Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family

by Philbrook, Chris

  Becca didn’t give him a chance to tell her no. She leaned over the seat and gave Sophie a wet kiss on the cheek and let herself out of the vehicle. She leaned over quickly and stuck her head in the interior, issuing one last statement to her family before leaving possibly for the last time, “I love you all. If I die, and you find Adrian, you tell him I love him too. I'll be back in a few minutes.”

  Caleb swallowed hard and nodded. Becca lifted skinny Ed’s revolver, smiled like a crazy person, and shut the door. Caleb watched as she jogged off into the distance and around the corner of the road. The trees were tight to the side of the pavement here, and it almost looked like she was walking off into a mystical forest. He knew this wait would be horrible. He tried to listen to his wife's voice as she entertained his little boy.

  *****

  Abby Williams leaned over the humvee and scanned her sector of the road. She panned the sights of her M4 left to right comfortably, and with familiarity. The tiny blonde girl of just 18 years was the leader of the small team of people assigned to this vehicle, and this side of the road for this operation. She was a hardened survivor, a leader, and she would not take shit from anyone.

  Abby thought of the mission they were on here. They were far from their home base of Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy raiding a warehouse that belonged to one of their dead. Gilbert was his name. Old Gilbert had been a trusted advisor to their leader Adrian for months on end before committing what amounted to suicide. He had asked Abby to kill him on the anniversary of June 23rd, one year after the dead had returned to life, and brought ruin to all of mankind.

  Gilbert had betrayed Adrian and the people who had taken up residence at the abandoned private school they called home. Gilbert had worked for the Devil. Abby knew evil was behind all this. She knew because Adrian had dreams about it, and she knew Gilbert had dreams about it, and before he died, her boyfriend Gavin had dreams about it as well. Too many people had visions about the end of the world, and how Adrian was someone special, someone very important.

  Adrian was someone worth listening to, someone worth following, and someone she believed was worth dying for. He wasn't always right, and wasn't always kind, but life was like that. Her first love Gavin had stepped in front of a bullet to save Adrian, and she’d do the same. Today if she had to. Abby brought her mind back to the present as she tried to forget about the night Gilbert had her shoot him. She wanted to get this warehouse raid done, and get everyone back safely to the school. Another hour and they’d accomplish that, as long as she and the people on watch paid attention to their sectors.

  “HELLO!” Abby heard a woman's voice say from down the road. To Abby’s right was Amanda, one of the other women who lived at the school, and her other teammate in the truck. Amanda had been facing away from the direction the holler came from, and she spun suddenly to face it. It was the first voice they’d heard all day.

  Abby lowered her eyes to the rifle sight and drew a bead on the walking form of a young girl, possibly her age or maybe a bit older. She had long, dark hair tied back out of her face. Abby watched the girl walk forward slowly, arms waving gently up and down, showing the two women leaning over the humvee that her hands had no weapons in them. Abby watched her walk another thirty feet or so before she heard Amanda gasp.

  “What?” Abby asked her, eyes never leaving the M4’s iron sights.

  “Look. You gotta see this. Take my gun.” Amanda sat up and offered the bolt action rifle to Abby. It had a scope, and obviously Amanda was seeing something through it Abby could not. The small blonde switched rifles with older blonde woman, and brought it up to her eye, letting the powerful optics do the hard work.

  Abby put the crosshairs directly on the face of the brunette and knew immediately what Amanda had gasped about. Abby dropped the muzzle of the hunting rifle down, and pulled the radio from her belt, thumbing the transmit button.

  “Hey Adrian.”

  A man’s voice responded after a few seconds. It was firm and clear, but also youthful. He sounded out of breath, “Go for Adrian.”

  “You gotta come out here immediately. There’s something going on at the southern blocking humvee. You’re gonna shit a brick.” Abby smiled as she realized what was about to happen.

  “Shit a brick in a bad way? Like sideways? Or shit a brick in a good way? Like the long way? I’ve shat enough bad bricks already Abigail Williams. I’m only entertaining the idea of shitting good bricks today.”

  Abby sighed and smiled. She loved that guy. No matter how bad things were, he always had a way of making her smile. “Just get out here. Bring a smile too asshole.”

  “On my way.”

  *****

  Adrian’s tall and powerful body trotted outside the warehouse that belonged to his dead friend Gilbert. Adrian was an imposing man, covered in tattoos from wrist to ankle and sporting a closely shaven Mohawk. He wore military issue body armor and carried an M4 strapped across his chest with the ease of a man who was wearing a belt to hold up his pants. He could easily be on the cover of Soldier of Fortune magazine as he jogged across the overgrown grass surrounding the building. His eyes scanned windows, rooftops and corners, looking for the next threat.

  Ahead he saw the humvee that Abby had radioed him from. She was standing in front of the open passenger door of the green military truck, and was talking to someone sitting in the seat. Abby’s back was facing him and he couldn’t see who she was speaking to. He wondered to himself if Abby was talking to Amanda, the other woman on that humvee’s team.

  When Adrian was ten feet from the truck, he shouted out playfully to his adopted sister Abby, “Alright bitch, I did not run all the way out here in this fucking heat for nothing. This better be fucking worth it.”

  Abby said nothing in return. She simply stepped out of the way, revealing the young woman sitting in the seat of the truck. Adrian slowed his pace, stopping, his throat tightening and his eyes swelling with emotion and tears. It was Rebecca in the seat. His baby sister.

  Rebecca leapt out of the truck and ran into her older brother’s arms, squeezing the life out of him right through the ceramic chest plate of the armor he wore. Adrian’s breath escaped him as he put his arms around her, cradling her head against his chest, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. From the humvee Abby lost her own shit and started to cry herself. Amanda did her best to ignore the situation, looking down the road trying to maintain some sense of security but she too had to wipe her eyes after a moment.

  “I thought you were dead," Adrian said through more emotion than Abby or Becca had ever heard from him, except for maybe the night Adrian confessed to having left Cassie behind “that day.”

  Becca nodded, her face rubbing up and down on the Kevlar armor her brother wore. “We thought you were dead too. We met someone who said you were alive and we came to find you.”

  “Wait we? Are you with Caleb too? Is Sophie alive, what about Adam?” His questions came fast as Adrian pushed her off his chest and looked intently down at her. His eyes were open and wild. Excited.

  “Yeah. We parked down the road about a half mile or so. We sort of got jumped by some assholes in a Mercedes wagon and Caleb dropped them. We stole their wagon but when we saw the bullet holes we didn’t want to just drive up on you guys after hearing gunfire. Caleb thought you might shoot at us. Sophie and Adam are with him.”

  Adrian grinned ear to ear and squeezed her again. “Holy shit. We would’ve lit you guys up. Those assholes shot at us the other day and we got two of them in the ensuing firefight. Abby, spool the truck up and go get them. Make sure you roll up safely. Becca you go with them and make sure Caleb doesn’t shoot at us either. Amanda and I will hold this position. You bring me my fucking older brother and nephew. His wife too, she was cool shit.” Adrian leaned in and kissed his baby sister on the forehead with tremendous love. Becca looked up into his eyes and saw the difference in him.

  He really had changed. Becca saw it in his soul as plain as day. He was harder, but also far
more powerful. Just being in his presence Becca could sense it. It was like walking into a room that had an influential person in it. Everyone gravitated to them, and the aura they exuded. Adrian had changed and Becca felt it was for the better. Suddenly the strange stories LaFrenz had told them the night before started to make a lot more sense. Maybe Adrian really had been touched by something great. Then again maybe she had an active imagination and really missed her brother.

  In the distance a single shot rang out. It came directly from the area the wagon was parked at. A moment later another shot rang out. Becca watched Adrian’s expression harden. His mind was no longer the same. In the blink of an eye the loving caring older brother was gone, and the warrior that had saved the lives of who knew how many people was in its place. A machine, a monster of war inside that remained chained tight had broken free and taken over. Adrian bolted down the road, saying nothing and leaving all of them behind. Becca took off running after him, but his long powerful legs propelled him forward far faster than she could ever hope to move.

  As she ran away she heard the little blonde and her friend start the heavy truck behind her. As her legs and lungs began to burn her mind went to that terrible dark place filled with dread.

  Becca feared for what was happening back at the wagon.

  Becca feared for Adrian, and what would happen to him if it was for the worst.

  This family reunion might not have the happy ending she thought it would.

  August 9th

  Mr. Journal do you have any fucking idea how heavy an x-ray machine is?

  Let me assure you, the good ones do not come in “light” as a choice. They are heavy as a truck’s engine block, and just as hard to maneuver.

  I am sad to report that there was painfully little we could remove for equipment from the Westfield clinic yesterday. Well, we did get a lot, but we had to leave an enormous pile of shit behind. It was a real shame.

  What did we actually get? The crown jewel of the haul was a portable x-ray station from the urgent care area of the clinic. It’s about the size of refrigerator, and weighed… something like ten metric tons. I swear to god it used lead bricks to make x-rays. Actually come to think of it, it probably was filled with some kind of lead shielding. Duh Adrian.

  We got scalpels, forceps, tweezers, pliers, casting materials, splints, crutches, wheelchairs, canes, a small quantity of basic medical supplies, a few copies of the PDR, which was nice to finally get our hands on, as well as shit like alcohol, iodine, scrubs, smocks, lights, hospital beds, oxygen tanks, masks, sterilization chemicals and a whole mess of crap I don’t even understand the value of. I just know Doc Lindsey pointed at the stuff as we cleared the place out and said, “Take that, and that, and that, and that...”

  She seemed happy to have it all on hand when we got back here.

  The Westfield clinic op was a breeze, but it was also much more intense than any of our previous jobs. First of all, it was downtown in Westfield, and there were undead we ran across. We hit a small handful in the HRT as we drove, but the outside blocking teams had to shoot just as many while we were inside. That gave our newer folks some time face to face with the dead, as well as the chance to take some shots and bust their combat cherries, so to speak. We had enough time and security that a few of the undead could be dropped via halligan, which was extra awesome, because it saved on ammunition, and also gave the noobs a chance to literally get their hands dirty.

  It is one thing to shoot a zombie in the face, and an entirely different affair when you step up to a person, look them in the face, dead in their white, nasty eyes, and smash the piss out of their skull. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you, and only repetition, and reassurance from friends in the moment can make it easier to deal with. You need to be hard to survive now, and days like yesterday gave us a chance to get some strength into folks.

  Harsh world makes for harsh people Mr. Journal. It's easy to teach people how to be hard. It's going to be a lot more difficult to teach them to be gentle at the same time.

  The high school area is largely empty of undead. We saw two or three kicking around the area, but to be honest, it was just creepy. The wall of cars surrounding the school almost looks like automotive tombstones, wrapping around the charred skeleton of some large prehistoric beast. It made me think of how STIG looked like the corpse of some massive industrial beast, with the steel beams rising from the foundation like blackened ribs.

  It made me shudder. It made some of the rest of the people who came with us cry. A lot of people died there, and it’s a fucking shame. If the person responsible is still around, when we find that asshole arsonist… oh boy, the satisfaction will be severe.

  The more I think about what I just wrote, the less I like my word choice of “prehistoric.” That makes me feel like our world, our culture, and our nation is now a part of the past. A past that is never coming back.

  Maybe that’s for the best.

  We wound up filling maybe a third of the semi with supplies from the clinic, so we hit a few small businesses in town for shit. Westfield had a nice downtown filled with storefronts, so we used the time to run down the street and gather things that Mike and the other survivors had left behind. For instance, there was a shoe store that still had maybe half its inventory in place, and we really needed shoes. Lots of folks are still wearing the footwear they were wearing on June 23rd of last year, or the best thing they could scrounge since then, and you can imagine how uncomfortable they are today.

  When we returned home here to campus late yesterday, we made a lightning run down to MGR to restock them on water and food. While we were there, we increased the amount of supplies on hand in the event they are attacked. They now have a 6 day supply of both food and water, as opposed to just 3 days. Mike said that things were quiet in town, and they only saw a tiny bit of movement. He said the two Outsider wagons were still moving, but mostly far off to the east towards the STIG area of town. He hasn’t been able to nail down exactly where they are holing up over that way, but based on their general direction of movement, they are coming from the city, or one of the towns between here and there.

  Silly Outsiders. I hope they keep their greedy ass hands off my town. I’d hate to show them the meaning of fire superiority again. Man that sounded vindictive. Damn near evil.

  Be the better man Adrian. Be the person that is the good one. You need to focus on that. You are the good man in this. Be the hero, not the villain.

  Deep breath.

  What does bother me quite substantially is that Gilbert’s warehouse is directly in that direction. We will need to drive right through what appears to be their home territory, and that is obviously inviting trouble. We may need to switch out our approach and exit routes to give them a wide berth. What blows, is I don’t think we have much option in that regard. There’s only one or two streets/roads that get to that neck of the woods, and both pass through there. Which way we go… who knows?

  I just hope we don’t wander into a fucking ambush as we drive to the warehouse, or God forbid, after the warehouse with injured and less ammo. If I were them, that’s when I’d do it. Let us do all the heavy lifting into the truck, then whack us when we're good and tired.

  Today was an on campus day as we evaluated our plans, and what we wanted to do moving forward. Ollie, Martin and Blake took the day and got some assistance to get that second gate started. Essentially they are building a huge 'A' shaped gate that will point directly towards Auburn Lake Road. If someone attempts to ram the gate, they will hit the steel reinforced edges, and drive the gate into the guardrails, thus creating a wedge they can’t drive through. It’s sort of like the crumple zones in a car. Essentially if anyone rams it, they create an impassible barrier, and leave themselves open to be fired upon by our shooters inside the walls.

  The rest of us focused on working with the cows, the chickens, and mending fences, and working on the wall. Every single person was working all day today, but the weather was nice, the mood
was relaxed, and we had zero cares from start to finish. It was all in all, as idyllic a day as we’ve had in some time. Late in the day we took two hours and did a quick refresher course for folks wanting more trigger time.

  Abby took the noobs and worked on basic firearm accuracy and I took the folks we’d identified as Grade B or better shooters, and got them some time with the M4s Mike brought. A quick inventory told us we had eight M4s in stock, and I wanted to issue out four of them eventually. For training earlier today, I simply showed them mine, and how I do what I do with it. Mag swaps, jam clears, loading unloading magazines, basic weapons maintenance, and the such. We ran out of time to do actual firing, but that’s fine. There’s always tomorrow as they say.

  No word from MGR on anything bad, just their regular check in radio calls on the proper hours. No news is good news as long as they are checking in. Things are great here on campus, although I can clearly feel the tension growing as we get closer and closer to doing the actual warehouse run.

  We still have no fucking idea who our arsonist and potential Emily murderer is. No one’s story has come up dirty yet, and there hasn’t been anything strange happening here since her death. It is starting to look more and more like she really did hang herself. As for the Westfield fire, well… That seemed pretty fucking fishy, and with the chained doors and all, we KNOW that was no good.

  I just wish I knew what the hell to do. Gilbert, you listening? I could use a phone call here brother. Now would be a good time.

  Otis is well. He’s gallivanting around Hall E like a prince lately, reveling in the extra attention Abby is giving him now that Patty has moved to MGR with Mike. Abby seems out of it lately. Just generally kind of morose. I know she’s struggling internally with the idea that her mom has shacked up with a new guy, and I’m sure she’s also dealing with feelings of abandonment. If my mom blindsided me with the news Patty just did to Abby, I’d be all kinds of messed up, and I don’t really like my mom.