Midnight (Adrian's Undead Diary)

by Chris Philbrook

  The human being in me wants him to make it and spring off the couch like a jack rabbit. I would love to have another young and able bodied man to help around here. I’m fed up with always being the muscle. Patty keeps saying he’d be a “great guard” too. I guess he was a spotter or shooter over there before the shit hit the fan. I guess it’d be nice if he miraculously came through, but with the fever he’s running, and his wounds, he’s got shit stacked against him.

  Just heard a gunshot outside, brb.

  -Adrian

  February 6th (2nd entry)

  Abby was on guard and took down a zombie that had wandered to the bridge. That can’t be a good sign. I am feeling like the undead we encountered downtown may have followed us a little further than I would have liked. I really don’t want us to waste ammunition on more random wandering undead. Abby and Patty are on strict instructions to use .22’s to kill if they have to. We’ve got a ton of it to use so it makes no sense to use anything else unless absolutely required.

  Glad she’s got good eyes still. It’s almost 9pm right now and she saw it in the dark like nothing. I’m so glad the two women are still alive. I can live without Chuck, especially the way he and I left it, and I must admit I do miss Randy. He was a little weird, but a lot of kids are at that age. It’s tough to grow up, especially in middle school years. Just a giant torture chamber really. Everyone’s either popular, fat, gay, nerdy or retarded. Everyone gets assigned a category. Nothing is as cruel as school children. Can’t blame the kid for plugging into the Xbox.

  It’s the 6th tonight, and hopefully tomorrow we can start laying down the plan to deal with Sean and the Westfield folks. Gilbert said he’s swirling some ideas around in his melon, and I am as well. Gilbert kept saying that we were “combat ineffective” though, and he’s right. Patty is useless for a week at least with the bad rib, and with Tony here, we can’t do much. We certainly can’t leave him alone. Gilbert, god bless him, is old as hell. He’s a good shot, and sharp as a tack, but as far as combat operations are concerned, he can’t really be relied on. He’s a hamburger away from a heart attack at his age.

  Oh god hamburger. I would murder for a grilled burger right now. Fuck my life.

  Planning. Scheming. Trying to stay sane. More on that front tomorrow Mr. Journal.

  -Adrian

  February 7th

  Tony died today.

  After I rotated out of my shift on watch I did a patrol of campus, then went back to Hall E. Gilbert has been staying there with us to help out, and when I returned from the patrol he met me at the outer door. His face was long and he had the, “Son, something bad happened” look on his face. I can distinctly recall the same expression on my own dad’s face when my grandfather died.

  I asked him if it was Tony, and he said yeah. Guess it happened while I was out on the patrol. He went peacefully, which is good. I guess Patty had fallen asleep and Gilbert had that feeling Tony was about to kick, so he was sitting near him. When Gilbert noticed he had stopped breathing he got Patty awake, and got her out of the room. He wrapped a hand towel around Tony’s head, took a folding knife and did him in the eye. Fortunately dead people don’t bleed much so the towel caught all the blood.

  I’ve got the nagging question in the back of my head about whether or not Gilbert did him manually though. Patty was gone, it was just him and Tony. Gilbert easily could’ve killed him while he was passed out. That idea doesn’t bother me in the least though. Gilbert and I both knew one way or the other Tony’s time was short. I’m just glad Gilbert said he went peacefully, naturally or otherwise.

  Patty was still upstairs crying about it and while I had the chance I took Tony’s body outside. I went and got the four wheeler, got him in the small trailer, and drove him out to the staff housing area where I put the bodies from before. I guess I’ll start another pyre when I get a big enough stack. We’ve already started a decent pile with the roamers coming back up into the campus area. I sure hope there isn’t an army of the fuckers walking up Auburn Lake Road right now. I’d drive down to look, but the noise might attract them in.

  This is so fucking draining. I don’t care if Westfield rolls in here with a dozen Abrams tanks tonight, I’m taking a fucking Ambien. I can’t deal with this right now.

  -Adrian

  February 9th

  Patty’s been weirder since Tony died. I think she was really attached to him. Abby thinks it was because he was like a remnant of Randy and Charles. Sort of the last tie to the events at STIG, or a crutch keeping her up over Charles and Randy’s death. I don’t know about that, but Patty’s definitely pretty broken up. Mind you Mr. Journal that she was already coping with the death of her husband and son. She’s definitely gone quiet. I catch her every so often just sitting there staring out a window, kneading her hands together. Poor woman. She’s so strong though. Doesn’t want anyone to think she can’t function. She doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone.

  She doesn’t know what happened at STIG. She does know that she didn’t see anyone sneaking around near the place when it blew. She and Tony were on watch in a corner office where we found her that night. She said she saw nothing. That either means they snuck in from a totally different angle to hit the plant, or it was some kind of inside job. Doesn’t change anything.

  Abby’s taking it all in stride. At least, that’s what she thinks she’s fooling us into thinking. I can tell she’s under tremendous pressure. She doesn’t want to let us down, and she wants to show her mom that everything will be okay. I wish I could tell everyone things will be okay, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t know if it will be.

  Yesterday we had some more snow, and as long as it snows, Westfield will struggle to get here for an attack. That’s a relief. The shitty part about yesterday was the three zombies we had to kill. Our nail boards have become useful for more than flattening tires. All three zombies got their feet stuck on the plywood sheets covered in nails. Luckily it was all on my watch in Hall A in the morning, and I took my long sword out and had me some beheading action. After that I had me some stacking zombie bodies into the four wheeler action. And after that I had me some stacking more bodies on my funeral pyre action.

  Fuck this shit, right?

  We got through yesterday without firing any guns, which was great. I can’t help but think any kind of gunfire will lead more and more up here. I wonder how many undead were drawn to the STIG building instead of up here while I was clearing houses out back in December? I’m betting they were making a lot more noise than me. Poor fucking people.

  Gilbert slept all day yesterday and took over for the evening for me. Patty has been resting in Hall E steadily going crazy. She wants to help with the watches but she can’t breathe for shit with the busted side. She says it’s “much better now” but I don’t believe her.

  I made us our first “meal” since the majority of the Williams family left for STIG. We’d been eating out of cans since then. I warmed us up some cans of mixed veggies, and I got three cans of Dinty Moore warmed up as well. I popped open a can of the brown bread I like for added variety. Veggies and stew. Not much, but it was hearty and calorie filled, which is really important. Patty struggled to get it down, but she fought her way through it.

  Rest of the evening I just hung with Patty and we watched Abby sleep on the couch. She’s such a fighter too. Good female genes in that family. They don’t quit. Abby took watch over for Gilbert sometime in the middle of night, and this morning she said she had to kill a zombie at about four am. I guess she grabbed a bat and went out to the spike boards. She even dragged the body out of the road. How ballsy is that? Middle of the night in the dark she goes out all alone with a baseball bat and clubs a fucking zombie to death like a baby seal? Five bucks says she shits a brick when we start getting spiders around here again.

  This morning we had a small breakfast together and Patty mentioned that if we could get back to STIG there would probably be some supplies left over there. She thought there was a rifle i
n the room she had been trapped in as well as a few boxes of ammo. I definitely want to go back to check it out, but after seeing what we went through to get Patty out, I think it’s far too risky. It is however in the “shit to think about” file.

  More shitty dreams the past couple days. I’ve gotten better sleep when I have been sleeping, but the dreams are pretty horrible. Both of the two nights the dreams have been about my friend Steve. Today I turned on a radio and left it on the channel he said in his note. I mean, I know he’s dead, but I feel obligated to do it with the dreams lately. It sucks. I sat there hoping it’d crackle to life with his voice but you and I know differently Mr. Journal. Like a jackass he went out and probably stole a BMW off a dealership lot and then proceeded to wrap it around a fucking guard rail somewhere. Steve was the kind of asshole that didn’t clean off his car during snow storms. He’d hit the wiper once or twice then bomb away doing 20 over the speed limit. Knowing him he never made it to a dealership at all. No work ethic on that guy.

  I’m rambling again. Gilbert and I established our Westfield plan. Well, phase 1 of it at least. Every good op needs recon. Wars are fought on real time intelligence and the stomachs of foot soldiers, and sadly, those are both my problem. It’s too bad Tony didn’t make it. Tomorrow morning at dawn I am taking the Tundra and a snow machine and going to Westfield. I’ll drive as far as I can and then move in slowly on the machine or on foot.

  My aim is to find out two things. First, how many undead are there in Westfield? Is it overrun with them, and where are they? And secondly, do the Westfield pricks move in predictable patterns?

  Gilbert and I have a guerilla warfare plan in mind. We have established that we can’t just barge in with a direct assault on the school. We’re vastly outnumbered, and without explosives we can’t take them out in one fell swoop. Some of our first ideas were an alpha strike on the school using fuel to start fires, but that quickly got dismissed for several reasons.

  Gilbert is (was) a Green Beret. If you know anything about those guys, then you know that they specifically train to go into foreign lands, and build support with the locals to achieve a mission. Gilbert and I both agree that this is a good course of action. What makes this difficult is the fact that all the locals are inside a single building. It’s not like we can hit an outlying village and bribe them with tobacco or something like a normal Green Beret mission. We need to establish their patterns of movement, and intercept them hopefully peacefully. We’re thinking either a “oh dear, I’m hurt, please help us” ambush, or a spiked board and guns full on ambush. We’ve got handcuffs to take hostages if we need to, but ideally I’d like to do this as peacefully as possible. We can’t give those people any reason to think we’re the villain. I’d bet a can of peaches Sean has gone out of his way to throw us under the bus as the most evil thing since Osama Bin Laden and Steely Dan.

  Bottom line is we’ll figure that out when I get back tomorrow night. Once I see plowed roads I’ll know where they’re moving. (Assuming of course they’re plowing roads, and moving about) I can’t imagine a group of their size hasn’t been moving around regularly. Patty said the high school group was very active in the city gathering resources and whatnot, so it stands to reason they still are.

  I’m rolling out with the M15 and the Savage. I’ll also bring the two pistols, and enough ammo, food and general supplies should I get cut off. Earlier tonight I also found some snowshoes in the gymnasium, which will come in handy should something happen to either the truck or the snowmobile. I hate to think about hoofing it the 30 miles back here or however far it is, but the reality is, that might happen. Hopefully I’m sneaky enough to get this done and do it right.

  After a few days of observation, we’ll formulate a solid plan of attack. Gilbert assures me he can sell people who are on the fence about Sean with little to no problem. He is a pretty charismatic bastard, I’ll give him that. The trick is to get enough info on the situation there and hopefully find a way to either speak to, or capture folks. Worst case scenario we can actively engage in guerilla warfare and do an active denial of resources mission. Blow their fucking gas stations up. All’s fair in love and war cocksuckers.

  Now if I get unbelievably lucky…. I’ll see Sean, and I’ll take one shot with the Savage and hopefully end all this bullshit before it gets any worse. According to what Brian said, he’s the HMFIC over there. One shot, one kill. Man that’d be ideal. Then I could go back to just worrying about the armada of undead that’s slowly creeping down the road to my home.

  If all goes well I’ll put an entry in tomorrow night when I get back. If it doesn’t go well.. well I might not put an entry in at all. Ever again that is.

  Good times.

  I’m kinda glad Sean tried to play soldier with me. I’m good at this game.

  -Adrian

  February 11th

  I’m back like herpes Mr. Journal. You just can’t kill me. I am the boomerang of tools.

  Shit I just called myself a tool. Ah fuck it, why fight it?

  Two straight days in Westfield for old Adrian here. Rough going really, but I’ve been through much worse. I’ll recap yesterday first.

  I left early, before the sun came up. Right after I put in my last entry I went out and got the snowmobile loaded into the Tundra. I snagged some 2x4s and rope and all that jazz. I packed a large backpack I got from one of the dorm rooms with all the supplies I’d need. Food, water, matches, a compass, state maps, and a small container of gas in the event I needed emergency fuel etc. In the gymnasium we have snowshoes for the kids, and I found a pair that fit me. Everything an almost-Ranger needs to survive in a normal American town, post zombie apocalypse.

  Oh, and ammo. Lots of ammo. I brought all the 5.56, for the M15, the Glock, all the mags loaded for that, and a spare box of .45, and the Cheetah in the ankle holster. I left the large longsword behind. I can’t find a machete anywhere. I did however remember I had a decent camping hatchet which worked out just fine. Makes me regret not buying a decent machete at Moore’s at some point.

  Water over the dam. Abby was on watch in Hall A when I left yesterday morning, and I checked in with her to make sure she was okay. I told her that I’d be back sometime today. I fully expected to try and get back late yesterday, but that didn’t happen. Anyway, we parted ways, and I headed off.

  We got about a foot of snow the past few days, but mercifully the sun has been out all day, and it has reduced down to about 9 inches in the spots where I’ve been plowing regularly. Now the trip to Westfield was a bitch for a few reasons. Obviously, driving through the snow sucked balls, even in a 4x4 with big ground clearance. It just sucked.

  Secondly, it sucked because I couldn’t just drive straight to Westfield. Gilbert and I studied maps, and we knew that if they had any brains at all they’d set up security checkpoints on the main road heading in. That meant we had to take side roads and park a ways outside of town, and either hoof it in, or head in on the snow machine.

  Thirdly, it blew because I had to run over or get out of the truck to kill about five undead on Auburn Lake Road. They were slowly trudging in our general direction, and that’s not a good sign. We’ve got to keep it quiet on campus for a few days at least to try and mislead the damn things back to somewhere else. Fucking crazy stuff Mr. Journal.

  I drove roughly 25 miles on Route 18 to a road that we had identified during planning. The road looped around the town in a pretty wide arc, but there were multiple roads branching off there that put me about a mile away from Westfield proper. According to one of the maps we had Westfield had an original population of about 15,000 folks. Westfield was in the middle of a large valley and had a very centralized layout. From what I remembered there was a large tract of developments skirting two thirds of the city, and the downtown area was on the opposite side of town.

  I was heading towards where those two sections of the town met. the school was on the cusp of downtown and the developments. I found the area I wanted to park at, and picked a dri
veway that headed into some cover. The snow was about a foot and a half thick, and I managed to smash the truck through and park it in the back of the house. Once I was situated I sat tight, and listened.

  Nothing. Quiet as a church. I gave it fifteen minutes and then got the snowshoes out. There was no way I could hide the tire tracks I’d just made, but my hope was that the turn off I’d taken was so far from town they wouldn’t be coming out to check. If they didn’t see that road, then they wouldn’t see the driveway. However, as a precaution, I got the snowmobile down, and drove it very slowly about a tenth of mile into the woods so if they did find the truck, I had the machine as an escape option.

  From there, it was on foot through the woods. The snow was fairly hard packed and the snowshoeing was pretty easy. I’ve lost a lot of weight too which helped. On foot through the woods with all the gear was a bastard. I had about a mile to go before I got into a neighborhood that could be called “downtown.”

  I made sure to wear lighter colored clothing. Now the winter jacket I’m using is a neutral grey color, so to compensate and make myself less visible, I grabbed white sheets. I’ve got the sheet stitched roughly across my back, and down the top of my arm so I can wrap up real quick and go completely white. If I go face down in the snow, the only thing someone will see is the white sheet. Go me and my fucking cleverness. Once I saw the houses I slowed down and moved from cover to cover to stay hidden from anyone looking. I didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean shit. I worked my way through a few rows of houses and wound up stopping at a small ranch. The road it was on was plowed.