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

by Chris Philbrook

  “I know you said you don’t shake hands,” I said. “Thought that was weird, but it’s also pragmatic. Germs can be tough with no hospitals.”

  “I can touch the dead,” he said, almost in a dream as he reached out to his own dead face. His fingers brushed the cheek of his zombie face, and for the briefest moment, I watched as the zombie’s hatred towards me sapped away. He caressed his own flesh, then took his hand away. “I can touch things, I can touch plants, I can even touch things that will touch people, but the moment I try to touch another person, I turn into… well, I become fake, like a hologram. Light and noise but no substance. Just like my ex-girlfriends. Want me to touch you?”

  “Literally the last thing I can imagine wanting,” I said, aiming my weapon a bit towards him. He laughed, and added a sigh.

  “Put me down, yeah? I think that’ll set me free from this, and let me move on to whatever awaits.”

  “June 23rd, 2010 forever awaits.”

  “What?”

  “If Europe is anything like back home, then you’re going to go to a blissful, oblivious waiting room that’s exactly how the world was on June 23rd, 2010. With some work, you should be able to traverse the Other Side and find your son and wife. Go where they died the first time. They’re likely to be there. If they aren’t, go back home. Think about them. Envision them. See them before you, see them traveling to where you’re going. Mental purpose is as powerful there as physical action. The stronger your willpower the better.”

  “There’s a story in how you know all that.”

  “I kinda died once,” I said. “It was a weird time. I can say that the Other Side wasn’t the worst place I’ve been. There are… timeshares available in far less desirable places.”

  “You’d be a shit estate agent, you know that?”

  “No idea what you’re talking about. I’m gonna shoot you now. You’ve been a real confusing person to meet, a worse one to get to know, and I hope I never see you again. Thank you for what you’ve done for your people, and for mine.”

  “Your ability to charm really is quite world class. Be well, Adrian. I hope you find your two unknown friends,” he said, and closed his eyes. “Thank you as well.”

  I blew his zombie brains out, and the version of him that I thought was alive, disappeared. No pop, no smell of brimstone (plenty of other chemicals to smell, to be sure) and no sparkling glitter. Gone in an instant.

  I called out to Hal at the top of the stairs that it was done, but that the loot down here was epic. He came down, and gave it a once-over, with a whistle added at the end. He approved. I looked at my watch, and it was 4. Not far from dawn.

  I radio’d to the duty staff once we got back to the surface that we needed some assistance moving a lot of loot and they organized the ambulance, and a crew to load it. For two hours, Hal and I kept watch, drawing in and/or stepping out to drop the few zombies moving in the area around the church. We didn’t let any of them get close enough to the church or rectory to be a threat to us, but still, it was… nerve wracking.

  The whole time… I kept thinking about Tobias, and his wife and son. About his… state of being. It doesn’t seem real, or possible, but in my heart… I know it’s the truth, and I think I hate that reality more. I can coast feeling I’m crazy until the next round of end-times, but… goddamn it.

  Abby, Kevin, Hal, and Fagan arrived and we loaded everything in the basement up. I told them not to ask any questions after they saw the dead body of Bell End in the basement, and to their credit, they didn’t pry. I could see the silence eating at Abby, but she kept her word, and didn’t push. God I love her. She’s ADHD with wisdom incarnate. Smart and soulful. I’m so proud.

  I rode back in silence, trying to digest it all, and then I slept for four hours. Now, here I am, writing this.

  I need to keep thinking, and then rest some more. People have questions, and I don’t know what those answers might be just yet. Won’t have answers at all, I suspect. Par for the fucked-up course.

  I do know, for certain, that things in this profoundly complicated world aren’t quite as simple as I’d hoped they be.

  That didn’t make much sense. I’m so tired.

  -Adrian

  October 29th

  To give the people of Mutual Aid time to come to grips with the sudden disappearance of their fearless leader, or whatever it is they’re doing right now, we opted to let them have yesterday and today to… I dunno, grieve? Discern their assholes from their elbows? I don’t know what they do with their time. I’m not their real mom.

  I pulled my group into our meeting room in the galley, with Lancaster, William and Rosario added. Without going over all of what I already wrote, I told them the whole story, at least the high points of it. I started with the first couple of interactions I had with Bell End, and then walked them straight through to the events at the church. Some of them were present for parts of it, or all of it in places, Hal notably, but they got the big picture.

  The end of the story resulted in me basically saying, “This dude was a ghost all along.”

  “Is this a Europe-only issue? And who else might be a ghost too?” Was the first thing Rosario suggested. “How many people have we crossed paths with that were ghosts and we never knew about it? Can they walk through walls? Can they listen to us without our knowing it? This is beyond a nightmare.”

  “I don’t think I’d be so paranoid about it,” I said to her. “I don’t think they’re all malicious. I could be wrong. Got a great track record for being wrong. I’m wracking my brain about people back at home at Bastion that might’ve been ghosts. Some of the people we’ve encountered surely no one ever touched. There’s no way of knowing.”

  “Then does it matter?” Abby asked. “Entities come, entities go. Living or incorporeal dead, it doesn’t matter. Unless they’re fucking zombies, only their behavior seems to matter. A poorly behaved human can cause more destruction than a ghost.”

  “How do we kill them?” Fagan dropped. “Like if one of them is like, a bad actor? What do we do? Exorcism? Holy water? Healing crystals? Burn sage?”

  “Maybe we hit them with a scale replica of Jesus’ holy dick, if we take a page out of your playbook. Worked once. But really, that’s a fine question,” I said to him as everyone laughed. Not everyone got the joke, which made it even funnier. “Wiltshire said he could interact with physical things, so if we shot him… he might still get shot. I don’t think that’d kill him, but it might disrupt him. Send him away for a bit. Killing his body seems to have sent him packing though.”

  “Finding someone’s shambling corpse or actual corpse and putting it to rest isn’t reasonable,” Kevin said. “That’s like finding a vampire’s coffin to stake the dirt inside it to kill the vampire. That shit just ain’t happening.”

  “Ghosts are alive because something is keeping them here,” Lancaster said, with his trademark cluck. “That can’t be a legend if it’s pervasive throughout history. Solve the riddle of why they’re alive, and I bet they’ll go away.”

  “It could be something they didn’t get to do, too,” Kate added. “I think I saw a movie about that. The characters had to figure out what the ghost needed to have done in life, and once they did it, the ghost moved on.”

  “That all sounds ponderous. Look, we’ll figure it out, I assure you all. What I do think, is that moving forward from here on out, if someone won’t touch us, skin-on-skin, we immediately assume they’re a different kind of undead from usual. A ghost like Wiltshire.”

  “Shit,” Rosario said. “If I hadn’t seen all of what I’ve seen so far, I’d say we were all Section Eight.”

  “Oh we’re bat shit crazy,” I said to her with a laugh. “No mistaking that. But I’d say standards for what’s fit for service are different now.”

  “We are the cream of the crop,” Fagan said.

  “Nah. We’re more cream of mushroom,” Kevin shot back. More laughs.

  From then, we planned on a return to the fire statio
n, where we’d sit and wait for the Mutual Aid people to bring us our shit, and then to sit down and have a long and happy conversation with them about what they thought their boss was, and was all about. I’m real curious to hear what Mata Sene thought about Bell End. She definitely had a strange way about her when we met, and now that I know what I know, I’m certain that she had more than just a little inclination that Wiltshire was different.

  Inquiring minds, want to know.

  Tomorrow. In other news, Otis has slept like a rock since I got back from the church. Peaceful and deep, warm and purring at times. He’s my… shit, he’s my safe place. Maybe Otis kills cats. There are legends of creatures fearing cats right?

  I need to look that up. Somehow.

  -Adrian

  October 31st

  Happy Halloween, Mr. Journal. I’m dressed as an asshole today. No one noticed my costume.

  Mata Sene, newly crowned leader of Mutual Aid didn’t come to visit us yesterday at the fire station. We returned again this morning for a full day there, clearing the neighborhood and providing security for Crystal and another of her Marine friends to keep working on the pumper. They needed to swap out two of the tires, and if you were unaware, these fucking rigs have HUGE tires. It’s not an easy task, especially in the apocalypse with the wrong tools. She’s a prize.

  All day yesterday, then most of the day today, and they got that job done. I helped them, mostly. The others in my crew did building and room clearing, as quietly as possible. I should note, that Abby stayed back today. Little Gavin wasn’t feeling so hot, so she stayed with him. He’s fine now. Teething I think.

  We brought Joel in her stead, and he was THRILLED to get off the peninsula. It was nice to see him roll around, taking care of business with Hal, Fagan and Kevin. They did work. Cleared out three or four entire businesses, all two or three floors. Familiarity working together, I guess.

  Anyway, Sene rolled into the parking lot of the fire station around noon today, rolling with the flatbed and the sedan they have.

  She got out, and just from her posture, I could tell something had changed.

  “Happy Halloween. Good to see you again.”

  “Same to you,” she replied. “Our uh… leader has been stranger of late than he usually is, and that’s no small feat, yeah?”

  “I’d heard a little about his… history. How he’s been. Has he… disappeared?”

  “Yeah, left instructions that we should give you a package if his shit set sail without warning.”

  “Probably seems bizarre to you.”

  “He wasn’t all there,” she said. “This isn’t the first time he’s pulled some stunt that didn’t make sense.”

  “He had been dealt a weird hand. He played the best he could.”

  “How is it you seem to know more about him than I do? How is that? We searched his room yesterday. You know what we found in it? Nothing. Empty closet, empty drawers. Bed hadn’t been slept in, perhaps ever. You have any idea how that is? I bet you do. He said something to you, did he not?”

  I love her accent. Little African, little French. I don’t get that in my life.

  “I spend a lot of time warning people that what I’m about to tell them won’t make sense.”

  “Skip it.”

  “He was dead. Tobias Wiltshire, aka Chief Bell End, was a ghost. He asked us to put his son, then his wife, and then his own body down, and when I plugged him, he disappeared. I gave him peace.”

  “I knew it,” she said, almost grinning and doing circles with the knowledge of her affirmation. “I knew it all along. Couldn’t even figure out how to prove it though.”

  “Definitely a ghost. He never touched people, right? Never touched us, at least.”

  “Yeah he went out of his way to never make contact. Always smoking, too. I think he did that to cover how weird he smelled.”

  “He died of smoke inhalation. He smoked to cover the smell that his ghost-body made.”

  “Of course he did. Another secret he kept. He was full of them.”

  “What other secrets did he keep? Anything my people need to worry about?” I had this sudden pang of worry; even with all I knew, or supposed I knew, my blind spot with this guy was enormous… and the idea that he was being somewhat dishonest with his own people… well that made my skin crawl.

  “He had us bring all those fire trucks back to the station for no reason. Wouldn’t let us use them. Then would ask us to go there so he could smoke cigarettes for an hour or two every week. He wouldn’t ever tell us his real name. We figured it out on our own, but still… why? And for God’s sake, he knew so much about places. Things he shouldn’t have been able to know.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Out of the blue, he’d say, ‘We’re gonna go to this building today. I think there’s a… there’s a gallon of petrol in the garage.’ And we’d go, and he’d tell us what doors to go into, and where the zeds would likely be, and without fail, whatever he wanted to find, was where he said it would be.”

  “Did you ever ask him how he knew this shit?”

  “Of course I did. He had a story. Always the same: ‘I was a firefighter, and I went there on a call. I just remembered this now.’ What a pile of shit, total shit. I’m angry at him for lying, but I don’t know how we wouldn’t handled his truth.”

  “Amen to that. Look, he knew what was where because as a ghost, he could go places without getting killed. I don’t think zombies gave two shits about him, and it’s unlikely anyone alive could kill him either. He was the perfect scout. Can’t die, and doesn’t get tired.”

  “That idea makes so much sense I hate it,” she said, then laughed. “I should’ve guessed. I’m smarter than that.”

  “We all have our blind spots. One of my best friends was a pawn of the Devil for a long time, and I think I knew it all along, and didn’t do a damn thing about it. Didn’t want to believe the truth, I guess. Look, what happened, happened. He did a lot of good for a lot of people, and more than anything, that’s what’ll weight his scale down when it comes to measuring his worth in this life.”

  She sighed, and walked in circles for a few seconds. I could tell she was doing her own kind of weighing. What a world, Mr. Journal. She went then to the flatbed, and after pulling the door open, she grabbed a gym bag out and brought it to me.

  “Gentle with this. Some of it is fragile. He said this is all you need to get it moving again. Am I to assume you’re going to be leaving the city, then? Once you get them running?”

  “Our plan is to head north to Croydon. One of my best men has family there. We’re planning on returning to the port here. It’s going to be a permanent base of operations for us. We’re going to be hiring, if you know anyone from the area of fine moral character.”

  “I’ll ask around.”

  “That’d be nice.”

  “There’s a bottle of his mead in that bag. He said he wanted you to enjoy it with those who you loved. Made it sound real important.”

  “You think it’s poisoned?”

  “No. He’d never do that. Plus, it’s stoppered with the original cork. Still got dust on it. I’d say take his word, and enjoy it.”

  And we chatted some more. She told more strange stories about how Bell End would kinda come, and kinda go in conversation. He’d be in a room, and then be gone, and no one would hear him leave. Vice versa as well. He didn’t eat much, and the meals he did take were bites here, and bites there, as he turned. Or he’d pick up a plate, and then leave with it. She said without fail, someone else would get the plate of food as a gift from him.

  I’m sad he’s gone.

  She left, and I brought the bag of parts to Crystal. I took out the bottle of melomel, and gave her the rest. Right then and there, I opened it, and took a swig.

  He was right; the shit was delicious. I took another swig, and then offered it to Crystal, who declined. She said she was in recovery. I apologized for drinking in front of her, and then went out to find the rest o
f my people.

  I even shared it with Sgt. Oak, and Sgt. Maple. No backwash.

  I deserve a goddamn medal for my altruistic nature.

  Lady Sene and I made plans to rendezvous back at the fire station on November 5th. If they had issues before that, they knew where to find us.

  We’ll have enough repairs done on the engine by tomorrow afternoon that we’ll be able to get it back to Point Hope. It’ll go under the steel worker’s eyes, and be made ready according to our specification to head north to Croydon.

  Then, as the kids like to say nowadays, “Why did that bad man eat my parents?”

  I mean, it’s on like Donkey Kong. They say that.

  Yeah, that. Not the first dark-ass thing.

  -Adrian

  Fetters

  Toby felt the gunshot hit the body he no longer inhabited. The sensation wasn’t quote pain, and it wasn’t pressure, or even shock. The moment and its sensory overload came, and then it went, and when that experience departed, so too did the former firefighter’s consciousness.

  Cut free from the fetter that bound him to the physical world, what Toby was slipped sideways, pressing into a different experience once more.

  Spoiled by the hints the man named Adrian had given him, he knew precisely where he was. When, he was, actually.

  The day it all began. June in 2010.

  He was back in the basement of the church, cool, and a bit damp, but clean and without the oppressive, nostril-burning presence of chemical smoke. Toby coughed out of reflex, and reached for the ever-present packs of cigarettes in his pockets. He’d searched the third pocket before he realized that he didn’t have any. He didn’t need them.

  He inhaled deeply, and felt the air that... didn’t exist fill lungs that he knew were actually starting to rot out in the real version of the basement he stood in. Toby laughed; deep and rich, its exultation sonorous and complete.