Midnight (Adrian's Undead Diary)

by Chris Philbrook

  After the conversation Gilbert said that went, “Goddamn perfect!” He seemed very pleased with how I handled it, and how everything went down. He immediately launched into this complex series of instructions on how we could build relationships with Brian, and how to integrate our group into his in a beneficial way. Charles of course was gung ho to get up and leave right then, and to be honest, Patty definitely seemed swayed after listening to Brian’s stories. I didn’t get a read on Abby about it, and Randy seemed lost. He plugged back into the Xbox and that was that.

  I headed to Hall E and went over my notes. I drifted to sleep in the recliner with Otis in my lap. I had the radio sitting in a charger cradle next to me in case there were some illicit conversations. I heard nothing.

  Early morning I was feeling bored. I made myself a decent breakfast, and did the campus patrol again on foot. I found a zombie at the bridge. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen one there. It was a fairly normal looking guy, aside from the fact that he was bitten to shit. He had blood everywhere on his clothing.

  I stood in the road near admissions and watched him. He was in the middle of the road, maybe ten feet from the first van, not quite on the bridge. His head was slung down, and his arms were hanging down straight, just slightly crossed, almost like he was clasping his hands together. He didn’t notice me at all. I figured now was as good a time as any to get some time with the bow, so I notched up one of the fancier hunting arrows, and lined up a shot.

  Here’s where it gets weird. Now, the bow doesn’t have a scope. But anyone who uses gun sights can tell you that putting the sight in front of your eye brings things further away into focus. It’s like squinting. When I brought the bow up and lined up the shot, I noticed his hands.

  On his left wrist was a dirtied watch. His right hand was pointed at the watch, and slowly, one tap a time, his index finger tapped the yellowing face of the watch. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Like he was waiting for something.

  Like he was counting down the time until something would happen.

  As soon as I realized that he’s tapping, he stops, and I look up, and now he’s looking right at me. Staring me straight in the fucking face with those milky, vacant eyes. I’ve got goose bumps now just writing about it.

  Yeah.

  I exhaled slowly, and let the string go. The broad arrowhead pierced his left eye and came out the back of his skull. He went down in a pile, and I vowed not to touch that goddamn body ever. I’d get someone else to move it. That or the thing would sit there and rot until Hell freezes over.

  Fucking creepy. What the shit is up with that?

  As you might imagine Mr. Journal, I have not left Hall E since. Not feeling safe tonight. I hollered over to the Hall A people to come to me for the radio session when I walked by earlier, and they showed up with Gilbert at about 5:30. I didn’t tell them about my freaky watch wearing zombie. Seemed far too fucked up to share right before our radio talk.

  Brian opened it up again at exactly 6pm. Gotta appreciate punctuality. This talk was a little more business, and was the better part of two hours again. Most of it was logistics, and sharing information about what we’d experienced in the downtown area. Effectively his group has been working their way in from the east side of town, and we’ve been working in from the west, moving towards the middle. The northern and southern parts of town are almost exclusively residential, which is both good and bad. Houses likely means zombies, but it also means supplies. Most of the businesses in town have been tossed already, so the last remaining sources of supplies are industrial areas (factories, offices, etc) or houses.

  From what he said, his side of town is pretty much overrun with undead. That’s the area my condo is in. That shoots down an easy trip home to get my shit. That’s also where Steve’s apartment is. I hope he got his nice car and never came home. That reminds me, I need to start changing the channel on my radio to see if he actually does make that call someday. I wonder if this thing has a scan feature?

  Brian and I didn’t specifically discuss the idea of combining our groups, but he did suggest that there was safety in numbers. I told him flat out that wasn’t true. If we came down with another bout of something like bird flu or whatever we’d be up shit’s creek. That and until we were really sure our groups were compatible we needed to build a relationship first. You don’t move in with people you’ve just met.

  He had to concede that point and suggested we open up trade. At the very least, it’d give us a damn good reason to get the downtown area a little more negotiable. He said he knew a route their truck could take that would be safer than the routes they were using before to go downtown, and if we were cool with it, he’d be happy to meet us at a neutral site where we could exchange goods.

  I said that sounded good, and we decided we’d talk again on the 23rd and discuss what we had spare to trade, or to specifically ask for items we needed. Hopefully we have some stuff they want, because I know they have something I want.

  After Brian said goodbye everyone was fucking stoked. Establishing mutually beneficial trading with another group was an amazing concept. As long as the trade was fair to both parties and went down safely, we were good to go. Plus if I could set up the ambush location um, er, meeting location, I’d feel more comfortable about it.

  Lol. Freudian slip there much?

  So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Tomorrow I’m going to check that barrel near Gilbert’s place and see if he’s using more fuel than he should be. After that I’m going to do an inventory of the guns and bullets we got from the store, and take another quick inventory of food to see what we have spare. With any luck, Brian and his people will be in desperate need of spiral bound notebooks. Man if I had a single Twizzler for every one of those I have around here, I’d never want for food again.

  Busy busy. I bet five bucks I dream of that dead guy tapping his watch tonight.

  Five bucks.

  -Adrian

  London

  Darkness.

  Flashing images of violence.

  The grating noise of staccato gunfire, then abrupt silence.

  Tap tap tap.

  “Mr. Whitten. Please wake up,” A female voice spoke from outside the darkness.

  Kevin Whitten suddenly realized he was sleeping, and his eyes snapped open. The images of murder and mayhem disappeared. It took him a second to orient himself. He was on a small plane, a Department of State Lear jet. Kevin was sitting in a plush leather chair near the back of the plane. Next to him was his teammate Nate, and facing Nate in a similar chair was Corey, another one of his young security personnel. Standing next to him in the aisle of the government bird was a female flight attendant. She was really a government staffer. She was tapping him on the shoulder and waking him.

  “Sorry, what’s up?” Kevin sat forward in his chair and rubbed the crusts out of the corners of his eyes. He noticed Corey was covered in a blanket, and looked like he was coming down with a bug or something. His mid 20’s face was cinched up in his fitful sleep. He had a film of sweat on his brow.

  “There’s a call coming in on the satellite phone for you. It’s a Director Lancaster from DOS.” She was pretty. She had short brown hair framing a narrow face. Too skinny for Kevin though.

  “Okay.” And with that, Kevin got up. He reached over and put his hand on Corey’s slick forehead before he walked away. He was burning up. Fucking Israel, Kevin thought. Even when you don’t get shot you still get sick. He followed the staffer to the front of the plane, walking past the slumbering Senator Henke, the man they were trying to protect. Kevin noted Henke was snoring in a low baritone, and seemed to be getting some pretty high quality sleep. His three aides were sitting in the seats surrounding him like sycophantic moons in orbit.

  The pretty staffer picked up the satellite phone off the cradle on the plane’s wall and handed it to Kevin. He cleared his throat before speaking.

  “This is Whitten.”

  “You prepared to have your
day get worse son?” Lancaster’s voice was distinct. Gruff, and throaty. He even did the clucking of his tongue Kevin remembered from their previous conversation earlier that day.

  Kevin closed his eyes and contemplated how much worse his day could get. Things had been pretty shitty in his opinion. He had lost two men in a failed terrorist attack on the Senator a few hours ago in Jerusalem, and he’d watched some of the people killed in that incident get up from clearly lethal wounds, and then attack the living with mindless rage. He had watched the dead come back to life already today, and Lancaster thought he could make Kevin’s day worse. Fat fucking chance.

  “Fantastic sir. I look forward to my new opportunity to serve my government,“ Kevin’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  Lancaster chuckled, and then clucked his tongue again. “My GPS nerds tell me you’re about half an hour from putting down at Heathrow. We are getting some heavy and verifiable reports that whatever it is that was happening to those dead Jewish folks in Israel is now happening in England as well. Looks like your stay in the United Kingdom will be a short one, Son.”

  Kevin couldn’t believe it. How the fuck could that outrace their plane?

  “We are making arrangements right now to get you turned around fast. Your plane will put down at Heathrow on a distant runway, and you will be met by a British escort. I’m trying to get you some SAS bodies, but I think Royal Marines are going to have do. They will chopper you and your team to RAF Mildenhall. We’ve got a giant ass airbase there with a jet that’s gonna take you home.”

  “Can’t we just land at Mildenhall? Isn’t that place huge?” Kevin was running over the maps of England in his memory. He knew there were a lot of bases to choose from.

  “Airspace can’t be cleared for your landing. The 100th Refueling Wing there is balls to the wall getting everything that the Air Force owns up in the air to get home, or get somewhere else to help. The Department of Defense is shitting a cast iron brick right now.” The humor in Lancaster’s delivery couldn’t be missed.

  “Wow.” Kevin didn’t know what to say. If the Pentagon was panicking, then things had to be much worse than he understood.

  “Your pilots are gonna be in touch with the local gun slingers shortly, and when you touch down at Heathrow, they’ll be able to fill you in on the local situation. You got any questions for me? Might be some time before we talk again. Shit, we might not talk again at all. My shift is almost up.” Lancaster seemed happy at the thought.

  Kevin had a few questions, “Lancaster who the fuck is this Henke exactly? I lost two guys for him which I know is the job, but now we’re jumping through some big fucking hoops to get this guy home. DOS bird on standby, now you’re trying to get us an SAS escort to yet another plane in waiting? It’d be nice to know why. Assuming of course it’s not above my pay grade.” Kevin smirked as he rested his head against the interior wall of the cabin.

  Lancaster was silent for a few seconds, and then did his trademark tongue gymnastics. Kevin could almost hear the gears grinding in his head. “Son, you follow politics at all?”

  “I vote.” Kevin rubbed his eyes.

  “Have you ever heard of the title, President pro tempore of the Senate?”

  “Nope. Never was big on Latin.”

  “If the President dies, the Vice President takes over. If the Vice President dies, the Speaker of the House is after that. If he goes, the President pro tempore of the Senate takes over, and that my friend, is your human luggage, Senator Henke. He’s third in the line of succession for the Presidency, and given the rising level of bullshit in the world right now, there’s a good chance he might move up the line in short order.” Lancaster’s delivery was flat, and deadly serious.

  “Okay then. That answers that. What about this fucking dead people bullshit? You know anyone that has any idea what’s going on yet?” This was the real question. One way or the other Kevin would protect Henke. It didn’t matter if he was the President or a plumber.

  “Kevin we don’t know. You got the DOS briefing in Tel Aviv earlier today, so you know more than most already. What we’re hearing now is that it might be biological. Doesn’t seem to be a terrorist attack though. Too widespread, too indiscriminate. Plus the CIA is saying most of the terrorist players are dealing with it too. Their chatter is too panicked and disorganized.”

  “So...? That doesn’t tell me shit. Is it a plague, Armageddon, what?” Kevin looked at his team resting in the luxurious chairs. Their Khaki pants and buttoned shirts were spattered with blood and dirt. They stuck out in stark contrast to the impeccably clean plane interior.

  “I would lean towards the end of days Kevin. We do know this; all bites from the infected apparently are fatal, even little ones. And as you’ve seen, dead folks aren’t really staying dead. If you’ve got anyone near you that’s bitten, you get them the fuck handled.”

  Kevin’s gaze locked onto Corey’s fevered and sweaty face. Corey had been bitten earlier.

  “Kevin?” Lancaster sensed something was wrong in the silence.

  “I got a bitten guy. I’ll handle it.” He shook his head. Lancaster had actually found a way to make Kevin’s day worse.

  *****

  Kevin settled down in his seat next to Nate and settled his attention on Corey. He started to do the math. They had been in the air for about 4 hours. Corey had been bitten about 45 minutes before that. It was a fairly small bite as Kevin recalled, somewhere on his forearm, or wrist. He couldn’t see the wound right now because Corey was covered up to his neck in a federal blue blanket. Corey was still asleep, but his fidgeting was getting worse. Kevin could see his color was fading as well. When he’d gone to get Lancaster’s call Corey was flush with the red from a high fever. Now he was pasty, had turned a bluish pink, and looked drained of life.

  “Sir?” Nate whispered to Kevin.

  “Yeah?” Kevin whispered back, never taking his eyes off Corey’s infected face.

  “Is there any reason why you’re giving Corey that look? You look like you’re fixing to stab him for sleeping with your baby sister.” Nate leaned closer, clearly nervous.

  “Remember the dead people in Jerusalem? The ones that got up and killed Alan and Mike?” Again Kevin’s gaze never turned from the slowly dying teammate sitting across from Nate.

  “Yeah? No one’s dead on the plane sir.” Nate grinned in a failed attempt to lighten the moment.

  “I just found out that if the dead folk bite someone, they infect them with whatever it is that that brings people back from the dead. All bites are fatal.” Kevin finally broke his stare at Corey, and looked intensely at Nate.

  Nate slowly turned away from Kevin and looked at his Marine friend. Kevin could tell Nate was reeling on the inside, even though his face didn’t show any emotion. Marines are good at that. They are always strong no matter how bad it gets. They breed the quit right out of them.

  “He’ll die soon from his bite, and when he does, he’ll come back and try and bite us, just the same as the rest of those assholes did in Jerusalem. Right now, we are minutes away from Heathrow, and we gotta figure out what we’re gonna do about him.” Kevin slowly pointed a finger at Corey.

  Nate nodded, “I’ll do it.”

  Kevin clucked his tongue this time. That seemed fitting. One Marine deserves another. He nodded slowly as he watched Corey again. The pilot gave their typical announcement about the plane being on approach, and to secure their safety belts for landing. Nate fastened his belt, but Kevin didn’t. He wanted no part of being restrained in his seat if Corey suddenly flipped on them and became murderous.

  The pilot made another announcement, “I’ve just been notified by the Heathrow Control tower that two helicopters will be landing as soon as we come to a full stop off the runway. They’re going to take everyone onboard to another location. Best of luck people.”

  Kevin knew the other location was Mildenhall, a giant airbase maintained by the USAF and the RAF. It was a substantial place, and if his memory served him co
rrectly, was perhaps an hour or two by chopper from London.

  The plane’s landing gear slipped down and locked into place, gently rocking the plane. Corey’s head came forward and sank into his chest, lifeless. Nate and Kevin exchanged worried looks. Kevin watched Corey’s chest carefully and realized it wasn’t rising and falling anymore. The plane’s wheels hit the tarmac making the jet lurch in response. Corey’s head swung side to side with no signs of consciousness. Nate reached across the space between and gently hooked the blanket, pulling it off his friend. Kevin noticed immediately as the plane’s brakes slowed them that Corey wasn’t belted in, and he was being pulled forward by the inertia, sending him directly into Nate’s lap.

  “Ahh shit!” Nate exclaimed as he started pushing Corey’s limp body away. It was a losing battle for a few precarious seconds as the plane continued to slow, pushing Corey’s 170 pounds into him with tremendous force. Kevin inserted his left arm between the two men and pushed as hard as he could, relieving Nate. The rest of the team turned in their seats, trying to look towards the back of the cabin, attempting to make heads or tails out of what had made Nate yell.

  “Corey’s dead. He’s gonna reanimate, we need to be ready when the plane stops to move out immediately!” Kevin hollered out to his team over the grinding of the plane’s brakes. As he finished speaking the plane let up on the brakes and they settled into a reasonable taxi speed. Nate pushed with all his might and sent Corey sailing back across the way into his own seat. The dead Marine landed awkwardly in the seat and stayed still.

  “You still have this?” Kevin asked Nate, watching Corey for signs of movement.