stone columns that held the building upright and level were nearby, as were all manner of mechanical contraptions that served the building. He sniffed the air. Oil, dust. Hint of mold. No putrescence, no scent of death.

“Anything?”

“Well, it’s not zombies,” Tommy said. “Stay here, let me clear the room just in case there’s something.”

“Be careful,” Dennis said, and Tommy slipped through the doorway. The sound of the safety on the SEAL’s rifle snapping to the dangerous setting echoed in the tunnel.

He scanned the large room and the large machines inside it. All manner of cylinders, and switches, and pipes went in all directions, all of it flanked by tools, and work tables. He scanned over, under, and around everything, finding no one hiding, and no means of escape other than the door he entered. Tommy returned to the door he and Dennis pushed open, and saw nothing behind it on the room side.

“What the fuck?” the SEAL whispered.

“You say something?”

“There’s nothing behind the door. Nothing blocking it,” Tommy said, and then grabbed the door’s edge. It swung in and out easily, without so much as the squeak from an oil-needy hinge.

“That can’t be,” the revealed Dennis said. “I’m sweating and my shoulder hurts from pushing it open. Look on the floor,” he said, and pointed to the scratches in the hardened cement.

“Look around, there’s nothing.”

They two men searched the area, and indeed, there was nothing that could’ve been behind the door that might’ve blocked it. The closest possible culprit was a drill press ten feet distant, and bolted to the floor.

“Can you get the heat going?” Tommy asked him.

“It’s still operating, so I think so. The boiler is still hot. I’ll be right back,” he said, and grabbed the candle be brought for light. He walked off into the deeper basement. Just a few seconds later, he returned. “Some valves that control the water distribution were shut. Can only be done by hand, in this room.”

“Is that dangerous? If they’re shut like that?”

“In this case, no. But whoever did it, somehow also managed to keep this door shut from within, then disappeared once we got it open. Or slipped out, and somehow pulled something against the door from the outside.”

“Well shit.”

“Who do we tell about this?”

“I’ll talk to Colonel Fallon. We should post a guard down here. Last thing we need is some bored, mischevious prick blowing the building up.”

“Okay, that’s good. I’ll um, I’ll head back to my room then,” Dennis said, then slipped past Tommy to exit.

Tommy reached out and gently grasped Dennis on the wrist, pausing his exit. Dennis turned and looked at him, he looked… fragile in that moment. Not a typical look for Dennis.

“It was good to see you,” Tommy said.

“Yes. Good to see you too,” Dennis said, warming up. The look of apprehension faded.

“I didn’t mind you being close,” Tommy said. “I was just a bit surprised. I’m sorry if my reaction… hurt you.”

“It um, it didn’t?” Dennis said. “Not now, for sure. I’ll see you soon?” He smiled.

“Yeah, I think so. I’d like that.”

Dennis departed with his relieved smile, and Tommy smiled too. A few seconds later, he felt the tingle of butterflies in his stomach. He settled into that unexpected feeling, and tried to ignore the simmering background dread the strange experience in the boiler room had brought on.

“What the fuck is it with German basements?”

He laughed uneasily, propped the door open with a heavy hammer, and went up the steps with more energy than he’d gone down them with. He proceeded to the Colonel’s quarters on the same floor as his and Glen’s room.

It took a trip down to the basement with Tommy for Colonel Fallon to agree to post a guard on the door to the boiler room in the basement.

“Jesus,” the colonel said as he stood up from examining the gouges in the floor. “And nothing behind it when you got inside?”

“You find it, you win a prize,” Tommy said. “Nothing. And no escape routes either. No vents big enough to crawl out of, no doors, no hatches, no teleporters, no Scotty beaming people up.”

“How did this happen, then?” The colonel asked him. “You want to pose an idea?”

“Promise to not lock me up in a padded room?”

“You’d eat the hinges off the door and escape even if I did. Permission to speak freely.”

Tommy took a deep breath, and said things he wasn’t sure he believed in. “Remember the church we breached? Where we found the tunnel? Do you remember us talking about finding a scurvy-sick pastor in the foyer?”

“I do. He disappeared on you, right?”

“Yeah, but we found his body behind a locked door in the basement later on. Same room that had the door to the tunnel that led us here.”

“Not sure I follow, Tommy.”

“There’s no way in Hell that man was in the foyer talking to us, and then minutes later, he was tied to a chair and dead—long dead—mind you. This is going to sound crazy, but I think when we found him in the lobby to that church… I think he was a ghost.”

“Fuck off.”

“I would if I could but I can’t so I won’t,” Tommy said. His dad used to say shit like that. “But I ain’t fucking with you. I truly believe he was a dead man, but not like the zombies.”

“Ghosts aren’t real, Tom.”

“Neither were fucking zombies before 2010, Colonel. Is it that much of a stretch to think that ghosts could be real now? Yeah, I know, it’s fucked up; but there’s more to this story.”

“What? Sasquatch? Fairies? Shit, is that homophobic? Sorry, that not what I meant at all. I apologize.”

“Simmer down, Colonel,” Tommy said with a laugh. “No harm, no foul. No JAGs are gonna drag you before a court martial. Okay look, listen; we never told anyone this; it was bat shit crazy then, and still is now. But when we were Oscar Mike to the church, we got caught up in a bunch of the undead, and one of them approached me.”

“You put it down.”

“Not quite. The fucking thing looked at me, then snarled at me, actually making noise, then reached out with one hand, and offered me a pen.”

“Fuck off.”

“Learn to say something different. So it offered me this pen, then like, tilted its head sideways, shook it a little, like it had offered it to me incorrectly, and then said, and I fucking quote, ‘no, not you.’ The fucker closed its hands, and walked away.”

“There are witnesses to this?”

“Glen, Dennis, Katrin, Stephanie. They all saw it. You can ask them. I wouldn’t lie, you know me.”

“That’s the worst part of it. I know you’re telling the truth.” The military officer with no real army to lead put his hands on his hips and walked in a circle down in the basement lit only by the candles the two men had brought down with them. “Has anyone else seen or heard anything like this?”

“I haven’t asked, and no one’s mentioned anything.”

“We have to be careful. Admitting that we think potentially mischievous ghosts are real might spark a panic. Zombies are bad enough. I’ll work that angle. Are you willing to post up down here and make sure no… poltergeists mess with us? I don’t trust anyone but you and Glen on this.”

“I’ll double tap Casper. I don’t give a fuck.”

“That’s a relief. Okay. You want to move your quarters down here? Set up permanent shop with Glen? Get some holy water?”

“No, Jesus no, I just got rid of having to room with that guy. I’ll move down here, but he can keep his ass behind his own locked door.”

The colonel laughed. “Okay, that’s good. I’ll sleep better knowing you’re down here. Can you get a lock on this door? Get some keys handed out to a few trusted people?”

“Dennis has been doing the building management, for lack of a better term. I’ll ask him.”

“Tommy, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d shoot a whole lot, and miss most of everything,” Tommy explained.

“I take that heinously wrong remark personally. Permission to speak freely revoked, sailor.”

“Aye aye, Colonel.”

“Get your gear down here. I’m gonna see if anyone else is seeing dead people.”

“Ghosts, sir. Considering our current world situation, I feel like being specific right now is probably gonna matter.”

The colonel laughed, and left Tommy in the dark basement alone.

The SEAL looked around, and sighed. “Home sweet home. At least it’s warm down here.”

Tommy cleared out his regular schedule of patrols, helping in the armory to clean and maintain weapons, and fucking off with his teammate Glen to move his stuff down into the basement. Glen kept pressing on the reasons why they were doing it, but Tommy deflected his incessant efforts to get info by spewing random facts about comic books at him.

Only after two solid hours of morning labor, carrying Tommy’s bed frame, mattress and box spring down the echoing, cold stairwell did Tommy explain the situation. Glen sat on a wooden stool beside the drill press not far from the spot they’d set up Tommy’s temporary quarters. He was speechless as Tommy watched him recall the horrific events of the night they’d encountered the zombie that spoke, then later, the dead pastor that both was and was not.

“If this really is a ghost… do you think they’re dangerous?”

“Are you asking if you can be my roommate again? Because that’s gonna be a no from me,” Tommy said as he laid back on his bed. “I won’t need a blanket down here. At least seventy-five in this room.”

“Toasty. Yeah, look, bro, I’m worried about this idea. What the ghost is dangerous? What if it’s a fucking traitor in our midst? You being alone makes my skin crawl.”

“I’m moved by your strong feelings for me. If you think we have a traitor in the flesh? No. It can’t be a real person. I’m 100% Slimer on this.”

“Because of the physics of the door being blocked?”

“Yeah, more or less. There’s just no way a real person did what we saw.”

“Do you think Dennis did it?” Glen posed. “He was here, fucking with the door when you showed up, right? What if he was the one behind it?”

“Don’t say shit like that. He’s not that guy,” Tommy snapped.

“Oh… whoa,” Glen said, lifting his hands in supplication. “I hit a nerve there.”

“Sorry, just, you know….”

“Oh I know now,” Glen said. “This a good thing?”

“I don’t know. It’s not a thing at all, really.” Tommy’s face felt hot.

“Well, you let me know when and if it does. Important to know when a friend transitions to family,” Glen said.

“Thanks,” Tommy said, and meant it. “Look, I’ll be fine down here. There’s something going on, and we both know it. Germany isn’t Afghanistan. That zombie that talked to me, then the pastor. Next level weird shit is happening, and it happened in this basement. And if anyone—if any family—is well suited for living in the weird shit, it’s mine. Peculiar and unusual is in my DNA.”

“No argument. You’re like a cocktail of the missing link, Olympic athletes, and a MENSA candidate. Promise me you won’t live down here like a damn hermit. Like Yoda on that swamp planet.”

“Dagobah. He lived on Dagobah.”

“Fucking nerd.”

Tommy became a bit of a hermit, like Yoda on that swamp planet.

Disengaged from his regular duties at the citadel, Tommy spent several days, and nights alone in the basement, exercising then reading book after book by the light of a kerosene lantern that hung above his bed. Hugged by the warmth of the nearby boiler, and the hot water pulsating through the pipes heading in every direction in the room, off to shed its heat for the others sheltering in the retired, repurposed military structure.

Tommy devoured light, pulpy fantasy novels, then a science fiction novel, then a few thrillers. He raided their substantial library in a central building nearby and borrowed a few autobiographies, as well as two books about German history, written in English. Being that they’d lived in Erfurt for quite some time, with no real plan to leave to head home, Tommy wanted to learn more about his new residence.

It all served to distract him from worry about a potential ghost, thoughts of his family back home, and the confusing, strange idea, that there was a person he thought he liked, and the fact that the person was nearby. SEALs had plans for almost everything—and the ability to plan—for anything that might come up, but they curiously overlooked issues related to romance.

Tactical oversight.

Tommy slept well all alone anyway, comforted by the building’s boiler-womb, a fresh mattress, good books, and a rigorous circuit training regimen. He dreamed of nothing important, and sometimes, though he did not realize it yet, he dreamt of the dead.

He was woken up by the sound of a man’s voice whispering to him in the locked room.

“Identify yourself,” Tommy said, reaching for the M4A1 beside his bed.

“What do you call a sailor with no boat?” the tired voice whispered in the tomb of the basement.

Tommy’s mind raced, trying to match the speed his heart sputtered at.

“Not a whale… but a seal, yes?”

That voice is familiar… wispy, spent. “Who are you?”

“Proof of God, that’s what you are,” the voice said, confirming a suspicion it apparently had. “I remember now,” it added, the sound of the voice echoing around the room.

“The pastor. From the church,” Tommy said after it clicked together. He still reached for the rifle.

“I was a pastor once.”

“In Erfurt Germany?” Tommy asked the presence, still in the blackness. His hand found the rifle, and the lantern beside it. He didn’t turn the light on. Not yet.

“Yes. My hometown. I was lucky.”

“You died,” Tommy told the voice. “And we still talked to you when we entered your church.”

“I remember… I attacked you.”

“Yes you did.”

“I had to protect my congregation,” it explained. “You were… dangerous. Sailors without boats can’t be trusted.”

“Well you’re not really wrong about that,” Tommy said. At least my sense of humor didn’t get scared away.

“I was wrong about many things. Faith was the salve I applied to my wounds of character, and education. Through God I gained so much. I learned how to find righteousness, when I was blind. I am thankful.”

Tommy sat up on his bed in the dark. The voice—the pastor, the presence—remained silent.

“My name is Tommy. Thomas Ring.”

“A ring. An unbroken circle. A promise kept.”

“We are people of our word.”

“That’s good. Where am I?”

“The basement of a building at Citadel Petersburg in Erfurt. We’ve fortified it against the undead. Many survivors.”

“Another basement I know nothing of. Why am I here?” the pastor asked.

“I don’t know. Do you remember your name? Maybe you can tell me your name?”

“I…” the voice trailed off. “Warrior. I am a warrior. Krieger.”

“You told me I could call your Jonas. Is that still okay?”

Nothing came back in return. More time passed in the void.

“Pastor Jonas?”

Tommy drew in a slow, measured breath and lifted the rifle. He thumbed the safety and reached over with his left hand to pick up the lantern. He sat in the dark like that for another minute, waiting for a man that wasn’t there to answer him.

He mentally prepared to die, and twisted the knob.

The light he made, showed no ghosts.

A metallic ping woke an anxious Tommy several nights later. The SEAL sat up in his bed and looked around the boiler room. Dancing shadows cast by the candle he’d left lit moved back and forth as he searched the space. In his dreamy state he’d somehow pinned down the rough direction of the noise, and he turned towards the actually boiler itself. He focused on the shadows beyond its anvil-weight solidity.

“Pastor Jonas?”

“What time is it, Tommy?”

He looked down at his watch. “Zero-three thirty-three.”

“Awfully early to be up, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Pastor. It’s a little early. Welcome back,” he said, staring at the obvious blackness where the presence of Jonas Krieger resided. He saw something move, and shift in the umbra of the black.

“I’m not sure why I’m here, Tommy.”

“That makes two of us. Do you remember why you turned off the valves in here? Was it to do damage? Get someone’s attention?”

“In here? I don’t remember doing that. But if I did… it wasn’t to hurt anyone. I would only be violent or destructive to protect my congregation. I don’t think anyone would want to hurt my worshippers.”

A cool draft of air slipped along the floor, chilling Tommy. It came from behind the boiler, and the blackness where the ghost of Jonas remained out of view.

“What if you thought hurting us was protecting your congregation?”

“How would that make sense?”

“What if you thought your congregation was the army of the dead outside the walls of this citadel? What then, Pastor?”

“I would never take them under my wing. Not a chance. The monsters may be doing God’s work, but they are not mine for the tending.”

“Doing God’s work? The zombies? That’s fucking dark, Jonas. Why would you say that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the man in the shadows asked. “What else could take our lives at such quantity, then turn our very bodies against us one after another? Who else—what else—but God?”

“Yeah I got no argument.”

“When faced with a miracle, there can be disagreement,” Pastor Jonas said from his sanctuary in the dark.

“If God is the one behind this all… then how do we explain your presence? You’re more than the undead. You’re a thinking, existing… spirit, outside of the physical constraints of your corpse.”

“Did I get a proper burial? Were words said? Did I get an adequate service?”

“I don’t think so,” Tommy said.

“Then perhaps I am a restless soul, doomed to wander the world until some mysterious purpose is fulfilled.”

“Wow. Unbelievably lame.”

Pastor Jonas laughed; a warm sound from a being that existed outside of the rules of life.

“Sorry, that might’ve been a dick move,” Tommy said.

“Don’t apologize,” Jonas assured. “I took no offense. Why should I? I am dead after all. I lack only Heaven. Perhaps… perhaps that means this is my Hell?”

“I can’t drum up much of an argument against that idea either.”

“I don’t know where I go, when I’m not here,” the man of God said. “There is a passage of time I sense, but an absence of meaning. No dreams, no visions, no rest. Just… nothing. I have memories of being in the church, and laying in wait for someone to come, but that feels… primitive.”

“Legends and stories say ghosts haunt places but you’ve materialized enough to have a physical presence in two places now. So that doesn’t hold water.”

“Maybe I’m haunting a person?”

“Who?”

“Who is here, that was there? At the church when we first met?”

“In this building right now? Myself, my SEAL teammate Glen, and another man named Dennis.”

“Dennis is not a Ring, correct?” Pastor Jonas asked.

“No ,not yet.”

“Ah, I see. Curious. I do not think he has anything to do with me, or my lingering nature. I know what is inside me. Inside my soul. I may not be perfect, but I do not think that God would judge me as being unworthy of eternal rest in Heaven. I did kill myself, didn’t I? Maybe that is the well my curse springs from. Perhaps then, I am haunting you, or perhaps, God has more purpose for me on this world, and I must fulfill a God-given, mysterious purpose.”

“We’re back to being lame again.”

“You’ve little faith then, yes?”

“If you’re asking if I believe in God… then the answer is maybe. I’ve seen a lot happen in my time; being a war fighter puts you in moments of calamity and crisis. I’ve watched events unfold in impossible ways. Bullets missing heads by inches, explosions not killing people. Miracles, I can only conclude. I don’t pray, but I do believe someone out there, is looking out for me.”

“And maybe perhaps, that’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t need a ghost to watch over me. I have Glen.”

“I don’t think I was remanded to the physical realm after death to haunt you, Thomas. I wonder instead, if I am your guardian angel in the shadows.”

“I need to see it myself,” Colonel Fallon said to Tommy.

The colonel, Glen, and Tommy were all sitting in the building’s cafeteria after the staff designated for cleaning had just finished up. The room had thick wooden beams in the ceiling, and tall windows that let in the white winter light. The room felt cool to Tommy; but every room did since he moved his bed within fifteen feet of the boiler.

“I haven’t seen him in days,” Tommy said. “And he always shows up late at night. Zero three-thirty-three. Without deviation, every time.”

“I’ll drag my shit down later. I’m staying down there until I see or hear this guy,” the leader of the Americans said.

“You don’t believe me?”

“He believes you,” Glen said. “But I bet he wants to see it for himself.”

“Damn right I do,” Fallon said. “I am a man of faith, boys. Born to a family of Christians, and I practice my faith. I pray almost daily. To say the end of civilization has rattled my core beliefs is an understatement. If I can capture just… just an iota of that pure innocence I once had back… I’ll sit in that basement for a month.”

“So that’s that,” Tommy said. “Bring a deck of cards. I have a bunch of books already.”

The men stood up and went about their way. That night, not long after a modest dinner of chicken with roasted potatoes and onions in that same room, Fallon joined Tommy in the basement. When they decided to sleep—Tommy on his bed, the Colonel on a cot they moved down—the SEAL passed out immediately. The officer took some time.

He was excited.

It took three nights before Pastor Jonas Krieger returned to the shadows.

“Colonel,” Tommy whispered as he nudged the leg of his commanding officer. “Wake up.”

“Wha-?” the older man said, rolling over. A second later, he sat straight up in the dimly lit room, aware of the ramifications of being woken in the middle of the night. “Is he here?”

“Yeah. He’s got a spot over there,” Tommy said, pointing a finger at the black smear beyond the hulking boiler. “Sometimes I can see his teeth when he smiles.”

Fallon turned his attention to the corner, and its mundane appearance. A shadow, a machine thrumming. The sounds of water coursing through pipes barely audible. Nothing unusual. Nothing at all.

“Hello,” a voice called out from the darkness.

“Oh, Tommy,” Fallon blurted, his eyes going wide, his mouth dropping open. He saw the sunken, root-exposed teeth. “He’s here.”

“I am here, sir. You must be Colonel Fallon. Tommy’s said nice things about you. I admire a man who takes on the mantle of leadership in times of struggle. It is not enough to lead when the weather is calm, yes? Storms prove a sailor’s worth.”

“I can’t speak to that. I’m Army. Tommy here is Navy,” Fallon said, never taking his eyes off the depths of the shadow that contained the impossible.

“Ah, I see. The difference doesn’t matter to me, I don’t think. You’re a man of faith then? I can see the Bible near your bed. That matters to me.”

“I am. You’re a pastor?” Fallon asked.

“I was. You could say in some way, I still am.”

“Would you say a prayer with me?” the colonel asked. “It would still my nerves.”

“It would be my distinct honor and pleasure. Let us say the Lord’s prayer,” the ghost paused, and let Fallon join. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

The basement resumed its quasi-silence, save for the steady, satisfied breathing of the colonel.

“Thank you,” the officer said. He’d already forgotten about the unsettling image of the shadow with teeth.

“No, thank you. I have been a shepherd without a flock. Your sailor Tommy has pretty complicated beliefs about God. He’s been a challenge.”

“You have no idea.”

“I’m here, guys. I’m right here in this room, and I can hear you both,” he said with a wry smile. “Thank you for allowing me to skip over introductions. I’m not terribly good at those social niceties. Most of the new people I get to meet are either trying to kill me, or I’m there to kill.”

“I think you are joking, but that’s a sad way to live. I am glad we could make your life easier,” the ghost said. “Now, are you a believer in all senses of the word, Colonel Fallon? Your first-hand experiences in this moment restoring not only your tremulous faith in God and Jesus, but in the supernatural?”

“I’ve always believed in God. I’ve always wondered about ghosts. Now, I believe in both,” he answered. “I am feeling some mighty relief right now. I feel vindicated.”

“Shelter in the arms of the Lord revitalizes like nothing else can.”

“Sure is hella church-y up in here right now,” Tommy said. “Should I leave?”

The ghost and the officer laughed in unison.

“You’re wondering why I’m here, aren’t you? The same as Tommy.”

“Making sense of what’s happening feels like a fool’s errand, Pastor. That being said, if we could just… just understand a little bit of this, it’d mean a great deal. Many of us are lost spiritually, and lost emotionally, and need guidance. Too many of us think this is all just a… just a virus. I don’t believe that at all. This is an act of the Devil.”

“You might be on to something, there. Tommy, do you remember when I said that the spaces in between are blank for me? Passages of time, with no sense of memory?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m starting to realize that perhaps… I might be somewhere, existing, contemplating during those strange periods. Not in a void where I lack, and await existence, but in a place and time where I struggle to bring back to here, what happens there.”

“Okay, I follow,” Tommy said. “What have you been… thinking there?”

“The depths of the machinery of God,” the dead man said. “And trying, trying so desperately to understand what the machinery is trying to create.”

“That’s some deep stuff right there,” Tommy said. “Any revelations from the beyond?”

“Ironic choice of words, there,” Jonas said from the shadows. “Revelations. I believe all of this is related to a Bible passage. I keep… I keep hearing it in my head, over and over. Not now, mind you, but in the times where I am not here.”

“What passage?” The colonel asked, grabbing his Holy Bible and splitting it open.

“Jeremiah 29:11, I believe,” the darkness spoke. “But it has been a long time since I held a Bible. I could be wrong.”

Fallon found the passage, and read it aloud without waiting. “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ He looked to the shadows where the ghost remained out of sight. “What does that even mean?”

“I believe I am not just a ghost, Colonel. I believe I have been remanded into the service of Thomas Ring to serve as a prophet of hope for the people in his vicinity. Perhaps even to serve the prophet himself.”

“Why me?” Tommy asked.

“All I can say, is that I believe it to be the truth. I feel it… I feel it within my soul. He’s a beacon of some sort. A bastion of hope and purpose. A torchbearer in this long, cold night. And as for the message I believe I am to prophecize; Do not lose hope. A future awaits you all, if you remain strong, and have faith in one another, and God.”

“Fuck that,” Tommy said. “On a bunch of levels. I am no beacon of hope, nor am I lining up to find faith while zombies are chewing my friends up wholesale. If the big old G-O-D wanted us to prosper, and have a future, he wouldn’t have done this in the first place.”

Two soft eyes appeared in the depths of the basement’s darkness.

“You are not the only one bearing a burden, Tommy. I suspect strongly that others carry that torch I spoke of; bringers of hope, and peace, and order. And as for why God did this… think on that idea long, and hard. Perhaps we needed to be tested. Perhaps humanity had grown unworthy of that promise of prosperity. And maybe, just maybe, God’s test is not quite finished.”

“Whatever test we took is over, and got graded, my dead friend. We rocked an F on it, and now we’re onto some extra credit shit to get that diploma,” Tommy said.

October 5th

One of the things I dread most in life (believe it or not) is when I sit down with my laptop, and I crack you open, Mr. Journal, and then try to figure out where to start writing, all compounded by the fear that I’ll forget something or misrepresent the events I want to (read: need to) record into this… fucked up history I’m chronicling.

I just blanked out.

For like, ten seconds.

Sitting, staring at this white electronic page, here in this fucking metal floating coffin. Why?

I think I just figured something out.

I’m still writing. Compelled to write. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. I can’t even function if I wait too long to write in this journal. This diary of the living, and the dead.

I’m… I’m the Scribe again, aren’t I?

It makes sense, right? Explains why the Trinity here wasn’t able to get the job done. They couldn’t find each other. They couldn’t form like Voltron. They couldn’t win, because they were incomplete.

I KNOW I must write. It’s not just a fucking hobby right now. I know the difference. I felt it when I wrote after the end back home. There was a... venting of pressure. The compulsion to write all day and night, over and over, never letting anything slip or be forgotten (I mean, I tried, let’s be honest, I’m a bit of a shit show) but fuck… when I had that moment of success, and Cassie went down, and the zombies all fell… and M… and I had her, I didn’t have to write.

Now, I must write.

I’m the Scribe.

Three Trinities doesn’t mean nine people. We listened to Sylvia when she said it, and she was right; there are three Trinities, but that doesn’t mean nine people.

There are nine ROLES. Nine jobs to do. Three of those jobs are done. Kevin was the Warden. He protected us. I was the Scribe. I recorded it all, and Michelle was my Savior. She saved me, and my soul, and helped me get to where I needed to be, at the moment I needed to be there, and save a whole lot of lives.

That’s the first time I’ve written her name since Picarillo killed her.

I’ll be back. I’m fucking bawling. I’m a mess. I miss her so much.

Why can’t I just be left alone, and be happy?

-Adrian

October 6th

I cried myself to sleep. I don’t remember falling asleep in the least, and I don’t really remember my dreams, so for that, I am thankful.

I don’t feel thankful for much right now, but that’s me being a depressed fucking mess. I have so, so much to be thankful for.

I can’t write about Michelle. I just can’t. I can’t even barely write her name without fucking falling apart. I keep seeing her smile, and her face, and then all that goddamn blood. And I keep hearing the last thing she said to me: “You have to save them. They can’t help themselves all the time. They’ll be okay. Go. Just go. Come back when you’re done.”

I thought about those words a lot. More than I’ve ever said here, to you. Maybe more than any other thoughts, to my detriment probably.

Up until just now, I thought she meant I had to save the people of Bastion. I couldn’t see it. Now I… I know.

She didn’t want me to save the people of Bastion; they were already saved. They were given their second chance when we were successful in the task that was presented to us. Unfucking my guilt, and setting an example of how to take care of each moving forward.

I mean, she lied to me. She said she’d be fine, and she wasn’t. She knew that too, when she said it. She knew she was going to die. She made me go, because she knew if I stayed, I’d be more broken than I already would be, and she knew… she knew I had more work to do.

I am the Scribe again. I don’t know if my soul is the one on the line again. I don’t think so. It’s someone else.

And I’m part of the team that needs to save them. I see it clearly now. My purpose.

I didn’t come here just because I wanted to. I came here because I had to. The wheels were already put in motion to get me to Europe long before I even knew anything about it.

Accepting this responsibility doesn’t change much though, does it? I am here, and I am helping the people, and I am going to find the others in the Trinity, and we are going to face fuck this apocalypse. I’m talking grabbed ears and powerful, back of the car in High School thrusts.

I’m so done with this shit. I want it over with, and I want peace, and quiet, and friends, and family.

I’ll write about the fucking fire station shenanigans tomorrow. I need to talk to me people about this Trinity revelation.

Auspicious choice of words, there. Revelation.

Sleep now. Tired.

-Adrian

October 7th

No one in my inner circle blinked an eye when I said I thought I was the Scribe again. Kevin made a typical Kevin comment about how the world always ‘HAS’ to revolve around me, and how conceited I am, but I told him I couldn’t listen to him from my throne room in Fort “Go Fuck Yourself.”

I also presented the idea that we should rename Shoreham Port to Hope Point.

Received a few nods of approval, and even a thumbs up from a grumpy Kate and an indifferent Kevin, so I consider it a done deal. I’ll toss the idea in front of Captain Rosario and Lancaster before we start making road signs and shit. They’re as close as we got to leaders beside my crew, so let’s give them a say.

Point Hope. It’s good.

Cats and dogs, man. The worst thing about the trip were the fucking animals. I love animals. I’m currently dealing with some dog-hate over my testicular trauma from back when, but I do love dogs.

Beginning cut short: followed the route I mentioned all the way to the railroad tracks that bordered the cemetery. If you’re curious, we were able to climb over the fence. Had to climb over it. Making a hole would’ve been a bad idea. Why, you ask? No, not zombies, none of those. You see, by that point in the journey, we’d been followed, harassed, and attacked by about… let’s say eight to ten different dogs, and about forty cats. Prolly a rabbit in there too, somewhere. Few rats.

A fucking Octopus. Animals everywhere.

I already said it, it’s no secret, Mr. Journal… ever since I nearly had my entire groin eaten by a pet gone feral back at the Jones Road farm, I have not been the biggest fan of canines. I’ll say it again; I love animals. I love all animals, really, but dogs do bite, and they bark a lot, and they tend to be much bigger (more dangerous) than cats.

I don’t want to kill a dog, or a cat, or anything or anyone. On the day we went to the fire station, we had to yell and scream to get them to go away (which didn’t work) and finally, we had to throw bits of our food as far away as we could, then hoof it, paranoid as shit we’d run around a corner into a wall of zombies. Was a Grade-A goat-fuck mess.

That being said, we also picked up a train of cats. I mean a TRAIN. Thirty, forty of them. Meowing like drunk frat guys in heat talking shit about their bench press max after a college football game. The cats made enough noise on their own to draw in a crowd of undead all the way from fucking Scotland, I swear.

We yelled and screamed, but after a fashion we just accept our goddamn fate until we got to the fence that blocked off the rail line. It would’ve been easier to use out bolt cutters to snip a way through, but we had to do something to shed our fucking Doctor Doolittle traveling zoo.

Up and over we went, standing in a sea of hungry cats and dogs. I went last, based on the fact I’m the biggest of our crew by far. Kevin’s a little thinner, and a little shorter for sure. I jumped, and Hal and Kevin grabbed my hands to pull me up and over. I could’ve done it myself, but it’s faster with help. I can do a chin-up. I swear it.

Anyway, we left the cats and dogs behind, and were able to cross the rails, and tiptoe through the giant-ass graveyard, using the headstones as cover and concealment all the way. With no animals yapping and drawing in attention, we were able to make our way with far less distraction and noise all the way to the road that led north to the fire station. City felt empty without the animals. Like we were interred inside one of those coffins we were crossing over top of.

The road north, English Close was its name (don’t ask me what Close means), was too packed up by car accidents, and several tipped over streetlamps for us to risk a foot transit over or around, so we went around the side to the west, then up and through the northern part of Hove Cemetery to get to the corner of the fire station.

Fences and walls, Mr. Journal. Brighton has them EVERYWHERE. It’s a damp, cool version of Iraqi neighborhoods, minus the destroyed government, IEDs, VBIEDs, DBIEDs, and chaos of war. Different chaos, same walls and fences dissecting property lines everywhere. Every yard has a fence or brick wall around it. Every business has a gated wall or chain link barrier.

Like... everywhere. Soon as we get off the streets, there’s a fucking wall or fence to jump over or cut through. The back of the fire station, where it bordered the cemetery, was no different. We cut a big hole in the fence and slipped into the rear (heh) parking lot of the fire station.

Nothing in any direction in terms of threats. Brighton remains dead in many ways.

Our group did a full circuit of the building as a single force, checking all windows and doors of the fire house, as well as the windows and doors of the surrounding (facing) areas. We moved fast, even though we were a bit spent from the hard run north to get there.

I say spent but that’s an exaggeration. It was only a mile. The exhaustion came from having to manage the damned animals yipping, yapping and meowing. The daring lunges where they darted in to try and nip at our heels wasn’t fucking kosher either. My balls retracted up high enough to give me Mickey Mouse ears. Thank Oprah for that fence at the rail line.

As it has been a few days since this happened, my memory might be a bit off, but I’ll do my best here; we found more than a few undead inside the buildings surrounding. Several were left in place, as they were on higher floors, behind closed windows, and if they did manage to get out, the breaking glass would alert us, and the fall just after would more than likely kill them, or maim them.

Several were taken out with well-aimed, suppressed shots from Abby, Hal covering her as she did so. The four garage doors on the facility were made of clear heavy-duty Lexan, so we were able to see the three fire department vehicles, still parked in place. One was missing, and we don’t know what it was yet. Doesn’t matter. Likely we won’t find it. We were also still able to see the small number of flat tires, and the handful of undead firemen roaming around inside, as well as a handful of really maimed people mixed in. Blood smeared the glass in several places, and there were numerous bullet holes in both the doors, and the fronts of the vehicles, and the walls beyond.

Pretty clearly things had started off bad back in 2010, and only got worse. Briefly. Then it just ended. And then we showed up.

After yanking down a fire escape and climbing up, we smashed out a second floor window. Fagan posted guard for us at that window outside, and the rest of us cleared the dark building top-down, one cautious room at a time. It was one of the larger buildings we’ve cleared. Two story bedroom/living quarters/offices section, plus the single-story garage area where the fire trucks and gear were stored. There were no undead in the two story area, but the garage was the aforementioned mess. It took us the better part of two hours to secure the place. Hot, and sweaty, with cobwebs and mold. Unpleasant environment to work in, really. Not the worst I’ve seen, but just icky.

Chokepoint of a fire door where the two buildings met with a big chicken-wire window gave us the edge. Made it easy, all things considered. I smashed the glass out with my halligan, and then as they approached, we speared them through the opening that they couldn’t crawl through. Fish in a barrel.

Once we’d killed what we thought were all of them, we put our shoulders into the door to force it open. I think I blew a gasket doing that. For real. Popped an O-Ring and left it on the floor, no pun intended. Pun intended? We were pushing the literal dead weight of about six zombie corpses, and I saw stars I was pushing so hard. That’s what he said.

I’m full of it today. Ate my Wheaties.

Once into the vehicle bay area, the smell was bad enough to gag a maggot, and we knew we had to clear the place of threats that didn’t come to the door, then open a window or five to air it out. I myself got nauseous from it (and I don’t gag from many smells. My own smegma has given me a superhuman resistance to vile stenches) but we cleared out the space between the vehicles (I had to brain one poor fireman who was unable to walk due to legs that had been crushed by something, a car hitting him, maybe, plus he was tied down by his fireman jacket half on that was hooked on a step attached to the pumper truck.

One swing of the bar later, he was at peace, and the fire station was ours. Our in-process loot:

One ladder truck.

One larger ambulance (not quite HRT sized, but a good one nonetheless).

One pumper truck.

One empty bay. No idea what went there. Clown car?

We had to search the dead bodies, and desk drawers, and lockers where the firemen stored their civvie clothes, but we were able to retrieve all the keys for the three remaining vehicles. I wish Blake had been there. He would’ve crawled under the fuckers, lifted the hoods or whatever, and within an hour had them started, or had a parts list we’d need. I miss Blake. Good kid.

We unlocked a storage locker with ample medical supplies, and inside the ambulance there was a pretty full complement of goodies too. Some of it had gone bad, but still, overall, the haul was Grade A.

Anyway, we did our best, and took a lot of pictures with the digital cameras we brought from the ship. The nerds here aboard Reuben James are breaking down what we saw to assess how much work will go into what’s needed to get them running again, but from what I’ve gleaned in my inquiries, the trucks are in good shape.

All are diesel, which is good. Diesel fuel lasts much longer than gasoline, as we know, and diesel fuel is in much higher supply here. I’ll mention again that there’s a fuel company across the water from us. We haven’t secured it yet, but I don’t think anyone is gonna try and take it with our fleet anchored a few hundred yards away.

I’m already getting my Mad Max wet dreams rolling. I want us to modify these motherfuckers to roll hard north as we go. In military jargon, when you strap a crew-served weapon on a vehicle, it gets called a technical. Pickup trucks with .50cals on rotating poles in the back, or vans with a mortar that shoots out the roof, for example. Saw those in Iraq more than once. Watched a few rednecks troll deer deep in the forests with similarly equipped trucks.

I want that dream.

I want to drive around like a post-apocalyptic madman, goggles affixed to my face, wind blowing my Mohawk around like the sail on a fucking idiot’s land boat. I want to gun down swathes of zombies as we speed along the British road system, fully erect and unsatisfying boners in hand.

Soon, my gently throbbing. disappointing boner.

Soon.

We wound up staying there well into the hours of darkness. I think it was almost 9pm when we made the collective call to make our way back under the cover of darkness. We all had NVGs in our kit, and had done enough fighting in them while on active duty, or fucking around in them casually to make the trip pretty safely. Only Abby and Chris hadn’t done any live-fire fighting, and that loss was acceptable in the dark to us.

Move fast, get back quick, and that’s what we did, as best the frigging animals let us. We picked up an aggressive and loud late night dog train, which prevented us from being stealthy, and kept us on edge, as we couldn’t see all the animals barking at us.

So that was… shit. Days ago. Three days? Four? Time’s a little blended together right now.

Our gear heads and tech brains have gone over the pictures, and are getting together the parts and expertise we need to get at least one of the vehicles up and running on a return visit. We’ve got a meeting first thing in the morning to figure out those logistics.

In the meantime, we’ve still got a line out in the street. People getting aid, and what food we can offer them. Hal and Kevin have worked with a couple locals, plus Chris to clear some of the more emergency-level locations of zombies in I’d say a tenth of a mile radius. Four places maybe. No more than six. Not even like, proper tactical operations. More like, “Can you come shoot this fish in this here barrel?”

Barrel fishing.

Still no zombies roaming the city proper, tactically or not, but they’re coming. We know it.

Gonna ruck out. Might hit the head to relieve some stress, if you get my drift.

I forgot to mention: Eagle-eye Williams noticed that the ground in front of the garage was littered with cigarette butts. Dozens, all in varying degrees of breakdown from rain/snow, elements.

Someone, or several someones, at many different points in the recent past had been sitting or standing in front of that garage rather recently, and they were smoking butts. When we return, we will expect trouble from our potential smokers, but then again, if we don’t find trouble of someone else’s making, we make it all on our own.

We’re an ambitious lot, in that way.

-Adrian

October 8th

Meeting this morning went well. Short entry to recap what the plan is. Otis keeps fucking with my hands as I type. He wants attention.

Of the three vehicles, the easiest to get running again, based on what they saw in our photos, is the ambulance. Also the easiest to drive back and forth, which on a first run, is something to consider.

We need at least one tire for the ambulance, which should be available in the parking lots nearby, based on the photos we took, and what we were able to remember. Some replacement hoses will be needed, and there’s a good chance the brakes will be seized up, so spare pads are coming with, as are the tools to get all that done. We’ll need a jumping kit (suitcase that jumps cars) plus some extra fluids to make sure the ambulance has brake fluid, power steering fluid, all that. The gear head we’re bringing (motor pool maniac marine Corporal Crystal Corriveau) is serving as our car paramedic, and I was pretty impressed by her in the meeting.

I’m gonna chuck this cat if he doesn’t chill out. I’m scratching your head between sentences, dude. Take a fucking valium.

We’re gonna roll out tonight at 9pm, using NVGs to get there. We’re bringing Crystal, as well as two of Lancaster’s bodyguard rangers that we haven’t worked with yet. Sgt. Maple, and Sgt. Oak.

Yes, they have tree names, and yes, those are not their real names. When I scoffed at Lancaster after he said their assumed names he shrugged, and clucked his tongue a few times.

“Opsec, kid,” he said.

“Ha. Who are they afraid of learning what their names are? The literal Devil is rolling around, and I don’t he gives a shit what their real names are. Whatever. Long as they shoot straight and can listen. Fucking Rangers, man. What kind of asshole wants to be a ranger?” I said back to him.

Kevin looked away.

We had to come up with a plan about the animals that nipped at our heels, and the best thing we got was borrowing one of the sailor’s personal airsoft guns. A few of the dudes over on Crommelin own $500 airsoft M4s, and we appropriated one of them. He gave it up with glee, and after a lengthy argument with Hal over who should be the one carrying it to keep aggressive animals away from us, I put my foot down, and now the pellet gun is mine.

I couldn’t let our one black guy be the dude who shoots animals with a pellet gun. If anyone ever reads this fucking diary, I need to keep Hal’s reputation clean. There’s enough racism issues out there as it is. Please scroll up and read my thrashing of three pricks on the deck of Reuben James as supporting evidence. I should also add this: I want to help these animals. When we are able to move safely, we’ll get them caught, and made safe. We’ll feed them, and give them a home, and make them a part of our family, but we need to get stuff done first.

So we’re headed out later tonight. Plan up is the same, though this time Kevin and Hal are leading with the NVGs, Team Paranoid Forest is in support, and Crystal, Chris, and Abby will be secondary.

I will be looking for animals to shoot with my airsoft gun, and boy do I hope I don’t have to shoot any. I should note; the gun isn’t powerful enough to really hurt ‘em. I dialed down the oomph on it so it’ll just give ‘em a sting on the ass to scare them, hopefully sending them running.

I am not a bad person.

I think.

I do have my days.

Gonna try for a nap before we leave. Gonna be a long fucking night. Otis is driving me up a fucking wall, yo.

-Adrian

October 11th

Been back for a couple days. Took me a bit to find time to make this entry. Had some shit to think about, and stuff has been… busy.

Our trip out was an almost literal, moment to moment repeat of the first journey, but with everyone carrying an extra twenty pounds of gear, and in some cases (Chris, for example) much more than twenty pounds. Replacement parts for the ambulance, plus the jumper kit, and all that. Now Maple and Oak, Lancaster’s retinue, were already loaded for bear with about 60 pounds of kit, so we were not moving as fast as the night prior. Also, with each passing hour, and no zombies of note appearing, I get progressively more and more nervous that we’re going to round a corner, and get mauled by the entire population of metro London.

It’s gonna happen. Mark my words.

The dogs. The borrowed airsoft rifle performed. I did have to adjust on the fly with Kentucky windage. The gun fires in a gentle arc, lofting the pellet up a bit then laying it down, and using an IR laser ($2,000 optic on a $500 gun) I can actually watch bright green pellets shoot out like PacMan pellets in reverse. Snap snap snap… so yeah. Had to adjust for elevation, arc, wind, and movement. I’d say I missed about half my shots, but I am happy to report none of the dogs I plinked were hurt. No worse than the bite of a horsefly.

Which sucks, but they’ll get over it.

After hitting the first few dozen shots, the dogs started to catch on that the invisible horseflies kept biting so long as they stayed on our heels. By the midway point of our journey, my airsoft rampage was no longer constant. Just the occasional plink here and there.

Relief.

The inability to move silently at night feels like such a waste of time and effort.

I took the time to convince the boys on Crommelin that their pellet arsenal was going to have to be put into patrol rotation for a bit, and they went with it, hook line and sinker. I think they were proud to lend their pewpews to the cause. We’ll run out of pellets eventually, but those of us who are clearing flats and businesses know now to keep their eyes peeled. I’ve also asked that the locals be inquired to.

We arrived around midnight, and secured the perimeter and building a second time. Took twenty minutes, and we found no threats. We posted our two rangers (the previously mentioned Team Paranoid Forest) into over watch positions, and the rest of us got to work on the ambulance, and providing security for them.

It went swimmingly for several hours. It all changed the moment AND I MEAN THE MOMENT Crystal turned the key in the ambulance’s ignition. As the engine turned over Sgt. Maple called out over our network.

“Headlights approaching from the north. Mile and a half out. Multiple vehicles, fast-moving.”

Well fuck, right? Just when we get the party started, locals crash it.

Immediate need to make a decision fell to me, as it should. I called back to Reuben James and ordered them to get William’s helo in the air, and to prepare our perimeter for a good and loud time. I asked Team Paranoid Forest to stay in place, in hiding, and then ordered Kevin and the remainder of the crew to take the fuck off as fast as they could go, running dark, driving with night vision. We had to get the ambulance back safe.

Hal told me to fuck myself, and that he was staying. Not even like, politely. Logically, sure, but not gentle in his refusal to leave. And he was right; Kevin, Abby, Chris and Crystal were more than enough muscle to get the ambulance back. It also made sense to split our group of eight into two groups of four, and with what I knew I wanted to do, having another high-end shooter on hand was a bright idea.

Team B went out the fire station’s garage like a bat outta hell, heading home. As they escaped, slipping between the car accidents on the one street heading out, Hal and I shut the fire station down and took up two different positions in areas we’d cleared the other day, and were confident remained clear. I had a feeling these were our smokers, and I just knew they were heading to us. I had to see them.

Hal went up in the same building Sgt. Maple was in, and I took cover behind a large truck parked in the nearby lot. Gave me a decent view of the garage doors, and two avenues of escape. Once in my spot, I radioed to Reuben James, and told them to bring the helo up, and provide air support to the ambulance, and then remain on station to rain down hell if I called for it. I screwed my suppressor on my rifle, snapped the scary switch to scary, and took a deep, centering breath.

I briefly debating praying, but decided against it. I don’t think that line is connected right now.

Just seconds later, four vehicles rolled into the parking lot, driving fast and stopping equally so. They came up that street called English Close, using their biggest vehicle to push the car accidents out of the way. Same street our ambulance had just left on.

They rolled in with two four door sedans, a small van, and a flatbed tow truck, equipped with a… like a turret made of welded steel near the back of the cab. In that turret, was a shooter with a long-barreled L85 rifle. The bullpup design the Brits used. Silly looking machine. He provided security while the rest of the vehicles emptied. All men, all armed with brandished melee weapons, started scanning the area, looking for whoever had been doing shit at the fire station. By that I mean us. I spotted multiple sidearm holsters amongst their number, which tipped me off that they had guns, but didn’t have a lot of ammunition to spare. Smash their foes with a pipe first.

Then… I put together who was in charge.

Out of the tow truck’s cab a tall man emerged. He wore the tan… what do they call it… not the uniform, but the pants and jacket of a firefighter. Tan, with horizontal luminescent stripes at the chest, waist, and bottom of the pant leg. No helmet, but he wore the gear with ease, and when he hefted a halligan over his shoulder to survey his surroundings I knew I was either dealing with a less handsome British counterpart, or my evil Ash clone. What the fuck is that jacket and pants called? I’ll think of it.

So we watched in silence.

They deferred to him, giving him space, and looking to him as he walked around, passing through the beams streaming from the headlights. I saw spatters of old blood on his clothes. Not much, but I saw it. Not that old, either.

He walked back and forth for several minutes, peering through the Plexiglas lift doors, assessing the empty space where ambulance had been just minutes prior. He didn’t look real happy about that, but he didn’t throw a tantrum. What he did do, was go back to the flatbed, fish a cigarette out a bag or something inside it, and light it up with a struck match. Started to smell the smoke right when he grabbed a small can from one of the dudes who got out of a sedan.

Halligan man handed off his tool and went to the wall of the fire station. He shook the can of spray paint, and wrote a lengthy, six foot tall message on the side of the building. He handed the can back to his friend, who tossed it. A moment later, I heard him admonish the other dude, who then went and searched for the tossed can in the dark. As he watched the guy search for the tossed trash, he finishing his cigarette, and flicked it. The butt landed near where we found all the others.

Guess he doesn’t like littering unless it’s what he wants to throw away.

As the sound of William’s bird grew closer in the dark sky, they mounted back up, and grumbled away. No violence incurred, no conflict.

I radioed out quietly for everyone to make sure they didn’t shed any people, and I asked William to give them a clear tail north to let them know that they were dealing with us.

Yes, we were the dudes with the boats, and the helicopter, and the really big fucking guns.

William reported that they traveled north for a couple miles, and then pulled in and parked at a farm near some high tension power lines. They parked in a barn he said, and shut the whole place down before dismounting inside. No clear data from the sky on that place, in that moment, but that’s cool.

After we knew they hadn’t left anyone behind, or deposited scouts to observe, and we knew they were tucked away back where they came from, I came out from my hidey hole (knees, ankles, back, and feet sore, my ass asleep as well) and I read the message he wrote using the flashlight on my M4.

The message said;

Don’t know U. You’re taking rigs that belong to my fallen bros. U must earn ‘em. Be back next time you’re here. Bring beer. Watch out, zeds North again.

-MA

We’re low on beer, but this message gives me hope that we might have some allies we hadn’t known about up until now.

So tomorrow night, we’re rolling back. The ambulance is here, and it’s already been upgraded with some armor, and weapon ports. All the maintenance is done as well, and everything is ready for it to be used for some things. We’re gonna use it to return on the 13th. By then, it’ll have even more upgrades.

These Navy boys work hard. You can’t take that away from them. I’m thankful for them.

In the meantime, it’s more of the same. Protect the perimeter, clean out areas of the city that are close that have undead contained within them, and direct all resources to the acquisition of ground transport.

I want to ask William and Kate to do a sortie out over the farm where this MA character is holding up, but I don’t want to threaten them too bad, and I certainly don’t want us to waste fuel for like, nothing. I checked with Captain Rosario, and she confirmed that the guns on both Reuben James and Crommelin have that range. Which means, if need be, we can shell that farm from here if they get feisty.

While it’s comforting to know that we have that as a feather in our cap, it’s a little devastating to think that we might need to bring that level of destruction to bear against the living. That being said, if they fuck with me, or what I came to do, or Oprah forbid, fuck with my people, I’ll see that placed razed to the ground and then piss on the ashes.

Eyes towards the north at all times. We have a warning of zombies on the prowl, and there’s an armed, mobile group that may or may not be our adversaries. Like I said, we need to tread carefully. Our big swinging American dicks might knock over the house of cards, and ruin alliances that could make or break the whole operation.

For all I know, this “MA” dude is the Soul. Or the Warden. Wouldn’t that be great?

Guess we might find out soon. I’ve asked Kevin and Abby to ask the locals tying to get medical care if they’ve heard of any firefighters in the area, or anyone with the initials “MA.”

It’s a turnout coat. The fire fighter jacket. I knew I’d figure it out.

-Adrian

October 13th

I like living in a world where my good guys are unequivocally good. That leads to wanting a world where my bad guys are unquestionably bad. When someone is good, I will be their friend. When someone is bad… I will be their end.

Simple. I like simple.

“MA” is not going to be simple, and that vexes me. Makes me ornery in ways that makes my balls itch. And Mr. Journal, there are few things in this life that are more irritating to me than itchy balls.

Lots to cover, and I’m tired. We went to the fire station again today, early, and met with “MA” and crew.

Our ambulance has been upgraded since I last wrote. Light armor has been welded to the outside, and the windows have been covered over with heavy duty Lexan that’s high-end impact resistant. Won’t stop rifle fire, but it will deflect most kinds of shotgun pellets, and it’ll slow down pistol fire enough to make it less lethal. The windshield of the van was given a mixture of it.

Wheel wells have been fitted with hinged plates that cover the top half of the tires that have had flat chunks of sharpened steel welded horizontally to be leg cutters for anyone or anything that gets too close. They’re making a smaller, lighter brush guard/ram bar for the front of it, but it wasn’t ready for the trip in time. That’s fine; we still felt like we were driving around in the wasted dead city of Brighton like we were in a fucking Bradley.

We reached the fire station, driving right past the fucking barking dogs, and all the car wrecks, and burnt-out buildings, and skeletons. Team Paranoid Forest cleared and set up two new over watch positions and once they were done, we started working on the ladder truck. Crystal in the lead, assisted by Chris Fagan, who is pretty handy with cars and trucks.

After about three hours of work on the truck, alternating who was labor, and who was pulling security, we evidently made enough noise to draw in “MA” and his crew. Sgt. Oak was in a better position during daylight to spot them rolling out, so when they left the farm, we had about two minutes advance before we had them right on top of us.

They circled around to the south, and came past the cemetery we made our way through. They only had the once choice to get close, and we knew that, so when they made that last left hand turn onto English Close, I was there, waiting for them. Right near the entrance to a parking lot on one side, and some bushes for concealment on the other. All my people had guns they could bring into the fight, including Sgt. Oak, who was on the roof of a local building with a rather large caliber rifle.

William’s chopper was spinning and low in the sky over the harbor, waiting to make the mile or so trip to us, when the flatbed truck pulled to a stop, just thirty feet from where I stood in the road. Rifle hanging in front of me, hand on the grip, I waved with my left hand. Tried to look friendly, but it’s hard to appear unthreatening when you’re wearing full military gear. Minus the helmet at that moment. Gotta rep my Mohawk, at great risk to fucking melon. It’s all about branding.

Turret boy with that long barreled L85 drew down on me and kept his front post on my chest as they stopped. I was nervous about that, but felt he wouldn’t shoot. I had that feeling. I also knew Oak had dude’s chest in his crosshairs, and all I had to do was smile and think bad thoughts for Oak to punch a hole in this stranger with the gun.

That’s real power, and I hate sometimes that power such as that resides with me. I’m not good enough for it.

“MA” got out. Still wearing his turnout gear, he hopped down from the flatbed, fired up another cigarette with a match, and tossed his halligan over his shoulder. He approached with considerable swagger as his people hopped out of their cars to keep watch in all directions. They didn’t move like trained professionals, they moved like people who’d learned on the job, and figured out a way to get things done.

“Yank, aren’t ya?” he asked me. (Insert silly English accent in your imagination here for added authenticity.)

“What gave it away? I’m born and bred East Coast Standard Time. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, my name is Adrian Ring.”

“We’re Mutual Aid,” he said, and kept right on eye-fucking me. Taking my measure. The judgment with this guy… Speaking of this guy, up close, and in daylight, I got a better look at him. He had me by about three inches, and maybe fifty pounds. Real big guy, and solidly planted. He wore the firefighting gear like he was born in it, and judging by the soot and filth giving darkness to his pale skin, he’d been dyed by the smoke of all the fires he’d put out. He tugged at the full black beard that clung to his jaw.

“Is this the royal we?”

“Sumfin like that, yeah,” he said, adding a small chuckle. It was a creepy laugh. Not sure why, but it was. “You with the boats? The helicopter that flew behind us?”

“That I am. I apologize if our loud arrival made life harder for you. We had a rather considerable welcoming party at the port when we sailed in.”

“I imagine so. Been thick here. Real thick. Lots of dead and no good way to dispose of them quickly. Not many of us left. Since you arrived though… been easier to get around.”

“Well, I’m glad. We’ve got big plans to help, and I want to make sure as best we can we’re not making it worse.”

“Hard fucking task, that. Making this worse,” he said, still staring at me. “Thoughtful of you.”

“Don’t expect a fucking Christmas card,” I said and laughed. “I’m not that kind of thoughtful.”

“Aye, I get that. My wife… she remembered all of our friend’s birthdays. All their kid’s birthdays too. Kept it in her head,” he tapped his noggin with the halligan on his shoulder. “She was special like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said to him after a few seconds.

“Yeah well, that made it all worse, ya know? Wasn’t the only awful bit of this either. But I’ve got good men and women here now. And we’re trying to do good. Mutual Aid, we call ourselves. You need help, we come.”

“Not to sound desperate, but we could use some help, if you’re willing to lend some.”

“You’re in charge? Nah, can’t be you. No idiot in charge would come out here and risk their own lives.”

I laughed. “Well, I’m the guy that couldn’t get out of the way of responsibility fast enough. Got ran over by it. I am the idiot in charge.”

“Fucking right then. Happy to see you’re willing to risk asshole and elbow for your people. Don’t seem like you’re in dire straits for anything, whole enough to put boats across the ocean and helicopters into the sky. What could our tired little fellowship with our rusty little shitpieces do for you?” The shitpieces were their cars.

“We’ve sailed from the States to help here. Things are safe in North America again. We cleared the zombies out. We know how to do it here too.”

“Cleared ‘em out? All those guns, yeah? You bring enough bullets and shells for the lot of England? What about Scotland? Does Ireland get a shit given? France?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but the guns certainly helped. None of that is what we need help with right now. Yes, we sailed, on boats, and managed to bring a helicopter too, but fuel for both is limited and we have insufficient ground transport. That’s why we’re here.” I pointed at the fire station over my shoulder.

“Stealing my old trucks.”

“Calling it stealing is relative. More like, recycling. It’s not like you were using them.”

“You’re defacing a holy temple, Mr. Ring,” he said, in utter, and complete sincerity. “Those vehicles were returned here, and left to be protected. I know I had friends still in there as well. Dead friends. Mostly dead. This place is a memorial, friend. And not to sound like a shit neighbor, but you walking in here, and having your way with my old home away from home… makes me quite unhappy. And that makes my people a bit skittish.”

“Had I known about Mutual Aid, and what this place meant to you, I surely would’ve done it differently.”

“You’ve… made some impressive changes to the ambo,” he said, pointing at the ambulance and all its new modifications far behind me, and parked just out of wide view at the fire station. He sauntered closer to me, to look over my shoulder at what he could see of the ambulance. I took a step back when he got too close, and he froze. His eyes went from the vehicle to the weapon still in my hand, hanging across my chest. He sighed, and let slip another little chuckle before stepping back. I had to say something, to take the tension away.

“I’m sorry. Really. Had we known, we would’ve done this differently. But we’re in this boat now, and the ambulance is fixed, and upgraded. Look, I swear to you, and I curse I fucking LOT, but I don’t swear oaths fucking ever, but I swear to you, what we do with that ambulance will honor your friends and family. We will do good with it. And if, if you can look the other way, or even help us get the other trucks up and running, we’re gonna do good with them too.”

“What the hell do you want with a ladder truck and a pumping engine? We’re overrun with fucking zombies, mate. Not house fires.”

“And that halligan on your shoulder does a good job on a skull doesn’t it? Made to pry doors open though.”

“Good tool, this,” he said, hefting it off his shoulder. I could tell he had a fancy one, with a titanium shaft. That or he was as strong as ten bears. Jury’s out.

I turned sideways, showing him the halligan I had across my back. “I’ve been carrying one of these for years. I don’t plan on ever not having one nearby. Good for doors, skulls, windows, you name it. That ladder truck and the pumping engine are halligans to me. They get me and my people into second and third floor windows, they run on diesel, they run over zombies, they can be upgraded, both have tons of storage, and crew cabs big enough to fit a small fire team each. They aren’t perfect, but based on the shape they’re in, your old rigs will do until something far better drops in our lap.”

“Or until you find something better to take from those who can’t stop you.”

“I’m not that guy, and the people with me wouldn’t either,” I said. “This has to be done the right way, if it’s going to work at all.”

He looked at me, and I could sense he was trying to pan my statement for gold, or bullshit. “Where are you headed after here?”

“Will my answer determine whether or not you help us with the trucks back there?”

“Likely will. Answer me regardless.”

No harm in being honest, I figured. “Croydon. One of my men is a Royal Marine. We’re going to try and find his family in Croydon.”

“That man is fucking LOST, yeah? He a hobbit? Here to there and back again? He doing this for beer, or a piece of trim? Ah, no matter, forget I asked. Look, that trip isn’t far, as crows fly. Quite far, as zeds walk.”

“I expect a nightmare.”

“And you think my old ladder truck will make that nightmare go away?”

“I expect to make that nightmare go away myself. But for that to happen, I need running vehicles, and the big fellas in that fire station are spot-on. Are you opposed to us continuing what we’re doing? Will you help us?”

“You’re doing good for the people in this city. I see the locals moving around, getting food, and supplies. We couldn’t move at all for months. Too many of the dead. Too many sick or injured. Your arrival sucked them all away, gave us space to breathe.”

“Not for long. They’ll be back.”

“Truth there. Alright, here’s my bargain: you do favors for me, and I’ll help you get my trucks running.”

“Side quests. I’m a big side quests guy. Lotta hours logged into Fallout Three.”

“Ha, good. I’ve got the injectors for these two in my home. Crucial bits of wiring as well. Easily put back in, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find replacements without me.”

“Hold up, is this extortion?”

“It’s a fucking interview, mate. Don’t read it wrong.”

“Fair enough. What do you need done?”

“You fancy a fight?”

“Depends on who I’ve got to fight,” I said.

“Come back tomorrow, and we’ll chat on that detail.”

Then he and his crew loaded up, and fucking left without another word.

So we’re going back tomorrow to see what this asshole wants of us. What he asks for, determines a lot of the future, for a lot of people. I have a good feeling about him… but at the same time, I can’t trust him. Not yet at least.

-Adrian

October 14th

He’s a bold motherfucker.

He bailed on us today. Sent two vehicles to say he couldn’t make it. A woman came and spoke for him, said she was his second in command. Called herself Mata Sene, and spoke with a French accent. The first name we’ve mined out of any of them. After some light chat, she said she was an immigrant to France from Senegal, and was caught in the UK when it all went down. Looked to be about my age, with much clearer skin than mine, and had a nearly shaved head. Fierce, fierce dark eyes. I liked her.

She didn’t give any other names. Their ‘leader,’ the dude with the halligan tool, she referred to simply as Chief End. When I asked her what his first name was, she said Bell, and laughed.

Bell End. Dick head. Chief Dick Head.

So that totally wasn’t his real name, but more on that later.

She had a… like a guarded aspect to her. Like she was afraid of saying too much, but also trying to ask just enough questions to pry information from us. It was an interesting exchange. She definitely spent time asking us how we felt about Bell End, and I got the impression that she was going to use whatever responses we gave her to help formulate her own opinion of her leader.

Yet she said they’d been together almost since day one of this. So strange.

Anyway, she had her squad of cars park at the end of the semi-blocked street, and she walked in with one armed friend, and those two met us right outside the fire station as we worked on getting the trucks up and running. She and her buddy hung out for maybe 45 minutes with Hal and I, eventually leaving us with the information that he’d meet us tomorrow afternoon, back at the fire station.

I thanked her, sent her away with a gift of a few chocolate bars we’d stashed, and the moment her cars were gone, I grabbed Hal by the arm, and we went looking for photos of Chief Cock Tip.

On the wall, upstairs in the offices/dormitory section of the fire house we found a series of pictures depicting the station’s teams over the past few years. Standing in the back was the clear form of Chief Throbbing Mushroom.

At the bottom of the picture were the firefighter’s names.

Station Officer Tobias Wiltshire. Chief Thrusting Tool in the flesh. His secret, for whatever reason he kept it, was mine now. Did he want people out of the fire station to really preserve the gear inside it, or did he want his identity kept from them? Why would he care about people discovering that he was a firefighter?

Fuckery is afoot, Mr. Journal. This man is an enigma, and I am a former serviceman who aims to get real confused, pretty angry, and likely lash out as a result of trying to figure him out and failing.

Guard your buttholes.

I still kinda like him. (this statement not related to my immediately prior statement regarding butthole security) He’s… I dunno. Something about him. He seems on the level in a way I haven’t put my thumb on yet. That, or he’s a fucking major league con man.

Jury’s out.

We did some work on the ladder truck (Crystal confirming Bell End’s assertions about missing parts) then headed home.

We had a single moment of pucker factor when we saw a lone zombie walking south not far from the fire station. Half his midsection smooshed and torn apart, he pressed south at a lethargic gait, picking up speed and urgency when he saw the ambulance. I said we should stop and put it down, and we did. Kevin closed in with his halligan, and brained the fool with ease, even with his faster reflexes. Kevin’s hot shit.

Advance scouting party from the waves of undead surely heading our way?

I think so. I feel it coming like a storm over the horizon. The air is changing.

We’re headed back to the fire station tomorrow to do more work, and to do some looting/checking in the vicinity. There are a great many things we need, and this is a pretty large city, filled with a great many things.

Also, William said our fuel stash for the helo is getting dicey. Just the few runs he’s made to support us getting the ambulance have eaten into our stores too much for his liking. He checked in with me on retasking some of our ground assets to make a plan on getting more fuel. I told him to work with Captain Rosario on it.

Ground transport is still our priority, but we will need that helicopter in the air without doubt. Without doubt.

*cue some fucking music about flying valkyries*

-Adrian

October 16th

Met with Fire Chief Smegma yesterday. I think I caught a little cold, or maybe it’s allergies, hence my delay in reporting. As you’re well aware, Mr. Journal, when a man catches a cold, or, GOD FORBID runs a fever, all things must come to a screeching halt while he recuperates. Get the fuck off the happy train, and sit for a bit in Crankyville, population sicky poo me.

That’s an exaggeration, but I did feel like roasted mangy asshole last night with sinus pressure, sore throat, and post-nasal drip. Joel swept in like Nurse Nightingale, giving me about eight kinds of zinc, vitamin C, chicken soup broth, you name it. I was treated like a delicate Faberge egg.

Felt nice, to be honest. I would’ve asked for a spa day to take some of the stress off, but any facial I got on this fucking boat would’ve ended in sticky fistfight and me crying a lot. I feel much better today, and the break I took helped. I think it was allergies, I do.

Anyway, Chief Bell End arrived yesterday morning, in the soft English rain, in a single beat-up sedan, streaked with rust and dents, all alone save for his big swinging Prince Albert. The last couple visits, while we pulled security, we pushed the wrecks off English Close so we had a wider street to leave with the ladder truck and pumping engine when they’re ready to go. As a result, he was able to drive right back up to the fire station without issue. He parked in front of the transparent garage doors, and slid out. I greeted him in the parking lot. Before he said anything, he fired up a cigarette and sat his halligan tool on the hood of his car.

“Sorry about my absence,” he said. (Don’t forget to insert an Austin Power’s accent for him in your imagination here. Immersion is crucial for the proper Adrian experience.)

“Shit happens,” I replied with a knowing smile. No plan survives first contact. “We were talking about side quests. What can we do to help you?”

“You must be total shit in bed. Skipping all the foreplay and going right for the arse.”

“I’ve received few complaints, but I’ve also been lied to,” I laughed. “Sorry. There’s a lot at stake here, and I know we’re on a clock. Pleasantries almost always end in interruptions by the fucking wandering, curious undead. Slow may be steady but there’s something to be said about getting shit done.”

“Who’s keeping time? You have a manager somewhere that watches you punch in an’ out on a time clock?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I like complicated stories. Plenty of time to hear one right now,” he said, sitting on the hood of his shitty car. The suspension creaked under his weight.

Do I tell him? What do I do? How do I play this? How long did I have to think about it before he realized I was trying to figure out if I was going to try and mislead him?

“This is a story you either believe instantly, or one that makes you want to brain me in the head through a theoretical tinfoil hat with that halligan. It has been described as unbelievable.”

“I’m shit with names, so start with your handle again, and I’ll decide what’s unbelievable.”

I’ll make a note here: he was utterly, and completely sincere. Not dismissive in the least.

So I told him. Took an hour to cover the basics. You already know the story, long-form, so I’ll skip it here. I left the ending as: and now we’re here, trying to find the members of the trinity, and I believe I might be one of the three again. That’s why his help was so important.

He finished an entire pack of smokes, one right after another as I spoke; I couldn’t help but think over and over how little he seemed to care about running out of them. There are no more tobacco farms, no cigarette factories… so what he’s got, he’s got. No cares or worries about running out. Maybe he wants to finish them all. Quit because there’s no more supply. Whatever.

“That’s right batshit.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“Tell that pseudo-Jesus farce a lot, do ya?” he challenged me, but I didn’t buy his… disbelief.

“Not as often as those around me seem to want to tell it. I’m sick of hearing the damn story. I’m still living it and most days I’m pretty sick of that too.”

“Let’s assume you’re telling the truth, and you’re doing the good work you say. Whether or not you believe you’re one of the actual saviors of mankind, sent by God-on-high or if your threads are all coming undone, if you actually did the good you claim to have, then you should be worth helping, yeah, Mr. Ring?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Quid pro quo, though.”

“Transactional relationships are my favorite.”

He laughed. “Had a few dates like that.”

“You’re on one right now, beautiful,” I said, and winked. He laughed with me, and fired up yet another butt.

He exhaled his smoke then spit. “Look, we’ve been at this since the same day you started it too. We’re tired. We’re hungry, we’re thirsty. You can help us in ways we can’t help ourselves. I’d be a fool to give up a resource, without then getting something that’ll help my people in return.”

“I am not judging you. I will mock you, make fun of you, give you a pile a shit as tall as me, but I won’t judge you for what you’re doing. I’d do the same; fuck, I’ve done the same. I’m fortunate enough now to be able to help others more than they’ve helped me. You know, come to think of it, I think since this all started, I’ve tried to help others more than I’ve asked for help.” I shrugged. “Tell me what we can do to help you, and we’ll help you. Getting the keys and the starters and whatever else you’ve pulled out of them for these trucks is great, but if you need a hand, take mine.”

I reached out, offering him a handshake.

“I don’t shake hands, nuffin personal,” he said without any delay. “Bad luck with my fire crew.”

“Juju I get. I’ve got plenty of it myself. No harm, no foul.” I took my lonely, abandoned hand back. “What can we do for you?”

“I need two things. They’re in different places, and they’re pretty unpleasant and a good deal specific.”

“Pick one for me to handle first and we’ll make a plan for it.”

He thought for a minute, debating the merits of his two desires. After settling with a sigh, he started talking.

“You’re near the docks all the time, right?”

“Point Hope, we’re calling the port. We own the whole peninsula and have it fortified well enough to withstand a surge of the undead. So yeah, we’re down there most of the time.”

“Have you been east of the port at all yet? Down Kingsway toward the marina, and city center?”

“Not that far. Our travels are taking us north from the port. I’d rather not head into the center of Brighton if I can avoid it.”

“Sense in that. Look, I need you to head down Kingsway to Langdale. On the left headed inland, obviously. Half way up, again on the left, you’ll find my old house.”

“Okay. What will be dealing with there?”

“What I cannot deal with,” he said, and abruptly looked away. “Who, I cannot deal with. But if you can manage that kindness for me, you’ll find a small treasure trove in the basement. I’d like you to bring what you find there, back here so Mutual Aid can have it.”

“Can we transport it all in the back of the ambulance?”

“The best of it. Enough of it. Your greed might lead you to make two trips, and that wouldn’t be a trip wasted. It’s fragile, so be tender.”

“Noted. Any idea where we can find some horses around here? Don’t need diesel to keep them running.”

“No horses, mate,” he said, sad. “We had a few on the farm but they fell. The zeds didn’t want to kill them, but the horses got hurt or ran off when we were attacked while we rode. The dead have been too thick here and they don’t need to try and eat the horses to wind up hurting them.”

“And your dead are faster than ours ever were.”

“Faster over time, no less. First year and a half you could walk circles around them, if you kept your distance and didn’t get crowded in on. Climbing a ladder was as good a protection as being in a bank vault. Now… now they’re too fast. And getting more and more cunning by the week. Some of them turn knobs now. Duck under fences, climb over them. A locked door isn’t enough anymore.”

“Won’t matter if I can do what I came to do.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ring. You seem a good fucker, despite the look of your face.” He laughed, then turned serious. “You’ll be gentle. At my home?”

“Probably not,” I said, but softly. He wasn’t talking about the fragile stuff in the basement. “You don’t actually want gentle, and if I was gentle, it wouldn’t be humane. But I promise you I’ll do everything I can to make it fast.”

“For that, you’ll earn my proper thanks,” he said.

I nodded. “Is there anything I should know?”

“He was a big boy. Smart as well. He’ll be strong. Don’t… don’t be frivolous with risks.”

“Okay,” was all I could say. “I’ll have it done within a week. I don’t like to keep things waiting.”

“We’ve waited plenty enough already.”

“Is there a way we can communicate with you? Can we give you a radio?”

“No. Just head here and make a little noise. We’ll hear you, or see you soon enough, and swing by.”

“Sounds good enough.” Him saying that told me he probably had some kind of eyes on the joint. Or ears. Dunno, doesn’t really matter which.

Tobias Wiltshire literally kicked rocks for a minute, then nodded at me, his eyes wet. He got into his car, started it, and backed away.

A few minutes later Abby and Hal came outside, where I still stood, listening to the sound of his car growing more faint with each passing second. Sound carries a great distance in a dead city.

“What’s he want us to do?” Abby asked me.

“Two errands. First one is going to his old house to put his son down, and retrieve something from the basement.”

“Is it a trap?” Hal asked.

“Could be,” I mused. I hadn’t considered that. I’m too trusting. “He was almost crying. It’s a trap only if he’s also a great actor. Doesn’t strike me as being theater-trained, which makes me put my money on it being legitimate.”

“One zombie in a house?” Hal asked.

“As far as he said. No telling what the situation on the ground will look like. It doesn’t sound that far from the peninsula. Along the water’s edge, inland a bit. Might be empty of threats with the vacuum we created here. I say we do it tomorrow before the zombies have a chance to return en masse.”

“Help a dad with his kid? I’m in,” Abby said.

“You’d be in no matter what, we all know that.”

“Am I that transparent?” she said, a little disappointed.

“You’re consistent,” Hal said, and smooched her forehead.

“I need to be less predictable. I must keep my mystique,” Abby said, then walked away.

The mystery of that woman does not need solving. She’s perfect just the way she is.

Plans shifted as we had issues with some mechanics on the boat, and I stayed behind to pull some security and lift heavy things. We looked at the local maps, and checked in with some people who have been at the perimeter fence a few times that live over in that direction, and it looks like a clear shot over and back.

We go in the morning, same crew as usual, minus Crystal. No need to bring our best mechanic into the wild unnecessarily.

-Adrian

October 17th

Killing someone’s kid should be harder for me than it is. Point blank reality. I should struggle with it, but I don’t. I can’t tell if that’s my failing as a human being, or an adaptive trait so I can maintain sanity, and stay alive.

Is there even a difference in those two things?

Everyone is someone’s child. EVERYONE. I am, Abby is, Hal is, Kevin is, Fagan is, all of us grew in a womb, and had parents in one way or another. Some of us had shit parents, but in the end, we are all someone’s child. So… everyone I’ve ever killed, every zombie I’ve ever shot, or brained with my sword, or an axe, or my halligan… was the termination of a line that came from parents. Who had parents, and then more parents. I have become death… or something like that.

If you think of the math in a large enough sense, then you get removed from the brutal proximity of those feelings. That… dirty hands and feet moment, where it’s happening TO YOU, or to a loved one, and not to someone on TV, or in what we used to call the news. City bombed flat in Afghanistan? Hundreds dead? No big deal. Ramen for lunch.

Car accident on your street corner, little kid gets hurt? You lose your appetite, and can’t sleep for a few days.

Proximity.

Langdale road was narrow by American standards. Two cars passing would have to be careful to not hit the parked cars on either side. There were quite a few parked cars, and more than one car accident. At one point in the road, near where Fire Chief Dick Head’s house wound up being, were cars intentionally turned sideways to block the road. Someone attempted to seal off a portion of the street to fortify it, but things didn’t pan out for them. Bodies were everywhere. Most of them were dead in the permanent, non-bitey sense.

A few were dead in the bitey sense, but spaced out far enough that we were able to take them down with melee attacks, and in one moment of ass-clenching, Kevin had to double-tap a pair of feral undead that pushed through a set of double doors, fell off a second story balcony onto the roof of a van, then into the street almost right on top of us. We were pushing cars out of the street and BAM. Two undead getting to their feet right on us. He snapped off his shots without hesitation, danger close to Hal and Fagan, but it’s Kevin. Despite his south Boston upbringing, and fistfights in the alleys of said locale, the man has the hands of surgeon. After we all calmed down, we got back to work.

I love my people.

Bell End’s Homestead was similar to all the other houses on the street; two story homes, lots of windows, upscale, it seemed. Many of the cars parked in driveways (parkways? Gardens? Yards? Whatever they call them here) were expensive. BMWs, Mercedes, even a Ferrari and a few Range Rovers. Most with flat tires, half-hidden behind overgrown grasses, and saplings that had taken root in the wrong place. Same as Bell End’s place.

His home was brick, entirely without defensive measures in place. No boarded over windows, no car parked to block the yard off from the zombies that had once filled the streets, nothing. Just another abandoned home on an abandoned street in the middle of the suburban apocalypse. Except for the bees. Fucking bees everywhere, man.

I had Oak and Maple post up in the street in outer blocking positions. Fagan and Hal were the secondary line, Abby was the roamer to support any issues that came up in either direction. Kevin and I were the breaching duo.

The front door of the home was arched, and made mostly of glass. When we approached it, guns up and ready to fire, I saw movement inside the house. Looked like a foyer area that fed into a galley-style kitchen, dining area and living room adjacent.

Big movement, and I mean big. Like, appliances moving around big. His fucking kid was gigantic. Like… freak of nature gigantic. His head scraped on the doorways, and I saw a glint of glass on the floor where his dome had smashed down some light fixtures that used to hang from the ceiling. He was wider than Kevin and I added together, and just… just fucking huge, man. Should’ve been playing offensive line in the NFL without pads, one arm tied behind his back. He’d still be fucking all-pro. He was an entire rugby team by himself.

He pressed against the glass door, and his momentum didn’t even rattle it. Tobias spent good cash on doors, and it showed.

“Don’t shoot him in the doorway. He’s too fucking big to drag. We gotta get him outside if we’re going to get anything out of the basement,” Kevin said as I was pressing the suppressor against the glass where the monster’s forehead was. “Step out of sight, I’ll holler at him through the living room window, then you get the door open so he can walk outside. We’ll monkey in the middle him. Drop him in the yard.”

“Go ahead,” I said, and after telling the others what was about to go down, that’s what we did. Kevin drew him away from the door after I stepped into a blind spot for him, and when he got to the living room, I tried the knob. Locked. I slung my rifle and got the halligan out. Ten seconds of grunting and groaning later, the frame splintered and broken, and the door swung in. Kevin dropped down, and I stepped back. The refrigerator came to me at the front door.

I can only equate the moment to being charged by a bull. Pamplona, Brighton Undead style. Out of sheer panic and insurance I put six rounds into his chest and face, and I still had to backpedal at a good clip to not get crushed by Godzilla as he came down. Unreal. What kind of genetics makes that?

Bell End must be two thirds sasquatch.

After wiping my ass and throwing out my underwear Kevin and I breached the home, and cleared it. I know Wiltshire said it’d be safe, but events transpired here without his eyes on them, and anything could’ve changed. But, accurate to his assertions, the home (dirty, cobwebbed, and stained in so many places with blood, and feces) was empty of threats. The place was nice, too. Brass fixtures, furniture probably handed down through inheritance. No Ikea in sight. He even had a hutch with nice china in it.

Nice place. Pictures of the family were all over, and we saw mail with his name on it. So he at least had to know that we were going to see his name when he sent us there. Curious way to tell us.

The basement was reached through a door off of the kitchen in the back. Dark as midnight, and awful-smelling, like… chemical awful, not gore-awful, Kevin and I went downstairs. I tossed a green chemlight down to give us something to gauge movement by, then we headed down with the flashlights on our rifles lit.

Clean. Spotless, really. Well, I say that, but there was still dust and cobwebs, and a few rats or mice that had gotten into a few open barrels of organic materials. But what was left… was valuable.

Bell End like his booze sweet. Honey sweet. Explained the bees.

Meadery. In his basement, taking up the entire place was a giant mead-making, mad scientist’s lair. Jugs and jugs of honey still in good condition were all over the place, as were several dozens of old Grolsch, flip-top style bottles, all filled with fluids of varying darkness and clarity. Handmade labels explained that their contents. Berry meads, sweet meads. Melomels, sack mead, braggot, myment, cyser, fucking words I didn’t understand, but wanted to try sips of.

He was right when he said it was fragile, and I understood what he meant about transporting the real value. The $$ wasn’t the mead. It was the distilling set up. All they’d need was more honey from bees, and they’d be in business for the rest of time with a high-value product. The mead itself was just trade goods for the meantime.

So… after exiting, making a plan to get the shit out, and communicating that plan back to Point Hope, we did the deed, and packed up the fucking ambulance with every single thing that we could pick up. Everything in that basement went into the ambulance, leaving almost no room for us to get in for the ride home.

I had a sudden pang of guilt as we saddled up; Bell End’s goliath child still lay in the yard. That didn’t seem fitting to me. He had to get some kind of… ceremony, or burial. He had to get that, for us to really and truly call it a job done.

Maybe that was my own guilt.

I burned him. We piled up some furniture, nice stuff, before we broke it up, and then poured a little high-test whiskey we found in the hutch on him. A few matches later, and he was getting something of a ceremony.

We had to go then; it was about to get dark. The ambulance was so full, I wound up riding on the roof of the ambulance with Hal on the way back. Kevin drove us at a whopping five miles an hour, so it wasn’t too risky, but we did drive by five undead as we rejoined Kingsway to head west. We took them down on the move from the rooftop with our suppressed M4s. Still loud enough to draw attention, but by that point, we figured that ship had set sail. We’d made noise earlier in the day already, and if we were seeing the dead now in small numbers, it was just a matter of time before we were inundated once again anyway. Didn’t make much difference if we were surrounded now, or in twelve hours.

They were all going to meet their end.

Proximity, right?

-Adrian

October 19th

A tiny curl of smoke rose into the sky where we put Wiltshire’s boy to the fires. Even a day later.

It made sense to leave the ambulance loaded until we returned to the fire house, which we did today. Before I get to that part of the story, I do want to talk about zombies first.

Definitely more in the area now, and that’s complicating humanitarian efforts. We still have a line of people outside our gates looking for help of one form or another. We’ve been offering 24/7 security to those people (as we should) but up until now, we haven’t actually had to do anything to keep them safe. Now, that’s changed.

Our snipers in over watch have had to take twelve shots on distant undead since midnight last night. It’s what we expected on the way here, but it hasn’t been our experience yet. That means… officially, and without doubt, anyone moving in the streets isn’t safe. It doesn’t seem to be stopping them from coming for this that and the other thing. They just stand there, paranoid, eyes looking for danger in the shadows and at the corners, and then to our soldiers and sailors for safety and hope.

It’s gonna get worse, and then getting these people help will be almost impossible. I hope they can get what they need from us today, or tomorrow, or before the shit really and truly returns to the fan. When that happens, everyone will have to lock down for… who knows how long. And, let’s not forget Mr. Journal, there is some level of intelligence at play against us.

Evil gets a say, and boy, when it does, heads will roll.

Then again, I get a say too.

We brought the ambulance to the fire station this morning without issue. Trip there we crossed paths with eleven undead, and took care of them in the same way we did the others. Rooftop ambulance firing positions for the win. Granted, with Hal and I holding onto the roof of the vehicle with all our life, we had to go with more caution, so what we’ve turned into a fast trip, returned to a slow one. Slow but successful is fast though, as you might say.

So we got to the fire station, without Crystal, as this wasn’t a car-repair trip, and we just… sat around. We cleared a few street-level rooms, and pushed out the area we’ve made safe by about thirty yards. Moving slow, checking windows, and doors, looking for signs of undead where we hadn’t seen it yet on previous trips. Abby and Hal found three undead trapped in a parked car around the corner. Smashed a window and cracked the skulls with minimal risk. Seatbelts save lives. Didn’t fucking save theirs, but when they strapped in, they were saving ours.

True to his word, Chief Bell End in the flatbed with the gun emplacement with a van in tow showed up within a few hours. He certainly wore a smile when he hopped out of that truck’s front cabin and fired up his cigarette.

Oh… sudden wonder; the house had no ashtrays, and didn’t smell of smoke. There weren’t any piles of cigarette butts in the yard, driveway, or back garden either. Hm. Strange for a chain smoker to live in a house with no cigarette butts.

I digress.

Not long after he hopped off and fired up, his smile evaporated. He looked at his feet and then found my feet, and eventually, he looked up at me. Tears came then; thick, and fast. Streaks of soot from the tiny wrinkles in his skin ran down, giving him clean stripes in the middle of his filth.

“Um, is it uh… is it uh…?”

“He’s at peace,” I said, slow, and calm. “I’m sorry.”

“It was… humane?”

“As human as we could’ve made it.”

“Did you bury him?”

“We sent him up proper Viking style.”

He stopped and faced me with raw… I mean I guess the base emotion was grief in its various forms, but riding up and over that was fury. He started to shake with anger, and took a big step towards me.

“You fucking wot?” he said, spittle foaming at the corner of his lips.

“Gimme a sign and I install a skylight in his chest,” Sgt. Maple said into our network. I didn’t move, or respond. In that moment, it was taking everything I had to not react, and meet Tobias at the level of rage he had. I felt.. I felt fucking incredulous. Furious, angry, all of that. How dare he scream at me? How dare he threaten me? I fucking did the worst thing he could think of having to do, and I went that extra step further, and gave his kid a remembrance? How fucking dare he?

He kept yelling, staying in place, loud as fuck, raging at me, bellowing about how he should’ve been buried, and how he was a kind kid, and didn’t deserve it, and I kept seeing flashes of Hal, and Abby. Ollie and Melissa. Blake and Kimberly. Kevin and Shelby. Chris Fagan. The parents in my world. I kept seeing their faces, and the inextricable… crushing, awfulness they would be feeling right now, were I talking to them about what happened.

My fury died away, and I was left empty, and dare I say patient. Time passed, minutes passed, and then, just like a door being slammed, Wiltshire shut down. He went to the ground, overwhelmed by everything, and I took a knee near to him. I didn’t say anything; there wasn’t anything I could say. Nothing would’ve made it better. It wasn’t my job in that moment to make it better. It was my job to bear witness, and not let him be alone.

So that’s what I did.

“He would’ve fucking LOVED it, you know?” he managed to stutter through a river of tears. “We’re part Scandinavian. Over half. He fucking loved Vikings. Thought they were… they were the tits.” He wiped his eyes, making more clear spots. “Ahhh fucking Hell. Fucking Hell.”

“You can’t speak more truth than that,” I whispered to him. “All of this, it’s Hell.”

“Ahhh you’re right. I’m right. It’s all fucked,” he said, still crying. He went quiet. Contemplative. He looked up to me, then nodded. “I need to apologize, and say thank you.”

“Apology isn’t necessary. I will take your thanks.”

“Yeah, okay. I’m sorry.”

“Stop, there’s no need.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he added, refusing my hand as he got to his feet.

“You literally can’t help yourself from apologizing, can you?” I said with a little snicker.

“English understated, polite nature, I’m sorry to say.”

“If there was a high score to be set for apologizing, I think I’d take you and a few Canadians to form a Dream Team of politeness. You’re the Michael Jordan of saying sorry. Gold medal, done.”

“Is Jordan a baseball player?”

“Well, kinda. Close enough.”

“Thank you,” he said. “My wife and I… she… she would be very appreciative. She’d be a bit more, aggressive in her grief, I fear, but… she’s every right to that.”

“No argument.”

Bell End went back to his flatbed, and grabbed a small courier bag from the front seat. He returned, tossing me the bag. I caught it. Heavier than I thought. He’s a strong one.

“All of what you’re missing from the ladder truck. She’ll need some love beyond that, but it looks like you’ve got that kind of love handled.”

“All night long.”

“Five minutes, tops, from the look of you.”

“Yeah that’s pretty accurate, actually. Best five minutes of several people’s day though. Once. I think.”

We laughed. Felt good. He was still working on managing his tears.

“Look, I need some time for the second project, right? Just a few days on our end. It’s… delicate for my people. We’ll also need time setting up my old gear here. We’ve been collecting honey all summer, we should be able to jump right in and get brewing. But in say, three days, we meet back here again, just like so, and I’ll send you off on your own little quest again for the gear for the pumping engine.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you again.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Then he had his small group of dudes unload the ambulance with Hal and Kevin’s help. It was quiet. He stood back, smoking more cigarettes, and watched. We didn’t talk at all, either. Seemed he was doing some awful heavy lifting, thinking about whatever it was that he had to do next.

Delicate things, can be tough to move.

We will return on the 22nd, in the hopes that Bell End has our second side quest ready for us. I am officially taking votes on whether or not he’s one of my precious Trinity. He’s got Soul written all over him. Didn’t say anything about his name, and I might be making this up, but somehow, I felt relief from him that I didn’t.

-Adrian

October 22nd

Rain and fucking fog, Mr. Journal. Most of the last two days, just rain and fucking fog. Spots of sunshine here and there, but clouds, then some more clouds and soaking drizzle, today included. You know what’s a real fucking downer when it’s foggy, Mr. Journal?

Zombies.

Zombies are a real fucking downer when it’s foggy. Like... worst nightmare imaginable. I feel like I’ve spoken about this before. Foreboding? Foreshadowing? Doomsaying?

It’s made the last few days, ever since we met with Bell End and got the rest of the ladder truck parts a mess. Utter shit show.

So to set that stage… our little peninsula has been fogged in. The ocean is gone while it’s settled in, and the gate area, and the Kingsway beyond, plus the streets adjoining and adjacent, are all thickened over with a hundred yards or more of complete concealment. Visibility can be as low as twenty yards, and with how fast these cock gobblers can move, twenty yards is three, or maybe four seconds of reaction time. Our staff on the ground, at the gate call out movement, and our snipers then try to find it, but they’re further out than the gate, so they can’t see the threat for several seconds, which leaves gate people in the lurch. Eventually, they need to fire or go melee themselves, and our snipers are only able to watch.

I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Journal; why not use thermal scopes to see?

Well shit, that’s complicated. We tried that, and it failed for a couple reasons: first and foremost, atmospheric conditions mess with getting a clean thermal image to shoot. Fog, being thick with moisture, absorbs and diffracts heat rather well, rendering the image you see pretty shitty for a headshot. Second, these undead aren’t as warm as a human being. They’re warm enough to stay unfrozen, and have slowly fluid blood, but they’re not the 98.6 we are. Thermal just didn’t work beyond helping our shooters see a threat a second or two earlier. A threat they couldn’t do anything about.

Oh, and William and Kate plus Seahawk are grounded in this pea soup. It’s too dangerous to fly, and they can’t see shit anyway even if they flew above the fog. No air support at present.

So, we’ve tripled our forces on the ground, at the perimeter at all times, and have three more shooters in observation the moment the weather turns even a little soupy. So far, that’s been enough to keep all of our people whole. We did hear this morning that a group of five locals making their way to us for medical care from the northeast were attacked as they went, and they lost two of their number.

A tragedy, but one we couldn’t do anything about.

I asked Rosario if she could put some brainpower on seeing if we could extend our perimeter to offer more security. I’m not even sure if it makes sense to, honestly. We’re already overextended just keeping this fucking port, its buildings, and our boats safe. If we push out in that way, we might be using resources better put to use elsewhere, in a way that’ll make the whole country, and maybe even all of Europe safe, if we’re successful.

We returned to the fire station with Crystal, in our empty ambulance to complete the repairs and tire fixes, and of course, to meet up with Chief Bell End, aka Tobias Wiltshire, but he doesn’t want us to know that name yet. Not sure he wants anyone to know that name.

They rolled in, two cars thick, no flatbed, halfway through another rainy fucking day. We were inside, either in firing position or just staying out of the rain and laying low when they arrived, and when they pulled in, they did the same thing they’ve done before; get out, and put up a half-assed perimeter while Fire Chief Bum Chuckles lights up another fucking cigarette.

Lung cancer will get him LONG before the zombies do.

He wouldn’t come inside. Made me go out in the rain.

“So what’ll it be, good friend?”

“We’re not fucking mates, mate,” he said back. “But one day you can buy me a beer.”

“Fuck you. I’m not buying beer for a dude who makes mead in his goddamn basement. You can serve me some of your finest vintage and we’ll tip ‘em up together.”

“What’d you keep?”

“Huh?”

“When you cleared out my place, and loaded up all my stash, what’d you keep for yourself, or your people?”

“Nothing. Every drop we took from there came here, and left with you and your crew. I wouldn’t steal shit from you. I’ll loot a dead guy’s house without a second thought, but I wouldn’t steal from a living person. Not my cup of tea.”

“Wasn’t your cup of mead, either.”

“I like mead. I’ve had enough in my time to know it can be good shit.”

“I’ll get you a bottle of my melomel. Made it with berries I picked myself. Took silver in several competitions.”

“I look forward to it, proud papa,” I said as the rain got a little heavier. Conversation followed suit.

“You want to hear what the last thing I need is, right?”

I nodded.

“Brilliant. It’s gonna be… strange, yeah? Strange like the story you told about the three person thing. Maybe a bit more fucked. How prepared is your fucking brain for the next level of your story?”

“Mate, there is no way to explain to you the shit I’ve seen, and the shit I’ve done. There is nothing you can show me, or say to me that’ll throw me for a loop. This whole city is run by a fucking levitating space turtle, yeah that sounds right. You’re all robots, sure, that plotline is about fucking due. Lay it on me, chimney. Give it to me raw, like you got feelings for me.”

“You have to go alone. I don’t think it’ll work if you bring others.”

“It’ll work if I bring Kevin. He’s in the Trinity. If it’ll work for me, it’ll work with him too.”

“You can try. Your waste of time if you need to go back alone. Look, there’s a… there’s a building ruin. Used to be St. Peter’s Parish church. Near a school, also a windmill northeast of here. Holmes Avenue.”

“We’re going there? What’s gonna be in the ruins?”

“I’m not asking you to go there on a treasure hunt. Just go there. Once you get there, if it was meant to be, you’ll see why I sent you. It’s no lark.”

“Okay. Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Bring your fucking guns, but you don’t strike me as the kind of group that leaves them behind. Am I right?”

“I’m American. I shit Tannerite and dream about guns.”

“Cheers to that, whatever Tannerite is. And so long as you’re the one holding the pea shooters.”

“Doesn’t make difference. I tend to wind up holding all of them by the end of most of my dreams. So far, so good.”

“You ever have nightmares?” he asked me.

“Only when I’m awake,” I said. Felt witty. “You ever dream about a white room? Round table with weird stuff on it?”

“Never.”

“I was hoping for a different answer, but thank you.”

“I tend to disappoint. Look, safe trip there. No rush. What’s there isn’t going to walk off.”

“It’ll be a day or two at least. We’ll make a trip of it. Pack some sandwiches. Meet you here after?”

“Just get to the place. Like I said, may take you a couple trips before what you need to do there becomes apparent.”

“Real fucking enigmatic, Bell End.”

“Chief Bell End to you. Keep it formal,” he said, and went back to his car. They left seconds later.

It didn’t occur to me until later in the day today, after we got back aboard Reuben James, that for our entire conversation, he didn’t relight a cigarette. Buuut… I could still smell smoke. I remember this. Clear as day.

Not because it was the presence of cigarette smoke without a cigarette present, but because the smoke smelled off. Chemical-ish. Like… when someone stupid tosses something weird in the fire pit while everyone is trying to roast marshmallows for s’mores and it gets nasty-smelling.

That fucking asshole. Same prick who eats all the marshmallows out of the Lucky Charms.

Anyway, it was strange. A little of it is still in my nostrils now, I think.

We didn’t plan a trip to the church tonight. I’m gonna sit down with my brain trust tomorrow and figure something out. I’m bringing Kevin, because this feels important, and I don’t think it’s smart for me to go alone. This guy seems to be on the level, but there’s still no way for me to glean whether or not he’s telling the truth. Everything up until now could just be an ornate act on his part to get me dead.

God may work in mysterious ways, but the Devil is a nefarious cocksucker.

-Adrian

October 25th

It was too selfish of me to ask for the ambulance. We’d put so much work into getting it up and running I just couldn’t take it to go to the church. I had no issues with hitching a ride to the fire station, then going on foot from there, but I wouldn’t go the whole way.

Rewind; we returned to the fire station and retrieved the ladder truck on the 23rd. I didn’t write an entry because I was tired. We parked it in one of the warehouses inside our perimeter, nearest to the metal working business so I can get my Mad Max on. They’re working on designing armor and upgrades that’ll give us a tactical edge in high-volume undead environments. They’re predicting 8 to 10 days until it’s ready. The ambulance also needed some extra modifications, based on how we’ve been using it, and how we’re likely to use it. Both vehicles have been under the cutting torch or being welded on since then. It’s a project. I’ve asked for a lot.

But today, we went to the fire station early on. Had to shoot our way through a small number of undead, and we got to use the new push bar on the ambulance to straight on smash down some joggers in the way. It’s not a pure plow blade like the old HRT, it’s more of a brush guard with a projected bar at knee height. Keeps them from getting tangled up in it, and knocks them down pretty efficiently.

At least that’s what today showed us.

We left the fire station for the church immediately. Kevin and I had stayed up late last night going over the plan to get there repeatedly until it was memory. We only had to cross a mile to get there. Back to the A270 roadway, then north on Holmes Avenue. Mostly suburban terrain with houses, small businesses, parks, churches, etc. Proper English suburbs, I reckon.

The Brighton Mile. Not quite Mogadishu, but you know. Kind of like Kevin and I’s Route Irish days. Go as fast as you can, but here, try to also maintain as low a profile as possible. I would’ve gone at night, but with the fog we’ve been having, our NVGs would be rendered useless. This was the best of several bad ideas.

It was not an easy run, and it took far longer than it had any right to. At a trot, the mile should’ve been like… fifteen minutes. We’re in good shape, and traveling relatively light too. Ten minutes could’ve been it.

Took us an hour and change due to the undead.

I won’t lie, and I won’t spend forever giving all the gory details, but we were heading into the forefront of the surge that’s surely coming south. Fifty, at least. Just on the one street. We also had to move very cautiously as we made our way past houses or in one case an intersection that clearly had post-undead fortifications. Last thing Kevin and I wanted to do was get in a tussle with someone armed and hunkered down. We crawled under a couple of car accidents in places, climbed over trucks here and there, cut around through backyards a couple times, hopping over wooden fences, stone walls, and in one case, a wrought iron, spike-topped gothic barrier wrapped around an overgrown garden straight out of the Amazon jungle. All that. Grand fucking time. Tore one of my favorite pairs of pants. Sigh.

Each and every step was contested quickly by the undead. No breaks.

We had to be guns-free, and even with suppressors, M4s are loud enough to draw attention. Granted, far quieter than just shooting the weapon normally, but they aren’t silent. This ain’t the movies.

We just had no choice. Too many undead in multiple spots for us to take down with the halligans, so we just... we just shot. Two magazines each, counting the misses we had. Then, we got to the windmill Bell End told us about, and the undead… cleared out.

Speaking of the windmill, it was creepy as old man balls. My balls, soon enough.

Legit in the middle of the road, where they paved around a brick and stone, largely windowless structure, topped with a black windmill, all of it surrounded by a nest of wispy fog. It spun in a breeze we couldn’t feel.

Beyond that, no more than a hundred yard later, at an intersection, was the church.

Surrounded by a hip-high stone wall, with a cemetery near to us, the stone structure, with what I think was a residence behind it, had been ravaged by fire. What had probably been a stained glass window was melted empty, leaving only a scorched arch. Much of the outer stone had fallen inward, and the whole place was just… I mean it looked like Dresden after the bombs.

What I did immediately notice, was that at the front of the place, half blackened by the fires that took the place, was an ambulance just like ours. Doors open, gutted by looters and weather over years, it sat there, dead as the people who drove it.

I knew then, that Bell End had been here at some point. Maybe on That Day. He either drove that ambulance, or worked in the back of it.

So, with the patience and caution of a bomb defuser, we checked over the ambulance for supplies, then tread over the church grounds, looking for more. Trying to find that something strange that he promised us. We entered the dying structure where we could, climbing over toppled walls, and burnt beams, one of us covering the other at each turn. We saw two dozen scorched skeletons in the mess, half in the church, half in the residence behind it. Both buildings wrecked by fire. We also saw something like thirty or forty bullet holes, which told a different story. Another… maybe ten bodies in varying degrees of decomposition scattered around the property too. More recent deaths.

But, in the end, after hours of combing over the mess, we saw nothing strange beyond what I just said. Bell End was right; maybe I had to go alone? Maybe us radio-checking back over and over were scaring away the weird things he wanted us to see. Leprechauns? Boggarts? Honest politicians?

The one confirmed, freaky fact: we were not bothered by the undead when we were on church grounds. None came onto the church grounds, nevermind even coming into our line of sight. Empty, save for the rain and fog that teased us.

Nine hours. We spent nine hours on the church grounds, looking at every single place we might find evidence of something strange, but nothing. Not a damn thing. So, we headed south back to the fire station, and our friends.

I can’t explain it, but the trip south was quicker than the one north. I guess it’s because we cleared the route earlier, but I can’t help but think that the great powers that be might have made a tiny appearance today. Maybe not a center-stage lightshow moment, but… I think the orchestra might’ve gotten some extra conduction, if you get my drift.

While we were away my crew worked on the pumper truck, and dealt with a trickle of undead coming into the area. Say what you will about Team Paranoid Tree, but they can get it done. Maybe I’m jealous of them. They were Rangers. Actual, serving Rangers. They took that extra step I was denied. That extra step I fucked up on.

My fault. It was my fault.

My jealousy is just as much frustration with myself as it anything else.

They did great work on the truck. Once we get the replacement parts from Wiltshire, after this ‘strange’ task is handled, we should be able to just drive on out with it.

It’ll be a good addition for our convoy. Access to hoses that can get us water when we find it fresh could be huge down the line, and it’s big, with a big passenger compartment. Our English Trinity of vehicles.

Road back to the port was clean and free of threats, and the weather cleared a bit as well. Gate had a quiet day, and we were able to help about ten people. Far less than what we’ve been experiencing, but I’ll take it. Ten in safe, ten out safe. Little victories.

I’ll sleep well in a bit. Otis is crawled up my ass here in my bunk, antsy, and unhappy about something. He’s been confined to this small cabin for too long. Tomorrow is a day off, and I think I’ll take him somewhere else on the boat. Galley down the way or something. Give him a grand tour of a different room, and some treats. See if I can scrounge up a few new toys for him too.

Not being a good pet dad. Own that, Adrian.

Like I said, rest day tomorrow.

-Adrian

October 26th

I’m bored, so I’m going tonight. Had a good day with a very crazy cat, but I just can’t wait anymore. The skies are clear, there’s no moon or fog, and Kevin is playing cards in the galley with some of the sailors. Perfect time to slip out, and make my way north using night vision. Ghost-in, ghost-out. Also, Otis is driving me fucking mental, and I need a break.

Will write about what happens tomorrow after I wake up. Wish me luck.

-Adrian

October 27th

Ever suspect something for a long time, and when you finally get confirmation about your suspicion, you’re not entirely happy to have had that realization at all? Regret, I think is the name for that emotion.

It was a strange night, for many reasons.

I left the gate alone, giving my plan to the guards there. They were to remain silent about it, unless I sent a radio out, or didn’t return by dawn. They were scared out of their damn minds when I asked them to shut up, and even more frightened when I left.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m rarely sure of anything, but I’m gonna try this.”

Kid… You ain’t been where I’ve been. Thank you for trying to take care of me.

So I headed north. Several miles worth of trip. Same trip we walked to get to the fire station initially, then the mile beyond. So I jogged at first to get out of the reach of my perimeter guard. I knew the snipers were watching me, and they let me go without mistaking me for the undead (thanks, team) as well as remaining silent on the network, so I could actually leave without a tail.

Try as I might, that didn’t happen.

I was about… halfway to the fire station, give or take, following the exact same route I’d taken with my whole family up. I stopped where the fence was, where we’d lost the dogs on our first trip (which by the way, haven’t bothered us since we started plinking them with our airsoft arsenal) and I waited. I thought I’d heard something behind me, so I sat my ass down in a very dark shadow, just behind a small dumpster, and I watched.

Maybe a minute later, I saw the unmistakable, strong strides of a battle-kitted Hal appear. He’s got his weapon up, and he’s searching for threats, the same I was. Cautious but confident. When he was about thirty yards south of me, I sent out a little radio break, and he paused.

“Why you following me, Hal?” I asked him, like he was a little kid who’d strayed from home trying to follow his older brother. Pretty much the truth.

He froze, then triggered his microphone. “You know as well I do why. I saw you slip off the dock as I was packing away my kit. Where the fuck are you?”

I stood up, and he trotted up so we could talk face to face. I’ll spare you the details, because you already know them; he wouldn’t let me go alone, and the men at the gates were too afraid to stop him.

Wise men, those guards.

I was afraid his presence would fuck up my time at the church, but I was surely glad to have him with me. So we pressed on together, hand in hand, hopping, skipping, jumping, singing songs like two boys in a field on a summer day.

Except not that at all, and with rifles and body armor.

We made it past the windmill, which gave Hal the creeps just as much as it gave Kevin and I, I’m happy to report.

So the church beyond… yeah.

I’d only be a touch melodramatic if I said we arrived precisely at the stroke of midnight. It was close. I didn’t check the exact time. He and I searched the grounds over under the cover of the bottomless darkness, using night vision sparingly to see things better. We covered each other in rotation, looking for undead that still refused to come close to the church grounds, making sure fresh eyes were pointing at everything at least once, if not three or four times. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, until… you guessed it. Right about 3:33 in the morning.

I rounded the back corner of the church, near the old residence structure, and sat down on a stone bench. Hal was backing up towards me, making sure nothing was behind me, when I smelled it.

That… that chemical smell. Same thing I caught wind of when Bell End wasn’t smoking. I spun, to look for the source of it, because I swear to all my saved games on my Playstation there was a FIRE near me, but there wasn’t.

Then I heard a deep sigh, and a lighter igniting.

In the darkness, in the shadows of the church ruins, just as it went out, I saw a tiny flame light a cigarette. The vague moment told me it was Bell End, but… I don’t know how he could’ve gotten there without us seeing or hearing him.

“I thought you’d have to be alone,” he said. “Looks like your friend here isn’t bad luck. I’m thankful. I’m real glad you made this trip.”

“Didn’t think we’d see you here,” I said.

“The feeling was a bit mutual. Can’t ever tell when the stars will align,” he said, and I watched the orange tip of his cigarette flare up as he took another draw. “I didn’t smoke before the zombies. Hated ‘em.”

“The end of the world has changed many people in ways they never expected. I have a Mohawk, for example.”

“You look shit with it,” he said from the shadows. “A few years ago, I think you could’ve pulled it off. Aging punk rocker refusing to let go, still trying to be hip. Now you look like another imperialist soldier in the Middle East trying to look hard by having an edgy haircut.”

“That’s fucking harsh,” I said, and I meant it.

“Sorry. Thanks for making the trip here twice. Two nights running. You’re pretty good, for a man with a shit haircut.”

“I make do.”

“That building behind you is the parsonage. Rectory, whatever. Inside the main door there is the kitchen, and to the left inside, is the door to the basement. If you can get that bitch open, you’ll be able to give him, and a few others trapped in there some peace.”

“Is that why you asked me to come here? Alone?”

“It’s a bit queer, all of it, I know. You can do it yourself, but your mate there can help make quick work of it. Fair warning; you’re apt to be… put off a bit by it.”

“How many down there?”

“There was nine. Should still be nine.”

“You gonna help?”

“I don’t think I can,” he said, but what he really said was, “I can’t.”

I figured right then and there his wife was downstairs. We’d put his son down, so this journey made sense. Hal and I gathered up, made a quick plan, and entered the ruins of the rectory.

Burnt out, shot up brick and stone building. The main door was burnt to almost nothing, and swung inside on creaky hinges. A fire had ravaged the place, and the second floor was perforated above, as was the roof.

The kitchen had lost all its furniture, and the appliances had been scorched as black as the night sky. The door though… that door was clean, and fresh. In the green light of our NVGs I could almost feel the shine of the metal, like it was polished chrome.

The only thing marring its… ominous perfection, was a tipped-over washing machine that kept it shut. I don’t think that machine got there because of a house fire. Someone put it there to keep that basement door shut.

Historically, opening basement doors for us has been dicey business. Sometimes it’s nothing (see: meadery) and sometimes, it’s the worst possible scenario. (see: the daycare incident) So when I tell you that I was feeling a little fucking anxious to open that door… understand I mean I shitload nervous.

I tested the deadbolt on the door, and latched it before pushing the washer out of the way. It was an old model, and damn heavy. Took more than a boot, and made a helluva scraping sound on the floor. As I did all of this, Hal covered the halls and door to make sure nothing slipped in behind us in the dark. Now would be the moment the undead of Brighton would find the courage to cross into the church’s grounds. Courage or oblivion.

Scary. Real scary. Too close to Halloween for this fucking HORSESHIT.

I waited, and knocked with a light, persistent rap on the door several times. Took… five agonizing minutes, but eventually I felt and heard the pressure of someone on the other side of the door.

What to do?

Fuck it? Open the door and open fire? Shoot through the door at head height to thin their ranks? Cut a hole through the door and shoot through into the dark? Grenade? Set it on fire?

I don’t know why this idea struck me, but it did, so I went with it; I thought of my rope. In my ruck I had a thirty foot length of paracord, and I started looping it from left to right across the doorway, tied to the plumbing fixture for the water hose for the washer and around an exposed 2x4 on the other side. I left slack, and rested the rope on the knob. Pre-lasso.

I told Hal what was up, popped off ten rounds trough the door at head height, and after hearing a body hit the floor, I threw the deadbolt. They didn’t turn the knob for me, the lazy pricks, so I did, and then stepped back into the center of the kitchen with two exits behind me.

The door pushed outward, but caught on the rope I strung across it, limiting their movement. We had an immediate rush of six undead. Each unburnt, and almost pristine in physical condition. How they died… I wasn’t sure just then. They pressed forward in a surge, but the first two tripped over the dude I dropped on the other side of the door, so they went down. Hal and I gunned them down with a couple shots each as the four behind them stepped up and over with alarming coordination. The dead ran at me, teeth snapping, slathering and furious, white-eyed and murderous. But, they ran straight into the now-taut cord, and they were jerked to a stop just a few feet from me. I dumped my magazine into their faces and Hal joined in as an insurance policy. We quietly called out that we were changing mags, and I did a body count. Seven. Each with slightly blackened noses and mouths, each smelling of that same chemical I smelled when Bell End wasn’t smoking. No visible injuries otherwise, so I concluded it was smoke inhalation that ended them. First guy down was the rector.

If Chief Sketchy-Ass had a good count, there were two still in the basement.

We waited a few more minutes, and I realized they brought that chemical smell with them. Maybe it wasn’t smoke they inhaled. Maybe it was toxic fumes. Not sure.

Hal and I decided I would do into the basement alone while he kept the doorway safe for me. When I say decided, I mean he wanted to, argued to, and I said no.

NVGs on, I stepped over the dead reverend, and descended down into the bowels of his sanctuary.

Stairs rain straight down, then made a sharp turn left. The basement was smaller than the footprint of the house, but that’s normal in really old structures. I came down, back to the wall, slow and careful, keeping my weapon on the open area below.

Loot before violence? Adrian, tsk tsk. Talk about the violence first. If you’re not writing about your gun, you need to be writing about your dick.

Mr. Journal does not sport a boner over old cans of spotted dick.

Or does he?

Then it got weird. In the back of the basement there was a door with several safety signs on it. Employees only kinda shit. I saw markings for the boiler beyond, and when I put my ear to the steel, I could hear, and feel a slight vibration as something rubbed up against it. Not quite shoving, or pushing, but… pressing.

Then the weirdness really started.

“Are you ready for this?” Bell End asked me, from like, five feet behind me. I nearly shit myself as I spun and swore at him. He was so green in the NVGs. Glowing.

“The FUCK are you doing here right now? I could’ve shot you.”

“Are you sure you’re ready?” he asked me, almost like he didn’t hear me. “Once you open that door, there’s no shutting out what you’ll discover.”

“Fucking Jimmy Hoffa back there? Aliens building a pyramid? Nessie stroking his cryptozoological hog? Speak plainly to me, or skip up those stairs like Mary fucking Poppins right past Hal.”

“Have it your way. Thank you again,” he said, and something about the… final tone of the thank you chilled me.

I looked back at the door, and had second thoughts. He had actually spooked me. I felt it. A little tingle in my fingertips... at the back of my neck. Was something watching me? There was too much space behind me. Too much room for something to be there. Watching me. Crisis of confidence in full swing, I looked back to him, and he was gone.

Fucking gone.

I panicked, snapped on my flashlight and lifted my night vision. Gone. Nowhere to be found. I ran back to the stairs and stopped at the corner. Hal had his back to me, and was taking up the entire doorway.

“Where did he go?”

“Who?”

“Fuck off with that. Bell End. He was just down here with me, and I told him to leave and he fucking teleported away. Scotty beamed his ass up. You didn’t see him?”

“Naw,” Hal said, and he was serious. “Nothing past in either direction.”

“Well what the fuck?” and then I remember the door. I ran back down, flipped my NVGs on, and extinguished the flashlight. We were gonna do this in the dark.

I had to pry the door open. It was locked, and a heavy door to boot. The halligan did work, and after just a minute or two of me going ape shit on the door’s frame, I got the thing popped out. I backed away behind the door, hiding behind it as a dark haired woman about my age, maybe a little younger erupted out into the main room, legs bent, arms bent, nails bared like she was a werewolf ready to tear into flesh. Her teeth clicked together in the black. Only sound she made.

I didn’t give her the gift of any time to turn around. I stepped back, made a few inches of distance from the door giving me cover, and blew her fucking brains out. A… chill went through the basement, and I swear that if there was a candle, it would’ve flickered and gone out.

One left.

I heard crying coming from the other room. A survivor? A dude, for sure.

I sliced the pie as I came around from behind the door, and when I went into the old boiler room, the heart of the building, I fully expected to see a guy behind some kind of barrier, someone who’d just witnessed me shooting a loved one who’d been trying to kill him for a good long time. That person was who Bell End wanted me to save. This was a rescue mission.

It was, of a sort. Not the kind I could’ve expected.

The smell of chemicals was strong. Same… burning kind of scent from before. Inside the room on the right hand side was the boiler; huge. Way, way bigger than a house of this size needed. Place was a hotbox when it was occupied. On the left hand side was all the bullshit you’d expect to see in a basement; water pumps, hot water tanks, pipes, racks with toilet paper, paper towel, soap, jugs of chemicals, whatever. Industrial bullshit.

In between the two sides I saw a rather large man sitting on his back, one arm lashed to a pipe. Crouched near him, just out of reach, was his identical twin. The twin faced away from me, and his body trembled. I froze, and kept my weapon pointed at the two of them, ready to dump my whole magazine.

“I owe you a few things, Mr. Ring,” Bell End said as he looked over his shoulder to me. “So bear with me, and I’ll explain as best I can.”

We talked for a long time, Mr. Journal, but I’ll cover the bulk of it. I’m sure I’ll miss parts, so forgive me.

“Back in June, few years ago when this began, my wife volunteered here at the church. She worked part time at a local bakery as well, and we had a good life. Our son was a shining star, and we both loved what we did, and where we lived.”

His voice was… low, and sad. The zombie tied up beside him, him, in fact, steadied out, and almost forgot I was there. Almost as if it were listening to his story.

“She phoned me just before the first calls came in. Said there was a parishioner who’d been bitten. Wanted me to come and help. So I did. Grabbed two of my boys and we put in the proper call to show we were dealing with the issue. It was fast, and it was furious. You saw where we parked the ambulance, yeah? Well, my wife ran to us, dead man on her heels. My men were out, tackling him to the ground, but one of them got bitten in the process.” He drifted off a bit.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” he said. “I pushed my wife out of the way, and punched the old fella who’d bit my man several times in the face, trying to knock him out, but nothing. He just kept on trying to bite everyone. I tied his face off with some cloth, but he kept fighting. He was strong, too. He didn’t care about hurting himself, just trying to bite us. We bound his hands and feet, and by then, our man was turning. He… he was bad. Big lad, almost my size, and when he came at us, I had to put him down with the halligan in the ambulance.” He looked at me then, eyes flooded. “My own man.”

“You did the right thing and you know it. That doesn’t make the pain go away, I know.”

“It does not, no. My firefighter bit three people before I got to him, and by then, I’d put it together. I knew what was coming. So we took shelter. Hid in the church. I lost my radio in the scuffle, so we couldn’t call for help on the network, and within a few minutes, there were enough sitting up and approaching from the area around us that we couldn’t stay out. It all happened so fast. I don’t know why.”

“I do, but that’s beside the point.”

“Time will tell on that, yeah? We tried calling with phones inside, but the circuits were engaged. No getting through. Planes started flying overhead at that point. Helicopters too. Felt like a warzone by dinnertime. Sunset on the world.”

“What the fuck is going on, Wiltshire?”

“Time passed. We took in some survivors. One night, when my wife and I were in the rectory, a fire started in the church. Looters, I think. People trying to strong arm their way in. I can’t say for sure, and I’ve tried to figure it out several times, but there’s just no way. They’re probably dead anyway. Look, so we were in the house, and I saw the fire, and when I went to leave, the door was barred. You saw the windows? They’re covered in iron bars too. We tried to find a way out, but the other doors were barred too. Locked or sealed somehow. That’s why I think it was the living who did it. They separated us. Locked one group in while they robbed the other.”

“So the fire spread to the rectory we couldn’t get out. Look outside, you’ll see broken glass all over the place. Smashed every window we could. Finally, we had to take shelter in the basement. That’s when we heard more noise. Scraping. Then we couldn’t get the door open.”

He started to really cry then, and the zombie of him went… still. Enthralled with his emotion. Invested. I still hadn’t put it together.

“We stayed down as the fires above raged. Smoke got thick, and people were scared. I tried to keep the peace, I did. But fire… it frightens in a way nothing else does. Maybe drowning, but dying in the water is like going to sleep. Dying in a fire… hurts. We tried to climb out, but the smoke and heat kept us from the windows. The reverend went to the shelves behind me, and he tipped up a jug of something you shouldn’t drink. He died. Foaming at the mouth, convulsing. No one else followed that route, but within minutes, we started dropping. The people who kept upright first, those of us staying low, last. I saw the people starting to twitch, those that had died, and I knew then that it wasn’t the bite causing it. Anyone who died. I tied my hand to that pipe there,” he said, then pointed at… himself, still tied to a pipe, “and as I watched my wife start to tie herself next to me, she blacked out. I screamed to her, and that was enough to do me in.”

He stood up, and the zombie of himself at his feet came to, no longer hypnotized by his story. Its jaw worked reflexively, chewing at something it desired, but didn’t have.

“I then remember waking up, upstairs, wandering around, lost in the ruins. It took me… I guess a week or two of that before I broke free enough to leave the grounds. I wandered. The first few people I met told me I smelled. And I do, you can smell it here, now, can’t you? The chemicals? The burning? The smoke? I can’t shake it. I can shower, I can bathe, lord fucking knows I sat in the surf for hours trying to wash it off me, but… but I can’t. It’s part of whatever I am now.”

“Are you… are you saying you’re a ghost?”

“I can’t find a better word.”

“That’s fucking crazy,” I said, trying not to look away from the zombie who’d now turned to face me. The man I was talking to, beside him. But a dead version. A physical dead version. What the fuck? I can’t even begin to tell you how creeped out I was in that moment, in the dark of the night, in the basement of a burnt out church, in a room with a dead guy, and what appeared to be the ghost of that dead guy.

“I said it would be strange,” he muttered, full of the certainty of his words. “And here we are, at the final moment, I hope.” He looked at the sad state of his zombie-self, lashed to a pipe in the room where he died. Forever… lost.

“You want me to put you down? You think that’ll release you?”

Then he turned to me, and… the heartbreak in his eyes, Mr. Journal… Tears just flooding. Silent tears, not even wracking sobs, or fury, just… just crying. He licked his lips, and tried to talk but couldn’t, eventually he gathered himself.

“My boy is at peace. My wife is now as well. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for those gifts, and now, stranger from a strange land, if you’d just do me one more step, I think I could be with them. And that would be… Well, that would be worth all the suffering.”

“Before… what about your people? Mutual Aid?”

“I told them I might leaving permanently through no fault of anyone’s. If I do… disappear, then they’re set. You’ve already done so much here in the Brighton area to stabilize things, and with the mead they’ll be able to make, plus the bees, they’re well-to-do. You met Mata. You should know she’ll be a capable leader. She spoke well of you. Part of why I sent her that day. Better to test your patience and get a second opinion than rush to judgment. She’ll bring you the stuff for the truck.”

“You’re smarter than you look,” I joked, deadpan.

“You don’t look that smart at all, and judging by how easy it was to get you into the ruins of a torched church all alone with a ghost and a zombie, to me it appears the pages match the cover.”

“You can literally fuck yourself right here and how,” I said, gesturing from his ghostly crotch to his zombie face. “You can be the hero of a hundred thousand lonely, horny teenagers. Reach for the stars, Wiltshire.”

“You saw my name?”

“Your picture is in the firehouse. You sent us to your home, of course I know who you are. What I can’t figure out, is why you’d keep your people from that information.”

“I don’t know why, fully. I had fear that… that they’d see something, and I’d come undone too soon. They needed more help before I could go. I can’t explain it. I had to keep that secret, to keep the real secret. I can’t touch people, did you figure that out?”

“I know you said you don’t shake hands,” I said. “Thought that was weird, but it’s also pragmatic. Germs can be tough with no hospitals.”

“I can touch the dead,” he said, almost in a dream as he reached out to his own dead face. His fingers brushed the cheek of his zombie face, and for the briefest moment, I watched as the zombie’s hatred towards me sapped away. He caressed his own flesh, then took his hand away. “I can touch things, I can touch plants, I can even touch things that will touch people, but the moment I try to touch another person, I turn into… well, I become fake, like a hologram. Light and noise but no substance. Just like my ex-girlfriends. Want me to touch you?”

“Literally the last thing I can imagine wanting,” I said, aiming my weapon a bit towards him. He laughed, and added a sigh.

“Put me down, yeah? I think that’ll set me free from this, and let me move on to whatever awaits.”

“June 23rd, 2010 forever awaits.”

“What?”

“If Europe is anything like back home, then you’re going to go to a blissful, oblivious waiting room that’s exactly how the world was on June 23rd, 2010. With some work, you should be able to traverse the Other Side and find your son and wife. Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them. See them before you, see them traveling to where you’re going. Mental purpose is as powerful there as physical action. The stronger your willpower the better.”

“There’s a story in how you know all that.”

“I kinda died once,” I said. “It was a weird time. I can say that the Other Side wasn’t the worst place I’ve been. There are… timeshares available in far less desirable places.”

“You’d be a shit estate agent, you know that?”

“No idea what you’re talking about. I’m gonna shoot you now. You’ve been a real confusing person to meet, a worse one to get to know, and I hope I never see you again. Thank you for what you’ve done for your people, and for mine.”

“Your ability to charm really is quite world class. Be well, Adrian. I hope you find your two unknown friends,” he said, and closed his eyes. “Thank you as well.”

I blew his zombie brains out, and the version of him that I thought was alive, disappeared. No pop, no smell of brimstone (plenty of other chemicals to smell, to be sure) and no sparkling glitter. Gone in an instant.

I called out to Hal at the top of the stairs that it was done, but that the loot down here was epic. He came down, and gave it a once-over, with a whistle added at the end. He approved. I looked at my watch, and it was 4. Not far from dawn.

I radio’d to the duty staff once we got back to the surface that we needed some assistance moving a lot of loot and they organized the ambulance, and a crew to load it. For two hours, Hal and I kept watch, drawing in and/or stepping out to drop the few zombies moving in the area around the church. We didn’t let any of them get close enough to the church or rectory to be a threat to us, but still, it was… nerve wracking.

The whole time… I kept thinking about Tobias, and his wife and son. About his… state of being. It doesn’t seem real, or possible, but in my heart… I know it’s the truth, and I think I hate that reality more. I can coast feeling I’m crazy until the next round of end-times, but… goddamn it.

Abby, Kevin, Hal, and Fagan arrived and we loaded everything in the basement up. I told them not to ask any questions after they saw the dead body of Bell End in the basement, and to their credit, they didn’t pry. I could see the silence eating at Abby, but she kept her word, and didn’t push. God I love her. She’s ADHD with wisdom incarnate. Smart and soulful. I’m so proud.

I rode back in silence, trying to digest it all, and then I slept for four hours. Now, here I am, writing this.

I need to keep thinking, and then rest some more. People have questions, and I don’t know what those answers might be just yet. Won’t have answers at all, I suspect. Par for the fucked-up course.

I do know, for certain, that things in this profoundly complicated world aren’t quite as simple as I’d hoped they be.

That didn’t make much sense. I’m so tired.

-Adrian

October 29th

To give the people of Mutual Aid time to come to grips with the sudden disappearance of their fearless leader, or whatever it is they’re doing right now, we opted to let them have yesterday and today to… I dunno, grieve? Discern their assholes from their elbows? I don’t know what they do with their time. I’m not their real mom.

I pulled my group into our meeting room in the galley, with Lancaster, William and Rosario added. Without going over all of what I already wrote, I told them the whole story, at least the high points of it. I started with the first couple of interactions I had with Bell End, and then walked them straight through to the events at the church. Some of them were present for parts of it, or all of it in places, Hal notably, but they got the big picture.

The end of the story resulted in me basically saying, “This dude was a ghost all along.”

“Is this a Europe-only issue? And who else might be a ghost too?” Was the first thing Rosario suggested. “How many people have we crossed paths with that were ghosts and we never knew about it? Can they walk through walls? Can they listen to us without our knowing it? This is beyond a nightmare.”

“I don’t think I’d be so paranoid about it,” I said to her. “I don’t think they’re all malicious. I could be wrong. Got a great track record for being wrong. I’m wracking my brain about people back at home at Bastion that might’ve been ghosts. Some of the people we’ve encountered surely no one ever touched. There’s no way of knowing.”

“Then does it matter?” Abby asked. “Entities come, entities go. Living or incorporeal dead, it doesn’t matter. Unless they’re fucking zombies, only their behavior seems to matter. A poorly behaved human can cause more destruction than a ghost.”

“How do we kill them?” Fagan dropped. “Like if one of them is like, a bad actor? What do we do? Exorcism? Holy water? Healing crystals? Burn sage?”

“Maybe we hit them with a scale replica of Jesus’ holy dick, if we take a page out of your playbook. Worked once. But really, that’s a fine question,” I said to him as everyone laughed. Not everyone got the joke, which made it even funnier. “Wiltshire said he could interact with physical things, so if we shot him… he might still get shot. I don’t think that’d kill him, but it might disrupt him. Send him away for a bit. Killing his body seems to have sent him packing though.”

“Finding someone’s shambling corpse or actual corpse and putting it to rest isn’t reasonable,” Kevin said. “That’s like finding a vampire’s coffin to stake the dirt inside it to kill the vampire. That shit just ain’t happening.”

“Ghosts are alive because something is keeping them here,” Lancaster said, with his trademark cluck. “That can’t be a legend if it’s pervasive throughout history. Solve the riddle of why they’re alive, and I bet they’ll go away.”

“It could be something they didn’t get to do, too,” Kate added. “I think I saw a movie about that. The characters had to figure out what the ghost needed to have done in life, and once they did it, the ghost moved on.”

“That all sounds ponderous. Look, we’ll figure it out, I assure you all. What I do think, is that moving forward from here on out, if someone won’t touch us, skin-on-skin, we immediately assume they’re a different kind of undead from usual. A ghost like Wiltshire.”

“Shit,” Rosario said. “If I hadn’t seen all of what I’ve seen so far, I’d say we were all Section Eight.”

“Oh we’re bat shit crazy,” I said to her with a laugh. “No mistaking that. But I’d say standards for what’s fit for service are different now.”

“We are the cream of the crop,” Fagan said.

“Nah. We’re more cream of mushroom,” Kevin shot back. More laughs.

From then, we planned on a return to the fire station, where we’d sit and wait for the Mutual Aid people to bring us our shit, and then to sit down and have a long and happy conversation with them about what they thought their boss was, and was all about. I’m real curious to hear what Mata Sene thought about Bell End. She definitely had a strange way about her when we met, and now that I know what I know, I’m certain that she had more than just a little inclination that Wiltshire was different.

Inquiring minds, want to know.

Tomorrow. In other news, Otis has slept like a rock since I got back from the church. Peaceful and deep, warm and purring at times. He’s my… shit, he’s my safe place. Maybe Otis kills cats. There are legends of creatures fearing cats right?

I need to look that up. Somehow.

-Adrian

October 31st

Happy Halloween, Mr. Journal. I’m dressed as an asshole today. No one noticed my costume.

Mata Sene, newly crowned leader of Mutual Aid didn’t come to visit us yesterday at the fire station. We returned again this morning for a full day there, clearing the neighborhood and providing security for Crystal and another of her Marine friends to keep working on the pumper. They needed to swap out two of the tires, and if you were unaware, these fucking rigs have HUGE tires. It’s not an easy task, especially in the apocalypse with the wrong tools. She’s a prize.

All day yesterday, then most of the day today, and they got that job done. I helped them, mostly. The others in my crew did building and room clearing, as quietly as possible. I should note, that Abby stayed back today. Little Gavin wasn’t feeling so hot, so she stayed with him. He’s fine now. Teething I think.

We brought Joel in her stead, and he was THRILLED to get off the peninsula. It was nice to see him roll around, taking care of business with Hal, Fagan and Kevin. They did work. Cleared out three or four entire businesses, all two or three floors. Familiarity working together, I guess.

Anyway, Sene rolled into the parking lot of the fire station around noon today, rolling with the flatbed and the sedan they have.

She got out, and just from her posture, I could tell something had changed.

“Happy Halloween. Good to see you again.”

“Same to you,” she replied. “Our uh… leader has been stranger of late than he usually is, and that’s no small feat, yeah?”

“I’d heard a little about his… history. How he’s been. Has he… disappeared?”

“Yeah, left instructions that we should give you a package if his shit set sail without warning.”

“Probably seems bizarre to you.”

“He wasn’t all there,” she said. “This isn’t the first time he’s pulled some stunt that didn’t make sense.”

“He had been dealt a weird hand. He played the best he could.”

“How is it you seem to know more about him than I do? How is that? We searched his room yesterday. You know what we found in it? Nothing. Empty closet, empty drawers. Bed hadn’t been slept in, perhaps ever. You have any idea how that is? I bet you do. He said something to you, did he not?”

I love her accent. Little African, little French. I don’t get that in my life.

“I spend a lot of time warning people that what I’m about to tell them won’t make sense.”

“Skip it.”

“He was dead. Tobias Wiltshire, aka Chief Bell End, was a ghost. He asked us to put his son, then his wife, and then his own body down, and when I plugged him, he disappeared. I gave him peace.”

“I knew it,” she said, almost grinning and doing circles with the knowledge of her affirmation. “I knew it all along. Couldn’t even figure out how to prove it though.”

“Definitely a ghost. He never touched people, right? Never touched us, at least.”

“Yeah he went out of his way to never make contact. Always smoking, too. I think he did that to cover how weird he smelled.”

“He died of smoke inhalation. He smoked to cover the smell that his ghost-body made.”

“Of course he did. Another secret he kept. He was full of them.”

“What other secrets did he keep? Anything my people need to worry about?” I had this sudden pang of worry; even with all I knew, or supposed I knew, my blind spot with this guy was enormous… and the idea that he was being somewhat dishonest with his own people… well that made my skin crawl.

“He had us bring all those fire trucks back to the station for no reason. Wouldn’t let us use them. Then would ask us to go there so he could smoke cigarettes for an hour or two every week. He wouldn’t ever tell us his real name. We figured it out on our own, but still… why? And for God’s sake, he knew so much about places. Things he shouldn’t have been able to know.”

“Give me an example.”

“Out of the blue, he’d say, ‘We’re gonna go to this building today. I think there’s a… there’s a gallon of petrol in the garage.’ And we’d go, and he’d tell us what doors to go into, and where the zeds would likely be, and without fail, whatever he wanted to find, was where he said it would be.”

“Did you ever ask him how he knew this shit?”

“Of course I did. He had a story. Always the same: ‘I was a firefighter, and I went there on a call. I just remembered this now.’ What a pile of shit, total shit. I’m angry at him for lying, but I don’t know how we wouldn’t handled his truth.”

“Amen to that. Look, he knew what was where because as a ghost, he could go places without getting killed. I don’t think zombies gave two shits about him, and it’s unlikely anyone alive could kill him either. He was the perfect scout. Can’t die, and doesn’t get tired.”

“That idea makes so much sense I hate it,” she said, then laughed. “I should’ve guessed. I’m smarter than that.”

“We all have our blind spots. One of my best friends was a pawn of the Devil for a long time, and I think I knew it all along, and didn’t do a damn thing about it. Didn’t want to believe the truth, I guess. Look, what happened, happened. He did a lot of good for a lot of people, and more than anything, that’s what’ll weight his scale down when it comes to measuring his worth in this life.”

She sighed, and walked in circles for a few seconds. I could tell she was doing her own kind of weighing. What a world, Mr. Journal. She went then to the flatbed, and after pulling the door open, she grabbed a gym bag out and brought it to me.

“Gentle with this. Some of it is fragile. He said this is all you need to get it moving again. Am I to assume you’re going to be leaving the city, then? Once you get them running?”

“Our plan is to head north to Croydon. One of my best men has family there. We’re planning on returning to the port here. It’s going to be a permanent base of operations for us. We’re going to be hiring, if you know anyone from the area of fine moral character.”

“I’ll ask around.”

“That’d be nice.”

“There’s a bottle of his mead in that bag. He said he wanted you to enjoy it with those who you loved. Made it sound real important.”

“You think it’s poisoned?”

“No. He’d never do that. Plus, it’s stoppered with the original cork. Still got dust on it. I’d say take his word, and enjoy it.”

And we chatted some more. She told more strange stories about how Bell End would kinda come, and kinda go in conversation. He’d be in a room, and then be gone, and no one would hear him leave. Vice versa as well. He didn’t eat much, and the meals he did take were bites here, and bites there, as he turned. Or he’d pick up a plate, and then leave with it. She said without fail, someone else would get the plate of food as a gift from him.

I’m sad he’s gone.

She left, and I brought the bag of parts to Crystal. I took out the bottle of melomel, and gave her the rest. Right then and there, I opened it, and took a swig.

He was right; the shit was delicious. I took another swig, and then offered it to Crystal, who declined. She said she was in recovery. I apologized for drinking in front of her, and then went out to find the rest of my people.

I even shared it with Sgt. Oak, and Sgt. Maple. No backwash.

I deserve a goddamn medal for my altruistic nature.

Lady Sene and I made plans to rendezvous back at the fire station on November 5th. If they had issues before that, they knew where to find us.

We’ll have enough repairs done on the engine by tomorrow afternoon that we’ll be able to get it back to Point Hope. It’ll go under the steel worker’s eyes, and be made ready according to our specification to head north to Croydon.

Then, as the kids like to say nowadays, “Why did that bad man eat my parents?”

I mean, it’s on like Donkey Kong. They say that.

Yeah, that. Not the first dark-ass thing.

-Adrian

Fetters

Toby felt the gunshot hit the body he no longer inhabited. The sensation wasn’t quote pain, and it wasn’t pressure, or even shock. The moment and its sensory overload came, and then it went, and when that experience departed, so too did the former firefighter’s consciousness.

Cut free from the fetter that bound him to the physical world, what Toby was slipped sideways, pressing into a different experience once more.

Spoiled by the hints the man named Adrian had given him, he knew precisely where he was. When, he was, actually.

The day it all began. June in 2010.

He was back in the basement of the church, cool, and a bit damp, but clean and without the oppressive, nostril-burning presence of chemical smoke. Toby coughed out of reflex, and reached for the ever-present packs of cigarettes in his pockets. He’d searched the third pocket before he realized that he didn’t have any. He didn’t need them.

He inhaled deeply, and felt the air that... didn’t exist fill lungs that he knew were actually starting to rot out in the real version of the basement he stood in. Toby laughed; deep and rich, its exultation sonorous and complete.

He had escaped his prison. Air to breathe was his, and if the Adrian man had been telling the truth, then Toby could find his wife Emily, and his son, Maximus. Toby loved that name, Maximus. That his boy had grown into the title in every way imaginable made him want a second child, if only to name them Pinnacle, or Ultimatus. He chuckled, and walked to the stairs and the blocked door that had kept him imprisoned as a fire raged above.

But no longer. The door wasn’t locked in his version of reality, and when he turned the knob and exited into the kitchen, the room was as it was the morning the undead rose. The faint smell of toast—brioche, unmistakable—hung in the air, as did the warm embrace of freshly brewed tea. Milk and sugar.

Toby walked outside, and just as the heavy wooden door latched shut, he heard the echo of the man with the crazy hair speak inside his memory;

“Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them.”

Emily died here. In the basement he just left. In a sudden panic, Toby spun and burst back into the kitchen, then through the door into the basement. He barreled down the stairs, his boots pounding on the wood like hammers on drums. He arrived in the center of the outer basement room, and called out to her.

But the lungs that didn’t exist, filled with air that wasn’t real, made no noise. He tried to make noise again, but nothing. He tried her name, he tried his son’s, but no words could be formed, no cries could be heard.

He tried begging, pleading, praying to the Lord high above on consecrated ground for his voice, for his family, but even those prayers went unsaid. And a prayer unsaid, couldn’t be answered, at least not here, and not now.

On knees, the sobbing wracked his body. Tears ran down his cheeks again as his lips and chin quivered with grief. He punched the floor, hard and cold, unyielding, and punishing to his flesh, and then bones. He felt pain scream up from his ruined hands and he kept at that until the nerves overloaded his ability to function, and he fell to his side, unable to do anything other than grieve. And laugh. His laughter was the noise his reality allowed him to make, so he did that; he laughed like the madman he was.

Both his cackles and the pain stopped when he heard an echo;

“Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them.”

Breathe hitching in his chest he sat up, and looked at his hands. He expected to see split flesh over the tops of broken knuckles, but his hands were normal; unhurt by his savage self-mutilation. The experience had been had, and now he was reset to do something else. He had to leave, he had to go home.

Defeated for only a moment, Toby arose, exited the basement, passed through the kitchen, and out into a perfect summer morning. He could hear the surf rolling up on the shores to the south, but he knew that he couldn’t; the church was too far inland for that. Even at his own house, which was much closer to the southern coast than the church and he couldn’t hear the salt water crashing against the sand and rocks there. He started to run, feeling the warm sun on his face,

This new place, this Other Side… made no sense. It was a paused world, unfinished and raw, filled with spaces that couldn’t be measured, sounds that carried weight that couldn’t be lifted, and scents that triggered emotions that were the most real of all.

He would be home again soon.

When Tobias walked the real world, dead, but with his consciousness tethered to his body and able to wander and interact with the world at large, he sought out his wife and son without pause. Avoiding all human contact, he kept to the shadows, and wandered amongst the undead. They paid him no heed. He knew where his wife was; her corpse first consumed by a rage with no explanation, trapped in the basement of the burnt church, protected from the humans that might end what her existence was. He left her there, and that act killed him every night.

But at least… at least he had that.

And his son… Maximus.

Max should’ve been home that day. There was no school, and Max’s friends had planned on playing football all afternoon. He would’ve been home, and when Toby searched for his son, he went to their house first. Alone, and afraid of what he might find, he let himself in through the garden door, and searched each and every room. He lingered in the basement meadery, looking at the hobby he’d loved so. He left it as is, and kept searching for Max.

He went searching for Max’s friends. They were gone, or dead, or worse.

But no Max.

Then, one late night, while sitting on the brick and stone wall that encircled his small front garden, trying to not cry as he thought of another night alone, Max came stumbling down the street. They froze when they saw each other, then they ran to embrace one another. But Toby couldn’t touch the living, and when Max went in for the desperate, life-affirming hug, he instead went face forward into the street, bloodying his lip.

Toby saw then that his son had been bitten on the forearm, and he still felt that pain. That agony brought on by realization. If, even now, Toby thought too much about that night, he could see the stains of his son’s blood on his arms, and shoulders, where the bite touched him.

He remained with his very confused boy through the pain and suffering, and when he finally, entered death with a whimper, Toby cried his way outside, and shut him in. He couldn’t put him down even though he knew he could. He might not be able to touch the living, but he’d killed more than his fair share of the dead in his journeys across Brighton.

He couldn’t kill Maximus, so he kept him safe, and visited him until he could figure it out.

It was better than nothing, but not by much.

Not long after that, Tobias found himself helping others.

If someone put him in front of a magistrate, he couldn’t testify to when it started, or who the first person he helped was, or tried to help. Time… in the real world was strange, but it was linear, mostly. He understood what came before, and after, and often he was aware of what the now was. Aware enough that he didn’t spill his secrets.

And secrets… he had. Paranoia seemed to run rampant in the mind he had left. He feared being discovered for whatever he was, he felt terrified they’d track down where he died, and where he lived. Toby lived in constant, low-grade terror that his new living… acquaintances would follow his trail of breadcrumbs through his past, and find where he kept his family.

He worried about everything, and no matter how well he got to know people, or whether or not they rallied under his leadership, or listened to him without question, he feared deeply, and without rationale. EVERYTHING he had, could be taken from him, and he could not suffer more loss.

After talking the people at the farm that followed him, and took him in, to track down his former firefighter colleagues, and return one of their vehicles to the fire station he worked at, he hid his secretive ulterior motives by providing supplies and knowledge for them to remain safe, and constantly busy. They could doubt him less when they were taken care of.

They still doubted. Especially Mata Sene, and for that reason alone, she was fit to lead Mutual Aid when he left. Her dark, perceptive, soulful eyes saw through him, like the ghost of a person he was. But, behind those eyes, was a wisdom that he could not quite fathom.

Smart, he’d been accused of being more than once. Wise… not as often. He was impetuous at times in his life; choosing humor and the ability to make new friends over the trouble of choosing his words and actions more carefully. By the time he died, he could’ve been a full rank higher, but his nature prevented his further ascent, or at least any sense of rapidity to it.

Didn’t matter anymore. He’d done all the ascending he’d ever do. Now, all he wanted was to find his wife, and son in this strange, paused world and see no more death and suffering. He just wanted to stare into his wife’s soulful eyes, and feel that love, and radiating warmth, and to know that everything might be over, but everything would be alright.

It was going to be alright.

But it wasn’t. Not yet at least.

When Toby realized he’d arrived at his home, nestled in the suburbs of Brighton, near the water on a desirable street. He nor his wife could afford the home on their salaries. They’d nabbed the home after its previous owners had a small house fire, using money they’d inherited after the death of his wife’s grandfather. The perks of being a firefighter. Save the owner’s lives, get access to the sale of the house early, and for cheap after.

They renovated it themselves, and made it into something special. A real and true home, filled with love, and value that they would give to Maximus when they died. In a way, they already had.

When Tobias got to his house, he cautiously walked up the drive and into the front garden along the pavers he’d put in himself. He needed to mow, and pluck some of the weeds that weren’t following his plan. He opened the door, and called out to his boy, no different than when he’d come home after his shifts at the fire station.

Back before Maximus became a teenager—and that was so long ago, he was such a big boy now—the child would scream out for Toby, and come hammering down the carpeted stairs, filled to the brim with elation over his hero dad coming home. Years passed, and his excitement changed. The yelling shrank, and became subdued. He’d be watching football on the television, or playing video games with his friends as often as not now. They’d reunite after Toby had gotten a drink and a snack from the kitchen. Sometimes not for… hours.

But he wasn’t here now. He was… absent. The Adrian man lied?

The Adrian man lied.

His wife wasn’t where he said she’d be. His son wasn’t either.

Feeling that rage build inside his chest, Tobias said down on a stool at the kitchen island. He could FEEL the anger growing in his hands, and fingers. Hot, tight, and unable to remain still, it threatened to take his meager control from him.

And why not? Why should he suffer, alone, in this empty house? Why should he be the one who behaves? Why must he always be the one who suffers in silence, under control? Why can’t he have release from this pain, and fury?

Toby snapped.

He tried to scream but couldn’t, and that made his fury worse. He stood, and gunned the stool through the glass sliding door in the kitchen. The thick glass shattered into a thousand pieces, blasting out into the back garden. The impotence of the door giving way pissed him off even worse so he grabbed another stool and ruined the window over the sink. Fists flew into the cupboard doors, shattering the wood. He swept all their precious appliances off the counter, picking some up and smashing them on the tile floor he and his wife had put in together, swearing every thirty seconds at their overconfidence.

He stomped and kicked at a scratch he made on one of the tiles, furious that it too, had failed on him.

He went down the hall then, back to the foyer and then the living room, ripping everything off the wall to destroy it. Everything but the pictures of his family. Those were kept pristine. Those were his soul, right there. His memories. The only thing that wasn’t pain.

But fuck the rest of it. He smashed, and when he couldn’t scream or yell at the world he was yet again trapped in, he started laughing. Complete, utter, stark-raving madness-laughter. Reckless abandon of sanity unlike anything he ever experienced when he was just a ghost. Just a pathetic spirit unwilling to live right, or die right. A chill came through the house, and the light diminished as his rage built. A cloud took up residence over his world, his eyes, and his soul. A poisonous one.

A sudden thought gripped him, like he’d put his whole mind into a vice.

A question that he answered in his mind the moment it even appeared.

What do you do to liars?

You teach them that lying is wrong.

Tobias—consumed by the idea that Adrian must be made to pay for lying to him—immediately felt his thoughts ripped to the port, and that stupid foreigner sitting on a boat there. Misleading him, lying to him, stealing from him.

And… that bastard… he….

Killed his wife.

He killed his bloody son.

It would only be fair to hurt him the same as he’d hurt Toby. It would be easy to. Just show up, and find the bastard, and get him in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Leading Adrian into an alleyway of the dead would be child’s play.

Tobias walked out into the perpetual morning sunshine, and breathed deep of the fresh air. He kept laughing, and started the long walk to the port where the man who betrayed him was. In good time, Adrian Ring would suffer, and if Toby had anything in abundance…

It was hatred for Adrian Ring, and all the time in the world. In fact, it might feel better to make Adrian suffer, just the same Toby had.

Yes. That made more sense. It was only fair, too.

November 2014

November 4th

I took a few days off here to collect myself, and get some sleep. For some reason, I’ve been exhausted. I’m not sick, I’m just… I dunno. Comfortable enough to rest?

Knowing that Bell End’s people are sorted, and mostly on our side is a relief, but I think the real comfort comes in knowing that Bell End himself is sorted. Call it a gut instinct, but I knew something was off about him. As good a guy as he seemed, there was something I kept picking up on. Turned out he was a fucking ghost, which was not at all what I expected, and totally fucked up.

But… he’s handled. I believe.

The rest of our crew here is still trying to wrap their head around the idea that there is a whole different flavor of undead out there. What scares us more than the sheer spooky aspect of it all, is that as far as we know, they’re mostly intangible.

If one of them decides to fuck with us… can we shoot it? Do we need to stab it? Can it even hurt us?

Tobias said he couldn’t touch living people, but could touch things, and even hand things to other people. That tells me he could easily beat us to death, and if he got his hands on a gun, he could definitely pull that trigger, and those bullets could definitely fuck us up.

So like… worst case imaginable, right?

I’m also wondering what exactly causes this to happen? I can theorize all fucking day and night about it, and never know the answer. But… it’s fun to ponder.

Fun. That’s the word, right?

He was a man of minor faith, at least. His wife worked at the church, which tells me her faith was more powerful in her life, than his. He worked in public service, didn’t sound like he was a veteran, and didn’t mention anything about his family. No indications of drug addiction, or weird ritualistic beliefs outside of church.

He did… die at a church. So there’s that, and that feels key.

But, we’ve been to churches before, and we’ve dealt with the dead as well as survivors in and around them, and never encountered anything like this before. At least, not and being aware about it. There’s a good chance some of the survivors we’ve taken on at various points of our journey were actually ghosts.

What about when I saw that black convertible, driving by with the redhead in it? Was that a real person? Was it a ghost? No way I’ll ever know.

The staggering amount of variables in my life makes me want to cry.

There’s no crying in baseball, though. Well, maybe a little. I once cried my ass off when I was in third grade. For some reason they assigned me to a T-Ball league, even though the year before I was in a regular little league. I remember, clear as day, my dad taking me by the shoulders, and squatting down in front of me, in my tiny little uniform, with those shitty stirrup socks that always fell down.

“Adrian, the fastest way to get out of the T-Ball league is to show them you don’t need that stupid stand to hit the ball. So you go over there, and you play your position, and when you get up to bat, you hit that damn ball so hard the stand breaks. Show them you don’t need the stand. Don’t just tell them.”

Wise words that have stuck with me, thirty-odd years later.

I whiffed on my first swing, but then I saw my mom and dad in the stands, with my brothers and sisters (some of which had games before me, or after me that summer day) and I saw my dad’s calm, assured face. He’d seen me hit. He knew I could swing.

Next swing I murdered that goddamn leather wrapped ball. In my memory, it flew a hundred and fifty yards, striking down a vulture in the sky, ending the communist threat, and banishing Mumm-Ra from ever harming the Thundercats ever again. I was a true American hero. I was an eight year old version of Kevin Bacon in Footloose.

In reality, it was a blooping drive directly over the head of the umpire standing behind the second baseman. Plopped down in centerfield, and I pumped my little legs as fast as they’d go, past first base, right past second base, and the kid who literally held the ball as I ran past him, straight to third, where the kid at second threw the ball over the head of the third base player. I remember my coach screaming for me to keep going, so I fucking embraced chaos, and kept pumping my little cleat-tipped stumps until I streamed across home plate and collapsed into the on-deck circle, out of breath, seeing stars, and completely happy with life.

I got two more base hits later in that game, and the next week, I was promoted to a non T-Ball league.

I drank Blue Label and watched porn with my father and brothers every weekend for the remainder of the summer, celebrating our fucking masculinity. Got a little strange for dad when Tommy put his gay porn on, but you gotta support family, even when their porn isn’t your cup of tea.

I made that last part up. Not the part about supporting family, the entire porn and whiskey part. We couldn’t afford Blue Label and Tommy wasn’t aware or out with his sexuality. We did however have a lot of Milwaukee’s Best straight from dad’s cans when he sat them down. Dad sprinkled salt on the tops of his beer cans before drinking them. Not sure why. I remember Caleb asked him about it once, but I don’t remember his answer. He also put salt on his apples, and always cut them into slices. Salt on the apples I get. Sweet and salty, sure. The beer… I dunno.

What do they call it when you get sucked into a totally unrelated side story? A tangent? I think that was a tangent. Has nothing to do with ghosts, or laying siege to an army of European undead, of which, we’ve only barely gotten started destroying.

I’ll say this: So little happens without there being some kind of relevance nowadays, especially when it relates to the undead, or bizarre bullshit going down. If we ran into a dead guy that wasn’t a zombie, then we were probably meant to all along.

I know I said I felt the absence of the divine when we crossed into this area of the world and I meant it when I said it. I still feel it. When I take a moment, and breathe deep and center myself, there’s a weird hollowness to the world. Imagine stepping outside on a winter day, right into the rays of the bright sun, but feeling no warmth from that light. It’s like that. I can feel that there’s something wrong in the world, but I can’t quite… find out how to replace that element.

Trying to replace God is a fucking joke statement, right? How do I do that?

You don’t replace God. You find God.

And, we are searching for that meaning in what we do. In every life we save, or person we help. Every smile, every hug, every meal shared, every laugh with a stranger we find a little more meaning to this life, and get a little closer to proper goodness.

Good intentions aren’t enough. They have to be followed with diligent work, and good deeds. Mistakes are okay. They are a facet of human existence. But we will grow from our mistakes, and we will pick each other up, and we will push forward, and we will make this world better than it was before all this started.

And we will scratch our kitty’s heads, and we will go rescue all those dogs that keep barking at us, and we will feel that sunshine on our faces.

I have faith in that.

I also have faith that there will be many cloudy days between now and then.

Tomorrow we go to the fire station with the upgraded ladder truck. It’s our first real trip with the uparmored vehicle, and I’m SO EXCITED to take my Mad Max truck out into the world. We haven’t seen a ton more zombies, so that’s good, but the few we’re expecting to see don’t worry us at all.

Soon we’ll start thinking about obtaining fuel for the long trip north, and then sorting out where the fuck we’re going to get more chopper fuel. We’ve got plenty of food and water, spare parts are accessible, but without go-juice, none of it matters.

We’ll sort that out. That’s what we do.

All is well, or well enough.

-Adrian

November 6th

Mutual Aid meeting went well enough. Ladder truck worked perfect. So much I can talk about with just that big beautiful red rig, but there’s something else happening.

We’re being… probed.

It started a few days ago, according to a few of our gate and fence guardians. Well, nights ago, actually. They didn’t say anything to management because it seemed so out there, and farfetched, but as we’ve proven time and time again, this is some farfetched horseshit we’re swimming in.

Our elevated over watch snipers separately reported that they’ve seen a few zombies here and there, peeking around corners. Peeking. Looking in the direction of our defenses, and then ducking away.

Read that again, Mr. Journal, and really let the reality of that set in.

After one night and five or six strange appearances of undead, the guys were on alert, but didn’t say anything. After a second night of the same, they made the call up the chain of command, resulting in the news getting to me this morning right after I woke up.

Kevin and Hal had already been informed, and were the people who told me.

Tap tap tap. First thought and I’m still thinking about it.

So as of right now, we’re shut down, and turning people away for the time being. I’ve ordered that we should assembled two fire teams of four to patrol the area within a few hundred yards of the perimeter, and see if we can’t figure out what’s going on. I’m in charge of the QRF of six shooters, waiting to help if needed.

What’s worst case scenario here? Zombies are not only faster here, but becoming more intelligent?

Are the zombies under the control of evil?

Are they under the control of someone else?

Are they giant meat puppets with enormous British arms inserted in their posterior puppet holes?

I don’t know. I am very worried. This level of fuckery never goes well, and I have the distinct impression we’re gonna lose some people soon. I know people are going to die; there are zombies out there, and we’re in the middle of a city of a quarter million people, but there’s this sense I have that death is impending.

I’m scared that death will be someone I’m close to, but that’s selfish, isn’t it?

Shit.

-Adrian

November 7th

The sound of steady gunfire last night as I waited to respond as the QRF brought me back to a strange, dark series of memories. Old stuff from Iraq, where we’d hear gunshots through in the dark as we tried to sleep in our FOBs. Local Iraqi people sorting each other out without us patrolling. Insurgents killing locals who had tried to help us recently. Sometimes it was police officers getting killed. Sometimes it was our friends killing insurgents.

Wasn’t good. It just wasn’t, and that memory wasn’t the only one hearing the gunshots in the dark roused. More recent, fresh memories of listening to people fighting back against the undead were dredged up, and those are bad in their own way.

Our two patrols working in bounds and leaps, constantly giving each other cover, gave us a pretty thorough street level sweep of the area surrounding our peninsula. They didn’t clear rooms, or go deep into buildings, but theoretically, none of the undead got into those places. Took them the entire night, and they returned at dawn, with all hands, but battered and bruised.

Kevin and Hal debriefed me, as they were each the team leaders. It sounded quiet for the most part, but as it always is, there were moments of pure terror and heart-attack inducing stress. They ran into several solitary wanderers, who always pick up speed when they see or hear the living move. Well, I say always, but… keep stay tuned. They were picked off at night with ease, but there were several encounters where the undead seemed to exhibit… for lack of a better word, tactical awareness. Almost as if they made a plan, and were it not for the amazing skill level of the people last night, we most assuredly would’ve lost lives. I need to remove the word almost from that sentence. I’ll leave it for posterity.

The incident I am ruining my underwear most for, occurred in a space between two apartment buildings, not far from the water’s edge. One undead wandered away from them, appearing to be unaware that my guys were closing in to take it out, and when they made obviously enough noise to be heard, the zombie still didn’t turn around to attack them. Our guys sped up to give pursuit, and when they entered the alley between the two, four undead rushed out from behind dumpsters and old trash bags.

They set an ambush. They laid in wait for their prey, and attacked when the element of surprise was theirs.

It didn’t work out, but they fucking set an ambush.

To say this is a game changer, would be an understatement of epic proportions. This whole realization creates a string of questions that even if answered, leaves us with our dicks in our hands. Or, in the case of Abby and Captain Rosario, their… boobs? What do women hold onto when they’re left in the lurch? Clutching a purse sounds sexist and wrong. Titty clamping ain’t right either.

No idea. I’m rambling and trying to make myself laugh right now. It’s… crazy to even contemplate. First there’s no God, then there are jogging zombies, followed by ghosts, now the fucking zombies are hatching even more advanced Wile E. Coyote level hijinks.

I think the response to this revelation, is to accelerate leaving. We make a plan to get fuel, and then head north to Croydon so Hal can check on his family. I know, deep down inside that just following through on doing the right things will put us in the right places at hopefully the right times, but we also can’t just abandoned those who need us. We can calculate the math, but at some point, you say fuck the equation, and do what’s right.

Gah. I hate the idea of ‘running away.’ A tactical retreat a regroup, sure, but retreating in this instance means getting back on the boats and leaving Brighton. That’s not an option. We need to… we gotta….

Mata. Mutual Aid. I need to check in with her ASAP, and see what they’re seeing, or if they’ve got insights. It’s possible that what we’re now seeing is something they’ve known all along and just hadn’t thought to mention. It’s easy enough to skip over. They’d just assume that the undead we’re familiar with are the same kinds of undead that they’re familiar with.

What if…

Oh shit. What if me putting Tobias down somehow released the local undead? What if his presence was keeping them in check, and I took him out, and took off their collar? What if this, as is many other things, is my fault?

Well, that’d figure, wouldn’t it? My conscience can’t handle much more of this shit.

We’ll hatch a trip out to the fire station tomorrow morning and hopefully she comes quickly to meet up. If not, then we’ll keep driving out straight to their farm, and we’ll have an awkward meeting there. We can’t wait much longer to check in on this.

-Adrian

November 8th

Didn’t sleep well last night. Too much on my mind, I guess. Only dreaming of the dead is unmistakable now. Breaks the fourth wall.

Some good news first: the ladder truck is the bee’s knees. I’ll go into more detail about our modifications at a later date, but sufficed to say: it’s fantastic, and worked VERY well. It’s big, and powerful, and feels like the old HEMTT at home, but with decent seats to plant an ass in. But, this entry here isn’t about the ladder truck, or the ambulance, or the fact that we rode in our first two-vehicle convoy to the fire station.

Our story picks up with the news that we went to the station, waited five hours, then I made the call to head further north and out of town to visit Mutual Aid on their home turf. We needed to contact their newly appointed leader, Mata Sene, and I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

I had William and Kate on standby, chopper idling, and we pushed further north than we ever have. We encountered about ten undead, and either drove over them, or drove by them as needed. Barely paid them any heed. That felt good. Fuck your apocalypse, eat my ass and enjoy it.

Mutual Aid has a farmhouse outside of Brighton in the hill-ish area near some large power lines. They’ve got barns, fencing, have built guard towers, all that. Quite the place. We rolled in, loud and obvious, me waving my arms from the top of the ladder truck like a fucking idiot. I had our group post up about a hundred yards from the guard tower, and we dismounted to form a perimeter in the relative countryside as we waited for Mata to come out and shoot the shit with us. It’s a pretty spot, if you don’t look at the massive power lines above a few of the pastures.

Took her an hour, and when she did finally show, it was after a thirty minute buildup of people taking to the defenses to protect her. A few men and women with rifles or shotguns, but mostly, we saw bows and arrows, and melee weapons. Long ones. They’ve learned the benefits of maintaining distance and reach. I’m sure all those cow fences they were able to reinforce and hide behind were useful too. Hell, the fences worked to keep the few cows we saw alive.

Mata met me at their gate, which was a... Jesus, a taped together aluminum, steel and wood swinging barrier that wouldn’t stop a car, let along more than a dozen undead. It seemed as much for show as it was for security. It probably kept the undead out long enough for them to get to the gate and poke some skulls. Same as the fence. Not impenetrable, but a significant enough deterrent that it bought them time.

What we’re all fighting for, right? More time.

Anyway, Mata and I talked for a solid hour at that fence. I clarified that the undead here DO NOT plan, and lay ambushes, and then I told her about the attacks we just endured. To say her world view was shifted by that story would be an understatement. I watched her as she turned her eyes to the gate, then the fence, then the open fields, and I could practically listen to her thought process as she judged all of her defenses woefully insufficient for this new threat I spoke of.

I theorized to her that the removal of Tobias from the region might’ve eliminated some kind of barrier, letting more intelligence and cunning out, and she seemed unsure of that theory. I also posited that maybe, just fucking maybe the douche-canoe was behind all of this? What if now, he’s no longer rooted to his human qualities in life, or what was passing for life, and now he’s just an undead, intangible spirit, shit-stirrer of biblical proportions.

She seemed to think that scenario was more likely, but had no answer. No one has an answer at all, actually, and that fucking blows, because I do love answers to questions, and I don’t get them at anywhere near the frequency I would like to get them at.

So, I handed her a radio that connects on our standard frequency. Our encrypted radios will be untouchable for her, the throat mics, I mean, and the network that attaches to them, which can be any of the comms on Reuben James or Crommelin, are all encrypted heavily. Military grade.

I wanted her to be able to contact us in the event of a major attack, minor attack, or strange happenings. I still don’t know exactly how many people they have at their place, but we counted fifteen ready to fight us, and there has to be an equal number of noncombatants, plus kids. Let’s call it forty residents. They could easily have that many on that piece of property, and if they were willing to get close to one another, plus grab a spot to rack out with the cows, they could easily have a hundred people there. It’s likely in the middle.

We saw six firearms. That means there’s likely only a dozen on site, and if that’s the case, ammunition is probably in very short supply. Any substantial attack, and they could be in trouble. Any… intelligent attack, and they could be in deep trouble.

Hence the radio.

So yeah. Smart zombies are becoming a thing, and the locals weren’t aware of it.

I thanked her, warned her, reassured her, and we split in our big baddie. The ride home was safe and clean, with only about four undead to deal with. Kevin drove, and he drove that fat bitch right over them. I should say this: the streets in this country are much narrower than those in America. Maneuvering the ladder truck will a task regardless, and doing so on such narrow streets, in unfamiliar territory as we drive north will be a real bitch. I expect numerous, numerous collisions, especially with parked cars and lorries, and trucks, and vans, and etc etc. We’ll need more armor for those collisions.

But that conversation doesn’t matter right now. Right now we need to keep pressing forward, and not sit back, waiting to react to a theoretical attack. We gotta check that fuel place across the water from us for clean diesel, and we need to find a source of chopper fuel. After getting back here earlier, I briefed everyone important about the meeting, then asked William and to get with the powers that be, that aren’t me, to start making a plan to retrieve fuel for his chopper.

William, because he’s one of those “detail oriented assholes,” has already been working with Kate on several variations of a plan. They want to hit the airports in a hundred mile radius to start, which will give us several targets to raid. They’ve done this kind of thing before, more than a few times, so it’s not a new operation or task to the fleet. What will be new, is if we join them on a fuel retrieval mission as shooters, or support. We’d be the FNGs, listening to the old guard.

I know you’re disappointed that I likely won’t risk ass on a run to get chopper gas, but I might not go. It doesn’t make much sense for me to break up the band, as it were. If they have a system, don’t fuck with it. As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, make like a leaf and count your chickens before they hatch.

Or something like that. I’m not good with “sayings.”

Gonna try and clock some z’s. I’m fucking spent, and I have the distinct impression we’re going to experience some strange, unrestful nights for the time being. Both in terms of dreaming, and in terms of undead being a bunch of wily bitches. Season that recipe with the worry about protecting the locals, and the fear that asshole locals will get up to no good, complicating matters for everyone, living and dead.

My team will be earning their pay. Not that we pay anyone.

-Adrian

November 10th

I don’t remember its location factoring into me picking it, but Shoreham Port: Point Hope, is only a mile from the Brighton airport, as the crow flies.

I couldn’t have chosen a much better place for us to set up shop here in southern England. Small airport, large port facility, defendable peninsula… it’s pretty good, if you overlook the undead, ghost issue, and the giant island teeming with an apocalypse still unfolding. No biggie.

So we (and by we I mean William and his flight team) made a plan to fly to the airport to scout for fuel. Their first trip for aerial recon was today, to scout the way there and back for a QRF, or perhaps to transport in large quantities fuel they discover tomorrow.

Their mission plan read like a power point presentation about math, and it discussed a lot of logistics that are above my pay grade. The long story short, is that on the core mission tomorrow, William will take a crew of shooters with him, they’ll fly west over the River Adur, which empties into the bay we park our ships in, then cut north as the river flows (inland) past the airport. That way they’re less likely to get shot at from below, and if they suffer a mechanical failure, it’s more likely to be over the water, where they can splash down and we can rescue them in zodiacs we’ll have waiting. Navy pilots and sailors feel safer working over or in the water. Who would’ve thought? I guess they call that playing to your strengths. Why I always say if I can’t be smart, I’ll be a smartass.

They scouted that trip, ensured there were no blockages in the river, then scouted the roadways back to see what issues might be encountered if they called for help while they were landed at the airport. William and his crew found a few hotspots where the road was blocked by car wrecks or debris, but after we looked at the digital pictures they took, none of us thought it would be a problem to push the trash out of the way with the ladder truck to get there.

They also reported something in the number approaching a hundred undead on the grounds of the airport, fenced in, and presumably unable to leave or be led away easily. That’s pretty good, actually. They said the fence was in very good shape, which means clearing the area around the fuel locations should be easier. They made note of one small engine plane crash at the end of a runway to the north. Shattered Cessna, or something to that effect. Likely a dead body or two in it, or roaming around from it.

The plan is to go up with tier one shooters, clear the area they’re gonna land at, then put down. Rotors spinning, the bird empties of shooters, and they spend the first hour or so, as needed, defending their perimeter. If they get bum-rushed, they lift off, and we do some crowd control in the air, and reassess. Once (read: if) they get a big enough clearing, and feel adequately safe to move forward with the extraction, they’ll check the fuel source, and fill the bird as it sits. They’re mounting twin external fuel tanks on the side of William’s chopper, but leaving them empty. They’ve got a setup here that they can hop back and forth, filling there, emptying here on Reuben James and over on the chopper-less Crommelin until their ship-stores are full up. In an ideal situation they get the boat real close to the fuel, and they can do it all with hosing without ever landing. They’ve transferred thousands of gallons of fuel this way before, and they plan on doing it again tomorrow.

All day today we scoured the peninsula for fuel canisters to fill. Not only for chopper fuel, but for diesel when we start heading north. I’m looking at you, fuel place across the bay. We found a grand total of thirty man-held canisters. Those were about five gallons each, and there are enough clean fifty-five gallon drums here to clear out whatever fuel they find at the airport. We strapped up ten of the barrels on the ladder truck in anticipation of making the refueling run on the ground. The roads are clear enough. I’m on the ladder truck/ambulance ground crew.

So it’s secure the site, make fuel runs in the air for as long as we can, and if the fuel resources at the airport are big enough, call for the ground QRF to help move larger quantities faster. Two zodiacs with marines and sailors will be in the water, near the end of the bay for a very fast CSAR if need be.

Fingers crossed that the airport’s stores of go-juice are still there, and still potent enough to keep Williams’ bird in the sky. The brainiacs aboard seem to think the fuel will be good to go, or treatable to be worth using. I keep thinking about Blake’s fuel cleaning contraption he built. Smart kid.

William, Kate and crew take off at dawn, with all of us ready to go.

Nothing else too weird has happened. Zombies being weirder than normal, but not many, and not too weird. Manageable weird by the fucked up standards we keep. Count those blessings on crossed fingers.

Gonna crash. Otis is being cuddly but not obnoxious. I will continue to be his human for the time being, I pray he feels the same about me. I brought him to the planning sessions the last couple days, and he was the cat’s meow, pun intended. It’s fun to see people interact with my little Maine coon fuzzball.. He’s such a nice cat, unless you’re an asshole, then he’s the justice you deserve. Twenty pounds of claws and fury.

My boy.

Okay, I gotta sleep We’re up early, and if the day goes well, it’ll be a long one, and a physically exhausting one.

We’re gonna pump gas, Mr. Journal, helicopter and fire truck style.

-Adrian

November 12th

Man yesterday was something else. Working with a chopper just changes the scope of anything we do, Mr. Journal. They’re big, and loud, and project SUCH FORCE. It’s hard not to feel bulletproof when my brother is in the skies above me, or in a holding pattern, providing cover.

Crazy day. I’m still tired, and it’s been hours and hours since, most of it filled with rest.

William and Kate took off with a chopper filled with shooters plus crew that know how to pump fuel and test it for potency from Reuben James. He took Marines with him, and I requested that he bring up Kate as part of his flight crew, plus at least one of my good shooters so we could use the encrypted comms easier. William and Kate selected Kevin, and Mr. Whitten was happy to oblige. Felt weird to do all the other stuff yesterday without Kevin, but we managed.

The bird went up, up and away with the rest of us sitting and watching, waiting for their word to do something. Worst case, they’d ask for help. Best case, they’d say all clear, and come get the gas. In the end, it was a mix of the two.

They went up and away about a mile, heading north, and west to the airport’s location next to the River Adur. They flew pretty slow, scanning the ground level and the roads near the airport for clearance issues. Over the radio Kate let us know that the roads around the airport were clear of anything notable, and the land surrounding was also reasonably safe from large groups of the undead. They circled the airport several times, making noise and drawing out the monsters, which as I understand it, went well. After pulling the zombies to the far northern side of the runway, they shot back south, and landed about twenty yards from the helipad/refueling area for choppers.

The shooters dismounted immediately, and took up firing positions to provide a perimeter, and to take down the fifty-odd zombies they’d roused. Long gun shooters with scopes went prone on their bellies and fired in rapid succession, popping skulls as fast as they could to thin the herd before it got close. Kevin wasn’t one of those guys, but Kevin with an M4A1 and an ACOG scope might as well be the fucking Grim Reaper if his targets are within 300 yards.

He pulled side security, looking west I think he said, and when the undead got halfway across the grass of the airport field, he pivoted, and started sending rounds downrange. That made four shooters going a the herd, and with his help, they were able to get it down to about six or seven to deal with at close range. We had made the decision to eschew melee weapons. Situations like this were why we had ammo. No sense risking life and limb when the element of surprise has already been lost.

The hearty mass of undead dealt with, they sat still, and kept their perimeter solid for thirty full minutes, doing nothing but waiting to see if more undead would come out from the woodwork.

More did. Not a ton. I think the final estimate was fifty in the main body, plus another twenty squirters over the course of the next period.

The whole time we could hear the gunshots, and the echoing, booming thunder of the rotors still spinning. Sound carries a real long ways when no one else in a city is making noise. It’s crazy. Every gunshot was anxiety made real. Every time we heard two shots in rapid succession, it got worse. Three shots was a crisis and four… well four was a prescription for Xanax.

I need to reconnect with that Fish woman, the pharmacist. I bet she’s got the good stuff stashed away.

So I’m just repeating what I was told by Kevin here, but once they were free and clear of obvious threats inside the airport fence, they jettisoned their refueling/chemistry sailor, and he went to the giant fuel tank set right near the helipads of the airport. He fiddle-farted with the controls, and after thirty minutes of colorful swearing, managed to pump about a gallon into a clear bucket. Had some light debris in it, but said it could be fixed for use within a few days. That was the good news. The bad news, was that the tank could originally hold around 12,000 gallons, but had a mere 2,000 gallons remaining.

Buuuuut… that’s still 2,000 gallons of chopper fuel, and that’ll do us real nice for awhile. The bad news, is that it meant the chopper’s fuel tanks shouldn’t be used to transport the fuel, as cleaning out those tanks is a real bitch, and we didn’t want any debris to get inside the fuel lines. It’s a switched-on tank system I think, but still. Why risk it when we’ve got a fire truck that has ten barrels taped to the side of it just a mile away.

The bell rang, and the Chuck Wagon left the ranch. Fagan, myself, Crystal the mechanic and Hal were in the ladder truck, leading. Fagan drove. Great driver, and I am not kidding when I say that. He handled the Fat Boy like it was a pickup truck, and that’s no mean feat. Little Man, the ambulance (those names are now permanent, thank you wandering mind) was driven by Abby, with Joel, Sgt. Maple, and Sgt. Oak. Talk about a dream team. Two Army Rangers, an Air Force parajumper, and Abby.

My money is on Abby. You can get real elite in this life, but you’ll never be like Abby.

Fagan expertly drove us through our manufactured gate and into the wilds once more, turning inland north, then west on the other side of the port. We drove by the fuel center on the water’s edge, and having never driven this exact route before, we got a good look at the place. Heavily fenced off, and two of the smaller fuel tanks were very clearly ruptured by our shelling of the city before coming to the port. Fuel seemed to have spilled to the ground but didn’t caught fire, seemingly proving the idea that diesel doesn’t burn easily. That being said, it does add a whole new layer to the retrieval of vehicle fuel. Might be a toxic environment to move around in.

Different problem for a different day.

Fagan used the ladder truck as gingerly as he could, but there were clear spots where the road narrowed, or where a car accident caused a barrier. We got to use the steel armor and brush guard (read: RAM) on Fat Man. He’d call out, “Hold on to your ass!” And we’d grab the JC bars in the cab.

I gotta say, I was impressed by how little the truck was affected by smashing into multi-ton vehicles. I expected to have to hold on solidly, but it felt more like we were running over zombies than smashing cars out of the way. We did that too. We ran over a fair share of undead on the way there. Even more on the way back.

So yeah, west then north, through some suburban neighborhoods, around a big rotary, or roundabout, whatever you wanna call it. We knew the approximate route to get into the airport grounds, but when you pull onto the street and then have to figure it out, it gets a little complicated.

We knew there were a lot of cars in the street and parking lot. I chalk it up to people trying to flee, and heading to the airport to get on planes, or fleeing helicopters. All manner of vehicles were crashed into the area near the airport’s entry, and along the road nearby. Getting past all that was pointless, and when William flew over the airport, he saw a clear path to the far west, heading around a distant hangar. We’d have to smash a fence to get to the secured area of the airfield, but once through, it should be clean living.

The fence was a sturdy one, and tall. Ten foot chain link with concertina wire at the top. We rammed the bitch down, and stopped on the other side of it to drag it out of the way. Didn’t want our freshly repaired ambulance blowing tires. Once that was finished, Little Boy and crew posted up in the hole in the broken fence to plug it, and we drove all the way into the airport, pulling right up beside the chopper and the crew surrounding the fuel storage area.

It was like a Drowning Pool song in there. Corpses spread out over two hundred yards, but they weren’t moving corpses, and that was a win. We got right to it.

Fuel guy (I didn’t get his name) dragged the fuel hose over to the ladder truck and climbed right up like he’d done a hundred times. He unscrewed the caps and coordinated with one of the Marines who clearly knew what he was doing. I pulled security and checked in with everyone as they searched bodies for weapons or useful shit. Nothing good came of it.

Fuel Guy climbed around like a fucking ninja, running the pipe to all ten barrels one after another, capping them as he finished. I asked him to fill the small containers too, but he said it wasn’t worth the time. Take him twenty minutes to do it, and we could be back and unloading and wind up coming out ahead. So that was about 550 gallons pumped in about thirty minutes.

Fat Man reloaded, and we exited the airport grounds the same way we entered, but this time with the ambulance in the lead. When our two-vehicle convoy departed, the Marines shifted over to provide security at the hole in the gate. The airfield was safe enough, after all. Just had to watch the very distant fences for large mobs gathering.

You remember that scene in the classic Dawn of the Dead flick, where Roger and Stephen are getting the box trucks from a nearby shipping company to block off the mall entrances? It turns into this montage of them hitting zombies with the trucks, and getting in, and getting out? This felt exactly like that, but with fire trucks and helicopter fuel. We drove back to the port, and saddled right up to the side of the pier where Reuben James was. Sailors there drained the barrels on the side of the truck into containers for immediate and future treatment in about thirty minutes, and we were back on the road to refill at the airport.

Four trips went like this before we ran the place dry. The early estimate of 2,000 gallons was high. The end amount was closer to 1,800 gallons, which is still a massive improvement from what we had. Gives us the ability to fly a few support sorties without losing endless sleep over it.

Speaking of endless sleep, with each trip we made back and forth, the streets became progressively more filled with the undead. Filled isn’t the right word, but the quantity of undead grew with each run. The first run out we hit or passed let’s say… ten undead total. Of that number half lost their game of Frogger with our truck. Second run we saw fifteen, taking out half again, third run thirty, taking out half again, and the final run back we dealt with at least fifty, if not sixty or seventy.

Rather than leave any amount of undead roaming, on the last trip we slowed it down, and took care of business. Fagan used the truck to run over as many as possible, and the rest of us leaned out of the windows to take our shots. Hal, hero of the day and general badass, sat up top on the actual folded ladder, legs locked into the rungs so he could have an elevated shooting position. Calm as a cucumber, he scanned left and right, taking slow, well-aimed shots every minute or so. I hung my whole upper body out the doors on more than one occasion to brain a zombie that got caught on the armored barricades that are welded to the side of the rig. Satisfying Mad Max moment. Felt good. Just need face paint and leather now to really kick the fantasy into second gear.

By the time William’s chopper landed on the ground near the pier, down in a warehouse parking lot we’d turned into our off-ship helipad, the fuel nerds had filtered half of what we’d brought. Rosario stood on the pier, watching it all go down, helping where she could. She was elated. Just over the moon that our first mission as a collective went without any incidents. Well, not entirely, One of our boys picked up a sprained ankle on the airfield when he tried to move some of the fencing we knocked down. He was brought back to the chopper and sat in the open door, still working on watching a zone to protect his buddies.

We traded one sprained ankle, maybe a thousand rounds of ammo and a full gas tank on both of the vehicles for almost 2,000 gallons of chopper fuel. I’ll take that trade ten more times, thank you. I don’t think there are ten more airports for us to hit though, and the fuel nerds are pretty sure that any fuel we’re salvaging moving forward is going to require filtering at a minimum to remove sediment and impurities. Further chemical treatment will be needed more than likely too. We have a lot of those treatment chemicals, or the ability to process, whatever that means, but the point remains. Refilling the chopper without cleaning the fuel first is a certain guarantee to down the bird with a clogged fuel line.

But, we’ll handle that soon enough.

When we left the airport, we barricaded the hole in the fence with whatever we could find to block it off. We tied ropes in ten lines across the gap, and stacked pallets amongst other shit. Empty drums, you name it. If that simple barricade holds, and it should if no dumbass wanders onto the airfield to draw in the undead, making the rest of the entire airport complex safe to occupy, and then turning the airport in a usable space will be fairly simple work. Clearing buildings, mostly. It’ll also give us the chance to fix and/or repair the planes there, the helicopters there, and supply us with many spare parts and machinery to make this whole mission that much easier. Two for one on value. It’s a lot of real estate to clear, but it’s well protected, and we can house a lot of people in there, and turn all that grass into secure, proper fields to grow food.

And you best believe we brought seeds.

Our next task ensuring all the fuel we got is good to go, then as a team is hitting that fuel company across the bay. It’s close, it’s got a ton of ground-level storage tanks for us to check on, and potentially thousands and thousands of gallons of fuels usable for one purpose or another.

Need a few days before we spin up and check on that. We can do that recon and secure mission in a different way, I think. The fuel yard is on the water’s edge, with plenty of space to anchor large ass boats to. Part of the benefit of this to us, is that we can refill the boats in our fleet as well.

I’ll sweat those logistics in a few days. Getting way ahead of myself here. I’m so excited about this. We got a bucket load of chopper fuel easily, are in the clear for pressing forward on ground fuel, have a great base of operations, and as long as I stop talking now, the Jinx Fairy ain’t got shit on us.

I’ll check in soon. Gonna ride this high after I shoot a message over the radio to Mata. I’m sure all the shooting was unnerving for them. The airport isn’t that far from their farm, really.

-Adrian

November 12th, (2nd entry)

I know I said I’d sit back and bask in the glow of success, but I just tried to radio Mata, and no one answered. It’s possible the radio is off, or out of batteries (thought I gave her a recharging dock and spare battery). It’s also possible she forgot how to operate the thing too.

But I do not have a good feeling. It’s dark now. I let everyone know that I’m gonna keep trying her every thirty minutes for the next few hours, then once an hour through the night. If they don’t respond, we’re going to head out there in the bird and get a look-see.

-Adrian

November 13th

It’s not long after midnight, and our over watch snipers are reporting gunfire and visible flames on the northern horizon in the direction of Mutual Aid’s farm. We’re spinning everything up to go see.

-Adrian

November 13th, (2nd entry)

I’m stepping out of the cabin in like ten seconds to get on the helo. The radio I gave Mata just crackled on, then off, then on, and then went silent. Sounded like someone hurt fumbling with the send button. A few seconds later the line sputtered live and then.…

I swear I heard a man laughing. I felt all the hairs on my arms and neck raise up slowly, like they were going to protect me from the scary man somewhere out there in the real world. Radio hasn’t made a peep since.

That anger inside me just woke back up.

-Adrian

November 14th

Goddamn nightmare. Mutual Aid’s entire place was torched. Fires raging to the clouds above like something out of the nastier parts of the Bible. Oh my God, Mr. Journal. I feel like this is a theme for me, in this. Fire.

Fire.

Purging flames. Houses burning down in the cold winter, Westfield’s school being set on fire by that prick Chris Sunderman… My gas station getting blown up back on Route 18. Fuck.

Fire.

I should’ve seen the signs coming. I’m too trusting.

How much detail do I need to go into here? All of it, right?

I hope you’re sitting.

We organized a full movement in less than an hour. Everyone’s so agile. Both ground vehicles plus William’s chopper were Oscar Mike with a full complement of ass-kickers loaded up. Five in the bird plus two pilots and a door gunner. I was on the chopper. I wanted to see the situation first. Six souls each in the two ground vehicles. Seventeen of us. Barely enough.

Trucks left first. They have to drive around the peninsula, then head north. Fifteen minute drive, two minute flight. After just a few minutes of letting them get going, William took us up, and flew us to the farm. We circled about a hundred feet up, careful to stay well clear of the high tension power lines nearby. Couldn’t afford getting tangled up in those. We did about thirty loops, looking down, and figuring out what the hell to do. By the time we made our decision, our two-vehicle convoy was a few hundred yards down the road, lights out, idling, waiting for instructions.

The entire place was crawling with manic, possessed undead. Had to be two hundred of them, all wandering about, following us in a wide, crazed circle as we did our holding pattern. I radioed to the trucks what the plan would be.

“Light ‘em up,” I said to the door gunner. “Half the belts you’ve got.” His name was Mitch.

Mitch just nodded his NVGs and fired up the 240 in the door of the Seahawk. That loud bitch started chattering and I watched as the steady stream of tracers flung down into the bloodied, often flaming crowd like falling stars over and over. With my own NVGs I watched as the bullets lanced into the crowd, mostly with no goddamn effect. But, you can’t dodge every raindrop, right?

Eventually the bodies started to drop as Mitch’s 7.62mm meteors hit skulls, and destroyed brains. I can’t estimate what his ratio of rounds to kills was, but he hurt a LOT of undead, and managed to kill around a quarter of the crowd. Watching his firm expression as he grimly fired into the mass of monsters was… I connected with it. This was yeoman’s work. This wasn’t painting houses, or hammering nails. This wasn’t running a cash register, or drawing blood. This was punching holes in cow’s skulls. This was the spray of blood in the face. Pulling that trigger was the gravedigger’s job, and he did it because someone had to. No glee. No satisfaction. Just the evil, ugly work.

When he hit his ammo target on belts, as we still slowly circled a hundred feet up, I asked for William to bring us down to about thirty feet and hover us still, but slowly drift away from the power lines sideways, like a really old pied piper. I went to the door and latched myself in with the safety strap so I didn’t fucking fall out. I asked the other guys to roll up, two at a time, and start taking accurate headshots.

Grim expressions, mine included. When I swapped in my third magazine, I radioed to the trucks, and they breached the gate at the fence to create an anvil for us to hammer towards. We then rotated to drift back towards them, bringing the undead back, and give us a 90 degree firing angle from the chopper. Didn’t want to hit our friends on the ground. We’d just resumed firing in a clear direction when I heard the tires on the ambo go.

We later learned they drove right over a handful of boards with nails in them. Not much different than the ambush I set for the fucking first Westfield pricks. Ambo lost both front tires with loud pops, and when our squad dismounted to protect themselves from the fucking mad rush of running undead, Sgt. Oak stepped right on a board of nails as did fucking Kevin. Rooted in place on the passenger side and rear of the ambulance, they wound up staying upright by the slimmest margins, and laying down fire to stay alive. Chris stopped the ladder truck outside the gate, and everyone ran inside as carefully as they could to help stabilize the situation. Obviously I wasn’t on the ground there, but everything I heard was just extra words for ‘soup sandwich.’

We were still on plan though. These things happen. Bad things happen.

Two firing lines. One in the air, the other on the ground forming an L shape. I had shooters looking out our opposite chopper door to cover in that direction, and they had shooters at the ladder truck looking out into the wilds south so we had 360 degree security.

Burning bodies, burning houses, gunfire like no tomorrow. Sooner or later there will be no tomorrow.

Melancholy shit right there. Blast the Taking Back Sunday And New Found Glory and get emo.

Thousands of rounds of ammo were expended and we needed every single round to make that place safe enough to move in. “Safe enough.”

William eventually had to set us down to save fuel. It was that or fly back to the port, and I said fuck that, so we landed on the grass about a hundred yards away from any structure, or any fire. The funny thing about helicopters, is you can’t just leave them alone. You have to protect them. I had Mitch and a Marine pull that duty with William and Kate and I took everyone else. We pushed in, no longer needing the NVGs to see. The fires provided ample light.

The noise. The fires were so hot, and the flames were… shit they were three stories tall. The barn looked like a fucking fireball large enough to eat up a football stadium. We were shooting for hours. Hours, man. Searching for survivors, for signs of… a cause, for anything resembling hope, but we found fucking nothing.

Nothing.

We searched for hours. Past dawn and well into the late morning, waiting for the flames to die out. I found the bottles for mead, and all the brewing and distilling shit we got for Tobias. Melted and broken. Trash. Car parts and tires stacked ten feet deep, all burnt to shit. They were the ones hoarding it. Making themselves indispensible if anyone wanted to drive other than them. Speaking of their wheels, all were torched as well. In my dreams I’d really hoped to find Mata. She had great presence. Good leadership skills. She struck me as the kind of person that this world needs. Now… she’s gone. Just another was. I’m sure I’ll see her in my dreams. Read: shitty second place prize.

Just a goddamn mess.

I’m not a fire inspector. I have no idea how to identify how the fires began, or whether they were set, or it was an accident. What I can say, is that the structures at Mutual Aid’s farm were spread out enough that the likelihood (in my limited, uneducated opinion) of them catching on fire without some kind of malicious, human assistance is low to nil. Some of the buildings are fifty, sixty feet apart, and there’s just no way the fire jumped that far.

Now maybe they were raided, and the attackers set fires. Maybe they were attacked by zombies en masse, and a fire started somewhere, and a zombie on fire traveled to other buildings, maybe chasing living escapees. That’s a stretch, but I suppose it’s possible.

My gut tells me this was a coordinated attack designed to destroy the whole place, and kill everyone. Mata said they had no large-scale competitors, or enemies, which means there’s a wildcard in the AO.

Wait… no. There’s more to this I think.

Whoever did this set an ambush, knowing that someone was coming to check in on the fires. Maybe they knew it would be us. Boards with nails at the gate? So many of them too? They knew trucks or cars were coming, and the only ones moving around right now in all of Brighton are our two.

They fucking knew. They took out Mutual Aid, then they set a trap for us. Whoever laughed on the fucking walkie. That prick. And I bet you anything, he’s still got the walkie I gave Mata, and that means our wide communications net is now vulnerable for sure. Fuck. We can still use the gear with heavier encryption. That’s good.

I gotta rally the team and talk to them about it.

Sgt. Oak and Kevin both got their foot wounds cleaned, and fresh tetanus shots. We had to scare some up from Fish, the pharmacist, who had TDAP boosters on hand. Go figure. Pays to have friendly neighbors. We traded her and the folks in her building (Joey, Aidan, Misty, etc) a flat of food cans plus some dry milk for the vials, and they were over the roof.

Joel was equally excited to get the TDAP.

Anyway, Kevin and Oak really took some damage to their hoofs. Both of them had two nails punch straight through (no reinforced soles, of course) and they both drew the short straw, and had the nail skip off toe bones, doing some internal damage. They will survive without surgery, but they are in some serious pain, and will need a week or two off their feet to really give it a chance to heal.

Keeping Kevin off his feet for more than a day is a task that I refuse to deal with. I’ll jump on a fucking hand grenade first. I need to find projects for him to do to keep his hands and mind busy or he’ll be out and about getting a fresh case of gangrene despite the antibiotics he’s taking.

Coloring books. I need coloring books, and beer.

I’ll have him clean weapons and load magazines. He likes that.

Fuck.

I’m doubling the guard, and giving us a few days to heal and wrap our heads around this. I need to rest, and I need to plan. This is much bigger than my brain can handle right now. I need warm fuzzy cat time, and peace a quiet.

-Adrian

November 16th

We made a run with the ladder truck and the ambulance around the ‘cleared’ area of Brighton nearby today to collect more tires for the ambulance. There are no good single-source places for usable wheels, so we drove around in circles looking for parked vehicles that take the same shoes. Took us about four hours to find two more usable tires, and tack on another hour and a half for us to shoot our way into relative safety, and then jack up the trucks/vans to get the wheels off.

A good amount of undead to be dealt with as we did it, but we were fortunate enough to find vehicles fairly out in the open, and the undead came at us in smaller numbers. Suppressed shots for the most part. The pricks here are too fast for us to rely ONLY on the halligans. Spears might be somewhat usable, if only to act like pikes to stop their rush long enough for us to brain ‘em with the halligans. The crew of Reuben James and Crommelin have both manufactured decent spears they’ve used over the last couple years, so maybe we need to borrow some of those, or manufacture some new ones. Some things never change, eh? We’re hoping to find horses, and need to make spears.

Anyway, we’re now back to square one on tires and we’re still dealing with an arsonist in town. The other reason we did our run out into the wilds of southern England was to check on a house fire we saw late last night. They didn’t wake me to look (I wish they did, my dreams have been so chaotic, and disturbing lately, I could’ve used the break) but evidently it was in the general direction of the dealerships we checked. Easy to swing by today.

No strips or planks of wood in the road, but there was a rather conspicuous amount of debris that wasn’t there when we made that run on foot before. I’d bet my large testicle that whoever hit Mutual Aid did the fire last night, and had an ambush set up for us in the dark. We no-showed during the night though, so fuck you and your ambush.

I’m betting our firebug will continue to light fires, trying to get us to come out until they set a fire we have to respond to. Chuckles the firebug. Asshole. Who? Who the fuck is this? Do I know them?

Ugh.

It’s only been a couple days, and Kevin has cleaned all the guns in England. I’ve run out of shit for him to do in the cabin, so I suggested he hit the weight room to work on his body. He’s in great shape, but he needs to burn the energy or he’ll be upright on his feet for too much time each day and hurt himself. He’s as dumb as me, and that’s saying something. Oak is still messed up. His foot has picked up an infection, and they stepped up the antibiotics to do damage control. Like all Rangers, he can’t sit still, and I think his constant activity is making it worse.

He’ll listen now. Lancaster went up one side of him and down the other from what I hear, and that’s gonna need some painkillers too.

I’m sort of at a loss, I won’t lie. My people are holding it together, getting everything that needs to get done, done, but I feel like I’m floundering. I totally feel like the asshole officer that’s taking too long to make a decision, that strikes all of his subordinates as being a fucking chicken shit. Maybe some of those tentative officers Kevin and I shat on back in the day were just overwhelmed with bad options, insufficient resources, lack of sleep, and a dead sex life.

Oooooh. I think they call that empathy.

I dunno. Zombies are roaming all over again, albeit in lower density than what we’ve heard, but that makes moving around difficult again. It’s like the very first days of the apocalypse, though with faster, somewhat more clever undead to deal with.

Abby’s been checking in on me. She has a sense when I’m off my game. Maybe it’s all the time we’ve spent together, maybe it’s just her way. She’s been popping in, and leaving me cups of coffee in the morning when I don’t hit the galley for breakfast fast enough, and she keeps making me play with Gavin in the afternoon. We can’t play outside as much, as the weather is getting chillier, but it’s still a lot of fun to tickle the living shit out of him. He’s a good looking kid, and smart. He’s got good parents, and the best chance any kid will ever have nowadays.

I’m playing checkers, and this motherfucker coming at us is playing chess. No other way for me to look at it. I’m reacting to him. Letting him dictate the environment. Letting him make his moves, and not being assertive enough in our plan. Waiting to see what this group does doesn’t get me to Croydon, doesn’t get Hal to his family, and doesn’t find us the Soul, or the Warden.

It’s just the Scribe sitting like a fucking crayon eater taking notes as a secondary character in the story has their day in the sun. Well fuck that.

Fuck that sideways with a pineapple.

Man I’d love some pineapple. I miss citrus in large quantities.

Let’s make a plan to get fuel. Let’s do that, and get it done, and then see what this shit for brains does in response. I’ll circle the wagons, assemble the brain trust, and we’ll get a plan together. Because we’re going to hit the fuel yard most likely from the water, I NEED the sailors and Rosario to take the lead on planning for this. I am a ground pounder, not a swimmer, and anytime boats become a critical part of the plan, I must respect my lack of knowledge, and let the professionals do their thing.

This won’t be their first shoreline fuel retrieval operation. However, it will be mine. So yeah, there’s that.

Scritching Otis, then getting my shit in gear. Fuck this arsonist.

Wait… did we piss off a surviving firefighter? Did taking the trucks from the fire station trigger some dude who worked there? Would that explain the undead that were on the Mutual Aid farm?

Meh. Doesn’t matter. Diesel and ship fuel. Let’s do this.

-Adrian

November 18th

Been a couple days, Mr. Journal.

Two things to report;

More radio crackles late at night. Creepy, almost… shit I think I’d describe as absent-minded, and fumbling, but… sinister. There’s a break on the radio first, then a pause where it’s off, then a few more activations of the traffic button, and you can hear like, mumbled laughter. Then, after a few seconds, the laughter sort of… assembles itself, like Legos from Hell, and the mic is held down correctly for maybe ten seconds, and all you hear is this… sinister, manic, low-toned laughter from a deep-voiced man.

I can only compare it to the Native American dude with the huge knife from Predator, when he finally goes crazy, and decides to challenge the alien to a duel on the log bridge. We all know how that went for him. If you don’t know how that went for him, go find a DVD of the movie, and try to watch it. Solid, solid action flick. Very quotable too.

Second thing to report:

After lots of visual inspection with binoculars, several zodiac trips to the water’s edge, and a lot of planning, Rosario and her squad have a plan for fuel retrieval they’re comfortable with. Because I’m not a fuel guy, or a boat guy, or very useful big picture, I’m going to go inland with my people on our three trucks to secure the perimeter while the fuel dudes do their thing from the water side.

Inland, the fuel tanks are on a lower level, at the water’s edge. The closest street is about thirty feet higher up on a sloped hill with a guardrail at the top, plus a sturdy steel fence at the bottom. We’re gonna park at the higher level to have eyes on the suburbs above, and can look down the hill to respond if the undead or living attackers somehow get past us, or if Jaws appears in the fucking water.

This will be a VERY lengthy operation. Hours and hours and hours.

I know I don’t talk about them much at all, but our fleet is actually five boats. Two frigates, two destroyers, and a Navy supply ship. I NEVER talk about anything beyond Reuben James and Crommelin. Not sure why. I see dudes from those boats daily on the port, and they’re critical. Maybe it’s because they’re skeleton crews, and used mostly for storage. The two destroyers have their own Seahawks, but only one bird is operational. The rest are being used for spare parts, and the one that can fly, never does unless absolutely necessary. We won’t fire it up until we head deep inland, which we’ll start planning if the fuel run is a success. The thing is like the crazy uncle no one talks about until he’s needed to move furniture.

Anyway, the mission will take a real long time because our first priority is to refuel the ships. They are home no matter what happens, and if we keep them operational, we have safety, water, and mobility. Top off the supply ship, which refuels the whole fleet, then refuel the entire fleet independently at the shore. That means moving the boats one by one in a careful aquatic ballet across the bay. That process should be safe, but slow. Minimal exposure to ground threats, and as far as I know, there are no kraken to worry about. The harder part will be transferring the diesel we find to the barrels on the ladder truck, and the fuel storage containers we have. That will require us dropping a vehicle in the guard and going down to the lower level at the bottom of the berm, basically.

We’ll sort it out. It’s a solid spot to get it all done, and the sailors are pretty sure the damage to the fuel containers won’t be too dangerous, and can be worked around, especially with the safety gear they have.

I’m nervous, but confident. Any operation of this scope is scary, even without zombies, and this obviously has a lot going on, making it quite a bit more treacherous. Lock and load, as the kids say.

We’re going out tomorrow morning, on the 19th.

Wish us luck.

-Adrian

Sanctuary

Brixton, south of London, October 2011

Rachel and Mike remained in the apartment longer than they anticipated. Rachel had a sudden eruption of confidence around searching the other flats in the building, and the general amount of undead in the neighborhood did seem to be sparse in the following days and weeks. They had a good, safe spot, and decided to relax a bit.

Michael was elated for the opportunity to be safe, and spend time with the younger lady he’d fallen in love with. He was doubly-elated when she returned his affection tenfold.

At the beginning of their terrifying journey, they were a burgeoning thing; their relationship a bit of a lark, just another May-December thing driven together out of desperation, and a nagging, hungry need to feel some kind of connection to another human being that didn’t revolve around what they needed to do together to find their next meal.

Mike felt they both knew it wouldn’t last, but it was pretty fun for the time being. Rachel was a stunning catch: average in height, but with dark, lush hair that betrayed any attempts at keeping away from her brow, deep, equally dark eyes, and porcelain skin that even when dirty, looked a painting. Her smile was infectious in the extreme, and behind all of that superficial wealth of her appearance… she was smart. Far smarter than she let anyone believe, and funnier than most stand-up performers.

To think that she would chose him, over the macho, cover of Fitness Magazine military types at their former sanctuary of Buckingham Palace was as electrifying a thought as any he’d had. Surviving the end of the country, and likely the world was a potent rush(if you could ignore the crushing guilt of the same), but to hold the hand of a woman so powerful, and bold… now that was something that made a man.

That intoxication was enough to drown out the reality that their precious time together was fleeting.

So they stayed in the flat, and watched a black and white cat bounce around from window to window and balcony to balcony outside. When they offered to let it in, the furry creature declined, staying inside on the window sill, observing them with soft, almond eyes. They named the cat Jafo.

Just Another Fucking Observer.

They checked on a different apartment each morning, and they’d been five for five finding flats without zeds in them. Rachel had a sixth sense for it. As a result, they ate and drank with relative excess, and found several changes of clothing and boots for the cold months that were ahead.

That they were even thinking of the cold weather was a shining example of the optimism they had.

Eventually, after long days of reading books, and nights of looting, and fun sex, they both realized they had to move on. So, on a chilly November evening, they packed up appropriate supplies, simple melee weapons, and the two pistols plus the rifle that they grabbed as they fled the palace.

They would head south to Croydon, where Rachel’s family lived, in the hopes they could reunite.

“You are an observer,” the thing inside Rachel that called itself Mara whispered to the spotted cat as it lay in her lap. The creature and animal sat on the couch, relaxing in the blackest hours of the autumn night. The flat had grown chilly in the days prior, but they were able to keep a small fire going in the fireplace using the wood they’d salvaged after wrecking some unfinished furniture in an apartment down the hall. The small fire was obscured from the window by a blanket over a table. Michael feared the light would draw in the dead, as did Rachel.

Mara didn’t share that worry.

The demon and cat enjoyed several minutes together, the silence only bothered by the rumbling purr of the tiny, happy creature.

“Will you follow us? All of us?”

The cat purred.

“Keep your secrets then,” Mara said with a smile. “But we’re going to head south to Croydon to the meat’s home, so I can pollute the living that are flesh kin to the meat. We shouldn’t be hard to follow. We will make plenty of mess as we go.”

Mara returned to patting the head of the serene kitty for several minutes before speaking again.

“Mess is an important word, isn’t it? We should make a mess as we go, to stir the nightmare, and bring more ruin to the humans. It should be child’s play to spend a few hours here, and there to cause strife. The greater good, after all. It seems selfish to focus so narrow-mindedly on family in a time like this.”

Mara chuckled with Rachel’s face, and went back to showering the cat with affection. She enjoyed their time together for the better part of an hour before retiring to the bedroom where Michael snored away, entirely unaware that his girlfriend had been taken over by an evil entity within to go spend time with a cat.

Mara slipped into the sheets and blanket beside Michael, and sank down into the recesses of Rachel, wrapping itself around her guilt, shame, and weakness. She stroked that place as she did the cat, and kept the woman she had control over in check for another day.

In the cold morning after they got ready to leave, the two exited the rear of the apartment building through a window that deposited them behind a dumpster. From there it was cat’s work to slink down the side of the building to the rear alleyways and gardens.

The going was equal parts heist movie (silent tip-toeing, eyes darting to and fro, spotting zombies and their movement as they moved from corner to corner, cover to cover) and equal parts rugged Crossfit workout (leaping, climbing, dropping to the ground to slide under obstacles, or under bushes that gave them a safe passage). The treacherous journey was painfully slow, and draining in the extreme, even for the two healthy, light-traveling survivors.

Three hours in, they’d only traveled perhaps two thirds of a mile south in the London suburb of Brixton. They took shelter in the back of an abandoned limousine, and ate candy bars as they watched oblivious undead shuffle by, their blank eyes staring at the too-dark glass. It seemed as if the undead might suspect the limo had a secret within, but they knew not how to divine its solution. It would’ve been funny, were it not for the gripping terror that one of them might figure out how to pick up a rock and smash the glass. If the monsters could get inside the Palace, they had every ability to get inside the parked car.

But they didn’t. Each walked by, strange, sad—gory without a doubt—but ultimately of no threat beyod leaving streaks of thick, old blood on the windows. When the last of them seemed to have left their vicinity, Rachel and Michael returned to their slow, arduous journey through the abandoned ruins of suburban southern Brixton.

Two hours later a spent Rachel stopped and leaned up against a fence in the back parking area of a brick business. The chain link fence creaked and bowed as she put her weight against it. Only a few cars dotted the ten-car lot, spread out and covered with the debris of time.

“We have to keep going,” Michael said, shifting the weight of the rifle hanging on its sling to the other shoulder. “We’ve got to find shelter and there are some open spaces ahead. Maybe we should backtrack? We saw that basement shop with the back entrance back there, yeah? Slip down in with some torches and pull the door shut. Can’t be much danger down there. What’s your sixth sense say?”

“I don’t know,” Rachel said, wiping sweat from her brow. “Why am I sweating so much? It’s cool today.”

“You’re exhausted,” Michael said, putting a hand on her arm and searching their vicinity for encroaching undead. “Hell I am too. Let’s go back, and get some food and water into us.”

Rachel lifted her eyes and looked at the back of the business they were behind. She looked at the loading dock, the dumpster, the dead body at the corner, exploded from rot and bloat, no more than dried meat and bones that used to carry someone’s dreams around. She stared at the body, and then the doors, and as she did a sudden thought intruded.

“That’s a convenience store. And that car there is sideways at the back door. I think someone parked the car there expressly to block that exit. Look at the doorframe near the handle. It’s been pried open. That’s an exit that someone used to get in. If we go around and look at the front, I bet we’ll find the front door barricaded. People are inside there.”

“Still? After all this time?”

“I think so. Call me daft, but yeah. Someone is in there.”

“Um… okay,” Michael said back to her. “Is this a gut feel you’ve got? Because I’m a bit tetchy about trying to into a damned business that might have paranoid survivors running low on food inside it.”

“We’ll move the car, and knock on that steel door polite-like. There’s no way they’ll mistake us for zeds.”

“I’m more worried they’ll think we are trying to steal what’s left of their food, or take over their safe place.”

She blinked several times, almost as if Michael’s message to her had to buffer before loading in her brain. He felt a slow rise of concern for her, but she snapped out of it.

“Trust me,” she said, more confidently than usual. “I’ve got a good feeling about it. Help me move this car out of the way, and we’ll knock on the door. Might be a little tense for a bit, but I think they’ll come around.”

“I trust your gut. Not sure why I do, but I’m game to try a knock. We can always run, and if I tell them I’m a doctor, they’re bound to let us in. I’ve enough medicines to treat a fair bit to help good people out.”

She smiled that smile. “Let’s do it then.”

“Let me hide the rifle out here,” Michael said first. “No need to show it to them, and we’ll still have a pistol each.”

Michael hid the rifle in the boot of an unlocked Fiat in the parking lot. He stashed their three remaining magazines in the glove box of the same car. No sense risking the loss of both if someone were to pass by and somehow realize something had been put in the trunk.

They got the small sedan blocking the door into neutral, and after some exasperated grunts and groans, they cut the stiff-turning wheel and managed to push it out of the way of the back door. Rachel braked the car and yanked the emergency brake up to park it.

“Are you knocking, or am I?”

“I will,” Rachel said with confidence.

She trotted up to the back door on the long brick building that ran parallel to the main artery on the other side. Where they were, behind the lengthy row of buildings with flats above it they could easily forget that a major city roadway spanned miles and miles just a few dozen yards away. They had shadowed the artery the whole trip, and only laid eyes on it sparingly. The storefronts they had passed by might’ve offered them a treasure trove of loot, but the risk in entering the business, and exposing themselves to an open street was too much.

Rachel climbed the three wobbly concrete steps to the employee entrance of the store, and rapped her knuckles on the metal. Michael waited nearby, out of the line the door might see if they cracked it open to confront her.

“Who’s there?” an American woman asked from inside.

“Oh, I’m Rachel. Pleasure to meet you. My boyfriend and I guessed that people were inside this store, and we need shelter for the night. Could we come in?”

“We don’t know you, and we don’t have spare food or water to offer. Try the next door, those stores are empty. It’ll be safer if we just keep space.”

“I understand you’re scared, we are too. What can we offer you to share space? It’s safer—you know—to be together now. We can protect each other, share information.”

“I’m sorry, we just can’t trust you,” the woman said. “We’ve tried to help people before, and they always get greedy. No one can afford to fight each other. These damn monsters are enough.”

“What’s your name? I didn’t hear it.”

“Pardon my manners, but I didn’t say it. You can call me Jennie. I don’t care for Jennifer.”

“Thanks, Jennie. Look, my boyfriend Michael is a physician. We’ve been on the run for a couple weeks since our shelter at the Palace was attacked and overrun, and we’re headed south to my family in Croydon. I hope they’re still there, though to be fucking honest, my mom is probably going to be a royal pain in my ass when we get there, if she’s still alive. We need a safe place to stay, a little socialization, and for your trouble, Michael can check on any ailments that worry you. We also have a small amount of medication we can share. We are good people,” she lied, “and we just want to spend the night.”

“Let me ask my family. Don’t get too optimistic,” Jennie said from the safe sanctuary on the other side of the door.

Rachel looked to Michael, who returned her eye contact. She flashed him a thumbs-up and confident nod. The disbelieving doctor returned to his protective vigil, and they both waited in the cold November air.

“Hello, Rachel?” a new voice asked. An American as well, this speaker was a man.

“Yes?”

“My name is Benjamin, I’m Jennie’s husband. I hope you’ll forgive our fear of letting anyone in. We’re strangers in a somewhat strange land here, and the past year has been a struggle to say the least. We’ve had to do some terrible things to stay safe in here, and we’d like to avoid any kind of conflict.”

“Benjamin? Does this mean you’re Bennie and Jennie, because that would be super cute.”

“Five years of Christmas cards just like that,” Benjamin said. “Then the kids came.”

“That’s adorable beyond measure. Look, we agree on the conflict issue, Ben. Michael and I are just interested in resting for the night. We have no nefarious intentions. It’s just the two of us, we are armed, but we come in peace and intend on going in peace. Set us up in a place where we can’t hurt you. I know trust is hard to extend, but please. We’re tired, and it will be dark soon.”

“Um… okay. One night. And the rules are concrete. No negotiation, no nonsense.”

“Your house, your rules,” Rachel agreed.

“Give us half an hour to get things ready. Lay low,” Benjamin said. “Please don’t prove me wrong.”

“I won’t. You have my word.”

But he didn’t have Mara’s word.

The steel door cracked an inch, creating a band of blackness. It then crept more open, issuing a low, mournful growl of a creak as it went. The sound echoed out, carrying past the cars and out into the infested city. A large man held the inner crash bar depressed, his mitts grabbing the steel so he could yank it shut in a second’s notice. His wide, heavy brows hung over bright eyes that swept the parking lot in the decaying light of the autumn day.

“Step inside five feet and put your backs to the wall,” he said.

Rachel noticed the man held a carving knife in his other hand. Perspective mattered: in his hands it looked like a vegetable knife. In hers, it would look like a machete. She slid around him with Michael right behind her. Eyes adjusting the darkness within, she felt her way along the smooth wall, pressing her back to it as instructed. When she went in far enough to leave room for Michael, she stopped, and put both palms against the wall, keeping aside as Ben had requested.

The door closed, and they both heard a heavy bolt slide shut. They were inside with no easy exit now, for better or for worse.

“We busted the locking mechanism when we first got here,” Ben explained as their eyes transitioned to the lower light. He moved to stand in front of them. “But there’s a heavy deadbolt. That piece of steel is the size of a Cohiba. It’d keep out zombie cattle.”

“That’s a wretched scenario,” Michael said, blinking the stars in his vision away. “All that wasted beef. Getting gnawed to death by your own meal.”

“We’d get used to it,” Ben said. “People are good at that.” He stuck out a huge hand for them to shake. “I’m Benjamin Ryerson. You already spoke to my wife Jennie, and our son Hogan will make an appearance soon. Our daughter Terri is no longer with us. She died soon after this all started. Try not to bring that up.”

“I’m so sorry,” Michael said. “That’s awful.”

“You’ve my condolences,” Rachel said. “I can’t imagine.”

“It’s something we struggle with. The wall you’re learning against is a stock room. We’ve turned it into our bedroom. It’s yours tonight. See the door right there? It’s one of those old farmhouse doors. I think they call it a Dutch door. We’ll keep the upper part open, the bottom part locked. I’m gonna string a length of twine across the upper part with some bells on it after you’re inside. We’ll be able to chat, but I’m asking you to not try to enter the rest of the store area.”

“Fair enough. Will we have access to any toilet facilities? A bucket?” Rachel asked him. “We don’t need much.”

“Where were you sheltering before this?” Benjamin asked.

“We had a small flat south of London,” Michael answered.

“No, no. Before that.”

“Buckingham Palace,” Rachel said. “We were part of the group that held the Royal Palace safe. It didn’t work out, as you can tell, but that’s where we came from originally.”

“Is the Queen gone?” he asked in the dark hall at the back of the small store.

“At this point, we can’t say,” the doctor answered. “She was in hiding at a secure location last we knew. Government is gone. The military is spent. The economy and infrastructure on all levels is obliterated.”

“What about America? Is America still functional?”

“They were hit too,” Michael continued. “Overrun the same as us. Everywhere was. We’ve lost communication last I knew. No one answering long range calls as I understand it. Remember; I’m a doctor, Ben. I only know what the people in charge said.”

“Did any of them mention Maryland? We’re from Maryland, near Washington. Town called Lothian?”

“Nothing in detail. I wish I could tell you more.”

“Don’t say anything to my son, Hogan. He’s been holding out hope that this will all blow over one day, and we can get back on a plane and fly back into Dulles. He misses his friends.”

Michael and Rachel nodded.

“May I make a gesture?” Michael asked. “Take my pistol. It’s unloaded, but I want you to know that we have come here in peace.” He extended their spare pistol, magazine removed.

“Why don’t you set it right there on the shelf,” Benjamin said, pointing at a wooden shelf that had been attached to the wall near the dormant punch clock. “I do appreciate the idea though. As a bit of a skeptic, I do wonder how many other pistols you’ve still got with you. Now why don’t you get settled in there, and after dark, we’ll all come back and have ourselves a nice chat. I’ve got two buckets in there for emergencies. Red bucket is for number one, black bucket is for number two. We use the number two to fertilize some plants we have growing upstairs. The extra we throw in the eyes of zombies that bang on the front door.”

“Pink-eye zombies. More unpleasant scenarios,” Mike quipped, ignoring the pistol comment.

“This store is two stories?” Rachel asked, ignoring her boyfriend.

“No. But whoever was living in the apartment above died with their sink running, and the floor rotted out in the first couple months. We smashed our way through the ceiling, and I built us some stairs to have an apartment. Ugly work, but the extra space has been nice. Please don’t throw your poop anywhere, if you have any.”

“We will do our best,” Michael assured him.

“Thank you. We’ll be over in the storefront, or upstairs,” the American said, and after they stepped inside the drywall and stud storage area, Ben clicked the waist-high portion of the door shut. He locked the knob with a key on a ring with several others, and then strung what looked like food twine across the open space above. In the center hung two small bells. He flicked them once, setting free a sad tinkling noise. He smiled at the two inside the room, then nodded, and ducked out.

Michael and Rachel soon sat on the bed. The mattress was thin, and offered little cushion, but it was warm enough, dry enough, and safe enough for them, at least for a night.

They shared a smile, and lay down to relax until sundown.

The bell’s tiny melodic ringing woke Michael up from an unexpected and deep sleep. Beside him Rachel slept the same as he just had; her chest rose then fell with a deep, strong rhythm. The doctor and survivor looked up to the half-door where the bell dangled on its string.

Peering through the gap, watching them with his wide, intent eyes was a teenager. He was semi-backlit from candles behind him and to his left. Perhaps it was a small woodstove in the main store area beyond. Either way, half his facial expression was hidden in shadow, making his expression inscrutable.

“I’m Mike. You must be Hogan. Is that right?” he whispered after sitting up on the side of the shitty bed in the stockroom-turned bedroom. Mike squelched the tiny grip of dread threatening to flare up in the back of his mind. This is just a curious teenager. Not a monster in the dark.

“Are you the doctor?” the soft voice of the kid asked.

“I am. General Practitioner to the people of what was once Buckingham Palace.”

“I have a rash that won’t go away.”

“I see. Is it in a tender region?”

“Yeah. My skin is red, and shiny, and itchy like crazy. Burns like there’s no tomorrow. Under my… you know.”

“Bloody and cracked?”

“Not yet. Been driving me crazy for all summer. Keeps getting worse. Baby powder helped, but we’re almost out.”

“Yeah. May I ask how often you use soap? Take a bath? I know under the circumstances hygiene isn’t what we’d all want it to be.” Plus teenage boys are wretched little creatures, as a generality.

“Once a week or so. More often if it rains a lot and we can collect extra water to boil. We’re running out of wood though. This winter will be… Anyway, what do you think my rash is?” He looked over his shoulder into the area where his parents must have been.

Sensing his embarrassment, Michael thought long and hard before responding. “It sounds like jock itch. Very common, but a huge nuisance. Have you ever heard of it?”

“My gym teacher cracked a few jokes about it, what is it? Is it permanent?”

“Not permanent if you use a readily available medicine. Were you and your family able to get any of the medicines here in the store? Small tubes of ointments and creams?”

“Yeah, some.”

“Great. You’ll want an anti-fungal cream or ointment. Um… oxiconazole, or econazole. Desitin, Canestan, that kind of thing. Small tube. They’d probably have had it here. If you can find it, apply a thin layer to the reddened areas twice daily until it clears up. You should notice an immediate improvement. By the second or third day it should feel and look better.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“Double down on the daily applications. If you aren’t being bitten by lice, or pests, it’s more than likely fungal. And, as we all know, our world is covered by all manner of fungus. So many we eat them now.”

“I hate mushrooms.”

“You’ll be thrilled to hear that there’s no worry of them growing in your crotch. Not the same kind of fungus. This is a common affliction, Hogan. You are still healthy, and you will recover from this with ease.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. If you can’t find the medicine I prescribed, let me know. I have one tube in my backpack I can give you.”

“Great.”

Mike looked at his watch in the dark; it was almost midnight.

“Your parents are asleep then?”

“My turn for guard duty on you.”

“I’m sorry for the disruption to your lives and space, but we do appreciate the safe, warm place to sleep. It’s getting chilly out there at night, and it hasn’t been safe for a long time.”

“Yeah. My mom is real worried about you two. My dad is pretty chill though.”

“Let them sleep. We just want to rest, and leave in the morning. We’ve a long way to go, and it’s slow going. Those things are everywhere.”

“They come and go. You came on a good day. Not many outside all day, or even now. I wish we knew why. We could make a run for it if we knew how they were gonna move,” Hogan mused.

“Me too. We were lucky to get this far without having to kill one yesterday.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry I woke you,” Hogan said. “I’m gonna go find that cream and smear it on my junk.”

“Thin layer, twice a day. If it isn’t getting better in three or four days, apply it four times at day. Especially after you clean up down there.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“And don’t itch it.”

“I won’t.”

“Let it air out. Keep it cool. That’ll help with the itching.”

“I live in a store with two parents that barely get along. Sitting with my crotch hanging out might feel awkward,” the teenager said with a disbelieving grin. The grin switched to a quiet sadness.

“Think of the greater good,” Mike said, ignoring the boy’s comment about his parents and their marital struggles.

“I am. Get some sleep, Doctor. And thank you for not being the dicks my mom was sure you were going to be.”

“I’m still a fair bit of an asshole, but I’m a healer. I swore that oath, and I intend to keep it. Rachel is a good woman. She never swore an oath, but she does swear good deal.”

That got Hogan to laugh, which he quickly smothered with a hand over his mouth.

“Hogan?” the mother’s voice called out in a stern whisper. “Don’t stand so close, Honey. They could grab you.”

“Mom, it’s a half a door. They can just climb over it whenever they want. I think I’ll be okay.”

“Do as I say, please,” she pleaded. Her voice had an unmistakable desperate firmness in its tone. Emphasis on desperate.

She’s afraid, Mike thought. With good reason. “Go. It’s fine. Tell your mother I said thank you for being so kind.”

Hogan nodded, and left for safer waters, closer to his mother’s harbor.

Mike managed a sad smile in the dark, then put his head back onto the pillow beside Rachel, who hadn’t stirred a hair. He rested his arm on her waist, and kissed her temple. Sleep crept in then, and after his lids became heavy, he began to dream.

Mara’s eyes opened.

An hour later in the near-black of the room later, Mara sat up and assessed her surroundings. She slipped off of the bed she shared with Michael, and stood in the cramped room. Silent as the death she wanted to give to humanity, Mara slid around the bed to the Dutch door that held their attentions at bay. She leaned out the top, being cautious to not hit the bell with her head. To the right was the storefront with its boarded-over windows, and defensively arranged empty shelving.

Her angle of sight didn’t show her the exact spots where the family of strangers slumbered, or took up their guard against her and Michael, but it did give her a rough lay of the land. She could see a tiny woodstove—salvaged from somewhere else, sitting on walkway pavers with its chimney exiting through the plywood blocking the windows off—and she could see that the front glass door was similarly reinforced with flat wooden detritus arranged into a barricade.

Their reinforcements would hold against a few undead, but not the crowd she knew gathered just out of sight, just around the corners outside. Her silent army, waiting for her commands, creating a bubble around her and Michael, allowing them to travel unmolested by either the living or dead. If the family here in the store made too much noise, or created a spectacle that the undead could see… their meager shield against danger would fail within minutes. This assessment made the monster smile.

Mara sniffed the air, inhaling the faint, musky scent of nearby Michael, who still carried a masculine hint of his deodorant. She moved to the door and inhaled again, deeper this time to pull in the scene outside their protective room, and it’s partial door.

She smelled a medicinal unguent; something thin, and almost minty in its aroma. In Mara’s dual memories she remembered a mention from Michael about a suggestion to apply an ointment for the boy. That had to be it. Under that—diffused but pervasive—was the stink of sweaty humans. Thick like mucus in her nose, the smell of Benjamin, Jennie, and Hogan made her nauseous. Their salty perspiration, their piss, shit, and the curdled rankness of old shoes and boots threatened to creep directly into the fleshy brain inside the skull she currently lived in. Mara wanted to vomit, but knew wasting food would make Rachel’s body weaker, so she severed that notion.

“Smell something?” a woman’s voice said from near the stove.

Mara smiled. Just the one I wanted to make my appeal to. The lonely and afraid one. “I do.”

“Yeah?” the voice asked. Mara heard shifting of motion as the woman got to her feet. Her silhouette blocked out some of the light coming from the stove, and Mara judged the mother as being small, and underfed.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to live like this,” Mara said, testing the woman’s mood.

“At least we’re alive,” Jennie said, taking another step closer to the stockroom.

“If that’s what you call this. I wouldn’t call this a life,” Mara suggested, adding an empathetic-seeming sigh.

“I have my boy, and I’m protecting him. One look out that smudged window on any given day tells me I’m doing better than a thousand other mothers.”

“You’re such a good mom. I’m sorry if I sounded negative. It’s hard to stay positive with things they way they are.”

“Well, that’s true. I struggled with it. Saying I’m depressed would be an understatement.”

“What about Ben? It must be… a real challenge to be married in a situation like this.”

“How long have you and Mark been together?”

“Michael? Michael and I have been seeing each other for a few months. It’s working out. It isn’t easy. Losing the palace as a shelter was… devastating for us. We lost more than a few friends. I… I heard about your daughter. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t know how I’d go on.”

“You never really go on,” Jennie said. “You just find a way to make the suffering less shitty. Try to keep it out of your every thought.”

“Sounds like drowning,” Mara said. “I don’t think I could suffer the loss of a child. I’d kill myself.”

“I thought about it. More than once. Ben hasn’t been able to… be present, either. He’s all business. All work. No emotion anymore. All he can do is provide material support. He sleeps upstairs. Says it’s so he can look out the upstairs windows to keep watch, but it’s so he doesn’t have to sleep with us. He freezes every night. When our daughter was killed… he might as well have died too. Forgive me for saying that.”

“No, no. I understand. Some people… some people never recover from trauma. They lose hope, or the only way they can find purpose is to avoid any kind of emotion. He might be an empty shell forever now.”

“At least he forages for food. ‘Packets of crisps,’ are getting old though. I’d kill for a damn cheeseburger.”

“You could always eat Ben,” Mara whispered, and added a chuckle to hammer home the joke.

Jennie snickered. “Wouldn’t satisfy. Nothing of his I’ve let into my body has been worth the effort for going on five years. Six if you count this year here in England.”

“Is he a good father at least?”

“He teaches Hogan how to do tasks that make our lives functional. He’s friendly, you know? But he’s rarely present, and even less frequently loving. At least we’re warm.”

“Until he can’t find furniture to burn in that little stove. It’s going to be a cold winter unless you start looking in more apartments and businesses here.”

Jennie’s body stiffened in the dark, and she twisted to look over her shoulder at the small potbelly stove with its small glass window on the door. Orange light flickered, deceptive in the warmth it actually provided.

“That’s tough,” Mara continued. “It’s just awful, and I’m so sorry. Look, can I make a serious suggestion that might sound crazy? I know I’m a total stranger, but sometimes that’s who a message has to come from. Like having a therapist.”

“Sure. Anything for a half decent conversation.”

“Leave. If he’s dead on the inside, and parts of him sound dead on the outside too… you’re just as well served leaving here and foraging for something more exciting than packets of crisps, or a half-squeezed ketchup packet from McDonalds. I mean foraging for people, too.”

Jennie’s voice dipped into the barely audible range. “I’ve thought about it. More than once. I just… taking Hogan from his dad, after losing his sister, just seems like too much to put him through. He’s just a kid. He won’t understand.”

“He doesn’t have to understand right now. You can explain it when you get somewhere else safe. There is a lot of danger out there, but there’s also many safe places. Places that might offer more hope, better role models, better food and drink. How are you explaining staying here and suffering to him? What will you say when the food runs out? Or the rain doesn’t fall enough for you to have drinking water? Will he understand that?” She paused. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be saying anything. It’s not my place and I’m far past the pale on this. I should go back to bed. Michael and I have a long trip tomorrow south to my family’s home, and I’m going to be tired.”

“No, no… I um... It’s okay. I needed to talk with someone about it, you know? Being a foreign country, with all what’s going on… and continues to happen. I’ve been unable to think bigger than what will come tomorrow. I can’t get past the next conversation. The next sideways glance. The next moment of loneliness. It’s all endless.”

“You’ve lost hope, dear Jennie. It’s no way to exist. This isn’t blowing over. There’s no one coming to help us. The Queen is hiding in a hole, the planes aren’t flying overhead any more, the police and army are gone. No one’s heard from America in months, and I’m certain they’re just as bent as we are. It’s us, and what we can manage on our own. If we want a better tomorrow, we bloody well need to make it.”

“When are you leaving tomorrow?”

“Early, so we can get a full day’s travel in. We take few risks, and move slowly,” Mara said, sensing she’d sunk the hook in Jennie’s cheek. “We are not hard to travel with, and Michael is… well, he’s a doctor.”

“Right. Rest well, Rachel. I’ve a lot to think about before morning. I’m glad you crossed our paths.”

“I’m glad as well. Hey, this talk doesn’t ever have to have happened, okay? You made this decision on your own. No need for us to… dredge up tough decisions later,” Mara said. “Benjamin might take offense to strangers coming into his castle and upsetting his peasants.”

Nothing else was said as the two women parted. One went to a lonely, elderly fire in the belly of an old metal stove, and the other went to a cool bed, in the back of a store that hadn’t had customers in a year and a half.

One cried.

The other smiled.

The morning turned cold.

“You can’t leave,” a confused Benjamin said for the fifth time as he looked at the inert woodstove he stood beside. He hadn’t been able to make eye contact with anyone in the room after Jennie told him she was leaving, and taking Hogan with her. The iron creaked as it cooled, groaning as if it were amplifying the turmoil in the nearby man’s soul.

“There is nothing here for us, and you know it. You won’t say it, but you know it. Our son is bored, and needs stimulus. He really needs a father, but you seem incapable of handling either of those tasks. I never expected our relationship to be the same after Terri died, but you can’t even heal a bit. We’re barely friendly, never mind in love.”

“I thought, maybe if you met these other two, you’d see how good we had it.”

“Fuck you, Ben,” she hissed. “I see how bad we have it. Planting arugula in buckets of old dirt and shit. Reading the same fucking magazines for the hundredth time. We’re gonna go. We’ll come back when it’s safer.”

“I’ll miss you,” Hogan said from the hall that led to the rear exit of the store. “I love you.”

”Take care of your mother.”

“You’re not gonna tell him you love him? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I love you too,” Ben said, but he still didn’t look up from the stove.

“That felt genuine. Get us out of here,” Jennie said to Michael and Rachel.

Michael turned, pulled the steel bolt out from the frame and pushed the door open an inch. He peeked, opened it further, then peeked again. He’d produced his second handgun, and as he held it, he pressed outward in a crouch, scanning for threats that might see him. He only feared being spotted by what he couldn’t see. Mike gave the all-clear, and Rachel went outside, followed by a flush-faced, and wet-eyed Hogan, and a resolute Jennie. Her hands shook from adrenaline.

Mike closed the door and trotted across the lot to the car where he stashed his rifle, and the magazines for it. With care, he retrieved all of his things, and loaded the rifle. That done, he took out a single pistol magazine and rested it on the passenger seat of the vehicle.

“Hid that, did ya?” Hogan said, fighting off tears.

“I did. Must be clever nowadays, yeah?’

“Yeah,” the kid said, and nodded. Jennie took his hand.

“Wait here,” Mike said. He ran across the parking lot, and rapped on the back door of the store. He pulled the door open, and walked inside, where Benjamin still stood at the woodstove.

“I hope you’re not here to gloat.” He didn’t even turn around to speak.

“I would never do that. You can catch up. We’re heading south to Croydon. The route outside the store here, we’re gonna shadow that until we get there. We’ll travel during the day, rest at night. I’ll leave marks on car windscreens and bonnets for you. In the car in the park out back I’ve left a single magazine for the pistol I left on the shelf. Now I hope you’ll use that weapon and ammunition to protect yourself at a minimum. You should use it to follow us. I pray you do not use it to take the easy way out before you have to. Hogan deserves your effort, Ben.”

“That’s very kind, thank you. Your opinion is noted. Take care of my wife and son.”

“I’ll do my best. We’re going to find safe sanctuary. I promise you that.”

The door shut, and after what might’ve been an hour, or a day, Benjamin left the now cold stove, and shut the bolt on the door. As he did, he heard scratching on the glass at the store’s front.

Rachel and Mara had departed, and in their wake… were the dead.

November 21st

Been a fucking ride, Mr. Journal.

I um… I stutter when I have to write about a challenging experience. Not verbally, but when I try to get going here on the laptop. I start, I erase, I start, I erase. I try to think about where to begin, what details need to be told and explained first, what can be skipped over, what’s crucial, ya know? I feel a heavy weight as I continue to write in this diary. When I first started, it was me trying to stay sane by committing thoughts down, but now… now I’m creating a history. I’m telling a story, and I feel like I can’t miss a piece of it, or somehow, down the line, someone will read this looking for guidance and history, only to find out I fucked up and forgot to write something down.

But, I think what I need to do is stay true. Tell my story. Tell my history. Not worry about covering ALL the details. Someone else is writing shit down, taking notes, or telling their friends. A verbal history is being created at the very least.

This is my story. This is your story, Adrian. Tell it how you need to, not how someone else needs you to.

Deep breath.

The amount of moving parts we had on the fuel run two days ago was, in retrospect, beyond my ability to truly comprehend. Air assets, water assets, three ground vehicles, and ground forces here on the peninsula as well. Hundreds of men and women all doing their best under duress to get a dangerous job done in a dangerous environment.

We did it, but the cost we had to pay was steep, and we won’t fully realize that cost for weeks or months to come. More on that later.

The supply ship (Bridge is its name) made its move across the bay before light. She saddle right up where thousands of ships before her. She’s the biggest ship by far, almost twice the size of Reuben James, but again, crewed by a skeleton, and used entirely for storage. Anyway, they got the boat up to the fuel company’s wharf, or pier, or whatever you call it, and they tied off just at dawn.

To support them, our ground forces went out immediately at first light. Ladder truck, pumper and ambulance exited our airlock-container gate and drove around the peninsula, inland, then doubling back on the raised portion of the adjacent road at what amounts to the water’s edge. We parked in blocking positions. Pumper truck went deepest, away to the west on the road parking just beyond the supply ship, relative to the ground. Ladder truck went central, throwing down its stabilizers, and raising the ladder to provide and elevated firing position. Hal drew the first short straw on that assignment, so he climbed up with binoculars, and his weapons. Kevin wanted to fight him for the honor, if only to get off his still-healing foot, but Hal insisted it was better if he do it, as he could get up and down the ladder much faster in the event of an emergency. So, Kevin stood near the door to the engine truck, which he drove. The ambulance parked parallel to the entrance of the fuel company. It would take time to lift the stabilizers and drop the ladder, but we figured the other two vehicles could respond if needed.

So we dismounted, and provided security from the city, and ensured that no one, living or dead, got too close.

In the background (I wasn’t watching the entire time) the sailors and marines on Bridge got to the ground and got to work.

I’ll be honest, I heard all about this second hand, and from what I’ve put together, the early bits were slow going, and dangerous due to the damage that was inflicted when we shelled the shoreline. One whole tank (drum the size of a house) was perforated, and vomited its perfectly usable contents all over the ground there. It was still flammable, but I’ll get to that later.

So they went for marine diesel, which was clear of the mess, and closest to the dock. It took them hours to get the machinery functioning, and hooked up to the ship. They had dispense a little, test it, and then continue. The fuel passed muster, and they were able to get that ship’s fuel storage topped off, as well as the ship’s fuel. They were also able to load up regular diesel in great quantities, so much so that the barrels on the side of the ladder truck weren’t needed.

That was the entire morning. The two frigates got topped off next, and then we bailed on filling up the two destroyers. During each switch off, crews had to move around from ship to ship on the zodiacs, making each ship more able to fuel efficiently. Marines had to switch off to provide security and so on, so it was again, very slow going. Never mind the fact that these huge ass ships take a hundred thousand gallons of fuel at a whack, and the ground crews (protected by multiple fences, and three dozen armed men and women) had to moving hoses and tubing, and clean up a fuel spill using locally sourced emergency equipment, while clearing several buildings.

Professionals.

Anyway, it was getting dark, and cold, and frankly miserable by the time we peeled off Crommelin, and I radioed Rosario. I asked what her opinion was on finishing up the next day, and she and I both felt like nothing would be lost if we called it a day.

The ground workers inside the fence locked the place down, securing gates with chains and padlocks, or zip ties as appropriate. We didn’t leave a guard behind, but we did elect to post double the snipers in over watch across the bay to ensure that we had eyes-on through the night. I hugely regret that decision. We should’ve stationed four guys on a roof there, or in one of the small offices overnight. Bad decisions cost lives. This isn’t like buying the wrong scratch ticket. Ah shit, I didn’t get anything. Small gambles, small losses. It’s ah shit, three people died. Big gambles, big losses.

Zero injuries, no deaths on day one. We returned, celebrated quietly, and slept like old people after eating turkey. Yesterday, we started it all up again. Different results. So different.

Anything speculating HOW it happened would be… well, pure speculation. Guesses at best. There’s no proof, or evidence, or anything of the such. Once the fires die down, we might be able to piece a story together, but let’s be honest, there’s just no fucking way that’s actually gonna happen. I’m no fire marshal, after all.

The initial parts of the second morning of fuel transfer went exactly as the first did, though the first ship to pull over to the pier at the fueling facility was a destroyer. Higgins. Our destroyers are Higgins, and Howard. I guess both boats were added to the flotilla in San Diego, but that’s something I don’t know enough about.

Higgins went first.

All was going well, with us in our parked security position on the upper road level, ladder up for over watch, when all of a sudden we heard a loud… poomf noise, followed by a rush of overpressure, and heat.

An explosion.

Low, and slow, not like an artillery shell hitting nearby, flattening shit and sending dust in every direction. This was fuel-based. Not an explosive blast, but a large eruption and fast spread of fuel-fire.

We were lazy, plain and simple. Up on the hill, we were all paying attention to the fucking city and neighborhoods inland. Maybe one of us was looking back into the fuel company’s grounds. We implicitly trusted the marines and sailors to provide their own security. They were good, and made their stand, but all it took was a moment.

The explosion was near the water’s edge, far from where we stood. The flames erupted up and over Higgins’ hull, coating the entire boat in what looked like a wave of liquid fire. I saw it. It... fucking forgive me, but it was beautiful. Only lasted a few seconds, but damn it mesmerized me.

The fires died out fast on the boat; it’s fucking metal, but on the ground, where fuel had been spilled, the ground was, and I shit you not Mr. Journal, ON FIRE, and spreading fast. Our gorund crews were running like hell to get to the waterline to jump the fuck in, but somehow, someway, about six undead had gotten inside the fencing, and they were on fire (Because that’s fucking fitting, right? Not like the fucking undead give a shit about being set on fire) and they were attacking all the people they’d managed to either sneak up on, or flat out bum rush. A few of our people who’d been knocked down by the explosion, or were sto-drop-and rolling to put out the flames on their bodies were just tackled and bitten. I couldn’t get clean shots, but holy shit I went up and over that guard rail in a second, and started down the hill to the fence to try and help.

Pointless.

Fucking pointless.

In just… five seconds the heat from the fires overtook my bravado. The skin on my face started to, and I am not exaggerating, SINGE, and I had to stop. I retreated backup as Kevin started screaming.

“Move the trucks! Get us the fuck away, it could blow!”

He’s loud as fuck when he needs to be, and people listened. The ambulance disappeared, and our pumper truck took off too. Fagan had our stabilizers lifted and Kevin got the ladder down as I shot into the fires from the roadway, taking out zombies the best I could with limited visibility through the smoke and fire. I killed a few. Some old zombies, some were our people that I knew would be sitting back up soon enough. I’m sure some of them I shot were still alive. At least they didn’t suffer in the fires.

We were rolling in the ladder truck faster than I thought we could move, but another subsequent explosion rocked the truck, and set off a mushroom cloud of black smoke. We floored it away and back to the gates, and I swear to you Mr. Journal, the amount of undead we drove by, and engaged, had quintupled, at least. The drives there we past maybe three or four, but on the way back, at least twenty.

When we got to the gates, our security people were engaged actively, taking out a small crowd that’d formed. The zombies turned towards us as we approached, and we drove the fuck over them like it was no big deal.

Gates opened, and we were inside.

Higgins pulled away from the pier where the fires raged, with what so far has been assessed as minimal damage. They did not get a full belly though, and Howard got nada, and won’t get a drop from that place either. It’s a total wipe.

We lost twelve men. Six sailors, six Marines.

Two of the Marines I knew; Lucinda and Antonio Botelho, both from the night we landed. They were good. Real good. Good people, and very good at their jobs. Their leadership will be missed.

The rest of the day was just pure damage control. Head counts, ammo counts, scouring Higgins for damage. Rosario was… remarkably calm. She showed some emotion, but it was professional. She showed she cared, and her people felt that. They love her. I see it, and I get it.

I didn’t know what to do with myself.

We had no medical needs. No one came back hurt. We had twelve dead. No injuries. Snipers on the north side of the peninsula watched through scopes, and took out anything that moved. I had taken a few out, but there were more, obviously.

And more came, too. Like… vultures, they came. Thirty, forty of them. Right over the guardrail where we parked, down the hill, running, tumbling, unaware and uncaring of injury they might suffer. They walked right into the flames, setting their clothes on fire, entirely without reason.

But we knew that about them, didn’t we?

They ran to the shoreline, and they stood at the edge, staring across the water at us, like they’d made that trip, just to set themselves on fire, just to show us that they knew where we were, and that they really didn’t give a shit if they were destroyed in the process. This was another tap tap tap moment.

The nail hammered home at dusk. The radio turned on, crackling to life, and that motherfucker started laughing again. This was a different laugh. Not madness, not drugs, not hideous disarray.

This was a satisfied, sinister sound.

I had been bested, and Chuckles was making the point.

When the radio went silent, I thumbed it on. “We’ll dance soon enough you sack of shit.”

Nothing came after that.

We need time to reassess, and regroup. Two steps forward, right?

More fire.

I want to leave this shithole city, and head north. I want to get Hal to Croydon to find his parents, and we need to keep searching, meeting people, and finding more leads to where the other pieces of the Trinity might be. This feels bigger than a local twerp acting up. I strikes me as an intentional delaying action to me. The Devil is behind this, and he’s using… someone, or something to slow us down. Trick us into spending time we don’t have, solving problems that don’t need to be fixed in the big picture.

Eyes on the prize. Gotta stay focused, and make good choices. I came here with a plan that felt right to me, and damn it, I’m sticking to my gut. No more big mistakes though.

Fuck.

-Adrian

November 24th

I’m tired. Not sleeping well in general, and really not sleeping well since the incident across the bay. I keep dreaming of the dead, and fire. So much fire. I see them walking between the giant tanks, bodies burnt and shriveled. Tendons drawn from the fires bending arms into hooks, and hands into claws. When they have them at all, I see their eyes. Not white yet, not filled with rage, but instead filled to the brim with pathetic sadness. Remorse for having failed at their task that day, and that kills me. I wake up, sweating, breathing hard, fine hairs standing on end. They don’t have to feel remorse for some perceived failure. They were there when it counted. They stood up, tall, and did the brave thing. They helped others when it counted. They were fucking rock stars in a crowd of wallflowers.

Heroes, man. They shouldn’t feel that way, and it will haunt me if a single one of them are on the Other Side right now, feeling like they failed us.

You didn’t. Be proud. Please be proud.

Could use a nice, quiet visit to the White Room right now, if anyone is listening. Gilbert? You out there?

Michelle?

I should be so lucky. Maybe I’m not actually a piece of this Trinity. Maybe the White Room invites aren’t coming to me now. Maybe I’m just another fucking has-been trying to make a difference from the far side of the hill.

Beware the old man in the profession where men usually die young, is the t-shirt I need from Hot Topic.

Enough waxing philosophical.

We’re not making any excessive noise, but something is drawing in the dead from fields afar. From the north as it would appear, but we knew that was coming.

It must’ve been the explosion at the fuel facility. It didn’t seem that loud when it went boom, but memory works weird. In Iraq my buddies would report that some of the IEDs that went off near them were no big deal, just a loud bang, and the truck shook a little, but then they’d see the crater in the road a day or two later, and realize a 155mm artillery shell went off about five feet below their nuts and you could watch the color fade from their face.

Maybe that’s what’s happening. The undead rushing in is our crater. We’re now seeing the real fallout of what happened. Cashing that reality check in, and finding out the balance in your account is still in the negative.

Still trying to figure out what happened, but clarity, as I often allude to, is fleeting at best. So fuck that. Let’s forge forward, flipping over tables, yelling and screaming at the sky.

The fires have burned out across the water, finally. The stench of burning fuel, and chemicals, and just under that, the smell of cooking human is starting to fade. The billowing clouds of dark smoke have winnowed down to tiny trails of gray that reach up to the clouds that never seem to want to clear anymore. They still shit rain down on us all the time, but last night when I was out helping at the gates (spear duty, lots of undead) there was spitting snow. Few flakes here and there. I’m told it doesn’t snow as much here as it does at home, but we’ll see what happens. The Jinx Fairy has a track record of ignoring and/or fucking with the weather reports. Asshole bitch.

So, as I said, moving forward.

We have our armored trucks. We have not one, but two functioning Seahawks. Hal has mapped three variant routes for us, based on road blockages of varying causes, and has scouted six different landing zones for our birds if we need a fast exfil. We have twenty days of food and water loaded into the vehicles for our team. We have two spare tires for each vehicle, full gas tanks plus almost 700 gallons of diesel more, strapped to the side of the ladder truck, and squirreled away where can find space. There’s enough medical gear for Joel to handle anything up to, and including amputation. I’ve sourced four small boomboxes with appropriate batteries, but only two Lady Gaga CDs. Other music was obtained. I can’t speak to whether or not it’ll be as effective as she has proven to be. I hope that’s enough sound-distraction ammunition to draw away crowds when we need them to move away for us. We are bringing enough ammo to lay siege to London Tower, and Fagan says he found a large enough dildo in a crew cabin on Reuben James for us to never have to worry about close quarters battle.

I think he’s joking, but I’m okay if he’s not. I’ll beat a motherfucker with a giant dick to stay alive. Shoot it with an enormous slingshot like a phallic javelin.

The Cock-a-pult by Ring Industries. Or, if you prefer, the Cock-Ring.

Not as funny when I write it out like that. Way funnier in my head.

It’s so strange to think that we’re just a day or two away from heading north. So many weeks of preparation for this moment, and now it’s just gonna happen like it’s no big deal. The amount of man-hours that’s gone into making this fucking road trip happen is astronomical.

All to give Hal some peace of mind.

Sounds bat shit crazy when I think about it like that. All for my friend, and so he can maybe, just maybe find his mom and dad. Boiled down to that, all this effort feels foolish in the extreme. But, it’s not just that. Think of the people we’ve helped just here in Brighton, already. We’re trying to find the other two parts of the Trinity, and any ground we cover gives us the chance to meet people who might’ve met someone special, or, Devil forbid, actually cross paths with the vaunted people we need to get on-task.

Whatever that task is.

I am… leaving little Otis here on the boat. My soul will be staying behind with him, but you already knew that. I can’t risk bringing him in the trucks. Not even willing to risk that 1%. Bringing him here on the boat feels crazy enough, but dragging him out into the depths of zombie-infested England is just plain old stupid. He’s made enough friends here that he will have many laps to sleep in, and more than a few beds to keep warm at night.

Abby and Hal have entrusted Gavin’s care to Kate and William, who are platonic life mates now, it appears. They are excited to take care of the baby, and Gavin is familiar with them. The last few days, in preparation for the departure, the parents have been spending all their spare time with Kate and William, acclimating Gavin to the idea that they’ll be gone for… well, we hope less than a week or two.

Straight up, straight check on their hometurf, straight back.

But it won’t go that way. We’ll white knight our asses across some fucking random town, helping dweebs and schmucks get food or water or medicine, or find their fucking lost pocketknife, or whatever other goddamn problems we can solve like no one else.

My dollar is going on us finding some of Hal’s old school buddies, and we’ve got to help them rescue their parents from the vile clutches of an undead Duke who has them buttoned away in his crumbling castle-turned zombie sex dungeon. Surrounded by a moat filled with meth-addled sharks, polar bears, and toddlers who’ve been given multiple espressos and finger paint.

That cock-a-pult will be CLUTCH when that siege comes around.

So yeah, we’re heading north in three days, unless something happens to derail that timeline, and we’re taking all precautions to prevent that from happening.

November 27th. Oh, and don’t worry, Mr. Journal. Your new, military-grade body will be making the trip. I can keep you charged up in the trucks as we drive. There’s too much risk of me forgetting something if I wait too long to type it up. The burden of responsibility.

Our comms will reach all the way, and we can call in William and his sister helo on hella short notice. He says at top speed, he can get to Croydon from here in one hour. That’s counting the time it takes for them to start the motors, and pull up their pants. Fast chopper.

In reality, as the crow flies we’re only traveling about fifty or sixty miles north. Driving, less than 75 miles, and that’s being generous with mistakes and roadblocks we’ll need to drive around. Not that far. Less than the distance between Bastion and Calendar Mountain back home, and we made that trip multiple times. It’s actually closer to the distance between Bastion and The Factory. The big difference, is the urban territory we’re crossing. Suburban London is multiple orders of magnitude more populated that the city would’ve ever been, and it’s foreign territory. I don’t know these road signs. I don’t understand how they number or letter highways, or interstates, or whatever the fuck they call them here. Neve mind the fact that city streets are as narrow as can be here, on account that they’re all old cow paths that some dumb local official decided to lay cobblestones down on. Fucking Romans couldn’t widen the streets.

Oh, and the fact that it’s still chock full of hungry undead.

Semi-cunning, jogging and occasionally running undead, in one of the biggest cities in the world. It wouldn’t take much for our journey to become worst-case scenario. Flat tire in the wrong place. Gun exchange with a few wounded.

I’ll try and check in before we leave. Not sure what I’ll say, but I’ll figure something out.

Shit, something’s apt to go wrong between now and then anyway.

-Adrian

November 27th

I had intended on checking in with a few update entries before our planned departure, but shit’s been delayed until tomorrow morning at dawn. I’ve been caught up in checking supplies over, getting a quick physical from Joel (all is well) and making sure that all of our loose ends here are addressed before we disappear for however long we’re going to be gone for.

Logistics first, before news of the outside world. Logistics are positive, at least.

We did the math, and figured that the 700 gallons of diesel we are bringing might not be enough. The ladder truck and pumping engine seem to be averaging about 4 miles per gallon. At a bare minimum, with no side quests or wide detours, our trip is going to be at least 45 miles each way. That’s 90 miles per big truck, times 4 gallons per mile, times 2 trucks. That’s a minimum need of 720 gallons, plus what the ambulance needs. That bitch seems to be getting about 10 miles to the gallon, which adds another 90 gallons of demand. That leaves us at bare minimum 130 gallons of fuel short.

The vehicles themselves have fuel tanks that hold 60 and 75 gallons on the big rigs, and the ambulance tank is 25 gallons, which makes up that difference, but leaves us almost no wiggle room if we suffer a fuel spill, idle for any length of time at all, or take any kind of extra journey that’s more than ten miles in total, we’re bent.

I’m shit at math, but like… a 10% fuel buffer seems smart to me. If we need 900 gallons, then we need another 90. I’m guessing what we can get away with, without foraging for more fuel as we go, was to slap one more 55 gallon drum of diesel to the pumper (so all our spare fuel wasn’t on the ladder truck).

That’s what we did.

Our welder nerds slapped a diamond plate platform about three feet deep on the ass end of Little Boy, right on top of an existing piece of steel decking, then fabricated a cradle for two more barrels. They also attached a hand crank fuel pump mount, which means we now have two.

Two is one, and one is none, right?

We’ve disbursed our supplies as equally as we can manage across the three vehicles, in the event we need to ditch. You know what our real worst case scenario is? Ditching Fat Man, and losing the ten barrels of fuel.

Standing rule: our first three refills come off the ladder truck before we use Jerry cans, or the barrels on the engine. That’ll mitigate the loss of the ladder truck if need be. Just devastating.

The trucks are good. Wheels are protected with armor, we have brush guards and an actual plow blade on Little Boy should we run into snow. It’s not like, a well-installed plow, but it’ll take the edge off any real quantity we run into. Remember, December is just days away, and the world hates me.

Right. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is that we’re prepared. Otis is happy, for now, and I’ll be back in a few days if all goes well. He’s as loved as baby Gavin on this boat, and we all know, if someone won’t die to protect a little kid, they surely will go the distance for a cat. It’s like a Venn diagram of what people will risk their lives for.

While we’re gone, Rosario will continue on. No massive projects before clearing undead that approach, and helping locals so long as it doesn’t endanger our operation. We want to help, but we can’t risk losing our foothold here. I trust her. She’s better at the big picture stuff than I am.

If, in the event we’re going to be outside the wire for days and days, and they need to be productive, their plan is to recon the remaining local gas stations to see if there is any salvageable diesel, and provide assistance to locals who need it in a more robust, delivery-level fashion.

Doing nothing, and maintaining is okay too.

Why is that okay?

Well…

We had two more fires since I last reported one. You might now bring your attention to the deliberate choice of ‘remaining’ above. The two fires were set conspicuously at places that we were likely to loot or raid at some point. One of which was a gas station. Sorry, petrol station. They call ‘em petrol stations here I think. The other fire was set about twelve hours later at a six story tall apartment building. We were watching the first fire go, lamenting the loss of fuel and possible supplies at the petrol station, when all of a sudden miles away we saw the orange fires growing up level by level inside the windows of this nondescript brick tower.

The fire couldn’t have spread that fast without some kind of intelligence assistance. Someone had to prop open the fire doors, at the very least. Maybe that’s actually how fast apartment buildings go up. I don’t know. But man, more fire.

It raged, like a massive candle that cast light across the entire western side of Brighton, and it burned for fucking hours, well through the end of the night and into morning. Smoke just saturated up into the sky, acrid, and smelly, like chemicals. We’d only just gotten rid of the rotten, chemical-spill smell coming from the fuel facility across the bay, and boom-pow, it’s back again.

Reminds me of Chief Bell End’s odor when he wasn’t chain-smoking the smell away. Clever idea, that. Hide the smell of smoke under the smell of a different smoke. I might’ve led with like, cologne, or perfume, but some people just want to watch the world burn, I guess. I hope he and his family have reunited on the Other Side, and are at peace.

So, with sturdy gates, strong fencing, multiple well-armed, vigilant guards, me team and I leave tomorrow for Croydon, to try and track down Hal’s family.

Oh… my team. I still haven’t said who’s coming.

Fagan, Hal, Abby, Kevin (his foot is more or less healed up enough to not be a liability, not like he’d let me leave him behind anyway), Lancaster, Sgt. Oak (whose foot is fine. Like, Wolverine regeneration factor fine), Sgt. Maple, Joel, and myself.

Any of us can drive the ambulance. Fagan, Kevin, and Maple have CDL experience, and can drive the big rigs proficiently. In some of our spare time, we’ve been practicing in the parking lots of the warehouses here on the peninsula, but those three are our go-to drivers. Roads are going to be challenging up and back, so there’s no sense putting the bench in when the starters are available.

We’ll drive as fast as we need to, safely, and take only the risks we deem necessary.

And Mr. Journal, by now, you should know that I take almost every risk I can, because I’m an idiot. An idiot that’s surrounded by people who are really good at keeping him alive. Thank God for that.

I’ll check in again once I get time on the road. That might mean tomorrow night, or ten days from now when we get back. I have no idea of knowing how things go once we leave the coast here and head inland.

We are as prepared as we can get.

I’d say wish me luck, but at best you’re a file on a computer that I’ve anthropomorphized, and vent to in order to maintain my fragile sanity.

It’s all good.

-Adrian

Ernest Goes for a Walk

Croydon, England, 2014. On the Other Side.

“It’s time to wake up,” Linda Parker whispered to her sleeping husband. She leaned over, lifting her floral dress up so it didn’t tickle his face. She planted a soft kiss on his smooth, soft forehead.

“Not yet. I didn’t sleep well,” he mumbled back to her before rolling over in the bed, in the flat they shared before she died.

“Dear, Harold is coming soon. The building isn’t getting any easier to navigate, or get into. He could get hurt.”

The mention of their son’s name snapped his wizened, dark lids open. The whites of his eyes were yellowed more than usual, and a bit bloodshot, but the dark brown centers were clear. He blinked the sleep out of them, and sat up, creaky and sore.

“I’m not awake, am I?”

“My love, I’ve learned that there are many kinds of ways to be awake in this world,” she said, helping him twist to sit on the bed’s edge. She went to hand him the glass of water he always kept on his nightstand, but it wasn’t there. Food and drink didn’t exist in this paused, halfway world.

He licked his lips.

“How soon?”

“They leave this morning. They have… a long trip.”

“Brighton to here is a trot,” Ernest corrected her. “Two hours with traffic, even with how slow I drive.”

“There are worse obstacles to navigate that traffic right now, and if you can imagine it, they’ll have to drive a lot slower than you normally would.”

“They’re better off walking then.”

“Part of the trip they’ll have to, if things sit the way they are,” she said, sitting down beside the man she’d left a widower.

He reached over and took her hand, softly interlacing his fingers through hers until he formed a soft, warm shell over her hand. They sat like that for a minute, each breathing in a gentle sync, still and warm in the dark bedroom, in the illusion of a June where things might just turn out okay.

But that was illusion, and they both knew it.

Things might still turn out okay though.

“Can you see into my heart?” Ernest asked.

“A little,” Linda said, leaning over enough so she could rest the side of her head on his thin, bony shoulder. “Enough.”

“If you can see how much I miss you, please don’t let that make you sad.”

“Ernest,” Linda said, lifting her head off his shoulder. “Your sadness is just a reflection of your love for me. I hold a mirror up to it, and see what I choose to see. Any sadness I have is of my own making, and it is my burden to bear. Don’t fret over me. I’m safe, and doing all I can for our family where I am. It’s time for you to do more of the same.”

“I’m so tired,” he said, looking at her, straight into her soul. “And lonely. The days are long, and the nights are endless. These dreams are like sweets. Intense, but they aren’t filling, and don’t last for shit. Seeing you like this is a gift, but one I have to give back every morning.”

“I know this is challenging, but it’s all for Hal, and his baby, and the woman he loves.”

“They should be married.”

“Ernest, standing in front of a judge or priest sits in the back seat for a bit, yeah?”

“I suppose,” the old man grumbled. “But they should get married as soon as they can. He’s with a white girl, and things will be easier if they’re married. Call me old fashioned.”

“Enough, Ernest. Old fashions can’t dress up this dead mannequin of a world right now. Stay the course. Get done what you need to get done, and soon enough, you won’t really be alone, and you’ll get to hold our grandson Gavin.”

His face finally cracked a smile, but like their time together, it didn’t last long. He sighed deep, and looked down at his pants piled on the floor near his feet. Nearby were his worn brown leather shoes, a button-down shirt and a stained sweater with several holes in.

“You ever going to toss those?”

“Nope. I’m ornery, and I like things my way.”

“Well, you stubborn shit, wear a jacket then. Be safe today. I’ll hopefully see you tonight, or tomorrow. It’s getting easier to visit night by night. Feels like lights being turned on in a dark room.”

“Practice makes perfect. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Ernest’s eyes opened in the real world. Just like in his dream, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, with his clothes arrayed about just as in the dream. This outfit was his favorite; it predated the monsters, and the end of the world, thought it looked more like the sweater and pants were salvaged off a dead body long after the fall of mankind. He reached over the sweater to the nightstand and grabbed his rectangular plastic pill management box. With stiff fingers he snapped the lid of Tuesday up, and poured out the baby aspirin and two paracetamol. He sat the container down and picked up the glass of water to wash down the medicines that lubricated the decaying, rusty machine he called a body.

In life, Ernest made a decent living driving a public transit bus in the London borough of Croydon. He was born there, was married there, had his son there, and if things proceeded on the path they seemed to be heading on, he’d die there. He didn’t have many baby aspirin left, and his heart relied on them to keep ticking. Harold better hurry.

Frankly, Ernest was shocked he hadn’t already died. He’d lost his wife Linda early on in the nightmare the world had become, and for a long time after that, he coasted, destroyed emotionally, drifting from moment to moment, finding purpose by helping the few people who lived in his eight-flat building as he could, and laying as low as humanly possible to conserve the water and food he had scrounged for, or had been given by younger neighbors before they departed the building, never to return.

The last of the people in the small apartment building he and his wife shared a flat in for a decade of their late adult life had been gone for over a month now. All the food had been retrieved from each dwelling, and in order for them to survive—one by one—they ventured out, foraging into other nearby houses and apartment buildings for something to eat, or drink. The first few runs, all done by young, healthy lads and ladies went reasonably well. No one got hurt, and they returned with at least a little prize each time.

Luck didn’t last, and eventually one of their runs didn’t go well at all, and those people didn’t come back. In one case, they came most of the way back, but collapsed in the street, either mauled by the undead, or beaten half to death by living survivors who felt threatened by people trying to feed themselves. The young couple stayed down in the street, crawling to the building as best they could, but they were set upon by roving packs of the dead, and their deaths came soon after.

The remaining few behind watched it all in horror. Just another scene in the horror story they were living in.

With no other choice, trips out were steady for a year, but Ernest had been alone for six weeks now, and his food was near out. He had some tins left, a few pots with cucumbers and tomatoes that offered up meager meals, and some old packets of crisps and a few biscuits that he was saving. Ernest loved sweets, and they were his rewards for all this work he was doing.

He’d rather have Linda at his side, but a sugary treat would have to suffice, for now.

Linda had a friend on the Other Side. She called him a mentor, but Ernest called him, “That old bastard who was gonna try and steal my wife.”

Linda said his name was Gilbert, and he once lived in America. She said he fought in Vietnam.

Gilbert visited her often, and always complained about how challenging it was to make the trip across the ocean to speak with her. Linda explained that he had served as an agent behind the veil of death, helping a still-living man named Adrian, who was apparently rather important in the big scheme of things. Adrian was with Harold, and Gilbert said that the two of them plus others were on their way to Croydon very soon, and as far as Ernest was concerned, that was the thing that made the man rather important.

Now this Gilbert character… Ernest would have words with him when the time came.

Linda assured him the man was already married, with motivations as pure as driven snow, but Ernest knew snow had caused a good deal of damage to things, in sufficient quantity, and or over time.

The old man shrugged, and in a moment of self-deprecating clarity, he laughed at his protective, possessive paranoia. He hadn’t left the apartment building yet, so it was safe to laugh out loud.

Linda arrived in Ernest’s dreams, and after many, many nights of him trying to “fall back asleep” and ignore the troubling visions of his wife, he started to listen, and she told him a story that felt unbelievable. If anyone else had told him the story, he’d have laughed them straight into a padded room. But it was her telling the story. And Ernest always believed Linda. He’d never caught her in a lie when they were alive, and that might’ve been because she was a good liar, but Ernest knew his Linda. She was the snow, and he trusted her.

He wasn’t sure why Linda wanted him to paint arrows on the sides of buildings, but Ernest was reaching a second phase of his life where he yet again just did what his wife asked, because in the end, he always had a better life as a result.

Sometimes, you just gotta listen to the people who love you.

Ernest was working on his listening skills.

Knife in its sheath on his belt, he headed to the exit. At the front door of his building sat a pile of “equipment” that he used to foray out into the world. Anyone observing would call his plan strange, but he had to work with the assets he had. Ernest was not a fast man, nor could he fight well, so he had to avoid confrontation at all costs. Ernest was not a wolf. Ernest was a chameleon.

Using shipping boxes he’d scrounged from the back hall of the basement, Ernest had used several rolls of clear packing tape to create a set of cardboard camouflage. One large, tall box slid over his body, cut with slits near the bottom so his legs could walk easily (several falls and more than one deep gash had contributed to that advancement) and two other shorter boxes taped to the side covered his arms enough so that he could stand still (preferably leaning against something so he could steady himself) and look like no more than a pile of boxes, tossed out and forgotten. So far, the meager, deceptive armor had carried the day each time it’d been tested.

His heart had done the same, but each time one of those things came near, it dared to seize up on him, and do the zombie’s work for it. What a shameful end that would be; a heart attack in a box, dead on the side of the street. He had to chuckle. No end was any different than any other, really.

Ernest carefully inserted his body into the sheath of tape-reinforced cardboard, and adjusted the sit of it until he was comfortable. He fixed the three flaps on the “head” of the box so he could see straight and to both sides through the thin, translucent, tinted mylar he’d made windows with. He was sealed in, and ready to enter shark-infested waters.

He squatted a bit and reached down—body creaking, bones crying out in paracetamol-muffled pain—and picked up the last can of bright yellow paint and the thick brush wrapped in an old plastic grocery bag. He didn’t have the water to clean the brush, so he wrapped it tight after each use to at least keep it wet and pliable with paint.

He was ready. He trusted his wife. He knew where he had to go.

In his youth, Ernest had been a dedicated footballer. Light on his feet, and lean (like his son Harold after him), he could run like the wind. He yearned for that speed now, for that feeling of the wind over his face, and the burning of muscles after a good match. Those days were as far away as the dinosaurs now though, and Ernest had to shuffle along in a mosey-like gait, swaying side to side as he lifted the boxes an extra few inches off the ground; he couldn’t afford to scrape the tape-welded cardboard on the pavement or road. He knew they couldn’t smell, but they certainly could hear well enough.

And now… well, now they were faster than they’d ever been. From noise to monster tackling him to the ground, there was too little theoretical time to play with. Best be slow, and silent, and then invisible for as long as he had to be so.

He went down the pavement on the cold November day (or was it December?), following the path he knew to be free of dead bodies and debris. Ten yards in one direction, then a gentle angle across the street where two cars were parked in a semi-defensive arrangement to shun early-apocalypse drivers. He walked between the unused barriers and crossed to the other side of the street. He could see no undead, and couldn’t hear anything moving through the shell atop his head, so he pressed forward.

One cautious, brown-shoed foot after another he plodded forward, eyes sliding side to side without pause, constantly searching for the monster that would evade his protective measures, and get close enough in a moment of distraction to end his life.

Not yet. Not now. Harold. Gavin. Abby.

He stepped over a yellow arrow on the road, then passed the house on the corner with a bright yellow arrow on it he’d painted the week prior. Each arrow pointed toward the street his apartment was on.

Ernest made his way down the narrow Croydon street, carefully taking his steps, then stopping to twist, his body to look more carefully at the next ten yards before proceeding. HE looked in parked cars, through house windows, and at the edges of fences and low stone walls that framed front gardens. He looked for zombies. Ernest was methodical, and patient. Thirty years of driving bus in the city without a single accident bred that into a man.

The Devil was in the details, and if his wife was right about the state of the world’s affairs, the literal Devil was in the details. He spared little time on his minutes of threat assessment. He had time. It gave him a respite, and showed him a way to plan for. On his tenth pause, he saw a nice, flat house side with nothing obscuring it. Anyone driving down this road, or the road that created a T intersection just a dozen yards further away would see it if they were looking even poorly. He formed a plan to get through the open gate in front of it, and walked across the street once more, passing an old sedan with the boot open.

Someone trying to pack, or unpack, and never got the job done.

Their body would be around here somewhere. Rotted and decomposed, or walking around, looking with color-starved eyes for someone to murder. Not Ernest. Not today.

The old man walked through the iron gate with its spotted, decaying coat of white paint. He trudged through the waist-high grass, listening to the soft sound of the dry tips scratching at his box. He reached the brick wall of the hundred year old home and rested his paint can and brush on bird bath filled with old rain, and green algae. Methodically he pried the lid off with his thick fingernails and sat it beside the can. Ernest stopped then, still as the house itself, and he waited.

Facing the wall, the old man counted to sixty, all his mental acuity focused into listening.

Thirty….

Forty….

Fifty….

Fifty-three….

Then he heard it. The subtle dragging scuffs of uncaring shoes on the road, or pavement behind him. He battled his first instinct to duck; that’d only be movement the monster might see. He had to be unseen right now. This wasn’t Ernest trying to hide in a box. This was just a pile of boxes. Nothing to see, nothing to watch, nothing to eat, nothing to murder. If he was still, he could survive.

He stopped counting (might accidentally say a number out loud, after all) and he simply remained as statuesque as his boxes could manage.

The scuffing continued, singular in its living, sentient attempts to make Ernest either topple over with a heart attack, or lose his cool and try to make a foolish break for it. Both reactions would result in Ernest’s demise, and he had plans for more time between now, and that death in his sleep he hoped for.

The insistent scratching at the ground surface shrank, and receded. His body’s struggle to ruin itself from the fear and stress abated in unison. The streaks of shooting pain running across his chest and down his arms went away and he allowed himself a deep, controlled breath.

As slow as wealth trickling down from the aristocracy, Ernest spun to face the street. He shifted his feet fractions of an inch at a time, spinning his whole body without moving more than from the ankle down. It took him a whole minute to do it, but when he finally had turned around, the street sat empty. Whatever had walked at his back, was gone now. No bloody streaks on the ground were laid as evidence of evil passing, and the sudden impression of crushing void appeared in his imagination.

He felt no relief the murderous creature that used to be human was gone; he felt only loneliness.

Ernest moved back to the paint, and the birdbath. He retrieved his brush and pulled the plastic trash bag off it. Stiff in the cardboard camouflage he switched it to his off hand, and dipped the still-yellow brush into the can.

In measured, precise strokes left to right, Ernest painted the core line of his arrow. His brush was about the width of his hand, and he’d made a habit of making his arrows twice that thickness. The brick, as hungry and thirsty as he was, devoured the paint, soaking in deep. He applied two, then three coats of the bright color before it stood out meaningful enough, and his shoulders were tired for the work. Ernest took a break, listening to his surroundings once more, then returned to finish the job.

As he drew the final coat onto the horizontal piece of the arrow he heard the unique sound of two pieces of iron groaning as they moved against each other.

His patience failed him, and he twisted, looking over his shoulder through his plastic windows at whatever had made the noise at his back. Before he could finish the turn, and truly appreciate the amount of idiot he was, a middle aged woman—teeth bared in a rictus, saturated in blood in all levels of coagulation—shoved the half-open gate and came at him.

Faster than Ernest could’ve imagined she closed the gap, and he fought back with the only weapon he had; the paint brush.

In truth, he had tried to bash her upside the head with it but high-speed coordination wasn’t his strong suit anymore. Instead, as he swung to hit her, he lost his balance and swiped the brush straight across her face, coating her eyes with the thick yellow pigment. He went down in the tall grass as she stumbled forward, all the steam taken out of her sails. She couldn’t smell him, now she couldn’t see him, but the rage inside her that desperately wanted to kill him searched out. Too blank to clear her eyes of the paint, she stalked the garden, tripped up over and over by the fence, and the long grass that he’d fallen in.

Soreness from the tumble passed through his body as he tried to get up. Emphasis on tried.

His armor, his shield, his camouflage, had morphed into a remarkably effective restraint, keeping him on his back. After several minutes of terrified, silent struggling, he realized that in order to survive this, to get away from this temporarily blinded woman trying to rip his throat out, he would have to leave his armor behind. Like a turtle on its back, he worked to undo his plight.

Ernest, as slow and quiet as he could muster, ignored the pain in his chest and pulled his arm box off. Using the freed arm, he pulled the other off. With both arms ambulatory, he was able to roll over and get up to his knees. He edged to the side on his knees, getting close to the birdbath and the obstacle it presented to the monster stalking about. He used the faux stone decoration to get to his feet, and as soon as he was upright, he shuffled through the grass to the half-open, half-white gate.

Ernest elected to keep the torso and helmet box on, and turned sideways to slip through the gate. He could make a trot for it in the road to get away from her after clearing that obstacle. He only had to be silent for two seconds as he escaped through the garden’s entry. Ernest steeled himself, took a deep breath, and inched his way through the space as the monster in the garden silently stomped its way around, blinded, but hungry for his flesh, and life.

His box caught the rough metal, and pulled the door open, setting loose a shriek from the hinge.

“Fuck,” Ernest said, and took off as fast as he could.

The monster behind him spun so fast some of the paint left its eyes, and that sliver of clarity gave it enough vision to see the large Amazon box move away. Like an insect drawn to light, the monster’s primitive drive launched into overdrive, and it took off sprinting at the movement that it somehow knew wasn’t an animal, but likely, a human that it was compelled to kill.

Ernest moved as fast as his stiff knees allowed, managing something between a hopping mosey, and a drunken stumble. He ran, heart pumping as fast as it could manage, breath ragged immediately as the creature crashed into the gate, temporarily shutting it, buying him a second.

He twisted at the waist to see how close the dead woman was and realized she was climbing over the gate. That was new; for years they would’ve been trapped behind a waist high barrier in perpetuity but now, some of them could turn knobs, and climb. Climb like this one.

He faced back to his ultimate destination, and the retired bus driver in him did the trigonometry. He’d never make it. He’d be tackled, and his fragile little box would be shredded first, then his neck seconds later. He had to find shelter. A safe place. A wall to get behind,

An open boot.

The sedan with the trunk lid open was just seconds of dying run ahead, and if he got there, and grabbed the lid on the way down….

He went for it.

Ernest could feel the running feet of the monster getting closer, and just as he made the reckless, foolish dive into the boot of the cherry red, filth-covered sedan he felt her clawed hands grab the heel of his precious shoe. It came off, but that was the only pound of his flesh she got. Ernest landed hard on his shoulder, and he felt something come loose, triggering a blast of scorching pain that threatened to drown out his consciousness. He stayed with it though, and grabbed the lid of the boot, yanking it down with a metallic bang. The lock clicked, and he was safe. The monster’s scratching and smashing on the lid was feverish, and bizarre in the extreme when it wasn’t accompanied by the screams of rage.

Ernest’s chest and shoulder was on fire, and very soon after realizing he wasn’t going to be killed by the zombie, he closed his eyes and let his body give up.

The monster outside the sedan heard Ernest’s breathing change, and it immediately ceased its hammering on the now dented metal.

A presence flirted on the edge of what it managed as consciousness, and it turned around, returning to the bird bath, and the toppled paint and paint brush. Unaware of the why in what it did, the undead lady reached down, picked up the brush, and wet it with the aging yellow paint. She went to the wall, and painted the wings on the arrow opposite to what Ernest had intended.

It dropped the brush, and returned to its hungry oblivion.

Somewhere, something very evil felt a bit of satisfaction.

About Chris Philbrook

Chris Philbrook is the Amazon and Audible best-selling author of the Adrian’s Undead Diary series, The Reemergence series, COLONY LOST, and the fantasy world of Elmoryn. Chris has several years of experience working in game development and editing as well as writing fiction for several major game design companies.

Chris has authored ten novels in the horror/post-apocalyptic series Adrian’s Undead Diary, plus five urban fantasy novels in The Reemergence series and three dark fantasy novels in The Kinless Trilogy. His first science fiction novel; COLONY LOST has received stellar reviews. He writes young adult sci-fi under the pen name W.J. Orion.

Chris calls the wonderful state of New Hampshire his home. He is an avid reader, writer, role player, miniatures game player, video game player, husband, and father to two little girls.

Contact: Chris@thechrisphilbrook.com

Web: www.thechrisphilbrook.com

Facebook: facebook.com/PhilbrookAuthor

Twitter: @PhilbrookAuthor

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Also by Chris Philbrook:

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

Book Nine: The Dealer of Hope

Book Ten: The Last Resort

Book Eleven: No God

Book Twelve: Dead Cities

Tales from the World of

Adrian’s Undead Diary

Unhappy Endings

London Burns

Only the Light We Make

The Shed

An Ill Wind

The Other Side

Dead Lucky

Reemergence

Tesser: A Dragon Among Us

Ambryn: The Cheaters of Death

Fyelrath & the Coven’s Curse

Tesser: A Father Enraged

Zeud & the Prophets of Atomic Fire

Colony Lost

Elmoryn - The Kinless Trilogy

Book I: Wrath of the Orphans

Book II: The Motive for Massacre

Book III: The Echoes of Sin

Short Fiction:

Resurrections:

A Short Story Collection

Don’t miss Chris’s free e-Book:

At Least He’s Not On Fire:

A Tour of the Things

That Escape My Head

With David Moody & Mark Tufo:

THE BLEED

Book One: Rupture

Coming Soon:

Book Two: Rapture

Book Three: Armageddon

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Adrian’s Undead Diary: Dead Cities

Copyright © 2021 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 2021

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

Cover and interior design by Alan MacRaffen

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