Dead Cities: Adrian's March. Part Four (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 12)

by Chris Philbrook

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

  And he’s here.

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

  Anyone’s eyes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I think that’s my squad.

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

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

  Maybe I overreacted.

  Nah, fuck ‘em.

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

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

  So that’s my dream and crew update.

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

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

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

  They’re fucking up property values, after all.

  -Adrian

  September 13th

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

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

  I gotta think on it.

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

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

  -Adrian

  September 14th

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  -Adrian

  Rachel and Mara

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

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

  “Rachel?”

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

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

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

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

  “Why what?”

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

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

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

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

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

  “Why don’t we just nick a car?”

  “You know how to hot-start one?”

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

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

  “I won’t.”

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

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

  Something else took over not long after that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The monster had grown strong feeding off her.

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

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