Dark Recollections
Date: 2013-10-23 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Zombies; Horror; Post Apocalyptic; Fiction; Apocalyptic; Dystopia; Survival; Paranormal; Science Fiction Fantasy
Description: Beheading a zombie isn't easy in a world where you're more afraid of the living than the dead. Adrian Ring's simple life is thrown into chaos when the world is ripped apart by a plague of undead and legions of desperate survivors. Retreating to Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy, Adrian attempts to rescue friends and family on the way while dancing around his impending insanity over who and what he left behind, and evading maniac survivors. He saves his cat Otis, but shoots his mom. Pretty successful, all things considered. Dark Recollections is the first part of Adrian's own story of how he surv
Publisher: Smashwords Edition

ADRIAN’S UNDEAD DIARY

Chris Philbrook

Book Five

WRATH

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

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

Published in the United States of America

First Publishing Date June, 2011

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

Cover design and interior layout by Alan MacRaffen

For Douglas Adams, Kirk Allmond, Clive Barker, Nathan Barnes, Max Brooks, Tom Clancy, Mark Clodi, Warren Ellis, Neil Gaiman, Tracy Hickman, Joe Hill, Stephen King, Robert Kirkman, C.S. Lewis, Tim W. Long, H.P. Lovecraft, Jonathan Maberry, George R.R. Martin, Richard Matheson, Ian McClellan, D.J. Molles, David Moody, John O'Brien, Don Pendleton, Anne Rice, John Ringo, J.K. Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Margaret Weis, and all the other writers who cracked open their heads, and let us a take a read at what was written inside, me especially. We owe you all a debt of gratitude.

-Chris

Also by Chris Philbrook:

Elmoryn - The Kinless Trilogy

Book One: Wrath of the Orphans

Coming Soon:

Book Two: The Motive for Massacre

Book Three

Adrian’s Undead Diary

Book One: Dark Recollections

Book Two: Alone No More

Book Three: Midnight

Book Four: The Failed Coward

Book Five: Wrath

Coming Soon:

Book Six: In the Arms of Family

Book Seven: The Trinity

Book Eight: Cassie

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy map

Foreword by Kirk Allmond

MAY 2011

May 1st

May 3rd

Providence

May 4th

May 5th

May 7th

May 8th

May 10th

May 12th

May 14th

May 15th

May 17th

Homecoming

May 19th

May 21st

May 22nd

May 23rd

May 25th

May 27th

May 29th

May 31st

JUNE 2011

June 2nd

June 4th

Zombie Scissorfight

June 6th

June 8th

June 10th

June 12th

June 14th

June 16th

Dream a Little Dream

June 18th

June 20th

June 22nd

A Traitor’s Death

June 23rd

About the Author

Additional Online Content

AUD Merchandise

Foreword

I became friends with Chris Philbrook via the modern joy known as Facebook because I was such a huge fan of Adrian’s Undead Diary.  One day about a year into my first journey through Adrian’s Journal, I sent him a message.  It took me three days to work up the nerve to do it.  “Hey Chris.  I’m thinking about writing a book.  Would you read it and let me know what you think?”

Now that I have 9 books published, I can tell you I get this message two or three times every day.  And every time I get one, I think about Chris’s response to me.  “Absolutely, man.  Send it over.”

I am eternally grateful to Chris for his support and encouragement in launching my own career as an author.  So I am doubly honored to be writing a forward for this book.  First, because I am a super-fan.  Secondly, because Adrian’s Undead Diary inspired me to write my own series of novels, “What Zombies Fear,” and started me on a career as an author.

For me, it all started on October 23, 2010; when my friend John said to me in the chat over on my website ZombiePreparedness.org, “You gotta check out this story, mate.  He’s only got like four chapters up, but so far it’s amazing.”  Then he pasted the link www.adriansundeaddiary.com. That’s the moment I was hooked.  I clicked the link and started reading the story of Adrian and Otis.

Adrian Ring hooked me right away.  A fantastic character, who over the course of some twenty-bazillion journal entries, transforms from the hero we had into the hero we deserved.  Adrian’s development, trials, tribulations, and his overall need to survive intrigued me.  Then we met Abby.

The addition of Abby into Adrian’s life started a string of events that no one could have predicted.  I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to have a man and woman surviving together, weathering all of the storms of a post-apocalyptic world, without having sex.  There is no doubt that Adrian grows to love Abby, and she him.  Their relation is perfectly crafted and detailed through Adrian’s journal entries.  She’s his little sister, and he’s her big brother.  And together, they are almost unstoppable.  Then, along comes Gilbert.

Gilbert is my favorite of all the AUD characters.  He’s the rock.  He’s the hard place.  He’s Adrian’s advisor, mentor, father-figure, and drinking buddy.  He’s a man’s man with a heart of gold, but like everyone, he’s made some tough decisions.  There are two books in the entire world that have made me cry, Old Yeller, and Adrian’s Undead Diary.

I’ve read the entire journal seven times.  It is a joy to read one journal entry after another all day for weeks at a time.  The first time I read it was when it was ‘live’.  I’d read an entry and then have to wait two or three agonizing days to find out what happened next.  At least a year of my life was spent agonizingly waiting for the twenty minutes of reading, before the wait until the next chapter started.  You, dear reader are in for a treat.  You don’t have to wait. But, before you go on to chapter 1, I’d advise you to take a trip to the grocery store. Stock up on your favorite caffeinated beverage and your favorite quick snacks.  Because once you pass Chapter 1, you won’t want to put this book down.

Kirk Allmond

Author “What Zombies Fear”

May 2011

May 1st

I am now fairly certain I have brain damage.

Some days the damage seems minor, and other days it seems pretty major. For example yesterday I was not a drooling mess. Today however, my brain has shat the bed. At least I think so, based on the looks I’m getting from what constitutes as my friends and family here at Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy.

More on my failings as a thinker later.

We had our version of Grand Central Station here yesterday. More people on campus alive and kicking than we’ve had here in a long time. What was the roll call? Abby, Gilbert, Patty, Gavin, Mike, Lisa, Mallory, Siobhan, Sarah, Jenna, Hector, Chris, Ollie, Melissa and me. That’s like an entire country’s worth of people nowadays.

The four people who had come to help out for a day or two were meant to return back to Westfield yesterday afternoon, but Mike changed the plan up and drove his people out here. He had awesome news to share.

Westfield is now plus a little boy. Jeffrey Daniel Langston, born on April 28th at about 3pm. Name sound familiar at all? She named him after the late Lt. Daniels. I am very, very happy with that. I hope I can get to know little Jeff a lot better than I got to know the man he was named after. Mommy Jeannette is doing well, and Mike reports (out of earshot of Lisa) that Lisa performed everything without flaw.

In terms of morale, I find this to be an enormous victory for everyone. The fact that a new person, living and whole, came into this world safely gives us hope. He smiles, burps, farts, cries, and makes us feel like there’s a reason to keep doing what we’re doing.

Everyone from Westfield that arrived yesterday had the biggest smiles on their faces all due to him. Today, everyone here has the same smile. It’s like the sun came out.

The joy of a new birth notwithstanding, I am still very goddamn sore. My entire right side from armpit to waistband is covered in various assortments of unnatural colors. I’ve got blues, some purples, a few red blotches, a couple nice accents of black, and I think there might be a magenta touch in a few places.

Saying it’s tender is a major fucking understatement.

Lisa gave me a quick once over yesterday while we were all at lunch together and officially said I would live. The looks on everyone’s face when I pulled up my shirt to show her were fucking priceless. Reminded me of those reaction videos you’d see online when someone would watch something fucked up like two girls one cup, or lemonparty, and they just video the faces of those people. Lots of gasps of ewww…

Just for the record, I would like to say that I have never watched, or visited either of those aforementioned subjects. I’m only aware of them due to the reaction videos I’ve seen.

Honest.

I guess that's the upside of the apocalypse. It's a temporary moratorium on fucked up internet finds.

After telling me some light exercise to do, Lisa also took the time to check out Melissa. That whole prenatal care thing I was talking about. From what I can recall, she gave her and the little one inside her a clean bill of health. A huge lunch with all of us present was a real treat. It felt like our version of an Easter dinner, though a few days late. I kind of forgot about Easter. Not a holiday I celebrated much before… well, you know. I do kinda miss the candy though. Those little fucking chocolate eggs with the thin candy shell were the shit. I could eat those by the motherfucking trough.

Sigh.

With all the extra hands and good weather, we hit the field and worked together to get fence in the ground. Well, Gilbert and I operated the water jugs and watched from a very comfortable set of lawn chairs. He and I polished off the last of the Johnny Walker Blue, which I didn’t care for much until the second glass. After that, it was fucking delicious.

I have no idea where the hell we got enough fencing already, but the entire athletics field is now sealed off. Ollie yanked up some of the unneeded fencing around campus to lay it out in a more useful pattern, which may explain where we got the inventory. He’s also mixing concrete to shore up some of the posts that need a little oomph.

I had a good time watching all the girls strip down to tank tops and get sweaty in the warm spring sun. I don’t think I’ve seen that much living female flesh in a year. I started to get a little lippy and flirtatious I’m told towards the end of the day, and I guess Mallory and Gilbert got me up and into bed to keep me out of trouble. I get sassy with the females when I get into the sauce.

I woke up this morning with chest pain, head pain, a powerful stomach ache, and a bucket filled with puke to show for all my trouble. Conspicuously, I also woke up naked. I’m really hoping Mallory stripped me down, because if I got undressed by Gilbert… That’s just fucking weird. Old man hands all over me. I like Gilbert, but eww.

Mallory’s hands all over me… Now that’s an entirely different matter.

I’m sure she’d be all wet and wild thinking about getting her mitts on my bruised, battered, beaten, and drunk ass. I personally think I’m like the definition of unfuckable right now.

Alright I guess this is as good a time as any to discuss my mental shortcomings. I mean, I’m on topic.

So when I woke up this morning there was a can of fruit cocktail on the bed stand, a spoon, a small bottle of Pedialyte, and a post it note with a short message on it written in an obviously feminine handwriting.

The note said this: “The best cure I could manage for a hangover. Hope you like the trim.”

Alright, so…

Like, what the fuck did that mean right? And obviously I was in a state of general uselessness having just woken up, and double the useless because I was hung over to boot. I sat there reading the fucking note trying to figure out if I’d gotten laid, when I figured I’d resort to the tried and true method.

Weiner sniff test.

Now obviously I can’t put my nose on my cock, because if I could, I wouldn’t be pining for vagina and complaining about the state of the fucked up world I live in. All of these journal entries would consist of; “sucked myself off again today. Saw some zombies outside. Later. –Adrian”

The official Adrian M. Ring weiner sniff test consists of an exploratory hand into the nether regions that is subsequently sniffed for the tell tale odor of vaginal residue, and/or jizz crusties.

Sadly, I failed the sniff test. I smelled like sweaty balls. However, when I gripped my junk, I put two and two together. I got a whole different kind of haircut while I was passed out.

Here’s a rare moment Mr. Journal. One where I realize that I am indeed, dumb as a fucking door hinge.

If I had a camera running right now, you’d see me shaking my head slowly in sad, dejected frustration. Ayep.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and say that I think Mallory may be willing to jump my bones. I am kind of excited by this. The more I think about it, the cooler she seems. I mean, she’s got a great story, she’s pretty good looking, she’s funny, and she’s got attitude, which I am totally cool with. I hate pushover chicks. Tough is sexy.

When I finally shambled downstairs I was all alone. There was a note on the kitchen counter near the microwave for me from Patty saying that the crew was downtown again looting, pillaging, and trying to procure more fencing for campus.

I spent the day fantasizing about just how exactly Mallory got my crotch shaved without everyone else catching on. I also played some Playstation. Poorly.

Humorous how the thought of getting laid can entirely ruin your train of thought. I can say that with extra emphasis because I stopped after typing poorly just above and sat here thinking about sex for five minutes before picking up again. Cue the lol.

When everyone returned safely, and un-shot, unlike my last trip downtown, we had a good old family dinner together. Everyone was very attentive to my needs due to my injury, but they were merciless to me regarding my drunken exploits on the day they are now calling “drunken fence day.”

I can’t remember much of anything, and based on their subtle accusations, I apparently was quite an ass.

Protip: painkillers and Blue Label can really hinder your decision making abilities.

When everyone settled in for the night I went to the only person I felt I could trust with my Mallory dilemma.

Abby.

I don’t know why I thought she was the one to ask about this, but I went to her, and now I need to ride the consequences train. To greatly summarize a painfully awkward conversation, I basically asked her how much of an ass I was to Mallory yesterday, and whether or not she thought Mallory was hitting on me.

The entirety of Abigail’s response to me, was a minute long slow clap. Then she walked away wordlessly.

I am so digging that fucking icy hot out.

I think I’m stupid. The more I think about it, the more I come to the same conclusion over and over. I am fairly sure that Mallory has been into me, and I have been missing all the signs that she has been sending me. If I could research my family history I'd put money on my parents being cousins.

And in retrospect, I think there have been a lot of signs sent my way by her.

What the fuck do I do now? I’m all nervous and shit. It doesn’t help that I feel like I got into a kicking match with a goddamn donkey and lost badly. First nana, now me. I am almost a hundred percent sure this chick wants my shit, especially after she handled my manly parts and still left a flirty note. If she wasn’t interested in handling them again, there would’ve been no note.

I guess Mike will be here again on the 8th for a visit for more water, so I guess my course of action is to use this time to get healed up, and then say some nice things to the big guy upstairs and hope Mallory makes the trip, and I regain enough testicular fortitude to talk to her.

Why the fuck am I so nervous?

Out of practice? Do I really like her and I am again too stupid to realize it? Or is this a Cassie guilt thing? Fucked if I know.

Just took two Percocets and an Ambien for the night. This sleeping upright thing is fucking with me badly. I hate sleeping sitting up. Medication for the win. I need to be careful though. I’m popping pills like Skittles on Halloween here, and the last thing I need after all this bullshit is to get hooked on something. I’m gonna check that medication desk reference tomorrow to see what pills I can rotate to try and avoid any addiction issues. Worst case, I go cold turkey, and deal with the pain.

Something occurred to me earlier just as I sat down to write this. I even went back and re-read what I wrote the other day because I was unsure of my memory.

When I got shot by that guy, he said, “We’re home,” not, “I’m home.”

Who is we, and where are they? Is there a family downtown that is now minus a dad, minus a gun, and on their own, all alone?

That thought will keep me up tonight.

I hope the medication is stronger than my imagination.

-Adrian

May 3rd

I met a man in my dreams the other night. His name was Doug Manning, and I had killed him. I know that sounds weird, and you might think I’m crazy for saying it Mr. Journal, but it’s the honest truth.

I haven’t had any strange dreams in quite some time, and it has been nice. Other than my overall chest discomfort, I’ve been getting fairly good quality sleep at night. No weird dreams have contributed to that.

The night I took the Ambien I sort of… came to in my dream. Lucid is the word I think. The dream I was having at the time was half a nightmare. I was back in the house downtown that now serves us as a safe house, reliving the day I was shot, and I became aware of the dream right at the point where I saw the man’s silhouette in the mudroom.

Unlike what actually happened, the man walked into the kitchen, and was ear to ear smiles instead of scared shitless and pointing a weapon at me. I felt my heart race, and my palms get all sweaty, but in all actuality, he wasn’t threatening at all. The man with the ratty, dirty beard, and the worn clothes walked up to the other side of the island across from me, and produced the revolver he shot me with almost with a flourish, like it was a magic trick.

He spun the weapon on his finger a few times like an old fashioned gunslinger, and sat it down on the Formica countertop in between the two of us. I was frozen solid. I knew I was dreaming, but it felt so real, and I was sort of confused as to why everything was happening different than what I recalled in my memory. It felt like going into your head to recall something familiar to you, and finding a much different memory than the one you expected to find there. Unnerving.

That’s when he started talking, and I knew something… more was happening.

“Adrian, my name is Doug Manning. I had to make an effort to speak with you. I don’t know how long we have. I hope you don’t mind too much that I’m bothering you like this.” His voice was clean, calm, and apologetic. I imagined he worked in marketing, or maybe management. If he cleaned up, I could totally see it.

I shook my head at him, smiling, “Okay Doug, um, aren’t you dead? Aren’t I dreaming? How are you talking to me?”

Doug looked up at the ceiling, then back down to me and nodded twice, “Yeah Mr. Ring you are dreaming. And yeah I died the other day. That’s kind of what I’d like to talk about.”

I don’t know why, but I got defensive, and a little paranoid. “You’re here to fucking haunt me aren’t you? Punish me for killing you right? Like I need more fucking guilt over killing someone that didn’t have to die.” I recall now that I unconsciously put my hand on the Glock in the holster on my thigh. As if a gun would help me fight a ghost in my dreams.

“No, no. It’s not like that at all Mr. Ring. Quite the contrary. I needed to tell you that I understand what happened, and that I had as much a role in my death as anyone else did. I wish things had gone different, especially now that I know…” And he cut himself off. I don’t know why he did, and for whatever reason it didn’t occur to me to press the issue. I won’t lie Mr. Journal, I felt a lot of relief about what he said.

“Doug the last thing that I wanted to do that day was shoot anyone. But after you shot at Patty, I had to take my shot. I couldn’t risk you hurting her. I don’t think I could deal with another person I care about dying on me.”

He held his hands up, saying sorry with them. “It’s completely understandable. To be honest sir, I think dying the way I did will turn out to be for the best. But that’s too long story a story for today. I needed you to know that I fully understand why you shot me, and I want you to know that I forgive you.” Doug looked at me with eyes so sincere I couldn’t help but FEEL his honesty. It was as palpable to me as the warmth of the sun’s rays on my skin.

I choked up. It felt so good to hear someone forgive me, even if it was for something that I knew I had to do. I think about it now and I wish I could talk to all the people whose deaths I had a hand in during my years as a trigger puller in the sandbox. I’m sure most of them wouldn’t forgive me, but I wonder deep down inside if we could share a warrior’s moment with one another. Sometimes you want to know what’s in the other guy’s head.

I nodded at Doug because that’s all I could manage for a bit. I did the whole macho bullshit and staved my emotions down inside to prevent me from crying. I felt like I had to represent strength for whatever reason. Doug just nodded, I think he knew.

“Thanks Doug, I think I forgive you as well. I mean I hold no ill will, and I understand you were scared, and things went badly. I wish it had happened differently and I’m sure if it had, you wouldn’t have shot me. I’m not angry, and I hope you really do understand.”

He nodded again. Then his eyes drifted off, glancing over the things in his house. The house in my dream at least. I knew he had more on his mind, so I pressed him gently, “Doug is there something else you want to talk about?”

Doug licked his lips, and nodded once more. He took a deep breath, and told me what I knew all along, “My family.”

“Yeah. Where are they? Do you know? I had a feeling Doug, I’m so sorry.” I was dangerously close to cracking again. The thought of his family being abandoned like that was not pleasing. Imagine that.

Dad doesn’t come back. Ever.

Doug rubbed his eyes to hide the crying, and after a minute, he gathered himself. “I know they’re not dead. When I went into the house that day they were hiding in our truck down the street. If I didn’t come back, they were supposed to try my wife’s sister’s house. They might be there.”

“Where is that?” I focused on his words, I wouldn’t risk forgetting this when I woke up.

“114 Park Street here in town. Right off of Main. Green ranch with an attached garage, on the left side of the street.” Doug looked hopeful.

“We’ll look for them Doug, I promise you. What can we do for them? What can we do for you?”

Doug thought about his answer. “My wife is smart, her name is Lindsey. She can help you. She knows a lot about electronics and building things, she worked in a factory. My oldest daughter’s name is Madison. Maddie’s just nine, and she’s all you could ask for in a daughter. My littlest girl is Andrea, she’s just six. If you can make sure they’re safe, maybe take them back to Bas-, back to your school, or maybe even just helping them find a safe home. They can grow food if you give them some help, they won’t be a burden Mr. Ring, I promise you.” He seemed almost desperate.

It didn’t occur to me to ask him what he was about to say before he said “Back to your school.” I was so fixated on the idea of his family. I had to make them safe.

“We’ll try and find them Doug, I’ll see to it. You have my word man.”

The last thing I remember before waking up was Doug coming around the island in the kitchen, and taking my hand to shake it. He looked at me with the strangest expression on his face, like he was… shit, like he was almost proud to be shaking my hand or something. I want to say he was about to cry too. Maybe it was appreciation over my promise to try and take care of his family.

The last thing he said was weird. But cool. He said this, “Mr. Ring have faith man. Be strong. We have faith in you, and we aren’t giving up on you.”

And then I woke up.

I don’t know what to say. I am still digesting all of it. I am certain it was real. Positive of it.

After I woke up yesterday from that dream I felt significantly better physically. I almost want to say uncannily better. The bruising had notably improved, and my overall level of pain and discomfort had gone down. It was still sore, but much less so.

Abby and I were together all of yesterday doing shit around campus. Both of us are on light duty, so helping Ollie and Melissa was out of the question. Abby probably could have, but I really wanted to spend some time with her, and I don’t think she was cool with me being on my own moving around doing shit.

Our project for the day was weapons maintenance, and armory work. Putting all our eggs in one basket is stupid, obviously, so after we broke down and gave everything a good once over, we set up a second gun storage area down in the maintenance garage. Back in… shit a long ass time ago I set up a quick bail out bag with a .38 and some food down in the garage. We amped that up and set up one of the lockers as a small armory. We put a .270 bolt action, a 12 gauge, one of the 9mm pistols we’ve accumulated, and a fair amount of ammo for each in the event we need to get the fuck out of here in a hurry. There’s rope, mirrors, matches, a hatchet etc. Enough basics to start again if we need to gtfo in a hurry.

We also made sure that each of the occupied halls had one shotgun, one rifle, one handgun, and sufficient ammo for each in the event we had to fall back or re-arm during an assault. This way, each home/hall has a small armory. Security really isn’t an issue, even though the Hall E main armory is under lock and key. All of the Halls lock on exit, and campus is never unoccupied now, so it’s not like it’ll be easy for anyone to break in to steal guns.

I built up the nerve over lunch and told Abby about the dream. She thought I was bat shit crazy, but I explained it to her, told her about how it made me feel, and I related to her the night of the dream I had about Cassie. The same night the horde of undead arrived here inexplicably carrying books. March 3rd. Once I said that, she was convinced that at the very least, we had to swing by 114 Park Street to see what was there.

It was nice to spend time with Abby. The more time I am with her, the more I cherish her. She is like the little sister I’ve already lost to this… bullshit. I do miss Becca. Abby’s almost like my daughter. I don’t even know what that means. I’m not a father yet. All I know is that she makes me smile, she makes me laugh, and I feel her joy as if it were mine. I can only hope that my joy, and my experiences with her are giving Charles some satisfaction, wherever he might be.

Abby and I played stupid about the dream conversation last night when everyone came home from their downtown work. The three musketeers are on slow down work while we’re shorthanded. Primarily we’re looking at fence removal, and building supplies. If they see an easy house to clear, they hit it. With all the people returning to town, we’re debating the wisdom of just taking all the food. I mean… what if these people really need the food?

The haul yesterday for them was moderate. Some lumber in a garage, a little bit of food, some decent supplies. Nothing to write home about.

I did ask Gavin and Patty an awkward question, which I needed the answer to before I moved any further on the whole, “Doug Manning” dream thing. I asked them what happened after I blacked out that day.

They answered immediately. Doug was dying, and he knew it. They knew it. He didn’t want to suffer, and he knew that he’d come back as the undead if he wasn’t, you know, dealt with. Gavin said that Doug begged him to kill him, but he didn’t have the guts to put a barrel to Doug’s forehead and finish him, so after they got Doug to the backyard out the door he’d come in through, Patty put the AR to the back of his head, and did him.

She said he was calm at the end, and she said that she shot him with little warning, so he didn’t get nervous about it. I could see clearly on both of their faces that the whole thing has fucked with them badly. I can’t recall, but I think that’s the first time Patty’s had to kill someone like that. Shooting a dead person in the head is a lot different than pulling the trigger on a living, breathing, crying human being.

But it needed to be done. She knew it, Gavin knew it, and every one of us sitting there listening to their story knew it.

What is necessary is rarely easy.

I’m glad he died quickly. I hope Patty is okay with all of it down the line. Losing a husband and son is bad enough. Killing those about to die is just terrible insult after grievous injury.

Today the crew went out to do more of the same. Fence accumulation and house clearing. While they were out Abby and I searched campus for a digital camera to give to Blake, and found one buried in one of the girl’s dorm rooms. Abby knew just where to look. I guess it pays to be a kid when you’re looking for kid stuff.

When the “out and about crew” returned they had some interesting information to share. They’d cleared out two houses today, and both of them had a fair amount of stuff inside, which was great. However, right as they were wrapping up they heard a long series of gunshots from what Gilbert guessed to be about a mile from their location. They sat low, and about fifteen minutes after the gunfire stopped, they saw a large diesel box truck drive by, heading south on one of the side roads in town. They all said they saw three or four folks crammed into the front.

Scary stuff. No idea what that story is all about. More survivors moving around town I imagine. I should be excited, but I’m not. I’m also a little surprised we haven’t heard any radio traffic from the safe house walkie. I had hoped that we would’ve gotten word from someone, but alas, silence.

After dinner I got up and turned off the music. We’ve all gotten into the ritual of listening to cd’s and itunes or whatever while we eat. We try to keep the music low key, and relaxing. It’s weird I know, but it works for us.

Me turning off the music was enough of a sign that something was up that I didn’t need to quiet everyone. It just so happened that everyone was at the table in Hall E tonight too, which made it easier. Gilbert was just wrapping up eating his last few bites of the quiche thing we had when I sat back down to speak my peace.

I told them I needed them to do something for me, and that I needed them to trust me. Everyone nodded, and I remember now that Abby reached across the table and took Gavin’s hand. She knew what I was about to say already, and I think she wanted some grounding in Gavin. He looked at her and smiled.

I told them about my dream of Doug. I told them all about his family, and where he said they went, and I plainly told them I thought it was real. After the dream I had about Cassie, and the weirdness of how we only seem to be dreaming of the dead, everyone seemed to understand where I was coming from. I didn’t have to fight hard to convince them.

From there I asked them if they could check on them tomorrow, and see if I was crazy. The house is a little off the beaten track from where we’ve been thus far, but it should be fairly good. If they announce themselves, and tell them our story, I think we’ll be okay.

We agreed that first thing tomorrow, Abby, Patty, Gilbert and Gavin would visit the Manning family at 114 Park Street. No one put up a fight about it. After that, we all did what we normally do after dinner, which ranges from go to bed, to watch a movie, to write on our laptops talking to a fictional person.

Gilbert hooked my arm just I as I was about to retire up here to write this. He looked me straight in the eye, and said this to me, “Adrian, I don’t doubt for a second that we’ll find that wife and those two girls tomorrow at that house. I have a feeling you’re seeing a truth that the rest of us aren’t meant to. But son, what’re we gonna do if they’re there like your dream friend said? That’s three more mouths to feed. And two that can’t work? Shit son, you just shot their father. How do you think they’re gonna receive us? Right now we look a lot less like help, and a lot more like we’re coming back to finish the job.”

He shook his head, let go of my arm, and walked away.

He’s right of course. Once again I could be sending my friends to their death tomorrow by asking them to do this.

But really Mr. Journal, how will that be any different than any other day around here?

-Adrian

Providence

Tap tap tap.

With her eyes fused shut Michelle flinched from the gentle finger tapping at her bare shoulder. She knew who it was, and she knew what it meant. Every day for Michelle began the same way. Even if she swore to the ends of the Earth when she lay her head down that she would wake up earlier to avoid his touch, he always woke her up a moment before she would’ve herself. It was uncanny.

A bloody dead boy was her alarm clock now, and the toll of his dawn bell was three gentle taps. Every day it took her several seconds to build up the courage in the chill of the morning to open her eyes and look his dead face. Despite being stone cold dead and having his left arm torn completely off at the shoulder, he always smiled at her, especially when he woke her. He’d only been ten years old at most when he died. His yellow teeth bared in an awkward rictus, she fought every day to smile back. It was hard to dredge up anything other than revulsion when she saw his pale white eyes set in sunken sockets.

It was often cold in Africa at dawn. People who had never been there might think that was impossible. Africa had a reputation for being hot, not cold after all. Michelle knew what to expect though. Michelle had spent quite some time here before everything… happened. Researching, exploring, wandering the places man had tread on millennia ago. No matter how many mornings she’d spent shivering in the dampness, it never ceased wearing on her. Being cold to Michelle meant being miserable. Soul wrenching miserable.

Humanity had begun here, and its unraveling had started here as well. Michelle knew because she’d witnessed the beginning of the end with her own eyes, only a few months prior. So much had changed since then.

Her wakeup routine and the presence of the undead for example.

The night prior Michelle had taken refuge inside a small van that was abandoned on the side of the road. The van’s fading yellow paint was cracked and pocked from top to bottom, showing angry red welts of rust. It had smelled powerfully of sweat and old leather when she found it, but she was exhausted, and the little dead boy with one arm didn’t object when she got inside to rest.

The little dead boy, always walking ahead of her, never looking back. She’d tried to stop several times to see if he’d keep on walking without her, but he always stopped. He’d look back then, and come back to fetch her, as sure as the sun rises. Him and his pale white eyes, waiting for her to start putting her feet in front of each other again, one laborious step at a time. The only way to get his eyes off of her at that point was to walk behind him. Go the other way? Oh dear… that had been a terrible mistake.

Any direction the dead boy wasn’t walking in was the wrong direction to walk. The rest of the dead were always in that direction. As long as she followed in his wake, the walking dead were nearly nonexistent. The few that they did come across he dismissed with a gentle wave of his one remaining hand, sending them walking off into the distance. He was her personal Moses, parting the proverbial undead Red Sea.

Such an appropriate comparison she realized.

The little boy had appeared to her when she woke up the morning of June 23rd in the Congo, hundreds of miles away by now. Michelle and her research partner Michael had traveled deep into the jungle at midnight to witness an ancient and primordial burial ceremony there. Something had happened. Something had gone wrong, as wrong as anything can possibly go.

The temperature in the hidden glade had dropped sharply that night, and a foul taste had pervaded her senses. More powerful than just a smell, or a scent on the air, the slippery, metallic copper essence of blood had wormed its way inside her, and she knew something more powerful, more eternal than anything she’d dreamed possible had visited them.

Speaking in a voice that seemed to penetrate her mind far more than just her ears, the voice issued a decree stating that humanity had failed, and we were to be judged by our dead. Michelle had nightmares even to this day about the looks on the faces of those gathered with them at the ceremony, bearing witness to the almighty’s judgment. They all knew deep down inside, deeper than the darkest recesses of their souls, that the end was nigh.

Then, almost as a threat, the voice spoke to her and only her, and the words clung to her mind like black mold, sickening her thoughts. “Your people will earn their redemption, or all will suffer with me for eternity. YOU will bear witness to their trials Michelle Annabelle Lewis. YOU will tell all those that listen.”

Despite a lifetime of religious study, and almost sixty days of walking amongst the dead since, she still didn’t know what that statement really meant. Was she a witness? What did that mean? Was she a prophet? It was the first and strongest thought in her head whenever she found herself obsessing over that night, and the cold voice in her head.

Michelle couldn’t start another day like this. Not another headache, not today. Her body ached from sleeping curled up in the fetal position on the torn van seat. Her mouth was dry from too little water, and her belly ached from too little food. If she started another day thinking about that horrible night back in June, she’d be insane by midday.

Fat load of good a Doctorate in Theology did her as she sat up and put her tired and worn shoes on the metal floor of the old van. She shivered in the dawn chill. To her right, out of the corner of her eye she could see the dead boy standing in the dirt just outside the van, watching her. He did that a lot when they weren’t walking. Staring, observing, judging. Almost as if he was assessing her condition, or her behavior.

“Hey buddy,” she greeted the dead boy in her gravelly, dry voice. Two months of dry dusty roads, intense sun, and sparse water had ruined her voice. She’d had such a nice voice before… the dead started killing the living.

The dead boy cocked his head sideways birdlike as she talked to him, which was about as conversational as he ever got.

“Yeah, I hear ya. Just another day in Africa.” Michelle ran her fingers through her matted blonde hair. The golden sheen was long gone, replaced by a dull tarnish of dust and oil. She was a rough girl, and had gone many a long stretch without shampoo before, but this was starting to wear on her. She couldn’t stop moving to bathe if she was awake, the dead boy saw to that. Her choices were walk or sleep. Eating came on the move when she saw something edible, and going to the bathroom earned her a milky white stare. It took her a week to get used to him looking at her every time she went on the side of the road.

Michelle Lewis started towards the opening in the side of the van and the dead boy backed away, giving her room to exit. As soon as she finished stretching out, he passively turned, and began the day’s march down the African dirt road.

“I wish he’d tell me where we’re going,” Michelle muttered under her breath as she started off after him.

*****

About an hour later Michelle figured out where she was. They were entering Douala, a giant port city in Cameroon. She recognized the city’s name from a college course. Douala had been the home of great sin in the recent past. It had been the center of the slave trade for some time, and grew into a modern metropolis as a result.

Now, it was lying in ruin. As they entered the sprawling city the fact dawned on her that it had crushed itself under the weight of its own dead. Douala was a massive city by any measure. It rivaled any American or European city in population and sprawl. Stucco and slate colored apartment buildings and office towers rose dozens of stories out of the filth and heat. Michelle looked at the silent carcass of the African city and wept inside. She knew when judgment day happened this city had been found lacking.

Bodies were strewn about everywhere. In the road, lying on guard rails, propped up against the side of buildings, sitting, and standing, the people had died everywhere she looked. Many were partially eaten, thousands were shot, many had their skulls smashed apart, and not too few were hacked apart by crude machete strikes. Burnt out hulks of cars and trucks were crashed everywhere her eyes wandered. Dead soldiers and police, their heads destroyed, clung desperately to empty weapons. The stench was overwhelming. They had passed through many small towns and even some small cities on their journey, but the smell here had no comparison. It was a city overflowing with rotting human flesh. It instantly reminded Michelle of the Rwandan genocide, and the recent tragedy in Darfur.

Even with her hope squashed by the all encompassing visions of death and destruction all around her, Michelle was faintly reassured that at least the people of Douala had realized that for whatever reason, destroying the brain of the undead rendered their release from the divine power fueling their unnatural presence. Even with the locals armed with that knowledge she could see hundreds of the dead walking about in the streets aimlessly, far off the path the one armed child led her on. She couldn't see any signs of survivors.

The dead boy led her through the heart of the city, straight down the center roadways, deftly weaving her around the wreckage, human and constructed alike. In the scorching heat of the midday sun his small black form stopped next to a glass fronted café. Michelle nearly bowled him over, surprised at his sudden pause.

He turned and looked over his shoulder at her, ensuring that he had her attention with his milky white corneas. His tiny face nodded and with his one good arm he slowly pointed at the strangely pristine café.

“What?” Michelle asked him.

The dead boy responded by doing nothing. His withered, blood stained finger sat leveled at the glass counter inside the café.

“I’m not going in there. That place is probably rotten with disease and fungus now, and there are dead all over this city, I won’t go inside. No way.” Michelle shook her head at him, starting to feel the frustration and confusion build inside her.

The little black boy slowly lowered his arm and turned to fully face her. His expression was blank, as it always was, but Michelle felt there was something else there, a new expression, something… faint, something subtle, just under the surface. The dead boy closed his eyes with gentle intent.

Just as she narrowed her eyes her skin tingled from a charge in the air. A warm breeze stirred the air around her, and the delicate smell of lilies filled the world. Her palate suddenly warmed with the subtle hint of the sweet flavor of honey. Michelle was suddenly made buoyant with inexplicable positive energy. The warmth of the midday sun, the taste of honey on her lips, the sudden scent of the flowers overpowering the stomach churning stench of the city, and the breeze rustling her hair all spoke to her on a primordial level. Michelle felt like she was transported to a wholly different place without moving an inch. She felt small suddenly, and enveloped in the presence of greatness.

The small boy opened his eyes again, and the milky white deadness was gone. In its place were the twin brown eyes the child had been born with, innocent, full of life, and pure. Without opening his mouth the boy spoke to her, much like the voice from the glade, yet entirely different.

“There is clean food and drink in there. Do not let this bounty pass, our journey through the city will not allow for rest after this.”

Michelle heard the voice in her mind absent of words and accent. It was transcendental pure communication on a level mundane humans never experienced. The meaning and intent was emblazoned into her consciousness as if it were her own thoughts that she had only just realized. Before she could understand what she was doing, she felt herself nodding rapidly in agreement with the child, and backing away towards the café to get the food the voice told her about. As she turned to walk away the boy blinked again, and his eyes reverted to their cloudy, hazy state.

In the café Michelle found food and drink, just as the voice told her she would.

*****

Michelle and the dead boy spent the rest of that oppressively hot August day worming their way through the center of Douala. Many times along their frightening journey the boy stopped moving, freezing like a statue. Michelle knew this to be the boy warning her of the presence of other undead. As long as she precisely followed the dead boy’s instructions to move or not move, the undead left her alone, and she passed unscathed. The one time she’d strayed from his path there had been blood, and tears. A painful lesson learned every day with the limp she was just now almost over.

Once the boy started his stilted, dead movement again she resumed hers. He was her guide through the center of the African necropolis.

The tallest of the buildings loomed over her, casting down a pattern of shadows that cut the sun’s heat. Michelle had to dig into her pocket to fetch out her red bandana to tie across her face. The stench of the dead was threatening her stomach and the fresh food she’d just put in it. The rag didn’t keep the stench of rot out, but it contained enough of it that she didn’t feel like she was about to retch.

As she and her dead guide finally began to cross the massive bridge spanning the waterway that fed the mangroves inland, they saw their first and last survivor of Douala. Michelle froze when she heard the tell-tale pattern of feet hitting the pavement in rapid succession. The undead never ran, they only shuffled, or walked. Once she’d seen one leap at a man to kill him, but that was rare. The sound of running on the pavement stood out to her as alien, and an optimistic sign of life.

Michelle ran to the side of the bridge and looked back into the city they were leaving. Beyond a row of trees lay a large gathering of low warehouses. The buildings were sturdy, and had been a center of business and industry before the end. The sound of running came from there, and she watched intently, leaning on the railing of the bridge. She realized the boy had stopped to wait for her, but she was fixated on whoever was making the noise.

Far down in the warehouse area she caught a glimpse of a man sprinting from one building to another. He was as thin as she was and as dark skinned as she was light. Even from this far away she could see he was wide eyed with fear. He dove to the ground behind the corpse of a car, badly scraping his knees and elbows. She could feel the sting and see the bright red of his blood seep out.

Following the man slowly across the expanse between the two buildings was a large gathering of the dead. Both white and black skinned they pushed forward like the tide rising, inexorable, and unstoppable. The man gathered himself and took off running with a limp, reaching the opposing warehouse door and desperately banging on it. She could hear him screaming, and didn’t need to know what he was saying. Some language is universal.

He tugged at the door handle, pathetically crying out in fear and pain. The door held strong and didn’t budge, and after looking over his shoulder at the crowd of the dead bearing down on him, he let go of the handle, and ran around the building and out of her sight. The undead followed him, and soon they too were gone, pursuing their prey.

Michelle was overwhelmed by the moment. All she could think of was the desperate man, trying to escape his grim fate, and running further into the city filled with dead. It was a miracle he’d survived this long, and she knew he would be dead by sundown unless another miracle happened for him. With grimy hands she wiped away the tears streaming down her face. She felt something bump up against her, and she jerked away.

The dead child had slid up next to her against the rail, and was looking up at her with his wide, dead white eyes. His one remaining hand sat on the rail.

“Why is this happening? You know. I know you know.” Michelle pointed an accusatorial finger down at the dead child. “If God is telling you what to do, then ask him why is he doing this!” Michelle snapped at the walking corpse that served as her guide. Predictably, the dead boy said nothing in return.

“Of course. Silence. To hell with you. Fuck you.” Michelle was filled with fury and indignation. She felt spurned, ignored, and hurt. Her faith had been tested to the breaking point.

The small boy looked at her, and as she’d seen only once before, he inhaled deeply, forcing his long unused lungs to fill with air that did nothing for his body. It seemed to Michelle more like the mechanical action of a bellows than the natural breathing of a child. She wondered who or what was operating the machine.

His tiny lungs filled with enough dirty air, and he spoke to her aloud for the first time. As he said his peace, she felt the same breeze from earlier that day pick up once more, and the scent of lilies fill the air around her again, “All knowledge comes with a price. Have faith Michelle Annabelle Lewis.”

Michelle’s eyes froze open, unsure of whether or not to be amazed, or furious. The soothing breeze died down as suddenly as it had picked up and she swallowed, and calmed herself. The one armed boy slowed, turned and walked away, leaving her behind.

After a few moments of unsure thought, Michelle started walking behind him again.

*****

It was more than a month before the dead boy spoke again. By Michelle’s wearied reckoning his words came in the first days of October. She couldn’t be sure of course. Her little dead guide wasn’t interested in stopping anywhere to allow her to look at a calendar.

Just as before Michelle walked in his stead, wondering day after scorching day when the relief of the cool breeze and the scent of lilies would return, signaling the presence of something greater. The long days since the knee-deep disgust of Douala had shown more of the same to her. Every large population center was a den of filth and villainy. She’d watched from afar as people murdered one another for food, water, or sex. The little dead boy stopped on many occasions just in time for them to witness the horror of the dead killing one more of the living. They always waited long enough to see, and long enough to let the undead wander away, looking for its next victim. Michelle still didn’t know why the dead boy stopped for these moments.

Was it to illustrate a point to her? Was she to witness every possible moment of the massacre of human life from the face of Earth? Was she supposed to bear witness to the continued sins of mankind against one another, even in the face of that apocalypse?

Michelle had so many questions, and the only answer she’d been given was that “knowledge came with a price.”

And to Michelle, that wasn’t an answer. She reminded herself constantly, multiple times each day that her faith had to carry her through this. That is easier said than done, as anyone who has had tragedy thrust upon them can attest. Michelle wondered day in and day out which religion applied to the state of the world. Should she be seeking to improve herself, and focus on the Buddhist Four Noble Truths? She certainly was suffering.

Should she seek out the truths contained in The Old Testament, and apply the beliefs of the Torah? Should she return to her years as a practicing Wiccan? Seeking out the support of the energy of the Earth? Should she work up a spell to repair the fabric of the world? Or should she turn to Christian beliefs, and seriously start looking for the second coming of Jesus Christ? So many avenues of faith to try to analyze the state of the world with, and not one good answer supplied from any of them. She had nothing but piddling morsels of guidance, and snippets of wisdom.

That all changed for her in October. By the signs on the side of the road they were somewhere in Ghana when it happened. The overpowering heat of summer had finally begun to wane into the merely oppressive heat of the fall, and it was the end of another long day’s walk. Michelle’s stomach was empty, and growled at her fiercely that night. She dragged her feet searching the surroundings of the road they walked on for something to eat. Anything to shut the noise of her emptiness off.

Michelle had recently lowered herself to eating insects. Frequently if she wasn’t willing to eat something with more than four legs, she didn’t eat at all. The route her dead guide took her on didn’t take them past many shops that had food inside. On a good week they might find two or three places where the little boy would stop and point his emaciated finger and let her know food or water was present. He was never wrong, and that cheered her up. She now lived for those moments. Even if all they pointed out to her was a spoiling fruit, or a small lizard she had to catch and cook herself. Sometimes she’d start to make a fire at night to stay warm, or cook with, and the small boy would shake his head no to her, and she’d have to eat the lizard raw. She’d gotten used to that. It wasn't so bad when you were starving to death.

That evening in October the little boy led her off the main road for a bit, down a drive to the coastline that was straight as an arrow, and lined with budding palm trees reaching towards the blue sky like a row of outstretched fingers. At the end of the drive she discovered a large house perched right against the water that looked like it belonged in the Caribbean on an island resort. The tall stone walls circling the estate were a pinkish coral color, and topped with giant iron spikes. As they approached the massive wrought iron gate of the palatial estate, Michelle wondered for the first time if the boy was leading her to other survivors.

The two halves of the baroque gate swung apart and inward as the boy approached it, as if by magic. A sea breeze picked up at that exact moment, and mixed with the customary scent of sea salt, Michelle noticed the gentle caress of lilies. Her skin prickled with anticipation, feeling that another moment with the greater power was near at hand. Unconsciously she picked up her gait to close the distance between her and the boy.

Inside the compound walls there had been a bloodbath. A grey cobblestone driveway encircled an ornate fountain of a cherub, long since run dry. The tiny bow in the angel’s hands stood out as a macabre joke, an angelic warrior standing idle, watching death surround it. Judging by the rotting and festering bodies tossed about around it, there had been much death to observe. Michelle pulled her red bandana up over her mouth and nose one once. Her barren stomach clenched in revulsion as the boy led her impassively through the gore filled, overgrown yard, and into the massive estate.

Inside was slightly more palatable. Only one body lay in the white tile hall, and it was desiccated to the point where Michelle couldn’t tell the sex anymore. It was facedown and naked for whatever reason, and her mind wandered to dark places trying to ascertain what had happened in this house of death.

Her dead guide walked her though the home, eventually exiting the open back onto a veranda that was as beautiful as the courtyard was horrible. The sun was setting to the side of the home, casting long streaks of golden color onto the frothy white waves cresting into the rocky shore. The light wind coming off the water smelled of the best things the sea had to offer. It reminded her of freshness, a sweet salty air, and the promise of clean skin. Michelle had stopped to take in the grandeur of the ocean, and the beauty of the home. For a moment, she almost forgot where she was.

When the wind shifted, she was reminded instantly of where she was. The wretched odor of the death nearby ensured her of a strong dose of reality. She shook her head and lowered the bandana, looking around for her intrepid undead companion. He was standing at the end of the veranda, near the very corner of the house. He waited until she saw him, and then pointed out a hammock swaying to and fro in the ocean breeze.

She walked to him, smiling at the comfort she hoped the hammock would bring her later. “Is this bed for tonight? Any chance there is food around here too?” Michelle was almost in a good mood.

The little dead black boy cocked his head to the side, his expression shifting to one of subtle amusement. Then his chest began to inflate. Michelle’s heart jumped in her chest as she realized he might speak to her. She knew it was inevitable when that welcome scent played again in her nose, the floral essence of lilies.

“There is food here. Tonight you shall sleep. Tonight you shall dream.”

And dream she did.

*****

Until the day she died Michelle knew she would never forget a single detail about the dream she had that night. In fact, most nights after that October night on the veranda, Michelle fell asleep thinking about the dream. The dream of The White Room.

Michelle Annabelle Lewis fell asleep under the stars to the rhythm of the waves cresting and beating against the rocks of the shore. When her mind pulled gently away from reality and entered the dream, she was still in the hammock, and had the fresh scent of the ocean in her nose.

The soft white light of the room emanated strong enough through her eyelids to let her know she was no longer swinging in the dark, suspended in the hammock above the veranda floor. Michelle had opened her eyes in the dream, revealing a sky above, filled with white puffy clouds that reminded her of a certain summer day spent in church. She heard the chirps of song birds in the distance, and instantly she felt welcomed, and at ease.

“Shelly, sit up, we need to talk to you,” a man’s voice spoke to her. It was the soft tenor of her father’s voice.

Michelle sat up in the hammock, steadying herself in the mesh of snow white rope. She swung her head around in the featureless white space, looking for her father. “Daddy? Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I’m right here peanut.” From behind her.

Before Michelle turned to the direction of the voice her heart was already pounding with glee. She had worried so badly about her mother and father since June. She had spent many an uncomfortable, sleepless night wondering what their fate was. When she turned, she saw her father sitting in a white chair against a white wall. He was dressed as she remembered him, wearing cotton khaki slacks, a button up white shirt, and a sweater vest. He loved his sweater vests.

Michelle got herself off the hammock and ran to him. In The White Room she was barefoot, and her delicate feet danced across the soft white floor to him. He stood and embraced her for what felt like forever, and yet was not long enough.

“You look good.” Her father smiled at her. She absorbed the familiar wrinkles of his face as she gazed on him.

“I look terrible. I haven’t taken good care of myself lately. If I were awake right now, you’d be chastising me for playing in the dirt.” Michelle smiled and wiped away the tears of joy running down her cheek. “How is mother, are you both okay?”

Her father never lost his smile as he shook his head at her. “Oh no Shelly. We’re dead.”

Michelle’s tears of joy abruptly stopped. “Wha-? What? How?”

“We died in a bombing I think. We were at the townhouse we just bought in Richmond. We were doing well. We had plenty of food and water. One minute we were there, then we heard some loud explosions outside, then the next second we were gone. I just hope the explosion was powerful enough to destroy our bodies. I’d hate to think we are still out there menacing the living.” He smiled sadly.

Michelle shook her head the whole time he spoke. “That can’t be. I mean…”

“Oh it can be Shelly. It's okay. It was our time. No sense arguing the point. There are far bigger fish to fry now.” That was one of his favorite ways to distract her. Whenever Michelle became angry, or frustrated, he always told her to not worry or fret. After all, there are always bigger fish to fry.

“You’ve met Oudry already?” It was less a question, and more of a presentation. As he asked her he gestured down and to his side, and Michelle noticed her dead guide had joined them in The White Room.

He sidled up next to her father and smiled a normal, boyish grin. His ravaged arm was made whole in the dream, and his ashen skin had returned to a healthy, dark sheen. Oudry’s smile was infectious, and Michelle couldn’t help but soak it in. He seemed so normal and loving here.

“Hello Michelle. I’m glad to have been chosen to be with you.” Oudry said in clean accented English, in his own voice.

Her lips trembled at the sound of his real voice. It was lilting, and innocent. “Oudry, what a wonderful name. I am sorry if I’ve been bad company to you on our journey thus far. I don’t understand all that is happening, and my patience and faith have been tested.” Michelle’s mind drifted painfully from the reality that her parents had died.

Oudry nodded in agreement with her as Michelle’s father spoke. “That is why we are here now. We’ve been asked to speak with you about some of what has transpired. Much has been revealed to us my daughter.”

Michelle’s heart leapt once more into her throat. Just the thought of learning more about what was happening made her tremble on the inside. In an instant she was rewound two decades to her college days, when everything was new to her. She felt revitalized, even there in the mystical dreamscape of The White Room.

“Come, sit at the table. It's important.” Her father gestured to the part of the room she hadn’t paid any attention to yet. A few feet away there was a round table. Like the rest of the room it was as white as a cloud in the sky, and gave off a perfectly normal luminescence that calmed and soothed. Arranged around the small circular table were three chairs, and her father, little Oudry, and Michelle moved to the seats. Once they were all seated, her father leaned forward onto the table, and crossed his fingers.

“Shelly, you’ve been chosen for a special purpose,” he said in a voice that had a hint of fatherly pride in it.

Michelle swallowed. “What purpose is that dad? I feel like all I’ve done is walk across half of Africa, starving, watching people kill each other, and fighting back the urge to vomit as the dead murder the living. This seems more like ordinary torture to me dad.”

Her father nodded knowingly. He did that a lot when she was growing up. “I know dear. Your fatigue and loneliness must be tremendous. I can tell you’re hurting, and I know this seems like hell on earth to you, but it’s all part of a plan that even I don’t fully understand yet. I do know that this journey is necessary for your purpose.”

Oudry spoke up, “We are traveling to meet the Warden.” He looked back and forth from Michelle to her father and back again. It seemed like he was unsure if he was supposed to say what he’d just let slip.

“Who is the Warden?” Michelle asked her father and the boy.

The two men, one young, one old looked at each other, trying to figure out a way to explain what confused even them. Her father was the first to speak, “We don’t know who the Warden is. All we know of him is that he is the protector of the Trinity. And you are a member of that Trinity. Oudry has been charged with keeping you safe until you can be united with the Warden.”

“What’s the Trinity? The holy trinity? I’m lost.” Michelle paged through her knowledge searching for information about all things related to threes. There were multitudes of entries relating to the number three. Many religions found it important. She shook her head in thought.

“Not exactly. There is power in numbers Shelly. I don’t know why, but there is. It is like physics, or chemistry, or love and faith. It just is, and that’s how things work. Mysterious ways, right? Three happens to be a powerful symbol, and the wheels that have set this in motion have decided that the Trinity shall be the final chance for mankind’s salvation.”

“The wheels that set this in motion? Do you mean God?” The ultimate question.

Her father took a deep breath and pondered the question. After a long time of searching for the right words, he responded, “God is as good a word as we will ever use, yes.”

“So he exists? God really exists?” Michelle couldn’t help but smile. The White Room and everything that had happened in it thus far was literally a dream come true for her. She’d spent her whole life searching for God, and in a dream she’d found proof of it.

“Of all the people left in the world Shelly, you need to be careful calling ‘God’ a ‘he.’ Ascribing a sex to something as all encompassing as the Divine is to fall into the same trap that has led humanity to the catechism we are in. It is your role in this to guide humanity to a better understanding of what faith really should be.” Her father was almost sad as he told her all this.

Michelle was confused. She looked at her father and Oudry for some time, fathoming what he had said to her. She was meant to guide humanity? How would she do that? She hadn’t met a single living person since the Congo. Everyone alive had been killed by each other or the dead before she had the chance to speak with them.

Oudry spoke up, “You should be proud. God chose you to represent what he wants. He wants you to show everyone a better way.”

That helped her. It was much simpler than what her father had said, and seemed eternally better to her somehow. “I don’t know if I’m up for that. That is an awful lot of responsibility.”

“You are not alone in this,” her father told her.

“The Trinity?” She asked.

He nodded. “And more. Many more. The Divine has taken measures to ensure that you are given a fair chance at saving humanity. Many will help you along your journey. Like Oudry here for example. He is your protector until you can meet the Warden.”

Michelle was suddenly very happy for having her undead friend along all this time. Then a dark thought struck her. “Wait. If the Divine started all this, why do I need protecting? Can’t the Divine protect me by will alone? The dead are his instruments right? Why can’t the Divine just protect me without the need for Oudry and this Warden person?”

Her father looked scared. It was the first time she had ever seen her father scared. The White Room’s light waned as he began to talk again, “I don’t fully understand it all yet. But what I have pieced together, is that there is more than one force at play now.”

Michelle’s eyes darted around the darkening room, searching for ideas as to what that could mean. Her brain put two and two together, and she was not pleased with what she said next, “Whoa. Satan? Is it the Devil?”

“Again Shelly, I guess that’s as good a name as any. Although I’m sure you can understand it is a lot more complicated than just a fallen angel, a lake of fire, and a pitchfork.” Her father sighed deeply.

“Evil, right? We’re talking about pure evil?” Oddly enough, that made sense to her.

“Something like that. The Divine isn’t evil, but through course of action, it can bring evil into existence, and sometimes, to cure a cancer, you need to give up a pound of flesh. Evil can carve that pound of flesh easily.”

“Evil is doing all this?” She gestured around the room in her dream as if she was pointing out the horrors she’d witnessed with her own eyes in Africa.

“Mankind has brought evil upon us. So in a fashion, we have done this to ourselves. Evil powers the instruments that are judging us. Evil manipulates those it can to get at those it can’t. Evil brings out the part of us that we wish we didn’t have, and evil tempts us with the things we want, but are unwilling to earn. The Divine is protecting you from the evil it unleashed on the world using Oudry now, and the rest of the Trinity will later, when you are united.”

“So who is the third member of the Trinity? You’ve spoken of the Warden already. If I am the second, who is the third?” Michelle leaned forward, eager to learn the identity of the last person.

“The Soul. Some of us have called him the Scribe as well. He is the chronicler of mankind’s struggles. He will write of your success, or your failure.” Her father’s tone changed as he talked of the third. The darkened room suddenly filled with warm white light again. She felt buoyed by the essence of the room.

Oudry’s little frame even looked energized. “I wish I could meet him. He seems very nice. If he could forgive himself, he’ll make for a good leader. They will tell the most tales about him, if you all survive.”

Michelle’s curiosity was peaked. “Why is he called the Soul? If he’s writing everything down somehow, and he’s the Scribe, how did he earn two titles? And for that matter, who am I? What do they say about me?” She was confused.

Her father answered. “Second question first. We call you the Savior, but some also call you the Soul as well.” Her father’s pride showed through again. “It is your role to guide humanity to a better way, and to accomplish that, you must ensure that the Scribe, or the Soul if you prefer, redeems himself, thus proving that humanity is not beyond redemption, and is worthy of a new chance at life.”

She nodded, understanding somewhat. “Wait, I’m the Soul too? What does that mean?”

Oudry chirped up, “We think you two will fall in love. Everyone is wondering if you’re soul mates. I think you are.”

Michelle was unable to speak. Angels or ghosts were looking into her future, and had deemed that she might fall in love with a man that desperately needed her assistance to be redeemable. It was an unbelievable tale to say the least. It was certainly not the fairy tale she had dreamt of as a child.

“I can see you are skeptical, and that is understandable. I can tell you one last thing before the morning sun breaks and you need to leave. Your beliefs define you Shelly. You have walked amongst the temples, the shrines, the mosques, and the churches of almost every religion mankind has had faith in, and your ability to see the best in all of them has appealed to the Divine. Your faith had guided you your entire life, and now you have the opportunity to let your faith guide all of mankind to a better future. Trust in your beliefs, and you shall be rewarded.”

That comforted her. One last question rose to the top of her mind as the light of the room grew in intensity, and took on the power of the rising sun. “You’ve said ‘we’ several times. Who is we? Angels? Spirits? Ghosts?”

Oudry and her father looked at each other with wise, sad eyes. She regretted having asked the question immediately.

“Heaven and hell are shut to us until the catechism is resolved. We sit in a restless world of pugratory until we are brought here to The White Room. Some say they have found the ability to enter the dreams of those they were closely tied to in life, but that seems rare. Those of you in the Trinity are special, you are closer to us than the others. A bright light in the darkness. We can reach out to you easier.”

Michelle nodded sadly. “What happens to you if we fail? What happens if we are judged unworthy for all time?”

“Then humanity will disappear forever, we will be cleansed off the Earth, and our souls will be scoured from the record of existence, and the Divine will begin anew without us.”

The blinding light of the dawn sun pierced her eyelids, giving everything a rosy hue. This morning for this first time since they started their journey together, she’d woken up before Oudry tapped her. It was a whole new day.

*****

It seemed to Michelle in the days after the dream in The White Room that the world made a lot more sense. Sometimes the greatest fear is the fear of the unknown, and having even a small amount of the story presented to her brought her solace. Knowledge was power.

It also helped that she no longer feared the boy guiding her to her destination. In fact, she had grown quite attached to him, or at the least attached to the memory of who he used to be. Michelle now walked beside him, instead of twenty paces behind him.

Michelle’s attitude shifted dramatically towards her plight, and it seemed like the world shifted to reward her. No longer did she dwell on the massacre of humanity. Instead she filled her days with thoughts of how this would be, or how this could be a clean slate to start society and life anew, without hatred, without misconceptions, and without bias. Her mind was filled with hours and hours of recanting what she could remember of various religious texts, and tales of deeds both good and bad, and parables filled with insight from all over the world.

As she became more and more comfortable with her situation, she found herself telling Oudry’s walking body all of her ideas. From afar, it would look like madness incarnate. A tall, radiantly beautiful woman wearing dirty clothes, covered in filth talking to the reanimated dead body of a little African boy. Some days she would be so excited about her ideas she’d gesture as if she was reciting a long prepared speech to a gathered crowd. One might even imagine that she could be practicing a sermon, or a chant of inspiration to a gathering of imagined believers.

Oudry pointed out far more food to her after the dream of The White Room in Ghana. Michelle noticed this, and was deeply thankful. Her belly full far more often meant she had more energy, and could walk farther, and faster. She didn’t know where they were headed, but she knew who would be there when she arrived. The Warden.

Oudry took her to the coast where they walked for many a long day. She found the majesty of the dark blue ocean a comfort. Always to her left on the journey it reminded her of the immensity of the world, and the grandeur of the power that guided it along its path. She felt small next to it, and yet because it was so close, she felt like a part of something massive, beautiful, and powerful.

The odd duo walked for weeks and weeks, skirting the dead and living alike. Michelle trusted little Oudry to keep her safe, and instead of being angry and feeling controlled when he stopped, she felt protected. It was liberating to put her fate in the hands of the Divine, and to know that something was looking over her through the boy. All was well until their last day together.

The moist heat of equatorial Africa had been abandoned weeks before that day for the dry heat of the African desert. Michelle was grateful that the time of year was heading into the autumn, because if it were the middle of summer, she would’ve roasted alive. Even so, her skin had burned, blistered, peeled and eventually bronzed over in the constant sun. She didn’t have the map memorized, but she could read many of the remaining road signs, and she knew they had crossed into southern Morocco.

Oudry took them abruptly inland late in what Michelle believed to be November, though she wasn’t sure of the date. The road they followed had signs saying they were approaching a small Moroccan city called Tan-tan. Michelle had never heard of it. She asked Oudry if they were going through the city, or around it, but Oudry never answered her. He simply put one bare, black foot in front of the other, and pushed forward.

They had walked underneath a massive pair of sand colored statues hanging over the road in the shapes of kissing camels when Oudry abruptly changed direction. The afternoon sun blazed behind her, cooking her back and stretching her shadow fifty feet in front of her. It would be dark soon, and shortly after that, very cold. A long arrow-like road extended inland further, and yet another sign sat on the sandy corner alone, telling her where the road headed. Aeroport Plage Blanche de Tan-Tan it said.

An airport.

Oudry walked slowly now, choosing his steps deliberately, almost as if he were leading her through a deadly minefield. Michelle’s anxiety rose when she realized that she was feeling worry coming off him in waves. She’d never felt this way around him before. She had always been the one afraid, and now, she knew he was the fearful one. But fearful of what?

What could scare Oudry? He was already dead, he had so little to lose.

When the sun dropped into the ocean far behind her Oudry stopped. The night sky was nebulous above her, filled with a billion twinkling stars, and vibrant swathes of color from clouds of gases floating a lifetime away. She could see more constellations in the night sky than she’d ever imagined existed, and that comforted her. There was so much majesty she’d never experience it all.

She had her head tilted back, eyes fixated on the sky above, her long blonde hair brushing against her bottom when she realized Oudry had put his lone hand on her arm. It was telling that she simply looked to him, and didn’t pull away sharply. It had been a long time since she’d jerked from his touch, having come to grips with what he was, and what he represented. Michelle looked down at him, wondering what he wanted.

The night air had a brisk chill to it, and her skin puckered against it. As she asked her friend what he wanted, she caught that familiar essence of flowers once more. “Oudry what is it? Something wrong?”

They had more or less come to a stop in the middle of nowhere. She couldn’t see the airport ahead, or the original road behind. The flat, featureless terrain in every direction gave her no bearing. With the enormous blue-black speckled sky above, she could’ve been floating in space.

As Oudry inhaled a deep breath, she smiled, awaiting more words from the Divine. “We cannot go further. We shall rest here, and have a final talk. The Warden is close, but Evil is closer.”

Michelle’s heart suddenly thundered in her chest.

*****

Oudry gathered several small piles of sticks over the course of a few hours while Michelle sat on the edge of the airport road in the flat featureless night. She pulled the thin zip up sweatshirt she’d found a month ago around her to fight the cool air. It was a feeble effort, and she knew it would be a very long night, devoid of rest. She was kept warm and mildly cheerful only because Oudry had spoken of The Warden, and that he was near.

She tried to forget that he’d said Evil was close too.

Oudry moved about her setting up small piles of the dry wood he’d gathered. Almost in a ritualistic fashion he put the sticks down in three piles, spaced equally a few paces apart. She shivered and watched him intently until he’d arranged the fire piles to his mysterious satisfaction. When he finished, he took a seat on the ground in front of her, and looked at the pile nearest her. She knew he wanted her to light them.

When Michelle and Oudry were walking through what she thought was the former nation of Liberia, she’d rested in a small shop that sold tobacco products. Before she’d left the next day, she found a single remaining lighter on the floor, and she scooped it up. Michelle fished the small tool from her tattered pant pocket and went to work on getting the sticks to take the flame.

Surprisingly the tinder caught with little effort. Once she had the first small pile of sticks burning on its own, she sat back down, and looked to the patiently waiting Oudry. The dead boy turned his head and leveled his eyes on the second pile of sticks, and she put two and two together, and began to light the remaining piles of branches. Much like the first pile, the final two piles took the flame from the lighter almost immediately, and burned warm and bright. Surrounded on all sides by golden yellow flame, she was cocooned in warmth. The night’s chill was shooed away as she sat down cross legged on the cool dirt across from Oudry.

She watched the flames flicker across his face for some time, waiting for him to do something, anything. Oudry’s pale white eyes took on the light of the flame and for the first time in a long time, she started to feel fear again. Oudry’s expression was blank, and distant, but as the golden light of the flame lit up those white eyes, she started to feel as if something was wrong.

“Oudry, you said we needed to have a final talk, what did that mean?” Michelle asked the immobile child with one arm. Putting the words out there made the pit of her stomach knot. For months now she’d been with him in one fashion or another, and the idea of this being a night of endings for that relationship scared her. It frightened her. She didn’t know how to be alone anymore.

Oudry turned and looked over his shoulder in the direction Michelle thought the airport was in. His white eyes fixated on the horizon, she couldn’t help but look to where he was. She saw nothing but the flat, empty terrain of western Africa. There was a slight bump where she thought the airport might’ve been, but it could’ve easily just been a mountain in the distance.

“Michelle Annabelle Lewis, tonight is the last night you will ever spend in Africa.”

Michelle’s chest caught in surprise. She didn’t expect him to speak so suddenly. Especially not in The Voice. She replayed the sentence in her head and realized that just like the first time she’d heard it, The Voice was not aloud, but inside her mind. She didn’t know what to say, or how to respond, so she remained silent, and watched the boy as he continued to stare over his shoulder at the dark horizon.

“By the breaking of dawn you will either die here, or The Warden will come in time, and begin his task of protecting you.”

Michelle realized that her eyes had filled with moisture. She wasn’t even crying, just welling up with emotion. Her heart soared as the pit of her stomach continued to sink. She was everywhere emotionally. She wondered how she would know The Warden when he arrived, if he arrived.

“You will know the Warden by his garments of white.”

Michelle nodded at his silent, timely instruction. She was relieved her unasked question was answered.

“I can impart to you some knowledge this night. I can illuminate some truth. I can remove some falsehoods, but time is short.”

“Thank you.” Michelle whispered. Oudry turned to face her, and she was stunned. His white eyes had disappeared, replaced with eyes of striking, rich blue. Set in the face of the dead child they were powerful, and reminded her of the blue of a newborn’s eyes.

“You are familiar with the parables.”

It was not a question. Michelle nodded at him.

“There is a parable that has some truth that I will point out to you. How much truth it contains is yours to debate. In the Parable of Weeds the world is as a farmer’s field, and the people are as the crops. Evil grows amongst the people just as the weeds grow amongst the crops Michelle.

The time has come that there are as many weeds as there are crops in the fields, and that cannot be abided. I have let the weeds run rampant now, and only the heartiest and most deserving of the field’s bounty shall survive this culling.

But the weeds are cunning. They grow underneath the crops, taking the richness of the soil from below, and blocking the sun from above. Some weeds appear as beauty might, taking the form of a flower, tricking the world into leaving it be.

I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Will they turn from their ways Michelle? Can you rebuild the field once more, sow it, and cultivate life, and joy, instead of death, waste and hatred?

The weeds are taking the fields Michelle. You are one of three that are tasked with saving the bounty that is humanity, and culling the weeds that are the dead.”

Michelle had no idea how to respond to that either, so she sat silently, absorbing it, eyes locked on the baby blue eyes of the Divine. Oudry’s voice was silent for some time, and Michelle gained the courage to ask a question aloud. “How do I do my part? My father told me I was part of The Trinity, and I was called the Savior, or the Soul. What does that mean?”

Oudry’s tiny mouth cracked a smile. “The names you have been ascribed have no more meaning than what you give them. Know that you will succeed together, or fail together regardless of what you choose to call one another.”

“My father said I was supposed to lead humanity to a better world? That I could reinvent how we looked at God, and faith, and each other. How do I do that? How do I lead the whole world?” Michelle asked.

Oudry smiled once more. It was a knowing smile, as if he expected her to ask that very question. “It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”

“That’s Buddhist, isn’t it? I’ve read that before.”

Oudry nodded. “There is much to be taken from every belief. Not every belief is right, or wrong, what is most important, is to believe.”

Michelle nodded, starting to put everything together in her mind. “I think I get it now. If I lead the life we should all lead, then others will follow suit, and I’ll reach every corner of the Earth through my life’s work.”

Oudry shrugged slowly. “This is your choice to make. I cannot tell you how to fulfill your task. It would not be genuine and real if you were to take guidance from me beyond what we have already spoken of.”

Michelle took a deep breath and nodded. She swallowed and looked to the sky, tasting that familiar sweetness of honey once more. The presence of the Divine had such wonderful rewards. She looked down once more and saw that Oudry had turned away, eyes locked on the horizon towards the airport. She swallowed once more, and the sweet flavor of honey had changed subtly. She caught the faint hint of copper. She tasted the familiar and unwanted slickness of warm, salty blood on the air. In a flash of memory, she was brought back to that midnight in the glade, and the cold presence of the first entity that had begun the end. Michelle’s eyes widened, realizing she and Oudry might not be alone after all.

“Evil is near. This body and spirit will only protect you for a little while longer. The presence of Evil dictates that I must defer this one’s body back.”

“What will happen then? Where is this Warden person?” Michelle stood up, looking around into the pitch black darkness of the desert on all sides.

Oudry’s one remaining arm raised itself slowly, and pointed to the star filled sky. As he did so, Michelle heard two noises simultaneously.

Far in the sky above, and growing louder each second she heard the familiar buzz of a large plane’s rotors chopping at the air. She was by no means an aviation expert, but it sounded like a massive plane, and one that was coming in her direction. Against the night sky filled with white stars she saw the tiniest of flashing lights, and she knew the plane was indeed nearby.

The second noise she heard chilled her to the core. When she’d stood a moment before, Oudry had taken to his tiny feet with her. He’d placed his miniscule frame between her and the horizon towards the airport. Michelle looked down from the small blinking lights of the plane and looked into the darkness beyond the small boy. It looked to her like the entire Earth was vibrating, undulating, shifting. She was sure it was a trick of the eyes. Perhaps it was the flames nearby? Was it a mirage? Maybe it was her confusion from the presence of such greatness?

Then she realized what the noise was.

Feet. Not one foot, nor ten feet. She felt the trembling of the desert floor below her as a legion of the dead approached. The shimmering ground was not the ground at all, but their bodies, moving closer, directly towards her and the small trio of flames burning bright around her.

The Voice spoke through the corpse child one last time.

“The Warden’s moment is nigh. Pray he lives up to this task Michelle Annabelle Lewis, or both you and the fields shall succumb to the weeds for all time.”

May 4th

I’m wiped. This needs to be a fairly short entry, or I’ll face plant into the keyboard and wake up tomorrow with a bunch of little square key impressions on my face. The only thing worth talking about is 114 Park Street, and how I am not crazy.

Read that again Mr. Journal. I am not crazy. Stupid maybe, but not crazy.

I didn’t go with everyone today as Gilbert requested (he correctly thought I might be too invested in everything), and when everyone returned, they all looked at me like I was... I don’t know, special or something. Like I was one of those weird guys on the late night talk shows that claimed they could channel spirits and talk to your dead relatives and shit. I felt a little ostracized, but also validated at the same time.

Andrea, Madison, and Lindsey were at that house. I guess my people rolled in making plenty of noise to ensure that they couldn’t be mistaken for having snuck up on them, and Abby approached the house on foot, right out in the open. I originally put up a stink about her going, but she insisted on accompanying them, and frankly, she’s as adamant a supporter of me and my lunacy as there is, so having her there as my advocate was probably a decent idea. I am just scared she’ll get hurt seriously one of these days.

They parked the trucks away from the house, and Abby walked through the abandoned street with her arms held high, and called out to the house that we knew they were there inside, and that Doug had asked us to come get them. Abby was greeted with a shotgun barrel out of a window. I guess Lindsey didn’t quite believe her. Kudos to the other three for not lighting that house up when they saw that barrel poke out into the sunlight. At the range she was at, there was little chance Abby would’ve been hurt badly with the spread of a shotgun blast and all, but shit, if I saw someone point a gun at Abby, holy shit it is fucking curtains for them. Game-fucking-over.

Abby spoke to them about why they were there, and from what Gilbert said, she fucking told them exactly what happened. Dream story and all. I’m not sure if that helped, but after a tense half hour, the barrel disappeared, and Lindsey let Abby and Patty inside so they could talk.

When they left this morning, we loaded the truck up with some canned food, some water, a little bit of hygiene shit, and some clothes we thought would work for them. The mother and daughter brought the stuff, and they sat down with the remnants of the Manning family, and talked about what happened.

Patty said she was the one that shot Doug, and Lindsey of course cried. If she hadn’t cried, I guess that would’ve been kind of damning. However, Lindsey was thankful that Doug didn’t suffer long, and most importantly, didn’t come back to hurt anyone else. I guess there’s the silver lining in finishing off one of us if we’re going to die. We need to be mindful that we’re doing right by that person, and not the alternative.

Abby and Patty told them we had a secure facility on the outskirts of town, and that we (read, I) promised that we’d take care of them in the wake of Doug’s death, and if they were interested, we’d take them in here, or at least help them get set up somewhere safe. Lindsey said she’d have to think about it, and that’s understandable. As Gilbert said, we were the enemy yesterday. They agreed on another meeting on Park Street on the 7th at 9am. Hopefully that meeting is less awkward, and I get to go. I’m feeling better every day now, and I am optimistic that I will make that trip.

Before I forget, I want to point something out. If you haven’t already noticed, during the entire visit with Doug’s family, they didn’t encounter a single zombie. As soon as they left, Gilbert said they had contact with some stragglers. A few undead slinking out into the open from… somewhere. In the interest of not making noise and scaring the Manning family, they left those undead where they saw them, and moved out.

Mr. Journal do you think it’s odd that they didn’t see a single zombie in an area of town that we haven’t cleared yet, that people have been moving through recently? Were the dead on lunch break? Smoke break? Conspicuous in my book.

Gavin has given me a wide berth all afternoon, and all evening. He didn’t know the full story about the night of March 3rd, and the full details of the horde of undead that assaulted us that night. He saw the books after he helped us purge the campus, and he knew something strange was afoot, but the whole story was never shared with him.

I guess he asked on the way back, and Abby told him what happened that night back in March. Well, those nights. God that blew. I’m still surprised we made it through that. Mr. Journal, there were a lot of odds stacked against us then, and it was a miracle we pulled through it.

Anyway, Gavin is obviously a little weirded out over the whole “dreams from the dead” bullshit, and he just agreed to roll with the plan today because Abby was onboard with it. He didn’t believe my story, but he was willing to go on the faith he had in Abby. Now that he’s seen that the dreams are real, I think he looks at me, and wants to ask me if I’m a wizard. Or Nostradamus. Or if the Devil and I have some kind of ‘agreement.’

Either way, he was definitely strange around me. I’ll have to adjust to that I think. I can’t change that my dreams are visited by the dead. I can’t alter that for some reason I’m involved with whatever it is that’s going on. I don’t like being the center of attention. I don’t want to be the weird guy that everyone thinks is crazy.

I just wish I knew what the hell was happening.

If I’m lucky, I’ll have another dream one of these nights.

-Adrian

May 5th

I don’t know whether to be frustrated, frightened, or furious. Ooooh. I do know another F word that describes how I feel.

Fucked. That feels right.

Happy cinco de fucking Mayo.

I can’t even feel safe and rested in my fucking sleep. When I’m awake, there’s bullshit. When I’m asleep, there is a good chance of bullshit. When I walk outside, it’s cloudy, with zombies, and a good chance of bullshit. It would not faze me in the least if one day we went outside and it was raining giant fucking chunks of cow shit. I think I’d put on a rain jacket and galoshes, and shovel it all over into the fields for fertilizer without a second thought.

Alright, so we nearly shot Blake today. That’s a good indicator of how fucked up our day started. (Started, mind you) As in, first thing in the morning, here on campus, we almost shot Blake. Yes Mr. Journal, you read it correct, Blake was here on campus this morning.

We didn’t know he knew where we were. Sort of a bad sign isn't it? It points to our being idiots for not realizing that he knew where we were set up, and it points to him being a little fucking shady for having known we were here all along, and then playing dumb about it. A lot shady actually. Frankly I’m kinda steaming over it. I think that bastard was using us a lot more than we realized.

Abby was out loading the trucks this morning for the run downtown when she saw movement at the bridge. Like a fucking pro, she got her AR out, dropped to a knee, and put that front sight right on the head of her target, and was flicking the safety to semi to bring him down when she realized it was him. Quite literally, Blake was a half second from having his melon painted on the side of a van blocking the bridge.

Abby radioed we had Blake on the campus, and all hell broke loose. An unannounced visitor inside our stronghold? Holy shit. Everyone had guns up, rounds chambered, safeties off, and the barrels leveled on his face within thirty seconds. Upside: if anyone does that again, it appears they have about ten seconds before half a dozen rounds go right through them and they’re a fucking cooked goose.

After Abby radioed and told us what was up, she walked straight up to Blake, gun pointed at his face, and ripped him a brand spanking new asshole. I wish I could’ve heard what she said. From Hall E I could practically FEEL her rage. I can tell you this Mr. Journal, the resemblance to Patty in that moment was uncanny. Gavin sprinted out to be by her side, and luckily, it didn’t escalate. It could’ve gotten really fucking ugly. Abby and Gavin escorted him to the stone benches near the school building, and I went out to talk to him.

First, I ripped his brand new asshole three times larger, and like a goddamn pro, he took his tongue lashing. He knew what he did was stupid, reckless, and had as good a chance to get his ass shot as it did to get our attention. Fucking moron. And to top it all off, he said he knew about the safe house, and the radio inside, and didn’t think to radio us using it. Fucking kids.

Blake admitted when I asked him that he knew we were here all along. He said he’s come up twice and checked out the campus, but not since we had started talking to him. He thought for the longest time it was just me up here, and he felt no need to mess with me. Of course now I wonder how many times he’s observed me moving around up here through the scope on that fat ass Enfield? Mr. Journal, on the record, I’d like to say that it took a concentrated effort on my behalf to not draw my pistol, and blow his fucking brains out right there on that stone bench. I felt almost as betrayed as when I confronted Gilbert outside Hall A. I didn’t do anything today just like I didn’t do anything back then. Maybe I could identify with Blake as much as I identified with Gilbert.

So the million motherfucking dollar question is what the hell was so messed up that Blake risked eating a bullet to come up here for? Blake found himself a digital camera and some batteries, and took it to the farm to document what he’s been seeing. Specifically, what he saw yesterday afternoon. (Don’t even get me started on the fact that we had just found a frigging camera for him on our own)

Blake handed me his camera and started to ramble on and on about what was on there, essentially narrating what I was looking at. Describing him as being “agitated” would be very fair. It doesn’t take a homicide detective to see that he is more invested in the farm and what goes on there than would be normal. It was obvious to me and to the others that he was tied to this place somehow, and he was holding out on the full truth.

So the pictures. It explained a lot of the tension he was feeling. Blake’s vantage point was from the top of a small rise, and was about two or three hundred yards through light forest from the farm’s gate. It was just as he described. Steel fencing for the cattle, reinforced with lumber here and there at weak spots. Large farmhouse, barn, farm stand converted into secure trading house on the side of the road. I mean his description from before was perfect.

The pictures that were troubling were of the people. He had taken snapshots over the course of the day of 5 men and women armed with AR variants. I couldn’t tell in the pictures, but they could’ve been M4’s too. It’s hard to tell at a distance, especially with a bad camera shot.

There were three other people, two of them old, who he said were the two owners of the farm. Apparently they were the husband and wife who ran the farm stand there, and sold the homemade ice cream back in the day. The third adult was their son, who looked about my age or a little younger, and didn’t seem as martially proficient as the folks hefting the AR’s. He had a rifle, but it was slung on his shoulder barrel up, and just from his posture I felt like he wasn’t too much of a threat.

All that was fine and dandy. What bothered me (and him, obviously) were the six women who came outside in the late afternoon.

All six women were between the ages of 16 and 35, and to a one, they were all pregnant. If I could tell that they were pregnant then that tells you they were showing, which means they were at least 4 months pregnant or better. When the girls came outside they were escorted by two of the armed guard folks. They were taken to a few picnic style tables near the house, they had something to drink (iced tea from the looks of it), got some sun, and then they were escorted back in. Blake has pictures of all of it, and honestly, it looks shady as fuck. The girl’s expressions are clearly odd. They don’t look like prisoners, but they don’t look happy either. Not like there’s a shitload to be happy about in general, but you’d think they’d show some kind of positivity, and not one of those pictures reflects any of that.

Blake was tweaking when he was pointing everything out on the little camera screen to me, and finally I’d had it with his bullshit. All of us were gathered around, listening to him, and looking at the small camera, and I called him out. It went something like this;

“Blake dude, enough. You seem like a good kid but you gotta own up brother. You’ve been shady as hell about this farm, and it’s obvious to me that there’s something up you are not telling us about. What’s the story?”

He went blank, and after a few too many seconds it was clear to me that he was thinking of an answer. Gilbert pressed the issue. “Blake, son, the longer you think of what to say to us, the less likely we are to believe it. The truth comes out naturally, lies take time to think up. Speak now, or we’ll drop you and this farm bullshit like a hot potato.”

Blake swallowed hard and looked at Gilbert. Gilbert’s words were harsh, but he said them in a pretty friendly way. It was a threat, there’s no doubt about that, but it was delivered with honey, not vinegar.

“Go back a few pictures.” Blake pointed at the camera, so I flipped back a few frames until we got to a close up picture of the women gathered. Blake pointed out a younger woman. She looked his age, maybe a year younger, short reddish brown hair, kinda pretty, and she was really pregnant. About to pop pregnant. Blake choked up instantly. “That’s my girlfriend. Kimberly.”

Everyone went silent. I asked the awkward question, “Blake is she carrying your baby?”

Blake’s floodgates were wide open by that point. Patty handed him a tissue, and after he got done blowing his nose, and wiping his eyes, he gave me a huge shrug. Patty slid in like a professional mother, and put her arm around him. Also, while I’m on the subject, does every fucking mom have tissues on her? We’re like, ten or eleven months into the fucking apocalypse and Patty has a tissue on her. It is seriously like a super power. Befuddles me how that shit is even possible. Nice tangent, eh?

That’s when Blake filled in the rest of the story. He said that back in August he and Kim were doing okay, hiding and moving around just like he’s been doing all along. The two of them had been hunting in the woods, and every time they bagged a deer, the two of them would take some of it to the farm to trade for fresh milk, or eggs, or canned food, or whatever. Blake said he got a few boxes of .303 off of them too, which explains some of how he’s survived this long using just the one rifle.

Anyway in August during one of their trades, the old man of the farm (who Blake identified as Thomas Adams) presented them an offer. They had room for one more person in the farm, and if that person was willing to work on the crops, and with the animals, they’d be protected, fed, and would have a good life.

After a few days of talking it over, they decided Kim would move into the farm. After all, Blake could visit the farm anytime…

But that changed. After a few visits over the course of a couple weeks, Thomas told Blake that Kim didn’t want to see him anymore, and that they were broke up, and he should go his own way. Thomas produced a handwritten note from Kim saying as much. Blake says he has the letter still back at the garage, and it’s definitely her writing, but he says it’s bullshit. He claims it’s a fraud, and that they forced her to write it.

He hasn’t seen her since the first week of September. If you do the math, that baby has a very high likelihood of being his. It’s either that, or she got plowed up good and proper within days of moving into the farm. According to what Blake says, she wasn’t that kind of girl.

Now I’ve said the same thing about a few girls, and the test of time has proven that we frequently do not know people as well as we think we do. I’m not saying this Kim chick is a whore by any means. I am saying it’s possible she maybe had too much to drink, and something happened with one of the men inside those farm fences.

Blake insists that child is his, and frankly, the circumstantial evidence agrees with him. It is highly unlikely that she had consensual sex with a new person right off the bat. Possible? Sure. Likely? No, not really.

There’s a darker side to this. You’ll note I said consensual sex. It is unlikely she randomly decided to get knocked up. There is a small chance that she was… impregnated. Against her will. There’s some logic in that train of thought, because why else would there be six pregnant women, all clearly knocked up since June of last year? What sensible woman would seek out pregnancy with the world the way it is now? What guy for that matter would want to make babies already? The world is so fucking far from being suitable for intentional childbirth it’s not even funny. We don't even need to discuss the scale of childbirth they're looking at there. Multiple pregnant women.

So where does that leave us? What the fuck do we do with this information, right? I mean, do we confront these people based only on Blake’s accusations? And honestly, what do we have? She did go there willingly, and if we went there, and she said as much, then what? Blake mentally shits the bed, goes on a shooting rampage, and everyone dies for nothing. If she says she’s being held there against her will, then we what? Arm up, lay siege, and liberate a half dozen impregnated women?

I can see how that ends. I don’t need to dream about it first to know that people will fucking die.

If that’s his kid, I guess he has a right to see it. If it were my kid, I’d rip a mountain apart stone by fucking stone to get to him or her. I don’t know. With Blake right there the best we told him was that starting tomorrow, we’d do a more industrial hands on recon mission of the farm. I’m a little more experienced in this kind of work than he is, and frankly, he is only going to see what he wants to see. Fresh, unbiased eyes are needed for this to make sense, and go down right. By right, I mean with no bloodshed. I’d really like to avoid another Westfield. Too many folks died for nothing. Well, not for nothing, but arguably for not enough.

I’m doing it myself, alone. My ribs are good enough to do it, and if I have to, I’ll chew ibuprofen all fucking day to make sure it gets done. Blake seemed very happy to hear that I was taking this on personally. We told him we would talk to him again, at the safe house downtown, at noon on the 7th. We were already going to be downtown to meet with the Manning girls at 9am, so it went hand in hand to kill two birds with one stone.

Seriously though, fuck that asshole. I’m really pissed at him right now. I told him he owed me hard, and that the only thing he could do to make it right was to use that fucking garage and do some work on our cars. Of course now, I don’t trust him nearly as much as I did before, and I didn’t trust him for shit before.

He practically begged me to let him make right by us, and Gilbert said after that he felt Blake was honest on that at least. After Blake left we all agreed that this has been the wrench in his works all this time. Our new theory is that on some level he saw us as a means to an end. He had the farm problem, knew about it all along, and once we met him and made friends, he decided to try and bring us to bear to help him on his problem.

Are we right? Who fucking knows? I supposed we can corner him again and ask him, but that might push him over the edge, and we don’t want him snapping, and we definitely don’t want the one kid in town that knows how to work on our vehicles to irrevocably hate our guts.

Sigh. Bullshit.

Sooooooo much bullshit. I’m gonna get cramps in my big toe. Lots of pushing.

I hate zombies. I am starting to hate people too.

I am packing up for this recon mission after I finish here. I am planning on getting set up near the farm before first light, and staying there until the sun goes down. Ideally, I’ll have eyes on for over twelve hours, and I’ll see something that gives us more information.

In three days Mike will be here for another water run, and I want his input. I feel like our two groups are allied enough now that we need to go over major things like this. They need us, we need them, and we need to make sure we work together to survive together.

I really didn’t need this.

-Adrian

May 7th

I smiled today.

There’s a certain profound power in that little statement for me. I don’t smile much anymore. I laugh every now and then, but I laugh at farts, and people falling down when they’re drunk, so really there’s nothing special about a laugh for me.

I never get to smile though. I’m almost never genuinely happy enough about anything that I sit there, and let a real, honest smile come cross my face. One where I start to feel better as soon as it starts, and I feel tremendously better once it’s over. It’s like a long hug from someone who loves you. It wraps you up, and gives you a little bit of precious life and love that you needed.

I smiled today.

Yesterday I was not smiling at all. I’m starting to feel the walls closing in on us regarding that fucking farm, and I don’t like it one bit. It’s a good thing today went well, otherwise I might’ve jumped the gun and done something stupid.

Where to begin?

Right. The Farm. I pulled my recon mission yesterday. As I said I planned to, I was up before first light, packed and out the door before anyone else was even stirring. In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t sleep much anyway. It was the first night I slept fully on my back, and between that being a little uncomfortable, and the pre-op nerves, I might’ve racked up four hours of sleep tops. It’s an adrenaline rush to do this shit. Brings back a lot of memories for me.

I suppose it didn’t help that I am back to being scared shitless to sleep.

My ribs yesterday were tender, but manageable. It was sort of a stepped up “stitch in the side” sensation. As long as I kept my chest taped up tight, and didn’t huff and puff too much, I was fine. In good news, putting the IOTV vest on and cranking it tight was an improvement. I put the same vest on I was wearing the day I got blasted, and it still shows the signs of the impact. I look at it as being “field tested.”

I knew exactly where the farm was, and I also knew just about where the country road was Blake said he was using to get into the area on. The drive through downtown was amazingly devoid of activity, which was a nice surprise. I will say it was very odd to drive in the dark. I haven’t driven with the headlights on for… shit. A long frigging time. Creepy. Ever drive your truck or car down a road that has a lot of deer related accidents? Every second and every foot you go you’re just waiting for one of them to leap out into that little island of light right in front of you, and destroy you and potentially your car?

Felt a lot like that, only with zombies.

Fortunately as I said, I think I saw maybe three or four undead, and they were mercifully all off the beaten path. I made sure to keep my speed high enough on the open stretches to more or less ensure that I would lose them. Last thing I wanted was for a few motivated motherfuckers to follow me up in the woods while I was trying to be low key.

The dirt road Blake has been driving on is an old logging road that comes out in someone’s backyard. From the street it looks like nothing, but once you’re on it, it’s a pretty robust road you can drive on. I was able to drive the Tundra out there with no problems, and was able to go right to the spot where Blake’s prior tire tracks came to a halt.

Right there as well I saw signs of his foot traffic. He had heavy large feet that had pressed his footprints into the soft earth, and it didn’t help that he left behind food wrappers. Infil and exfil on this kind of thing means you leave no signs of your movement. It left me a little fucking loopy having to leave the truck on the logging road at all. I drove it about a hundred yards back, parked it, left some signs that I was heading into the woods in the opposite direction, then moved down the road to his spot, cleaned up after his mess, and shadowed his old trail straight to the top of the ridge he’d been using as a hide.

Once again, opened and abandoned cans of food, as well as a shit pit not ten feet away from where he had been. I moved about fifteen yards into a spot I felt was as good or better, and got myself situated.

We have a lot of rock walls in the east. It’s a relic from the old colonial days when property boundaries were marked with them. Of course things change over time, and now there are hundreds of miles of abandoned, crumbling stone walls all over the place. I remember as a kid my brothers and I would be wandering for hours into the woods, and no matter how far we went, or how lost we got, there were always rock walls. It used to mystify us.

I set up behind one of those ancient stone walls, and set up a nice sniper hide. I rolled with the Savage and the M4 and the distinct hope that I had to use neither. From where I was I could see the main road the farm was on, the front of the property with its large fence, as well as the main buildings. Only a small area right behind the structures was out of my LOS, and I felt good about my position.

It was a profoundly long and disturbing day. First off, lying on my stomach was very uncomfortable. Remember my joke about having to chew ibuprofen? Wasn’t far off from the truth. I think I took two an hour the entire day and wished several times I’d brought something a little stiffer instead. I gotta be careful with that shit though, I can tell that the painkillers are getting under my skin. When I skip one or two, I get sweaty, and I get really fucking irritable. I must be getting to that almost in addiction area.

Sorry. The Farm.

The entire day spent there was like a movie version of the pictures Blake showed us the day prior. I brought my own digital camera (the one Abby and I found) but I was unable to take any good shots. It wasn’t high enough quality to get anything decent at that distance, so pretty quickly I said fuck it, and just scoped the compound out.

During the dark hours I observed one guard moving about. Male, late twenties to early thirties carrying a standard issue AR or M4 rifle. He had a tactical vest and some kind of commercially available body armor. When the light came up and he switched out with his relief, I could see his magazine pouches weren’t hanging full, which was an interesting factoid. That told me they were either light on 5.56 ammo, or short on magazines.

Any motherfucker that’s been behind the sights of an M4 in a situation where putting that front post on someone is going to happen knows you bring every fucking bullet you can carry, and then one more. Maybe they had a central ammo store so they didn’t have to carry it all the time? If that’s the case, then they’re just lazy. Any way I look at it, it’s good news. Lazy, or insufficiently stocked.

His relief was a woman armed the same, with similar magazine counts. After her there was another man, and after him another woman. I’d seen these people already in Blake’s pictures, so it was no surprise when they appeared. Another little fact that stuck out to me was their weaponry. Both of the women carried M4/AR’s that shared a peculiar collapsible stock. Both rifles were wrapped with duct tape on the stock, and I’m positive they were sharing the same rifle.

That’s also good news. Not enough guns for everyone, they’re sharing.

Unlike the day that Blake took his pictures, it was a little drab out yesterday. The women did wind up coming up, but they didn’t stay long at all. They were escorted from the farm house to the barn, where they remained inside for about an hour and a half. At that point, they were escorted back into the house, and I never saw them again, except briefly through a window on the second floor of the big farmhouse. There I saw one of the younger girls change from jeans and a sweatshirt into a kind of ratty looking white dress.

I didn’t like the body language of the women one bit. These were not women who struck me as friends, or women who were happy to be where they were, doing what they were doing. They had very paranoid eyes, avoided eye contact with the guards, and generally moved about like caged animals.

Seeing that made me think of poor Blake. I’m less pissed at him now for coming onto campus for sure. If I were him, and I had sat here for days on end like he did, watching my pregnant girlfriend be herded about like cattle, I’d be fit to be tied. Furious wouldn’t even begin to describe it. The fact that he hasn’t gone Lee Harvey Oswald on that farm yet is a small miracle. Really.

I never saw the old man and woman who supposedly run the joint, and I didn’t see their son either. Officially, I can say that place gives me the motherfucking creeps, and I know as sure as shit whatever is going on there does not pass the sniff test. Something wrong is going on in there, and we need to keep observing this place to make sure that things are kosher. I damn near went back there today to watch more, but that would’ve fucked up at least two other plans.

I left The Farm a half hour after dark, and made it to the truck with no problems. I did however run into a pair of undead slowly traipsing down the logging road when I left. There were two of them, and I can’t be sure, but I think I saw them earlier when I was downtown on the way in. I stopped the truck, hopped out, and brought both of them down with the halligan.

I gotta say, the circular approach I adopted early on has been really useful. They can’t turn for shit, and a sharp step around them exposes their lethargy, and leaves them wide open for a halligan to the fucking temple. It’s a nice soft spot, and if I don’t stumble, it’s a damn near guaranteed death blow. Mr. Journal, tell your kids. Circular approach on solitary zombies. Works every time.

I dragged them out of the way, and drove home. Our Team B if you will, found more fencing in the back parking lot of the pharmacy. Yeah, same pharmacy as the one I damn near died in way back when my crotch got eaten by that fucking dog. They’ve more or less cleared town out up to the area, and if they push forward, they’ll be at the grocery store, and health clinic within days. That could be ugly.

When I returned they had returned before me, and once I had a slightly more powerful painkiller in me (half a perc, if you’re keeping score Mr. Journal), as well as some hot chow, I told them everything I saw.

You could draw a line in the sand in that kitchen to see who wanted to do what. On the side of the kitchen with murderous intent were the women. Team Vagina wanted heads on pikes immediately. They were absolutely on board with ramming down that fence, kicking in the doors, and putting two rounds in the face of every person at that farm that didn’t have a baby growing inside them.

The other side of the kitchen was populated with Team Penis. Team Penis wanted to slow roll it, and wanted far more proof than the meager evidence we’d collected thus far. Gilbert especially was afraid of us moving too fast.

I’m furious. I really want to be 100% on the side of the women, and go right down there and start asking questions that have one answer. And between you and me Mr. Journal, the wrong answer doesn’t get the buzzer, it gets the loser a free sample of buckshot mouthwash.

But, as king shit of turd hill here, it would be irresponsible of me to do that. We NEED more information about this. Despite the flaws I saw with their ammunition habits, and the sharing of weapons, the simple fact is, they are set up in a sturdy, fortified place, and they have military grade weapons held by folks that don’t strike me as being new to them. This isn’t a rundown shack in the woods filled with a bunch of moonshine drinking married first cousins and cross eyed babies.

If we do this, there will be blood, and we need to make sure any sacrifices we make for this are damn well worth it.

Having said that… the women will not wait long on this. Blake now has internal support here for his quest for Kimberly, and I gotta admit, I’m on board with him too. I think Gavin is an Abby blowjob away from jumping off a bridge at any point regarding anything, and if I sit Gilbert down, and explain to him what’s up, and what the ramifications of losing the female support here are, he’ll have little or no choice but to at least look the other way and let us do this. Ollie is a lot like Lenny. He moves slowly, but when he moves, he’s all in. He remained fairly silent on the matter while we talked last night, but if I had to place a bet, he’ll side with Melissa.

I slept like a baby last night. Literally the sleep of the dead. Well, I don’t know if that saying is anywhere nearly appropriate anymore. From what I’ve been able to figure out, the dead don’t seem to be sleeping much. They’re dreaming all right, but sleeping? Jury’s out on that.

Our two fold agenda for today was the 9am meeting on Park Street with the Manning family, and then the noon meeting at the safe house with Blake. Before we crashed we went over everything, and I overruled the majority and said that if the girls wanted to come back here, they were welcome.

Gilbert put up a little bit of a stink about that, going back and recanting his “more mouths to feed” logic from the other night. I flat out told him to kiss my ass.

I said, “Gilbert, what do you want us to do man? They need a safe place to be, and I am responsible for killing a big member of their family. I owe them as much. If we have to, we’ll eat a little bit less. I’ll eat a little less. I’ll fucking eat tree bark if I have to. We need to do right by these people, and I’ll be damned otherwise.”

Gilbert had the weirdest look on his face when I lit into him with that. He sort of smiled, shook his head, and shrugged. It was an odd combination of frustration, and respect. Fucked if I know. Crazy old bastard. Sometimes I think he is playing Devil’s advocate just to make my life harder.

I went out today to meet the Mannings. I needed to do this first hand, and I am glad I did. We rolled heavy in the HRT, Gavin’s Dodge, and the Tundra. All of us went with the exception of Ollie and Melissa, who remained behind due to the crop obligations of one, and the miniature person in the tummy of the other.

I drove the HRT, and we split up evenly amongst the other vehicles in the event we needed to carry extra shit, or had a problem. The trip in was clean. Just a few undead moving about here and there, very reminiscent of the activity levels we were experiencing a month ago, prior to all the other survivor’s moving about. It was nice. Nice to be out, and nice that it wasn’t a fucking shit show.

I parked the HRT in the street right near the front of the green house we were headed to, Gavin parked his truck about fifty feet down the street past me, and Patty pulled up 50 feet short. We established decent blocking positions, and I headed inside with Patty. The other three numb nuts remained outside to keep us safe.

Before I got the chance to knock Lindsey opened the door for me, and greeted me with a sad hello. Lindsey looked maybe 40, and I bet she’ll clean up nice and look her real age, which is probably closer to mine. She has really long strawberry blonde hair that looks as fine as corn silk. She’s got freckles. Lots of them. She’s really pretty, and she’s just like I imagined she’d be.

At her hips, attached to her on both sides like human barnacles were little Maddison, and tiny Andrea. I can remember what Doug looked like, and the girls have a lot of resemblance to him in their faces. They’ve got their mother’s hair, long and bright, but they look like their father.

Judge me if you want, but when I saw those two little girls for the first time, and I knew they were now in my hands to keep safe, I smiled that smile I was talking about earlier, and oh boy, did those tears start running.

Ah fuck me Mr. Journal. I lost it. I just started saying how sorry I was, and how much I wanted to do the right thing, and be a good man, and so much angst just let loose and purged and just wow. It was a sight to see I’m sure. Lindsey was sweet. She stepped out onto the concrete stairs, and just put her arms around me, and rested her head on my chest, and told me everything would be okay.

Of course she was crying too at that point, and the girls had no idea what was happening, and like a lot of kids do, when mom or dad cries, they start in too. Shit Patty was a wreck before long too, and there we were.

Three adults and two little girls standing on an empty street, in a dead town, in the middle of nowhere, crying. Mourning the dead, mourning our mistakes, and comforting each other in the hopes that we could do something positive with what was left.

We stood like that for some time. Minutes, an hour I don’t know. Neither Lindsey or I wanted to be the first to let go. Eventually the Ranger wannabe somewhere inside me kicked in and told me we weren’t safe standing there, and I let go of her and ushered us all inside.

Lindsey offered us some water, which we politely refused. The water was dirty. Watching the little girls sip a cup filled with water that had debris in the bottom of it curdled my guts. We’ve got so much fresh water on campus.

I asked her about Doug, and she told me about their marriage, their life together, and the two girls. Maddison is very good at English, and little Andrea colors in the lines better than anyone ever. She produced a stack of tattered coloring books to prove her prowess. They were very good.

Eventually Lindsey got the two girls to go off with Patty, and as soon as it was the two of us, she asked me about my dream. I’m very uncomfortable talking about these dreams. Stranger or friend, for some reason I feel like a fucking crackpot. But, I told her. I felt honesty was the best policy, and if she didn’t think I was insane after Abby told her everything, then I figured what could the worst outcome be?

When I finished telling her everything, right down to the specific ways Doug stood, and talked, and how he pronounced certain words, she just nodded slowly for a few seconds. Finally, she said this:

“Adrian, that was real. I’m certain of it. That had to have been Doug. Only he would’ve said those things, and the only way you would’ve know we were here was if he told you. If Doug trusted you enough to ask you to help us, then I need to trust you and your people.”

And that was it. She asked what her living options were, and I told her about the campus, and the dorms, and the area, and after ten minutes of debating the various benefits of each place, she decided that she did not want to be right on campus yet. But, she wanted to grow some vegetables in a garden to help with the food. Lindsey was very concerned about being a burden on us. The best choice, and the safest choice was the farm at the end of Jones Road.

Think about it Mr. Journal, it’s damn near perfect. It’s more or less on the inside of the semi we’ve got blocking the road, it’s got fertile soil for growing, it’s fenced in, has plenty of space, a pair of fireplaces, is within walking distance, and will allow us to have two fields of crops growing simultaneously.

Lindsey told the girls, and once they were excited about it, we were off. They had next to nothing to pack. They’d left for the north with nothing, they returned with nothing, and they left Lindsey’s sister’s house the same. I’d like to remedy that. Those girls need toys, and clothes, and love, and my people and I will make that happen. That family has been through hell, and it’s long overdue that they get at least a little rest and happiness.

They drove their own truck (a beat to shit Nissan, btw) with us back to their house, which is now our safe house. We went inside with them before Blake arrived for our meeting, and they gathered all the things that they had to leave behind when this whole nightmare started. The girls were beyond giddy, but Lindsey stopped and saw the blood smears on the kitchen floor. After that, she had to get outside to breathe.

Once they had filled the bed of their truck with the things they wanted, Patty drove them back to Jones Road. Blake pulled in moments later.

Once again Blake was edgy, and he was a little hyper about getting as much info as we could possibly give him. Basically I told him I spent twelve hours yesterday with eyes on The Farm. I told him I confirmed everything he’d shown us, and I told him that I felt that there was something clearly off about the farm.

God he literally danced for joy. Right there in the living room of the safe house fifteen feet from where I blew Doug Manning’s kidney out his asshole. What a world Mr. Journal.

He was not pleased when I told him we were not ready to do anything about the farm. Gilbert and Gavin were both outside when I told him, and Gilbert came inside when he heard Blake screaming at me, asking me what the hell was wrong with us.

I was telling him as calmly as I could that we needed more time to meet with our other allies, and that we needed more time with eyes on the farm to get some perspective, but all he was hearing was, “Adrian saw shady business, and was unwilling to do shit about it.”

Gilbert walked in there, watched me trying to handle him with the sympathetic kid gloves, and cleared his throat loudly.

Blake stopped yelling at me, and looked over at Gilbert. He said, “Stay out of this old man. You don’t know shit. Either you’re helping me, or you’re in my way.”

Now, I am not a man known for an excess of intelligence. I’ve done a lot of dumb in my years, and I’ve paid the price for it. I can safely say, that in my dumbest moments, I never would’ve talked to Gilbert like that. Not without a lot better relationship than the two of them have.

Without missing a beat, as fast as a mongoose, Gilbert drew his 1911, thumbed the hammer back and dropped the safety, and he put that barrel snug under Blake’s fucking chin. Blake froze solid, and looked down at Gilbert’s eyes, which as you’d imagine were as cold as ice.

“Tell me what I don’t know one more time son. Just one more time.” The world stopped. “Say it to my face you ignorant little prick.”

I drew my handgun as well. We stood like that for a solid fifteen seconds before Gilbert spoke again, and like he always has, he put it all out there, unvarnished. Raw. “Blake, you are yelling at a man that you have pointed a gun at. You have snuck onto our property with a weapon, lied to our faces about months of your activity, issued demands, taken our food and water, and now you have the goddamn gall to tell us to risk our lives over a mistake you made months ago? I don’t fucking think your head is screwed on straight if you think you can get away with this shit. Not with me here son. You keep this shit up, and I’ll squeeze this trigger and your baby will have a stranger for a daddy, you understand me?”

By that point Blake was shitting himself. His cheeks were streaming with tears, he was shaking but he mustered a nod, and a string of rambling apologies. Gilbert kept the gun under Blake’s jaw until he was satisfied he’d put the fear of God in the kid. As soon as he took the big .45 away, Blake went down in a heap on the dirty carpet, sobbing.

I won’t recant what he said precisely, but Blake let it all out. I mean all of it. He sobbed like I had sobbed earlier when I saw those little girls. He was so afraid for the woman he loved, and absolutely petrified for the baby inside her belly that he knew to his core was his. He’s young, he’s been alone for months, trying to survive amongst the horror that’s out there, and all the while he’s watched other people dominate his sole remaining loved one.

I cannot even fathom how fucked up that kid is. I hope the next person we find is a therapist because he desperately needs one. Once he’d gotten it all out, Gilbert got him up, and the two of them embraced. It might sound strange, but the two of them instantly bonded like you can’t imagine. Gilbert has this aura, this energy of wisdom that people gravitate to. Maybe it’s his balding head, or his snow white hair, or his wrinkles, or something I can’t describe, but the man can connect with people. The whole nastiness with the Colt was forgotten, and Blake had seen our light.

We all agreed that Blake would return with us. He can’t be alone anymore, and with Westfield arriving tomorrow for a trade and a meeting, we felt it was important that he be there to tell his side of the story firsthand to them.

We drove home to the campus right after we heard Gavin call out contact outside the safe house. He had dropped a couple zombies about fifty yards away from us with a halligan. He’s getting damn good with that thing.

I veered off after I got the semi back into position in the road and visited Lindsey and the girls to ensure that they were safe and sound. I invited them back to the campus for dinner, and they came. The girls had a blast with us. Friendly people, fresh kool-aid, a hot shower, and a hot meal? It’s like paradise for these people. Watching them play in the living room of Hall E while the girls sat around and talked about us men and Melissa’s baby, and the men talked about guns and ammo, and how pretty the girls looked made me think that maybe, just maybe there was hope for us. Maybe us all.

Westfield comes tomorrow. We’re going to bring up The Farm, and try to figure out how to handle it.

-Adrian

May 8th

I’m not going to write about what I want to write about. Not yet at least. Priorities.

Long exhale. I can’t believe how much went down today. It’s astonishing how much we can accomplish when we work together and nothing bad happens. We had a lot of extra hands here to help too.

Blake was here all day, Lindsey was here with the girls, and instead of going out and clearing houses or trying to find fencing, we all stayed put, and got shit done here. At about noon we got the radio from Mike that he was incoming, and shortly after he, Chris, Mallory, and Hector rolled in with the water truck and a humvee.

What did we get done? (In no particular order, btw) We got the water pump at the Jones Road farm fixed so there is fresh water for the girls, as well as for the garden. While there, we planted the beginning of a substantial garden. Ollie dug out his “farming genius” skills, and we got cucumbers, green beans, squash, tomatoes, beets, and a handful of hot pepper variants in the ground. Apparently these are easy to grow, and require very little work comparatively. The other thing that he is trying to be mindful of, is what his dad is planting. We need to rotate crops annually to ensure our fields don’t go fallow, and we also don’t want to be growing the same shit Lenny is. No sense trading sacks of potatoes back and forth.

We procured a better truck for Lindsey and the girls from one of the yards on Route 18 near the burnt out gas station. It’s a small Chevy that will work well for them for some time. Of course it shit the bed on the way back up Auburn Lake Road, but Blake got it running again after he douched the fuel lines and did whatever it is he does to make it all work. Btw, Blake is also the one who fixed the water pump at the farm. He’s a useful one when he’s not loopy. We also fortified the Manning farm windows and doors to ensure that if they were attacked by the undead, they could hold out long enough for us to arrive and assist.

We got about 60 feet of fence up along the edge of the water near admissions. We started the fence right where we’ll be building a gate, according to Ollie. Ollie’s plan is to encircle campus with the fence so we can let the cows roam and eat grass as needed. We just need cows now.

Once team Westfield arrived we put them to work on the above mentioned projects, filled their water tank, made some profitable trades for both groups (really nothing special other than bread for us, which will be fucking awesome. We have so much peanut butter and jelly kicking around here), and we sat down and had our meeting. Because there were so many of us, we actually sat on the Hall A porch so we could get some fresh air. Half of us were on the benches on the porch, some on the railings, and a few of us just plopped down in the grass. It was a nice day today.

Things went… downhill sharply there.

I did most of the talking for the presentation or conversation, whatever the hell you want to call it. I seem to have inherited the role of spokesperson, which I guess I brought on myself. I put all the information out about The Farm. I omitted everything about the dream I had. I didn’t feel that needed to be a part of the discussion just yet.

Blake interrupted me at least six times to put his two cents in where he felt I was leaving some crucial fact out. The first couple times I was appreciative of his assistance, but after a bit I started to get irritated, and finally told him to calm the fuck down until I was done. He made an ugly face at me, but he shut up long enough for me to get the whole story out. Once I was done, he filled in a few more blanks, and the questions came in.

I didn’t have the answers to everything. In fact, I didn’t have the answers to much of anything. All the questions Mike and them had were the questions we still had. Military guys that we are (were) we obsess over logistics. Avenues of attack, numbers of opposition, armament, infiltration routes, escape plans, what ifs, etc.

It got ugly when the morality issue was brought up. Mike was the one to open the can of worms, and within minutes, I knew he was regretting ever opening his mouth.

“So let me get this straight, there’s a farm growing food, making babies, and keeping people safe out there somewhere, and you all want to go over, and rock the boat to make sure everything is kosher?”

We all agreed with him. I mean basically that was the deal.

“You realize they’re already doing what we’re aiming to do, right? I mean, it sounds like jealousy if you look at it under a microscope.” Mike shrugged. He was kind of pointing out the obvious.

That didn’t really… please the women. The rape card came out, courtesy of Patty.

“Mike, those women look terrified. They can’t go anywhere without a gun toting guard watching their every move, and do the math. They all got knocked up after this started? What sane person would’ve started to have that many children months ago, in this world? You’d have to rape me for that to happen. Mike, there are SIX OF THESE WOMEN. Six. In the middle of nowhere. That’s not a coincidence, that’s something very wrong.” Patty was just below a yell there in the middle. She restrained herself a little bit when she saw Abby’s face.

Mike replied to her, “Patricia I know what you’re saying. I’m just wanting to go on record and say we need to be careful that we know as much as we can before we do anything with a gun. The last thing we need to do is roll in there like a bunch of fucking cowboys, and get one or more of those girls shot over nothing. If we’re gonna risk our asses, and their asses, and put people down in the process, we need to make damn well sure we’re doing it for the right reasons. You can't unshoot a bullet.” At that point you could see that Mike was sorry he opened his mouth.

Blake chimed in, “Look, all of you have been great to me, and I can’t say thank you enough, but one way or the other, I am getting in there to get my Kimberly, and my baby out of there. I have a say in the life of my unborn child, and I don’t care what you think about that. I don’t want to drag you all into this, and I’m sorry I did already, but time’s short. My baby is about to be born. I need to do something with or without you.”

Hector next. “Blake man, you’ll get shot up. They know you man. Second they see you come round, if they’re like the way you say they are, they’ll light your fucking ass up hermano.”

Blake’s response was a shrug. In his mind, he had no choice. It was get it done or die trying. As dumb as it is to say this, I can totally see where he’s coming from.

It was awkwardly silent for a few minutes. All we could hear was the river running behind campus, and the birds chirping. No one knew quite what to say next.

Mallory spoke, “Look. I don’t think anyone here can honestly say that after looking at those pictures, and listening to Adrian, and Blake that whatever is going on at that Farm is normal, or acceptable, right?”

Everyone agreed. We were all on the same page in that regard.

She continued, “And Mike isn’t an idiot, and neither is Blake, and neither is Adrian, and neither is Patty. We’re all adults, and we weren’t born yesterday. So that means we don’t want to hurt anyone that doesn’t deserve it, and we don’t want to risk dying unless it’s really fucking important.”

Again, everyone agreed with her.

“Blake, all Mike is saying is that we need to watch that place some more, and maybe try and find some information somehow that absolutely proves that bullshit is happening. Am I right Mike?” She looked to the burly sergeant and he nodded, and gave a 'yeah' back to her.

“I think we can spare a few days for that. If that baby, yours or not, is born in the meantime, then that just means we’re rescuing six women and a baby, which isn’t much different, right Blake?” She looked at Blake long and hard. Blake looked down at the porch floor from his spot on the railing and wound up nodding at her.

“Then we spend a few days checking the joint out, see what we can see, and then make a better plan with more information. Shit for all we know, they’re scared shitless and waiting for us to come help them.” Mallory grinned, clearly trying to alleviate the tension.

For a hairdresser, that bitch can talk. Though I suppose half of what you pay a stylist for is the conversation.

“I’ll organize a meeting back home to see what support we can dredge up for this, should it get violent. We’re going to want Lisa here if you move on them, especially if there are that many pregnant women. We’ll come back on the 9th with word. With any luck it’ll end like Mallory says.” Mike tipped his can of beer up and took a swig. I tipped mine up too in celebration of that idea.

Abby hit the nail on the head then. “And what if it doesn’t end like that? I for one will not allow those women to be used like cattle at that farm. I’d rather get killed trying to rescue them than let that shit go on.”

I nodded, and said the last thing. “Abby, Blake, you guys know me, some better than others, and you know damn well that I’ll be putting boot to door if that’s the case. The world needs babies, but not like that.”

Dinner was served shortly after. Ollie has been a sniper with his .22 all day as he goes about his business outside, and managed to take down two raccoons right around dusk the past couple days. Have you ever had raccoon Mr. Journal? It’s surprisingly good. It requires brining, and must cook slowly for a long time, but Ollie and Melissa worked ahead to make it happen.

I can’t quite describe the taste, other than it doesn’t taste like chicken so fuck you Matrix. We had both of them, and combined with some of the fresh herbs and tomatoes we’ve got in the pots, and a few cans of vegetables mixed in for color, it was a feast for the ages. We were all stuffed to the gills, and everyone managed to forget about the bullshit.

The kids were frolicking carefree in the grass in the middle of campus, and the couples had paired off to watch, or talk, or chat. Patty and Mike were talking with Lindsey on the porch, watching the kids all the while, and Blake and Hector disappeared off to the wayside to give the vehicles a once over. Gearheads, right? Ha.

I felt a little like a bump on a log. Everyone seemed to have their special someone, and I didn’t. Now of course Mallory was there, and as you’ve already been informed Mr. Journal, I am pretty sure she and I have a little thing developing. She was picking up some of the dishes from dinner, and I went over to help her. Strictly because I am a nice guy, of course.

“Intense shit huh?” I asked her as I walked up.

“Yeah, you seem to find it. You’re like a bullshit magnet.” She grinned at me.

“Woman, you have no idea. If I had a dollar for every time I got into trouble, I’d... well, I guess I’d have a huge pile of useless dollar bills.”

She nodded and laughed. “I know the feeling. How’s the hangover? My cure work?” She asked me.

I laughed. “That and a lot of water, and some Advil. I was up and about in a few hours. Still useless, but you know, what’s new?”

Her turn to laugh. “Itchy?” She mischievously hiked up her eyebrows and stared at my crotch.

I gave her a dirty look and grinned. “Yeah about that. Close trim. Where did you find the time to do that with all these people here?”

“I’m very sneaky. Plus folks were having a good time. Not quite as good a time as you had, but you probably don’t remember much now eh?” She put some dishes into the tub we were using to carry the mess back to the Hall in.

“How good a time did I have? I mean, you’re not walking funny or anything, so I can’t imagine I had that great a time.” I winked at her.

“Oh. Yeah. Funny guy. You forget I’ve seen your junk? Unless that thing gets a shitload larger when you’re excited, keep fucking dreaming mister.” She grinned and gave me that mischievous look again.

I dropped my next line dead serious. “How sneaky are you? I could show you exactly how big it can get.”

She looked up at me with wide, sober eyes, and analytically panned around to see where everyone was. “Let’s go for a walk.”

I grabbed my M4 off the porch, she grabbed the tub of dishes and we walked off towards Hall E to drop it off. We went inside the Hall, tossed the tub on the counter in the kitchen, and I motioned for her to follow me. I walked down to the other side of the Hall, went out the side double doors onto the deck that I tore the stairs off of down near the river, and I leapt over the edge. I helped her down, and it that was all it took.

When she landed in my arms we were face to face, and I just pressed her against the wooden beam holding up the deck. She wrapped her legs around my midsection, and we got hot and heavy.

I am quite out of practice. Judging by her abilities and overall performance, she was too. The kissing lasted for a few minutes, and by the time I sat her down my dick was ripping my khaki pants right down the middle. I am pleased to announce that I had a very substantial erection, and judging by how she dropped to her knees it front of it, she was pretty fucking pleased about it too.

I had to pull her off me after just a bit of head. Not gonna lie, I was far, far too close to chucking a nut in her face, and I would’ve felt like a giant bag of douche if I’d blown my wad like that. I pulled her to her feet, and undressed her lower half as we kept kissing. God it was hot.

From there we did what all good intentioned adults do when they’re horny. We found interesting ways to insert tab A into slot B. We didn’t have much to work with for creature comforts, but it always amazes me how much fucking you can get done while standing up. You just gotta make sure your pants around your ankles don’t trip you up. I am fairly certain at one point we cracked the deck’s 4x4 using her back as a battering ram. Shit, the ground where our feet were was torn up from me slamming myself inside her, and her scrambling to get purchase on the ground to push against me.

Filthy motherfucker aren’t I? I’m writing my own porn here. Without doubt I will read this at a later date and beat off to it. I’m sporting wood just writing it.

So as I have mentioned, I am not the brightest person, and apparently Mallory is an apple from the same orchard. We did not use any kind of protection. Now, between the two of us, it was fucking amazing. The skin on skin sensation… Oh man, nothing can beat it. However… really hoping that me pulling out and shooting it over her ass cheeks was enough to prevent us having yet another baby issue here.

I feel like such a fucking hypocrite. Me making sure that Abby and Gavin use protection, and laying into them to make sure they don’t do exactly what I did earlier today. All my moral high ground just shit the bed. How can I possibly give them shit now? You know what though?

I got my dick wet.

It was glorious. The soft moans, the sway of her breasts inside her unbuttoned shirt, the taste of her mouth, the scent of her… Ahhh... God I missed that. Cassie, sorry baby, but that was long overdue, and it’s not like you’re here and available.

And now you know what I wanted to write about all along.

When we returned, everyone gave us the stink eye, or at least it felt like it. Of course guilty minds think guilty thoughts, and there’s a fairly good chance no one thought anything of the fact that the two of us more or less disappeared for 40 minutes, and came back sweaty and disheveled smelling like pussy and sex. Christ I had to wipe her down with one of my shirts from inside the Hall before we went back to tidy her up. Looked like she she’d stood in front of an exploding yogurt grenade.

A few quick things to note before I am off.

I am returning to The Farm tomorrow right off the bat for another day of observation. Hopefully, we see something damning so when Mike and company return to us the day after, we have something important to share.

I made Mallory walk funny.

And just as they were leaving, after everyone said their goodbyes, Mike came over to me, and instead of his usual serious handshake, he high fived me, and whispered, “About time dumbass.”

I feel a little sore due to overuse of the ribs, but I am walking on the clouds.

Oh, and officially: Operation Snatch is a success.

-Adrian

May 10th

I’ve been a busy bastard. Getting busy, that is.

Awwww yeah.

Well, once more isn’t all much for setting the high score on getting some poontang, but when you look at how much poontang I’d been getting up 'til now versus what I’ve gotten recently, it’s practically an act of God. A virtual cornucopia of sexual activity. Miraculous even.

So what’s on your mind Mr. Journal?

I have a fair amount of ground to cover here, and very little willingness to sit here and type it all out. It’s been a long pair of days. Mostly because of sex.

Awwww yeah.

I went back to The Farm yesterday for a scouting mission. The trip through town there was about the same as the other day, which is to say quiet. I only passed a few undead, and because of my newly acquired testosterone levels (due to me getting laid) I actually took the time to stop the truck, and smash their heads in with the halligan. I didn’t want a repeat of the other day when I returned to the truck with two undead on the logging road.

Speaking of the logging road, I did not park there yesterday. Once I actually got eyes on The Farm the other day, I had a much better idea of where the road it was on was, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was another road I should check. There’s an old abandoned rail bed in town, and it cuts right across the terrain behind The Farm. I felt it was important to get an opposite side view of The Farm, plus it didn’t hurt that the rail bed had an exit going in either direction, unlike that old logging road.

I’m a fucking JEENYUS.

I drove the Tundra down the dry rail bed in amongst some fairly thick overgrowth, and walked back to make sure I left no tracks in the dirt. Yay for dragging a pine tree branch around. I drove to about what I thought was a spot a half mile from the farm, and hoofed it a hundred yards or so until I had a sweet spot next to… you guessed it, another fucking stone wall.

In sniper school they teach you that one of the last places you want to hide is next to, or at the base of a tree. The shape of your body creates a lump that looks like a tree tumor. Other snipers always look for that shape, so it’s a huge no-no. Hiding behind the rock wall, and just shifting a stone an inch or two to get clear LOS for the scope creates no foreign shapes, and barely disturbs what any sentry has been looking at for however long they’ve been staring at it. You’re far better off just dropping on your face in the grass, and hoping they just look right over the top of you.

Long winded aren’t I?

Here’s the payoff for that giant lead in: I didn’t see anything different. It was a little overcast and drizzly yesterday, so the pregnant ladies never made an exterior appearance. I am pleased to note that the opposite side of the house has a good view into a few second story windows where I could observe some of the women during their inside activities.

Inside, from what I could see, they were chilling. No weird activity, and honestly, nothing out of the ordinary. I observed the same guards on what appeared to be the same rotation, and nothing different or off about them.

Oh, I did notice due to the fact that I was on the side of the open farming area, that they have 11 cows. Three are calves. That’s pretty hot. They all looked delicious.

Last night ended with disappointment when I returned to campus with no interesting news other than the cow count. Blake seemed downtrodden, Gilbert was gone back to his place, and the women just slumped their shoulders. While I was out, the rest of the crew hit some houses near the pharmacy area of town again, and actually managed to pick up a fairly decent haul of usable shit. A fair amount of food, a few more weapons, a little bit of ammunition, and most interestingly, three cases of various Jello products. Cases. Not boxes.

Four packages of strawberry jello, four packages lime, four packages lemon, etc etc etc. We are now Jello-wealthy, which is sort of cool. I returned home last night to a giant tray of jigglers in the Blue flavor, which is a lot like being a kid again. I single handedly ate half the tray. Much appreciated.

Lindsey and her kids worked with Ollie and Melissa all day on farm stuff, and I guess they were productive. I really have no idea what the hell Ollie is doing on a daily basis. He seems really happy with how things are going, but that might just mean he’s a little goofy.

Today we were set to work on campus and lake area activities. I spent most of the day over working on the Manning farm to make sure it was set up and safe. I’d feel like a jackass of epic proportions if we gave them a “safe place” to live, and they wound up getting hurt there. All of the windows on the lower floor are fortified now, and the exterior doors have been replaced with solid core, windowless models from campus. Yay for maintenance having spare windows and doors. Ollie had spare chicken wire, and together a few of us got a small fence around the garden we planted there. We set the garden up intentionally so it was surrounding the rear porch door, with a path through the center. Now that the fence is surrounding the garden, it is also doubling as an additional barricade preventing a zombie incursion. Once we find some pressure treated lumber, we’re going to reinforce the chicken wire fence we have there now.

Out of all of it, hanging the doors was a bit of bitch, but as I said, I’m a JEENYUS, and I make shit happen.

Mike, Mallory, LaFrenz, Hector, and a new lady by the name of Mary made the trip from Westfield. I had seen Mary before, but hadn’t really talked to her. She’s young, maybe 24, or 25 or whatever, and she’s fairly cool. She’s pretty hardcore too, and Mike said that she was “in training” to be a member of their security force. Hence her presence today. She is definitely taking her job seriously. She didn’t talk to… anyone. Just did her rounds of campus with LaFrenz while the rest of us met, and insisted on bearing the burden of whatever needed to be done. She might be overcompensating, but I won't judge.

Mike, Mallory and Hector brought news of Westfield. Mike tried to be diplomatic. Sadly, he’s a National Guard sergeant, and diplomacy has not been part of his job duties for some time now. Long story short, Lisa would not commit any military oriented resources to anything in regards to The Farm.

Mike went on to explain that if we could bring irrefutable proof to them, she’d commit immediate resources to the fight. Hector and Mike both said they’d be on board in a heartbeat, but that was about all they could lend us. Two, maybe three shooters at most. Doesn’t sound like much, but we’ve cleared a huge portion of town with just four shooters, and half that again might allow us to do some pretty amazing shit.

Lisa, in her awesomeness as a health care giver, said that regardless of whether or not they assist with their people in violent action, she would be more than willing to support us medically. She said that if we planned something on our own, and we hit the place, she’d be willing to come here with her two medical trainees to stage a medical clinic to treat any casualties.

Reactions were as I expected. Lots of disappointment. Blake was livid, Abby was pissed, Patty was sad, Gilbert was meh, Gavin stared at Abby’s flat(ish) chest, and I was somewhat positive. Let’s be honest Mr. Journal, what were we expecting Lisa to say? “Hell yeah, bomb the joint, here’s all my soldiers?”

Yeah, prolly not happening. She made the best choice for her people, as well as the best moral choice when surrounded by a lot of potentially immoral opportunities. Show me proof, I’ll give you support in a fight. Either way, I’ll patch you up if you get your ass kicked. Pretty simple, and the right decision I think. Mike and I rephrased it more or less that way and everyone sort of came together on the sense of Lisa’s decision.

What does this change for us? Nothing really. Blake has fit in fairly well, and I think the fact that he’s around people, and able to be productive and distracted has really helped him. As long as we keep him busy, and go there every day looking for more intelligence he’ll be fine for a bit. Now if we don’t get any, then we’ll start thinking about ways to open up trade with them. Once we’re doing that, we’re bound to get more intelligence. Then we can make a decision that way, and live with it.

Mike said they’ve had a lot of excess activity in town from folks returning from other places. He’s guessing another 20 or 30 folks have moved into the area within the past couple days, which is… scary business. He said things are quiet and everyone seems to be good to go, but we both know that shit won’t last. As soon as those folks realize there is little to no food in town over there… that school or Lenny’s farm might come under attack. I mean shit, it’s inevitable after the crap that Sean pulled before everything went down. Remember Mr. Journal, most of the folks leaving Westfield early on had to deal with Sean’s flunkies raiding the town and driving around like assholes. As a result, Mike said their next earliest visit day would be the 17th.

Mike and his crew are on double duty to make sure Lenny’s farm as well as the school is prepared in the event the returning locals try to do anything silly. That got me on the whole subject of just how many people they can take in there, and we can actually take in here. We have been eating leftover food from before, and that’s fine and all, but that WILL run out eventually, so when that happens, how much food can we grow to sustain ourselves?

Enter Ollie and his farming genius. (Different than Jeenyus, that’s an Adrian special)

Ollie says it takes a decent yield out an area about a hundred feet square to grow enough food to sustain a single person. Of course, that’s assuming we’re eating eggs, taking down game, fishing, etc. Not all areas of the field will produce it separately, but with all the different foods he’s growing, you mix it all up in a balanced diet, and it all comes out in the wash.

Good news, is that Ollie said we’ve adequately fenced off, made safe, and planted something in the area of just under 160,000 square feet already. That mother fucker works Mr. Journal, seriously. How he’s gotten all that done already on his own is amazing to me.

So, if you do the math, that means we should grow enough food here on campus to sustain 16 people. Add to that the garden that we planted over on the Manning Farm, which is maybe 700 or 800 sq feet, and we’ll call it 17 folks.

Interior potting over the winter will probably net us maybe, maybe another person’s food needs, and add in what we’re consuming in leftovers, and frankly, that’s a lot of food. Ollie and Gilbert both comfortably said we could house and feed 20 folks now. Granted, the crops aren’t yielding any food for us yet, other than some small ass tomatoes, but in another two months, we’ll have a fair amount of food, and could probably take on a few more people without any issue.

Head count. Me, Otis, Abby, Patty, Gavin, Gilbert, Lindsey, Andrea, Maddison, Blake, Ollie, and Melissa. That’s more or less capacity for us. In another month or two, once those veggies sprout, maybe we can take on one or two more. If we double our chicken count, or bag a deer every other week, then that’s a different story, but that seems unlikely.

Lenny’s farm is approximately three times the size of ours right now, plus he has the cows, and way more chickens than we do. The larger town likely also yielded more salvaged food too. Ollie said there was no reason to think why Westfield couldn’t comfortably feed 70-85 people.

Interesting to think we are now pretty much “full” and we probably ought not to take in anyone else. Which is ironic… because…

Mallory is sleeping next to me right now. Cat’s out of the bag. When everyone from Westfield went to leave, she politely excused herself and motioned for me to follow her. I went over, and she asked me if I’d mind if she spent the night, and I had no ability to say no.

As soon as she said she wanted to crash, my pecker went haywire, and the decision had been made for me. She laughed, and told Mike she’d drive back in a day or two with the third vehicle they’d brought. (Which also explained why they’d brought a third truck, and she conveniently produced an overnight bag complete with underwear, toothbrush, and a loufah)

Women. I swear.

Soooo. Yeah, when the others left, Mallory pretty much made herself at home here, and when I went to explain to everyone around that she and I were kind of “seeing each other” everyone looked at me like I had a giant dick dangling between my eyes. Mallory and Abby flat out laughed at me, and Patty and Gilbert just shook their head, muttered some derogatory phrases about me being a dumb shit, and that was it.

Oh, Gavin high fived me. There might’ve been a knuckle bump involved in there as well.

After dinner Mallory and I dug out a box of condoms, and retired up here to casa de Adrian. That was three hours, and a very good time ago. She’s a minx that one. Also, this new bed is total magic when it comes to getting busy. Great for sleeping and great for screwing on.

I don’t know about the idea of her moving here. It’s really early to even think that, but it’s really nice to share a bed with her. There’s something special about watching a woman sleep. I realize this is a terrible aside, but I wanted to get that off my chest. She’s sleeping on her side, on my right, and she’s facing away. There’s just a sheet over her, and it’s following the curves of her shoulders, and hips. It’s draped just right to show off all the good stuff. I can see the gentle rise and fall as she sleeps away, and I can smell her hair from where I’m sitting next to her without moving.

Call me crazy Mr. Journal, but the fact that she’s so comfortable to share a bed with me, and sleep right beside me, so vulnerable, just... I don’t know. Makes me feel good. Makes me feel wanted. Makes me want to curl up behind her, and press my body against her to share that feeling all night.

Speaking of which…

I’ll talk to you soon.

-Adrian

May 12th

Drama bukkake.

Drama yogurt grenade.

The plot thickens like gravy. I spent all day yesterday as well as today over at The Farm, and officially, there is poop SOARING off that fan. Maybe that’s an exaggeration. There’s definitely shit and a fan in the same room, and the shit keeps getting closer and closer. It’s almost like, hovering, dropping a few little turds here and there onto the fan that then launch and cause little tiny exploding poo messes, instead of a single gut wrenching, wall destroying fecal explosion.

I love being colorful. I hope my insane ramblings make sense to you Mr. Journal.

Mallory left for home yesterday, so there’s no sex talk to be had. I think she was frustrated that I was going to be so busy, so she just decided after our romp the other night that she’d just remove herself as a distraction. Thanks, I guess. I sort of miss her. Not sure what to make of that.

Alright. I spent all of yesterday and all of today at The Farm, scoping the joint out. Yesterday and today I went the route of the logging road instead of the rail bed. Mixing up avenues of approach is always a good idea when possible.

All was normal, quiet, and boring. Until about 2pm yesterday. I observed three people on foot approach the farm stand at The Farm. They looked haggard as shit. I saw a set of adults (graying hair, late 40’s, maybe 50’s), and a teenage kid, maybe 14-16. Through the scope there was a clear family resemblance to one another via the kid, so I assumed it was mom dad and son.

The family approached The Farm cautiously, and were told to halt by the male guard that was on duty. The stopped in the center of the road, and within a minute or two, the old man who supposedly owned the joint appeared with another guard, and they walked together up the farm stand. It appears that the farm stand is operating as a quasi gate house. The family shuffled over to a small window covered in what looked like chicken wire and plexiglass, and they engaged the old man on the inside in conversation for something like 30 minutes.

I noted that the two guards split themselves up. One covered the road and the back of The Farm while the other paid close attention to the family. Neither guard left the interior of the heavy duty fence and nor gave the family a clear shot at them. Obviously they had a system to cover visitors.

Somewhere around 25 minutes into the conversation the mother and father became noticeably animated. The son pulled away from the parents as they clearly became disappointed with the old man inside, and after a few minutes of what looked like pleading, they left. At no point did the guards become elevated, so I think it wasn’t an issue of violence or threats. I thought perhaps the terms of a trade had gone bad.

The family left peacefully, and that was the end of that. When I returned home last night, I debriefed, and everyone was very interested. I asked Blake if he’d seen them before, and after thinking about it for a bit, he was almost totally positive that he’d never seen them before. He theorized it was as I thought, just a trade gone wrong. Blake said frequently the old man just wouldn’t be interested in what he and Kim had to offer, and they’d be told what The Farm was looking for, and the two of them would go out, find something on the list, and return with it to get some milk, or food, or whatever.

Everyone else was a little peaked at the idea that the family was sent away empty handed. I think all of us are of the mind that if someone shows up on your doorstep, begging for food, you feed them. Even if it’s a little, you do something for them. I dunno, maybe these guys take a hard line on that kind of stuff, but it struck me as dickholish.

Today things were far more interesting. Blake asked if he could come with me today, and there was no real need for him elsewhere, and I thought it would be a good thing to bring him along to observe him in the field, as well as see if he had any pointers. As I said, we returned via the logging road.

At four pm, give or take, the family from yesterday returned. They had a collection of backpacks and when they hailed the guard, the old man returned to the farm stand once more. This time, the trade went down quickly, and everyone appeared to walk away happy.

Towards the end of the trade, Blake tapped me on the shoulder, and told me he knew who the people were. He said they were the Edwards family, and he knew where they lived. They were perhaps three miles down the road, and lived in a decent sized trailer on its own land.

I thought about it as they were wrapping up their trade, and made the call to intercept them. I didn’t want the chance to talk to them to slip through our fingers, and with Blake there, I thought I had adequate back up for a meeting to go down somewhat smooth.

Blake and I got the fuck out fast, back to the Tundra, and we booked ass to the driveway of the family. Blake camped out in the trees out of sight from the road to offer me cover with his Enfield, and I simply leaned against the bumper of the Tundra, right out in the open. I had the M4 across my chest, but I had the barrel down low, and was not offering any threatening posture. We made it there in the nick of time.

I watched the family stop in the road when they rounded the corner about a hundred yards out. I waved out at them with my black baseball glove covered hand, and motioned for them to keep on coming. The dad produced a handgun from his waistband, but kept it pointed down, and honestly, I just felt like this was going to go well. Can’t explain it.

They stopped about ten yards out, and stood in the middle of the dirt road. To my left was their long dirt driveway, and if they wanted to, they could walk by me and to their place. I didn’t want to block their driveway. I thought it would send the wrong message.

Here’s the conversation that went down. I think you’ll find it very interesting Mr. Journal.

“Hi, my name is Adrian.”

“Hello there sir. I’m Larry, this is my wife Candace, and this is our son Tucker. Any reason why you’re sitting out near our house here?” The dad. He was probably only mid 40’s when I saw him up close. He was a little dirty, with a face full of grey facial hair. His hairline was thinning, and he looked thin as well.

“Yeah actually. This might sound strange, so bear with me here, but I was hunting in the area, and noticed you just traded with that farm down the way, and was wondering if you could explain to me who they were. I’m considering doing business with them and wanted to try and get a competitive edge.” Yeah, it was kind of a lie, but also kind of the truth. Plus the full truth would’ve probably scared the daylights out of them. ‘Hi I’m Adrian, I just got done watching you like a grade-A creeper through my .30-06 rifle scope. Oh by the way, it was loaded and I can make that shot.’

The mom and dad exchanged strange looks, and the mom answered me, “Well Mr. Adrian, they are strange folk. You best be on good behavior or they won’t even trade with you.”

“How so?” I asked with a confused face.

“Well for one, they’re real picky on what they trade, and what they trade for. And secondly, they’re Christians, and they don’t trade with folks who aren’t.” Candace, the wife said back to me.

“Hm.” I scratched my head. “Why haven’t you moved in with them?”

The dad let out a, “Ha!” Not a good sign. “Well, we were not attendees of the church old man Adams was a pastor at before all this happened, and that pretty much was the reason why he said we weren’t invited. He said he’d take Tucker in, but only if we agreed to sign over our parental rights. We said hell no.”

“That’s kind of messed up. Isn’t that basically telling you that you were bad parents?”

“That’s how we felt. We need their food though, and honestly, if it weren’t for that, we’d have told them to go fly a kite. But, if it weren’t for them, we’d have starved a long time ago.” The parents exchanged sad looks with one another.

“If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly are you doing for food out here? I don’t see much in the way of a garden.” I gestured around.

“Well, I used to be a trapper back in my youth, and I still have some of my traps. I been catching coyotes, rabbit, raccoons, that kind of thing. Plus I’ve got a rifle in the house and we’ve been lucky enough to get a deer here and there. We bagged a big old moose a few weeks ago, but we’re gonna lose a bunch of the meat if we don’t trade it. Meat hasn’t been keeping good since the warm weather started to set in. That’s what we just did down at the Adams farm. Moose meat for fresh vegetables and milk.”

I thought of that moose meat and immediately started salivating. If you’ve never had it Mr. Journal, it’s quite good. “Well hell. I’ll trade you something here and now for some of that moose. I don’t have much on me, but I’ll find something.”

“That’d be terrific. Hey where are you from? You look kind of familiar?” The dad asked.

“I lived downtown, worked here for a few years. Probably saw each other at the store or something.” I shrugged.

He and his wife nodded. “Yeah that sounds about right, don’t you have a shitload of tattoos?”

I laughed and tugged up the long sleeve of the shirt I was wearing, revealing the bottom of my tattoo sleeve. “Yeah, that’s me. Inkaholic.”

They all pointed and had one of those eureka moments. Instantly it was like we were old chums. He lifted his jean legs and showed me his calf tattoo, and I lifted my khakis, and showed them my leg tattoo, and yada yada... we were friends.

After our little bonding bullshit he holstered his revolver and I slid the M4 down to a less threatening angle on my hip. Blake sat still in the woods like a trooper. I did my level best not to look in his direction and tip them off to his presence.

By then we were on a first name basis. “Larry look, we’ve got a few folks set up in a pretty safe place, and one of our people has had some bad run ins with these folk, and we’re not entirely sure what’s up with them. I mean we want to trade and shit, but based on what we’ve heard, we’re pretty nervous about it. Plus there’s the whole pregnant women thing.”

That got solemn nods from everyone. Candace spoke up, “We haven’t seen the pregnant women, but we’ve heard rumors from folks a few months back about it. Apparently they’ll take in any pregnant woman no questions asked. They also will take in any woman they say is of ‘child bearing age’ which is pretty freaky if you ask me.”

“We think that’s part of why they won’t let us move in. Candace is too old, plus we’re not religious enough for them. I think old man Adams is trying to start his church over, ‘cept he’s in charge of the place entirely. Think he might be taking the whole judgment day thing seriously.”

“Hm. Can you really blame him?” I shrugged. I should know that guy’s name if he was a local pastor. However, I am a godless shit, and don’t go to church. I may have come to some serious revelations about faith, and greater powers, but back in the day, church was a big no way for me. Plus my parents didn’t go, so it’s not like I was really dragged into the lifestyle.

“Any ideas? I mean you guys know them better than we do.” I figured what the hell, go for it.

“Ideas on what?” Larry asked.

“I mean shit guys, they seem shady as hell, and I’d really like to learn more about them before I go into business with them. I have half a mind to just walk and fix my own problems. Trade with the other folks we work with.” I did leave out the ‘I’m trying to figure out if these people are shady asshats that may or may not need their ticket punched.’

Candace and Larry looked long and hard at their son, and asked him to head back to the house. Larry handed him the revolver, and Tucker took off. After that the two of them pulled close to me, and shared some shit.

“Honestly old man Adams and his wife were always strange folk. I mean anyone who loves the Lord that much always makes me wonder if they’re religious, or a religious nut, and since all this shit went down, he’s definitely gone from one to the other. If we had our way, we’d leave, but the trapping here is good, and the hunting is decent, and as long as we have what they need they trade us other things.”

“You ever go into town?” I asked.

“Fuck that. Too dangerous. We tried a few trips before winter but that ended with us getting shot at, and blowing out a tire. Hell we don’t even have a functional vehicle. All the neighbors are gone or dead, and we’ve looked for their car keys but can’t find shit. No sense in us heading downtown at this point. We’ve got all we need.”

“Makes sense. Our group is trying to clear downtown. We’re maybe a fifth done. It’s slow work, and dangerous. Folks are coming back from up north now, and that scares us more than the fucking zombies do. Finding good people has been hard work man. I’ve been shot at a lot the past, what? Ten months?”

Candace spoke up, “You seem nice Adrian. I’m sure you’ll do just fine. We’d be more than happy to trade with you guys too. Larry and Tucker have plenty of meat and furs. We’re actually working on turning the furs into clothes. It’ll be awhile, but we’ll figure it out.”

I smiled. “That’s great. Good idea with Walmart being closed lately.” That got a laugh.

We chit chatted some more about life since June, and their story was actually decent. They hunkered down in their trailer, slapped plywood on anything flimsy, and rode out the worst of it. I guess that’s another bit of awesome about being in a rural town. There’s no fucking zombies. The closest house to them is a mile away. As long as they make little noise, they don’t draw them in. Now that the herd of undead in the area has been thinned over the winter, they can shoot occasionally and not really worry about the consequences. *crosses fingers to avoid the jinx*

“Well guys I tell you what, we can definitely add you guys to the list of people we trade with. We’ve got quite a few mouths to feed, and anyone that can supply us with some extra meat will be popular. Maybe after a month or two of trading with us, you might want to consider moving closer to us.”

That was met with a lukewarm reception, but they were all about the trade. In fact, Candace went back to the trailer, and brought out a whole moose leg and thigh that they said was spare and for trade.

Of course, I had fuck all to give them for it. I did have two MREs (kosher, remember?) as well as two gallons of water mixed with kool aid, which actually made them pretty fucking excited. I don’t know if that’s an advertisement for how awesome kool aid is, or how trashy they are. I mean shit, I like it. I’m not trashy.

Right? Oooh. Now I’m worried. I asked Larry what his pistol was, and he said .357, and I told him I had plenty of spare .357 back at home to trade and he was like, uber thankful. Judging from his response, I’m guessing ammunition is a concern for them.

I asked them when was good to meet with them again, and they suggested maybe once every couple weeks. They didn’t know the date, and I told them it was May 12th, and they were shocked. They didn’t have a calendar. They’d missed birthdays. That kind of made them sad. I felt like a dipstick.

Knowing the date, we agreed on a meeting on the 18th. That’s the day after our next Westfield meeting. I figured that’s as good a day as any. I also told them it might not be me, or just me, and that whoever showed would take good care of them.

They were very excited, and we exchanged a short list of what they had to trade, and what we had to trade, and that was it. I shook their hands, thanked them for their time, and apologized for the strange way I got their attention. They got another good laugh out of it. I’m glad they didn’t ask me more questions about how I knew they had been trading with The Farm. I didn’t have a good answer on tap.

When they made it back to the house, Blake squirmed his way out of the woods about twenty yards down the road, out of sight of their trailer. I drove down, picked him up, and filled him in on what he missed. He heard a good portion of the conversation but not all of it. He alluded that what the Edwards family said basically confirmed all of what he said.

We headed home immediately after that. We needed to have a pow wow about the Edwards family with the rest of the folks. Of course we returned back to campus before the rest of the other group returned back, so we had a few hours to chill out before we could call a full meeting. I didn’t chill, and neither did Blake. We went over and helped Ollie with the fields. It was a lot of work, but in a way, it was a lot better than just laying in the dirt in the woods with ants crawling all over me and black flies biting me.

Everyone returned home kind of late. They had Gavin’s truck, the HRT, and a gigantic diesel dualie truck. Apparently it was parked behind a garage at a house they cleared, and the keys were inside. From what they said it was a dirty clear, with quite a few undead inside the house and the garage. No one was hurt, but they did churn through a fair amount of ammo, and I'm sure they made a lot of noise in the process. Hugely awesome score on the truck though. We were hoping to find a diesel truck sooner or later, and this thing is gigantic. It’s perfect for what we need.

They had cleared about four houses today, and yesterday they managed to pull up a bunch of fencing around someone’s house. The fence wasn’t secured with cement, so they were able to get it up fast. Not much in the way of food or supplies today, but they said they put down something like 30 undead, and that is pretty fantastic in and of itself.

Once we got everything in and settled, I called for a town hall meeting. We radioed for Lindsey and them to come, and after an hour wait for them to show up (organizing two little kids is a bitch, so I’m told), and we held court.

I said everything I just wrote down, plus additional details I’m too lazy to type. Reactions were mixed as well, but I can happily say that the mood shift was to try and start a trade to get first person intel. We all agreed that it was really important to talk face to face with this guy, and see what he’s like firsthand. We’ve gotten three people all saying he’s weird, and kind of an asshole, but honestly, that shouldn’t be enough to string this old fuck up. Is it looking good for them? Honestly no, I don’t think things look good, but knowing that we’re gathering good intelligence means we’re getting closer to making a decision we can all live with, and that’s pulling us together on this.

What pulled us a little apart was when I made a preliminary case on potentially inviting the Edwards family nearer to, or potentially onto campus with us. That went over like a fart in church.

I was called (amongst other more colorful names) dumb, stupid, silly, moronic, slow, retarded, inbred, etc. As we discussed before, we are nearing our food capacity, and frankly, I know that and even said that. I was merely suggesting that in a month or two, we might want to consider it, and wow… not a good idea.

Of all the people, Ollie was the one who snapped on me hardest. Here’s the basic idea of what he said, and I’ll leave this entry at that.

“Adrian, I can’t plant food fast enough to feed people at this rate. The food doesn’t grow at light speed.”

“Ollie, I know man. I’m just saying he’s a hunter, and a trapper, and he did just trade us an entire moose leg for the promise of some bullets. They might bring in as much food as he and his family would consume. Plus they’re three more folks with gun experience, and I think there is value to that. I hate to see folks that are struggling. I don’t want them to starve.”

“We can’t save everyone. There isn’t enough space here to house them, and there certainly isn’t enough food to go around. If we take in too many folks, especially ones that can’t help us, or contribute their fair share, we run the risk of starving ourselves, and not making it through winter. Adrian, what happens if something goes bad at that farm, and we take in a bunch of pregnant women? Have you considered that all?”

“I know Ollie, it just sucks to think that we may watch people starve.”

“Adrian, we may have to.”

Sigh.

-Adrian

May 14th

A tale of two worlds. That’s from something. I don’t remember what. Fucking Google is still down. The whole internet is as well. It drives me nuts to see that little icon in the bottom of my system tray. There are no networks to connect to.

Fuck yourself, internet.

I’m frustrated tonight. Not for any good reason either. Just pissed about people, and their asshole nature I guess. I find myself wishing I’d done more when it mattered most.

More on that in a bit.

I went to The Farm yesterday with Gavin instead of Blake. I thought it was a good idea to get as many people with eyes on experience as possible. Abby’s middle finger is starting to get infected, so the whole team (minus Gavin and I) took a day off yesterday to do more stuff around campus. Abby chilled out and rested, doing small shit in Hall E. The rest of them did fence work and field work, plus other things. Gavin and I hunkered down in the dirt with rifles with good optics, and we stared at a farm that had precious little happening on it. Yesterday was a dry hole for us. We saw nothing unordinary. This seems to be the rule, not the exception with The Farm.

Last night on campus was also kind of blah. Bad moods all around. Lindsey and her kids stayed at her farm all night after getting some food from campus, and Abby was crabby pants McGee over her finger. It’s all red and inflamed, and the antibiotics we gave her made her nauseous. Patty banished her to her room, and that was the end of it.

When I woke up this morning, I felt like total shit. I threw up in my bedside trash can as soon as my alarm clock went off, and promptly had the ninja shits for half an hour. I’m happy to report that the ninja shits didn’t strike while I was in bed, otherwise my nice new bed would’ve been ruined. Poop shuriken were not everywhere. Huzzah for an airtight asshole.

I felt rotten, so I bailed. Blake has been sleeping in Hall B with Ollie and Melissa. They took him in and made him feel comfortable. I wound up hobbling my gross ass across campus and letting myself into their place, and I woke him up. He was pissed at me, but when I asked him to do The Farm’s daily recon, he promptly changed his tune. Getting him back involved was a good idea. I think he’d been feeling neutered. He was off in 15 minutes, and I went back to bed.

I wound up crawling out again at nine am, which is the latest I’ve slept in memory. We’re up early as hell all the time now. Oh, while I’m thinking about it, the furnace has been off for a week now. We’re keeping the whole Hall E warm with just that tiny wood stove we found. We’re also now able to run the electric generator at night only. The solar panels are cranking the juice now, and we have enough power off just them during the day to run almost everything in the Hall aside from microwaving on high, baking in the ovens, or running more than a few appliances at once. It’s pretty sweet. If we could get more panels somewhere...

So when I finally became conscious, I checked around, and it was just Abby, Ollie, Melissa, and myself on campus. A quick radio informed me that Lindsey was back at the house with the two kids with a stomach bug, which told me precisely why I was feeling like asshole. I decided I’d spend some time with her and sick kids, and try to keep everyone else healthy. Last thing we needed was to have a stomach bug rip through us and shut the whole show down.

I grabbed some food, some stuff, and drove over to the Manning farm and spent the afternoon helping her do her new chores. She’s just about done cleaning the entirety of the place up, and she’s keeping up nicely with the garden. There are little baby plants all over it.

She wound up making some tea for us, and we wound up sitting in the huge living room on the old couches, sipping the hot green tea, and talking. She’s such a calm person, and has such a huge heart. I definitely feel a lot closer to her today after hearing more of their story. In between attending to her sick daughters, as well as my chapped ass, she told me all about what happened to her and Doug after they left for the north.

The afternoon of June 23rd her and Doug both randomly had the day off from work. Doug was feeling under the weather, and Lindsey had taken a personal day to stay home and take care of him and the girls. She had a dentist appointment late in the morning anyway, so it worked out. She knew something was wrong when she arrived at the dentist’s office, and it was closed. There was a sign on the door saying “closed due to epidemic.” That was the first word about the events of the 23rd she’d heard.

Doug and Lindsey didn’t watch a lot of television, or listen to the radio. They just stayed unplugged for the most part. I think that’s one of the reasons why they adjusted so well to the way things are now. They don’t miss television like I do. That day she turned on NPR in the car, and got an earful of the end of the world. She called home to Doug, told him to turn on the radio, and by the time she got home, they were both freaking out.

Doug and Lindsey knew by about two that afternoon that things were bad, and were only going to get worse. They thought long and hard about it, trying to keep the girls out of the loop, and eventually decided to call Lindsey’s uncle, who lived in a ski resort town up north. He said he was headed there, and they should too, and everything would blow over in a few days.

As they were packing, things went from scary to horrible. In their neighborhood they heard a car crash, and an exchange of gunfire immediately after. When they went to the windows to see what had happened, they saw one crashed car pull away from their neighbor’s smashed up vehicle and drive away as their neighbor opened fire with some kind of rifle or shotgun. It looked like a relatively minor hit and run that ignited gunfire. The first signs of the world starting to come undone for them I suppose. Doug and Lindsey shat bricks, scooped up the kids, and left with little more than a picnic cooler filled with food, and an overnight bag filled with clothes for the girls.

As it turns out, they left at a good time. Maybe the best possible time. Traffic heading north was heavy, especially after they got past the city and got north on the interstate. People were driving like assholes, speeding like a bastard, and as a result, there were a LOT of car accidents. On a normal day, there are fender benders all over the place and maybe two or three major accidents across the whole state. Lindsey said on the drive up there were multiple rollovers, several vehicles plowed into guardrails, a bunch ran off the road, and quite a few with flats on the side, or just broken down or out of gas. As a result, there were dead folks, which meant zombies in the road, which caused more collisions as folks hit them, or swerved to hit them, causing more wrecks, causing more wrecks, etc etc.

Obviously we don’t know all those stories, but I am wondering now how many folks got in their car, and left without filling up the tank? I’d bet a lot. Most of the folks in this neck of the woods don’t realize that once you get out of the suburbs heading north, there are stretches of twenty, thirty miles before you get to another gas station. I think it’s fair to say multiple vehicles just… ran out of gas. Assholes rear ending people driving slower in their panicked attempts to escape north, drunks crashing, you name it. A massive exodus like the one that afternoon had to cause gridlock at a certain point. It did, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.

Lindsey got to the town where her uncle’s vacation house was sometime around 8pm. They’d listened to the radio the whole way, and by then as you already know Mr. Journal, life sucked. I think by that point there was a dead nurse in my back yard, my mom was dead, I’d shot a guy in the grocery store parking lot, and things were just fucking awesome in general. It’s weird to look back on that day now. So much has happened since.

The family arrived at her uncle’s place only to find it empty. Her uncle never arrived. Ever. To this day she still doesn’t know what happened to him, and it was clear in the tone of her voice that she was sad about it. When she was on the phone with him originally, he said other relatives of theirs were coming as well. None of them made it to his summer house either. So many questions right? And no answers at all. That’s the way things are now. Closure is a fucking pipe dream. A luxury afforded by no one.

When they arrived up north the grocery store in their town was already down to its bare bones. The credit card processing companies were down assumingly due to overload, so ATM and credit cards didn’t work anymore, and if you didn’t have cash, the store wasn’t selling. Cue armed robbery. People took what they could, and after a fashion, she said the store manager just opened the door, and told folks to take what they could. It was a better alternative than risking getting shot over a loaf of bread I suppose.

The resort turned into a ghost town by midnight. Everyone went to ground, and miraculously, there were little to no deaths. I mean it makes a lot of sense. If no one died, then it didn’t spread. It took US to spread this, not some virus working on its own. She said they ran out of most of the food at her uncle’s place in a month, and that drove them back into town to try and barter for food.

It had gotten bad in the resort town. The entire village had been taken over and placed under martial law by the local National Guard unit. They’d taken over the remaining places where food was available, and stockpiled all the medicine and important supplies. Most importantly, they’d instituted their own set of basic laws that preserved law and order, and also their power.

Lindsey and Doug had to go to the Guard command at the major ski resort in town. Eagle Mountain resort it’s called. Strategically, it’s excellent. There’s a deep fast river cutting around the majority of the mountain, and there is a single large bridge crossing it that takes you to the resort’s parking lot. Sound familiar much Mr. Journal? Lindsey said they set up a huge trading post/police station on the far side of the river, and only “approved citizens” were allowed to enter the resort.

To get approved, you had to agree to work set labor hours, have useful skills, be a known member of the community in good standing, and bring in goods that added to the “community survivability.”

Now that might sound good on paper, but if you think about it, it was a recipe for disaster. The key words to look at in that previous sentence are “known as a member of the community in good standing.”

Why is that a problem Mr. Journal? This is a town usually filled with out of towners. Certainly filled with out of towners right after the shit hit the fan. There was something like ten, maybe fifteen thousand folks there after the exodus, and the entire town year round only had maybe three thousand residents. Now as you’d imagine, the out of towners had a really hard time making a case as being a “person in good standing.” The locals obviously were waved through the gates with a thumbs up if they agreed to work and brought some tools, or fuel, but the non locals?

Well, Lindsey said they had a really hard time getting by. Those with money usually had things they could trade at their homes to buy a good reputation. Their cash was useless, but a donation of an expensive SUV, a spare electrical generator, or a four wheeler found those folks suddenly well known and valued members of the community. Cash talks. The policy created a vast gulf between the haves, and the have nots.

Inside the resort, behind the fortified bridge and across the river, the guardsman and their “citizens” lived a life of relative ease. The ski resorts are set up to last through inclement weather pretty good, so they had a fair amount of electricity, fuel, and food to last. Those outside in town were forced to rely on whatever they could scrounge in town, or hunt for. I guess a saving grace was that there were precious few undead up there. Luck of the draw perhaps?

Lindsey guessed and said maybe 80% of the survivors that didn’t make the cut into the resort made a living together after they collapsed into a luxury condo complex nearby. Raids from other locals diminished when their targets weren’t spread out, and they could organize hunting parties, raiding parties, etc. They never amassed enough firepower to attempt an assault on the resort. Lindsey said her family was fortunate that they never got seriously hit by anyone.

Warm weather saw things get much worse for them. By that point the food resources in the resort had run dry, and the guardsman ventured out, and started doing what the other batch of survivors down the road had been doing. Going door to door, searching for scraps. Mind you, this is before crops could yield any food, and with so many folks hunting and fishing, the local wildlife had been decimated as well.

There was no food left for the resort people to find, so they started taking it from the out of towners. Obviously, this was met with resistance. And unfortunately from the sounds of it, the shotguns, hunting rifles and handguns of the folks in the condos were no match for the humvee .50 cals. There’s no cover against those Mr. Journal. They’ll go right through a whole house and kill the people on the other side.

It was a massacre. Once the scale started to tip, the guardsman evidently decided that the other groups were too much of a threat to their survival, and expendable, and they purged them. Lindsey’s tear filled description of the events sounds an awful lot like the holocaust. People dragged out of their homes kicking and screaming, and forced to leave, perform what amounted to slave labor at the resort, or die on the spot.

The leader of the resort was a Colonel in the state National Guard, and Lindsey didn’t recall his name, but she said he was clearly insane. If her story is true, then I have no doubt about it. Lindsey said she and her family escaped because they never moved fully into the luxury development. They stayed at her uncle’s summer home and only visited when they caught or shot trade bait. She said they were exceptionally lucky because of a small stocked pond in the back of her uncle’s land. I guess they pulled a fish or two out of there every day, right up 'til it froze over. After that she said they managed to trade a few snowmobiles, a deer Doug shot, and some other things to survive. It wasn’t much of a life from what she said, but they couldn’t see risking a return to the southern part of the state.

When things went badly at the resort and the condos, Doug and Lindsey decided it was no longer safe for them, or the girls there. They had to risk coming back. They had no fuel, a truck that had been beaten up over the winter something fierce (the Nissan I saw), no food to speak of, and they were almost out of ammunition for their two weapons.

Doug snuck into the resort area where some of the vehicles with fuel were left behind after the guard unit killed or enslaved everyone. He managed to siphon a full gas can before he bugged out. Lindsey said he had claimed that he was chased into the woods by soldiers shooting at him. Doesn’t surprise me in the least. Imagine what was going through his head? All they’d been through, and here he was running for his life with barely enough fuel to get his family hopefully somewhere safer. Desperation.

They put the gas in the truck, loaded up what they had (which by appearances was just their two kids), and they left for here in the middle of night with the headlights off.

She said the trip home was remarkably quiet. They encountered ZERO living souls the entire trip home, which is very discouraging to me. On the interstate they drove by multiple groups of undead, shambling up and down the road in varying intensities. They drove around them as best as possible, and when absolutely necessary, they’d stop the truck, and Doug killed them with a wood splitting axe from her uncle’s house. Lindsey has that same axe next to the fireplace. When she pointed at it I noticed the red stains on the handle. Macabre.

For the most part they didn’t fight much on the trip aside from the few times they stopped to try and siphon more fuel from the crashed or abandoned cars. She said it took them an entire day to make it back here. This is about a four or five hour drive on the interstate normally, if that tells you anything.

There were two facts that she shared that disturbed me a great deal. The first fact was the gridlock going north. After they’d left the road there had been a series of accidents that stopped all forward progress heading north. She described one tragedy after another on the highway with pileups, cars riddled with gunshot holes, and clusters of undead that sounded enormous. She lamented the fact that they couldn’t stop to search the police cruisers left behind at the crashes for guns or ammo. It’s funny how your priorities change.

The second thing that really bothered me was the city. The interstate doesn’t run straight through the city, but circles it at a few miles out. If you want to get into the city, you need to get off on an exit, and make your way on surface streets to the center. From the interstate though, you can see all the tall buildings, and in many places, you can look down from the elevated highway and see the shopping plazas, hospitals, neighborhoods etc.

She said the city was practically destroyed. The larger shopping plazas had craters covering them, and cars were flung about like toys. The larger buildings at the city’s center were rotted out scorched hulks, clearly having burned out a long time ago. She said many of the overpasses going into the city were destroyed, broken in half by targeted munitions of some form or another judging by her description.

Clearly craters are caused by explosions, and most likely they were caused by bombs. Bombs probably dropped from planes. I don't think any other nation on Earth would've had the military organization and power to bomb our domestic soul last fall, which means we probably did that to ourselves. I can’t help but wonder why we would bomb our own cities? I mean it does make some sense to try large explosions to clear the masses of undead, but honestly, bombs do more damage to buildings and roads than they do to civilians or human targets, and likely even less to zombies. As I’ve said a thousand fucking times, the only way to kill these fucking things is to destroy their brains. Bombing a pack of them doesn’t guarantee shit for head injuries.

Whoever pulled the trigger on the idea of bombing our own soil to kill zombies must’ve known that wouldn’t be effective. How do I know it wasn’t effective?

Lindsey said as far as the eye could see, in every direction heading into the city, were masses of undead. Door to door, streetlight to streetlight, from crushed and exploded car to smashed apart mailbox, were the walking dead. A moving, undulating sea of rotting flesh.

That’s maybe 40 miles away. There is nothing stopping them from turning this way, and making the trip here.

I don’t know how much sleep I am going to get tonight. I’m suddenly filled with doubts, and the fear that at any minute, the entire population of the city will arrive here on my doorstep.

Tomorrow is Abby’s birthday.

-Adrian

May 15th

God I’m tired. Feeling like shit yesterday really took it out of me. I feel better today, but really drained. I’m good, and Lindsey’s two kids are good, which tells us that it was probably something we ate. Maybe there was something funny on the vegetables? Who knows.

Blake reported seeing nothing at The Farm yesterday, and with me still feeling a little queasy today, he went once more by himself. His report today when he returned home was mundane. He did say he saw two vehicles moving through town on the way back here, and that’s a little sketchy. One minivan, and one sedan. No word on passenger count. He thought they didn’t see him, but there’s no way of knowing.

Today was Abby’s birthday, and we’ve been planning a little shindig for her. We don’t have much to work with anymore obviously, but it’s the thought that counts. To make our plan work, we sent Abby and her more or less healed finger out with the house cleaning crew. Gilbert feigned illness so he could stay behind to help.

He and I worked in the kitchen all day and managed to bake a chocolate cake. We had a few cans of cocoa powder, and lots of flour, and eggs and etc, so he did the magic work, and I made some poor man’s frosting out of confectioner’s sugar and more cocoa. Abby I guess likes fish, so once we had the cake baked up, we went to the shore of the lake, and cast our lines out for a few hours.

Gilbert seems weird lately. He’s definitely been short of temper, evidenced by the whole sticking a gun in Blake’s chin incident. I dunno, maybe the stress of it all is getting to him. We chilled out at the water in some lawn chairs with a few beers and waited for something to bite.

By the end of the afternoon we’d brought up four lake trout and a bass which was far more than I thought we’d get. We should fish more. It’s a pretty big lake, and as long as we ration out our fishing days, we should be able to keep ourselves in fish through the warmer months with little effort. It was nice to spend some time with the old man where we weren’t on 100% vigilance. He and I don’t ever get to be civil to one another.

I was definitely put into moment of bad mood though when we were coming back to the campus. I noticed two zombies coming across the bridge right past the single van we have. I haven’t seen a zombie up here in a very long time. I put the lawn chair down, dropped into a firing crouch, and punched one’s ticket. Like a douchebag I forgot to bring my melee weapon with me, so I dropped the other one with the M4 too.

Not sure what led them here. Especially in the middle of the day. Ollie hollered out on the radio asking what was up, and I told him we had a small breach. He called back that he’d get right on finishing the fence and gate. Once that gate and fence are up, our worries diminish dramatically.

Gilbert got the fish ready, and I transported the damn zombie corpses back to the body pile, which was fucking ripe. There isn’t much there at the moment, but the combination of spring warmth and decomposition and maggots make it just nasty. Smells fucking rotten. I gagged hard trying to get those bodies taken care of back there.

We got everything else prepared for dinner. The cake was ready, the fish were ready to be cooked, we had fresh vegetables from the pots, some canned stuff, we made some of the infinite Jello we have, as well as a smattering of other shit. It was a good spread.

The weather was really nice, and we had everything set up outside for when they all returned. Needless to say, Abby was pissed at Gavin because it was clearly his fault that he didn’t tell her we had set this all up for her. She was honestly surprised. Very happy, but also a little embarrassed.

There are no gifts really we can give. Another gun from the stockpile? More ammunition from the crates? Some clothes we got from a dead person’s house? It all seems meaningless now. I think Abby was happy that we were all here, all safe, and celebrating. Patty was a bit of an emotional wreck at one point. Her kid’s first birthday without Charles was tough on her. The Williams girls had some special time to work it out, and they returned to the fresh fish, and a half assed cake made by two Army men.

It wasn’t dinner at the Ritz, but it was nice.

Happy 18th birthday Abigail. May you have many more.

Tomorrow I’m headed to The Farm for another recon. Mike and the guys and gals are returning on the 17th for a trade and meet. With any luck they’ll have something good to trade, or at least have good news about something. We’ve got lukewarm news to give them about all this Farm business.

Otis has decreed it is time to sleep. He’s bonking his forehead into my elbow, which is his way of saying “get settled, so I can crawl up your ass for warmth.”

I don’t get it, it’s nice and warm tonight. I’ve got the windows open too, and there’s no need to role play being a dingleberry on my taint to stay warm.

Weird ass cat.

-Adrian

May 17th

What’s the expression Mr. Journal? When it rains, it pours?

Yeah that’s the one. I think just to keep things fresh I’m going to invent my own one. When Adrian gets fucked, he gets royally fucked.

Things are messy. Like, really messy. I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ll guess I’ll jot it all down in the order the mess came in, that way it makes some sense. Structured bullshit.

Yesterday Abby and I went out on a recon of The Farm together. Her finger is much improved, and it was a good way for her to get out and get some action without really stressing the digit. If something did happen, she was well enough to put lead downrange accurately, and honestly, if anything happened we’d be retreating and not engaging. Plus it was nice to spend time with her. She got some good basic observation experience yesterday, and anything I can teach anyone is good. That’s not me tooting my own horn, I think the more we can teach each other in general, the better off we all are.

This Farm place is starting to irritate me. We haven’t seen shit. Sitting in the fucking dirt for ten solid hours or more is really boring, and the black flies are murderous right now. We actually found some old mosquito netting, and we’re covering ourselves in it while we’re out there to avoid the damn things. I hate those flies. They are God’s favorite way of irritating the living. That and the zombies. Fucking things.

Anyway, the only thing that happened yesterday was sweat and bug bites. We saw shit-all that was useful, and it was a total waste of time, yet again. I’m dangerously close to either moving on the place with force, or throwing in the towel and saying fuck it. Blake can deal with it however he chooses. We have too much to do to sit here all day doing nothing. It’s nearly time to shit or get off the pot.

Yes I realize I’m being an impatient shithead, but I’ve only got so much patience. Like our gasoline, it’s a resource I am running out of. I want desperately to do the right thing, but I am not perfect, and I am sick of watching nothing happen all day while other things (important things) sit idle. I’m pissy.

While Abby and I had our collective thumbs lodged securely in our assholes yesterday Gavin, Patty, Blake, and Ollie worked together to set up a special filtration system so we can clean our gasoline and diesel. I’m not sure what the hell they tried to build, but it required several trips around town, and apparently that was a little dicey. I guess the undead presence was inflamed by something, and they had to stop the trucks at one point to lay down fire to clean the road out. It hasn’t been that densely populated since STIG was around. That can’t be a good sign. Is something dragging that legion of dead in the city this way? I’m feeling guilt now over not being around on these off campus trips. Thoughts like these will keep me up at night.

No one was hurt, and apparently they figured out a way to get it done. Gilbert was adamant the system be set up here on campus and not at the garage. Blake was sort of pissy about it, but when Gilbert pointed out how silly it was to set up a complicated system not where our fuel was stored, it made sense to him. I mean shit, why drive multiple 55 gallon barrels miles away, only to process them, then drive them back? I refer back to my comment about pissing with a condom on. Doesn’t make sense. We set up the filtration dealio here, and we move the fuel by hand, not wasting time, gas, or risking attacks by the living, or the dead. Durrr.

The rest of last night was meh.

Today Mike and company arrived for their trade meeting. No Mallory. Not sure what to make of that. Also not sure what to make of the fact that I was indifferent about her not showing. I could’ve gone for sex today (shocking revelation that is, right?), and yet I’m not really broken up that she didn’t make the trip. Shrug. I’m in a shitty mood I guess. Probably best she didn’t make the trip anyway, I would’ve been an asshole, or inattentive and wound up making things worse.

Relationships. I tell ya.

Westfield is in a bad way, and officially Mike said they are potentially a few days away from asking for our help. This is not good. This is really not good. Worst case scenario not good. I probably don’t need to tell you that.

We saw the writing on the wall already about this, and the Westfield folks are apparently now about to pay the price for Sean’s pre winter bullshit. I guess the folks who have returned to town over there are now realizing there is no food, and the majority of the available water is typically bad. They have also figured out that Lenny’s farm is still operating, and there have been multiple daily “drive by” incidents where cars will creep down the length of the farm’s fence, and the occupants of the vehicles will peer out the windows with gaunt faces, and hungry eyes.

Lenny hasn’t fired on them, but he’s made a good show that he’s armed, and that if they fuck with him, he’ll blast them. However, Lenny is just one man, and he can’t watch the farm 24/7. As a result, Mike has split his forces, and now LaFrenz and that new security chick who came here before are at the farm all the time pulling security for Lenny. One is always on duty, watching to make sure things are okay.

Of course this leaves the school two people short for defensive purposes, and Mike is here today, which leaves them another person short. Doesn’t take Sun Tzu to clearly see they’re begging for trouble. It also explains why Mike came alone in the water truck by himself today. Not SOP. Hector can’t make the trip because he’s needed on the school roof to help keep watch. Mike said they’re desperately trying to get some of the able women trained with weapons, but practice ammo doesn’t grow on trees, and they’re worried any shooting will draw unwanted attention from the living as well as the dead. For the moment he’s training them in the gymnasium, but it’s work. None of them are taking to it quickly, and the overall sense of morale is dipping. I’m super thankful Abby and Patty are natural shooters by the way. Lucked out big time on that.

He said they might dial 911 here soon, and if they do, we are the people who pick up that phone. No hesitation, and no questions asked. That’s the least we can do for them after everything that’s gone down between our groups, as well as everything that we’ve done for each other since. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say our fates are largely shared at this point.

I’m scared something bad will happen.

The Farm thing has me worried, and so does this bullshit with Westfield. I’m not angry like I was over the Sean thing. This is different. I feel less justified, I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s because no one I care about is dead yet. Maybe I’m only able to react, and not able to be proactive?

Fucked if I know man.

Mike and Lisa are putting signs up all across Westfield, and especially near the farm so that if folks are hungry and need food, they can contact the school peacefully, and get some. Of course that’ll add some strain to their food consumption, but it’s better to lose a little weight than get shot and killed over a fucking potato.

We all immediately agreed that if something were to happen, we go. Furthermore, Ollie asked if it would be okay if he left here to go back and stay with his dad for a bit, at least during the day. Melissa didn’t care for that one bit, but there’s a lot of sense in him doing that. If Lenny’s farm is taken by someone, then almost all of the food they have goes kaput. Then we’d need to retake it, or find another farm, or relocate the entire population of Westfield to here. If Ollie helps his dad, they get their farm up and running faster, producing more, and Ollie’s a decent shot with his rifle, and should something happen, he’s another gun immediately in the fight. It could buy them enough time to get the big guns responding, which could make a lot of difference. Fire superiority, remember? He who shoots most, usually wins the fight.

We figured it out that Ollie would go for two days, then return here for a day, and we’d reassess at that point. When Ollie returns on the 20th, we’ll know when Mike and them need to meet again. Ollie followed Mike back to Westfield earlier this evening. I only sort of saw Melissa saying good bye, and she seemed quite distraught by him going. I hope this doesn’t end badly. Ollie’s such a good guy, and the two of them really deserve some frigging happiness together. We don’t need another child growing up in this world without both of their loving parents. It’s bad enough already.

Not sure what else to say. After they all left the mood here was sullen to say the least. Gavin kept wondering aloud about how he felt bad for having moved here. He’s developing that wonderful guilt I’m so familiar with. Abby took that personally, and the two of them were bickering upstairs about it for hours. Moral dilemmas Mr. Journal. At every turn we’re all filled with doubt, guilt, and fear. Makes life so much harder.

Too little butter. Too much toast.

I don’t know what fire needs to be put out first. My guts tells me I need to deal with The Farm immediately. We need to deal with The Farm. We’ve got a meeting with the Edwards clan tomorrow, and if that goes well, I might approach them to give us an in to meet this Pastor Adams. He sounds an awful lot like a Jesus freak to me, but I need to get someone I trust to see the look in his face, and hear the words out of his mouth. Maybe Gilbert or Patty. If we get the heebie jeebies, and things seem bad, then I’ll feel good about taking the door, and getting those women out. If not, then I guess we’ll deal with Blake’s response and see where the cards land.

After that, maybe we can send an extra body or two back to Westfield and give them a hand putting down undead, and reintegrating the returning survivors, or putting them down, whichever becomes necessary. I’d hate to think we have to kill folks over any of this shit, but the reality is life fucking blows, relationships get pwned, and people die.

All we need now is a massive influx of undead.

That’d slap that icing on the cake pretty nicely.

-Adrian

Homecoming

There would be no fireworks later. Amanda missed the fireworks. The ones that were colorful in the sky at least. There were plenty of other kinds of fireworks to watch lately, but they usually revolved around gunfire, or smashing in the thick skulls of her dead neighbors. Amanda wanted her fireworks gore free.

It had been less than two weeks since the world had gone to shit, and today was July 4th 2010. Independence Day. Amanda’s white knuckles gripped the steering wheel of her minivan in a chokehold. She sent a glance at her two small children in the rear view mirror. Seven year old Alan and ten year old Tabitha sat in the two bucket seats of the middle row. Despite the thick hot air of early July Amanda had both of them dressed in their winter coats, and snow pants. Better bite protection from the zombies. Both of them were buckled in their seats tightly, and with the cardboard boxes taped inside the large van windows they kept their eyes fixed forward on her. It was better that they couldn’t see all the dead people walking around town. She smiled tightly at the loves of her life and wondered how her husband would fare with her parents.

Andrew hated her parents. To be fair, they didn’t care for him either. All of them were too matter of fact to play nice for long, and frequently their brutal honesty led to painful arguments over nothing. Family events were awkward and lasted too long, and it had hurt their marriage. They only held together because of the kids, and their mutual desire to give them a better life.

The end of the world came about on June 23rd, and it had come quickly. When the first reports of the dead coming back to life started to roll in, too many people thought it was another church stunt to draw attention, or perhaps some giant, elaborate hoax. Everyone knew better now. Amanda’s neighborhood was crawling with the walking dead. She’d left a trail of them behind the minivan just twenty minutes before. Eventually they’d catch up. Nothing stopped them.

Why risk leaving their house? What was so important that she’d risk her life as well as the lives of her two young children? She was doing it for hope. The hope that her sister and her husband were still at their house on Wilbur Street, across town. Her sister Angela was married to a town cop, and she knew they’d be at their home, all sealed up and safe. She tried calling several times, but a car accident or something knocked out the phone service right after her sister said her husband was on his way home after filing the paperwork on a fatal shooting. At the time a shooting right here in town seemed shocking, but now it seemed like too little too late.

When a large Dodge van drove down her street that morning with a man shooting a pistol out the window like a cowboy on horseback, she knew it was now or never. If she drove in his wake, her and the kids had a chance. Her husband left behind, she bundled the kids up and left. As she parked the car on the side of the street in front of her sister’s home, she saw her brother in law’s cruiser in the driveway, and breathed a powerful sigh of relief. He was there.

“Come on kids! Time to see Aunt Angela and Uncle Danny!” She undid her seat belt and opened the van door after checking to see if the road was clear. She slid the nine iron from the floor of the van and hefted it. She and her husband had gotten remarkably adept at staving in the heads of the locals using golf clubs. Granted, the graphite shafts broke eventually, but there was little that could stand in the way of the head of a well swung golf club.

Tabitha helped her younger brother get free of his seatbelt as Amanda opened the slider of the van. The cardboard scraped and tore as the door glided open. She kept an eye peeled on the street to make sure none of the undead crept up on them as her kids hopped out. They instinctively reached for each other’s small hands as they ran around the van and up the steps to her sister’s large front door. As they reached the porch at the top, her brother in law’s hulking figure pulled the wide door open.

Danny McGreevy filled every open space in the door frame. He was out of his police uniform and dressed in an all black SWAT style jumpsuit. He held his hunting rifle comfortably in one hand as he scanned the street and waved her and the kids inside. The serious, worried expression on his face said everything to her. He held a lone finger at his lips instructing the kids to stay silent as he pulled the door shut behind them.

Amanda wrapped her arms around her sister’s bald giant and squeezed him. “Hey you. Where is Angela? Is everyone okay?”

Dan smiled painfully. “She and Junior went to my mom’s place already. It’s too dangerous here. I actually just got here to get some stuff, and try the station and Moore’s for more guns and ammo. I can’t believe how many of those people, those things are out there.”

She nodded. It was as thick as black fly season.

“Where’s Andrew?" Dan sat the rifle down on the table beside him as the kids flopped on the huge sofa.

“Back at my parent’s place. I had planned on leaving the kids with you and Angela, then going back for them, if you think you had the space for us all. We’re surrounded by so many of those things Dan. We can’t stay there much longer.” Amanda shook her head in frustration.

Dan looked to the ceiling in deep thought. After going over the merits of a few plans in his head he responded. “Tell you what. You take the kids and meet Angie at my mom and dad’s house. The road should be clear enough heading there. I’m going to hit the station, then Moore’s. When I leave there, I’ll swing by your parent’s place, get Andy and your parents, and drag everyone back to my parent’s place. Once things calm down, I’m thinking we might want to check out that private school on the west side of town.”

“How long are you going to be?” Angela looked over at her kids, both half asleep from exhaustion.

“Four, maybe five hours. The roads here are shit, but I can move pretty well in the old truck. With any luck the 4x4 cruiser will be back at the station. I’ll just grab that and be done with it. We need to move fast, you brought a frigging trainload of them.” Dan’s eyes never left the windows and the growing mass of undead just outside them.

“Okay, okay. Your parent’s house is really big, that would work great. Let’s go.” Amanda gave Dan another hug, and gathered the kids from the couch. One more drive, and they’d be safe.

*****

Dan and Andrew never arrived. Long days and longer nights of pensive waiting were strung together until everyone collapsed into exhausted realization, and sad acceptance. Amanda had lost her parents. Both Angela and Amanda had lost their husbands. Alan, Tabitha, and Daniel Junior had lost their fathers. In a single day two families were torn to shreds, and the months following had done nothing to make that loss easy to digest.

Gladys and Joe McGreevy took the two shattered families into their home and welcomed them as gladly as they could. They had the space, and in their old farm’s root cellar they certainly had a lot of food to spare. Gladys’ obsession with canning her garden’s harvest had filled shelves top to bottom. The kids ate well, stuffed frequently with sweet homemade jams and vegetables.

Unlike their bellies, their hearts were empty. From inside the boarded up windows of the farmhouse the families watched as the walking dead shuffled up and down the country road as cars drove by. Sometimes the undead would take a day or more before passing the yard outside the fence again once they were led one way. On the fridge Joe McGreevy had named the local undead so they could bet on if and how long it took them to pass by again. Tabitha was currently riding her horse strong into the lead. She’d accurately guessed Zippy McFlannelshirt’s speed and return time enough to create an insurmountable lead. Morbid game? Sure. But it kept the kids from being afraid when the undead came back, and in the mother’s eyes, that was worth it.

The game took a hiatus when the snow came. At times it fell so heavy it blotted the winter sun from the sky, casting a dull pallor over the world. The fireplaces ate log after log hungrily trying to keep the sprawling manse warm through the coldest days and nights. The adults in the house sat down late at night, kids tucked fearfully into their beds as they warmed their cold noses over steaming cups of tea and thanking God that the undead had no sense of smell.

Things were quiet until the thaw.

*****

“You know Dan would call me a goddamn idiot for climbing up here to do this,” Angela said as she hiked up the short ladder to the platform in the yard they’d built. Using the corner of the white fence surrounding the property Angela and Amanda had constructed what amounted to an elevated porch. It was maybe four feet on a side with a pitched plywood roof to fend off the cold drizzle. Lodged securely in the corner of the fence the platform served to reinforce it, as well as giving them a place to destroy the new, steady stream of zombies coming at the farm.

In the early days of May when they had intensely begun replanting the family garden the zombies started to appear in larger numbers. One day when Gladys and Joe sat on the edge of porch to drink some water Joe hollered out for the girls to stop digging and come over. They set down the trowels and hoes and went to the old couple. Joe solemnly pointed his bent finger at the road, and when they all turned and looked, there was a collective gasp.

Normally two or perhaps three of the deceased milled about at the fence. They’d lean over clumsily, pressing hard against the white slats, causing the fence to creak and bend inward. They’d reinforced the fence all around to alleviate the stress, and as long as the numbers were low, there was little to worry about. The gasp was drawn from them due to the line of undead insistently pressing against the fence. Just over a dozen after they counted.

It was more than they’d seen since leaving town, and it scared them. The bloodied and broken dead were unnaturally silent, and in the fresh spring grass their footfalls were deadened further. Had Joe not noticed them, the house could’ve been surrounded with no notice. With little ammunition left for their guns, and a new garden freshly planted, they decided to build the platform out of all their remaining wood. From the top of it the mothers and the rugged Daniel junior were able to use old Joe’s pickaxe or his long shovel to brain the dead folks on the other side of the fence. A sturdy railing prevented them from falling into the crowd, and the few extra feet of elevation gave them enough oomph to smash skulls. They climbed up on the melon cracker as they called it once or twice a week to, as old Joe put it, ‘crack dead guy melon.’

Cracking dead guy melon was a far cry from Angela’s previous job as a dental hygienist. Her sister Amanda shared the same profession, and she acclimated to it just as poorly. Fourteen year old Dan junior on the other hand was a natural. Dan was already six feet and corded with athletic muscle. He’d climb up, heft the pickaxe, and plunge it into skulls as if he were putting tent stakes in the ground, or hitting a home run. He claimed video games and baseball led him to his prowess, and the mothers couldn’t argue.

“Be safe up there Angela. There is a LOT of them out there today.” Amanda looked around the plywood railing and did a quick count. Eight moving bodies. 15 eyes, and only 13 arms. At least the dismemberment factor was in their favor.

“I got the safety belt on, I’ll be fine,” Angela said as she adjusted a nylon strap to the back of her belt. It prevented them from being pulled over the fence and eaten alive. She hefted the garden shovel, and with a guttural roar, swung it into the temple of a dead old lady. The old lady went down in a heap, but slowly rose again. First time wasn’t always a charm. Angela settled in for the long haul, and got back to work.

*****

Joe McGreevy got out of bed earlier than everyone else. It was his way. It had been his way for decades, and the Armageddon wasn’t about to change that. He hiked up his pants, slung his suspenders over the white tee shirt covering his sagging shoulders, slipped into his worn slippers, and shuffled over to the window overlooking the yard.

“Good Lord Almighty.” He whispered under his breath. Down below just beyond the fence there were nearly twenty of the forsaken dead. They ambled back and forth aimlessly, clinging to the area for no sane reason. Joe shook his head and uttered a string of curses. The girls wouldn’t be up for nearly an hour, and he decided he’d take matters into his own hands. It’d been over a week since he’d made the trek to the top of the melon cracker.

He got his boots on with an arthritic wheeze and slipped through the bedroom door with a creak. Gladys rolled over as he did, resting her hand where his hip normally was. When it landed softly on the bed instead of his body, she opened her eyes, searching for her husband.

“Joe?” Gladys asked the empty dawn filled bedroom. “Joe you there?” This time she sat up with some effort and looked around. “Damn you Joe, you’re gonna burn something in that kitchen.” Gladys tossed the covers off, and sat up to try and stop her husband from ruining breakfast again.

*****

When Gladys got down to the kitchen, Joe wasn’t there. The old cast iron pan was still sitting on the oak counter, and all the food was where she’d left it the night before. It was almost as if he hadn’t even been in the kitchen, which alarmed her. Joe had his habits, and eating breakfast with a hot cup of instant coffee and a Marlboro Red was the one habit that couldn’t be skipped. The only times he’d skipped breakfast was when something quite important needing tending to.

Gladys hollered down the cellar steps, and then looked out on the back porch where he would sometimes take his coffee to smoke. Both places were empty. Gladys sat down at their old butcher block table and scratched her head, wondering where her husband might’ve gone off to. She figured he might’ve gone to the barn to get some extra logs maybe, or he was walking the fence to make sure it was still standing and solid. Gladys decided she’d take a look outside.

With a grunt she rose to her tired feet and went to the heavy front door of the house. The deadbolt wasn’t turned, and the 4x4 normally across the door was out of the cradle, which confirmed to her that her husband was surely outside. She stepped out into the damp chill of the early May morning, and immediately saw Joe standing on the platform in the corner of the yard. He was standing still, pickaxe dangling at his feet, watching the handful of dead people reach up over the railing at him. Gladys thought his posture was strange, but walked across the yard to see what he wanted for breakfast.

Gladys called out to him as she crossed the yard. “Joe honey, what do you want for breakfast?”

Joe didn’t respond. In fact, he did nothing. His body was still, head drooped low, arms lazily dangling. His right hand held onto the haft of the pickaxe by only the barest of margins. Gladys suddenly wondered what was wrong.

“Joe honey? Joe you okay?” Gladys asked her husband as she took hold of the handrail on the short ladder. She pulled herself up and joined him on the small platform. From the higher elevation she could see the large crowd of the dead people outside the fence. Unless she was mistaken, it looked like a few of them had fresh red blood on them.

Gladys reached out to touch her husband’s shoulder and get his attention finally. “Joe your hearing has finally gone. What do you want for breakfast?” Just as the old housewife put her fingers on him, she noticed he was cooler than normal. Then, with a quickness Joe had lost decades ago, he twisted and faced her, dropping the pickaxe to the floor with a thud.

Gladys took a step back when she saw the blood covering the front of her husband’s shirt, and his pale white eyes. He'd been bitten. “Joe what happened? Oh dear Joseph…” Gladys took one more step back, and missed the edge of the platform with her foot. The stairs had no railing in front of them, and Gladys’ arms spun wildly as her weight tipped too far back. She plummeted the several feet to the hard ground, impacting with enough force to crack vertebrae and send her into the cold darkness of unconsciousness.

Joe looked down upon her with lifeless eyes, and made the clumsy trip to the ladder to get down at his helpless wife. Joe had missed breakfast after all.

*****

Angela screamed for an hour when she saw Joe and Gladys wandering the yard a few hours later. Joe had destroyed Gladys in every sense of the word getting his meal out of her. Her face had been scoured of flesh and her nightgown torn asunder. Her old, loose skin was scratched apart as if she’d been torn at by a feral monster. Joe was covered in his beloved wife’s blood, his white tee shirt now dark red from neck to waist.

Amanda awoke to the sound of her older sister screaming, and ran downstairs half naked to the open front door just in time to grab her and pull her inside. Gladys’ leering skull face was bearing down on her and was just a few instants away from tearing into warm, soft woman. Amanda slammed the door and twisted the knob on the deadbolt.

A few minutes later Daniel Junior, Tabitha, and young Alan gathered together at the landing above the two sobbing mothers. The kids watched for minutes, eventually grasping out to hold one another’s hands as they tried to make sense of the senseless world.

Two more skulls were crushed later that day.

*****

“I don’t know what to do anymore.” Amanda said to Angela a few nights later.

The older Angela nodded in response. She’d lost the energy to respond.

“I wish Andy was here.”

“I wish Dan was here.”

Painful silence.

Angela spoke first, “Do you think they are still alive out there, somewhere?” Angela slowly twirled her cup of lukewarm tea. Deep in the bottom she watched the tiny flecks of black tea leaves sway. Just debris really. Like the remnants of humanity. Like them.

“There’s always a chance I guess. I just wish I knew one way or the other. It’s the not knowing that kills me every night.” Amanda rested her face in her palms, inhaling slowly, measuring the steady intake of oxygen to keep her mind quiet. A distant memory was jostled free, and she looked up at her sibling. “Remember how I said Dan wanted to go to that expensive private school? The one on the other side of town? I think he thought it was safe. I wonder if they made it there and haven’t been able to leave? I know it’s a stretch, but maybe?”

Angela looked up from the debris in her cup with the faintest glimmer of fragile optimism in her eyes. “We could make it back to the houses first to check for them. And if they aren’t there, then maybe drive to the school. The roads have been pretty clear lately, and that fence out there won’t hold much longer. There are more of those… things... out there every day. Eventually it’ll break, and then what? We only have a handful of shotgun shells left, and we’ll exhaust ourselves beating them to death a shitload sooner than they’ll stop coming at us.”

Amanda looked at her sister in silence. Both knew it’d be risky. “What if they aren’t at home, and aren’t at the school either? Where do we go then?”

“We’ll find somewhere. If the school is safe, we can stay there. Maybe we can go to Westfield, we have family there. Maybe we’ll find other survivors too. Maybe the moon will fall and crush us, who knows Amanda? We know we can’t stay here. We might as well try something. Load up all of Gladys’ jars and maybe dig up the garden too so we can plant it wherever we land. We have Joe’s big ass old diesel truck and the minivan still runs fine. We’ve got gas in the basement. Shit or get off the pot time. I don’t want to die here, not like they did.” Angela tilted her head in the direction of the front yard where Joe and Gladys met their demise.

Silence.

The sisters debated in the dark kitchen without saying a word. Both of them had the same concerns, the same fears, and thought the same thoughts. Despite the danger, the writing was on the wall. Staying here meant hoping the fence would last forever, or until they found more wood to make it stronger. Finding more wood meant going outside the fence, and if they were going to leave the protection of the fence for any reason at all…

Home sounded like the best possible reason.

*****

Despite crushing what ifs and nearly overpowering fear, a week later everything was packed. The kids were scared at first. The world outside the white fence was scary. There were dead people out there. Lots and lots of dead people. Inside the fence they had food and water, warmth and shelter. Outside the fence, they had none of that. What they did have outside the fence was the hope that they had living fathers somewhere, and that hope trumped anything a walking dead person could put on the table. The kids were onboard in short order, and worked feverishly to help get everything ready to go.

Joe McGreevy lived his life firm in the belief that if it wasn’t broken, you didn’t fix it. He also believed that if something was actually broken, then you fixed it. Replacing old things with new things was the quitter’s way, and Joe McGreevy was no quitter. As a result, Joe had very old things that worked very well.

The two families gathered everything they’d need and got it placed in the back of Joe’s perfectly functional old Army diesel truck, and Amanda’s cardboard covered minivan. The giant olive drab truck that Joe called ‘old deuce’ was a beast. It was in perfect running order according to him, but both women found the monster nearly impossible to steer. A few precarious spins around the yard behind the wheel over their few remaining days gave Angela enough practice so that she could effectively maneuver the truck. The internal combustion powered behemoth would serve as their pack mule and road-clearing juggernaut. It wouldn’t be the first war the truck rode in.

Nothing potentially of use was left behind. Sheets, clothing, tools, nails, screws, rope, light bulbs, every last bit of Gladys’ canned food, and most importantly, on the very last day, they ripped up the entire burgeoning garden. Wherever their cards fell, the McGreevy garden would be with them. More food would not be far away if they could replant the fledgling crop.

The mothers and their children gathered in the front yard on the spot where they’d smashed old Joe McGreevy’s head in. The blood stains in the grass were gone now, but the memories would linger like an incurable cancer. Hands and fingers searched for their neighbor’s counterparts, and after a tearful goodbye the deuce roared to life. Angela dropped the beast into first gear, gently released the clutch, and the little white fence that could, and the handful of undead standing pressed against it, were obliterated by the truck.

Next stop: The McGreevy family’s home.

*****

Angela steered the massive green beast alongside the curb in front of her house. Sitting in the small driveway was her husband’s cruiser. After dropping her off at his parent’s home in it, he’d taken it back here. He said he would return to her with his small truck. The truck was gone, which likely meant he was somewhere else.

Ignoring the small handful of undead wandering down the street, she leapt from the high cab of the military truck just as Amanda put her comparatively tiny van in park behind it. She hollered out to her sister. Angela had her blinders on, and ran up the porch anyway. Amanda looked back at Daniel Junior and told him to watch over his cousins, and she bolted after her sister.

Amanda stopped in the doorframe of the family home and listened as her sister went room to room upstairs, urgently calling out to her absent husband. First her voice cracked. Then it faltered. Then she collapsed into her sister’s arms, wracked with grief. They stayed like that until they heard Daniel Junior call out the undead menace approaching outside.

Angela snarled and bolted out the door of the home. She reached down and snagged a brick from the edge of her walkway and gripped it in a clenched hand.

“Rrraaaaaa!” And the glorious, rage-filled smashing began. Her wrath flowed through her flesh like the purest adrenaline. Her red brick turned black. Daniel shut the minivan door as his mother lashed out at the threat to her family with more anger than he’d ever seen. He held his aluminum bat in shaking hands, just as fearful of his mother as he was of the dead she was slaughtering recklessly.

Angela stood in the street surrounded by flattened dead bodies. She panted like a feral animal, eyes darting up and down the empty street. Amanda was frozen on the edge of the curb, watching as her sister regained some semblance of human composure. After a minute of gritted teeth Angela caught the eyes of Amanda, and she dropped the blood soaked, sticky brick. It hit the pavement with a moist thud.

“Nothing touches my family. Not my kid, not your kids, and not you. No fucking way.”

*****

What they found shortly after at Amanda’s home was far more disturbing. Inside were three bodies that had rotted until they burst. Amanda’s obese father was in the kitchen on the floor, with her tiny mother crushed and mauled under him. Both of their heads were obliterated. The stink was beyond wretched, and the house was teeming with flies.

Near their carcasses in the living room was Andrew, Amanda’s husband. The rug below his ankle was stained with blood from a bandage, and his head had been shot. Something powerful had done the deed. There was little remaining above his jaw. She was only able to recognize him by the gold wedding band on his finger, and the stained, faded yellow button-up shirt he was wearing. She'd bought it for him for his birthday. It was the same shirt he was wearing when she left him on July 4th. It had maggots all over it now.

Amanda didn’t cry. She didn’t sob, and she didn’t get angry. She turned inward, emotionally folding like an origami made of sadness. When Angela put her arm around her shoulder she stood passive, looking down with blank eyes at the body of her husband, roped to the radiator next to her father’s recliner, duct tape across his mouth.

“At least someone shot him. I mean, he didn’t get to hurt anyone,” Amanda said softly, trying to comfort herself, trying to rationalize the truth.

“Yeah. I don’t know, but… I think this happened not that long ago. Look at your father and mother, they’re mostly gone but he’s still kind of fresh. I think he was shot recently.” Angela channeled her cop husband, trying to put the crime scene together.

“That doesn’t change anything Angela.” Amanda sounded despondent. She covered her mouth and nose, trying to fight away the smell. The gesture helped to keep the flies away, but even that was impossible.

“It most certainly does. Did you look around outside when we got close to here? There are dead, dead people all over the place. In yards, on the street, all over the place Amanda. There are people in this town. They’ve got guns, and judging from the looks of all the busted open heads, they’re good fucking shots. If we can find these people, I think we can be safe.” Angela leaned in close and kissed her sister on the side of the head.

“Yeah. You think they might be at the school? That’s as good a fairytale as we can hope for now right?” Amanda laughed sadly.

“Hey, we’re as close to Princesses as anyone can get now. Might as well go see if there’s an empty castle waiting out there for us.” Angela’s arm slipped off her sister gently, and she left to search the house for anything useful.

Amanda sighed softly once more, and turned away. She needed fresh air. She'd had enough of the smell of her husband rotting.

*****

Angela and Amanda stopped in the middle of Route 18. They hadn’t seen a single zombie since leaving Amanda’s house, which they thought was odd, and quite eerie. The small green street sign for Auburn Lake Road was a stone’s throw ahead. Everyone piled out and looked at the burned out gas station they had hoped still had gas. The minivan had run dry just as they approached, and only by the grace of God it coasted as far as it did.

Joe’s old truck still had fuel enough though, and once they had everything moved over, kids included, Angela got the beast roaring again, and with a mighty tug, she turned the truck left, and up Auburn Lake Road towards the private school that was hidden away.

Auburn Lake Road was lush and green. The curving road sloped up and down along the ridge of the valley, heading upwards toward the Lake that gave the road its name. The kids in the back were drawn in by the silent sway of the trees in the breeze, and the smell of fresh lake water ahead. The angle of the late afternoon sun cast golden beams of light through the branches. It’d be night soon. The tough truck groaned in protest on the steeper portions of the road, and Angela downshifted to give the motor the power it needed. When the engine swung in between gears, she heard something over the motor's groan in the distance that set her nerves to alert. She slowed the truck to a stop, put the truck in reverse, and killed the motor as fast as she could. Everyone listened.

Pop-pop.

Pop-pop.

POOM POOM. POOM POOM POOM.

It was gunfire from ahead. Amanda knew the sound instantly, and the kids did too. The intensity grew rapidly until everyone was flinching. It sounded like buzz saws ripping the sky apart. The sound of that much gunfire could only mean violence. Deadly violence.

Angela turned to Amanda beside her in the front of the truck. “Holy shit, you think they’re shooting at zombies?”

Amanda sat listening to the gunfire for a few long seconds before she responded quietly, “we need to get off the road. I think it’s getting closer.”

Angela started the truck once more and looked back and forth, trying to find a place to hide the green behemoth. Out of pure instinct she put it in first and drove ahead a hundred yards. The sound of the gunfire got noticeably louder. Directly ahead, crossing the road was a large semi truck and trailer. It was parked specifically to block the road to vehicle traffic, and that’s what it did. In front of the truck was a large pickup and flatbed trailer facing away from their approach. Ramps had been lowered from the back of the trailer.

Angela saw a good sized home on the right, and yanked the wheel hard, pulling the truck into the driveway. She hollered out to the kids to hold on, and then plowed into the overgrown hedges, pulling the truck around into the backyard roughly. She killed the motor and grabbed the pump shotgun from the floor of the cab.

“Stay low in the truck kids,” Amanda said as the two women hopped out to investigate. Angela recalled they had six shells left in Dan’s police 12 gauge. No chance that was enough firepower to fend off what was making all that gun clatter down the road.

They sneaked around the side of the house keeping low in the bushes they’d just ran over in the deuce. The side of the house dipped inward abruptly, and the two women noticed a gaping hole in the side. It looked to them as if someone had removed the wall to get at a large appliance on the inside. They entered the home through the breach, and carefully went to the front windows, crouching down to peer over the sill.

The sound of gunfire abated as six men and women riding on three all terrain four wheelers dashed around the back end of the semi trailer. They couldn’t be more than 200 feet away. The women knew instantly some of them were wounded. An elderly man with snow white hair opened the passenger side of the pickup and went to their aid. He had a bible in one hand, and held it with the sincerity and conviction of a man of the cloth.

“What the fuck?” Angela asked her sister in a whisper.

Quickly they figured out that two of the six riders were injured. They got the two wounded into the bed of the truck and the vehicles onto the flatbed. After a minute or two, the large pickup swung around, and sped away. It seemed very much like the proverbial dog running with its tail between its legs.

The two women stood in the abandoned, ransacked home and exchanged glances. The unspoken question hung in the air as loud as the gunshots they’d just heard.

What made those people run away like that?

*****

They were moving in the truck moments later. It spoke to Angela’s quick capacity to learn that she somehow managed to maneuver the deuce around the giant semi blocking the road. The massive truck nearly tipped over in the drainage ditch, but good military engineering and a little bit of Angela’s luck stopped that.

Once they got back on the road it was less than a half mile before their forward progress was halted again. A small bridge crossing the stream feeding Lake Auburn was blocked by a large cargo van. Amanda instantly knew it was the same Dodge van she saw drive by her house on July 4th. The last day she saw her husband and parents alive. She didn’t know what to make of how she felt.

Angela parked the truck right in the middle of the road at the edge of the bridge. Digging the shotgun out once more the sisters warned the kids to stay low, and they started across the school’s bridge. Step after careful step took them across the stream and closer to the strong odor of gunfire on the breeze. It reminded Angela of the days Dan would take the family to the gun range. She had a sudden pull of nostalgia.

Around an office building ahead she heard a moan of pain. The two women started jogging towards the sound, both noticing the enormous amount of brass casings on the ground. It looked like someone had spilled box upon box of spent shells on the ground.

“DROP THE FUCKING SHOTGUN!” A male voice boomed suddenly from ahead. Angela reacted with absolutely no thought. The gun dropped from her hand reflexively and clattered on the pavement, abandoned.

A tall, thick man wearing a half open military style ballistics vest walked like a predator out from around the corner of a school building. His face was bloodied, with tears forming clear lines running down his cheeks. His Mohawk haircut made him look like a mad savage from a post apocalyptic western. His dark brown eyes shone with an intensity that made both women tremble. His assault rifle’s sight was fixed on the dark spot of his eye, and Amanda’s chest. His movement changed nothing about the weapon. With a twitch of his finger her chest would explode. Amanda felt her jaw tremble as the man slowly closed to within ten paces.

When he stopped everything went nearly silent. It seemed as if the entire world paused, waiting for his will to move forward again. When he spoke again his voice had lowered, and didn’t frighten them nearly as much. “Who are you? Are you with them? Are you pregnant?”

Both women had no answers to his strange line of questions. Evidently the confused expressions on their faces told him everything he needed to know. The barrel of his weapon dropped a few inches, and drifted between the ladies instead of pointing directly at Amanda’s chest, infinitely changing how dangerous he seemed.

A gasp of pain came on the wind from behind him, and he looked quickly over his shoulder. He turned back and eyed them, clearly pained by the noise. He asked them another series of questions in a much friendlier tone, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’m Amanda Markliss, this is my sister Angela McGreevy. We thought our husbands came here after everything happened last summer. We didn’t know, we just saw them, those people...” Amanda stammered out the reply in as controlled a fashion as she could manage. She thumbed over her shoulder in the direction the wounded people retreated in.

“Wait, McGreevy? Dan McGreevy’s wife?” The man’s gun barrel lowered a bit more.

Angela nodded, the lump in her throat sliding down far enough to talk again, “Yeah, Dan is my husband.”

The man’s eyes suddenly filled with tears, sending more clear streaks down through the blood spattered on his face. The gun drifted all the way down to his side, and he shook his head at her. His lip curled a bit as he lowered his face to the dirt, and she knew. He didn’t have to say it.

Angela matched his welling eyes, and choked out the question anyway, “Is he? Here? Is he dead?”

The bloodied warrior swallowed firmly and looked back up at her, his eyes gleaming with intensity again as he gathered himself. He looked her straight in the eyes, took and deep breath, and said what she feared hearing most, “Dan’s dead Angela. Been dead since last July. I’m sorry.”

Angela’s face melted from the emotion bubbling inside her. Amanda curled her arm around her sister and the two women stood there in front of the man for what felt like a very long time.

Finally he shuffled his feet, turning to the growing noise of the grievously hurt people somewhere behind him. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I’ve got dead, and I’ve got dying to attend to. And as soon as I’m done doing that, I’m fucking sick of carrying around bullets for the motherfuckers who did this to my people. You'll have to excuse me.”

His face turned into a snarl of anger.

“I’ve got wrath to attend to.”

May 19th

There are moments where I feel like I can help people. When I can offer them assistance, or an item, or food, or something, and I know, and they know that what was exchanged was important. I feel appreciated in moments like that. That make sense Mr. Journal?

Yesterday and today were good days for that.

I know this is a total jinx, but I think we might be able to get some real headway with the Adams Farm people. We’ve made some serious, positive progress in just the past couple days, and I’m happy to report that we are now thinking this might end without violence. Famous last words, right?

We rode over in a slight show of force to the Edwards family home yesterday for our prearranged meeting. I’m glad we rode heavy too, because downtown was pretty fucking thick with undead. From what Gilbert said in the HRT with me it was lighter than the previous bad day they had, which is a little alarming, because I thought it was a soup sandwich. I’m glad the HRT is a goddamn beast, because we didn’t really want to step out and start a firefight in town. I just kept the speedometer pegged on 25 miles per hour, and ran everything over. Luckily, no popped tires.

I should also note that every trip we’ve made the past two days have been shitty in this regard. Lots of undead moving around town again. I don’t know where they are coming from, other than the assumption that this is the front edge of the city’s population moving. A few times we had to stop to pull out the rifles, and as I said, that is not good news. We might need to go on a street clearing mission here soon.

Blake is now working on an idea to weld the state snow plow blade onto the front of the HRT. He can cut it down to a more appropriate size, and get it mounted apparently. He’s also got some heavy duty wire cage stuff we can put on the windows, and once that’s done, that thing will be a 120mm cannon short of being a tank. That would be awesome.

We arrived at the Edwards mobile home at 10am, which is later than I said we’d be there originally. I told them 9am. They were sitting at the end of their driveway, watching down the road for us, and from the looks on their faces, they were pretty shocked that we had multiple operating vehicles, let alone the town’s Heavy Rescue Truck.

When I hopped down from the cab of the HRT and got the M4 across my chest it looked like Larry and Candace were in La-La land. I felt like I was Santa caught by the kids on Christmas Eve eating the cookies. They were just shocked. Felt kind of pimptastic.

I introduced them to Patty, Gilbert, and Gavin, and they were thrilled to meet new people that weren’t bible thumping baby factory running Christians. I believe the expression is “thick as thieves.” Seriously fifteen minutes into our collective conversations and it was apparent everyone was not only going to get along, but get along smashingly. Remember that whole discussion we had about them not being able to come to the campus to live? Yeah that got abandoned. They’ve more or less earned an open invite to move somewhere closer whenever they want.

We didn’t need to butter them up with a sweet deal trade to get them to consider working with us, but we brought stuff for them (I owed them some .357 for the moose meat already), and we really wanted them to try and make another trade with the Adams Farm so we could have them ask some interesting questions. In the additional endeavor of making sure the Edwards family knew we were people of our word, we made sure to trade them something anyway. A gesture of good faith.

Gilbert and I have had extensive discussions, and we have been of the mind now that if the Edwards clan can trade once with the Adams clan, and say that they’ve found other people who can trade, we’ll have an “in” to walk up to the trading post. Otherwise, we’re coming in unvetted, and thus are much more likely to receive a cold or false first impression.

When we went over that idea with the others, everyone else agreed it was sensible. So our trade yesterday with the Edwards was to set up a second trade today between them and the Adams. We were successful in both endeavors. Diplomacy like a motherfucka.

Imagine that. Success. Mmm... I can almost taste it. Success. Makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside. I feel dirty just saying it. Should wash my mouth out with soap.

….And goodbye strange and uncomfortable tangent on mediocre, theoretical success.

The Edwards family needs a vehicle big time, and we offered to repair that issue for them. We’ve got plenty of spare operational vehicles on campus that are literally doing nothing for us. They’re taking up space more than anything. We told them we had a small SUV spare in running condition, and if they were willing to help us secure a face to face trade with The Farm, we’d be more than happy to give it to them for the trouble.

They damn near died on the spot. Of course we don’t have the spare fuel to keep them in gas forever, but with a few of our small gas cans, they’ll at least be able to move around, and get the hell out if the shit should hit the fan. Anyone who has ever lost their license to drive, or had their car in the garage for a stretch knows exactly what we’re talking about here. Once you get those wheels back, oh boy… Freedom.

They agreed to make a visit to the Adams farm today, which they did after we left them with some of the trade items we knew the farm would want. Most of it was stuff we had spare. Light bulbs, toothpaste, etc. It was a token gesture from us to them to show we had good trade bait, and were serious about starting a relationship. While the trade went down we established double sniper hides in the two places we’d been using already. Blake and Patty were at one, Gavin and I were at the other. If anything went bad, then we had 360 degree line of sight. Thankfully the trade went down clean through the scopes, and after we exfil’d we met them back at their house a little after noon today. They were ear to ear smiles.

Larry and Candace said that old man Adams was happy to hear more folks were out and about in the town. We sort of knew that they didn’t go out much, so it seemed that this news was genuine news to them. Candace made a fairly large deal of the fact that we’re trying hard to make the town safe again, and we’d managed to reacquire a lot of good items for trade. Larry said they were very happy to get the items we gave them, and in return they offered up some fresh milk, which is now sitting downstairs in the fridge. It’s good, about the same as Lenny’s milk.

Everything went well enough for them to invite us back for a more thorough trade at their farm stand on the 21st. They gave our trade proxies a more robust set of items that they wanted us to potentially bring as well. From the looks of it all, we should be able to fill all of their requests. We won’t of course. I don’t want to come across as being resource wealthy. If they think we have extra to trade of everything, they’ll either expect it all the time and rely on us for it, or they’ll attempt to gouge us thinking that we have spare everything.

This Adams fellow might claim to be a man of the cloth, but I’ve read quite a few history books, and some of the worst people this world has ever had walk on it did their deeds in the name of their God(s). I’ve got good reason to think this guy is dangerous to my people and I. He is apparently hoarding pregnant women. That’s sketchball bullshit in my book. But until we get one of us face to face with him, we’re giving him the benefit of the doubt, and we’ll keep things close to our chest.

Gilbert and Patty will go with the Edwards family on the 21st for the trade. They’re older, seemingly wiser, and represent weakness. Gilbert is also an excellent judge of character, and if he vouches for these people, then I trust his instincts. He hasn’t led us astray before, there’s no reason to think why he’d do it now.

In the meantime, we are lying relatively low and pushing forward on our other plans as best as possible. We are down Ollie, so Lindsey is on extra duty helping Melissa tend to the chickens, and make sure the crops are watched and maintained. Fortunately it’s been damp and drizzly, so watering the field hasn’t been an issue. Yay for small favors.

Because we may get the “oh shit” message at any point from Westfield we’ve decided to keep things on the down low. We don’t want to be broken up over multiple areas in dangerous places should we need to up and walk to go to their aid.

Gavin will be observing The Farm tomorrow to ensure things are fine there. I suspect he will return with zero intel, as has been the case all along. In the interest of continuing to be productive, we’ve decided to tackle some serious on campus projects so we’re all here. There’s no desperate need to clear houses, or attempt to wade into the masses of zombies that appear to be growing again. It’s like the calm before the fucking storm with those things. Blake has decided he will tackle the HRT/plow project.

I’m tired. I feel like I’ve been rambling over and over for days about nothing. Otis has been driving me nuts at night, crawling all over me. Oh shit that reminds me. The other night I woke up late to take a piss. I was half asleep, but when I came back into my bedroom and started to face plant back into bed, I noticed something small moving in the grass down below.

I kind of came to, and focused the eyes, and lo and behold, it was another cat. I watched it slink from tree to tree, then dart after something. A mouse maybe? I can’t recall exactly, but I think that’s the first cat I’ve seen since June. I think so. I wonder if Otis is getting up in the windows and watching his more wild counterparts play outside and night, and that’s why he’s driving me nuts?

Got me.

So yeah, aside from all the fucking zombies, I feel like we might be seeing some success in our near future. Huzzah and shit.

-Adrian

May 21st

So much to write about Mr. Journal. I am totally fucking exhausted here. I have half a mind to just… say fuck it and go to bed, but I know if I pull the covers up over my face, I’ll just sit here like a bump on a log wishing I’d written all this shit down while it’s relatively fresh in my memory. Then I won’t be able to sleep, and I’ll get up, and do it anyway.

Obviously, I am still alive, which means our quasi confrontation/meeting at The Farm went well on some levels. Actually, on many levels, but there’s always something to make it fucked up. I’ll save that for last. Gotta tantalize you Mr. Journal.

Ollie returned to us from Westfield yesterday with a bag full of mixed news. Obviously he’s been with his dad at the big farm, helping him taking care of things. He said the farm itself is well, moving right along with no issues, and he said his dad was terrific too. A little frazzled from the new people driving by the farm on the regular, but thankfully things haven’t escalated to violence yet.

On a similar note, the signs that Mike and Lisa have placed around town there seem to be working to bring folks in. I guess they were visited by about a dozen folks in a few small groups asking for food and water, and they’ve dodged some pretty scary situations as a result. We don’t want folks to starve, and we don’t want to fight folks, so anything we (they) can do that achieves both agendas is awesome.

Ollie spent last night with Melissa, and headed back to be with his dad this evening after we returned from the meeting at the Adams farm. Melissa was… sad. Ollie too. They’re so sweet together it’s disgusting. On a similar note, I was sort of hoping to get some kind of love letter, or Hustler confession from Mallory via him. But… zilch. Maybe she and I aren’t going to be as regular a thing as my penis is hoping for. Oh well. I’ll take what I can get. Ollie plans on returning on the 23rd. Hopefully everything is safe and sound back in Westfield while he’s there.

Yesterday Gavin went out solo to do recon on the farm. I had him go to the area behind the farm’s field and observe from that direction because there was a much better line of sight into the rooms where we’d seen the pregnant women. If Blake’s significant other is about to pop, I kinda wanted to increase our chances of getting eyes on. Gavin said downtown was infested with the undead, and in retrospect, it was really dumb to send him out there alone. I don’t know who else could’ve gone though. Patty maybe, but that just seems weird to me. Water over the dam I suppose. Gavin was fine.

He did say the downtown area had filled up yet again yesterday, which tells me there has GOT to be something leading them in here from somewhere. Shit, never mind what happened today. Is it more survivors dragging them back into town? Are these escapees from buildings that have opened up somehow? Is something calling them home to roost? Fucked if I know. Now would be a great time to get one of those awesome dreams the fill me in on the shit that’s confusing me.

Anyone listening?

Alright. So this morning we set out early to meet the Edwards family at their home prior to heading to The Farm for the trade. We never set a specific time to meet with the Adams folks, so there was no rush, but I am glad we left early. As I said above, Gavin reported downtown was bad, and sure as shit it still was.

We went with three vehicles, which was a good idea. Myself and Abby in the HRT, Gilbert and Patty in the Tundra, and Gavin and Blake in the Dodge. Things were fairly normal until we reached the area the police/fire station is at. The undead were two or three deep in strange knotted groups covering the road, almost spaced out far enough to wind our way in between without having to hit them to get through. I radioed it back to the others and after stopping for a second to think about it, we pushed forward, moving side to side around the groups.

Remember back when all those pricks wandered onto campus carrying the books? You remember how they didn’t do shit to us until we fired on them? It was a lot like that. Until we were mixed into the patches with undead on the sides, they did nothing but shuffle their feet like we weren’t even there. Once we were in their midst though… it was like a light switch was thrown. They all turned simultaneously and stared at us with those creepy fucking eyes, and then collapsed on the sides of the trucks like we were fresh meat. The pit of my stomach dropped like a rock.

Abby called out, “Floor it!” on the radio and I did just that. I wasn’t about to wait for them to get up under us somehow and fuck us over. The big old bitch jumped, and I cut the wheel sharply right at the last large patch of undead in the road. They were obliterated by the huge bumper and grill of the truck. I wished we’d had that plow blade Blake is working on. Two or three of the fuckers were smashed right into the front of the damn truck so forcefully they were lodged there, and when we finally broke free, we had to stop for a minute, brain them with the fucking halligans, and then pry them off the truck like undead roadkill.

Mercifully, we made it out of that fucked up ambush as cleanly as possible. The tail vehicles did have some trouble. Blake and Gavin in the tail truck had to roll the windows down to shoot off a few undead that managed to latch onto the truck. They had three zombies manage to go ass over tea kettle over the side of the truck and get into the bed, which is something I never thought would happen. I guess Gavin opened the slider window and used his sidearm to kill them while we were flooring it out. Messy business. Definitely makes me not want to go back downtown for some time.

I think we made it to the Edwards house to meet Larry and Candace at around 10:30 or so, which was at least 45 minutes longer than it should’ve taken. Fucking zombies. Candace was out in the yard like a boss keeping watch, and she waved and greeted us up. We parked the trucks in the yard and Gilbert, Patty and I went to their trailer to go over the details. While we were talking, Blake ad Gavin left with the two trucks, drove back around the side roads, and made their way to our two sniper positions in the woods.

Sort of surprisingly, the Edwards folks were calm, and almost excited. It seems like a contradiction. Maybe I should say they didn’t strike me as being nervous. Like, “Hey, yeah, this’ll be great, I hope it works out! Let’s do this!”

We told them what items we’d brought, and what our agenda was as far as learning some things about these people. As we said to them before, there was a huge amount of bad rumors floating around our camp about them, and we really wanted to let Gilbert and Patty do their work on trying to gently coax tidbits free.

We did not tell them that if things were to get weird (read: violent or potentially dangerous), we had shooters on sight, and that we were fully ready to engage them with punishing fire at a moment’s notice. Now, as you might imagine, that could’ve changed their largely jovial attitude regarding the whole meeting. Better to tell them later. See: ignorance is bliss.

Here’s where shit gets weird, and weird again. (read: strange, and otherworldly, followed by aggravating, and potentially dangerous)

I held down the fort at the HRT with Abby. Blake and Gavin were already in position by then, and Gilbert and Patty walked on foot to The Farm with Larry and Candace. We knew these assholes had enough smarts to use walkies, so we skipped on the previously used idea of leaving a walkie running hot so we could all overhear. If they tabbed through the channels and heard us broadcasting the whole meeting, it could jeopardize everything.

I was in the dark. We went radio silent running through all the channels, and with no scope or LOS from the trucks, I had to sit there, and wait for them to come back. You wanna talk about aggravating? Fuck my life. I am reminded distinctly of when Kevin and I would get frag-o’s in Iraq to get our shit together to move, and we’d get all set up, only to have the Op cancelled at the last second. All dressed up, and nowhere to go. Horrible.

Point me at a problem, and let me shoot it.

It was precisely 2 hours and 53 minutes before they returned. Subtract time for the walk down the road, and we’re looking at an hour of face time with the pastor. Gilbert and Patty were smiling, and judging by the lack of blood over anyone, it had gone down well.

Gilbert looked at me and gave me one of his ancient thumbs up for approval. He didn’t want to say too much right there in front of Larry and Candace. Here’s what he said there, which was kinda telling, if you get my drift.

“Well, Adams seems like a good man. His people seem like good people too. Little bit too into the church thing for my taste, but to each their own.”

“What about the women? What about Blake’s girlfriend?” I asked him.

“Well, he says that God sent him a message. He says that they had dreams about where to find these people, and lo and behold, after every dream, they followed up on it and found one of the ladies with child. He also claims that the girls here who have gotten pregnant since arriving, have conceived immaculately. I don’t quite buy that, I think someone is getting some hanky-panky and not being upright about it, but the man seems pretty convinced of it.”

“Dreams?” I raised an eyebrow.

Gilbert nodded, knowing what I was getting at, “Yeah son, dreams.”

So maybe they are good after all. Maybe they’re seeing the same dreams I am. Maybe they’re being guided, or informed, or whatever just like I am too? I am strangely relieved by this news. I mean, it’d been weird if they had some quasi believable cover story or something, but this is… very real to me. No one can understand what has happened to me in my sleep those few times, and how those dreams burn right into you. If he’s having the same kind of dreams I am, then I need to believe him, or I essentially say to myself, Adrian, you are bat shit crazy.

Incidentally, what exactly is crazy about guano? I mean, it’s shit. Shit is gross, not necessarily crazy. If bats crapped neon green floating turds that spoke to you, then I’d totally understand that expression. Wow. Tangent.

Gilbert went on to explain that Blake’s woman Kim accepted the entrance to The Farm for protection’s sake, and when she realized she was pregnant with the kid, she elected to stay behind. Moving out and about town pregnant with Blake as her only protection risked the life of her child. She thought it was best that Blake be told to leave, and that she wanted no more contact with him. He has a temper after all.

I don’t like the idea of me being bat shit crazy, so I’m gonna go on faith, and go on Gilbert and Patty’s opinion here. The Farm is legit. It all makes sense. If he’s having dreams like mine... then the pregnant ladies (immaculate conception and all) are not that far out of the question. Kim’s story is believable, especially in the light of the dream thing too.

I’m getting ahead again.

So we shot the shit about the basic meeting while Gavin and Blake made their way back to us. Gavin was normal, and Blake was kind of uppity, and pushy. It took a Gilbert stare to get him to let it go for the moment. Gilbert assumed command, and invited the Edwards family back to our place for an evening cookout on campus tomorrow.

I was a little taken aback by the sudden and enormous gesture of hospitality. Later on Gilbert and Patty both said it was due to the few hours of talk on the walk over and back. Candace was good people, Larry was good people, and their kid Tucker was a good shit. Just solid people, with usable skills.

We told them we’d come back and get them tomorrow at about 3pm for the dinner. When they arrive here on campus, we’ll present them with the SUV we promised them for helping us. That way, they can drive themselves home.

Speaking of strange and ironic drives… The way back here was wide open and clear. I think we saw something like twenty or thirty undead in the streets, which is still a lot, but compared to the morning’s drive over, that’s nothing. I don’t know if they were pulled away by something else moving or what. It’s like a giant frigging chess game. Pawns move one way, pawns move another. I hope someone is a few moves ahead of their opponent here, and I hope it’s me.

When we got back to campus, Blake blew his top. He couldn’t wait to hear about what happened at the meeting, and if we had any news about Kim. Clearly, this was a hot issue for him as well as us. We calmed him down again, and got him to help us get settled as we explained it to him.

We piled into Hall E and after getting our shit off and cleaned up, we started making dinner. Gilbert and Patty sat Blake down in the living room and made damn sure that he had no guns or knives. Then they gently told him that she was there, that she was carrying his kid, and that she was safe and sound.

His response to that was predictably awesome. He was thrilled to hear he was about to be a father. Tears of joy, all that jazz. Gilbert then told him that according to the Pastor, she was a little scared of him and the risks he took, and she felt her and the baby were safer inside The Farm. Blake’s response to that was predictably not good.

His first response was, “That guy is lying, she’d never say that.”

Gilbert of course agreed with that line of logic, conceding that it was possible, and said that in a few days we’d be trying to meet them again for another trade, and we were going to work on seeing if she’d be willing to talk to him. I guess she’s due any minute now, so a birth might be right around the corner. However, the idea that we are on good speaking terms with The Farm now clearly alleviated his tension. Patty was awesome because she played the whole “caring mom” part. Blake will likely not be sleeping for some time. Expectant post apocalyptic father.

So yeah. We’re getting the Edwards clan here for dinner at about 3pm. I feel like that will go well. The weather has turned nice, the leaves are green, and if things stay good at Westfield, we can focus on killing the undead in town, and continuing to try and make this damned world a better place.

Otis is being weird. He’s sleeping in the closet on top of some of my dirty clothes. He never sleeps there. He's acting strange towards me too. Weird ass cat.

I’ll toss an entry in tomorrow after the Edwards folks take off. I’d like to put two nice entries about two good days in this journal in a row. Wouldn’t that be swell?

-Adrian

May 22nd

I have to sit here, and I have to type one last entry with my bloody fingers.

One final goodbye if I don’t come back. They might be better off without me anyway.

How could I possibly have been so fucking wrong?

I’m having a hard time seeing through my tears. Everything is blurry. I am having a hard time breathing. I don’t think I’ve ever been this angry. This is beyond anger. I used the word wrath earlier, and it’s fucking appropriate. I don’t even know how I am typing, my hands are shaking, vibrating.

My hands. They’re covered in blood. Deep under the fingernails. I’m soaked in it. I didn’t realize until just now. I’m covered in the blood of innocents. The blood of my friends.

Larry is dead. His sweet and funny wife Candace is dead with him too. Their son Tucker took two rounds, one to the hip, and one to the leg. He’ll never walk the same again.

Gilbert might lose an eye.

Abby lost a finger. Blown clean off in the firefight. It was like that infection was a bull’s eye. No more middle finger from my girl. She didn’t even know her finger was gone. She was out of her mind about Gavin.

I don’t know if Gavin will make it. He got at least two through and throughs to the lower abdomen. He was still bleeding dark blood out steadily when I sent them away in the HRT an hour ago. I hope he makes the trip to Lisa in time. I suspect the worst.

I hope she’s a better doctor than we need.

Melissa was wounded twice as well. She took two rounds. One to the arm that wasn’t too bad, and one to the meat of her inner thigh, which scares me. I don’t know how close to the artery it hit. I am scared for Ollie’s baby.

Lindsey lost one of her girls today. Maddison took a round to the head. There wasn’t anything left of her face. I had to send Lindsey and little Andrea to Westfield. I feel bad for Doug. I promised him I’d keep his family safe. One more broken promise. Quite the collection I’ve built.

Five new arrivals here too. People from town. Just came back I guess. I nearly killed them. Their timing could not have been much worse. I don’t know how or why they arrived when they did. One more question with no answer.

We are not combat effective anymore. We are maimed, mauled, and hurt. Only Blake and I are fully able to fight. Abby could fight minus her finger, but she should be with Gavin, and she’s not in her right mind. None of us are.

Love is a bitch.

I don’t fucking care anymore. It doesn’t matter. I cannot abide that my lack of wisdom has allowed harm to come for those I care for.

I may not be able to rewind time and undo what happened to us today, but I can see to it that the last thing I do is righteously smite those who would do harm to me and my people from the face of this Earth.

I make this promise;

In a moment, I will stand up and leave this place. I will kill every last one of those motherfuckers, or I will not return at all.

I am done with trying to be the nice guy.

Goodbye.

-Adrian

May 23rd

I am having a very hard time organizing my mind.

My hands are no longer shaking. I can breathe again. I murdered men and women last night. The same men and women who killed and hurt my people. I don’t have the ability to go into detail as to what happened at The Farm just now. I have something profoundly more bothering on my mind.

I feel less safe now with them dead. Why Mr. Journal? Because when I put the barrel of my Glock in that fat, bible holding fuck’s face I made him tell me every detail about the dreams he’s been having.

The night after he met Gilbert and Patty, he said he had a dream. A vision. Similar to all the other dreams that led him to the pregnant women. He told me he dreamt of the vast void of God’s loneliness.

A large, cold, dark, empty space that he felt was meant to resemble the void left when God turned away from humanity, and set loose the dead upon us. He said the air in the room tasted of blood, and he could feel the chill straight through to his soul. A word has come to mind for this and I don’t know why. The word fits. I can’t explain it. I am now calling the place in his dream, The Lacuna.

In The Lacuna he was visited by the dead, much in the same way as I have been visited in The White Room. The dead came to him with messages from God, and if he truly believed, and did God’s will without question, they reaped the bounty. You can look at the fucking place they had to see they reaped the shit out of those dreams.

After Patty and Gilbert met with him he had another dream, and in it, he was warned about me. He said God spoke to him, and told him that I was an agent of evil, and in order for light and good to prevail, I had to die.

Me. Adrian Ring specifically. I had to die.

I told him he was wrong. I told him he had no right to listen to the dead of The Lacuna. Because I knew he was wrong. I know it with more certainty than I’ve ever known anything.

Faith.

I told him about The White Room. I told him about the books, and the table, and the sword. I told him about how I was doing everything I could to save lives, and bring peace and safety, and justice back to this fucked up world. I told him I could not abide a man who kept women as breeding stock, and attacked and killed innocent children unprovoked.

He looked at me, straight over the sights of my Glock and right up into my eye, and told me, “Son, you’ve been led astray. Your White Room is the Devil’s creation. Lies hidden within truths. Your people are the fruit of your poisonous tree, and by killing them, I have done God’s will. I shall stand by his side in Heaven for all time, knowing forever that I have served the Lord.”

I shook my head at him, and said one last thing, “Pastor, I hope you’re right.”

I pulled the trigger once, and that was the end of Pastor Adams.

The rest of The Farm prior to that went down with a hell of a fight. I’ll go into more detail about that tomorrow, or the day after. When I get to it.

We didn’t save all the pregnant women. Some of them did not want rescuing. Those that were willing participants in the Pastor’s ideology raised weapons against us, and as much as it will keep me up at night for the rest of my life, we killed them. Unborn children as well.

I don’t know how I am going to reconcile killing four pregnant women. Perhaps I can repeat over and over in my head when it eats at me that Blake was right all along, and everything Pastor Adams said was a lie. Kim wanted to leave the whole time to be with Blake.

They’re together now I guess. High price to pay.

I haven’t heard anything from Westfield yet, so tomorrow I am going there to check on my people. I don’t know if Gavin is still alive. He’s young, and healthy, but those were serious wounds.

Abby might break on me if he dies. I’m not sure how I’ll handle that.

I’m not sure where to go from here. Clearly, things are not what we thought. I can deal with undead. I can kill zombies until my Mohawk goes grey.

I can’t fight an idea. And if others like the Pastor are dreaming of The Lacuna, then we will most certainly be encountering more of them. Killing people is terrible business. It isn’t what we need now. It wasn’t ever what humanity needed.

Why are we being pitted against one another?

Why do I feel like I am right in the middle of all of this?

-Adrian

May 25th

Blake, Gilbert and I took The Farm. Gilbert’s left eye is useless, but he wouldn’t let us go in just the two of us. Old soldier. Hard as nails.

We made our plan in a few minutes, and executed it as best we could. It wasn’t the best plan, but my rage dictated that we moved that night together, or I did it alone. Our first concern was to not kill the pregnant women. Obviously I already said that we killed some, so you know that part of the plan fell through in a big way. We didn’t anticipate some of the women fighting us though. We all expected them to be hostages, or unwilling participants in the Pastor’s grand schemes. We were wrong. We had to defend ourselves from everyone that night, and have mercy on me, but I shot and killed women pregnant with child.

Our plan to breach was meant to get folks out of the house, or get them moving around inside to the point where we could fire accurately into the windows. If they went outside of the structure, we could pick them off easily. We debated driving a vehicle straight into the farm house, but we knew that sucked because they’d hear us coming, their fence is really sturdy, and we couldn’t risk them hitting the engine block of a vehicle leaving one or more of us stranded out in the open, taking fire.

We immediately thought of pepper spray, or tear gas, but we didn’t have enough of it to effectively flood the whole house. A few handheld personal defense cans of pepper spray wouldn’t be effective enough to flush out all those people. At best they might get itchy runny eyes and crack a window, which wasn’t worth the effort.

Fire wouldn’t work on the house either. We can’t control fire, and it kills people indiscriminately. Last thing we wanted was another Waco incident where everyone burns up in flames. So fire was out on the farmhouse.

Fire was an option on the barn though. Gilbert and I were taking a scorched earth policy. If we kill the fucking cows in a fire, so what. We didn’t have cows at the start of that day, so burning a few up in a fire didn’t change anything for us at the end of the day. Plus we knew that if we torched the barn, they might come out and try to stop it. Worst case, they’d move to the windows, and we might get some clean shots to thin the crowd inside before we went in and took the house manually.

We parked in the woods on the logging trail late. Near midnight I think. Blake and I were loaded for bear. M4, Enfield, shotguns for each of us, handguns, shit loads of ammo for everything… body armor… I felt strong. I felt mean. I was angry.

Gilbert waddled his ass around to the back end of The Farm in between the rounds of the single guard. It was a hike and took him some time, but he made it to the position with no issues. Gilbert unlatched the side barn door and used some lighter fluid to start the fire. With the door unlatched, as soon as the fire took in the dry barn, the cows were able to burst right outside, saving them all.

I was set up across the road from the farm stand in the ditch. Blake was set up at the edge of the fence in some cover to my left, and Gilbert remained at the corner of the barn near the side door, which was to my right. We were in a quasi triangle, which wasn’t perfect, but the huge fucking fence made things difficult to get close to The Farm.

The fire engulfed the barn in seconds. Gilbert must’ve used the whole fucking container of lighter fluid. The single guard instinctively ran right to the fucking building, and started to open the front barn door. Our plan was for Gilbert to take the guard when he responded, and Blake and I would take the house once he was taken care of. If we saw anyone with a weapon moving in the windows, we took the shot.

Blake fired first. I heard the Enfield’s boom followed immediately by the tiniest sound of a shattering window pane. I aimed the M4 at the house and used my bare eyesight to scan the windows for movement. Within a second or two, I saw muzzle flashes from return fire headed at Blake inside the house. Pretty standard M4 burst pattern, and with the shape of the blossom, I knew right where the shooter was standing.

Pop pop pop. Glass shattering, and a faint thud inside the house. After I dropped whoever that was, I heard Gilbert’s AK chatter loudly from the barn. Nice short ripping burst that told me he’d stitched that fucking guard from nuts to neck. One more crack a few seconds later and I knew he’d head shot the bastard. I won’t lie. I felt good. Vengeance. My heart was pounding like a drum. I was sweating, my eyes felt like I could see through walls, and there was so much pure adrenaline pumping through me my mouth was dry as a bone and I could feel the blood moving through my muscles like liquid fire. Everything was happening in slow motion.

Gilbert broke radio silence. The old adage is there are no secrets in combat. You’re silent and hidden until you make noise, then it’s on. The cat is out of the fucking bag. Hearing 'frag out' doesn’t help your enemy much when you’ve just thrown a live grenade at them.

“Guard is dead. Move on the house.”

Our deal was for Blake to cover me as I moved. He had the better long rifle in the Enfield, and I had the better CQB weapon in the M4. I sprinted to the fence, and climbed right the fuck up and over it. I gave myself a bitch of a gash on my left hand, but I didn’t notice it until much later. Adrenaline is a marvelous thing.

I hit the ground running after blasting the padlock off the gate with the 12 gauge pump I sawed down earlier that night. My wrist is still sore from the recoil on the gauge. I didn’t bother opening it, I just ran to the window closest to me. I did a quick sweep to check for movement, then went to the door, and put boot to wood.

I don’t remember much inside on the first floor. It’s a collection of shadows and flashes of gunfire in my memory. It was dark, and loud, and I was halfway between shitting myself out of raw fear, and ripping anything moving in half with the M4. I know I shot at least two people on the first floor. I remember seeing their faces in the muzzle flashes as I let loose three round bursts into their chests. Aim for the neck, and let the muzzle lift walk the third round into the face. Training. Never leaves you.

Once I had the first floor clear I grabbed some cover and walkied to Gilbert and Blake to move in. Blake arrived inside just a few seconds after, and Gilbert maybe a minute later. Gilbert held the downstairs, and Blake and I moved up the main staircase.

I did the math, and knew that we’d killed at least five armed hostiles, and that didn’t leave many remaining. I didn’t account for the pregnant women fighting though.

As we ascended the wide farm stairs I issued the only warning I was giving that night. I didn’t want anyone to know exactly where I was by talking later, so as soon as I finished yelling, that was it. I hollered out, “Anyone who does not want to die needs to come out with their hands up right now!”

No one came out. The top of the stairs went into a long hardwood floored hallway. I could hear the grit in my boots grinding into the finish of the wood as I moved with purpose to the first door.

Breaching a door is about violence. It’s about sending that door off its hinges like a bomb hit it, and scaring the fucking tar out of whoever is inside. Be loud. Be angry. Horrify. Violence of action. When they’re shaking, pissing themselves, they hesitate, make mistakes, and you tell them what to do. Usually it’s something simple, like “DROP THE FUCKING GUN,” or “GET THE FUCK DOWN.” Usually the word FUCK is inserted into the instruction to ensure that they understand that you do indeed plan on killing them if they fail to comply.

The people on the other side of each door I kicked open failed to comply. The first door came entirely free of the hinges when I kicked it. Must be all the canned spinach we’ve been eating. I got really lucky. When the door was sailing inward, it spun, and the person inside let loose a blast from a scattergun, and the pellets hit the door right around the knob, and sent them in every direction but mine. I heard the snapping ticks of the shotgun’s little death beads hitting the door frame around me as I moved into the room.

I issued no warning. The Pastor’s son was crouched next to a bed, and had shot at me from shitty cover. I shot the Pastor’s son in the chest with the carbine, walking the final two rounds of the burst into his head, and he dropped the remnants of his face onto the bed he used for cover. Protip: beds make for shitty cover.

I guess it’s good my sense of humor is coming back.

Every door I kicked in on that hallway had someone inside that pointed a weapon at me. I kill people with weapons pointed at me. I didn’t ask them to drop their weapons. I did not judge their actions, I simply reacted to the threat they posed, and put three rounds into them.

As I said multiple times already, some of those threats came in the form of pregnant women. I hate myself for having shot them, despite knowing that it was them, or me. Our humanity slips through our fingers every moment of every day now, and I am fighting so fucking hard to save lives, and bring new ones into the world, and knowing that innocent kids were lost to this mindless bullshit eats at me. I think it will always eat at me.

I haven’t slept in days. I can’t take a pill for it. I won’t take a pill for it. I need to feel this guilt. I need to understand that I bear a burden so that no one else has to. I feel this way so that others do not have to. I suffer so that others might enjoy what passes for a life in this world.

Blake started hollering for Kim when the last room in that hallway was empty. We heard her yelling back from around the corner of the hall, and we took that corner with force. Standing with her feet planted wide like roots imbedded in the hardwood floor was the Pastor’s wife. She was dressed in a baby blue nightgown, and had a double barrel shotgun leveled at my chest. Fortunately for me, I am faster on the trigger than an old lady.

I stitched that cunt across the chest, and as she ate that hardwood floor, both barrels let loose and punched a hole in the floor the size of a sewer lid. Better the floor than my chest. I swapped out the magazine on the M4, slung it over my hip and drew the Glock, then sent a .45 slug into the floor through the back of her head. I got some of her head on my boot.

To my left was an open door, and there was poor little Kim, pregnant as can be, scared out of her mind. She was curled up next to a trio of cribs, all decorated with hand painted religious nonsense. Images of the Mother Mary, Jesus, the Cross, and more were painted on the room everywhere I could see. Even in the dim light of the few candles spread about, the imagery was almost oppressive. It felt... forced. Artificial.

Blake ran and threw himself down to her. I covered the door as they desperately clutched one another. He kissed her, and kissed again, and told her how much he loved her. When I looked back he had his hand on her round belly, and from the expression on her face, she could not have been happier to see him.

For the record, Blake was right all along. We didn’t believe him, and I feel like if we had, there would be more babies being born soon, and less dead mothers in that house. Blake, I have already apologized to you in person, but if anyone reads this journal after I’m dead, they need to know he was right about The Farm all along. Our doubts and desire for caution got in the way of seeing the truth. Is this what happens in the absence of courage?

The end of the hall had a single door, and like every other door in that house, I put my size 13 to it, and sent that bitch off the hinges. The wood of the frame gave way, sending long shards of wood in all different directions. I advanced inside alone, circuiting, looking for a threat, and all I found was the man himself, The Pastor.

He was kneeling beside his bed, clutching his black leather bound bible in his hands and praying as feverishly as a person could. He paid me no attention until I walked right up beside him, and pulled my Glock once more from the holster.

You already know how that scene ends.

I guess he wasn’t praying for my mercy.

After I watched the Pastor’s brains slide down the wall next to his bed we searched the place more thoroughly. Underneath the bed in the room adjacent to the Pastor’s were the final two pregnant ladies. They were scared out of their mind. Gilbert managed to coax them out with some kind words and his old guy charm. They are royally fucked. Complete basket cases.

It took us 20 minutes to get their names out of them, let alone learn anything about them. Kirsten and Delilah. I’m guessing at the ages, but I’d say early 20’s. They’re both three months or so along, and they were both raped by the Pastor’s son. Looks like that fruit didn’t fall far from the tree. So much for immaculate conception.

The two girls elected to stay behind once they calmed down and realized we were not the demons the Pastor made us out to be. We didn’t want to eat them, or burn them at the stake, or rape them like the Pastor’s son had. We just wanted to help.

We found two more dead bodies in the back yard after we made sure the house was safe. During the ambush we returned fire and apparently hit two of them. They must’ve died there, or on the way back there. I am satisfied by that. I can’t recall who I shot, or if I shot anyone that day here. It’s all a blur now. Return suppressing fire is rarely something you do with a clear head.

Blake and Kim were inseparable, sitting on the porch, clutching each other and telling their mutual stories to one another. They were useless, but I guess that’s for the best. The two pregnant girls helped Gilbert and I round up the cows in the dark and get the fence latch repaired enough so the cows couldn’t escape. We did not want to lose all that cattle after the work we’d put in there.

We told the girls we’d return as soon as we could, made sure they were safe, and left. It was a hike to our vehicles, but the roads were clear of the undead in the dark.

We collapsed into exhaustion back here. It was eerie. Campus was almost entirely empty. I forgot how silent it was here without all the people milling about. No Patty downstairs getting her late night glass of water. No Gavin or Abby sneaking away for a forbidden late night romp up on the third floor. The thin walls, creaky bed and the dirty sheets are dead giveaways. I don’t think they realize it. That or they didn’t care. Either way, I’m happy for them. Well, I was happy for them.

Gavin died.

My people returned today, limping, bandaged, and with Mike and Hector plus Ollie and Mallory as an escort. As soon as the HRT pulled into the center of campus near Hall E and Abby got out, I knew instantly he’d died. She lowered her eyes for a moment away from my gaze, and looked back and shook her head. Patty was behind her and was watching. Abby walked past me without a word, shoulder slumped, holding her damaged hand, and went into Hall E. There were no tears. I haven’t seen her since.

Patty filled me in. Patty drove the HRT to Westfield, and Gavin died on the way. Before he died on the stretcher in the truck he and Abby got to say their goodbyes, and he told her a secret that he’d been carrying. Patty didn’t hear the secret when Abby leaned in to him to listen, but Abby’s face was full of stern surprise. Patty said she nodded at Gavin, kissed him on the forehead, and that was that.

I can’t imagine how she feels. Stolen from maybe. Violated without doubt. Hollow.

They were in love, and she watched him die.

Melissa is fine, and Ollie has regained his sanity from her injuries. Her two wounds were largely superficial (well, as superficial as a flesh wound can be), and other than some kind of anxiety triggered contractions or something of the such, she was fine.

Lindsey seems dangerously close to snapping. It doesn’t seem possible for anyone to have that much grief and stay functional. Losing your daughter violently like that? Right in front of you? After everything that family has already been through, one more dead was not deserved.

Tucker stayed in Westfield. With his parents dead, he couldn’t return here to live. It’s for the best I hear, as his legs were royally fucked up from the wounds he took. Lisa said his pelvis was damaged heavily by the round he took to the hip, and even if he wanted to return, she would have kept him.

Angela and Amanda. The strangers who wandered onto campus the day of the ambush. I nearly killed them when I saw them walking across the bridge. I didn’t though, thankfully. As it turns out, Amanda is the woman spoken of in the note I found the other day. When she told me she found her dead husband tied to a radiator, I told her to wait, and I got the note. I kept it for some reason. Maybe somehow I knew one day I’d meet the woman it was meant for, and I kept it to deliver it.

She cried.

Angela is the wife of Dan McGreevy. I told her how he died too, and then she cried. This is a habit I need to break. Making girls cry. Not the kind of heart breaker a man ever wants to be. I don’t know what led them to us, other than them saying Dan mentioned maybe coming here back in July, but they’re here now with their three kids, and they have asked to stay. They were both dental hygienists before the world died out, and that’s nice. They can do cleanings for us. Less cavities, less tooth decay… While we were gone, and over the past few days, they’ve helped out all over the place, including shooting a few straggler undead that have followed us all the way up here.

That’s disturbing to say the least. Undead near campus again. Just seeing them on Auburn Lake Road makes me angry. I feel like we’re doing the same shit over and over again. Evil keeps pushing forward every time we get ahead and fucks us back over.

Mallory is a sweetheart. She’s in the bed with me again, and she’s just… here. No sex, no passion, she’s just present. I’m comforted by this. Just knowing she made the trip to be with me, even if only for the sake of making me feel better. Making me feel less alone. Less guilty about my choices in this. I am thankful for her. This is too fragile a life to not appreciate everything that is offered to me.

We have so much to do. I don’t even know where to begin.

Clearly campus isn’t safe. Isolation is no longer a viable strategy. Our mediocre defensive measures did nothing for us. We need to batten down the hatches in an industrial fashion once and for all. We’ve got ideas. It’ll take time and be dangerous, but what’s new?

Kirsten and Delilah are still back at The Farm with the cattle. We need to figure out what to do about the women as well as the fields there. Do we occupy both places, despite being on opposite sides of town? Do we move there? Do we move everything there to here?

More questions. No answers yet. Frustrating as all hell. Mike and Hector are staying the night to provide security for us. Ollie’s dad is on his own while the dad to-be takes care of his woman.

We are resting tomorrow. At dinner, we are formulating a plan. I am leaning heavily on my people for this.

I didn’t get shot, I didn’t get stabbed, and I didn’t break any bones.

But I am starting to wonder if I am the most injured person around here.

We will sorely miss Gavin.

-Adrian

May 27th

Campus has fallen apart.

I’m stealing the time to write this entry. I think we’ve got it under control, but I’ve said that before and been really fucking wrong. Once more we seem to have been found by the dead. At least this time they aren’t carrying weird shit in their hands.

That’s a shitty bit of comfort Adrian, way to mail it in.

Yesterday we all sat down inside Hall E here and tried to figure out what we were doing. Where do we go from here? Abby skipped the meeting. She shut herself in her room and ignored everyone. It must be her way of dealing with the pain of losing her first love. My heart aches for her.

We were making some food to eat, and Hector wandered over into the living room and stopped the conversation when he hollered out “que chingados!” Apparently that roughly translates to your choice of either “what the fuck?” or “holy fuck, look everyone, there’s a shitload of undead outside.” Largely the same effect achieved regardless of which translation you choose.

Of course we didn’t know exactly what he said at the time, but the tone of his voice was enough to tell us something very bad was happening. We rushed to the windows and saw the very beginning of what has developed into a real fucking problem for us.

The windows look out onto the middle of campus, largely facing the cafeteria across the lawn and street. Down to the right, towards the main school building and the main three way intersection that heads towards the bridge were maybe twenty zombies.

One or two is negligible. Twenty is a serious issue. We rigged up as fast as we could, and made our way outside to handle it. In the minute or two it took to do that, the numbers outside had doubled. In the time it took us to get down sidewalk to the street, the number had doubled again.

When we opened fire, and they started at us in earnest, it was like a faucet had been turned on. A river of the undead came over the bridge and around past the staff office building. Ten, fifteen wide, and God only knows how deep. Those of us who went outside to handle it opened up, but we knew it was too many. I called out, “Get back in the Hall!” And we stared to peel back laying down heavy fire. Mike and I shot first, sending the front handful of dead down, starting the domino effect. Front row face plants, second row is too stupid to step over them, and before you know it, you’ve cut their speed in half.

Half speed undead isn’t much of a prize when they are coming in like an avalanche. Mike and I emptied a magazine each as fast as we could send head shots out, and then we got the fuck out. Mike ripped off a final burst just as I was running past him, and I caught a hot casing right in the cheek. Hurt like a bitch. By then everyone was at the door to Hall E, and they began to pour it on. We got inside, slammed the two fire doors shut, and now… here we are again.

Completely surrounded, trapped in Hall E once more. This time we were a lot more aggressive. I got everyone armed and into the windows to start firing immediately. The last fucking thing we need is for the dead zombie bodies to stack up like they did before. We were perhaps four hours away from them being able to get right in over the barricades last time, and that shit can’t happen again.

I told everyone to go cyclic, and start shooting from the back of the crowd forward. That way, the pile would start away from the side of the building unlike last time. It seems to be working. We fired for hours and hours, steadily dropping them one after another. We half starved skipping meals and only having tiny snacks so we could keep everyone relieved. It was a well organized nightmare.

That was yesterday, and we took the entire night off from shooting due to a lack of light. I don’t think anyone slept a wink. The sound of the river behind Hall E mercifully drowned out any noises the mob of undead might’ve been making. Today we picked up where we left off, though with a slower, more methodic rate of fire. It was apparent when we took stock of the situation that flat out opening up on them was a terrible idea. There were just too damn many to shoot next to the Hall.

The crowd down at the side of the Hall is enormous. They’re pressed in, pushing forward like bloody cattle. Shoulder to shoulder they are at least forty deep on almost every side of the Hall. If we start shooting them now, they’ll stack up like cordwood again, and then we’re royally bent. At the moment, the barricades are holding, and we have time to formulate a plan.

One thing is worrying me though. Abby. She’s been up there either shooting, or on watch all of yesterday, all of last night, and all of today. She hasn’t slept a wink. Nor has she said word one to me. I don’t know what to think about her, or her alternating violent, and reclusive behavior. I tried to get her to take a break earlier, and she glared at me. She must be working through her pain. It breaks my heart when I think about her.

Sigh.

I have formulated a plan for getting us out of here somewhat safely, and dealing with the undead surrounding us as well. I am relying on a tried and true weapon that has served me well in the past.

Lady Gaga.

Will advise if Plan: Fame Monster works out.

-Adrian

May 29th

Plan Fame Monster nearly got me killed, but it did the fucking job.

Never let it be said that I was not a little lucky from time to time. I guess I was due for a big fat dose of decent luck after… all this.

I noticed fairly early on during the past few days that the undead were only surrounding three of the sides of Hall E. The back of the building facing the river was never occupied. Now the shitty part of this is that the ground there is rocky, a little treacherous, and in order to get around either side of the Hall, you’d be in a pinch trying to get past the undead. The river is on one side, and the undead on the other. No escape route.

There are two answers to that problem, but they both require a bit of preparation. The preparation is a planned distraction. Enter Lady Gaga. For whatever reason (I know it’s not good taste), there are a dozen of her CD’s scattered around campus, and we had two here, so that was fine. We also have a few small stereos spare that we can use.

Once we had that ready to go, we simply needed to choose which of the two options I saw we had. First solution is the simplest, but probably the least safe. Run like a motherfucker past them. I mean screaming sissy boy in the prison shower sprint. Book it past the undead, out into the open, and viola, the runner is theoretically free.

Second option is more difficult, but much safer. Swim in the river out to Lake Auburn. Due to all the rain we’ve had lately the river is pretty high, and the current is reasonably swift. If we slipped out with no notice to the undead, it was reasonable to expect that you’d get all the way past the bridge in the river and then be free to move about campus. I’m a good swimmer, so I elected to bag up my Glock, my knife, a few essential supplies, and hit the river.

So why bother? What can one person do all alone to save all those folks inside Hall E? Well, with a small stereo and a Lady Gaga CD you can achieve miracles.

We keep rope everywhere on campus. Every building has at least fifty feet of it for us to use in an emergency. You’d be surprised how useful rope is. You can tie people up with it, climb up things, climb down things, tie things together, tie things apart... Shit it’s almost as awesome as duct tape. Almost as awesome. Nothing can really match duct tape.

We formulated the basic plan after an early breakfast, and tied the rope into a single length, with a doubled loop at the end that I slipped under my arms, ala the zombie downtown that’s still stuck in that fucking swing. On the opposite side of Hall E we had them BLAST the Lady Gaga, and everyone went to ground to get out of sight. After perhaps ten minutes (two to three songs, give or take), they started to slide further from the back end of the Hall, and we made our move. Mike, Hector, and Ollie lowered me down to ground level as fast as they could without free falling me onto the rocks. I still managed to clip a knee on a rock, which continues to hurt now.

I slipped out of the loop in the rope quietly, and moved across the rocks to the water, wading in as slowly as I could. Mr. Journal… holy shit that water was cold. My balls pulled all the way up to hang out with my tonsils, and my nipples turned into fucking daggers. The turkey was DONE. I think I turned blue. Pretty much looked like a zombie myself. One with no balls, mind you.

The current was really powerful, way faster than I anticipated, and I wound up getting swept down the damn river like a piece of rocket launched driftwood. I smacked into the stones on the river’s bottom enough to technically pass as tenderized beef. Once I got closer to the Lake the water was deeper, and I stopped getting beaten to death. After I passed under the bridge and was out in the Lake proper, I was able to fight the current, and swim to shore behind the admissions building before I froze solid.

On my back I had a backpack. Inside the backpack was a small collection of tightly sealed plastic bags filled with shit. I got my Glock out, got my shit together, and slowly crept across campus in a wide loop keeping as much shit between me and the undead as possible. Amazingly enough, I reached my destination quickly and safely: the kitchen entrance to the cafeteria. Same place I nearly was bitten back in what was it, October?

Anyway, I slipped inside the building, and gave it a quick combat clear to make damn well sure nothing had gotten inside. All was well. Here was the plan.

The cafeteria has several entrances to it. We planned on getting inside the cafeteria, setting up one exit so it would shut behind me when I left, and then use the small stereo I brought with me as a noise lure. Once set up, I slip out the door, ensure it stays shut, and the entire horde makes its shambling, dead way into the building to be contained.

Sheer genius. Jeenyus I say.

It kind of worked. It worked enough that we worked a working solution out of it. Work. That one was for extra added emphasis. I’m exhilarated when a plan works out. Thrilled even.

I moved all the cafeteria tables to the side after radioing the Hall that I was in the building and safe. Once the big area was clear, I realized that blocking the door was out of the question. It was an emergency exit door, and opened with a plunger bar. I had no way of locking the plunger. I’d have to block the door from the outside somehow.

Nonetheless, I proceeded forward with the plan. I set the radio up high and out of reach on top of the huge fridge in the kitchen, which was towards that same back door I planned on leaving out of. I cleared my escape route through the building, made sure there was nothing to trip on, and then hit the music, and became human bait.

You want to talk about horrifying? Mr. Journal, man I tell ya. I opened the double doors of the cafeteria, strode a few feet out onto the sidewalk, and screamed out to the thousand undead there. In my typical clever fashion, I hollered, “HEEEEEERE ZOMBIE ZOMBIE ZOMBIE!”

Picture in your mind how a thousand undead a few yards away suddenly respond to that stimulus. A thousand bloodied, deceased faces all pivot like they were yanked by a puppeteer’s string. All those pale white eyes fixed right on me, like I was a naked five year old at a NAMBLA convention. Damn near shit myself.

Remind me to tell you the story of the worst time I shit myself. It’s a hoot.

The horde spun on its heels, and started at me. I held solid right on that spot for as long as I could. They were maybe fifteen away from me and I started to slowly walk away, reeling them into the double doors as convincingly as I could. It was so unnatural to not draw that fucking handgun and start shooting. I see a walking dead person, I shoot them. It’s all reflex now.

Instead of shooting though, I simply walked backwards until perhaps a hundred or so were inside the café with me, and then I radioed to the Hall that I was fucking out. I turned tail and ran like a bitch into the kitchen, past the Lady Gaga noisemaker, and out the back exit. I knew there was a picnic table there, so I dragged it over as quickly and as quietly as I could, and jammed the bastard under the door handle as best I could. Luckily one of the legs of the table sunk into the grass, making for a pretty solid brake.

You already know it didn’t hold. I mean, you could FEEL that coming right Mr. Journal? I’m not that fucking lucky. I sat down on the table for extra weight, and radioed to the Hall I was out. They waited for a few minutes, and once the front of Hall E was clear and the cafeteria was filling up, they exited.

Of course you can’t fit ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag Mr. Journal. Math doesn’t add up. There’s no room. And what happens when you push ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag? Shit spills out of the top. Or, in this case, it reaches the exit I was sitting at, and the door starts to come open. I jumped the fuck up when I felt the table move, and threw a shoulder into it to keep it closed. I’m big and strong, but there had to be ten of the pricks on the other side of that door in the kitchen. Even if they weren’t TRYING to get out, just the pressure of filthy undead bodies inside was enough to shove the door.

I screamed into the radio for help. If that door came open, we were going to be bent. I was going to be bent. Sans reach around, bite the pillow, I’m going in dry style. I got no response from the radio. After me hollering for help again, I heard a motor start from somewhere around the corner, and lo and fucking behold, I see Blake whip the Tundra around the side of the cafeteria like a psycho hillbilly, and wave me off the table.

I jumped the hell out of his way, and he plowed the table into bits, and kissed the front bumper right on that fucking door like a boss. They might be able to push me off the door, but they weren’t pushing the Tundra for shit. Kiss my ass zombies. I high fived Blake just as heavy gunfire erupted around the corner.

Hector, Amanda, Angela, Abby, Patty, Gilbert, shit everyone was opening fire on the cafeteria double door. The undead had walked in, packed the place, and were now trying to leave because we were outside behind them. The tail of the undead train couldn’t hear the radio buried further ahead in the kitchen, so they were easily distracted by us. Everyone was starting to kill them off.

It was a fucking shooting gallery. Narrowed down to only three or four wide, and with a growing pile of corpses serving as a huge road block to slow them down even further, we had more than enough time to shoot them, reload, and continue to shoot them. Eventually we had to stop because the bodies were stacked too high for us to keep firing. We’d been so successful we’d lost our avenue of attack.

At that point we took a breather. The back door of the cafeteria was plugged shut by the Tundra, and the door more or less facing Hall E was stuffed with the bodies of the undead. As long as we kept a single person on watch at that entrance, they couldn’t climb fast enough over the bodies to escape. At that point, we needed to figure out a way to get to the other dead inside.

Enter the plow. After considerable debate during our steady gunfire, we decide to simply use the plow to drive across the front of the cafeteria and swipe away the huge stack of bodies. Just inside the door there were enough bodies to create a stumbling block to buy us time after clearing the path, so we felt optimistic. Worst case, we would reverse the plow, and back it up in front of the doorway, making an impromptu door.

Shockingly enough, it worked. We didn’t even have to move the plow backwards. One giant swipe and we were back in the shooting zombies business. Blake made sure to push the enormous dead weight as far away as possible so we had room to move, and also so that an errant ricochet wouldn’t blow a tire out. We’re too short on spare parts and tires to be foolish about it.

Cathartic is the word. I actually went and got a dictionary to look up the definition to make sure I got it right. The definition I’m choosing to use is the one where it means, “to purge.” Shooting all those fucking zombies was exactly what we needed. It was a bonding event. It was healing. It was positive progress. It felt good to make ourselves tangibly safer, especially after the Pastor’s assault on us. I think we were all feeling violated in many ways. It was a good way for us to start to put the events of the past few days behind us.

It went on for hours. We had to hit the pile of dead bodies bottlenecked at the door with the plow four or five times before it was even remotely feasible to attempt to kill any zombies with a melee weapon. Even then it was silly dangerous. Abby was borderline reckless, and Patty and Mike had to go in and grab to her to make sure that she didn’t get herself fucking killed. Making bad, dangerous decisions won’t bring Gavin back.

And that was that. All dead. Permanently dead. As our bloody finishing work wrapped up there were onesies and twosies that we had to deal with, but once that massive onslaught was dealt with, it was like the calm after the storm. The smell… Oh sweet mother of god the smell.

And the corpses, so many fucking bodies piled so fucking high. After dealing with killing the fucking things yesterday, we spent all day today cleaning up the fucking mess left behind. More wretched work. I feel like half janitor, half mortician, and all nasty. We went through gallons and gallons of bleach. Several boxes of rubber gloves were consumed, and we had to throw away three of our mops.

Horrible work often brings people together. It’s why they make military recruits do shitty work together. They sit and stew, angry and bitching, pissed and tired until they bond together. The adage you don’t die for your country, but you’ll die the man next to you starts with that. Those shit jobs that you do to come together as a team.

The funeral pyre burns bright tonight. There are hundreds of fresh bodies back there. Hundreds and hundreds. Back breakingly large piles of mangled and broken bodies. We’re all so fucking tired. I took a handful of ibuprofen an hour ago, and the dull ache coming from my back and shoulders has finally abated enough that I think I can sleep soon. People are heavy. Especially dead people. Heard of the phrase dead weight before? It’s fucking apt.

Why did this fucking happen? Where the hell did all those undead fucking come from? How’d they get all the way up Auburn Lake Road so fucking fast? Why weren’t they carrying books, or shovels, or crocheting needles? More fucking questions. My head spins when I try and put two and two together.

The Pastor had weird dreams that told him I was an agent of evil, and I needed to be killed. He believed so strongly in these dreams he sent his entire fighting force up here to assassinate me, and if he killed everyone else in the process, so be it. That’s faith. That’s a strong belief. That’s as crazy as me thinking that my dreams of The White Room, and the dead folks in there are real.

But they are real. I’ve seen the dreams and the information in them come true. I know it now. I can say irrefutably that my dreams are truth.

Were the Pastor’s dreams the truth as well?

Looking at the bright side, we had to have killed at least five hundred undead here the past few days. That’s got to be a giant chunk of the undead that have been stirred up in town. I know it wasn’t all, but the fact that they were all drawn up here for whatever reason means we got to thin the herd.

Other than the ass whupping I took going down the river, no one was hurt. No one died. More positives. Everyone seemed to operate with calm, and skill, and no one panicked. We used a lot of ammunition, but we still haven’t even fired up the reloading gear yet. Plenty more where that came from.

Sigh.

I don’t know where I found the energy or patience to type this out. I’m a typing animal.

Where do we go from here? What’s our next step?

Everyone agreed on a single path of action. Get the remaining women back from The Farm. They’ve been alone too long, and for all we know, they’re already dead.

Get the cows, guns, ammo, supplies, and everything back here from there as well. That place is tainted, and I will have nothing to do with that land, or that building. In fact, I am seriously considering burning it to the ground.

Once that’s done, we lock campus down. Tight as possible. We’ll accumulate fencing, barriers, machine guns, whatever we can find. I’m now fixated on us taking down trees and building a wall wooden castle style. Dig some ditches, and get this shit done. We’ve been damn near overrun twice now, never mind the ambush by The Pastor.

Time to get it done.

-Adrian

May 31st

More dead people pisses me off. At every turn things are ugly. They aren’t much worse today than they have been, but they’re still shittier. That make any sense Mr. Journal? Probably not. I’m feeling like a rambling is coming on.

The two women we left at the farm died. Killed themselves actually. We found their bodies out in the fields face down on top of shotguns. More of that buckshot mouthwash. Maybe it was the death, maybe it was the violence. Maybe it was the fact that they were raped, and held as prisoners just to survive. Plenty of reason to end yourself. It just sucks. That’s four dead. Two moms, two kids.

Sigh. I can't even talk about it. It'd just be a hurtful rant, and to be honest, I get where they were coming from. Totally.

After we returned across town to The Farm yesterday and today we managed to get everything we wanted there back to here. It took us almost thirty hours over the two days to get it done. Labor. Hard ass labor.

I have silly ass blisters on my hands from shoveling. My role at The Farm was brute force labor in the fields, and with the cows. I can’t go into naming who did what where there, but we basically broke up into two groups. One assortment of us focused entirely on getting everything out of the house. The other group went to work on digging up the crops that could be moved, and getting the cows ready for transport back here.

One thing they didn’t have was a generator. Kim claims the Pastor wanted a cleaner style of living for the future, and believed that they needed to live without the modern comforts to experience a tougher, more pure way of life. It was more true to him apparently. They used candles, fire, and as little electrically powered things as possible. Weird asshole.

We haven’t fully inventoried the haul there, but it was pretty impressive. I know we picked up a few AR style rifles, and I think Gilbert said they had about a hundred rounds of ammunition left. I wish they had more, but more ammo is more ammo. They also had a handful of shotguns, most of which they’ve shot at us already so we know they work. There was a large amount of shells for those, as well as some handguns, magazines, and a lot of food. Someone there knew how to can, and did just that. A lot of it.

As for the fields, I guess a lot of it is corn, which is good. A huge portion of it according to Ollie is cow corn, for feeding the cows. Now that the cows are here wandering about campus, our grass situation is handled, and we don’t need to transplant quite so much of the cow corn. At least not immediately.

In the back of the farm property there was a large cattle trailer. It was set up like one of those fifth wheeler trailers, which meant somewhere around there was a large truck to move it. We zipped around, and down the road in the opposite direction from where we had been traveling, we found it. A maroon Ford diesel dualie, complete with fifth wheel hitch in the bed. It was out of fuel, and needed some TLC, but Blake made it happen, and we were in business. It took two trips across town to get all the cows back.

Speaking of town… It’s largely empty again. I can’t imagine that all of those new undead that have arrived lately made it all the way up to campus in a single wave a few days ago, but the reality is, it probably was most of them. I mean shit Mr. Journal, we had to have killed 800 undead or more. Easily 800. Judging by the numbers we’ve been running and how many we’ve been killing on our trips out the past month or two, we have got to be getting low on things to kill. I mean... we have to be.

Right?

Downtown was largely empty. We ran over a few undead milling about in the streets, as well as a couple up near campus again. No substantial numbers to speak of. We were able to drive past them or over them as needed without issue. It would’ve been a shit idea to drive over them and get a flat tire while dragging cows in a trailer behind us. Imagine how that would play out. Tire change on a new truck with new people while being attacked by zombies, all the while the cows in the back are shitting bricks because of the violence and commotion. Fucking hilarity.

Didn’t happen though.

Campus is a disaster. Ollie has destroyed the playing fields (softball, baseball) that were left alone up until now to plant the stuff that Amanda and Angela brought, as well as the shit we brought back from The Farm. We also got some shit stuck in the ground over at the Jones Road farm where Lindsey is living.

It feels like there are a hundred people here now. In fact, I need to sort this out so I can wrap my head around it all.

Living in Hall E with me I have Abby, Patty, Blake, and Kim.

In Hall B right now we have Ollie and Melissa.

In Hall A, we have Angela, Amanda, Alan, Tabitha, and Daniel Jr.

At the Jones Road farm, we have Lindsey, and her single remaining daughter, Andrea.

Gilbert is still largely calling his own home his residence. Despite this, he is family, and I count him as being “here.”

They’re gone now, but we also had the Westfield folks here for a bit. Mallory, Mike, and Hector.

That gives us a stable census of 15 people here. I think that’s everyone. That’s a lot. It feels like a lot. Maybe too many. But maybe not enough at the same time. We got a LOT done with all these people around the past few days Mr. Journal. I mean it was literally amazing taking stock of everything that had been accomplished when we called it a night earlier. I felt like we’d gone to Home Depot and hired a shitload of Hector’s cousins for a few days.

Too much?

Oh well.

I’m surprised at how well everyone is getting along. Blake is an entirely new man with Kim here. He’s smiling, happy, friendly, courteous, and can’t keep a hand off her tummy. So far she seems a little distant, a little scared of the rest of us, but relieved when he’s around. I’ve caught her face lighting up a few times when he walks into the room, and I’ve got mixed feelings about it. I’m very happy she’s clearly happy, but it makes me want to go kill that old fucking pastor again for what he did to her and those women. Lying bastard.

The kids are great. They seem amazingly happy to be at a relatively safe place. That’s a little silly to say after our recent events. Lots of blood and suffering here of late. Nonetheless, they seem happy.

Angela and Amanda are workers. It’s also not a small deal that they are both dental hygienists. Regular teeth cleaning will be pretty spectacular for us in the long run. They’re also both good with guns, which will be very helpful. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of food they brought with them as well.

Jams, jellies, canned fruits and vegetables, just a ton of really good, fresh stuff. Granted, it isn’t really fresh in the jar, but when we take it out of the jar, it tastes pretty fucking fresh. Your standards change when the undead rise and try to eat you alive. What’s just good is great, and what’s crap is still pretty damn good.

Ollie and Melissa are good. Melissa is having a really hard time getting around due to her leg injury, but she’s decent. No infection in her wounds so far, which is something we’re acutely afraid of with her and the baby. The less medication she takes for anything, the better off her and the baby are in the long run.

Gilbert’s eye will survive, but his eyesight might be mildly fucked. It’s arguable how good his eyesight was anyway. Somewhere during the firefight over at Hall B he caught a shard of wood from something across the upper eyelid. Perforated it right through and scratched the eyeball on the way. It looks good (read: slightly less shitty) today, and he says the vision is getting better.

My hand hurts from the cut I got at The Farm the night we hit it. It’s not that bad anymore, despite having worked the damn thing to death since then. The wages of violence.

So what now? Where do we go from here? We’ve killed the bad guys, cleaned up the ranch, bagged up the loot, and the raid boss is dead.

What fucking now?

Campus gets fully locked down. We are now devoting all our collective time and effort into building legitimate defensive structures here. We’ve discussed this heavily, and with no moveable Conex or shipping containers anywhere nearby, our best defense, sadly, is wood. Lots and lots of wood.

We are going to cut down suitable trees, and build a poor man’s wall from the logs. Gilbert has some experience building impromptu defensive structures, and a bunch of us are decent with tools. If we really focus on it, I think we can get some serious walls up in a jiffy.

Granted, if they get hit by a semi, they’ll shit the bed in no time flat, but with our outer vehicle defenses across the road, it’ll be highly unlikely to happen to us with no warning. Gilbert is drafting up some plans for us to build guard houses as well. Some kind of tower idea, potentially on both sides of the bridge. If we could get something like a LMG to mount in them... that’d really help out our chances of surviving another attack by living people. Heavy suppressing fire from a fixed, fortified, defensible position?

Extra hot sauce on that please.

I don’t know how long it’ll take us to get that all done, but we aren’t doing shit else unless absolutely necessary. I’m not risking getting attacked again, and this is something we’ve quarter assed for far too long. At the very least, this plan steps us up to half assed status, which is an improvement of theoretically epic proportions.

What will I talk about in the meantime?

Ideas. Dreams. Plans. Pornography. Anime. Ballistics. Quantum Theory.

I don’t know. I’ll figure it out as I go.

-Adrian

June 2011

June 2nd

I’m having a bad night.

I’ve had a bad night.

One of those nights when I think about the things I’ve done, and the things I’m probably going to have to do soon, and I don’t like it one bit. The more bad things that happen to me and the people around me, the more I realize that this is my role in all this. I am the sufferer. I am making good on my past misdeeds, and in order to have a clean conscience, I need to live through this. Experience it. Deal with it. Survive it.

I suffer so that others don’t have to.

But they still do.

It’s very late. Almost midnight. I went to bed early tonight because I was fucking beat from all the work around campus here. We’re cutting down trees, splitting them, digging trenches, building a back reinforcing wall of dirt, and making it all into a strong barrier, and while it feels good to make solid, significant progress, it is hard fucking labor. Prison labor. My back, shoulders, and arms feel like I’ve been lifting big ass rocks for a month, and that isn’t all that far from the truth. I wanted a lot of sleep tonight to try and heal the damaged muscles.

I woke up an hour and a half ago to hit the pisser. I blame the lots of water earlier to stay hydrated out there in the heat. The summer humidity and the bugs are back with a vengeance now. It’s hot as balls and muggy. Fucking mosquitoes. After today I am debating what is more of an irritant to us. The bugs or the zombies? At least I can shoot a zombie.

When I left the bathroom I heard a faint sobbing noise, and something about it bothered me. It just... I don’t know. I knew something was wrong somewhere. I slipped back into my room, grabbed my Glock, and investigated. At first I couldn’t find the source of the noise, but after stopping and intently listening, I realized it was coming from upstairs, from the third floor.

I didn’t sneak up the stairs, but I walked quietly up them. I’m naturally pretty quiet. The moonlight outside was faint through some clouds, and the ribbons of bluish grey light coming through the windows were only barely enough to see by. I dislike shadows now Mr. Journal. They tend to hide things that try to kill me. Right at the top of the stairs is the old third floor common room. It’s just a glorified mostly open sitting area that had a flat screen and a few chairs for the kids to relax in. Gavin had turned it into his bedroom when he moved into Hall E.

I got to the top of the stairs and I saw Abby sitting on his bed, staring emptily out the window, clutching his pillow to her chest and crying softly. She had her nose on the top of the fabric, and I could hear her trying to inhale his scent through her runny nose. I watched her try and stifle her sobs for a few seconds before I walked into the room. I sat the Glock down on a table, and she looked over at me, startled. Her eyes were wet, and puffy with what looked like an hour’s worth of tears.

I sat down on the bed and rested my hand on her knee. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

She cried more, and more, and finally sat the pillow down and wiped her eyes. I looked at her, and then I started to lose it too. My heart was broken for her. She was in so much pain, and anguish, and she’s so fucking young, and confused, and scared, and now... she’s lonely again.

I said the only thing I could think of, “Abby I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.” It was the only thing I could choke out. I can't handle watching that girl cry.

She put her hand on my shoulder, and rubbed my back and nodded. “I know. It’s not your fault Adrian. It’s bound to happen to any of us, at any time. It was his choice anyway.”

I looked up at her. “His choice? What do you mean? He wanted to die?”

She thought for a second, wiping a tear away once more. “He didn’t want to die. But he knew more than that he didn’t want you to die. He knew he couldn’t let you die. He took those bullets for you Adrian.”

I had no response to that. I didn’t need to hear that. That was one more burden that I am not prepared to bear. I think my face told her I was confused, because she kept talking.

“Gavin didn’t believe you when you said you had dreams. He didn’t believe me either when I told him I believed you. Not at first. But one night after he found out about the dreams, when he and I were together, he woke me up in the middle of the night and said he had a dream. He wouldn’t say what it was about then. He told me before he died though. He told me he dreamt that some of us would have to sacrifice themselves to save the soul of humanity, and he knew that it meant he’d have to give himself up sooner or later.”

“What does that mean? Sacrifice? Soul of humanity?” I was going from heart ache for Abby to confusion over her rambling story and back again. It was an unexpected and unpleasant way to interrupt a night’s sleep.

She shrugged in response, knotting the sheet on Gavin’s bed in her good hand. “I don’t know Adrian. I just know that the man I loved gave up his life for you without even thinking about it. I know that he knew more than anything he’d ever known that your life was more important than his. And as much as it kills me to think he died for you instead of living the rest of his life with me, for some reason, I trust he did the right thing. I need to trust him now more than ever. I love him Adrian. I’ll always love him. But now I need to live for what he died for.”

“Abby what the hell does that mean?”

“It means if it comes down to it, I’ll die for you too.”

She kissed me on my sweaty forehead, and left me sitting in dead Gavin’s bed in the dark, hot night.

I wish I knew what was happening to me.

I’m so tired.

-Adrian

June 4th

We’ve got a pretty good system now.

I continue to be largely impressed by the amount of work we are getting done on a daily basis around here. We are beyond exhausted every evening, and for the most part it’s all we can do to limp into and out of bed, but shit, what we’re accomplishing is insane. I am intentionally ignoring the conversation Abby and I had the other night. When I think about it, I start getting anxious, and it bothers me a great deal. For the moment, I will keep myself busy, and distract my addled brain as much as I can.

Lemme share some logistics about all this before I die of exhaustion. Angela and Amanda are parking at the end of Auburn Lake Road every day to watch for walkers coming towards campus. We are making a lot of noise up here, and we’re trying to set up a distant/advanced defense system. They don’t have to kill much thankfully, it seems we’ve really put a dent into the population. It also is interesting to note that the undead apparently always follow the roads to get up here. Technically, the straightest shot to get to us is through the woods and up the hills, but for whatever reason, they stick to the pavement. Residual memory? Path of least resistance still makes sense to you when you’re dead? Fucked if I know. It’s just weird shit.

We are taking down trees with axes and chainsaws. If we feel like noise is acceptable at a given moment in time, we use mostly chainsaws. If not, the axes get busted out. We’ve taken down the trees along Auburn Lake Road near the bridge to cut down on any cover for anyone attacking, as well as to create space for any structures we want to build there. No cover means open targets.

Once we have a handful of logs, we cut them to size (about 10 feet). Once cut, we’re digging two foot trenches along the lake side (well away from the water). The logs go into the ground two feet, we fill the holes with dirt, pack it tight, and then we’re dumping earth behind the wall to shore it up good and solid, and to protect us against penetration from projectiles. We’re holding out on using cement for the moment because we don’t have enough, and we really want to use it to anchor gates, and anything that cannot be risked to be weak. We debated using phone poles, but that meant a lot of travel outside of the area up here. We’d need a thousand of the damn things to get the job done, and that’s a lot of wasted gasoline, and added danger just being off the campus. At a later date, we might do it that way, but for now, logs are our best bet.

At some point we need to go out looking for a backhoe. We’re using the plow right now to dig the dirt up, and that’s bad for the plow, and isn’t efficient. It’d also make much shorter work of digging the two foot trench we’re putting the logs in. Eventually we’re planning on putting some kind of an elevated walkway on top of the berm behind the logs, but that’s not a priority at the moment. For the moment if we have to, we can climb the dirt pile. No rush to get that facet of the wall done.

At some point here in the next day or two, we’re going to scour town and try to find a backhoe, or a front end loader. It’ll be really useful for travel if we need something super industrial, plus the fact that either piece of equipment can dig or move earth like a motherfucker will come in handy. It’s just a question of when we feel like sparing some folks to go out and find one. I guess the smart thing would be to do it tomorrow. It’ll speed up the process. Duly noted me.

The cows are in the fucking way. They mosey all over the goddamn place, shit everywhere indiscriminately, and have become a general nuisance. As such, we NEED to get some kind of a cow pen or pasture or something set up. Ollie is working on a rough fence idea so we can wrangle them in for the moment, but that’s a temporary fix at best, and takes away from our security preparations. However, fresh milk is good. We also want to do a cow swap with Lenny over in Westfield to mix up the cow gene pool. Seems healthy to me, but I don’t know shit about cow genes and what exactly the ramifications are of ongoing cow incest.

Shrug.

Gilbert has been working the reloader pretty steadily. It’s good, useful busy work while his eye heals up, and with all the ammunition we burned through during the last siege, we really need to bolster our on hand 5.56mm. The last thing we need is to have another massive wave of those pricks roll up the hill with us largely dry on ammo and reloading rounds as we need them. Might as well be firing muskets at the sonsabitches.

Gilbert also feels somewhat important doing this, and knowing that he’s a bit of a liability behind the sights of a gun right now, this is an excellent way for him to contribute to the cause. I think he said he’s loaded a thousand rounds of various ammo, which is terrific. I wish I’d thought to ask Mike for more 5.56 ammo before they left the other day. I’d love to get another crate or two. We’ve managed to accumulate an ass ton of 12 gauge ammo of late, mostly from The Farm I believe, so we’re actively asking folks to try and use a shotgun for the meantime. Amanda and Angela have been using some of the turkey guns to good effect on the small number of stragglers down near the gas station they’ve seen.

Not a whole lot else to talk about really. We’ve been so busy working and doing shit here that we’re not talking a ton about much of anything other than day to day bullshit.

Abby is less weird than before, but still ‘off’ about things. After the talk we had the other night, she’s clearly in a different place mentally. I’m not sure what to make about the whole, “Gavin dying for me” story, and frankly the less I think about it, the easier I sleep at night. I don’t need to think about people throwing themselves on the fire to save my ass. It’s bad enough that people have died in my presence or due to my actions by accident. I don’t need someone “dead on purpose” because of me too.

I can say this about Abby: She’s definitely more determined about things. She’s very serious compared to the way she was before. Dedicated, professional even. It’s a pleasant, positive change all in all, but I can’t help but worry. What happens if someone rolls in here and starts shooting? Is she going to try and throw me to the ground and protect me? Sigh.

Kim is settling in well, and has started to warm to everyone. Kim’s pretty, with kind of long dark brown hair, and fair skin. She’s also damn near ready to pop Blake’s demon seed baby out, and in this heat, she looks MISERABLE. I mean legit angry at the world right now more often than not. I can’t imagine having a little one using my innards as a trampoline as well as having to piss every twenty minutes, plus aches, pains, stretch marks, and having to put up with Blake fawning over her every half hour like fucking clockwork. It was cute and nice for awhile, but now he’s entered obsessed creeper status. No longer cool, no longer cute.

Everyone’s wounds appear to be healing well. I can’t speak for their emotional wounds, but the physical ones are doing well. Infections seem to be avoiding us, and the pain management hasn’t been an issue. I had Patty take stock of our medicine the other day and try and get it organized in the basement of Hall E, and she should be done with that pretty soon. I have a sinking suspicion we’re going to be pretty low on stuff like Ibuprofen, Motrin, and Tylenol. I know I’ve taken a lot, and if I have, I know others have as well. We might be needing another run to a drug store or something soon. I know that medical clinic downtown is still there, and as far as I know, it’s still untouched.

Sadly that might not mean shit. It might’ve been raided and cleared on day one or two, which does make some sense, with the supplies Patty said STIG had back in the day before they were incinerated.

What a waste Mr. Journal. Dammit.

When the Pastor and his goons made their run on us up here they shot the shit out of Hall B. We need to patch those holes in the siding up somehow before colder weather sets in. At least we’ve got time to get that done. I wish one of us had heard the engines on their ATVs before they got onto campus. I guess they parked on the other side of the bridge, and it’s not like we were trying to be quiet with the radio playing, and kids running around making noise. One of those damn moments I wished we handled differently. We brought the three four wheelers they rode here that day back, and they’ve sat untouched since. They seem dirty to me. Almost as if I were to pick up the Devil’s sword and wield it. They’re tainted, unclean.

Fruits of the poisonous tree is the expression I believe.

Ah shit. I’m tired. Rambling like a motherfucker again. One thing that has been nice to experience the past few days is the lilies blooming. No idea why they’re in bloom now, but they smell amazing, and in between beating mosquitoes and black flies to death, it’s a welcome cover from the stink of the funeral pyre out near staff housing.

Which is still burning, and likely will burn for some time.

I’ll check back in a few days hopefully with more largely good news.

Jinx, go fuck yourself.

-Adrian

Zombie Scissorfight

Mallory Malone wiped the thick blood off her face obsessively, rubbing crimson smears across her nose and cheeks. Her frantic swipes were only making it worse, spreading it into every miniscule pore of her skin, but she couldn’t stop. She was unclean. Her dark brown eyes darted around the room she stood in. There was so much blood on the floor of her boss’s hair salon. It was leaking slowly from the eye socket of the customer she’d just stabbed in the eye with her trimming shears.

Mallory wasn’t a murderer. You can’t murder someone who is already dead. When the woman stumbled hurt into the locked glass pane door of the shop earlier that afternoon, Mallory tried to be strong. She choked down the fog of the previous night’s hangover, and put her foot down. She said no, and no and no, but the woman kept pleading to be let in. Mallory looked at the huge bite mark on her wrist that was purple and bloody, and she knew it meant the woman was infected. Letting her in was a bad idea. As bad an idea as she’d had in a long time. This was one of those moments where Mallory wished she could find and keep a decent man around.

Despite her instincts to the contrary, she let the bitten woman in. The lady was a good tipper, and if anything Mallory needed to reward that. She told the lady if she tried anything funny she’d get stabbed with the shears, and wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly what happened.

“Oh Mallory, thank you dear,” the older lady had said, clutching her ruined wrist. A flap of flesh hung off it like a piece of uncooked sandwich meat.

Mallory had her sit down on the small couch in front of the shop as she grabbed a roll of paper towel from behind the counter. “Mrs. Dawkins, you understand that you’re bitten, and if the news is right, you’re gonna die and turn into one of them, right? You know that’s gonna happen right?” Mallory looked at her intently as she handed her customer the roll of paper towel.

“Oh that’s silly. That man at the store bit me, and unless he had rabies, the worst that can happen to me is I need a tetanus shot or some stitches. You can’t believe everything you see on the news Mallory.” Mallory gritted her teeth and rolled her eyes. Mrs. Dawkins had a habit of talking to Mallory like she was an infant. That drove Mallory nuts.

“I am telling you Mrs. Dawkins, if you die, and turn on me, I will stab you right in the fucking eyeball with my shears here. I am not joking.” Mallory hefted the largest pair of shears she had menacingly. Mrs. Dawkins had laughed like Mallory was a child threatening her with a squirt gun.

And now she was dead on the floor, twice dead in fact, with those same shears lodged six inches deep inside her eye socket. Fuck that old bitch, Mallory thought to herself. No tip was worth being turned into a zombie over.

It was June 23rd, 2010.

*****

Her whole life Mallory perpetually had long hair. Born with a thick shock of it, it was long, smooth, and black, sometimes with bright, vibrant streaks of color added in for flair. After Mrs. Dawkins had died on the same couch she sat her down on earlier that day, she’d stood up, walked nearly silently up behind Mallory as she looked at the phone book, and yanked on her hair so hard some of it had ripped free from her scalp.

Mallory let loose a bloodcurdling scream and went down flat on her back, smacking her already raw skull into the linoleum floor of the salon. Mrs. Dawkins’ dead, cool fingers had latched onto the hair so tightly that Mallory’s weight took her down as well, and the dead woman fell with all her weight directly onto the hairdresser’s chest. The air in her lungs was flattened out, and Mallory gasped, forcing precious oxygen back into her deflated chest. Mrs. Dawkins let go of Mallory’s hair and began to gnash her teeth at Mallory’s thigh.

It was late June, and hot that day. Mallory was wearing tight shorts that only reached halfway to her knee, and Mrs. Dawkins’ teeth were a scant inch away from plunging into the soft fat and meat there. Mallory’s gut reaction was to drive her knee powerfully upward, smashing it into the face of Mrs. Dawkins, sending her flopping backwards on the floor, and freeing Mallory up to scramble away. Mallory winced at the pain in her knee as she scurried on her elbows further away from the dead woman. She half noticed that there was a smear of blood on her leg, and she hoped distantly it was from Mrs. Dawkins’ busted face, and not from a bite in her own leg. She couldn't feel any pain, which was reassuring.

Mallory moved a few feet away and bumped her head sharply into the swiveling chair she used to cut hair daily. The tiny footrest poked like a knife into the spot on her scalp where the dead bitch had ripped some of her hair free, drawing blood. For a moment as she continued to suck air into her lungs, she saw white motes fly across her vision, threatening unconsciousness. She knew if she blacked out, she was dead. Mallory did her best to steady her heartbeat, and remain calm as Mrs. Dawkins slowly organized her dead self and came back at Mallory, this time to finish her off. She took a deep breath, and the stars dancing in front of her eyes disappeared.

Mallory shook sense into herself and glanced around trying to lay eyes on the pair of shears she’d had threatened her with earlier. When Mrs. Dawkins grabbed her, she’d dropped them, and now they were nowhere in sight. Mallory’s dread grew with every inch Mrs. Dawkins moved closer. In just a few seconds, she’d be on top of Mallory again, and she knew getting bitten was almost inevitable at that point. Just as Mallory’s panic was about to overwhelm her, she saw the large shears on the floor a few feet away from Mrs. Dawkins. Mallory made her move.

Spinning around to face Mrs. Dawkins and the shears, Mallory kicked off the pedestal of the chair and launched herself forward and past the outreaching dead lady. Mrs. Dawkins’ nails scraped tiny fissures in Mallory’s leg as she slid across the floor past her. Mallory yelped in pain as she felt the sharp fake nails dig into her flesh. As Mallory rolled away from the sharp claws of her dead customer she reached out and snatched the shears off the floor. The long, silvery point of the dagger-like cutting tool threatened the air in front of her as she brought it to bear.

“Mrs. Dawkins, I will fucking stab you in the face if you don’t fuck off!” Mallory yelled matter of factly at the dead lady. Predictably, Mrs. Dawkins continued crawling at her. Mallory tightened her grasp on the handle of the shears, waiting for the dead woman to pounce. The moment came faster than she expected.

The older lady was never one for sudden or spastic agility, and when she launched at Mallory, it was a shock. Mallory’s lone response was to thrust upward and outward with the huge trimming scissors. The timing could not have been better. Mrs. Dawkins’ sneering, deceased face, complete with milky white eyes plunged downward towards Mallory just as the shears rose up to meet it. The long metal tip of the improvised weapon pierced the soft, fleshy sac of the eyeball, and the woman’s forward momentum and weight did the rest of the work. All Mallory had to do was hold her pike up.

Mrs. Dawkins’ menace disappeared abruptly when the metal pierced her brain. She went from snarling and assaultive to dead weight in a heartbeat. The corpse fell atop Mallory and a gout of dark, dead blood sprayed out of the destroyed eye and all over her face. Mallory felt her stomach heave. Mallory shoved the body off of her, and vomited powerfully on the floor, mixing blood and bile in a foul miasma.

*****

Mallory stood up after a few long hours of laying frozen solid on the floor of the salon. The sun had finally set on her nightmare of an afternoon, and the only lights about were coming from the dull orange of the street lamps outside. She hadn’t heard a car pass in almost a half hour, and after staring at the slowly leaking head of Mrs. Dawkins for over an hour to make sure she was fully dead this time, she grew the courage to get up and look out the windows.

The town she lived in was called Westfield. It was a small city, with a few elementary schools, a Walmart, maybe a dozen restaurants, and of course, the salon she worked at. It was an idyllic small town in east coast America. The salon was on Main Street. In both directions for some ways there were smatterings of other small businesses just like this. There was the nail salon that her boss despised across the street, the floral shop, a wedding dress tailor, a Radio Shack, and a few more assorted small shops. All of the businesses looked empty to Mallory through the salon’s window.

The street itself was completely empty as well. All the parking spaces were empty, and not a single soul was to be seen. Somewhat unusual for it being just nine or so at night during the summer. Mallory backed away from the window and nearly stumbled over Mrs. Dawkins’ dead body. She gave it a swift kick to the midsection in retaliation.

“Bitch,” Mallory muttered under her breath. The old bag was still trying to kill her. The raven haired blood soaked salon worker walked back into the break room and snagged the remote off the desk. With any luck at all, the television would still be working. She thumbed the power button, and the screen flashed to life. It was set to the Lifetime Network, which to her was total drivel. What’s that Mary? Your cousin had sex with your aunt and the resulting love child is now dating your step son? Who gives a shit? Seriously. She flipped the stations until she got to the local news channel. After making sure the news was still live on the air, she rested her bruised ass on the desk and gently rubbed the raw part of her head where the hair had been yanked loose. If she poked the ruined scalp too hard, the stars came back, and she felt dizzy. She took her hand away.

The news was bad. No surprise there, she thought to herself. The most shocking thing she saw as the newscaster droned on and on, repeating the same warnings over and over and looking at hand shot footage was the eerie darkness of the newsroom set. Some of the lights must have been broken, or turned off. The normally vibrant room was cast in a dull shadow, and it made the rough cheeks of the normally clean shaven anchor look like he hadn’t shaved in days. The set was disheveled, he was disheveled, and she knew it was bad because the news man NEVER looked disheveled.

The news, no matter how ugly, no matter how bad, was always delivered by people that looked perfect, in a room that looked perfect.

This scared her. Never mind the blurred footage of people attacking each other in central park like maniacs, or the security camera tape from a bank that caught a man using the ATM being eaten alive by a pack of roving, undead lunatics. They couldn’t blur out all the pools of blood. Just like how Mallory could look away from the blood and bile on the linoleum in the shop, but the smell lingered in her nostrils like acidic rotting entrails. She watched the unkempt newsman for an hour, and made the decision that she had to get the hell out of the salon, and to somewhere much safer.

*****

Mallory inhaled deeply and looked her reflection in the eye. She stood in front of her own styling station with a fresh set of shears and murderous intent aimed at her own hair. As much as she loved the long, silky locks she conditioned with great regularity, her hair had nearly gotten her killed once today, and she knew if she didn’t trim it down right now, she was inviting disaster once more.

The small hair cutting tool opened in her trained fingers and snipped gently at the hair above her ear. A tiny lock drifted to the floor, settling like a long black snowflake. She looked down at it and exhaled sadly. With the first snip completed, her courage swelled.

"I know you're beautiful, but you gotta go. You're too long, and if you think about it, we'll save a fortune on conditioner. Raven locks I love you, but today, I bid you farewell." And the hair began to steadily fall around her, forming a black ring on the floor at her feet.

Mallory hadn’t cut her own hair in years. It was always a recipe for style disaster, especially for someone who prided themselves on looking good, and making others look good professionally. Mallory took her time, cutting snips here, then there, trying to give the rough, awkward cut some semblance of intent. She didn’t want to look like she’d been attacked by a lawnmower, even if it was the end of the world.

After laboring for an hour trying to get it short enough to ensure that it wouldn’t be yanked off her head again, yet long enough to still look like she cared about it, Mallory sat the shears down and evaluated her work. It was cute. Not sexy. Very metropolitan. It would do for the end of the world.

She needed weapons. There had to be more of the zombies like Mrs. Dawkins outside, and unless she had a way to kill them, she might as well just stay put and wait for the cavalry to come rescue her. Mallory looked in every drawer, in every closet, and in every nook and cranny in the salon, and gathered anything and everything that might pass for a usable weapon.

Oddly enough, there was very little of use in the salon. She found a hammer, several brooms, a roll of duct tape, and a half dozen large trimming shears, including the pair she had to yank back out of the eye socket of Mrs. Dawkins. Weaponry was not part of the salon planning process. Mallory applied her inner MacGyver, and got creative with what she had.

The two brooms became homemade spears. She snapped the bristles off the end and used the sharp edge of a shear and the hammer to split the end of the wood so she could lodge one of the other pairs of shears in the end and fasten it with the duct tape. The resulting weapon was for all intents and purposes, a very dangerous short spear. She made two of these. The hammer itself stood alone as a suitable weapon, and the larger pairs of shears would serve as fine daggers.

"That'll do," she said to her reflection, putting on the meanest face she could muster. She thought of Schwarzenegger in that movie with the alien in the jungle.

In the back room she found a pair of her co-worker Clara’s pants, which she changed into. The thin fabric would offer only slight protection to her legs if she was bitten, but even the thin cotton was better than exposed bare skin. Out of the lost and found bin she grabbed a baseball cap and stuck it on her head. She grabbed a small sweater as well, and slid that on. A discarded red bandana was tied around her face just over her nose to help protect against the spray of blood. She still didn't know if this was spread through saliva or blood yet, and she thought the bandana might be helpful. It wasn’t much, but it was the best armor she could manage on short notice. At least everything sort of matched.

Mallory gathered her weapons as best she could, and walked to the door. She looked long and hard at the small metal knob that once turned, would unlock and open the door, either setting her free, or sending her to her death. She took a deep breath, resolved that she would make the three block walk to her apartment building as fast as she could, and twisted that knob. With a hollow metallic click the door came loose of the frame, and she exited the salon, walking out into the cooling June night air. She locked the door behind her.

*****

Mallory made it a block before things spiraled out of control on her. She was never one for any kind of athletic endeavor, and with a small smoking habit to boot, Mallory wasn’t in anywhere near the shape needed to run all the way to her place. As a result, she had to trot for 30 or 40 feet, then slow to a creeping walk to catch her breath, and then repeat the process again. It was exhausting for her, but it was the best she could do. She tried not to cough.

Mallory had just slowed herself down to a walk for the second time as she passed the small mom and pop ice cream shop that no one went to anymore. Handmade ice cream was just too expensive in this economy. She kept herself vigilant, looking through all the plate glass storefront windows on both sides of the street, as well as approaching doorways wide. Mallory’s dad was ex-Army, and he had taught her how to be the cop in cops and robbers well as a kid. She wasn’t going to be ambushed easily. She hoped.

She was scared out of her mind when the heavy gunfire erupted down a side street just as she was about to cross it. She was not an expert on guns by any means, but when they sound like they’re firing a lot of bullets one right after each other, it was probably a pretty big deal, and couldn’t possibly mean good things for her. Her stomach dropped as the reality hit her.

Mallory let out a shrill shriek that was overwhelmed by the roar of multiple guns rattling off in the dark. She could see the flashes from the guns around the corner against the brick walls of the downtown structures. Silhouetted against the orange flashes she could see several figures moving slowly away from her and towards the gun battle. Mallory’s heart pounded in her chest and she took off running down the street, adrenaline and fear overpowering her weak muscles. She could hear shouting, but couldn't make out the words.

She’d spent too long looking down the side street in the direction of the gun play. When she turned and ran at full tilt, she took perhaps ten steps before she bowled directly into the chest of another person. Mallory had lowered her head to build up steam, and her forehead impacted on the slick chest of the taller man, stopping her cold, and sending him backpedaling away, arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance unsuccessfully.

Mallory felt her head swim as she steadied herself. Her jaw had snapped shut on her tongue and she felt the hot, coppery blood invade her mouth. She reached up and wiped her wet forehead, revealing a dark bloody smear on her fingers. Her neck was stiff. It hurt. Mallory looked up immediately at the man she’d just ran into, and realized he was dead on his feet.

The zombie had been walking across the street in her general direction when they’d collided. Now that Mallory fully saw him, she took a step back when she realized his face had been eaten away, exposing his yellowing teeth, and wet, pink tongue. Parts of his jaw shone through as well. His white tee shirt was covered with slimy red blood and ropes of saliva from his facial wounds. As Mallory stifled a sudden recurrence of spasms in her stomach, he leaned towards her and started to charge. Mallory blinked once and hefted the short spear she’d made earlier.

The news had said the best way to kill the things was the hit them in the brain. She took a single step forward, meeting the zombie halfway, and driving the silver point of the shears attached to the end of the broom stick directly into his eye socket.

"Two for two!" she exclaimed loudly, happy she'd hit him in the eye the same as Mrs. Dawkins.

It was as if his lights had been turned out. In a single moment his essence disappeared, and the dead, faceless body crumpled to the ground like the puppeteer had dropped the strings of his puppet. The spear wrenched out of her hand, stuck in his head, and she was forced to let it go. Mallory took a step back away from the body and looked around as the sound of gunfire down the street she’d ran from got louder and louder. Suddenly she felt stupid for yelling. From her back she produced the second spear, and stood her ground, searching around for any additional danger.

It didn’t take long to find it. From beyond the fallen man she’d just killed there were two more female dead coming her way. They were young, perhaps high school age or college freshman, and they stumbled forward, their ashen skin pale in the moonlight, white eyes gleaming like luminescent marbles made of distilled fear. Mallory reached out and yanked the spear free of the dead man’s head and took a few steps backward toward the street where the gunfire was. She had little choice of where to go; walk into the approaching guns, or stand her ground and fight the two dead girls with some busted scissors.

Mallory spat a thick wad of blood on the dark pavement and hefted a short scissor-spear in each clenched fist, and made her stand. The girls would die. The two shuffling corpses came at her simultaneously, and Mallory was not quite prepared. She took a long step back and thrust one spear up into the throat of one of the girls, piercing straight through the meat of the neck and sliding out the back, narrowly missing the spine. It was a deathblow to any living person. The force stopped the girl momentarily, which bought Mal enough time to swing the other spear sidearm at the other girl, smashing the bridge of her nose and sending her sideways.

Mallory spun the spear still in her hand like a baton and regained the step she’d taken backwards, plunging the spike into the busted nose of the dead girl she’d just struck. The finger-long shard of metal sank in like a knife into butter. The girl didn’t drop. Mallory brought a foot up into the stomach of the young girl with the spear still in her neck, sending her backwards, and buying a moment’s time. She let go of the spear as the girl reeled away. With that dead girl dealt with for a moment, Mallory yanked the spike out of the face of her current problem, switched it to her off hand, and freed the hammer from her waist. One more side armed swing later the claw end of the hammer was embedded in the girl’s temple, and she was flat on the sidewalk, dead as she should’ve been.

The corpse girl with the spear stuck in her neck had finally steadied herself, and was walking back towards Mallory, grinding her teeth. Mal was not going to have any of that. She strode out into the street and snatched the end of the spear still stuck in the throat of the girl. Using it like a rudder, she pushed the girl firmly out into the middle of Main Street, and kicked her feet out from under her. The girl went down on her back like she’d been hit by a car, smashing her skull against the pavement. Mallory leaned hard on the broom stick stuck in her throat, pinning the girl on her back. She held her still for a few moments, and then slid another long shear from her pants pocket.

“Sorry babe, but it’s you or me.” Mal dropped the shears down straight into the eye socket of the girl, and finally her body went still. She gave the scissors a good twist just for the sake of being thorough, and stood up, removing both her gore encrusted weapons from the girl. It bothered her how easily this was all coming to her. Immediately Mallory realized the gunfire had gone silent, and she turned to look down the street she’d heard it from.

A tall form was only a few feet away, and without thinking Mallory launched out with the spear, sending the sharp tip into the person’s ribs. The blade skipped sideways though, turned aside by something strong.

“Oh fuck you!” The man gasped as his air was knocked out of him.

Mallory realized she’d stabbed a man wearing an Army uniform, and her stomach flip flopped, “Holy shit I’m so sorry!” She took a few steps back to make sure the armed man didn’t shoot her.

“Christ lady. Look before you leap. What were you? A Roman centurion in a past life?” The tall uniformed soldier clutched at his side and winced. His helmet covered most of his head, but Mallory saw his small nametag. In the dim moonlight she saw the name Daniels.

“Mr. Daniels? I’m sorry, I thought you were one of them. It’s been a long day. I’m so sorry.” She put on her best innocent face and tried to look as apologetic as she could.

“Lieutenant Daniels, thanks. Jesus lady you hit me like Albert Pujols.” He leaned over and grabbed his knees, trying to catch his breath from the impact. Mallory noticed when he bent over there were other men behind him in the street. She had been captivated by this Daniels fellow the entire time and overlooked them. She heard the heavy thrum of a truck come down the street as she looked around. The military humvee parked itself behind the Lieutenant and a small Latino man hopped out, hefting his weapon casually, confidently.

“Street’s clear Lieutenant. Mike says he has the High School clear, and he’s with the state senator and his people too. We can hole up until first light if you want to, sir,” the small Latino soldier explained.

The tall Lieutenant nodded thoughtfully after straightening himself out. “Mike said it’s pretty secure?”

“Roger that. Doors and windows secure, and the inside is clear of these fucking things as well.”

“Alrighty Hector. Gather everyone up, we’ll roll to the school and call it a night. Hopefully we’ll get word on what to do tomorrow. I imagine it’ll be more driving around and putting these things down again. Maybe I can get my family out of the house finally.” Daniels surveyed the street and Mallory’s handiwork on the three dead zombies. A look of appreciation crossed his face. “You need a place to stay tonight? We’re headed to the high school for the night, you’re more than welcome to come with us. I suspect we could use your… talents.” Daniels pointed the barrel of his rifle at the dead bodies.

Mallory thought about it and after running through what she could remember she had in her fridge back at her apartment, she concluded there would probably at least be something to eat at the school. “I’m game. I’ll go with you guys. Will there be food? I haven’t eaten since lunch. I could eat the pussy out of a dead skunk right now.”

Daniels smirked at her remark. “We’ve got some MREs and water in the truck. I don’t think dead skunk pussy is on the menu right now but we can look into it.”

“That’s a relief. You can never get that taste out of your mouth.” Mallory cleaned the bloody shears she was holding off on the clothes of the girl she’d just killed and slid them in her pants pocket.

“What’s your name Miss?” Daniels asked her.

“Mallory Malone. Hairdresser to the upper class of Westfield, and now wielder of scissors, shears, and a now broken hammer.” She did a bit of a flourish followed by a deep bow.

“Well Mallory Malone, I think you’ll fit in just fine with us until we can figure this whole end of the world bullshit out. Don’t forget all your scissors.” Daniels smiled at her and walked away to get into the passenger side of the humvee.

“Sir, yes sir.” Mallory gave him a half assed salute and followed him to the truck.

She may not have made it the three blocks to her apartment that night, but Mallory Malone certainly made it out alive.

And alive meant she still had a chance to find that decent guy, and a way to keep him around.

June 6th

God it’s miserably hot and humid right now. What the fuck? I have no balls left. They are now gone. I have sweat them in their entirety right out of my nut sack. I am a sweaty, ball-less heathen.

Fucking tired. Ha, seeing a trend here Mr. Journal? One where every entry I write starts with me talking about how hot it is, how tired I am, and how much work we’re doing around here. At least we’re getting shit done with the work. Not a ton new to report to be honest.

Ooh, not true.

We got a backhoe yesterday. So exciting. Amanda and Angela know the area around here really well, and when they were out on perimeter watch yesterday, Angela radioed that she had an idea where one was, and when it was dead early in the morning, the two of them slipped away for an hour, and found it in the backyard of house on a street we hadn’t been anywhere near.

As soon as we heard from them that it was there, we dropped everything, and mounted a mission. It was a nice change of pace. We hadn’t been out in a few days, and it was the big fat rush of adrenaline we needed to give us a boost. We geared up heavy even though the sisters said it was pretty clear. I think we all have had enough of showing up light for the party, if you know what I mean.

Once the sisters returned, we rolled out in the Tundra, Gavin’s Dodge, and the sister’s Deuce and a Half. Having them roll in with that big truck was a find and a half. (pun intended) We left the HRT behind because Blake has been doing some welding on it to mount a plow blade on the front. He’s tankifying that bad bitch for us.

The house the backhoe was at is a small engine repair shop in someone’s garage on a dirt road off the beaten path in town. The kind of place you'd take your lawnmower to when it shit the bed. The house itself was a tiny red colored ranch set deep in a large yard. The grass was tall, easily knee height on me, and it looked like the place was completely abandoned. Some of the windows had been smashed or shot out, and the garage was half burnt down from some kind of explosion or fire.

We parked in the driveway, and performed a clear on the house and garage remnants. There were two undead inside the house, but I dropped them with the M4 through a window before they were an issue. It was an older man, and what appeared to be his wife. They were very thin, damn near wasted away. I wonder if they either starved to death, or got really ill with something like dysentery or e. coli. Who knows? Two older dead people, two less zombies trying to bite one of us and finish us off.

Blake checked the backhoe, and predictably, it didn’t start. He needed to work on it for a few hours, which conveniently gave us enough time to ransack the house for usable shit. Sadly, there wasn’t much left behind of use. We took what we could. Curtains, clothes, towels, some cleaning shit, a box of 12 gauge (when it rains it pours), no shotgun to go with it though, oddly enough. Mostly it was crap. However, Blake pointed out a bunch of shit in the garage that would be great to take, and we cleaned it out as best we could. Small engine parts, valves, bolts, pipes, fans blah blah blah.

While he was getting the backhoe started, we had about fifteen undead creep in on us from the surroundings. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that our gunfire drew them in. Noise. It’s either our saving grace, or it’ll be the end of us. No middle ground on the shit. Luckily they came in very slowly over the course of the hour, as well as being spread out, and we were able to drop them using the halligans. As always, saving ammo is good. Granted, we’re risking injury by getting close to the bastards, but we’re good enough at it now that we don’t need to be too afraid. Abby’s a goddamn pro with the halligan head crack now. Quick sidestep to confuse, and kapow, right up side the fucking gourd. She’s little, but she has SO MUCH ANGER in her.

It took Blake four or five hours to get the backhoe started, and then we were in business. It had no fuel in it, but we always bring a canister of diesel and gasoline with us, so we were good to go. Unfortunately, the damn thing doesn’t drive fast, and we had to creep back across the back roads to the school at about ten miles an hour. The trip back was the better part of an hour too, which turned into a complete pain in the ass for us.

We drove by at least fifteen undead that were walking just fast enough that they had plenty of opportunity to bang on the windows and sides of the trucks as we went. After the first few attempts to slalom them with the backhoe, we just drove ahead in the Deuce and dropped them manually or ran over them so we didn’t have to deal with it. Incidentally, that Deuce is pretty much the worst riding truck I have ever been in. Every bump feels like a giant dagger into your asshole.

So yeah. Backhoe is now onsite, and in use for the moment. It does need work though. We dug a huge length of trench last night for the log wall, and I tell you what Mr. Journal, it easily shaved a day’s labor off in an hour. Of course now we’ll have to switch our emphasis to cutting down trees faster and getting them cut to length. Which weirdly enough... leads me into today’s activities.

We cut down trees all damn day. When we cut them down we cut them to length, trim the branches etc, and drag them back across the bridge using one of the trucks, and some chain. It takes two or three of us to get the logs into the ditch and upright while someone fills the trench to keep them straight. Once they’re standing where we need them, and there’s enough of them standing in a row, we push the earth against the back of them with the backhoe, and voila… we’re done.

It’s more work than that obviously, but you get the drift. The equipment makes it much easier, much faster, and allows us to focus on cutting down far more trees per day. I guess the moral of the story is that it’ll make shit a lot faster. I don’t know how many days it’ll cut off the process as a whole, but I’m sure it’ll be a dramatic improvement.

Let’s see. What else?

Well, I mentioned already that Blake is working on welding a plow blade to the HRT, which is great. He also has given the backhoe a huge once over, and apparently that thing is on borrowed time unless we get spare bits for it. He needs some supplies though from Mike’s Auto and the auto parts store to finish up the HRT as well as repair the backhoe, so at some point we’ll need to roll downtown to get those two tasks accomplished. With the level of undead wandering about town, I imagine it should be fairly easy for us. Granted that’s assuming more of the giant population in the city hasn’t wandered its way back here in the meantime. Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if that were the case.

The crops are doing well, despite the heat. The plants are growing at a wonderful rate, and we’re at the point now where the kids can help and be productive. One thing that does worry me is Lindsey over on Jones Road. She’s still kind of out of it over losing her kid, and I made mention to Melissa to try and get the two of them back to the campus more often. I don't want her isolating and going stir crazy.

Melissa is doing well. She’s got a baby bump that’s kind of visible now. Well, it’s that or she’s porking up good and early on Ollie. She’s been laid up pretty steady in Hall B in the heat due to her wounds, but today she was up and moving around a smidge. She desperately wants to help around campus, but the more she moves, the more likely she’ll tear her wounds open, or fuck up the dressing. The wound in her leg is still packed a little and we can’t risk that bitch getting infected at all. Infection scares the hell out me ever since that cock biting dog had at me.

She’ll be a great mom. I can see it now. She’s very intelligent, warm, caring, and thoughtful. She’s always putting everyone else ahead of her, even now when she’s laid up hurt. She’s the kind of person that’d rather take an hour to crawl to the sink to get a glass of water than bother one of us on the radio. She just doesn’t want to put herself in front of anyone else. I like her. Ollie loves her, and I’m glad she’s here. I just wish she’d be a little more willing to ask for help when she clearly needs it.

Patty’s good. Might as well talk about her seeing as how I’m apparently doing the ‘around the world of ALPA women’ tonight. She’s really worried about the change in Abby, just like Gilbert and I. Most of the rest of the folks here don’t know her as well as we do, so the change in her attitude and demeanor isn’t as apparent. Patty has stood next to me a few times while we watched her kill undead with a vengeance, or work her injured hand until it’s bleeding crimson through the bandage, and we just don’t know what to do. Abby seems perfectly sane. Just motivated in an unhealthy way. Well, maybe it is healthy. I just don’t know. It scares me.

I feel for Patty. Really I do. So much bullshit for her to live through, powerless to stop it, or change anything. I guess I should feel bad for everyone in that case. There isn’t a person here who hasn’t lost someone close to them recently, or watched horrible things happen to those we care about.

Oh fucking well.

Heading downtown the day after tomorrow to get Blake his parts for the HRT and other assorted automotive/mechanical issues. Tomorrow we are going to build as much log wall as possible. If we aren’t interrupted in a major way, I think we can do forty to fifty feet in a long day’s work, which would be awesome. At that rate, we can probably get the entirety of an exterior first wall done within fifty or sixty days. Maybe faster if we can borrow some of the Westfield bodies to help. Of course it isn’t like they don’t have their own problems to deal with.

Life, or what passes for it nowadays. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Mr. Journal, I say good day to you.

-Adrian

June 8th

What a pair of days Mr. Journal. I feel certain renaissance coming on. Almost like we’re headed back into the good old days. Well, back when more stuff was going right for us than wrong for us. I shouldn’t say that. I know better than to say that crap now. That asshole Jinx Fairy hangs out near me far too fucking often for me to be running my yap like that. She brings down the sparkly pwnage wand and just like that, I’m bent.

Fucking Jinx Fairy.

So yesterday was a great day on many levels. Legitimately pretty frigging awesome. I already mentioned that in order for Blake to finish up his upgrades on the HRT as well as get that backhoe in 100% good shape, we needed to hit the auto parts store as well as Mike’s Auto. We did that yesterday. Because I am alive and typing this, and I’m not being a melancholy bitch about life, you know we made it back okay, and I didn’t die. Yay for the little things.

As I suspected, town was largely wide open. The amount of undead kicking around the joint has dropped to pre summer levels. I would almost go so far as to say that it’s safe to walk about on foot now. They’re few and far between, and as long as you kept moving, I think it’s safe enough in most neighborhoods to be on foot if you know what you’re doing. Doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous still mind you, just means it’s much better now than it has been. I fear as usual, it’s just the calm before the storm. Fucking storms. I bet they hang out with that asshole Jinx Fairy.

Alright so we actually went out fairly light today in terms of a force. We wanted to give some of the new people a spin in front of some danger to see how they reacted, and we also wanted Gilbert to continue to work on reloading 5.56 and resting his eye. I’d hate for him to completely lose the eye, and with the extra living, breathing bodies we’ve got here now, there’s little incentive to stress the old guy. He’s certainly earned a frigging rest after everything he’s been through, and that’s not even counting everything since last June.

It was Blake, myself, Abigail, Amanda, and Angela in the HRT, and the Deuce. I think I will continue to rave about the deuce for some time because it’s such a huge ass beast of a truck, and we can shoot accurately and safely on the move from the rear of it. It’s high enough off the ground that there’s plenty of clearance from being grabbed, and it’s a military vehicle, so it’s tough as nails. The suspension is like some kind of medieval torture device, but beggars can't be choosers. I’ve thanked the two sisters a hundred times each for having brought it, and I’ll thank them a hundred times more before the thing shits the bed on us. Blake says as long as we can get spare parts for it, he can maintain it until he drops dead of old age, which does seem like an unlikely way to go given our current world, but hey, I have to appreciate the thought.

Our first stop was Mike’s auto. Town was largely clear as I said, and we were able to drive straight up to the garage. Blake moved the few cars he’d been using as a wall/gate, and we backed the Deuce right to the damn garage door, and we emptied the bitch. Blake took everything he could, and vowed that at some point we had to return to pull the lift. The garage doesn’t have an in-floor one, which is nice. It’s the kind that’s standing on both side of the car and it slides some swing arms under the vehicles, then raises it. If the clunkers we’re using need serious undercarriage repair at any point, we’ll be needing that to make it easier on us. For the moment though, it’s a pretty big project we don’t need to accomplish anytime soon. It can wait.

Once we had the good shit taken out of the garage we drove our asses out. I should mention that we only had to kill a single zombie while we were there. Amanda dealt with it while we loaded shit. She’s got this golf club she brings with her everywhere. I think it’s a nine iron, and I tell you what, that is a mean broad with that fucking short iron. Once I saw her yell 'FORE!' before clunking a dead guy in the head. Crushed the side of his skull above the ear like it was a fucking eggshell. Note to self: get some golf clubs. Club head speed seems directly linked to, and pretty effective at destroying brains.

From Mike’s Auto we made our way the couple of miles across town to the auto parts store we hit up on Blake’s behest some time ago. There were a couple of zombies milling about nearby down at the pile of trash outside the base of that large apartment building down the street. They were shuffling their feet looking upwards at the building for a bit before heading down our way, which makes me think there are people still up there. I’m wondering if we should attempt to make contact with them soon. They might need our assistance, or at least have some kind of information to offer.

Shrug. People kind of scare me. Most of them try to kill me and my friends.

So we dispatched those assholes once we got parked and situated, and we spent nearly four hours cleaning the place out. One of the joys of small town auto parts stores is the diversity of the inventory. Because they frequently had to fill orders for parts for things other than cars, they maintained a large inventory of more commercial style parts. Tractors, diesels, hydraulic repair gear, blah blah. I guess the point of this giant bullshit rant is that they had a lot of really useful parts, and not just for fixing cars. Blake was like a kid in a candy store, especially when we realized that we had a lot of time to really clean the place out. We were concerned at first that we’d have to do a quick in and out if there were too many undead about, but that wasn’t the reality.

The Deuce was loaded up big time, and we were off. The trip home was about as clean as could be. I was in the lead in the HRT, and Blake was behind me in the Deuce, and all was well until we got to Auburn Lake Road. We were maybe a half mile up the road, and it was just about at that point where the sun is at the horizon, and it’s just past that golden hour of sunlight. Sort of that dawn-esque into dusk time.

I was plugging along, and just like that BAM! A fucking deer leaps over one of the rock walls in the front of someone’s yard. I slammed on the brakes, just barely missing the damn thing. Now, I had like... one second to make a decision on the deer, and I nearly blew it. I reached down and tried to get the M4 up and out the window, but the barrel caught on something, and I dropped it and got the Glock out. The driver’s side window was already open, and I leaned out, and just as the deer started to bolt away off the road, I let fly about four rounds at the thing.

Three of the rounds I clearly saw impact in the rib area of the deer, but the fourth walked off of it. I was firing more or less gangsta style sideways out the window, so I was bound to miss at least one. I should talk more shit about having used a handgun after avoiding an accident in such a badass way. I feel very 80’s action hero-ish. Have I mentioned how fucking loud it is to shoot a gun inside a car? Geezum. As if I wasn’t deaf enough already.

The deer, like they always fucking do, still made it off the road and into the brush, so I threw the truck in park, and jumped out to chase it down. I didn’t have to go far. Three .45 slugs to the chest cavity at maybe 25 feet do some serious damage. I think the deer made it maybe 30 feet off the road before going down in a heap. Right when I got to the body Gilbert came over the radio asking if the shooting was us, and Abby let him know it indeed was us, and we were okay.

I put one more round into the deer, and gave it a quick gutting to get back. In retrospect, I should’ve waited until I got back, because despite not liking it that much, the organ meats probably would have been good eating, at least for some of us. Ollie might've been able to compost them or something. Oh well. Spilled milk.

I dragged the carcass back to the truck, roped it to the grille as best I could for the drive up the hill, and after getting a “fucking A!” knuckle bump from Blake, we were home in short order. After we pulled in we had a brief powwow talking about the deer, and what exactly to do with it. With all the mouths to feed we decided it was best to not go to the trouble of smoking the meat. We dressed it up into edible portion sizes, and put the rest into the assorted fridges across campus. We figure it’ll keep until it’s all eaten. With all the folks here, that should be just about right for timing.

While that was going on, we unloaded all the parts and gear into the maintenance garage down the hill, which Blake has now completely taken over as his own. That’s fine. He needs the space to work on our vehicles, it’s largely unused, and will work out well. We do need to address his ongoing power issues though. It’s too far to run cables, and for the moment he’s doing the work up here near Hall B, which is scaring the living shit out of the chickens. It’s bad enough that the zombies tried to eat them when we were under siege the other day. Poor fucking poultry. Ooh. I think we’re about to get some new chickens. What’re they called? Baby chickens? Chicklings? Hatchlings? Chicklits? Drawing a frigging blank. Oh well. Senility strikes again. I think I misplaced my false teeth too.

Heh.

So that was yesterday. Today was back to the grind (sort of) as Blake took the backhoe out of duty to get the repairs needed on it done. Luckily we’d dug the trench way out in advance yesterday, so in all reality, the only part of the job we skimped on today was the part where we push the earth up behind the wall to form the reinforcing berm. Once the earth is packed back into the trench to firm up the logs, they stand fine on their own. The back wall is for projectiles, and making sure someone can’t drive a truck through the thing. Good fucking luck with that. Where it’s largely finished, it’s tough as hell and solid as a five foot thick brick wall.

Ollie wanted to get cracking on a set of double gates. Sturdy, heavy duty bastards. One gate will be on the opposite side of the bridge, and the other on the campus side. We’ll set it up so we only open one gate at a time, creating a kill box. We can use it as a trade area if need be. Mainly we want the two gates so if someone rams the first, they’ll get caught on the bridge, where there’s no fucking cover, and we can light them up. God forbid we get the guard towers built and equipped with LMGs. Don’t know where we’d find them, but if we do, we’d be golden.

Not much else going on. Fields are good, food is good, everyone is still healing well, spirits are slowly rising, campus has been entirely devoid of undead, and I haven’t been bitten in the crotch by any giant dogs, or shot in the chest in some time. I am starting to get the itch though. That special itch. I think I need to get Mallory back here sometime soon so I can scratch the hell out of it.

Awwww yeah.

Of course I haven’t seen her in some time. Maybe I need to get a haircut. I can feel the hair on the side of the ‘hawk growing in, so maybe I am due after all. Reasons to get myself to Westfield +1.

Not much to report for things coming up. I do kind of want to head back downtown to that large apartment building to see what’s up there. There are no good reasons for those undead to be at the base near that huge ass trash pile unless something is attracting them there. There has to be people up there, and I am wondering if they are trapped, or need assistance. I guess if they were bad off, they would’ve signaled for us when we were at the auto parts store, but who the fuck knows?

More fence building, crop growing, gate building, vehicle modificating, and the same old, same old in the upcoming days. With any luck, more construction equipment will fall from the sky. I can’t recall seeing anything big around town, even at the construction sites we’ve visited. Our luck, right? Sigh.

Peace out Mr. Journal.

-Adrian

June 8th (2nd entry)

I woke up about twenty minutes ago because Otis was trying to get under the sheets with me. He was pawing at the top of the top sheet like a dog trying to bury a bone. I tried to push him off the bed three times but he was pretty damn adamant about getting under with me. I pissed, took a late night dry crap, and for some reason I powered this bitch on. The generators are all off in the building, and it's quiet and dark. The only light is coming from this screen.

Something that's been weighing on me heavy is the day that Gavin died. The married couple as well, the one with the kid named Tucker that was shot so badly he couldn’t walk. I haven't asked Mike how he's doing. I wonder if he can walk now? I find it's bad that I can't remember their names right now. I remember the husband's name is Larry. Was Larry.

We were eating and drinking outside near Hall B, celebrating the first meet with Pastor Adams from The Farm, and more or less officially bringing the… fuck what was their last name? Edwards. I had to look it up.

Larry, Candace, and Tucker Edwards.

My memory is messed up on it, but I want to say it was late afternoon. Or mid afternoon. I can't say for sure it would appear. The kids were frolicking, music was playing, we had moose meat on the grill, fresh food had been prepared, and we had just pulled a Ford Explorer up from one of the parking lots to give to Larry and Candace. They were beyond excited. Laughing and clapping and hugging everyone. Tears were flowing, smiles were everywhere.

We'd established a rotation for bridge security. Every fifteen minutes one of us would walk over to the bridge, cover it for anything coming across, and then we'd switch out. That way we'd miss just short bits of the party, and everyone could have fun.

Gavin had just taken over for Abby on the bridge. She'd come back, bouncing and smiling, a little bit of naughty on her face. I bet she'd stolen a kiss as they switched out. Most of Gavin's fifteen minute shift had gone by when we heard a single shot. It was the sound of an AR or M4, which wasn't too surprising. By then we were all carrying them for security, and a single shot wasn't uncommon. I remember my weapon was sitting on a picnic table, the magazine out of it in case a kid touched it. I'd just sat it down to pick up Madison and give her a toss in the air. I stopped, sat the kid down and looked over my shoulder. Hall B's main entrance faces the back of the Cafeteria, so obviously I saw nothing. I heard three more shots in pretty rapid succession and that's when we thought something far more serious was up.

On my belt I had a walkie, and I unclipped it and sent a transmission out for Gavin. I asked him, "Gavin you need help over there?" I gave him about ten seconds to respond, and it was about two seconds longer than I should've.

Whoever shot the next shot on their team was either gifted, or lucky. Larry caught a slug straight through center mass, right at the base of the sternum. Something heavy too, not a 5.56, but something like a.30-30, or bigger. Larry let slip a gurgle and a gasp as his smile disappeared.

I'll never forget the look on his face as he dropped to his knees and fell face forward on the lawn. I was facing the Hall when that first shot went down, and for whatever reason I looked over at Candace first. She started screaming and ran over to Larry, but that bought her a round to the chest as well. Not center, but close enough that when she hit the ground, she didn't move again.

My brain put two and two together real quick and saw that the front of the Hall had an impact hole where her through and through hit. Based on where she was, and where the bullet hit, I did the geometry and figured that the shooter was near the north corner of the cafeteria. My M4 was at least four feet away, and I knew I had no time at all.

I drew my Glock and spun, shooting before I even saw a target. I wasn't trying to hit anything, I was just trying to get bullets out. They got off a few more shots, but mercifully none hit me. I saw a guy leaning out from the corner of the cafeteria, I saw the muzzle flashes from his gun. It sounded different than the first two shots. I figured it was a second shooter. I got my front post up, Glock kicking and walked my pistol over his location as I dropped to a knee, then to my stomach. He doubled over as I heard the crack of a bullet whizzing by my head. Almost bought it. Someone yelped in pain from the bullet that was meant for me. A woman. I later learned it was Melissa.

The man on the corner doubled over as I emptied my magazine into him. I say that and it sounds badass, but the reality is only one or two of my rounds hit him at most. By the time I was prone, I was dropping my mag and fishing for the spare on my belt. Abby had dove behind the porch and when she heard me returning fire, she managed to take cover and start putting suppressing fire out. It wasn't accurate, but we already know it's about making them duck, not killing them outright.

I belly crawled low under the picnic table my M4 was on as a handful of rounds hit the wood and the Hall behind it. Luckily there was a low garden retaining wall in front of the lawn, and they didn't have an angle on me. I was able to reach up and grab the gun sling, and with a tug, the M4 fell onto my chest, and I was in business.

A magazine slapped in, a round chambered, and the safety off, I was putting a heavier volume of fire out within seconds. Between Abby and I, we got their heads down enough for Patty, Blake and Gilbert to get into the fight, and that was the end of it. Sixty seconds from their first bullet to their last. When they stopped shooting, I took a better position behind a larger part of the retaining wall and hollered out for the others to check the wounded. Heavy suppressing fire was coming from the direction of the bridge. It sounded like spray and pray bullshit, not disciplined fire at a target or area. I tried to count the shots, but multiple weapons were firing at the same time. Shotguns and pistols as well as the higher pitched cracks of ARs. I heard a few branches snap from an errant round near Hall B, but nothing came close to us.

I didn't look back once, but I knew it was bad based only on the noises people were making. The first voice I heard was Melissa, and the second Ollie. Melissa had been shot (twice, as you probably know by now) ad Ollie was losing his mind over it. Tucker was down, Larry was dead, and Candace was face down and dying. Gilbert and Abby were moving from casualty to casualty to assess them quickly. Only Gilbert really knew what he was doing, and I focused on his voice.

"Dead. Dying. She'll be alright. Stable but fucked up. Adrian go. Find Gavin."

I didn't even hesitate. I told Blake to stay behind and give cover, and I told Abby to be on my ass, and I started to swing wide around the south side of the cafeteria, using the corner as cover. As we walked slowly, Abby tried to walkie Gavin, but he didn't answer. She tried again as we got around the edge of the building, and that's when I saw the four wheelers pulling away from the far side of the bridge. There was a substantial amount of blood running from the corners of the cafeteria, so I knew I'd hit someone. What was worst though, was the body. Gavin was on his face in the grass near the primary classroom building, near Hall A. I could tell it was him because he'd worn a Denver Broncos jersey that day instead of his BDUs. With them riding away, we moved slowly towards him. I was afraid they'd left a few shooters behind to snap at us, but they didn't.

By the time we'd made our way to where Gavin was, Abby was a blubbering mess, barely able to hold her weapon up. I crouched near him, and could hear his labored breathing, and see him clutching at his midsection. The motherfuckers couldn't even give him a clean death. His weapons were missing too. I checked for head injuries, and we got him rolled over. Once I was sure he was able to breathe and move, I grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him over to the Hall A porch, into strong cover should something bad happen. That took a full on minute or two. I got his shirt off with Abby's help, and even though I was primarily keeping my eyes up looking for more threats, I could see he'd taken at least two to the abdomen. It didn't take a long examination to realize he had small penetration wounds that matched up spot on with a 5.56 round.

Seeing Abby's face was what did it. I felt this roiling, bubbling feeling come up from down deep, and my face turned hot. I remember this one moment where I looked down at my left hand on the front of the M4, and it was red and sticky with someone's blood, and I kept thinking to myself, "How did I let this happen? How could I be so stupid?"

Then I heard a large engine trudge near the bridge and cut off. It sounded throaty, with a little rattle and whine. A diesel for sure. A big old one. I told Abby she was on her own for a minute, and I left Hall A's porch at a full sprint. I slowed and rounded the corner of the office building at a slow walk, my weapon up and immediately on the chests of two women. You now know them to be Angela and Amanda. Across the bridge I saw they had a deuce and a half. I remember feeling shocked to see one. In the front of the truck I could see a teenage boy, and a little kid. I couldn't tell if it was a boy or girl.

I threatened them proper, and they dropped their one gun. A shotgun. Within a few seconds of questioning them I knew they weren't part of the attacking force, and I my mind instantly went elsewhere. It went back to Gavin, and the Edwards people, and Melissa. I knew we had just a small amount of time to get them medical aid in Westfield. We had to get them to Lisa.

I left the women. I knew with the kids present they wouldn't try shit. Too much at stake.

Gavin died on the way to Westfield just after telling Abby about the dream he'd had regarding me, and by the time I made it back to Hall B Candace was dead too. Tucker was a crippled orphan with a jellied hip. Lindsey was screaming and shaking, holding her decapitated baby girl. I've never seen so much blood, or tears as a result of it. Maybe I'm remembering it worse than it was, but I doubt it.

Sigh. I've talked enough. I think those that died that day deserved more of an explanation as to what happened. Maybe they'll find more peace with this recorded here Mr. Journal.

Or maybe I will. I'm tired now. Depressed too. Gonna hit the rack, and get back to it tomorrow.

-Adrian

June 10th

Sleeping better since my late night confessional the other day. That's good. What's also good is we're making some hella progress on the wall. We are now going in the opposite direction from the bridge, wrapping in front of Hall A and towards E. The soil on that side of the bridge is heavily filled with rocks and debris though, and if we didn’t have the backhoe to dig, we’d be fucked.

Oddly enough, there is a lot more ground water at the bottom of the ditch on that side, despite the fact that we have been digging on the lake side up until today. Who knows. I am worried the bottom of the logs will rot on us, but the way I see it, this fence is a temporary measure anyway, and if we can get a couple years of added safety out of it, that’s fine with me.

I decided earlier today when I was busting my ass on the fence that I’d do something with this entry that I haven’t done at all, as well as something I haven’t done in awhile. I think as we get closer and closer to the one year anniversary of “that day” I should pause, and reflect on things. I think maintaining the perspective is important to anyone who might read this one day, as well as to remind me of the things that are different.

Having said that, it is June 10th, and this seems appropriate to me…

10 things I miss

- • I miss new movies. I am already largely fed up with the few hundred we’ve accumulated over the past months of scrounging. I want new actors, new plots, and just new stuff.

- • I miss pizza. I used to eat the shit out of pizza. We need to figure that out, because I really want a fucking pie. Something really good, like a Hawaiian, or a meat lover’s or something.

- • I miss being able to go out without a weapon on me. I said before I miss being able to wear sweatpants, and shorts and stuff, and that still holds true today. Granted, it’s too fucking hot for sweats now, but the idea remains. I wish I could go somewhere, anywhere without my Glock. Of course I say that, and I also know that if we ever get to the point where I don’t need to carry it, I’ll feel weird without out, and wear it anyway.

- • I miss my co-workers. Some of them were truly interesting people, and I really enjoyed our conversations. Teachers, counselors, athletics people, all of them. Working at a school is a terribly interesting place to earn a living, and I miss that part of it. I guess it doesn’t help that I live here now, and I frequently reminisce about things.

- • I miss the fact that Moore’s Sporting Goods is not open anymore. I wish I could go in there and snatch ten boxes of ammo off the shelf as needed. Sadly, they are closed, and the last time I checked, the shelves are as empty as can be.

- • I miss going to the doctor. And that’s saying something, because I hate going to the doctor. Now that medical care is so goddamn urgent, I find myself worrying about tons of little injuries and making sure they don’t get worse fast. Hell, I had a mildly infected splinter the other day, and seriously considered looking up what antibiotic was most appropriate for it. I am so scared of one of us getting really sick. I don’t need to tell you how many of us have died already.

- • I miss the fact that my future is gone. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to do something special someday, and now, here I sit, struggling to make do and get by everyday with the people that are near to me. Maybe I need to accept the fact that I am doing something special by helping these folks survive as well. Shrug.

- • I miss soda. I know that sounds dumb, because we still have a fair amount of it, but I was a pretty regular soda drinker back in the day, and I miss the fact that I can’t just crack a can or bottle whenever the hell I want to. I guess for the above mentioned health concerns that’s a good thing.

- • I miss the internet. I know I already said this, but shit… I wish I could just look stuff up whenever I needed to. We’ve gotten good at using the resources in the library, but there are a lot of subjects not covered there, and there were a lot of books taken out by students, or are just gone, or destroyed by gunfire or gore. There are a LOT of subjects that we will never learn more about unless we find people who know about them, or we find a book or some kind of documentation detailing them. It’s a fucking shame all that knowledge has been misplaced, even if only for a short time. At some point, we'll need to hit the town library, and more.

- • I miss Dunkin Donuts. God on hot days sometimes I’d get three large iced coffees. I guess more than anything, I miss the convenience of not being able to just go out, and get whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want it. Now, if I want an iced coffee, I need solar panels, a gas powered generator, a working fridge, clean water, coffee, a coffee making system, heat to boil the water, etc etc etc. Not to mention, I NEED TO MAKE IT MY DAMN SELF. Sigh.

Now here’s something new, which I think is important for me to do once in awhile. Perspective. Important stuff.

10 things I actually enjoy about life now

- • I like my diet. Even though we eat lots of canned crap, I am eating so much better now than I ever have. Even during my Army days I ate crap, and now I still eat crap, but it’s healthier crap, and I am super healthy for it.

- • I enjoy my body. I was pretty doughy before, and now I am lean, hard, and fast. Once again I am the man that just missed the cut at Ranger school, only older, smarter, wiser, and even less of the kind of person you want to fuck with. That feels good.

- • I love the stars. There are no lights from the town, or the city to cast that dull orange glow anymore. I can see a million stars when I tilt my head back at night, and that show is majestic and captivating. I love the night sky now.

- • I like sitting down and eating dinner every night. Cassie and I usually ate on the couch watching television, and we never talked as much as we should’ve. Had we sat at the table, we’d be forced to chat, and maybe things between her and I would’ve gone differently.

- • I dig the adrenaline. It can be addicting. I enjoy the rush of the fight, I love the heart pounding moments when life is on the line, and things go good, and we all walk away. Almost dying makes you feel alive.

- • Every day I feel like I have earned my living. Despite being exhausted all the time, and nearly dying multiple times, I know when I crawl into bed at night, I have done my part. Many people have dead end jobs where it doesn’t matter if they call out or not any day of the week. I can’t take a day off. If I do, it better be for damn good reason. I like earning my paycheck.

- • I like the quiet at night. Actually, I enjoy sleeping at night. I used to work nights, and sleeping during the day was a bitch at times. Anyway, there is no traffic anymore. There are no car horns, blaring stereos, or shitty parents with asshole kids running around all night. It’s nice.

- • I like the fact that I write this regularly. It helps me clear my head. I like the fact that after I write every one of these dumb entries, it’s a few more days detailed about my life, and the lives of the people that are near to me. I hope that one day the words that I leave behind here for you Mr. Journal become relevant to someone when the world starts to rebuild. That might be a fool’s dream.

- • I love the fact that I get to drive big trucks. It makes my penis feel good. Yes, that’s an amazingly male thing to say, but it’s the truth. Driving the HRT around all the time is a rush. It’s like driving around a monster truck, or a Maserati or something. It’s just ego swelling, and makes you feel a wee bit invincible.

- • I enjoy the fact that I am not harassed by assholes. Granted, I’ve exchanged shitty drivers, and dickheads in the grocery store line for undead trying to eat me, but at least I get to shoot undead. Before, I had to just put up with the asshole’s shit. It’s a terrific tension reliever to shoot people. I should note that I am not condoning randomly shooting people. It should be a well thought out process reserved exclusively for people who deserve to be shot.

So yeah. A little change of pace here. Not much else going on. We’re going to bust ass tomorrow because Mike and company are returning here the day after for another water/trade run, and I’d like to take that day off and let everyone recuperate. We’re working our asses off, and the way I see it, we’re only a day or two away from people starting to get really angry and shitheaded.

Hopefully Mike has good news from Westfield.

-Adrian

June 12th

Well well well. The hits keep coming. I’m starting to worry, because there are far too many roses blooming here lately, and that often means we’re knee deep in shit. We’ve had two more good days on campus, and it’s starting to be unnerving. Whenever we string too many safe days together, nothing good comes of it.

Weird how that works.

I’ll try to keep this as short as possible. I’ve had a small amount to drink today, and I’m at the point where typing this is a little bit of a struggle for me. To be honest, this could go either way. I might face plant on the keyboard, or be up all fucking night typing because I’ll catch my excited buzz second wind.

Yesterday was Worky McWorkerson. We had a huge day of getting shit done yet again, and worked an extra hour late to get a few more logs upright, and reinforced. We’re really trying to get this shit done in a hurry so we can move back to more “productive” tasks. Not that safety isn’t a productive task, or a major priority. It’s just stupid when we could be in town, gathering resources, killing undead, and being more of a proactive force for the world.

Eh, whatever. This shit needs to be done for our long term chances at survival. Stay focused Adrian. Quit bitching.

Otis dislikes me tonight. He’s ignoring me. I suspect it’s because Mallory is here in the bed with me, and it’s kind of damp and warm. There’s no room for my homeboy. He’s sitting in the corner of the bedroom watching me type, and I swear he’s giving me the, “dude, bros before hoes” look. Poor cat. I wish he still had his balls. I’d love to have his lineage continue on. Maybe they’ll grow back someday.

As I was saying, yesterday was a heavy workload day. We got a bunch of shit done. No injuries, no trouble, nothing to note. We did however agree that Daniel Junior needed a firearms refresher course. He hadn’t done any shooting since his dad was around, and he’s old enough, and experienced enough that he should be carrying some kind of firearm at all times. His mom Angela is all for it, but she doesn’t have the patience or experience to teach him how to shoot. I’ve half a mind to ask Abby or Gilbert to do it, but Gilbert’s eye is still on the mend, and Abby is a little short on patience at the moment. Sooooo… it falls to me to teach the kid how to shoot again. I’m thinking we get him a decent 9mm pistol, and perhaps one of the 20 gauge shotguns. More than enough firepower for him to support us in a fight, and not too much gun for him to manage. He’s a thickly built kid like his father, and in a year, he’ll have no trouble handling anything we put in his hands.

Not sure when I’ll tackle his training. Tomorrow we are expecting good weather, and if we do, we can make a huge portion of wall leading up to a few existing large trees. Trees are a mixed blessing. They’re free wall material, but the roots are a bitch to dig around and into. The backhoe does it fine, but it’s one more pain in the ass hurdle. Anyway, if we wind up getting stymied by the roots of the tree, maybe I’ll take a few hours, and Danny and I can sneak away for some trigger time.

Today as I said before Mike and crew rolled into town with the water truck for a trusty refill. They didn’t have a huge need for much from us, and they didn’t have much to trade us either. Their spare trade goods have dried up pretty dramatically since the returning folks in Westfield have been mooching off their supplies. Mike said things were pretty good, but the sudden addition of 30 mouths in the town has made things awkward. The scavenging in town has all but dried up, and Lenny’s farm can only grow so much food, so fast.

Mike is now wondering how they’re going to make it through the winter. I don’t like the idea of people starving here or there. We might need to seriously step up our hunting activity as cooler weather kicks in. If we can drop a half dozen deer, that’s at least 500 dressed pounds of venison. That much meat can be doled out over a pretty long fucking time if we can preserve it. Let's say an eight ounce portion is a meal. That's the equivalent of a thousand meals.

Which reminds me, we need more fuel soon. It’s been a long time since we re-upped, and we’re pissing through diesel like there’s no tomorrow. We’re saving the gasoline for the generators as much as possible, but because we’ve switched over to the diesel trucks, and with the addition of a dualie, as well as the Deuce and a half, our diesel use has just leapt up. At some point in time, we’re going to have to start accumulating more fuel. I think our best bet is to hit some of the homes with heating oil, and just drain some drums out. Ideally, if we can hit the houses down on Route 18 first, that’d be best. Work our way closer to us as we go along.

So yeah Mike came today. Few other folks, but honestly I don’t care that much right now. I’m basking in a nice buzz, and the afterglow from pretty good sex. I was a little sloppy though, and I have to own up and say that I underperformed tonight. Shit happens. Sorry Mallory, next time I promise I will try harder. Lol. Harder.

I spanked her. Softly. Didn’t want her to wake up and wonder why I was spanking her. She just fell asleep. I’d hate to interrupt her dreams. However, if I work up an erection while staring at her ass, you best bet I’m waking her up with it. I see no sense in wasting a perfectly good boner. Those things have an expiration date.

Where was I? I have my own penis on the mind. Terribly distracting Mr. Journal. The curse of being a man.

Westfield is +1! Yay for childbirth. Megan Clough gave birth under Lisa’s watchful eyes to a seven pound, ten ounce baby named Allison. Although honestly I’m conflicted on this. Mike said that back when Sean was still kicking over there, he’d taken a few girls into his bedroom as an executive privilege. Megan was one of them, and if you do the math on the whole deal, it is pretty much a fucking LOCK that the baby born on June 4th is Sean’s. I dislike that idea. I realize fully it’s asinine to think that the child will turn out anything like her father, but I can’t help but wonder what she’ll turn out to be. I’m hoping that apple drops off the tree, and rolls far the fuck away from her father’s genetic heritage. We don’t need a dickhead’s daughter running around here. Anywhere else for that matter.

I digress. We shall celebrate the birth of a new life, and be happy that the mother and daughter are both healthy, and happy. I need less bitterness. More happiness. Sunshine, rainbows and ponies. And sex. That shit always makes me happy.

Speaking of people shitting out babies… Kim and Blake followed Mike and friends back to Westfield this evening when they left. Kim has had zero prenatal care, and when Lisa found that out, she shat an enormous brick. She immediately demanded Kim make the trip, and likely stay there in Westfield until the kid was born, which based on the size of her belly, could be moments away. It looks like she’s going to give birth to a Peterbuilt.

Blake, ever the nervous father-to-be, has elected to go with the mother of his child, and that means we are without our backhoe operator, and our mechanic. You should’ve seen Blake pack up his shit. It was like they were on their way to the ER right then and there and she was having her contractions. Had to get his ass to relax.

Buuuuuut… like a goddamn Mexican rock star, Hector has elected to stay here for a few days while they sort out Kim’s birth. With any luck, they’ll have the kid soon, and things will be back to “normal” within a week or so. I’m also happy to report that Mallory has also elected to stay here while Hector does, which means my access to fresh, mostly willing vagina has been turned back on for the time being. Well, as long as I step up my game up over tonight’s performance. Kinda mailed it in after too much to drink. One more night of that and she’ll start thinking that she’s better off doing it herself.

And we can’t have that, can we Mr. Journal?

So yeah, that’s about it. Not a whole lot else to say or add. The deer I killed the other day fed us during the trade/relaxation day, and that bitch was delicious. Mike nearly shit his pants when he smelled it on the grill. Too funny. I don’t know why they haven’t dropped more deer out their way. Maybe it’s because Westfield is a bigger town and more urban? Who knows? Although the whole time we were cooking I kept thinking about the day those motherfuckers at The Farm hit us. That might've been half the reason I drank as much as I did.

Mike officially said they needed more protein in their diets according to Lisa, so if we got ANY spare meats, they were in need. Of course they don’t have much to trade that we need now, so we’re reaching that null point where we’re not trading between organizations for economic purposes, but allocating resources between two allied locations. I think I’m okay with that.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and slip away to give Danny some shooting lessons. Before and after that we are back to the grind of building our giant fucking wall. I am really starting to get the itch to check out that damn apartment building downtown. I have a feeling we NEED to check that out sooner rather than later. I can’t explain why I feel that way, I just know deep down inside we’ve got to figure that puzzle out.

I’m hoping all is well with it. I’d hate to spend the time clearing a five story building only to find out it’s been stripped of good shit, and left filled with the fucking undead. What a buzzkill that’d be right Mr. Journal? Apartment Building of the Living Dead. Great movie title.

I’ll update more as I can think of shit to say. As of now, I’ve managed to think far too much about Mallory’s ass under the sheets, and as a generous nightcap gift, I’m going to attempt to undo the sexual disaster I laid on her earlier. Hopefully, I don’t fuck it up and make my situation worse.

If you have fingers Mr. Journal, cross them and think of my sexual abilities in a positive manner.

-Adrian

June 14th

Harro!

That’s racially insensitive.

I should feel bad about that, but… I don’t. I guess some of my sensibility has shat the bad since the world was overrun by the dead. It’s a natural consequence as I see it. Undead appear: Adrian becomes entirely insensitive and makes shitty decisions.

I am happy to report that Mallory received a thorough fucking the other night at the hands of yours truly. She seemed quite pleased, and I feel vindicated after my recent, poor half in the bag sexual showing. I have a strong feeling she’ll be back in my sack tonight, just like she was last night. Of course she’s staying here for a few days, so that’s likely to happen whether or not I’m putting the boots to her.

Go me. Seriously. Just… go me.

What’s new here? Otis is good, hot as hell in the heat we’re dealing with, but all in all, he’s good. I sense a smidge of jealousy coming off him of late though. With Mallory here in bed with me the past few days he’s been relegated to sleeping in other rooms or on the floor. I think he’s actually been sleeping with Abby, which makes him a little bit of a cat adulterer. Two timing bastard. However, she can use the company, and honestly when he’s on the bed and I’m trying to get laid he winds up getting cat punted with a shriek across the room anyway. Maybe this is just him protecting himself. Smart cat if that’s the case.

We did a lot of fence work the past two days, but the weather hasn’t been terribly cooperative, despite us wishing a lot that it’d be nice. Mixtures of drizzle, and always overcast, with downpours added in for color. I miss the damn weatherman. Despite them almost never being right when it mattered most, it felt good to at least think that the weather prediction would be reliable. Plus it also gave us something benign to bitch about. Now on a day to day basis we have no fucking idea what’s coming. Tomorrow tampons and goldfish could fall from the sky, and we’d have no idea it was coming. That scenario wouldn’t surprise me in the least, incidentally.

Because it was rainy yesterday, we took a long lunch break to get in from the soaking downpour. We grilled up some more of the venison on Hall A’s porch, and just as we were about to start our bitch session about getting soaked again, the skies cleared, and the sun came out. I decided that’d be a great time to sneak away with Danny to the back end of campus for an hour of gun practice. He was excited, and so was I to be honest. I offered a free lesson to anyone who wanted to tag along, but all declined, and he and I made it into a quasi “uncle-nephew” thing. This may sound strange, but I do feel inclined to be extra affectionate towards him.

I was there when his father died, and I’ve got his father’s rifle in my bedroom. I’m not sure how I’ll handle that in the future. In reality, that rifle is Danny’s, and I should give it up for him to use. At the moment though, that might be too much for the teenager to handle. I don’t quite know where his head is about his dad’s death. As a teenager, he’s got to be very hurt, scared, and confused, and I don’t want to muddle the mixture.

So I knew I wanted to get Danny trained on a 20 gauge pump, as well as a 9mm handgun, and we’ve got both spare. I wanted to give him my old Sig, but I realized it’s still sitting in a safe house halfway to Westfield. Remember that Mr. Journal? I left it there in case I had to evac during the whole Sean bullshit.

Instead, I gave him the Ruger P95, which is a fine handgun for him to use for the meantime. Maybe he can step up to something more robust at a later date, but in reality, 9mm is more than enough gun for killing zombies, and getting living assholes to duck.

Cutting to the short of it, we spent two hours out shooting at colored paper the size of zombie heads, and within fifteen minutes it was clear the kid was a natural. His dad put some serious hobby time in with the kid getting him some gun safety and shooting experience, and it shows. He was dead nuts with the Ruger at less than 15 feet, and pretty consistent out to about 30 feet. That’s more than I would’ve asked for, even after a few days of range practice.

The shotgun was a slightly different story. He’d only shot 12 gauges, and he hadn’t done that all that much, and had difficulty being comfortable with the lighter shotgun. Almost like he was over-steering it. He sent many a shell down low until I got him to relax, and let it fly. Once he did that, he was in business, and pretty clearly good to go. In fact, I may step him up to 12 gauge after a bit, because he seems like such a natural.

I set him up with a holster that fit the Ruger and with Angela’s blessing, he is now a full time weapon carrier. I am pretty sure that when she saw her son strap on the handgun she stifled some serious emotion. Maybe she saw her husband in her son, or maybe she was realizing that in the world we live in, teenagers carry loaded guns. I can’t say why she showed the emotion, but she did. I think it was a good emotion too, but who knows? I suck at the whole feelings part of life. I blame my penis.

After that, we rejoined the work force, and put in a few more hours in the post rain summer warmth, which was actually kind of nice. We made decent progress yesterday, but the real advancements we made were at dinner that night.

We were all inside Hall B enjoying a large spaghetti feast when I turned to Gilbert and brought up the subject of the apartment building with the giant pile of garbage around it, as well as the few undead meandering about at the base. Instantly he was curious, and within just a minute or two, he decided that a recon mission was a good idea. At the very least, we should get out on foot and check to see if the building is barricaded from the inside, or if there is anything of note on the sides of the building we haven’t seen yet.

He also pointed out the sense in controlling the tallest structure in town. If we could set up an outpost on the top floor or the roof there as an observation point, we’d be able to see for miles in all directions, as well as be able to drop some pretty accurate fire down on the heads of undead milling about town. It just makes sense to at least find the time to check the place out.

A few other folks overheard the conversation, and within a half hour’s time, we had folks on board with the idea of hitting the apartment building. We figured a simple recon in a day or so would be a great idea. Worst case, we turn it into a drive by, and likely wind up thinning the undead herd by a few rotting heads. Recon to contact, so to speak.

We’re thinking we roll out in a decently heavy force, similar to the one we went out with for the auto parts run the other day, and we leave on the 16th. Tomorrow we’ll work a half day here to get some fence put up, and after that we’ll take the time to go over how things will go down, maybe do some more firearms training, and gun maintenance. Turn it into a really professional operation. Lol. Us, professional.

Hilarious.

So our plan as it stands is to roll out the day after tomorrow, pick up the few remaining things we left behind at the auto parts store, then move around the apartment building down the street and check it out. We are not intending to breach the place, simply check it out, and clear the undead around it away.

Going door to door in a building that large is a serious undertaking, and is dangerous as all hell. Especially when you think about the idea that there is a high possibility of living, breathing people inside that certainly might want us to fuck the hell off. We don’t want to be perceived purely as aggressive raiders or looters, and it might be hard to not come off as such when we’ve been literally right down the street… aggressively raiding and looting. Reap what you sow, right?

If we see people on the upper floors, we will wave, act friendly, appear to be ambassadors of good will and security (which we are, so that should be easy for us), and attempt to speak with them as cordially as possible. We want to make friends here. Preferably ones that aren’t having fucked up dreams about The Lacuna like that asshat Pastor Adams from The Farm.

Move slow, handle with kid gloves, ask about weird dreams as soon as possible, and we’ll be just fine. (famous last words, and fuck you Jinx Fairy)

Not a whole lot else to chit chat about. There’s a certain buzz in the air now. Everyone is feeling good about another run downtown, and we’re all pretty excited about the idea of finding or meeting more people. Anyone who has managed to survive up to now right in the center of town in a five story apartment building must have a pretty damn good story to share.

Maybe, just frigging maybe, this one will go right for us. I’d like to think we can skip the toe pushing at least once.

You listening Jinx Fairy? If so, you can kiss my ass you winged bitch.

-Adrian

June 16th

Well. I’m not sure where to go from here. We’ve gotten some decent intelligence on that apartment building now, but we’re sort of at an impasse as to what exactly to do with it. Gilbert is wracking his little brain trying to work out a reasonable, executable plan based on what we know, but so far, everything we’ve thought of has been flawed in one or more ways.

Let me explain where I’m coming from here so you can think along with us on this. I could use the assist, that’s for sure. Speak up if you get any ideas Mr. Journal.

Yesterday we pulled a half day here on campus doing defensive work and farming bullshit. Ollie started work on cutting lumber into a suitable gate yesterday, which was pretty much the biggest thing that happened all day. Ollie’s gate idea looks like a fucking castle fortification on paper, and if he can manage to assemble it like he drew it, it’ll take Moses to part that bitch open once it’s shut.

He’s guessing it’ll take a solid week of work for two people to get the thing assembled and mounted. We’ve dedicated Danny and Angela as his assistants, and hopefully that’ll shave some time off the project. The good news is that once that gate is up, there is almost no way to get onto campus without going over the river on the far edge past where we’ve built fence, which is really treacherous. It’s either high water and fast, or low water, and exceedingly rocky and impassible. Just revisit my little trip down the river the other day when we were surrounded, and the frigging beating I took from the current and rocks.

Granted there is also the idea that someone could try and cross the Lake to get to us, but that’s not much of a reality. On the far side of the lake there is nothing but woods for miles. There are no houses or docks, or roads to get out to that end of the Lake. Anyone trying to cross the open water to get to us would need to carry their watercraft through heavy underbrush and forest to a spot on the far rocky shore, and then paddle or motor across to get to us.

It’d be easier to try and ram the gate down. Might be safer to come at us via water, and if we’re ever attacked by real military people that’s the way they’ll do it. However, once the wall is built around the entirety of campus, we’ll be largely cured of that risk. Well, unless they hit the wall with heavy duty breaching charges, or a few anti-tank missiles, but if that’s the case, we’re going to be fucked anyway. We are not equipped to deal with people with that kind of hardware and training.

Back to the topic at hand.

After our half day of labor, we prepped up for today, and had a nice team meal. The prep work was deliberate and used as a training opportunity for the new folks. I wanted to show Angela, Amanda, Hector and Mallory how we loaded up, geared up, and prepared for a run into town. If we are going to be growing as a community over the coming weeks, months or years, then we need to make sure everyone is trained and ready to go for just about anything. Granted, some folks have different strengths than others, but when it all comes down to it, we need the Marine mentality:

Everyone is a shooter first.

Last night I slept good, but I chalk that up to Mallory using me like a sex toy. I think that woman is starved for sexual affection. By the time she’d done whatever it was she needed to do with me, I was fucking beyond exhausted. (pun not intended, but pretty frigging funny) I’m also fairly sure we kept some other folks up late, which I honestly don’t feel all that guilty about. I have needs, and I’m an adult. I also fully realize I talk about my sex life far too much, but to be fair, you are reading a man's journal, and there are few things more important to a man than his sex life. Conveniently, you'll notice I also talk about guns a lot.

We rolled out early this morning. Well not that early actually. I think it was about 10am when we drove across the bridge to head downtown. The team was myself, Hector, Amanda, Angela, Mallory, Abigail, and Gilbert. Everyone else stayed behind to pull defense, and accomplish a quick food inventory. It’s been some time since we last counted our canned foods and whatnot, and we needed a good idea of how fast we’re pissing through everything. (As it turns out, we’re doing very good at the moment.)

The trip to downtown was decent. We left in three vehicles. The deuce and a half, the HRT, and the dualie. Undead numbers were fairly mild, with one large pocket right near the pharmacy I raided back in what was it? December? Back when the damn dog bit my crotch. There was about ten of them in the intersection, and I couldn’t see any reason why they were standing there. No dead bodies on the ground, no signs of recent abnormal occurrence. Ironic statement that is, eh? What is abnormal about a bunch of undead milling about in the middle of the street? Sigh.

We haven’t gotten the full plow blade attached to the HRT yet, but that doesn’t mean it can’t ram the piss out of zombies. I hit them full bore after we’d come to a stop to observe them, and we took them all out with melee weapons once we got a little past them and it was clear they were unable to move. We dragged the bodies out of the road when we were done with them. No sense leaving unfinished business around.

The remainder of the trip to the parts place was uneventful. Almost creepy how clear it was. I am really starting to wonder if this is some form of manipulation by the powers that be. It seems every so often they either ramp up, or ramp down the undead around here to suit their whims. If they want us to struggle, then they wave their wand of evil, and a hundred zombies appear from their hiding places. If they want us to have an easy go of it, then they do the opposite. I can’t figure it out.

We parked the vehicles at the auto parts store and proceeded to ransack the remnants. We wound up completely filling the Deuce (is that a poop joke?), and putting the rest of the shit into the back of the dualie. (is that also a poop joke?) While we were packing the remains of the parts store, I stood guard, and engaged the undead milling about on the surface streets with my M4.

Now I could’ve beaten them to death. There was only ten or so, and they were spread out just about right, but I actually wanted to make noise. I wanted anyone up in that building to know that we were down here engaging hostiles, and taking them down. I know noise is generally bad, but in this instance, I felt it was worth it.

Except it didn’t do anything. No one poked their head over the upper floor balconies to see what was going on, and no one hollered, and we saw no lights. What I did see once we moved out and approached the building was evidence that people had been throwing garbage and waste over the balconies. You could see smears of yellow and brown coming off of four different, distinct balconies on the building, and with the rain we’ve had lately, there’s little chance those shit smears are that old. In fact, I could see a sheen on at least one of the smears that told me it was still wet. Down in the street where the shit and piss had landed, the smell was pungent and fresh. Someone was without doubt up there, and they were peeing, and pooping.

Which, if you’re a fucking rock star like I am, you’ll realize that means they are eating and drinking as well, which implies they have a steady source of food and water from somewhere. I don’t know where they’re growing or getting their food, but it means they aren’t starving, and they’re reasonably safe up there.

The ground floor entries are all barricaded heavily from the inside, which also says that they were able to fortify the place at some point. From the outside looking in, the two main doors on the ground level are heavy duty exterior doors, and the windows have been covered with what looks to be plate steel. Further, when we jiggled the handles on both doors, there was no give at all in the frame, which tells me the doors are either welded shut, or somehow braced from the inside to withstand serious impact. Clearly this is an industrial fortification job. Now if you recall, I saw smoke coming out of some of these balconies over the winter, which meant at least one or two of these apartments somehow caught fire at one point. It would seem that the building itself withstood the storm though, and there were enough survivors inside to continue on, apparently indefinitely. That’s assuming they aren’t slipping out somehow, and they’re actually still alive inside.

When we finally left and went home, we had no real idea what to do with that information. We have a fortified building that apparently has food and water inside, and is sustaining an unknown amount of people. Judging by the number of apartments that had shit smears on their balconies, it’s looking like as many as four balconies are occupied, and let’s make a generous estimate of as many as three people per balcony. That’s twelve bodies in there. Now I can’t say for sure there are twelve, or ten, or four people there, but there are people there, and they’re alive and kicking.

If they didn’t come out to contact us, then that means they either didn’t hear us shooting, or they intentionally avoided making any kind of contact with us. Deaf folks seem unlikely, and it also doesn’t strike me as realistic that they couldn’t hear all my gunfire. If they lasted this long, then they clearly have been paying attention to the world around them.

Gilbert and I have settled on the idea that they are playing dead because they’re scared, and don’t want to give up what they’ve got. How to do make contact with them? For that matter, do we even need or want to make contact with them? If they’re safe in there, and they aren’t fucking with us, why force communication? What is there to gain?

Having said all that, everyone is dying to know who the hell is in there. Is it an astrophysicist? A gardener? A chef, a baker, a candlestick maker? Curious minds want to know what’s going on. I want to know what’s going on. There HAS to be a story to hear in that building that can help us.

Gilbert and I decided with the help of some of the others that we should return to the apartment building in a couple days, and attempt more verbal communication. We’re making big signs out of laminated paper telling them who we are, and how to contact us using the safe house we set up heading out of town, and what channel they can contact us on should they have walkies themselves. We’re also going to use one of the athletic department megaphones to simply yell up at them.

I’m anticipating there being a much larger crowd of undead on our return next time. We made a lot of noise down there today, and as we’ve discovered, noise draws the pricks in. There’s a damn good chance we led a few dozen or more of the zombies right to the building’s doorstep, and I suppose if anything, we need to be responsible neighbors, and go back to trim the weeds off their sidewalk, so to speak.

Tomorrow we’re going to return to working here on campus, as things are going well. With any luck we’ll hear word from Westfield about how Blake and Kim (and possibly baby) are doing. I’d like to get the upgrades on the HRT going again, and plus I’m frankly curious to see how many horns that demon seed he’s fathering comes out with. I’m guessing five.

Mallory is downstairs right now playing cards with Abby. Those two are becoming thick like thieves, which does not bode well for old Adrian. Whenever two women get that close to one another, inevitably I will pay some kind of price. I have anticipated that I will be harassed, and/or teased by the new Team Vagina look, so I have hidden a jar of icy hot for revenge purposes.

Hopefully she’ll come back up here shortly, so I can get some stress off my chest. If not, I’ll just black out from exhaustion, and she can have her way with me.

Win/win.

-Adrian

Dream a Little Dream

Gilbert woke up in his bed, covered in a cold, clammy sweat. The warm June morning sunlight streamed into his window with the energy of a thousand candles, illuminating the soft blue paint his wife had just asked him to paint the room. New beginnings, she had said.

The old man swallowed hard and rested his head back on his damp pillow. He’d had another dream. Another nightmare. Years ago Gilbert had finally shaken the nightmares from his time as a Green Beret in Vietnam, and having to experience a whole new series of nightmares recently had him shaken to the core. These were much, much worse than his dreams of seeing dead children back in the late 60’s. These dreams were real.

They all began the same. Gilbert came to inside the dream wandering in the dark, in a cool expansive area that was neither inside, nor outside. His sense of smell was invaded by the overwhelming stench of fresh blood on the air, and even if he chose not to breathe it in, the coppery wetness sat on his tongue like sticky, bitter oil. He was scared to swallow in the dreams. Gilbert wanted nothing about the feeling he had in his throat to get any further inside him.

The first few dreams ended with him wandering in that void all alone. He’d walk on his old, creaky legs for what felt like days and then when he thought he couldn’t go any further, the sun’s rays broke through his eyelids, and he woke up sweaty, and shaking. The past few dreams had been dramatically different.

Last night’s dream had been the worst yet.

Gilbert had come to in the darkness and it was colder than before, and the air thinner. He struggled to fill his Parliament damaged lungs with desperately needed oxygen in the hostile dreamy environment. His breathing labored to the point where he had to stop moving and rest his hands on his hips, inhaling the near frigid metallic air carefully and deliberately, trying to quell his racing heart.

Then the voice spoke to him. It was unnatural, and overwhelming. It came from everywhere, but spoke only to him.

“Gilbert Donohue.”

Gilbert’s heart leaped into his chest, nearly blocking his airway, causing him to let loose a cough that freed up a thick wad of dark mucous. It dribbled down his chin. “Who the hell is that? What’s happening here dammit?”

“The end of times Gilbert Donohue. Humanity’s last stop. I am here to let you know that you play a pivotal role in deciding the matter.”

“Who the hell are you? What’s happening? Why me?”

“Your questions are to the point. It speaks to why I have chosen you for the tasks laid out ahead of you. I shall answer you thus; I am no one, and nothing. I am the devourer. I am the end. I am the force about to be set free to break humanity like a wave on the rocks at the shore. I shall turn you all inward, eradicate you from existence, and show your folly so that this life can begin anew. You have been chosen because you have skills and experience that are applicable for controlling the outcome of this.”

Gilbert looked around in the dark expanse trying to figure out where the voice came from. As the voice tapered off into silence he came to the realization that he wasn’t hearing the voice. He was experiencing it. “Why do I get the feeling I am not going to like this?”

“Because in the end Gilbert Donohue, you will die. You will die a traitor’s death as one of the men and women who will stand against humanity. Rest assured Gilbert Donohue, despite your feelings to the contrary, you will reside for eternity as a hero amongst my legions. You shall be known as my Voice, and as my Advocate here.”

Gilbert closed his eyes in the darkness and let the words sink into his soul. His stomach knotted as his mind came to a stunning conclusion. “You’re the Devil, aren’t you?”

“That is as good a name as any.”

“You seriously want me to be the Devil’s Advocate?” Gilbert shook his head in disgust.

“You ARE my Advocate. Your wishes do not factor into this equation.”

“Try me. You can’t make me do shit. I will not betray my kind, even in this fucked up dream.” Gilbert sneered into the darkness.

“Gilbert Donohue, do you love your wife?”

Gilbert’s blood ran like ice water suddenly. He could be tough forever. He’d die before he did anything for the Devil. His wife on the other hand... That’s dirty fighting. “I love my wife. You stay out of her dreams, and out of my head too you prick. I’ll square off with the Devil without thinking twice. Been there, done that you asshole.”

“Oh Gilbert Donohue. Your strength of will shall be her undoing. You will fulfill your role in this, or I shall take her from you. She will suffer. Forever.”

“The hell you will. She isn’t dead yet, and I’ve got plenty to say about you trying to touch her.” Gilbert’s bony old fists knotted up in anger. No one tried him. Not even the Devil.

“Gilbert, allow me to appease your anger, and lay out a single simple task for you. We will build a relationship based on trust. Achieve this simple task, and your wife is safe for some time. Can we agree to this one simple task?”

Gilbert thought about it long and hard. He thought of his wife’s beautiful blue eyes, and how she looked at him in the morning when she woke up. He couldn’t bear the thought of her being in danger. Besides, if anyone could outsmart the Devil, it was him. “Let’s hear it.”

“The end of times will be brought about in a rolling crescendo of death. The first day thousands will die. The second day tens of thousands, and the third day shall see the end of millions. Eventually, you will all perish. Your dead have been chosen as the instrument of justice, and they are crude weapons. I can only control them to a point, and there is good chance one of them will let slip from my leash, and try to kill you and your wife. To prevent this, you must fortify your home, and obtain more resources. Food, ammunition, water, wood, everything to survive the end of the world that you will help bring about. Do this, and I shall spare you and your wife for the foreseeable future.”

“Seems fair. It’s a deal. How long do I have?” Gilbert’s mind slipped into Green Beret mode, thinking, assessing, planning.

“When you awaken, it will be the morning of June 6th. The end will begin on June 23rd. You must be ready on that day, or you run the risk of being killed by the horde.”

And that’s when Gilbert came to, sweaty, shaking, and wishing his wife hadn’t gone into their warehouse that day for work. He knew instantly the dream wasn’t just a dream. His chin was covered in the phlegm he’d coughed up in the dream, and sitting on his pillow next to his face was a freshly cut flower. A white poppy.

The flower of death.

*****

Gilbert told his wife that evening when she got home from work that the plexiglass he’d just put on the windows was there for insurance purposes. There had been a break in down the street a month ago, and she’d been complaining about how the neighborhood was on the way down. She could understand that rationale. The following day's activities were a bit harder to explain. They were just as hard to rationalize for Gilbert. Was he mad?

Gilbert had no idea what the voice in the dream meant when it said that the dead would be the instruments of justice. He assumed it meant that dead people would rise up from the grave, and the thought of that chilled him to the bone. Gilbert decided that shoring up the porch railing, and building a heavy duty gate at the top of the steps behind the screen door was the way to go. It also looked fairly nondescript, and if this all turned out to him just being crazy, the more he hid it, the better off he and his wife were.

His wife was not impressed by the sudden carpentry work. “Gilly," she asked, "why is there a new sheet of plywood all across the brand new railing we put in last summer?”

“Well dear, you see," Gilbert had said to her, "we’ve had some trouble with raccoons getting up on the porch. This is a temporary fix. I’ll get something better looking up in a few weeks.”

That bought him enough time until it started. The end started. June 23rd, 2010, just as The Voice had said in his dream. Gilbert’s wife went to work that day despite his insistence that she stay home. They even had an argument over it, which Gilbert would regret daily until he died. The company warehouse would run itself he’d said, and if the end of the world really did happen that day, then it wouldn’t matter one way or the other anyway. He didn’t tell her that part. Nevertheless, despite his protests, she went in anyway. She was never the type of person that could let go and let others do her work for her. Either she did it herself the right way, or it was certain to be done wrong by someone else. Gilbert watched her leave that morning in her small Volvo, and that was the last time he saw her.

When the early morning news came on, and the pictures of death and destruction from around the world began to roll in nonstop, he knew the end was in his lap. Gilbert tried to call her, but she didn’t pick up her cell phone, and he suspected it was off. She never used the thing.

Rather than leaving to try and find her, he knew he should finish the preparations on the house for her return. He knew she’d be safe. He’d made a deal with the Devil, and he’d held up his part of the bargain.

*****

The funny thing about deals with the Devil is that they’re never quite what they seem. When his wife never came home, or called, or returned his calls that day, he knew he’d been had. Gilbert sat at the window in the living room of his house, his trusty AK-47 in hand, watching the few neighbors that made it out of the city alive frantically loading things into their cars to escape to somewhere else. Many could head north maybe, where it was more rural. Anywhere but here. Gilbert knew it wouldn’t matter in the long run. Hell had released its fury, and the flood would spread until it covered everything.

That night he had another dream, a nightmare really. He felt the voice in the darkness before the cold sank underneath his skin, and he tasted the presence of blood.

“Well done Gilbert Donohue. Your home will survive the onslaught for some time.”

Gilbert was furious, and reached for the AK that had been slung at his side all that day, but it wasn’t in the dream with him. He was full of anger. “Where is my wife? You promised me she would survive.”

“And she did for some time. Sadly, she did not make it out of the city alive. Crude tools occasionally fail at what they are tasked with.”

“You motherfucker! You promised me she’d live!” Gilbert was raging now. He felt the hot tears slide down his cheek, warming the skin in the cold air of the dark space.

“I have no mother to fuck. Gilbert Donohue your time to rest is upon you. You have earned a respite. Remain where you are, and when the time is right, I shall visit you once more.”

“Is my wife dead?” Gilbert trembled with a mixture of rage and heartache. Inside his chest he felt acute stabbing pain. His nerves were burning from the tip of his toes to the top of his head. For the first time in his memory, he felt helpless, and vulnerable.

“She has died. However, I have set her soul aside for safekeeping. It is under my eye, and so long as you continue to do my bidding, she shall remain in a blissful state until this catechism passes. Should you not do my bidding Gilbert Donohue… She shall suffer for eternity.”

*****

It was December when the next dream came. Gilbert had spent the autumn months keeping busy, mostly clearing small trees out of the backyard to use as fuel in the woodstove. The electricity died early, the phones even earlier, and he knew he’d freeze to death over winter without a lot of wood. Of course it takes a tremendous amount of energy for a 70 year old man to chop down a tree with an axe.

It didn’t help either that the dead family down the cul de sac tried to smash their way out of their home every time he went outside. The family had starved to death inside their own house. The wife was convinced a plague was the cause for all the death and destruction. Gilbert wasn’t aware of any disease that caused the dead to rise up and kill the living. She on the other hand forbid even opening the door to take the small offerings of food and advice Gilbert offered to them. It was sad when he saw them scratching fruitlessly at the windows, their now dead fingers trying to break the glass to get at him. In truth, they were the only dead people he’d seen up to that point.

The dream that came to him in December scared Gilbert. He awoke in the cold, dim expanse and immediately shouted to the voice of evil, “Where is my wife? How is she?”

“Patience Gilbert Donohue. All is the same with your beloved. But for this to remain so, you must begin the next phase of your task.”

“How do I know you’re not lying to me like before? Why should I trust you?” Gilbert’s heart ticked rapidly away in his chest like the rattle of a baseball card in the spokes of a bicycle.

“You do not know if I am lying, just that I have been right all along. And I assure you, if you want her soul to remain happy, then you will do what needs to be done.”

Gilbert sighed, and his heartbeat slowed a measure. This fight required a different approach. “What now?”

“You are about to encounter the first of The Trinity. Some call him the Soul. Others call him the Scribe. He is your ultimate task.”

“Ultimate task? I don’t get it. Am I supposed to kill this guy? Will you free my wife if I do? Let her go to Heaven, or wherever it is we go?” He’d cut the nuts off the Pope if it meant saving his wife’s soul. Gilbert’s palms were clammy, even in the chill of the air. The more he thought about what The Voice said, the more uncertainty and fear crept into the back of his mind.

“You are not to kill him. You are to misguide. You are to confuse, confound, and put him into situations that will make him slip, and illuminate why humanity must be eradicated. As he does, so humanity suffers.”

“Illuminate to whom? Who is the judge of all this? God?” Gilbert’s mind was racing now.

“That is as good a name as any.”

No shit Gilbert thought to himself. The Devil and God playing games, and we are the pieces on the board. “Why the game? What is this Trinity?”

“Excellent questions Gilbert Donohue. You are one of my chosen. You serve my purposes where we have agreed not to directly interfere. You act as my proxy. The man you are about to meet serves the power you call ‘God’ unknowingly as part of the catechism. He is part of the test of humanity and whether or not it will be allowed to try again. If he is corrupted, and forced down the path humanity has been on, or worse, then I have won, and existence shall be purged of your kind. If he survives this great test retaining his humanity, and becomes the type of person this world needs to continue, then your kind will receive their second chance, and can continue to ruin creation with your petty, selfish natures.”

“He’s the second coming?”

“Not exactly. Do not muddle purely Christian thought into this. The dogmas of religion have little to do with this. Belief on the other hand, is very much central. He is one of a group of three chosen to serve as the focus of the test.”

“And what if he’s too smart for me? What if I can’t mislead him, confuse him, and send him on the path to misery and ruin? Who are the other two in this Trinity?” Gilbert asked the dark voice.

“You will be able to earn his trust. He will like you. Part of your role in this is that he is likely to bond with you. When given the opportunities, you shall make suggestions, play with his mind, and lead him astray. I will inform you of the best opportunities for this. As for the other two… I highly doubt you will meet them. You will succeed in your task before they arrive, or he will discover your true nature, and you will die your traitor’s death at his hands.”

Gilbert didn’t like this one bit. “What is his name? What does he look like?”

“You will know him as Adrian MacArthur Ring. He is the spitting image of the son you wanted, but never had. He will be smart, strong, and skilled, but his heart is laid low. I have already manipulated events to start the process of breaking him as a man. I have given him great regret. Your task is to ensure he stays on that path to ruination.”

Gilbert thought about the children he and his wife never had. His wife had health concerns in her lady regions, and they were never able to have kids. Gilbert sorely missed the opportunity to be a father. Thinking that this stranger would be the son he never had certainly didn’t make him want to cross the man.

“Think of your wife, and her soul Gilbert Donohue.”

Gilbert nodded, and like the soldier he was, he listened to the orders he was given, and hoped for the best.

*****

Gilbert had been attacked by the undead family on the circle a few days after that dream. He’d been outside cutting down a small pine tree in the snow when he heard the glass in one of their windows break. They’d all fallen out the window like bowling pins, and made their way across the cul de sac as he trotted through the thick snow to try and get inside the house. Of course a seventy year old in the snow doesn’t move all that well, and by the time he reached his porch steps, they were on the walkway, and he had to draw his M1911 and drop them. Making any kind of loud noise horrified him, but getting eaten alive seemed like a much worse proposition. He’d heard from the news that the only way to kill these things was to destroy their head, and once he’d put a round through all three of their skulls, he sat on the porch and caught his breath.

It’d been a long time since he’d pointed a gun at a person and pulled the trigger. It brought back harsh memories of a long time ago, in a humid and dark place he’d spent years trying to forget about. Not long after that event the man The Voice told him about came around.

Gilbert had heard hammering, and saws, and gunfire for months over at the private school down the road. He assumed it was the teachers at work trying to fend off the dead, but as it turned out, it was the man named Adrian. He was securing the school all along as a place to live and start anew. Adrian was preparing to offer sanctuary to strangers.

He did not look like a person tasked to save mankind. He was tall, just over six feet, and was powerfully built like a football player though it was clear he’d lost a lot of weight since June. His skin was pale, and eyes drawn from too much death and sorrow. He had scruffy dark brown hair, and hadn’t shaved in days. His brown eyes were alert, and intelligent, but he wore no halo, and had no aura. He was dirty, and tired. His smile was worn like he hadn't had a reason to use it in a very long time. He was one man. He was the every man. Maybe that was the point all along Gilbert thought. If evil could easily make a normal person break, then there was no hope for the weak.

Gilbert lied to him that day to gain his trust, and those lies sat inside him like festering rot. Was the eternal soul of his wife worth condemning all of mankind to oblivion? Gilbert hoped he had time to sort everything out in time. So much was at stake.

*****

The cold, dark place came back to him soon after he met the man known as the Soul. It was Christmas night when Gilbert heard gunshots ring out from campus, and despite the instructions of evil, Gilbert ran to aid Adrian anyway. He hadn’t been specifically told not to help, and any time he could confound the Devil, he did so. Gilbert watched a truck blast down Auburn Lake Road away from the school, just as he pulled his Buick straight towards the end of his road, Prospect Circle. Auburn Lake Road was the street that ended at the private school.

Gilbert arrived on campus and went directly to the dormitory that Adrian had made his home in. Adrian called it Hall E. Inside Gilbert found an emaciated family of four with Adrian, and that was the bloody beginning of their community. The Williams family consisted of Charles and Patty, the mother and father. They had a 17 year old daughter named Abigail, who was a student at the school when the world ended, and their 12 year old rambunctious boy named Randy.

The Williams family had come from the town of Westfield about forty five minutes from campus, and they had been followed by someone. His name was Sean, and he was the leader of the survivors in Westfield. Sean had attacked Adrian and the Williams family just minutes earlier, and would likely return to finish the job with more people. There were gunshot holes through the boards Adrian had put over the windows, and two dead bodies outside the dorm. Adrian had hunted his attackers down and shown them how it was done. Gilbert was proud.

That night Gilbert had slept in Hall E and he slept the sleep of babes. His dreams were full of life, love, vigor and he experienced more rest in the recliner in the common room of the dorm that night than he’d had since the first dreams of the cold place back in early June. For whatever reason, he was at peace in the dormitory.

When Gilbert returned home however, his first shut eye resulted in an immediate nightmare. The Voice was angry. Gilbert felt a vibration grating on his very being from the raw emotion in The Voice.

“Never sleep near the Soul again.”

Gilbert stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled. “Why’s that Mr. Devil? Jealous?”

“It matters only that it displeases me. It is not part of the plan. Do not do it again.”

“I can’t make that promise. I’ll sleep where I have to, when I have to in order to accomplish my task.” A soldier’s answer to an officer’s order. Gilbert felt a growing rumble in his mind that he instantly identified as fresh anger from The Voice. Gilbert wasn’t scared here anymore. He now knew he could get under the skin of the Devil. He felt what passed for an angry sigh in his mind from The Voice.

“Sean will return soon. You must allow him to escape when their attack fails.”

“How am I supposed to do that? What if he gets hit by a stray bullet? We’re setting up a pretty solid ambush here, it could easily happen.”

“He will not be shot. And you MUST allow him to pass. He is one of my chosen, as you are. His task is to die at Adrian’s hand in anger, not as an idle victim in a shooting in the road.”

“Interesting. He lives to die another day.”

“Indeed. Make this occur Gilbert Donohue. Your wife’s soul could be lost for eternity should you fail to perform.”

Gilbert was getting awfully sick of these threats.

*****

Adrian’s ambush happened not long after that dream. Adrian and the Williams family had set up the trap in the middle of Auburn Lake Road just before the campus entrance. They’d put down sheets of plywood filled with nails to flatten tires on vehicles, and they’d prepped trees to fall to crush cars, and to make an escape impossible. Gilbert was to remain near his house, and when the attack came, he would rush to the road as a rear guard, and prevent more attackers from arriving, and cut off any escapees.

Except he had to let Sean escape. And Gilbert did just that, though it pained him to do so. When the shooting began down the road Gilbert drove out into the road and laid down suppressing fire on the shooters in the small Westfield convoy. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone that day, just to keep their heads down. The last thing he wanted to do was to accidentally shoot Sean, and fuck everything up for his wife.

Gilbert knew who Sean was the moment he put eyes on him. He had been crawling in the ditch, buried over his head in snow, heading away from Adrian’s accurate fire and didn’t stand up until he was well away from the gun battle. Gilbert had been behind the hood of the Buick, taking cover when Sean stood up and saw the old man. His eyes locked wide open in horror as Gilbert leveled the heavy .45 at Sean’s chest. When Sean looked up from the gaping barrel of the pistol Gilbert took stock of the Devil’s chosen.

Gilbert knew Sean was a politician. Sneaky, slimy, and he looked every bit the part of the spoiled, charming brat. His tiny round glasses were covered in white fog, and his face was spattered with the blood of his dead minions. If the world's politicians had been forced to get the blood of the warriors they sent off to fight their battles on their faces, Gilbert reckoned there'd be far fewer wars. Of course standing there in that moment, knee deep in the snow drift, Sean looked very much defeated, and afraid.

Gilbert thought about squeezing the 1911's trigger, and ending the shit bag right there, but he thought of his wife, and knew he couldn’t. This wasn't the moment, not yet. He lowered the pistol, and waved it to the side, indicating to Sean he should get the fuck out of Dodge. Sean stood still for a moment, wondering if it was a trick, and finally Gilbert spoke up, “Fuck off, asshole. You don’t die here today.”

Gilbert saw Sean’s beady eyes blink on the other side of his glasses, and he bolted down the country road to freedom. Gilbert saw Sean once more sometime later, when rather than killing him with his own hands, Adrian let Westfield’s jaded and fed up people take care of him.

Sean did not die at Adrian’s hand in anger, and the Devil went home empty handed once more.

*****

Before Gilbert watched Sean meet his end he went on an expedition against what he knew The Voice would want. Adrian and company had acquired two snow mobiles right before the attack and Gilbert had been using them to get around. His Buick was mediocre in the snow at best, and the Chevy truck they’d salvaged for him was quite crappy on gas, making the snowmobile a perfect compromise. Fast, fuel efficient, and it could cut across the woods blazing a short trail wherever they needed to go.

Gilbert used the snow machine in early January after the attack to accomplish two tasks. Before the end of the world began, Gilbert and his wife owned not one, but two businesses. Adrian only knew of one. From the ground up they had started a small regional chain of Italian restaurants. When he and his wife decided to scale back the scope of their life and move towards retirement, they had sold the restaurants to a larger chain, and retained a single business, that of the distribution warehouse that had supplied their own restaurants.

The warehouse was on the far side of town heading towards the city. Gilbert knew the town was covered in undead from the reports Adrian brought back from his trips, but he knew he had to go back to the warehouse to see if it was still intact, and full of the food he and his wife sold to stock restaurants all over the region. Gilbert also wondered if his wife would be there, still in the business. Gilbert skirted town on the snow machine, and drove down the country road to the small industrial strip where his business was.

The business was named innocuously enough. He and his wife wanted a name that was clearly different than their restaurants, so they called it Donohue Imports, which said pretty much nothing about what the business did. When Gilbert pulled the snow machine into the parking lot, it was clear the building hadn’t been visited in some time, if at all. The strip they were in had a plumbing supply store, a furniture restoration business, and a hobby shop. None of those businesses would draw in looters looking for food or ammunition.

Gilbert let himself into the back fire door of the warehouse, and was happy to see that all the food in stock was still there. Cans and cans of vegetables, tomato sauce, pickles, peppers, flour, oil, and cases stacked atop cases of condiments lined massive shelves. The warehouse wasn’t large by industrial standards, but in a world producing no food, a hundred cases of edible loot was the equivalent of an apocalypse king’s ransom. Gilbert strapped a few small cases of food onto the snowmobile when he left to store in his already cluttered basement, and he returned home. Gilbert kept this new dark secret. Telling Adrian about the food would no doubt bring down the wrath of The Voice. This was a secret he’d have to hold onto for some time. Hopefully he could tell Adrian before his darkest secret was revealed.

The other task Gilbert accomplished with the snowmobiles at the dawn of the New Year was finding additional fuel storage for the campus. Fuel on hand was a huge issue for the residents of the school and they needed more barrels on hand to store gasoline. Gilbert discovered four drums at a house which he and Adrian collected with some difficulty. It was only made difficult by a nightmare visit the night prior by The Voice.

Gilbert didn’t even react when he realized he was in the dark place again. The fear of the cold, the dark, and the smell of rotting blood had left him. Inside all he had was frustration, and a burning desire to find a way out of his predicament.

“Gilbert Donohue, a moment will arrive soon that you must act upon.”

Gilbert inhaled deeply, letting the chill reach deep down inside him. It no longer felt painful. It was reduced to a mere irritant. He exhaled, and replied to The Voice, “What is it now?”

“Tomorrow you will go to the home to obtain the barrels for fuel. You will be approached by other survivors. They will attempt to contact you. You should engage them as hostiles, and force Adrian to kill them.”

“Why? Are they dangerous to us?” Gilbert’s white eyebrow perked up sharply.

“They will be armed.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. Police are armed and I never shot at them. Are they a threat to us or not?”

“It does not matter. You will instigate a firefight with them. Force Adrian to come to rescue you. He is fragile now, and needless violence will upset his moral equilibrium.”

“I don’t like this one bit. I don’t want to kill anyone that doesn’t have it coming.”

“It does not matter if you like the tasks set forth for you. It matters only that you complete them, and retain the sanctity of your wife’s eternal soul. You still love her Gilbert Donohue, don’t you?”

With an angry grumble, Gilbert woke up.

He led Adrian to the home later that morning, and just as The Voice said, they were approached by fellow survivors after Adrian and Gilbert dispatched two undead at the home. They were jovial. They even waved as they approached. Gilbert waved at them, lifted his AK-47, and fired a shot over their heads. He would not allow their blood on his hands. Of course Adrian rushed to his aid, and like the soldier he was, he dispatched the threats efficiently, and calmly. Despite hating what was happening, and hating himself for having started it, Gilbert loved watching him move and shoot in battle. He was graceful, and efficient, with no wasted movement. He was instinctual, and predatory, like a hunter of men. He would’ve been a lethal operator had he stayed in the military. The man exuded complete confidence under strife. Secretly Gilbert rejoiced at Adrian’s strength and focus.

Gilbert rejoiced once more when Adrian didn’t break emotionally after the firefight. He was still strong. Resolved. Gilbert was beginning to think he was unbreakable.

Humanity’s chances for survival lived for another day.

*****

Things took a turn for the worse for Gilbert not long after, and it had little to do with The Voice. On the other side of town all along there was a large batch of survivors. Gilbert had a small ham radio set up in his basement as the beginning of one of his hobbies during his retirement. The thing never quite worked as well as it was supposed to, and that always confounded Gilbert. When he'd bought it, it was supposed to be able to reach all the way around the world, but the old Green Beret had never managed more than the surrounding states, and even then it was shit reception. From November on or so, Gilbert had managed to stay in touch with Brian Moore, the Chief of Police on the other side of town. Brian had accumulated nearly two hundred survivors at a secure factory, and Gilbert was staying in touch to have a plan B. Gilbert was friends with the Chief’s dad going back nearly twenty years, and he knew Brian like he was his own child. Brian was a good man, and a good father.

They exchanged stories over time, caught up on how things were since the end of the world, and made sure that they were both safe and sound. Brian was concerned for Gilbert because Adrian’s group had been heading into downtown more often and stirring the hornet’s nest of undead. Brian also felt that they were stronger unified, and he wanted Gilbert to persuade Adrian and the Williams clan to move to their home, the old corporate headquarters for a solar panel manufacturer.

Gilbert dodged that suggestion as long as he could, and the conversations remained fairly light. The longer he could keep Adrian away from others, the safer it was for everyone. It all came to a head when Jason, one of Brian’s officers on the force contacted them via radio when they were fighting undead downtown. The next couple weeks saw the two groups meet, trade, and create a strong cross town alliance that drew the two groups together.

Sadly, Sean and his remaining Westfield flunkies threw a monkey wrench into that plan. The small gas station at the end of Auburn Lake Road exploded one night, and when they investigated the explosion, they were forced to kill some of the Westfield people. They later found out they were carrying empty weapons, and that sent Adrian into a bit of fury. Sean had forced them to kill defenseless people.

That night Adrian confronted Gilbert. He had been listening to the radio at night, and he’d heard one of the conversations they had. The conversation they had at gunpoint in the snow in the dark on campus was one of the worst moments in Gilbert’s life.

As Gilbert dismounted from the snowmobile he heard Adrian scream, “FREEZE!” Gilbert froze solid, standing in the cold moonlight. He didn’t expect that greeting, especially from his friend.

“Gilbert, what were you and Brian talking about on the radio the other night?” He asked Gilbert angrily. Inside Gilbert felt like the gig was up. Gilbert knew this would be the moment when he’d die a traitor’s death. Ironically, he felt as if he was about to die for the wrong reasons. He was going to be shot for his least lie.

Gilbert lifted his arms out to his side and slowly responded carefully to the man he’d been misleading for almost two months, “I’ve known Brian Moore for years Adrian. I was friends with his father. He and I have been talking for months now on the little radio I have in my basement.”

Adrian’s eyes raged over the deceit as he yelled back at Gilbert over the sights of his rifle. “You fucking asshole! Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?! We could’ve been talking to them weeks ago, a month ago, or more you fucking dink! And I turn on the radio in the middle of the night and lo and fucking behold I hear you two talking about me? What the fuck man? You have any idea how fucking betrayed I feel?! Why the fucking game?”

Gilbert maintained his calm demeanor, and tried to remember that Adrian’s nerves were frayed not only from Gilbert’s betrayal, but from the explosion and subsequent shooting at the gas station. “Look son, you lied to Brian too. You told him we had more people here than we did. You told him you have less food than you actually have. You were smart, and you told him just as much as you had to. The only difference between you and me right now is that your feelings are hurt that I protected myself, and mine aren’t.”

Adrian’s eyes watered up in the cold night. He was dangerously close to not only breaking emotionally, but pulling the trigger of his assault rifle, ending Gilbert’s great charade. “Fuck, Gilbert, you’re like the first person I’ve met that didn’t try and fucking kill me. I thought we’d be on the level man. You know, you gotta trust someone sometime right?”

The next thing Gilbert said broke the heart beating in his own chest. It was the biggest lie he’d told the young man, “Adrian, I have never lied to you. I have not told you things a few times that made my situation better son, but at no point have I bald faced lied to you.”

Adrian lowered the rifle a little and Gilbert slowly lowered his hands. The tall warrior wiped the tears from his eyes as Gilbert lied again. “Look son. This world is fucked. There’s food, ammunition, fuel, and trust. Anything else doesn’t matter, and off that list, trust is the hardest to find, and worth the most. Now if your feelings are hurt because I don’t trust nobody, then tough shit son. But I can tell you this: I coulda thrown in with Brian’s men long before I met you, and I didn’t. I’m right here, right now, and you gotta trust that when it gets thick, I am here for you son.”

Gilbert could see saying that made Adrian feel better, but the statement tied Gilbert’s soul into painful knots. The lies rested in the hollow of Gilbert’s crowded mind like a pile of festering rot. The growing burden inside him was growing heavier, and darker. Gilbert knew he couldn’t do this much longer without losing his mind, or making a mistake, condemning his wife to damnation.

Patty, Charles, and Randy all moved out of the school days later, leaving Abby behind. She wouldn’t leave Adrian behind, and she felt the solar panel plant was more unsafe than the school, despite Sean’s recent attack. Abigail was correct.

Less than a week later there was a massive explosion that entirely engulfed the solar panel plant. Adrian assumed it was the work of Sean, that the Senator's lust for vengeance hadn't been sated, and Chief Moore's people paid the price, but he was wrong. The Voice pulled a different string to make that disaster happen.

“The Williams family, and all of your friends in your town will die tonight.”

Gilbert was flat on his back in the cold dark space, starting up into the nonexistent void above. He slowly blinked, and tried to think of a way to respond. So much heartache. So much betrayal.

“When you awaken, you will hear my minion’s work completed.”

“Another of your chosen?”

“No. Someone who is vulnerable that I have given a gentle suggestion to. The Williams child. He has been broken on the inside for a very long time. He shall undo them all. The Soul will blame Sean. This will force him to murder Sean. It all ends soon Gilbert Donohue. Mankind undone.”

“Fuck you. He’s stronger than you. He won’t cave to your bullshit manipulations. He’ll fucking die first.”

“We shall see Gilbert Donohue. When you awaken, you must go to him, and guide him to make the attack on Westfield urgently. The more rushed he is, the more likely the Soul is to make the final mistake, and fail your people.”

*****

Gilbert tried to push Adrian to make a hasty plan, but it failed. Gilbert celebrated the young man’s victory against his own pressure. Adrian knew Gilbert’s skill set as an ex Green Beret, and he wanted to slowly insert himself into the town, gather information, build a relationship with the locals as best as possible, and attempt to start some kind of coup.

Gilbert paid a price for not pushing Adrian hard. Every night that the old veteran didn’t spend sleeping near Adrian during the whole Westfield fiasco, the old man shivered in the cold, dark place. The Voice never came to him, but it didn’t have to. Dreamless hour after dreamless hour left Gilbert drained and miserable. His only respite was on the nights Adrian returned back to campus and Gilbert could sleep near him. On more than one occasion Gilbert left his home and walked at night through the snow until he could get close to Adrian just to sleep near him. His presence overpowered all the terrible dreams, and for that, Gilbert was profoundly grateful.

A man named Lenny McDowell nearly cost Gilbert his life however. Adrian’s plan to get inside Westfield worked as close to perfect as you could get, and the man on the inside that spearheaded it was a farmer named Lenny McDowell. Lenny hated Sean with a passion, and when they first met the haggard Navy veteran at his farm, they decided Gilbert should be the first person he would meet.

Right before the meeting Gilbert had a short dream in the dark place. The Voice spoke to him immediately, conveying a short, but powerful message. Gilbert almost caught the bare essence of panic in The Voice.

“Gilbert Donohue, you must ensure that the meeting with the farmer goes poorly. You must ensure that the Soul murders Sean in cold blood. You must ensure this. Think of your wife.”

Gilbert had no idea how to make all that happen at the last second, and when he finally met the old farmer, he had a moment of glorious rebellion. Lenny was a man just like Gilbert, and he made far too much sense to mislead. Lenny had it all figured out, had seen all the angles, and had already made his decision before Gilbert even arrived to talk to him. All he was looking for was a sincere face to make sure he was throwing in with good people.

When Adrian and Gilbert left Westfield that night, they had set the plan in motion to usurp Sean’s control. When Gilbert went to bed that night, The Voice made him pay dearly for his lack of effort. Gilbert attempted to stay up as late as possible to avoid sleeping, but the weight of his years, and a nearly supernatural drowsiness lulled him into a thick stupor almost immediately.

He regretted his failure to stay awake immediately. When Gilbert came to in the void he was floating on his back, supported by a blasting column of frigid air. Tiny crystals of moisture, as sharp as needles dug into his flesh, scouring the skin away like ice cold acid. Gilbert’s face tightened into a grimace as his body dissolved around him. He could feel the blood freezing harshly in the wounds along his spine, his moans of bloated, sickly agony were drowned out by the roar of the air suspending him.

A moment later, his wrinkled, frail body was dropped several feet to the ground in his dream, and he lost the air in his chest. As he rolled over, getting his raw flesh off the otherworldly surface he felt the sickness signifying The Voice enter his mind.

“That is the eternal fate your wife has ahead of her should you not do what I ask Gilbert Donohue.”

Gilbert sucked the cold dry air into his chest, filling his collapsed lungs as fast as he could. It was a struggle, and he was unable to reply, or defend his actions.

“Right now she hangs as you did, her flesh flensed from her eternal form, dripping blood and an endless river of tears, paying the price for your arrogance, and disobedience. I will not grant her the gift of torture much longer Gilbert Donohue. Soon my patience will run its course, and I shall let her slip into oblivion. Forever.”

Through gritted teeth and unimaginable pain Gilbert snarled out a reply, “This is all just a waste of time. You won’t break him. You can’t break him. I know now. I’ve seen him. I know him now. You don’t have the power, and I don’t either. Torturing my wife and sending her to Hell won’t change that one fucking bit.”

“Perhaps not Gilbert Donohue. Maybe next I will start killing those you care about that are still alive? Perhaps the young girl Abigail? Or her Mother? Do not test me further. Do what is right, and allow for your race to disappear forever, so creation can begin fresh, and anew.”

Gilbert spat. When he woke up after the dream, his back was nearly black with bruises.

*****

In March Adrian shared the fact that he was having dreams of his own. Much different dreams than the ones Gilbert had. In Adrian’s dream he was in a warm, well lit room made of white light. He was always surrounded by things of three, and every time he dreamt of these dreams, the dead passed along helpful messages.

Had Gilbert not been visited by The Voice in the cold, he might’ve thought Adrian insane. Gilbert knew better. Gilbert also knew these dreams of The White Room were messages from the other player in the grand game at play. The force that represented good.

Gilbert smiled as much as he could when he heard over the radio that Adrian had a dream. Of course the dream came with a waking nightmare. Outside Adrian’s Hall E the entirety of campus was covered by a legion of undead. Each of the countless hundreds were carrying a book, wielding it as a message from the divine for The Scribe. Only Gilbert knew the significance.

Outside Gilbert’s home was a small group of undead as well, acting as a rear guard. They stood passively, keeping Gilbert contained until the drama on campus was resolved. Reinforcements from Westfield helped save the day, and the rest of the survivors in Adrian’s camp were spared a grisly fate.

Gilbert was pleased to see the other team had finally shown up for the game.

*****

It was quite some time before The Voice returned to Gilbert. So long in fact that he thought his fanatical, rebellious speech had freed him from the bondage of the dreams in the dark place. Sadly, it had not.

Events in town had changed everyone’s lives dramatically. Once winter had subsided and the threat posed by Sean had been dealt with by his own people, things turned over a new leaf. In an attempt to make town more suitable for habitation, and to accumulate more food and supplies, the survivors at the school headed downtown to empty houses, and kill the undead menace wandering the streets.

A fluke meeting with a lone survivor named Blake in April led them down a path to near disaster. Blake was a young man surviving on his own, and had managed to lose a lot of his social skills as a result. He was skittish, wily, and posed as much a danger to their growing community at the school as anything else. Adrian reached out to him, and in short order, they realized he had a story to tell.

Blake had visited a farm many times on the outskirts of town, far from the school. The farm was fortified, and run by one of the local church’s pastors. Blake and his girlfriend Kim had visited the farm many times to trade in things they scavenged in town for fresh food out of the fields, and items the farm had in abundance. One meeting took a different turn. The pastor invited Kim in to stay, and after discussion, Blake and Kim agreed she’d be safer inside.

Not long after that when Blake returned to visit Kim and trade, the pastor informed Blake that she was no longer interested in seeing him. Blake was sent away alone, broken hearted, and bitter. The ensuing months of watching the farm from a distance revealed a truth to him that ruined him even more. Kim was with child, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that baby was his.

The residents of Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy went into motion to get to the bottom of the secrets of the farm. It was some time before they made a breakthrough. With no good options to approach the farm directly for a meeting they observed from afar through the optics on their rifles. Gilbert and Adrian sifted through detail after detail, hoping the reality was positive, and not what it looked like. The farm had many women with child, and it struck everyone as beyond suspicious.

One day a new family was seen meeting with the pastor at the farm, and Adrian went out to meet them, hoping to strike up conversation, create a new set of allies, and try and gain more intelligence on the strange farm. His gambit worked. The family was more than willing to set up a meeting, and after careful consideration, Gilbert and Patty were chosen to go.

Gilbert was contacted the night prior by The Voice.

“You are about to meet another of my chosen.”

“The Pastor? You sure are a prolific sonofabitch.” Gilbert said in a tired voice.

“Indeed. Those of the cloth are easily swayed with convincing illusions.”

“What exactly is the deal here?” Gilbert was done caring.

“The Pastor has been told that a man of pure evil will come into his Garden of Eden, and that it is his responsibility to take this evil man to task.”

“You want him to kill Adrian, don’t you?”

“Kill, or maim. It does not matter which.”

“Done trying to corrupt him already? Was his soul more resilient than your determination?” Gilbert smirked in the cold of the dreamscape.

“There are others I can get to. If the Soul is murdered now, it will not matter. He is but one of a group of threes.”

“Well fuck you then. All this bullshit for nothing?” Gilbert was angry again.

“Your wife’s soul is still in my safekeeping. You would be advised to continue to do my bidding Gilbert Donohue. There are more tasks ahead. This task is but one. You are to meet with the Pastor, and tell the Soul afterward the Pastor is a good person, and harmless. Soon after the Pastor will take action, and the Soul will be killed.”

Gilbert swallowed. A world without Adrian in it seemed very strange to think about. He blinked several times in the cool air, thinking hard about the ramifications of fully condemning Adrian to his death.

“Your time on this world is nigh Gilbert Donohue. Spend it wisely serving my needs, and you shall spend eternity with your beloved in paradise. It will all be worth it.”

Gilbert sighed, and woke up. There was another white poppy on the pillow next to his head.

*****

“Hello sir, I’m Gilbert Donohue. I’m told you’re the man to see here at this farm.” Gilbert looked inside the small plexiglass window of the reinforced farm stand. It straddled the heavy cow fence that kept the roaming undead out, as well as the animals in. It now passed as a fortified meeting place.

The Pastor was a wide man with well trimmed white hair and one too many chins. He had a red face that spoke of too many late nights with a whiskey glass in his hand. His nose was covered in a spider web of fine, hair-like capillaries that were blood red.

“Good to meet you Mr. Donohue, and God bless. The Edwards family down the road claims that you’re good people. I’m happy to meet good people. How can we help you here today?” The Pastor seemed jovial behind the heavy glass. It also helped that there were two armed guards behind the cow fence, watching the goings on carefully.

“Well, we travel about town frequently, and we’re looking for a place to trade. You’ve got farm animals I see, and we’re thinking it might be beneficial to work something out,” Gilbert said as Patty watched. She was intently observing the area around them for movement or threats. She would let Gilbert do the talking and watch his back.

“Well, depends on what you’ve got spare. Let’s hear it,” the Pastor said. The two men exchanged lists of items they had for trade, and after just a few short minutes of talking, it was apparent a great trade agreement could be worked out. Had Gilbert no idea this man was the pawn of evil, this meeting would have been a momentous occasion for both groups.

Gilbert had another question he needed the answer to. “Pastor, there’s just one more thing I need to know.”

“Speak your mind sir.” The Pastor replied.

“We’ve got a kid in our group named Blake, and he says you’ve got his girlfriend here, and he thinks she’s pregnant, and he thinks she is here against her will. I promised him I’d ask about her.”

The Pastor nodded just as Gilbert had seen a thousand holy men do before him. The knowing, confident nod. “Blake’s lady Kimberly came to us when she felt Blake was too dangerous to be around. She knew she was having a baby, and I had a dream sent to me by God to invite her in. I extended the offer, she accepted, and now she resides here, she is well, and she is waiting to have her baby protected by God’s chosen.”

Gilbert knew exactly what kind of dreams the Pastor was having. He had to know anyway. “Dreams? What do you mean dreams?”

“When I rest, occasionally the Lord comes to me. He speaks to me from the darkness through the dead. The spirits of the faithful come to me in the cold void where God meets us halfway from Heaven, and they pass along his wishes. When I follow these visions, every time we reap a bounty that could only come from God’s will.”

Gilbert died on the inside. The poor bastard really was being tricked by the Devil. Gilbert nodded and listened as the Pastor continued with his story, telling about all the dreams that led them to other women around town that they rescued. He even went so far as to claim that some of them had immaculately conceived once they were brought inside the steel fence. Patty unconsciously took a step back from the barricade when he said that.

The two old men continued with their conversation for a bit more, and when Gilbert was satisfied the man was completely under the sway of The Voice, and he knew this could only end badly for everyone, he and Patty left. When they returned to the bright eyed and hopeful Adrian, Gilbert vomited up a lie about how solid the Pastor was, and how everything was normal, and fine. He twisted the story of the dreams into a tale that Adrian would believe and digest. Adrian felt relief that the Pastor was having dreams just like his. Gilbert was revolted by his deceit.

Days later the Pastor had another dream in the dark place, and he sent his people to murder Adrian.

They failed, but killed Abigail’s first love, one of the small children that had moved into the school, the mother and father from the Edwards family that had help them make the meeting happen, as well as wounding many of the people who had moved to the school for safety. Gilbert himself had taken a slashing across an eyelid during the firefight that nearly blinded the eye. He would need weeks to heal and fully regain the use of the orb.

Adrian’s wrath was complete. Together with Gilbert and Blake that very night they returned to the farm, and murdered almost every soul there seeking justice.

Gilbert feared the act of Adrian wreaking vengeance on the farm would tip the scales in favor of evil, but the world didn’t suddenly come to an end that night, and he retained some hope for the future of mankind on Earth.

It wasn’t a lot of hope though.

*****

“You will perform one last task for me before your death Gilbert Donohue. I will hold your debt to me paid. Your wife shall rejoice for all eternity, and so shall you by her side if you see this deed done for me.”

Gilbert was so fed up with the bullshit. He had no more energy left. No will to continue with this emotional torture, night after night, nightmare after nightmare. His wife’s soul was the only thing left for him to cling on to inside. He had already abandoned his own soul as long since lost.

“Fine. One last task and we’re even? You leave me alone forever? My wife goes to Heaven?”

“You will never hear from me again if you see this done.”

Gilbert closed his eyes, and opened himself up to the last instructions he would receive from the Devil.

“Not long from now the Soul will assault a structure in your town. It will be thick with my minions, and it will be the Soul’s final resting place. Soon you will be asked to perform a task which only you can do, and you will do it poorly, and damn him to his fate.”

“What is this task?”

“There are a few streams the river of choice can take still. We cannot see the outcomes completely. However, with your damaged eye, the task shall be one of tedium, and easily done. Whatever it is you are asked to do, you shall sabotage it, and see him to his fate.”

Gilbert nodded, and when he opened his one good eye, he felt like his life was finally over. He felt his traitor’s death was not long away, and his relief was like a warm hug from his wife.

*****

“Hey Gilbert, I got an idea for you. Can I run something by you?” Adrian asked the old man one day shortly after as they gathered around the table to eat.

“Shoot.” Gilbert scooped a small amount of boxed mashed potatoes out on his plate as Adrian served himself some canned asparagus.

“With us focusing so heavily on getting the campus walls built, and the gate made, I’m thinking we get you doing something we’ve been putting off for awhile. With you blind as a bat in one eye, and old as hell too, I’m thinking now would be a great time to get some bullets made with the reloader we found.”

Gilbert hid his revulsion, “that sounds great. Nice to be even a little useful I suppose. I’ll get started on the 5.56 for the rifles tomorrow.”

“Phenominal.” Adrian looked happy.

Gilbert knew then he had a final choice to make as Adrian sat down next to his friends to eat. Next to the handful of men, women and children Adrian had risked his life to save. The Soul had nothing to gain personally. He was doing this only to be a better person, and to give others hope.

Gilbert had to tamper with the ammunition, and get everyone going into the Devil’s lair killed, or damn his and his wife’s soul to eternity in Hell, and earn that traitor’s death the Devil had promised him.

Gilbert didn’t make the decision about his beloved wife until he sat down all alone at the reloading station he’d built himself, tears streaming down his face in rivers of sorrow and guilt.

“I’m so sorry.”

“So, so sorry.”

A traitor’s death would be such a welcome rest for Gilbert Donohue.

June 18th

Well.

This is going to suck. I’m not looking forward to this one bit. That apartment building has seen some shit, and now it has fallen to us to deal with it. But, I think it will be worth it, if we can pull it off without killing ourselves.

There are people inside. Specifically, we made friendly contact with the remaining inhabitants, and there are seven of them. Four of which are on the fourth floor, three on the third floor. They’re spread out in three different apartments, and they’re trapped on the third and fourth floors. Can’t go up, can’t go down.

How did we glean that nugget of information? A megaphone. I stole one of the megaphones from the gym the other day and when we returned to the apartment building this morning, we parked on the street at the base, set up some firing positions in case we were shot at, and I started hollering up with the damn thing. Smartest idea ever, or smartest idea EVER?

I’m damn lucky I didn’t get killed I suppose.

We had to yell up for perhaps fifteen minutes before someone leaned over the railing of a balcony. It was a young kid, little dirty looking, needed a haircut, and was maybe 22, or 25 or so. Younger looking than Blake, but probably about the same age. He started yelling down to me.

“Hey, yo, quit yelling, you’re gonna drag a shitload of them here!” The kid yelled.

“Don’t worry, we can handle it. I’m Adrian, who are you?” I said back.

“I’m Zach! My boy Ryan is here too. We got a bunch of people up here and we can’t leave and shit!” He yelled back down. No sooner had he said that another young guy with a shaggy beard leaned over the railing next to him. They looked like big time hippies. They waved down at me.

Within a few seconds the other people started leaning out the windows, and looking down at us. On the fourth floor with Zach and Ryan two men leaned over a balcony and identified themselves as Alex, and George. They were maybe mid thirties, dressed remarkably well considering they were surviving the end of the world trapped in a burnt out apartment building, and stood with their arm around each other. George looked Asian to me, and they both looked gay from the ground level. I’m not judging.

On the third floor a married couple came out on the balcony and announced themselves as Martin and Julie, and after a bit of talk, they revealed that they had a nine year old boy inside named Chester. I like that name. Anyone who names their kid Chester gets style points in my book. I bet that kid is cool shit. Although I hope his middle name isn’t molester.

I won’t go into every little ugly fucking detail. We sat there talking for nearly three hours, going back and forth with the different groups in the building about what had happened to them, and how they were surviving, apparently trapped on just two floors of the building.

Zach and Ryan made it through “that day” at The Golden Palace, the best Chinese restaurant downtown. (Awesome dumplings) Once they thought it was safe enough, they high tailed it to Zach’s apartment, and locked it down. Alex and George were there all along, as were Martin and Julie. Other people in other apartments came and went over the first few days, but for the most part, the building was unoccupied. During winter, some of the people started to freeze, and they started small fires to stay warm.

Remember back when we were on the roof of the grocery store and I saw scorch marks on the side of this building? It was as I suspected. People trying to stay warm, and dying as a result. As you can imagine, fires make smoke, and before you know it, several floors of the building were engulfed with the acrid, lethal stuff.

Lots of folks died. Martin and Julie slammed the fire doors shut on the third floor and barricaded them, locking the people below them out from the upper floors. In fact, Martin was an industrial welder in his professional life, and he was the same guy who welded the bottom doors with plate steel to reinforce them. He did the same for the fire doors to keep the dead out.

The fifth floor was more of the same. Well that’s not entirely true. I guess a bunch of the folks on the fifth floor got really sick sometime in the fall, and they wound up dying from whatever they had. Crazy to think about how many people have gone belly up to sickness and disease. Typhoid, cholera, so much sickness and no infrastructure to either prevent it or cure it. So much for modern medicine. The seven still alive managed to lock and bar those doors too, and now they’re sandwiched in, and can’t leave. Luckily, the single elevator in the building is dead, and as luck would have it, it apparently is stuck on the top floor for whatever reason. I was really hoping to use the elevator shaft for our plan, but that seems to be a no-go. More on the plan later.

They have been surviving due to two things. First, Martin and Julie had a rope ladder that they had been using to get down to the ground from the third floor every once in awhile to search for food and supplies. Of course everything in this area has been cleaned out as a result, and they’ve been pretty much out of gas for months. I guess around a month and a half ago, the rope ladder broke on them, nearly killing Martin, and since then, they’ve been staying inside. With nowhere left to look, and no real way to get down safely, and with no bullets left for the few guns they have, they’ve been focusing inward. Can’t say that I blame them.

Zach and Ryan are stoners. Industrial stoners though. God bless them. They have their own hydroponics grow operation in the apartments on their floor, and when they realized that growing food was more important than growing weed, they re-tasked their gear, and they’ve been growing stuff to feed everyone. Marijuana is a gateway drug. It leads to indoor gardening, and apparently allows you to survive the apocalypse. Cheech and Chong to the fucking rescue I suppose.

Zach said that they have enough supplies to last another month, and if they can hit a supply store, the two of them could theoretically start a large enough hydroponics grow operation that could feed… dozens and dozens of people. Gilbert and I just looked at each and salivated when he said that down to us. We need to get these people out of there, if only to get that hydroponics plan moving. We’ve got some serious indoor real estate here on campus these two kids could put to good work for us. Our gymnasium, or the arts building are entirely up for grabs for something like that.

To run their hydro operation, they’ve been collecting rainwater and snow. Also they said on the roof there are some solar panels, and if I were a betting man, I’d say they’re STIG brand. They’ve also got a small gas generator they run every once in awhile with the small amount of gasoline they have left. I guess they’re down to fumes now though.

So. What the fuck right? What do we do? Martin said the welds on the lower doors are going to require a battering ram to break through. Martin also said the lighter welds on the upper floor will require a battering ram to break through. Fortunately, I have passed for a battering ram before.

Here’s the plan we fleshed out a little bit ago.

Smashing down the main door on the first floor is a waste of a perfectly good secured door. Not to mention, fighting uphill is far more difficult than fighting downhill. It’s always easier to go down, than up. (That’s what she said, incidentally) Plus it’ll be a shitload more work, and more dangerous to clear two whole floors of undead before we can get to the living folks we’re trying to rescue.

We are going to insert on the roof, and fight our way down through the fifth floor. The residents of the building (Surviving residents, that is) think there are as many as eight to ten undead on the top floor. That’s not an overwhelming amount, and if we breach strong, and move smart and slow, we can take them. What scares me is the confined space, and the dark.

I suddenly miss my boy Gavin…

Goddamn it.

Abby and I will breach with Hector. Blake is still gone in Westfield with Kim. While we’re up on the fifth floor clearing it, Mallory, Gilbert, Patty, and Angela will pull ground floor security for us. Hopefully a three deep stack is enough firepower to do the fifth floor safely. Once we clear the fifth floor, we smash down the welded fire door, and free the seven people inside so they can either come and go as they please, or they can relocate to campus with us. We haven’t officially offered them sanctuary, but based on the looks of desperation on their faces, they’re looking for an escape right now. With the hydroponics set up we can easily feed them, and they won’t be a burden on us. We have the space.

How are we going to reach the fifth floor you ask? Ladder truck. Boo yah. We just got back inside from testing it in the parking lot to make sure everything works fine on it still, and wouldn’t ya know, it does.

Suck it Jinx Fairy.

So yeah. Breach the rooftop door. Clear the fifth floor. Save the princess. Once that is achieved, we will open the third floor barriers in the stairwell, and clear down through the second and first floors to make sure the entire building is safe again to occupy. Once that’s done, if possible, I’d like to use it as an outpost in downtown. As I surmised in an earlier entry, if we can get some spotters on the roof of that building, we can see almost the entire town, and as we all know, controlling the high ground is a pretty big damn deal.

Ammunition is a bit of a concern, but luckily Gilbert has been restocking the 5.56 for us using the reloader. He’s managed to load a lot of rounds for us, and if he did it as well as he’s done everything else, they’ll fly straight and true, and pop holes in the heads of everything they hit. I’m excited.

A little scared though. Not gonna lie.

Tomorrow all day we’re gearing up. We’re trying to assemble some body armor to wear inside the apartments as we’re clearing. Abby and Patty’s shin guards are part of it, and I’d like for the rest of us going in to wear something a little more robust on the arms at the very least. The IOTV armor will protect our torsos, and I suppose we can wear helmets as well, but our forearms will be exposed, as will our thighs. In a dark, enclosed space filled with who knows how many undead, we really need to be mindful of unprotected skin.

Last thing we need is to have someone get bitten, and die. I am not sure how I’d handle one more person dying right now. I’ve picked enough shit out of my cornflakes to last a lifetime.

Oh, interestingly enough, we saw a bunch of cats and dogs around town today. Most of them ran when they saw us, but the fact that they are even alive is a great sign. I don’t know what they’ve been eating to stay alive this long, but I’ll take it as a good sign that they’ve made it.

Day after tomorrow, we hit the fifth floor of the building. If that goes well, we’ll extricate the locals, get them wherever they need to be, and then make a plan to clear the first and second floors.

Wish us luck Mr. Journal. I suspect we’re gonna need some.

-Adrian

June 20th

From the roof of the apartment building you can see for miles in every direction. The entirety of downtown and most of the fringe neighborhoods are all visible, and if you have a scope, or a pair of binoculars, you can even see a corner of Lake Auburn. None of the school buildings are visible due to the hills and tree line, but you can certainly see all that way.

It’ll be a great view to have access to regularly.

We cleared the top three floors today.

I breached the steel fire door on the roof using one of our halligans. The pry bar hook at one end damn near ripped the door right off the frame when I leveraged it. Whoever invented that tool should be given some kind of an award if they're still alive. It’s outstanding stuff.

As soon as I got the door open though, there was a dead guy standing at the top of the stairs. He was covered in dried vomit and stank something awful. Opening that door was a lot like popping open a sewer lid. Luckily, Abby had the doorway covered, and once I was clear of the firing line, she snapped off a single round from her Beretta, and the fucker went tumbling down the stairwell and into the darkness.

And with that, Hector, Abby and I went into it.

We don’t have tactical lights on our M4s and M15s. We just don’t have them. To make do on this, we taped some of the small flashlights we’ve got to the foregrips of the rifles so wherever the barrels go, light is there with it. We all clicked on our lights, and headed down into the belly of the beast.

The first set of steps was perhaps twelve deep and ended at another steel door. The door was locked, and just like the upper door on the roof, I ripped that bitch open with the halligan. Hector was second on the stack, and he covered the opening while I pulled the door open. It was clear. The inner hallway of the building went left and right, and as we usually tend to do, we went right.

It was pitch fucking black in the hallway. No light came in from exterior windows, and there were no electric lights either. Miserable. The hall of the building formed a big O and we were at the bottom of that O. The elevator was right near the fire door, and as we swept down the hall, we engaged three zombies wandering towards us. Every time we walked past an apartment door, I gave it a tug to make sure it was shut. If I had to kick it in after, so be it. I didn’t want one of the dead fucks to push or pull a door open and slip in behind us. Fortunately the hall was pretty narrow and the zombies had little space to move. I snapped off three rounds when they were at about ten paces and dropped all three of them.

Just for the record, in case you were wondering, the fucking stench on that floor was rigoddamndiculous. Once the three wandering undead in the hall loop were dealt with we had to stop and tie a wet rag around our face to keep the dry heaves in check. However when these people went, it created one of the most foul odors I can imagine. Bacteria, old vomit, feces, rotting flesh, oh my shit it was terrible.

We radioed down to the ground crew the fifth floor hall was empty and that we were about to start clearing apartments. We backtracked to the first apartment door we passed, and in we went.

The doors on the building automatically lock when they’re shut, and because of that, we had to kick in or pry open every single door. I suppose we could’ve taken the time to search the dead bodies for keys, but they were fucking rancid, and I didn’t feel like getting anything on me. Besides, it’s a bit of a rush to put boot to door.

Granted these were tough ass doors, and I had to kick them a few times to get them to break free of the frame, but in the end, one way or the other, I was victorious over all the doors on that floor today.

Adrian: 8. Doors: 0.

The first two doors I sent in were dry. The apartments on that floor (all eight of them) were two bedrooms, so it was reasonable to expect as many as four undead inside each door. Like I said, the first two doors were empty. We gave them a full clear, and left everything lootable behind. Today was not a day for scrounging.

The third door we kicked in was a problem. I booted that bastard five times with everything I had before it started to crack and cave in. By then my knee was starting to get sore, and just as I was about to switch to the halligan (which would’ve been a much better idea in the first fucking place) it finally busted inward, and thunked off of something solid right behind the door. I brought the M4 up as fast as I could, and the damn door shoved closed in my face again, pushed by something on the other side.

Not wanting to deal with anything, you know… dangerous, I flipped the M4 to burst, and ripped three rounds through the door at what I guessed was chest or neck height for a normal person. The high velocity rounds put holes shaped like flowers in the thick wood and I heard something backpedal into the room away from the door. I stepped strong into the living room, opening the door with my foot, and saw a fragile woman regaining her balance across the way. She was dead as hell, and my three rounds had hit her center mass. I should’ve let the barrel walk up more.

No thought required I flipped back to semi, and popped her in the face. She collapsed into a recliner which automatically sat back on her, as if it were a fucking comedy. I heard Hector laugh out loud as she slumped dead with her arms over the side of the seat. Of course he didn’t see the other two undead coming around the small island in the kitchen, and when I opened up on them with two shots, he shut he fuck up. I called Hector one of the new names he taught me, and we exited the apartment. Pendejo was the word, incidentally.

So by that point we’d killed what, one in the stairwell, three in the hallway, and then three in the third apartment. Too many three’s there for my comfort, but it turned out to be a non-factor. That was eight, and the guys down below were guessing at maybe ten undead, so we were hoping for blue skies.

GONG! Fail. Every apartment past the third had undead in it. Granted, it was only a single undead in most of them, but the bottom line was, we found six more undead in the remaining rooms, which brought our total to 14 bodies for the fifth floor.

Most of the doors had to be pried open with the halligan because just like the third door the dead people inside were pushing their way out, scratching and biting to get to us in the hall. It sucked too because having to pry the door open against their body pressure made it more dangerous. At one point I got one door pried open just enough for one of them to get her fingers in the jam, and when the lock gave way, she yanked it just right, and I lost my balance and went right into her.

Fortunately my momentum took us both to the floor and I landed on top. It was an older woman, little overweight and wearing a frigging awful skiing jacket and pants. She must’ve lasted into the cold weather months. I smooshed her something fierce and did what amounted to a forward roll to get off of her. Abby lit her up with a few shots from her M15 as I rolled away, and I tell you what, I was about a red cunt hair shy of getting bitten on the ass. Once again, my little girl saves my bacon.

Two hours. All told to clear that floor that is. At the end of it we all threw up. I tried so damn hard to play tough and not hurl but I just couldn’t manage it. The smell, and the disgusting mess we found inside some of the apartments was just too awful. I need to dunk my head in bleach to try and scour the memories of that place out. There were several piles of dead bodies mostly destroyed in a few of the apartments. I know the zombies bite us, and kill us, but for the most part, they don’t sit around eating us afterward. Once we’re dead, they move on.

These piles of bodies were eaten. Right to the bone in many cases. You know what probably ate them right? The other survivors. Living folks, eating other living folks. Well, they might’ve been eating dead folks, but the fact is it is cannibalism either way. That also might explain why they got so sick. Human bodies are loaded with all kinds of bacteria and shit. We are not safe to consume.

Fucking gross.

Back to the stairwell we went to the fire door Martin had welded shut. I guess it’s fortunate he had the presence of mind to bring his basic welding kit back to the building when shit hit the fan. Remind me to ask him about how that story went down Mr. Journal. After meeting him and his wife Julie today, they seem like good people.

Anyway, we had to pry the fire door open with the halligan as he cut with a torch from the other side. It was a good hour’s worth of sweaty, hot ass work to get the door free, and to think he said this was the door that was only “lightly” welded. What the fuck are the other doors like?

Unfortunately experience has taught us to greet strangers with the business end of our guns, and when I got the door free they got to see Abby and Hector aiming down their throats. I think they were taken aback by it, but oh well kids. Too many villains and not enough heroes in this world for us to go around giving everyone our trust right off the bat.

After we were sure they were up to good stuff, we put the guns away, and did some hand shaking. I already mentioned names and such. Zach and Ryan were the hydroponics and weed experts. Alex and George are the gay couple (who are super nice, incidentally, which may or may not be a total stereotype), and then Martin and Julie with their little guy Chester. Chester is the shit incidentally. Tiny guy full of piss and vinegar as Gilbert would say.

They gave us a full tour of the place and I’m pleased to say, it wasn’t a complete shit show. For a pair of stoners, Zach and Ryan sure do have their shit together. Using the juice from the solar panels on the roof they’ve got a full hydroponics bay set up in the light coming through the balcony windows. The juice runs the pumps, and they’re using their own poop to fertilize the plants. I guess they haven’t gotten sick at all yet, so they must be on to something. They’ve got tomatoes, onions, potatoes, spinach, carrots, and cauliflower.

Good stuff. All they are missing is a protein source. Fortunately, we have eggs, milk, venison, and when we have spare adult chickens, we’ll have chicken meat as well. When we shared the fact that we had all that, to a one I think they all burst into tears.

This is going to sound bad, but watching them break down made me feel great. Legit. Knowing that I was the bearer of news so good that their emotions spilled out made me feel pretty terrific. Alex just looked at me like I was the second coming and smiled and smiled.

Before we left, we had to ask the tough question. The single question. What did they want to do? Hector and Abby agreed that they all seemed like great people, and if they were willing, we’d be more than happy to have them back at campus. Granted, like everyone else there each of them would have to toe the line and put in their fair share of work, but they were welcome if they were willing.

They wanted out bad. All of them. The idea of being out on a large, open safe area away from that building was almost more joy than they could handle. When they agreed that they would all return to campus with us, I radioed down to the ground crew we were leaving with the whole package of seven. Gilbert and Patty replied in the affirmative, and after they packed some of their most critical belongings, we were off.

Climbing down the fire truck ladder is harder than climbing up it. Leering down at how far you’re about to fall is nerve-wracking. When you’re on the way up, all you see is the step in front of you, and the sky above. Looking down is a lot like going over a cliff, or jumping out of a perfectly good airplane at jump school. Gave a bunch of us the heebie jeebies. It didn’t help that we had a nine year old boy to hold onto.

Patty wrapped that kid up like he was made of solid gold when they got near the bottom. She helped him off the ladder and you could see the joy on her face to have another little boy in her midst. It’s moments like these that make me remember and miss Randy. I didn’t even know him that long. I can’t imagine what goes through her and Abby’s head.

Tough day for memories for me now that I sit back and realize it. Thoughts of Gavin and Randy both have hit me hard lately. I hope to god wherever they are, they are resting and happy.

I suspect they are not though, and that doubt will ruin many a night’s sleep for me.

Gilbert shook everyone’s hand as they came off the ladder. He’s such a good politician, as well as a welcoming old man. I love having him as a part of our crew.

Shit that reminds me, before we return to the clear the first two floors tomorrow, we’re going to try Gilbert’s loads he did for us in the armory. He swears up and down we’ll love them, and frankly, I’m excited to shoot them. He said we have enough for a full combat load out for three people, and we loaded up the magazines ourselves tonight as we got everyone settled into living space here on campus. Before we go out, we’ll pop off a few rounds to test them out.

Lindsey agreed to take in Martin, Julie, and Chester at the farm on Jones Road. That’s awesome, because they need to be outside in the fresh air, and it’s a great idea to get Lindsey some company. She’s been very much out of sorts since her daughter died in the attack, and having an extra kid around might do the trick for helping her start to round that corner and regain her positivity.

Alex and George are sort of a problem though. I am fairly certain Ollie does not like gay people, so sticking him in with Ollie and Melissa seems like a bad idea. Soooo… we put them in Hall A on the second floor in the old staff housing apartment upstairs. It’s nice and separate, better than most of the housing available, and gives them a little distance from Ollie in the event I’m right, and he decides to get all righteous and Christian on them. Hopefully I’m wrong about it.

Ryan and Zach are a pair Mr. Journal. They were staring at our weapons like we had walked straight off a bad action movie poster. I think they thought were complete bad asses, especially Abby. A cute chick who can hang with the big boys and drop the hammer as good as any of them? If I were their age, I’d have a boner over her too. I pray to the powers that be that neither of them are stupid enough to try hitting on her. They are not her type, she’s still not over Gavin, and she knows how to use her firearms.

We stuck them in Hall E with us on the third floor. Down the way from where Gavin made his room. I am not sure why, but they gave his spot a wide berth when they chose rooms. I wonder if he has some kind of residual cock-blocking presence up there? I’m hoping once we get them set up they become industrial gardeners. I’m a little concerned they’ll start grow operation for weed and smoke themselves retarded, but we really need the food they can offer us over winter. I guess I’ll play the cards when that hand is dealt.

Now that the top floor is clear, we can get all their hydro gear up and out. It didn’t make a ton of sense for us to just rescue the people today. We know we want the building for strategic purposes, and we knew we’d likely get the stoners to return back with us, so we felt it was best for us to clear the top floor, make a safe evacuation route, and then deal with the other shit later. Time will tell if this was a shit plan or not.

Mallory is dead asleep next to me. When Hector, Abby and I were upstairs playing hero the streets got a little thick with walkers, and they had to earn dinner tonight. She was so wiped when we got back she ate, and pretty much put her face right into a pillow. She had a lot of trouble hearing anything tonight too. I'm sure she suffered some hearing loss from all the gunfire. I know I'm half deaf. I’m sitting up in bed typing on the laptop here, and she’s got her arm draped across my lap. I’m using it plus a small pillow as a computer table. Too funny.

One day I’ll let her read all this, and she’ll give me shit that I used her for that.

So we left everything behind at the building. Tomorrow we go back in through the roof, get down to the second floor, bust that door open, and make sure the remainder of the building is safe. Once that’s done, if there is enough time, we’ll transport all of Zach and Ryan’s plants back here so we can set up a larger hydroponics deal. They say they need gear to do it, and by golly, we’ll get them that gear. Fresh produce all winter will be the balls.

Oh fuck... we need a barn for the cows for winter. Jesus the work never ends.

Sigh. Wish us more luck Mr. Journal. I have the sinking suspicion tomorrow will be much worse than today was.

-Adrian

June 22nd

We definitely should’ve skipped clearing the bottom two floors of that goddamn apartment building. What a shit show.

Injuries are everywhere here today, and we’re lucky no one got fucking killed. Someone without a doubt had our back yesterday, and I’ve been knocking on wood all day saying thanks.

Tired. Where to start?

Yesterday morning we rolled back into town with the intention of clearing out the bottom two floors of the frigging apartment building. We encountered 14 undead on the fifth floor, and we were operating under the assumption that the bottom two floors would be worse. The residents, especially Martin, said he was sure there were at least 20-30 undead on those two floors, and he was a little short on his guess, but more or less spot on otherwise.

38 was the final tally. All dead. Our injuries were fucking stupid though. Dumb little mistakes in tight spaces, and god bless Hector, but he’s just not used to working with Abby and I, and he was almost more in the way than helpful. Here’s the final injury count, and corresponding stories associated with them.

Abby broke a toe. Maybe two. Her whole foot is swollen and sore. Her injury came about halfway through the purge when we were heading from the second floor down to the first. Inside the stairwell was a roaming zombie, and when we opened the door, I snapped off a round and killed him, and god knows why, but he fell down forward, right past me, and somehow managed to head butt the poor girl’s foot, smashing her pinky toe and the one next to it. She tried to push on, but it hurt so much and she was hobbling all over the place so awkwardly we got her up and out, and Gilbert took her spot in the stack. Actually, he took the rear of the stack, but who’s counting?

No sooner had he joined us when Hector went down. We had just booted in an apartment door and engaged about three undead inside. Gilbert fired in the hallway to our rear at the same time killing something, and Hector was half in the doorway at the time. He spun to put his barrel on the area Gilbert was shooting at, and somehow managed to smash the hell out of his hand on the doorframe. We think it’s just a really bad bruise, but when he gets back to Westfield, he’ll need xrays to see if any bones are broken. Hector was out, then Angela and Amanda was in.

At that point we were dangerously inexperienced, but mostly done. I debated calling the whole thing off, but we slowed everything down, and went over every door’s plan before opening it. I’m happy to report that the two sisters did really well, and held up under pressure. Angela is a beast I should add. Maybe the fact that Danny was her husband gave her some mental fortitude for this? Anyway, she was a ball buster, and if I can spend some more time behind the sights with her, she’ll probably develop into a helluva trigger puller. Gotta love the women I keep finding.

Having said that, Amanda’s strong suit is not shooting in close quarters. She was marginally useful at best, missing at least two thirds of her shots, and after an hour of clearing rooms, she was deaf as hell. Fortunately, she wasn’t involved too much in the fighting. We were done shortly after that.

Oh yeah shit. Gilbert took a fucking ricochet off something in the fucking leg. One of his reloads too ironically, which gave us both a laugh. Gilbert kept going on and on how “appropriate” it was that all his hard work was biting him in the ass. That guy is too funny. It was nice to have him in the fight though. He’s such a calming, steady influence in the shit. He's always on point, focused, listening, and just awesome. I wish he was fifteen years younger so we could really make some fucking progress. He and I Mr. Journal, we could tear shit up.

Also, I’m happy to report that Gilbert’s reloads were the hotness. They worked amazingly and without flaw in the M15’s, but I had a few misfires in the M4. Hector shot clean until he went out of commission, but all in all, for a relative noob doing reloads, Gilbert did us a solid. If he can continue with that kind of quality work ongoing, I’ve got total confidence in his skill.

So. It took us what? Two full hours to clear just the fifth floor the other day? It took us eight full hours to do the bottom two. What a soup sandwich. The injuries really started the toe pushing for us because we had to hit up the fucking minor leagues to fill out the roster. Once again I was missing Gavin like a motherfucker. He, Abby and I were a fucking clearing machine. We would’ve pulled Patty up from the ground to lend a hand, but she was our most experienced and mobile shooter on the outside, and if we were hit by survivors, or a huge pack of undead, we couldn’t risk her not being there to help the gimp squad we’d sent down.

I mean all in all it was a resounding success. Minor injuries that were easily dealt with, and now, officially, we own that fucking place. When we were on the roof exiting yesterday it was Gilbert, Amanda, Angela and I and we stopped to take in the view. The weather has been spectacular. Sunny, high 70s, no humidity, and just fucking awesome. It was a wonderful way to cap it all off, after we all got done emptying our fucking guts out. At least this time I was smart enough to not eat anything right before heading in. Mostly dry heaves for me.

Anyway, Amanda and Angela were sitting on a solar panel array catching some fresh air and downing some water and Amanda turned to Gilbert and I and asked a neat question. I’m really glad she asked it. “What’s this place called?”

“I have no idea. I’m sure there’s a name on the side of the building downstairs,” I said back to her.

Angela piped up after a few seconds of thinking, “We should rip that off, and give it a name that means something to us.”

Gilbert and I exchanged looks and nodded. It was a good idea. After a few minutes of careful deliberation, we settled on a name that made a lot of us happy. The apartment building shall be known henceforth as the McGreevy-Russell Outpost. Or MGR for short. Named after two fallen men. Two good fallen men.

Abby, Danny Jr., and Angela were pleased beyond measure, and I know the rest of us were all happy. It was a nice way to pay homage to our fallen, and because both of the men were fighters who gave their lives protecting others, it made sense to name a place we were going to use as an observation/security outpost after them.

I’m really happy with this. Of course now I’m wondering if we should rename the school? After all, if we are starting a whole new world here it might make sense to start naming things in meaningful ways to us. Of course that also seems arrogant to me, but I guess we can talk about it at a later date. There’s no need to rush this shit.

Today… a day of rest. Everyone who was hurt put their collective feet up, and we started to formulate a plan to get the hydroponics shit out of MGR. We don’t want to break the welds on the bottom floor doors, and that means we either go out the balconies, or we go off the roof. I’m thinking we do the balconies after getting the plants out somehow. Zach and Ryan have been talking to Gilbert for hours now trying to figure this operation out.

Gilbert has some herculean patience. Watching him talk to those two is a lot like watching a math teacher trying to explain geometry to snails. Somehow, he has managed to glean intelligence somewhere in their heads, and I think with gentle guidance, those two will be very useful for us. At the very least, if I can plug them into making a full hydro set up for us, and getting them to maintain it ongoing and teach others how to help them… then they’re both worth their weight in whatever drug they want. Ooooo… huge idea. I need to seriously lock down our medications. I do not want those two assholes getting the bright idea to break into our closet and help themselves to painkillers or whatever it is they might want.

Honestly, I should’ve done that a long time ago anyway. I suddenly feel very lazy for not having done this crap already.

Alright, so. Tomorrow we are taking the day off again. It’s June 23rd tomorrow, and I think we all need to sit here, locked inside campus and just… hope to fucking God nothing happens. We’re all partially convinced the world will shit the bed on us after midnight (again), and honestly, I am leaning towards that being a pretty solid reality. Getting pwned is a way of life for us.

Gilbert just sent a radio out asking for Abby to come over his place. I wonder what’s up with that. I hope his leg is okay. It didn’t seem like a bad wound, but at his age, anything could go south in a hurry. Maybe he’s planning something special for the one year anniversary of the end of the world for us and doesn’t want to let us all in on it? Clever guy that one.

Mallory is fast asleep. No poontang for me tonight. Otis is sleeping in between my legs right now, and he’s happy as a pig in shit. Cooler weather, back on the bed with me, and things have been nice and quiet. Things are good for the kitty cat.

Day after tomorrow we’re heading back to MGR to get the hydro shit out. Once that’s set up, we can look into expanding it, and continuing our work on finishing the security shit here. It should go much fucking faster now that we’ve got Martin, Julie, Alex, George, Zach and Ryan here to help. They’re all fucking stoked to lend a hand, and frankly, I’m fucking stoked to have them here.

Kinda cool. Feels like a real community here suddenly. Kids are playing, our wall is making everyone feel safer, we’ve got good food, good times, and we’re all very much stable in how things are going forward. It’s almost like we’ve kind of reached that tipping point where we’ve got shit handled enough that there’s some kind of reliable normalcy.

I know, I know. Jinx much?

-Adrian

A Traitor’s Death

Gilbert sat his pen down on top of the sheet of white lined paper on the dining room table in front of him. He had taken the past thirty minutes to write down very specific instructions for Abby about what to do after his death later. There were things they didn't know, and he made sure everything important was communicated. Gilbert decided tonight was the night. It was June 22nd, and there was no way he’d make it through another night’s sleep after crossing the Devil. Last night had been Hell on Earth in his nightmare, and he knew in his soul if he went to bed tonight, he’d never wake up. He felt it was fitting as well if he could wait until just after midnight, and take his long walk on the one year anniversary of his wife’s death.

Better to beat the Devil on his own terms, than succumb to the web of lies he’d spun for himself. He was nearly suffocating under the weight of it all. Gilbert sat at the table and looked at the small police walkie resting in front of him. The small radios had become their lifelines since they’d found them at the police station. They’d hit the button, call for help, and within minutes someone would be there to lend a life saving hand. It’d be the last time he made a call on it when he picked it up, and it would start into motion events that couldn’t be undone.

Commit. Commit. Commit.

Gilbert reached out and picked up the walkie. He gently depressed the rubber call button and said his final, fateful radio message, “Hey Abigail, can you come to my place for a few minutes? I need a hand with something.”

A moment later little Abby responded, “Uh, yeah. Gimme fifteen minutes Gilbert.”

And with that, Gilbert’s fate was sealed. He had made his decision.

*****

Gilbert was instructed by The Voice in his nightmare to tamper with the ammunition Adrian had asked him to reload in their armory. When Adrian and his people went inside the apartment building downtown to clear it of undead, their weapons would malfunction, and they would likely have died. A single misfire at the wrong time could spell disaster.

Gilbert had made his choice. He’d spent far too long fighting half a battle against evil, trying to save his and his beloved wife’s soul. Either he did one, or he did the other. Trying to save his wife’s soul and interfere with The Voice had gotten him nothing but heartache, a soul full of dark lies and deceit, and a lifetime’s worth of guilt that only a single act of contrition could fix. He just needed the help of one eighteen year old girl to make it all happen.

And just then, she knocked on the front door of Gilbert’s home. Gilbert rose to his creaky feet and shuffled down the hallway, taking his time. There was no rush anymore. His calf had a small flesh wound in the stringy muscle which slowed him a beat, but to be honest, he knew it was the weight of his deeds causing his feet to drag. Depression was a heavy ball and chain. He undid the dead bolt and pulled the door in, revealing the tiny blonde on the other side.

“Abigail, thanks for coming so quickly.” Gilbert gave her a warm, but sad smile.

Abby caught the strange tint of emotion on his face and she narrowed her own eyes out of curiosity. “Everything okay Gilbert? You seem off. Your leg alright?”

Gilbert let the sad smile out again and looked down at the white bandage on his leg. It ached, but not as much as his heart did. “No Abby, there are far larger things on my old mind tonight. I brought you here to sit down with me, hear a story, and do me a couple of big favors. Can you do that for me tonight?”

Abby’s face slipped back into that confused expression again. “I guess Gilbert. What’s up?”

Gilbert led her back to the kitchen and took his familiar, worn seat. It was smoother than the other wooden chairs from years of sliding into and out of it. It felt comfortable, welcoming. Gilbert savored the moment in the event it was the last time he ever felt it. Abby was a good person to share his last moments with. Abby pulled out the chair beside him, favoring the foot she’d broken a toe on the day prior and sat down. Gilbert idly looked at the holster on her hip carrying her Beretta. Gilbert lamented what the world had come to. An eighteen year old girl should not need to carry a loaded gun to visit her grandfather.

Gilbert shook his head. He wasn’t her grandfather. He just wished he was. The old, tired man took a deep breath, and looked at her. Her eyes were large in the dim candle light of his home and she looked like she was ten years old. Gilbert shook his head in shame and she reached a tiny hand out to rest on his. The old man noticed it was the hand missing a middle finger. One more wound for her to deal with.

“Abby, I have not been a good man.”

Abby shook her head in disagreement. “That’s horseshit Gilbert, you’ve been a great man. You been into the Blue Label again? We all love you.”

“No drinking tonight Abigail. Tonight requires a steady hand, a clear head, and a resolute mind. You love the man you want to love. You love the man I’ve presented to you. You will not love the real me. And tonight, I’m spelling it all out for you before I die. No more lies.”

Abby pulled her hand off of Gilbert’s. She went cold faced as she assessed the seriousness of his last statement. “Die? What? Are you sick?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes I am.” Gilbert licked his lips before speaking again, “Abby, I’ve been having my own dreams,” Gilbert said quietly.

Abby perked up slightly. “Dreams like Adrian’s? Of The White Room? That’s terrific. I’m so happy someone else is experiencing them too. Did I tell you Gavin had one right before he died too-” Abby trailed off as she started to put two and two together in her head.

“Abby, I am not dreaming of The White Room. I’m dreaming of the dark place. I’m not a good man Abby. I have been in service to the darkness. The Devil has been pulling my strings since before this started, and as much as I’ve gone against him to try and do what’s right, I can’t keep doing this, and I crossed him this week and it’s the last time he’s gonna take it from me. The next time I fall asleep, I won’t wake up, and I won’t let him win like that. He may take my wife’s soul, and my soul, but I will not give him Adrian too. There’s too much at stake.” Gilbert’s jaw was firm, resolute.

A single moist corner formed in Abby’s eye. “You. You’re serving, the other side? Gilbert how could you? Why? How did this happen? What about Adrian?”

“The Devil has my wife’s soul. She didn’t die from cancer. She died a year ago tomorrow, best as I know. The Voice in the dark has been having me do things to make life more difficult for Adrian, to break him, to turn him. I’ve tried hard to fight the Devil, but I can’t anymore. I can’t let Adrian break. I can’t be a part of trying to ruin a good man. It’s getting worse Abby. The Devil’s out of patience, and he isn’t interested in corrupting Adrian anymore. He wants him dead and out of the way.” Gilbert looked her deep in the eye and let it sink in.

Abby nodded, understanding somehow. “Gavin knew Adrian was important from his dream. He died for him. He told me so. Why is Adrian so fucking important? I mean, I love him, and he's done so much good but he’s just another person, just like the rest of us.”

“Abby no he’s not. And I suspect you know it on the inside. He’s so much more than just a person now. I can’t dream of the dark place when I’m near him. It’s the only place I’m safe at night. Of course I pay for it dearly when I leave his presence, but the reality is, he’s a player in the game that’s gonna decide all of this, and we cannot let that man fail. He’s strong Abby. Stronger than any of us know, but he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t even think that. He's still letting what he did with Cassie eat him alive. He’ll lose faith in himself before we lose faith in him, and that can’t happen. As Adrian goes, as mankind goes now. I can’t be around anymore. I can’t be the Devil’s asset. I need to remove myself from this game.”

Abby’s chin trembled as her eyes overflowed. Her tiny nose wrinkled as she sniffled. “What do we do? Are you leaving? Are you going to kill yourself?”

“If I leave The Voice will take me anyway. Leaving is the coward’s way out. Plus I am a firm believer that if I kill myself, I’ll guarantee myself eternity in Hell. I need you to do me. Abby I’m sorry, but I need you to do this. It’s what I want, and it’s the right thing to do. With me dead, the Devil loses eyes and ears on Adrian, and that’s far more important than me trying to save two old souls.”

Abby shook her head vehemently against the idea. The tears spilled out of her eyes and ran into her golden hair at the top of her cheeks. Her voice cracked and trembled as she tried to speak. “No fucking way. I am not killing you. No way. Nuh uh. You can walk downtown naked before I do that. Fuck you Gilbert, I can’t shoot another person I love, even if you’ve done the work of evil. I can’t handle that.”

Gilbert smiled. “You know, you remind me of me. Telling the evil guy to fuck himself. I can see right where you’re coming from. But just like I got roped in, you will too, because you love Adrian, you love me, and you know Gavin died for him, and we both know you won’t let harm come to Adrian if you can prevent it.”

Abby snarled at him, “You don’t know shit about me and what I want! Fuck you Gilbert!” The little woman stood up, sending the wooden chair toppling. She pointed a digit at the old man in near rage. She was shaking she was so hurt and angry.

Gilbert let her simmer down before speaking again. “Abby I’ve killed men, women and children. I’ve watched villages burn, buildings blow up, and I’ve watched as my friends have bled out between my fingers in my arms. I’ve killed dead people, I’ve shot undead children. I’ve lost a wife to the Devil, and I’ve spent countless hours in the dark place, waiting for my death to come. I’ve got nothing left inside Abigail. I’m a hollow old man. All I want now is the peace and release of death knowing I can’t be used to hurt the people left behind that I love. At least in death I can hope for redemption. One last fuck you to the Devil.”

Abby stood furious in the kitchen, looking down at the old man she held previously so high in her life. Hearing his tale of lies and deceit broke her tiny heart. It was almost too much for her. A lifetime’s heartbreak in just a year was too much for anyone to have to bear.

Her voice cracked, “I don’t wanna…” A small river of tears broke down her face as she spoke. Her little chin tightened as she sobbed uncontrollably.

Gilbert wiped his own wet eyes clear and nodded in agreement. “I know girl. I know. But Adrian’s hands can’t be bloodied with my death. He can’t kill me in anger, or that could do it. You need to do this because you know it’s the right thing to do, and because it is my burden, and my wish. I’m so sorry little girl to ask you, but this needs to happen now. I’ve got everything ready so it’s easy for you. All you gotta do is pull the trigger once, and make this old man happy.”

All Abby could muster was a half hearted nod. Gilbert pushed his chair out, and wrapped his thin arms around the girl. He leaned his head back and kissed her softly on her forehead. They cried like that for a good long time.

*****

Abby nodded over and over at the list of instructions Gilbert left for her. The sheets of paper with his meticulous handwriting were exacting, and specific. Very little was left to guess about. He had a plan, and as much as she didn’t want to trust him after hearing of his year of lies, she knew he’d come clean, and the deceit was over.

Gilbert made sure she had the exact plan perfect in her head. Once he was satisfied with her understanding of the plan, he stood up, and pulled his .45 from his waistband in the small of his back. He sat it down on the table between the two of them and looked at it for a minute before speaking, “Abby that weapon has been in my possession for about forty years. It has saved my life more times than I care to remember, and if you would, I very much like for my friend here to be the thing that takes me out of this world. If that’s okay with you, of course.” Gilbert looked up from the pistol with hopeful eyes. This was what he wanted.

Abby nodded in agreement. “Of course. I can do it. Makes sense.”

“Thank you dear. I’ve got one bullet in the chamber for me already. Kicks like a mule. I’ve already dug a grave for myself in the back, and if you wouldn’t mind walking me out there after I get changed, we can be done with this right quick. I need a nap.”

Abby’s face briefly twisted into discomfort as he spoke. Eventually she nodded painfully, and Gilbert patted her softly on the shoulder. He rose and left the room.

It was fifteen lonely minutes later for Abby that the old man reappeared. He was wearing his Army dress uniform, and he looked spectacular. The uniform was loose on him now, but he wore it with his head held high, and with all the dignity of a hero. Abby didn’t know what all the medals and ribbons were on his breast, but she knew the more there were, the more she should be impressed. Gilbert was an impressive soldier.

He looked happy for the first time. Genuinely happy. In that one moment Abby understood everything. She felt his pain of the last year acutely, and knew the whole time he’d been suffering. Making this decision and moving towards this moment with her was the single epiphany he needed to understand his life, and his role in all this. He was finally at peace.

The weight on her shoulders started to drift away as she understood her role in all this as well.

“Shall we my girl?” Gilbert asked her in his captain’s voice.

“Yes sir.” She nodded and replied in her best granddaughter’s voice.

*****

When they walked outside, Gilbert put his Green Beret on.

“It’s very important that I land on my back Abby. So you need to shoot me in the face. I know it sucks, but that’s the way it needs to be. I can’t fall on my face wearing this uniform. I need to be feet first in the grave just like this. Okay?” Gilbert gave her precise instructions as he situated himself in the shallow grave he’d dug for himself months ago. He’d wanted this moment so badly for so long.

“I understand Gilbert. I get it.” Abby wanted this over immediately. Her emotions were running all over the place, and she didn’t want, or need this responsibility. She desperately wanted to grab her radio and walkie for Adrian and her mom to come stop this, but deep down inside she knew this was happening for a reason. She gritted her teeth to stay strong.

“Okay then. One last thing.” Gilbert cleared his throat.

“Okay.” Abby looked the old soldier in the face as he cleared his mind.

Gilbert turned slightly towards her and looked her in the eyes. She’d never had a moment with Gilbert like this, where he focused everything on her. He was intense, and almost frightening in the dark of night. She’d seen Adrian and Gilbert do it a few times when they argued, or were serious, and for a moment, she was afraid the evil Gilbert had been manipulated by had taken him over.

“Abby, I can’t write down on paper how much I love you people. I was never good with writing things down, and I have never been good at saying how I felt to anyone, and my wife can certainly attest to that.

I have been a failure at this task in two ways. I have failed the evil I made a pact with, and I have failed the people I have grown to love. I am sorry for latter, but not for the former. The Devil can kiss my ass. I do not want Adrian’s nor any of your forgiveness. I understand now, in my final moments alive that I have had a role to play in all this, and like any play on any stage, some people are the heroes, and others are the villains. There can’t be a play unless everyone plays their role. I just hope I didn’t fuck up the ending.

Abby you tell him I love him. You tell him he was the son I never had. You tell your mother I love her too. She was like my daughter too. You already know I love you, and no matter what you all think of me for the rest of time, just understand I always thought to try and do my best in this, and I made mistakes, and while I don’t want your forgiveness, I do hope you can find the time and heart to remember the parts of me you loved. Make sure they know in the end, I was sorry for everything I did, and didn’t do.

It’s on you now girl. Until the others arrive to help him, it’s on you. And Abby, there are others. Two others. I don’t know who they are, or when they’re gonna get here, but The Voice knows, and I think that bastard is scared. You need to keep Adrian as pure as you can, and alive, and make sure that he doesn’t fail, otherwise we all fail and this was for nothing. I know that’s a lot for one girl to bear, but remember this one thing:

The Devil’s out to get him, but he’s got bigger friends in bigger places rooting for him. He’s chosen Abigail. Chosen. Plucked from the masses like a shining jewel of what we can be, and not what we have been.” Gilbert sighed and looked at his watch. It was after midnight. He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and nodded.

“I’m ready.”

Abby’s eyes flooded over from Gilbert’s words. She hefted the unfamiliar weight of the larger pistol and thumbed back the hammer. It was a struggle and required both thumbs for her to accomplish. When she felt the click of the hammer, she switched the safety off, and leveled the handgun at Gilbert’s face. She hung her head down at the ground and took a deep breath.

“Gilbert, we will always love you. In time, we’ll tell stories about Gilbert Donohue and how he danced with the Devil, and stopped the music before the waltz could end. I’ll tell your story Gilbert. I’ll tell them about a hero that dared to take on the Devil at his own game. I’ll tell them how much we all loved you, even at the end.” Abby gagged on her words, nearly choking on her sobs.

Gilbert smiled with eyes closed. “I’m no hero Abby. I’m just an old soldier doing his best. Now thank you for the kind words, but it is high time I let the Devil kiss my ass in person.”

“I love you Gilbert.”

“I love you too Abby. I love you all.”

Abby closed her eyes and pulled the trigger before her mind could tell her not to. The gun went off in the night like the sound of thunder. With her eyes still fused shut she heard the dull thump of a body impacting the earth below it. She dropped the handgun in the shallow grave and grabbed the small shovel sticking up in the dirt next to her. She scooped up a portion of earth and held it over him, making sure he had fallen correctly, as he’d wished.

He had. Somehow, his beret had remained atop his head. She made sure the single bullet she fired had done the job, and it had. Both the man and the weapon had succeeded in their final mission.

“Good luck Gilbert. May you find the peace in death that was taken from you in this life. We all love you.”

Abby let the Earth cover the old man one last time. When she was finished, she tamped the mound flat, and went back into the house to get the letter Gilbert had written for her. Tomorrow would be the worst day of her life, and that was saying something.

Breaking Adrian’s heart would certainly break hers too.

June 23rd

I don’t know what to make of today. Nothing happened. God nor the Devil, or whatever power that is out there that is running this show smote us off the face of the planet today, which may or may not tell us anything.

Do they not give a shit about calendars? Or anniversaries of events?

Do they not give a fuck about us anymore at all?

Or is this just me waxing on and on about nonsense? Fucked if I know.

I’m writing this at bedtime in the hopes that it will make me tired, and I can get some sleep. Very low key day today on campus. Everyone battened down the hatches and sat still. The most impressive and ambitious thing that happened was the new people going dorm room to dorm room to acquire new goods and such for their living accommodations. When we head back to MGR tomorrow they can get their own personal belongings, but for now, the kid’s left behind shit will have to suffice.

It was amusing to see them run about on campus outside. They haven’t had the freedom of open ground in a long fucking time, and when they were outside, they literally ran from building to building like the undead were smothering the place. Of course they aren’t, and their haste and paranoia was largely pointless, but it did fetch a laugh from us ALPA vets.

I wonder how Blake and Kim are doing? Still no word from them. Hopefully they’ll be back soon with Mike. Westfield is definitely due for a water run here soon, and I’d like to at least hear about how the young couple is faring. I’ve got my fingers crossed for them and their baby.

Weird day actually. I wonder if Cassie died a year ago today? I wonder if she held out for awhile? I know she’s dead. My dreams tell me so. I hope she went quickly. I haven’t thought about her in a long time. I’m suddenly feeling quite guilty about everything again. I guess I’ll always feel guilty about it. Cassie, if you’re still out there, I love you, and always will.

But you’re gone. And I can’t dwell on the past. I need to move on. Make amends, and be the better person for the folks around me. You might’ve told me that in a dream in fact.

I’ve spent the last year doing all I can to try and survive, and help the people that I’ve met. I’ve written as much of it down here in this silly ass journal. I don’t know why I do this anymore. It’s habit now. My therapy. My history. Good and bad I guess.

I chronicle my few successes, and my enormous amount of failures. I talk about what makes me laugh, what makes me cry, and my hopes for a future in this fucked up world.

There’s a thought. What could the future be? What’s my endgame here? Where do I see myself in a year, five years, ten years?

Possibly dead, probably dead, and definitely dead is the pessimist’s set of answers to those questions. I hate to say this, but with the rate we’ve lost people at, despite our hard work and caution to the contrary, it’s likely to be the way it all ends. Well, we’re all gonna die someday.

It only matters how we live.

Abby is knocking on my door. Haven’t seen her all day. Might write more later.

-Adrian.

- About The Author -

CHRIS PHILBROOK is the creator and author of Adrian’s Undead Diary as well as the popular webfiction series Elmoryn and Tesser: A Dragon Among Us.

Chris calls the wonderful state of New Hampshire his home. He is an avid reader, writer, role player, miniatures game player, video game player, and part time athlete, as well as a member of the Horror Writers Association. If you weren't impressed enough, he also works full time while writing for Elmoryn as well as the world of Adrian’s Undead Diary and his newest project, Tesser; A Dragon Among Us.

- Find More Online -

Visit adriansundeaddiary.com to access additional content. Learn more about Adrian’s world, contact the author, join discussions with other readers, view maps from the story, and receive the latest news about AUD.

Check out Chris Philbrook’s official website thechrisphilbrook.com to keep tabs on his many exciting projects, or follow Chris on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ChrisPhilbrookAuthor for special announcements.

Read more by author Chris Philbrook in The Kinless Trilogy. Explore Elmoryn, a world of dark fantasy where death is not the end. The story begins in Book One: The Wrath of the Orphans, available in print, Kindle, and online. Visit elmoryn.com to learn more about Elmoryn, view concept art, and much more.

Follow Chris Philbrook’s latest epic series as it unfolds in Tesser: A Dragon Among Us. Meet Tesser, the Dragon. He who walks in any form, and flies the skies free of fear. He has slept for millennia, but now he has awoken in a world ruled by human hands, where science has overshadowed even the glory of old magic. Follow Tesser as he seeks to understand why he slept for so long, and where all the magic has gone. Visit adragonamongus.com to learn more.

Can’t get enough of AUD?

Visit the School Store at adriansundeaddiary.com for stickers, hats, and a wide variety of awesome shirts!

Table of Contents

Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy map

MAY 2011

May 1 st

May 3 rd

Providence

May 4 th

May 5 th

May 7 th

May 8 th

May 10 th

May 12 th

May 14 th

May 15 th

May 17 th

Homecoming

May 19 th

May 21 st

May 22 nd

May 23 rd

May 25 th

May 27 th

May 29 th

May 31 st

JUNE 2011

June 2 nd

June 4 th

Zombie Scissorfight

June 6 th

June 8 th

June 10 th

June 12 th

June 14 th

June 16 th

Dream a Little Dream

June 18 th

June 20 th

June 22 nd

A Traitor’s Death

June 23 rd

About the Author

Additional Online Content

AUD Merchandise