Midnight (Adrian's Undead Diary)

by Chris Philbrook

  What confuses me, is that when the other speaker asked what we were heading downtown for, Gilbert said he wasn’t sure. He just knew that we were planning one more trip. Now Gilbert knows we wanted to do one, possibly two more trips. One more trip to the station for the pumper truck, and once more to the grocery store to get the guns off the roof. But he didn’t say that. He either declined to say it to keep a secret from that person, or he’d forgotten, which seems really unlikely to me. Gilbert is far too sharp to have forgotten anything.

  The other voice after that said something about okay, well you be careful, and then something like, don’t let “him” get you killed.

  Really not sure what to make of that. On one hand, the part of the conversation I heard seemed mundane and harmless. On the other hand, it was Gilbert, telling people about MY FUCKING ACTIVITIES! Grrr.

  I feel so betrayed. I haven’t said anything to anyone. Today was awkward. I wound up sleeping in because of the vike I took, and when I finally crawled out of here at noon, everyone was already in full swing. Took me just about every ounce of focus I had to not be a prick to people, and to not just scream out what the hell I’d heard on the radio. Man. So hard to not throw him under the damn bus. Abby and Randy were out gathering wood for their woodstove, and Patty was inside relaxing keeping Chuck company. He’s doing fairly well. His arm is a little swollen and red, but there doesn’t appear to be an infection. Trying to keep it mostly immobile. He was a little out of it from the painkillers we’ve got him on, but that’s for the best.

  I made sure to rain praise down on the whole family. Everyone performed to a pretty high standard when they had to the other day, and they needed to know they did a good job. I am relying on these people, and if they do a good job, they need to know it.

  Abby and Patty took the praise well. Even Randy did too, and all he did was hold down the fort. He still needed to know that in doing what he did, and being brave and well behaved was a big, important part to everything going well. He beamed. I felt like I was at work again, helping the kids. Made my day.

  Didn’t make me forget about Gilbert’s bullshit though.

  Patty wanted to know when we were going back down to the grocery store or the fire station again and I told her I didn’t know. I really wanted to hit the police station once more for the pump truck, but in reality it could wait. Our real priority, especially considering our recent ammunition consumption and Gilbert’s fucked up transgression was getting that ammo off the roof, regardless of whatever it was. We needed more bullets badly. If we get into a firefight with the Westfield people tomorrow, we are going to be up shit’s creek with the paddle jammed where the sun doesn’t shine.

  Patty and Abby suggested that we roll out tomorrow. I said no, but their reasoning was solid. We take the plow and the ladder truck, and simply go to the grocery store. There only needs to be two drivers, and our time outside the vehicles will be almost nil. Patty can drive the ladder truck, as it’s just slightly larger than the rescue truck she handled the other day, and I can drive the plow and clear the lot for us to move around in.

  Chuck, in his drugged up state even offered to sit in the cab of the ladder truck with a .22 and perform security while I hit the roof. Makes some sense too, as the Marlin 60 can take 17 rounds, so he won’t have to reload much, if at all. Abby can pull security as well.

  Not sure about Gilbert though. Well, at that point in the conversation I’d decided to leave him out of it, but since then I’ve changed my mind. More on that in a second.

  Abby, Patty and I all took a jaunt to the back parking lot and figured out how to operate the ladder on the ladder truck. Turns out, it’s fairly simple. We almost tipped the fucker over though when we forgot to put the stabilizers out. Oops. You’d think there’d be a safety setting to stop that from happening, but the truck is kinda old. It’s a small town. We can’t afford all the new high tech shit.

  We got it down to the point where we could stop the truck, get it stabilized, and get the ladder up in five minutes. Not shabby at all. Hopefully we can avoid the undead, hit them with the plow, or get in and out before they get through the parking lot to us and our vehicles. With luck, this could be a ten to twenty minute operation.

  After doing that for three hours in the cold, we decided the mission was a go for the 19th. Now what to do about Gilbert? My options as I saw them were this: I could tell him right then, and see if he tells other people about it first, and then I’ve got him by the short and grey hairs. Or, I don’t tell him at all, and then tell him when we get back. That, or I can tell him first thing in the morning, as we’re leaving, and then leave the radios on to see if he tells anyone while we’re on our way down… Interesting eh? So much plotting.

  I have opted to stop at his place on our way out tomorrow morning and tell him we’re leaving. See what happens and see how he reacts. I’m not sure what the hell is up, and I don’t know who he was talking to last night, but I aim to find out. Not before he talks to them again mind you... I want to catch him red handed and see if I can get to the bottom of it all.

  So yeah. Really fucking angry, but also kind of excited to catch Gilbert and all his espionage bullshit. I really trusted that guy, and to find out he’s talking to someone else on the side now.. Not fucking cool. Makes me regret being nice to him in the first place. I hope I’m wrong about whatever it is he’s doing. I hope he was talking to an ammunition manufacturer and was really putting in a giant order to be delivered or something.

  Tomorrow we make a lightning strike on the grocery store, and if all goes well, we’ll be in and out in under 20 minutes. Assuming Gilbert doesn’t have something sketchy planned for us up his sleeves.

  I knew that bastard was sandbagging me.

  -Adrian

  January 19th

  Just wow Mr. Journal. What a fucking day. Rescued from the clutches of depression by a dramatic change in the world? Maybe. Still a little up in the air I guess. I’m rambling.

  This could be the moment where the scales start to tip in Adrian’s favor for a change. Could it be? A change for the better? A streak of good luck? Yeah right huh? I’m sure all this good shit means my cock is gonna fall off, or I’ve got anal cancer.

  Sigh. Positive mental outlook Adrian. Today was… pretty amazing.

  We started our day bright and early. Mostly because early gives us a lot of daylight to work with, but also because I didn’t sleep for shit again last night. I sat there in bed, all damn night with the radio sitting in its charger cradle next to me. I waited for Gilbert to contact his “mysterious” friend, but nothing happened. I think I got perhaps three hours of broken up sleep over the whole night. Needless to say, I was up early.

  Brutally cold this morning. Thermometer said it was five below, and that’s not counting wind chill. I screwed around with the ladder for an hour or so as the sun came up to make sure we knew exactly how to get it done. Patty wound up coming out and joining. Apparently Chuck woke up early too and was in pain. She got him half a painkiller and set him up with breakfast, and heard me down here messing with the ladder. We hung out together for awhile and got it down pat. She talked about her relationship with Charles, and having her open up some was nice.

  I was more or less right. Chuck was struggling with the weight of killing those men, and feeling stupid and helpless, etc. He was also furious that Randy was being a dick over the Xbox lately, plus Charles felt like he owed me and could never repay it etc. Poor guy. She said the gun training and the being brought in on more things around campus really helped. She also thought (and this is weird) that now with his broken arm, he was, “in.” You know, like bloodied enough to run with the big boys. As weird as that sounds, it does make some sense. He’s got his battle scar now. He’s been in the shit.

  After I felt we had messed around with the ladder enough, we went inside. Abby and Charles were more or less ready to go. Charles was in a good place for pain with the painkiller Patty gave him. Comfortably numb, but not entirely out of it.
Abby was very much “all business” and I knew she’d be good to go. Even Patty was calm and ready to get to work. It really felt like we were becoming a team of ready people, as opposed to a bunch of scared people being led off a cliff like lemmings. Randy made the trip with us this time. His sole job was to reload the Marlin when and if Charles ran out of bullets, or to take over should Charles be unable to shoot. He looked nervous as balls, but excited too.

  Weapons load out for us changed, as you’d imagine after our last run downtown. Abby was not bringing the Marlin, just the Browning .22 pistol. We vowed to get her some range time with a 9mm soon, as she seems ready for it. Charles has the Marlin now, and can shoot it out the window with one hand somewhat accurately. Patty is rocking the Tac .22, and my personal load is the same, except now I’ve only got 2 magazines for the M15A4. A lot lighter, but that’s weight I never want to come off me.

  Not cool. I was definitely not happy about my ammo situation, but the more I thought about it, the less important it seemed. I mean shit, I went down to the grocery store in June with a .22 and a shotgun and made it out. I’ve got 60 rounds of 5.56, a great rifle, a great pistol, and three people with me that are field tested, and pretty good shots. Seriously, that’s a huge fucking improvement.

  So once we were geared up, we headed to Gilbert’s place. Patty had no trouble driving the giant ladder truck, but I asked her to stay on Auburn Lake Road and wait. I didn’t want her trying to negotiate the cul de sac with the giant truck unless she had to. Abby and I zipped down the road to Gilbert’s place, and we knocked on the door. He came to the door in his peejays with a slightly surprised look on his face. He asked what the hell we were doing, and I told him. Last minute plan, everything should be easy, and he could come if he wanted.

  To his credit, he said hang on, and got his shit together. We were on the road within ten minutes. When we rejoined Patty on Auburn Lake Road Gilbert got out of the plow and switched to the fire truck. Better visibility, higher off the ground, and all in all just safer. We did a quick comms check and we were off.

  Now a comms check seems like it might be a bad idea, right? I guess that’s one way to look at it. If there was someone out there listening, we were basically telling them we were on the move. I specifically didn’t say anything about where we were going. All we said was “daily comms check, everyone check in please.” That way we weren’t tipping our hand. We had my radio, the fire truck radio, and then Patty had her own radio, so three voices chimed in. Gilbert didn’t bring his radio.

  Anyway, I thought it was a good idea because if someone WAS listening, I wanted them to think we didn’t know about them. If they thought they had the element of surprise, I could misinform them at my leisure. Plus I didn’t want to tip Gilbert off to the fact that I knew he and someone else was up to something. That was my logic at the time, right or wrong.

  And we were off. Like a herd of turtles, shuffling down the road. Once again the roads were decent for driving, even though we got a dusting of snow overnight last night. Nothing was amiss until we turned onto Main Street, which seems to be the rule lately. I don’t know why, but they never seem to make it past Main Street. I don’t know if they get to the end of the street and lose our trail, or they’re getting distracted by something or what, but that’s pretty much as far as they’ve gotten.

  There was something like 15 or 20 zombies milling about in the road on Main Street. Mind you, we only went as far as the grocery store. Just as I was dropping the plow and turning into the parking lot of the store though, Abby pointed down the road at a pretty substantial gathering of undead. I’d say maybe two thirds the size of the group we left behind from the other day. They were milling about in the road, and as soon as she pointed in their direction, they started to assemble and head in our direction. I figured we had 15 or 20 minutes until they got to us.

  I had Abby watch the clock in the truck and I started plowing the lot. Luckily the snow was loosely formed in the shape of the curbs so I was able to plow the way down to the store without smashing the truck at all. I knew our best approach was to get on the roof from the front of the store. That way I wouldn’t have to plow around the back. Time was everything on this trip. After 3 minutes of plowing, she called time and that was it, we were on to part 2.

  I basically plowed straight down to the store, then cleaned an area that was roughly the shape of a giant lollipop so we had the space to park both vehicles, as well as turn around. Patty waited in the road until I was done, then I radioed her to “come on down.”

  She parked the truck just about perfectly and we sprung into action. Abby kept track of time for us again, and she called time at 5 minutes once, just as we got the stabilizers down, and the ladder on its way up. As soon as the ladder was up, I told the women to pull security, and that I’d take care of everything else. It took me another 45 seconds to get the ladder just right, and then I was off. Up, up and away.

  The front of the grocery store is pretty much all a façade. It’s a giant advertising sign. At the top there was a three foot tall ledge made of wood and vinyl. As soon as I got high enough on the ladder, I knew this was going to be a little more complicated. Milling about on the roof were three zombies.

  They were dressed like the sniper who shot at me was dressed when I came here in June. Dressed for battle, or dressed for hunting. They were wearing ammo vests, and they were all covered in blood. They had to have been survivors from the shootout that made it to the roof that day, and must have succumbed to wounds, starvation, or were bitten by their dead friends. No matter how you slice it, they had to be put down.

  Now the rifle was a difficult option on the ladder three stories up over the parking lot, so I opted for the Glock. By the time I drew it the zombies were almost at the façade, reaching across the open space at me, and I had to shoot quick. I braced myself on the ladder, radioed down that I was about to fire my weapon, and took my shots. It was a little windy up there, and freezing cold to boot, so I missed my first shot. It took me five shots to kill all three of the undead pricks. Luckily they dropped backwards instead of going head over heels over the façade.

  Once I was sure there was no other lurking undead just on the other side of the façade I got up, put the Glock away, and jumped off the ladder and over the wall. I landed on my side in the snow pretty softly, and got to work as fast as I could. I brought an empty bag over my shoulder and searched the pockets of the people I’d just shot. They had a good amount of ammo on them, though I didn’t get to count it yet. They also all had handguns in holsters, and I cut their belts and yanked the guns off. They also had a few magazine holsters as well, which is awesome. Again, haven’t checked it all yet.

  It took me almost ten minutes of kicking the snow around to find a bag. Hurt like a bitch when I smashed my toe on it too. It was actually more than one bag. There was a pile of rifles and shotguns in their own carrying cases, which was awesome. I didn’t look through them, I just leaned them up and kept scouring. I found a heavy duty gym bag that had about 15 boxes of various kinds of ammo in it too. They were moist, but I think they’re good for shooting.

  I wound up hollering down to Abby for help. There was no way I could get it all down in one pass. She came up the ladder, a little nervous too, and took the bag of ammo, and one of the long guns. Once she made it down safely, I came over and grabbed everything else to head down. Before I did though, I took a good long look around at town. I hadn’t been this high up in town since probably last winter when I went to a co-workers party at her apartment downtown. She lived in the tallest building in town, which was the 5 story or so building near the center of town.

  I could see her building, it was maybe a mile away. Trees, snow, and other buildings obscured me seeing anything ground level far away, but I could without a doubt see a lot of destroyed houses. It looked an awful lot like fire was unkind to that area. With no fire department, any house fire is a nightmare. I could see huge swathes of town were decimated, just flattened and blackened
from being burnt out. Even the tall apartment building had areas covered with scorch marks, like a few apartments had caught fire.

  I can’t even imagine the horror. One of the more disturbing things I saw, dotting the landscape in all directions, in every neighborhood, I could see signs of smoldering ruins. Dozens of fires either still burning slowly, or completely burnt out. That told me there were still people all over the place, and that they had recently burnt their own homes down somehow. House fires are a lot more common when people are using electric heaters, falling asleep smoking a butt, or using makeshift wood stoves. It would’ve sucked to have made it this far, just to die in a house fire, with zombies beating down your down, waiting for you to open up to escape.

  Fucking creepy.

  My town is ruined. It’d take years to rebuild it even if we had federal support and an army of builders. That’s all gone now. Everyone is dead or dying, scraping out some kind of life out of the ruins. Just like us.

  Gunshots from below broke my trance. The giant pack of undead was at the edge of the parking lot, and Charles and Patty were firing at them, cutting the lead walkers down. I watched them shoot for a second and had a huge moment of pride. Charles was shooting all half assed out the window of the fire truck below, and Patty was leaning against the truck to steady herself. Both were shooting slowly, aiming carefully, and actually hitting their targets. I watched bodies disappear into the deep snow one after another.

  It wouldn’t be enough though. There were at least a hundred of them coming, probably more like two or three hundred. I climbed down as desperately as I could, trying not to drop my armload of long guns. I actually did fumble one as I was getting off the ladder, and it poomphed into the snow. I was convinced it was going to go off and blast one of my ass cheeks clear off. Felt like I had that coming to be honest. Remind me to tell you my “how my friend got shot in the ass” story sometime. It’s a winner.