Midnight (Adrian's Undead Diary)

by Chris Philbrook

  We tossed the weapons in the back of the truck pretty much simultaneously, and I started to get the ladder put down and away. It took less time to put away, thankfully. One minute and twenty seconds to be exact. I had Abby count that off too. Once the ladder was secured I hollered out to Patty that we were moving. She got in the ladder truck after taking one last head shot at a zombie 30 feet away. I tell you what….. deep snow makes for an amazing trap for them things. They can’t wade through it effectively, and they fall down a lot, tripping the others up. What a blessing that was.

  We got the fuck moving. Nick of time too. The leading edge of the horde was maybe ten feet from the front plow blade before we got moving. Now I parked the plow in front so I could sweep our path a little clearer if needed, and it needed it. Now I’m talking about snow as well as zombies here. I gunned it, blasted through the handful that’d made it near us, and spun a wide arc to give Patty more room with the truck. Once I was off, she gunned her rig as well, and we were off.

  That’s when the radio fired up. The first transmission was something like this, “Hey out there, everything okay? Hearing some faint gunfire is that you, over?”

  Frankly, I nearly drove the fucking truck into a light pole. I was not expecting that at all. I grabbed the walkie handset on my collar and thumbed it to respond. I said something like this, “Everything is fine thank you. May I ask who this is, over?”

  “My name is Jason. Who is this? This is an emergency police channel, over.” No shit. Jason the cop. I fucking knew that guy. He was probably the youngest guy on the force. Wowzas.

  “Jason Chambers?” I asked trying to hide my excitement. Abby next to me was literally gaping in a half “holy shit” moment and a half “oh my God this is awesome.”

  “Yeah? Who is this, over?”

  “Adrian Ring. Remember me? You used to date a woman in admissions at ALPA? Amy? We met a few times?” I was amazed he was alive.

  “Yeah holy shit man. Figured you were dead. Any idea what happened to Amy?”

  She was dead. “Yeah Jason. She didn’t make it. Got bitten the first day I think.” Man I hated to tell him that, but he needed to hear it. I could see Abby frowning. I think she got along with Amy. Shit I got along with Amy, she was really nice.

  He was quiet for some time as we drove down Main Street heading towards home, after a few hundred yards he responded, “Yeah well. Happened to a lot of people. That sucks.”

  “Yeah man I’m sorry.” We were quiet for a minute. Long enough to get to the end of Main Street. A different voice came on the radio next, and I recognized it. I instantly knew it was the same voice Gilbert was talking to in the middle of the night.

  “Mr. Ring, this is Chief of Police Brian Moore. It’s nice to hear another voice.”

  No fucking way. Now I knew who raided the police station arms lockers. And Gilbert, that old bastard was talking to him? Man that set my gears spinning. I responded something like this, “Hey Chief. You realize there’s no government any more right? You’re sort of out a job really.”

  He responded laughing, “Yeah, yeah. They keep telling me that here. Was that you guys firing downtown a bit ago? Our spotters said they heard gunfire in the distance. Few miles away.”

  I did the math. Gunfire doesn’t travel much more than a few miles. They had to be within 5 miles or so of the grocery store at most. “Yeah that was probably us. Hey did you know there are a shitload of zombies out here?”

  ‘Yeah they keep telling me that too. We haven’t left in some time though, got it pretty well set up here. Plenty of room now too. We’ve got electricity and hot water. Hot food too.” Ever the fucking salesman.

  “Where are you guys? How many are you?” I figured what the fuck, he might answer.

  “We’re at Solar Technology Innovations Group, in the industrial complex going out of town. There’s about a hundred and fifty of us here now. We’ve got plenty of supplies, and food, and from the sounds of how you're doing, we could use your help too.”

  Hm. Interesting. Hundred and fifty people. What the fuck was Gilbert thinking? How did he know what was going on there? Was he messing around on the radio? What was up? Lots of thoughts Mr. Journal, running rampant right now.

  “Well Chief, I’m not alone, you’d need space for a few dozen.”

  He responded after a minute, “Adrian please call me Brian. Like you said, I’m sort of out of a job right? Well, we can take that many. We had almost two hundred here to start, but lots of folks have left to go home, or go search for relatives, plus we lose people here and there to, well, you know. We’d be delighted to have you Adrian. You and your people.”

  You know I always liked him. Stand up guy with a good family life. Not a dick cop either. Fair, smart, just a good dude. I liked his dad too, he owned Moore’s Sporting Goods where I got my first guns “that day.” Anyway, I wasn’t about to speak for everyone else right there.

  “Well, we can communicate on this channel tomorrow, let’s say at six pm? I gotta talk to my people before I say anything else.” Figured that’d buy me some time.

  “No rush. Take care of your people. Talk to you tomorrow around 6pm. Brian out.”

  I didn’t use the radio again during our ride back. Half of that was because I didn’t want them to hear anything we said, and the other half was because Abby was hysterical over the idea that there were even a hundred and fifty people alive. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I hate to admit it, but I was smiling too.

  The ride back was uneventful. Nothing of note anywhere in the roads, and no flat tires either. Yay for the little things. When we got back to campus the mood was one of ecstasy. Well, once we got poor Chuck back into Hall A and medicated. His arm was fucking killing him, and I think he’d had enough of Randy breathing down his throat for two hours. All told, the trip was probably an hour and a half at most. Pretty good.

  We kept one radio on and all sat down in the Hall A kitchen. Randy (who has become quite the talented stove tender) got the stove flared up some, and in short order we were all toasty again. I didn’t realize how cold my frigging feet were.

  So yeah. Cocoa. We had a bunch of the sealed packs from somewhere, and after getting some water hot on the stove we all had one. Lots of chatter. Gilbert and I both sat back and watched them all. I mostly sat back and tried to watch Gilbert. He was reserved. Not sure what my read was on him just yet either. He’s a damn good liar.

  I’ll boil down our three hour debate as best I can. Chuck and Patty think we should pack up our shit and go. Like tomorrow. They think the Chief will be able to protect them, and they think there are endless amounts of food and water and power and whatever else their heart desires there. Randy will do whatever his mom and dad want. Abby wants to stay here, as she’s comfortable here, and she has a general disdain for authorities.

  Gilbert thinks doing anything quickly would be hasty. He’s set up in his house all snug as a bug in a rug anyway, so he’s not going anywhere I’d bet. Although, he obviously has some kind of connection to these guys already. Gonna have to get to the bottom of that.

  I don’t know what to think. I agree that hasty decisions are bad. (Not that I don’t have a history of being impulsive lol) But I think we’ve got a damn good thing going here, and walking away from it would be a bad idea. We’d need to talk to them more, make sure we were compatible, and even visit their place. Shit, we probably have it better here anyway.

  So here’s the plan. Tomorrow I take inventory of the stuff we got today. I dug it all out of the snow in the truck bed after our meeting and got it inside. I think we made out big time too. I saw some juicy morsels in those bags, and as long as they’re still working, we might be rolling in it. Oprah rich up in this bitch. Ooh. That rhymed.

  After that we’re making the call to Brian to chew the fat. Our plan is this: be cordial, shoot the shit, and exchange as much non crucial information as we can. We might even see if we can start doing trades. I know we’ve got spare stuff and from the sounds of it
, and so do they. Maybe we can open lines of communication through mutually beneficial trade? I also think tomorrow I will let Patty and or Chuck in on the fact that Gilbert is being shady somehow. I need allies against Gilbert if something is shifty, and they’re all I got. Otis might be my people, but he’s terrible when it comes to conversation or debate. He can only meow in so many ways.

  So yeah. Awesome. More guns, more ammo, and potentially more people. More people that haven’t tried to kill us.

  Yet.

  -Adrian

  January 21st

  It occurs to me that frequently when I sit down to put an entry in Mr. Journal, I find myself either angry, or conflicted. I bet if I went back and took note of all the entries that I started out on a happy note, I could count them on one hand. It’s terrible.

  I will start this entry out by saying I am currently feeling… mixed up. So much is happening, and things feel like they’re getting out of my control. I didn’t get the chance to do the weapons inventory I wanted to do yesterday. Too busy plotting and scheming. I knew I was supposed to be getting ready to talk to Brian on the radio at 6pm, and I couldn’t focus on what I was doing without getting distracted. Plus something very weird happened earlier today. I mean capital W weird.

  I wound up doing a campus patrol on foot yesterday morning, and I stopped at the archery range and sent some of the fancy arrows from the new high tech bow flying. Got pretty good with it after an hour. Patty wound up coming out to talk to me about halfway through. She’s worried about Charles.

  Patty is scared of the STIG people. She’s got a pretty substantial chip on her shoulder about the Westfield incident, and she sees the same thing happening again. Charles on the other hand has this “good feeling” about Brian, and thinks that moving the family to a solar power company is the best idea since sliced bread. She said he’s pretty dead set on the idea. Patty wants to wait it out awhile and get to know them more. She was worried about my plans on the matter.

  I told her I was worried as well. I also told her that Brian Moore is a stand up dude who I respected. I told her I also knew the other cop on the radio, and that he was a good guy as well. If they had a hundred and fifty people there and were okay on food and water and energy, there was a lot to think about. Food water and energy are three of the four resources that are critical right now. (The fourth resource being security.) And like I said, we needed to THINK about it.

  STIG is all the way across town. Miles past the furthest point into town we’ve been. Both times we’ve ventured out that far we’ve been overwhelmed by an army of undead, and if we’re planning on going that far again, then we need to make a strong plan. She agreed. I told her I’d come over to Hall A when I was about to contact Brian. We left it that we’d see how the conversation with Brian went, and then talk after.

  Gilbert showed up on campus at 4:30 when I was jotting notes down. He knocked and I let him in to Hall E. I tried my best to hide my emotions, but I think he knows something is up. He didn’t say anything, I just had that feeling.

  He asked me what my plan was, and I told him I had no plan yet. He scolded me for not having a plan, and then discussed a few of his own ideas. I’m sure he was planting his own seeds, but his ideas were strange to me. They definitely confused me about his role in the matter after the radio conversation I overheard the other night.

  He said we should flat out not move there. More accurately, he said he definitely wasn’t moving there. Too many people in one place like that is just bad news in his opinion. He felt we needed to be close, but not packed in like sardines, and that’s exactly what those people were. 150 people in one huge building. That definitely sounds like a recipe for disaster considering the state of the world.

  I had to agree with him. I definitely wanted to get in touch, stay in touch, and if possible, enter into a trade agreement. My worry was that with the Williams family split on the matter, it’d cause problems. I didn’t want Charles to be miserable here, and I don’t want Charles to be miserable there if his family splits up. It just seems like lose/lose to me. Gilbert agreed.

  Here’s the pisser. What’s Gilbert’s fucking angle? He’s talking to them already, and judging from the conversation I heard the other night he’s already been talking to them. That tells me he either had a radio already, or he’s been communicating some other way. Come to think of it… He has been tooling around on that snowmobile a lot. And that clever bastard said he wanted a fuel barrel near his house.

  Tomorrow I’m checking that barrel and seeing if it’s lower than it should be. I bet that’s it. I bet he’s been going out and making trips and somehow talked to them. Although a radio seems more likely. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow when I check the barrel. That also raises another question. If he’s been in physical contact with the STIG people, then he knows how to get there and back unscathed. Even if it’s on a snowmobile, that’s a highly valuable bit of intel.

  Anyway. I guess the point is that I’m not sure what Gilbert’s angle is. He’s obviously friendly with them, but he’s telling me to be cautious in dealing with them. He’s playing both sides here, and that almost always ends badly. Of course, he was a Green Beret Captain, and they are well known for doing just that with great success. They train to build indigenous support, gather intelligence, subvert the enemy, and overcome with minimal resources expended.

  What is he up to?

  By then it was almost six, so we jaunted to Hall A. Everyone was gathered at the table, and we sat down. I had my notepad, and Patty had hers. At precisely 6pm on the dot, the radio fired up, and it was Brian. He was breaking up some, but overall the signal worked. We talked for the better part of two hours.

  I won’t bore you with every detail. This was an ice breaking conversation. Brian’s side of it was recanting how he handled “that day” and how his wife died. I guess she died in a car crash near their house, and wandered through the neighborhood, killing two people and his beagle before he shot her himself. Insult and injury. His two kids and his mom lived, which was great.

  After that he got the call that a few officers of his and a bunch of plant officials had set up shop at STIG. It makes total sense, and I wish I’d thought of it. The plant is over a hundred thousand square feet, and is almost entirely powered by solar energy. Part of the building is shaped like a donut, and has a courtyard adjacent to their cafeteria that can be converted into a garden in the spring, and they’ve got a ton of food. He said they’ve scrounged a lot from that side of town as well, and they’re good on food supplies.

  The bad news he had was the fallout from “that day.” Like I said I lost all media and information access in short order, and the electricity wasn’t far behind that, but the police radios stayed up and running for weeks. They lasted as long as people kept them charged, and used them. Shit we’re still using them now.

  Police and firemen used them to relay information to each other across great distances. The repeater towers for the cities and state went out when the power died so they literally had to “pony express” messages across the state. One radio to the next, passing the messages along like a game of telephone. From the sounds of it, that news was rarely good.

  The two entirely new things he shared with me about the world were pretty fucking humbling. First off, people fucking suck. Remember the grocery store shootout I sort of caught the tail end of in June? Guess what? The store manager paid those assholes to keep Brian’s people out. Brian was attempting to procure the goods for his folks, and the store manager said fuck no. Brian said they showed up in uniform, with badges, and the store manager and his people still leveled guns at them. All those men were killed by Brian and his people. Killed by cops. I don’t know what to think about that. On one hand, if I were Brian, I’d do the same thing. On the other hand…. Did he have any authority at that point to appropriate food? Fucked if I know.

  The second really shitty thing was disease. From what he said the undead hit in two heavy waves. The first wave was “that day�
� and the second wave was maybe 40 or 50 days later, sometime around the first week of August. The first wave of undead was starting to thin out, and people were beginning to think it was safer to move around again. People didn’t have access to a lot of freshwater in the urban environments, so they were drinking bad water, or they were all leading the undead to the sources of freshwater. Unlike animals in Africa, zombies observe no truce at the watering hole.

  Lots of people got sick from waterborne parasites that exist everywhere. With no toilets people were shitting and pissing like idiots near where they ate, and that started all kinds of stomach illnesses, which couldn’t be addressed because there were like, no fucking doctors anywhere. E Coli, Salmonella from bad food, dysentery, cholera…. It was like diseases were on sale. Those deaths started the second heavy wave of undead. Now we’re left to handle the remnants from both major outbreaks.

  Brian said he lost six people to a violent stomach bug in September, and they wound up killing nearly ten more after they died before he and his people got it under control. Luckily they’ve got good freshwater there. I guess the STIG building collects rainwater or snow and has a purifier. Yay for green technology. Pretty nice.

  As I was saying, the second wave of undead in August was triggered by people starving, drinking bad water, and people getting sick. Hungry people make shitty decisions. Sick people the same. He said from August to December they couldn’t go downtown at all for any reason. The bodies were so thick in the roads it was impossible to get anything but large trucks through, and even then it became too dangerous.

  That’s hardcore shit if it’s the truth. I’m inclined to think it is. He sounded legit.

  I kept my side of the story close to my chest. I told him about my stories downtown “that day,” and coming up here because of the remote location, and the bridge as a security feature. Plus we had generators, freshwater nearby, plenty of land to start growing shit, etc etc. I told him I started meeting people early on, and that we had a “fair amount” here. All in all that conversation was pretty positive. I think we both wanted to just open the lines of communication. We agreed that we’d talk again tomorrow at six, which was today just a little bit ago.