November 12th, (2nd entry)
I know I said I’d sit back and bask in the glow of success, but I just tried to radio Mata, and no one answered. It’s possible the radio is off, or out of batteries (thought I gave her a recharging dock and spare battery). It’s also possible she forgot how to operate the thing too.
But I do not have a good feeling. It’s dark now. I let everyone know that I’m gonna keep trying her every thirty minutes for the next few hours, then once an hour through the night. If they don’t respond, we’re going to head out there in the bird and get a look-see.
-Adrian
November 13th
It’s not long after midnight, and our over watch snipers are reporting gunfire and visible flames on the northern horizon in the direction of Mutual Aid’s farm. We’re spinning everything up to go see.
-Adrian
November 13th, (2nd entry)
I’m stepping out of the cabin in like ten seconds to get on the helo. The radio I gave Mata just crackled on, then off, then on, and then went silent. Sounded like someone hurt fumbling with the send button. A few seconds later the line sputtered live and then.…
I swear I heard a man laughing. I felt all the hairs on my arms and neck raise up slowly, like they were going to protect me from the scary man somewhere out there in the real world. Radio hasn’t made a peep since.
That anger inside me just woke back up.
-Adrian
November 14th
Goddamn nightmare. Mutual Aid’s entire place was torched. Fires raging to the clouds above like something out of the nastier parts of the Bible. Oh my God, Mr. Journal. I feel like this is a theme for me, in this. Fire.
Fire.
Purging flames. Houses burning down in the cold winter, Westfield’s school being set on fire by that prick Chris Sunderman… My gas station getting blown up back on Route 18. Fuck.
Fire.
I should’ve seen the signs coming. I’m too trusting.
How much detail do I need to go into here? All of it, right?
I hope you’re sitting.
We organized a full movement in less than an hour. Everyone’s so agile. Both ground vehicles plus William’s chopper were Oscar Mike with a full complement of ass-kickers loaded up. Five in the bird plus two pilots and a door gunner. I was on the chopper. I wanted to see the situation first. Six souls each in the two ground vehicles. Seventeen of us. Barely enough.
Trucks left first. They have to drive around the peninsula, then head north. Fifteen minute drive, two minute flight. After just a few minutes of letting them get going, William took us up, and flew us to the farm. We circled about a hundred feet up, careful to stay well clear of the high tension power lines nearby. Couldn’t afford getting tangled up in those. We did about thirty loops, looking down, and figuring out what the hell to do. By the time we made our decision, our two-vehicle convoy was a few hundred yards down the road, lights out, idling, waiting for instructions.
The entire place was crawling with manic, possessed undead. Had to be two hundred of them, all wandering about, following us in a wide, crazed circle as we did our holding pattern. I radioed to the trucks what the plan would be.
“Light ‘em up,” I said to the door gunner. “Half the belts you’ve got.” His name was Mitch.
Mitch just nodded his NVGs and fired up the 240 in the door of the Seahawk. That loud bitch started chattering and I watched as the steady stream of tracers flung down into the bloodied, often flaming crowd like falling stars over and over. With my own NVGs I watched as the bullets lanced into the crowd, mostly with no goddamn effect. But, you can’t dodge every raindrop, right?
Eventually the bodies started to drop as Mitch’s 7.62mm meteors hit skulls, and destroyed brains. I can’t estimate what his ratio of rounds to kills was, but he hurt a LOT of undead, and managed to kill around a quarter of the crowd. Watching his firm expression as he grimly fired into the mass of monsters was… I connected with it. This was yeoman’s work. This wasn’t painting houses, or hammering nails. This wasn’t running a cash register, or drawing blood. This was punching holes in cow’s skulls. This was the spray of blood in the face. Pulling that trigger was the gravedigger’s job, and he did it because someone had to. No glee. No satisfaction. Just the evil, ugly work.
When he hit his ammo target on belts, as we still slowly circled a hundred feet up, I asked for William to bring us down to about thirty feet and hover us still, but slowly drift away from the power lines sideways, like a really old pied piper. I went to the door and latched myself in with the safety strap so I didn’t fucking fall out. I asked the other guys to roll up, two at a time, and start taking accurate headshots.
Grim expressions, mine included. When I swapped in my third magazine, I radioed to the trucks, and they breached the gate at the fence to create an anvil for us to hammer towards. We then rotated to drift back towards them, bringing the undead back, and give us a 90 degree firing angle from the chopper. Didn’t want to hit our friends on the ground. We’d just resumed firing in a clear direction when I heard the tires on the ambo go.
We later learned they drove right over a handful of boards with nails in them. Not much different than the ambush I set for the fucking first Westfield pricks. Ambo lost both front tires with loud pops, and when our squad dismounted to protect themselves from the fucking mad rush of running undead, Sgt. Oak stepped right on a board of nails as did fucking Kevin. Rooted in place on the passenger side and rear of the ambulance, they wound up staying upright by the slimmest margins, and laying down fire to stay alive. Chris stopped the ladder truck outside the gate, and everyone ran inside as carefully as they could to help stabilize the situation. Obviously I wasn’t on the ground there, but everything I heard was just extra words for ‘soup sandwich.’
We were still on plan though. These things happen. Bad things happen.
Two firing lines. One in the air, the other on the ground forming an L shape. I had shooters looking out our opposite chopper door to cover in that direction, and they had shooters at the ladder truck looking out into the wilds south so we had 360 degree security.
Burning bodies, burning houses, gunfire like no tomorrow. Sooner or later there will be no tomorrow.
Melancholy shit right there. Blast the Taking Back Sunday And New Found Glory and get emo.
Thousands of rounds of ammo were expended and we needed every single round to make that place safe enough to move in. “Safe enough.”
William eventually had to set us down to save fuel. It was that or fly back to the port, and I said fuck that, so we landed on the grass about a hundred yards away from any structure, or any fire. The funny thing about helicopters, is you can’t just leave them alone. You have to protect them. I had Mitch and a Marine pull that duty with William and Kate and I took everyone else. We pushed in, no longer needing the NVGs to see. The fires provided ample light.
The noise. The fires were so hot, and the flames were… shit they were three stories tall. The barn looked like a fucking fireball large enough to eat up a football stadium. We were shooting for hours. Hours, man. Searching for survivors, for signs of… a cause, for anything resembling hope, but we found fucking nothing.
Nothing.
We searched for hours. Past dawn and well into the late morning, waiting for the flames to die out. I found the bottles for mead, and all the brewing and distilling shit we got for Tobias. Melted and broken. Trash. Car parts and tires stacked ten feet deep, all burnt to shit. They were the ones hoarding it. Making themselves indispensible if anyone wanted to drive other than them. Speaking of their wheels, all were torched as well. In my dreams I’d really hoped to find Mata. She had great presence. Good leadership skills. She struck me as the kind of person that this world needs. Now… she’s gone. Just another was. I’m sure I’ll see her in my dreams. Read: shitty second place prize.
Just a goddamn mess.
I’m not a fire inspector. I have no idea how to identify how the fires began, or whether they were set, or
it was an accident. What I can say, is that the structures at Mutual Aid’s farm were spread out enough that the likelihood (in my limited, uneducated opinion) of them catching on fire without some kind of malicious, human assistance is low to nil. Some of the buildings are fifty, sixty feet apart, and there’s just no way the fire jumped that far.
Now maybe they were raided, and the attackers set fires. Maybe they were attacked by zombies en masse, and a fire started somewhere, and a zombie on fire traveled to other buildings, maybe chasing living escapees. That’s a stretch, but I suppose it’s possible.
My gut tells me this was a coordinated attack designed to destroy the whole place, and kill everyone. Mata said they had no large-scale competitors, or enemies, which means there’s a wildcard in the AO.
Wait… no. There’s more to this I think.
Whoever did this set an ambush, knowing that someone was coming to check in on the fires. Maybe they knew it would be us. Boards with nails at the gate? So many of them too? They knew trucks or cars were coming, and the only ones moving around right now in all of Brighton are our two.
They fucking knew. They took out Mutual Aid, then they set a trap for us. Whoever laughed on the fucking walkie. That prick. And I bet you anything, he’s still got the walkie I gave Mata, and that means our wide communications net is now vulnerable for sure. Fuck. We can still use the gear with heavier encryption. That’s good.
I gotta rally the team and talk to them about it.
Sgt. Oak and Kevin both got their foot wounds cleaned, and fresh tetanus shots. We had to scare some up from Fish, the pharmacist, who had TDAP boosters on hand. Go figure. Pays to have friendly neighbors. We traded her and the folks in her building (Joey, Aidan, Misty, etc) a flat of food cans plus some dry milk for the vials, and they were over the roof.
Joel was equally excited to get the TDAP.
Anyway, Kevin and Oak really took some damage to their hoofs. Both of them had two nails punch straight through (no reinforced soles, of course) and they both drew the short straw, and had the nail skip off toe bones, doing some internal damage. They will survive without surgery, but they are in some serious pain, and will need a week or two off their feet to really give it a chance to heal.
Keeping Kevin off his feet for more than a day is a task that I refuse to deal with. I’ll jump on a fucking hand grenade first. I need to find projects for him to do to keep his hands and mind busy or he’ll be out and about getting a fresh case of gangrene despite the antibiotics he’s taking.
Coloring books. I need coloring books, and beer.
I’ll have him clean weapons and load magazines. He likes that.
Fuck.
I’m doubling the guard, and giving us a few days to heal and wrap our heads around this. I need to rest, and I need to plan. This is much bigger than my brain can handle right now. I need warm fuzzy cat time, and peace a quiet.
-Adrian
November 16th
We made a run with the ladder truck and the ambulance around the ‘cleared’ area of Brighton nearby today to collect more tires for the ambulance. There are no good single-source places for usable wheels, so we drove around in circles looking for parked vehicles that take the same shoes. Took us about four hours to find two more usable tires, and tack on another hour and a half for us to shoot our way into relative safety, and then jack up the trucks/vans to get the wheels off.
A good amount of undead to be dealt with as we did it, but we were fortunate enough to find vehicles fairly out in the open, and the undead came at us in smaller numbers. Suppressed shots for the most part. The pricks here are too fast for us to rely ONLY on the halligans. Spears might be somewhat usable, if only to act like pikes to stop their rush long enough for us to brain ‘em with the halligans. The crew of Reuben James and Crommelin have both manufactured decent spears they’ve used over the last couple years, so maybe we need to borrow some of those, or manufacture some new ones. Some things never change, eh? We’re hoping to find horses, and need to make spears.
Anyway, we’re now back to square one on tires and we’re still dealing with an arsonist in town. The other reason we did our run out into the wilds of southern England was to check on a house fire we saw late last night. They didn’t wake me to look (I wish they did, my dreams have been so chaotic, and disturbing lately, I could’ve used the break) but evidently it was in the general direction of the dealerships we checked. Easy to swing by today.
No strips or planks of wood in the road, but there was a rather conspicuous amount of debris that wasn’t there when we made that run on foot before. I’d bet my large testicle that whoever hit Mutual Aid did the fire last night, and had an ambush set up for us in the dark. We no-showed during the night though, so fuck you and your ambush.
I’m betting our firebug will continue to light fires, trying to get us to come out until they set a fire we have to respond to. Chuckles the firebug. Asshole. Who? Who the fuck is this? Do I know them?
Ugh.
It’s only been a couple days, and Kevin has cleaned all the guns in England. I’ve run out of shit for him to do in the cabin, so I suggested he hit the weight room to work on his body. He’s in great shape, but he needs to burn the energy or he’ll be upright on his feet for too much time each day and hurt himself. He’s as dumb as me, and that’s saying something. Oak is still messed up. His foot has picked up an infection, and they stepped up the antibiotics to do damage control. Like all Rangers, he can’t sit still, and I think his constant activity is making it worse.
He’ll listen now. Lancaster went up one side of him and down the other from what I hear, and that’s gonna need some painkillers too.
I’m sort of at a loss, I won’t lie. My people are holding it together, getting everything that needs to get done, done, but I feel like I’m floundering. I totally feel like the asshole officer that’s taking too long to make a decision, that strikes all of his subordinates as being a fucking chicken shit. Maybe some of those tentative officers Kevin and I shat on back in the day were just overwhelmed with bad options, insufficient resources, lack of sleep, and a dead sex life.
Oooooh. I think they call that empathy.
I dunno. Zombies are roaming all over again, albeit in lower density than what we’ve heard, but that makes moving around difficult again. It’s like the very first days of the apocalypse, though with faster, somewhat more clever undead to deal with.
Abby’s been checking in on me. She has a sense when I’m off my game. Maybe it’s all the time we’ve spent together, maybe it’s just her way. She’s been popping in, and leaving me cups of coffee in the morning when I don’t hit the galley for breakfast fast enough, and she keeps making me play with Gavin in the afternoon. We can’t play outside as much, as the weather is getting chillier, but it’s still a lot of fun to tickle the living shit out of him. He’s a good looking kid, and smart. He’s got good parents, and the best chance any kid will ever have nowadays.
I’m playing checkers, and this motherfucker coming at us is playing chess. No other way for me to look at it. I’m reacting to him. Letting him dictate the environment. Letting him make his moves, and not being assertive enough in our plan. Waiting to see what this group does doesn’t get me to Croydon, doesn’t get Hal to his family, and doesn’t find us the Soul, or the Warden.
It’s just the Scribe sitting like a fucking crayon eater taking notes as a secondary character in the story has their day in the sun. Well fuck that.
Fuck that sideways with a pineapple.
Man I’d love some pineapple. I miss citrus in large quantities.
Let’s make a plan to get fuel. Let’s do that, and get it done, and then see what this shit for brains does in response. I’ll circle the wagons, assemble the brain trust, and we’ll get a plan together. Because we’re going to hit the fuel yard most likely from the water, I NEED the sailors and Rosario to take the lead on planning for this. I am a ground pounder, not a swimmer, and anytime boats become a critical part of the plan, I must r
espect my lack of knowledge, and let the professionals do their thing.
This won’t be their first shoreline fuel retrieval operation. However, it will be mine. So yeah, there’s that.
Scritching Otis, then getting my shit in gear. Fuck this arsonist.
Wait… did we piss off a surviving firefighter? Did taking the trucks from the fire station trigger some dude who worked there? Would that explain the undead that were on the Mutual Aid farm?
Meh. Doesn’t matter. Diesel and ship fuel. Let’s do this.
-Adrian
November 18th
Been a couple days, Mr. Journal.
Two things to report;
More radio crackles late at night. Creepy, almost… shit I think I’d describe as absent-minded, and fumbling, but… sinister. There’s a break on the radio first, then a pause where it’s off, then a few more activations of the traffic button, and you can hear like, mumbled laughter. Then, after a few seconds, the laughter sort of… assembles itself, like Legos from Hell, and the mic is held down correctly for maybe ten seconds, and all you hear is this… sinister, manic, low-toned laughter from a deep-voiced man.
I can only compare it to the Native American dude with the huge knife from Predator, when he finally goes crazy, and decides to challenge the alien to a duel on the log bridge. We all know how that went for him. If you don’t know how that went for him, go find a DVD of the movie, and try to watch it. Solid, solid action flick. Very quotable too.
Second thing to report:
After lots of visual inspection with binoculars, several zodiac trips to the water’s edge, and a lot of planning, Rosario and her squad have a plan for fuel retrieval they’re comfortable with. Because I’m not a fuel guy, or a boat guy, or very useful big picture, I’m going to go inland with my people on our three trucks to secure the perimeter while the fuel dudes do their thing from the water side.
Dead Cities: Adrian's March. Part Four (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 12) Page 19
