The Dealer of Hope_Adrian's March_Part 1

by Chris Philbrook

Countless others are living in houses in the towns surrounding outside of our ‘official’ protection. Without going into excessive and needless detail, we’re now using all the dorms here, and they’ve all been upgraded with wood stoves, as well as fresh generators. I simply cannot overstate how much easier it is to get around and find things when the threat of attack by zombies is nil. Right now we get more excited when we find a gallon of bleach than when we find boxes of ammunition. Cha-cha-cha-changes…

  Moving beyond our refugee situation… we’ve increased our food production. Well, fuel production. Ollie has put effort into translating a large amount of our available farming area, especially that area outside the Bastion walls to growing soybeans. They have great nutritional value, and they are one of the more efficient plants to turn into bio fuel, so Annie and several texts on the matter say. Ollie has ZERO experience growing soybeans though, so I imagine this will be trial and error for a season or two while he gets things ironed out. And he will. Ollie always figures shit out.

  In addition to the soybeans, the simple fact that we have all the available farming land now available to us, means we’ve expanded our fields. We’ve still got the hydroponics gardens in the gymnasium of the school but we have to use the earth outside to build surplus. We planted a fucking TON of corn this year, as well as squash, pumpkins, zucchini, lettuce, cabbage, cukes, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. Ollie and Melissa are also in charge of our beehives (Kept just outside the back walls of Bastion, half in the perimeter, half out) as well as a robust sugar maple tree tapping program. We’re an industrial bunch.

  Our barn here at Bastion wasn’t nearly large enough for all our animals too, so we moved the lambs and goats to the barn on Jones Road. Wild game has returned notably, and deer and turkey are plentiful. We are eating well, and are canning a lot too. I think we will have enough food to last winter, but with all the new mouths to feed…

  Humans are still humans, and without zombies up our asses on the regular, we still deal with bullshit. I’d say every three weeks or so we’re shot at as we move about. We’ve run into two small settlements that I’d describe as being ‘openly disinterested, yet interested at the same time,’ in any kind of contact from us. One is set up at an old junkyard (for no reason I can divine), and numbers somewhere between fifteen and thirty, and the other is based out of a fairly large National Guard base several towns over. Mildly concerned about their offensive capabilities, but they seem to keep to their own. Not sure what their headcount is, but I’m guessing it is around twenty. Their building isn’t that big, and our recon shows they have fairly small fields for food growing. These two ‘sort of enemies of Bastion’ are in opposite directions, and are approximately an hour’s drive away each.

  Both first encounters were nearly the same. We rolled in with our travel group of humvees and box truck or military tow truck (that’s a HEMTT if you’re curious, cargo model), and immediately warning shots come across our way. We stopped, took up defensive positions, identified the source of fire, and as we were about to return it, they yelled at us to leave, and we yelled back that they were assholes. Luckily, enough diplomacy happened at both incidents that no one got hurt, but we’ve been lukewarm to ice cold with both groups ever since. We send a small patrol to both places every month to touch base to make sure all is well, but that’s the extent of it. We stay on top of our defenses, ensure that all adults are either armed, or capable to use a firearm quickly, and God help them if they come for us. Our anger at them over their shooting at us has diminished, but our expected accuracy in the event of an uninvited visit has not.

  As I said earlier, our new people are from all over. We’ve lost ten of the existing folks from Bastion that you knew about, and we’ve picked up forty odd more. As folks leave and encounter new people, they are spreading the word of Bastion and all that we offer, and some of those who hear of us, are coming. We offer a considerable place to stay, and all you have to do is hold up your end of the work, and avoid general douche-baggery. Heartwarming and shit.

  We haven’t been able to get Gilbert’s old ham radio up and running. No one here has particular experience with operating one beyond experimentation, and we’ve chalked his gear up as damaged goods. No other radios have been found to salvage for spare parts either. Periodically we’ll hear something transmitted over the military channels when someone with a military radio gets within range, but the messages are fairly innocuous, and we have avoided contact thus far. Mostly it’s the group to the south as they roll about. Isolation can be a successful strategy, remember?

  What else? I’ve got a million things to write down here and I can’t quite focus enough to hit the bigguns. No one has died here since April. NO ONE. We’ve been lucky. Beyond lucky really if you spend any time thinking about it.

  Babies! Farm manager and resident ginger Ollie and his wife Melissa are pregnant again. They’re due sometime in February, I think. Patty and Mike are trying to have a baby, once openly in the Hall E common room at night during a visit from MGR (much to my dismay) but the age issue keeps coming up for them. They’re both on the down slope of 46 now I think. Blake and Kim are expecting again, and their second turd hit the bowl sometime around Christmas. Abby asked me one day if it would be weird if she asked Harold to name their potential son Gavin. I told her that man deserved a child named after him, and if she wanted, I’d talk to Harold about it. She smiled, and that was the end of it. We’ll see what happens when she gives birth any minute now.

  Two couples in the new forty are due as well, one within a few weeks, and the other in about two months. Also my brother Caleb and his wife Sophie are expecting again. If all goes well, we’ll be plus six more little bouncing bundles of vomit, poop and tears.

  I mean that in a good way.

  I should also mention that I haven’t heard anything from my two brothers in the Navy. Both were deployed or out to sea when the zombies arrived, and I’ve kind of given up hope of ever seeing them again. It sucks. I miss Thomas and William fiercely, and I hope they’re safe, wherever they are. I also know that hope is foolish, as they signed up for the military, and Thomas was deployed with his SEAL squadron in Afghanistan when this all went to shit.

  Back to babies. Michelle and I are not expecting, despite our attempts to the contrary. We stopped using protection a few months ago, mostly due to the fact that there is a rather dwindling supply of condoms out there. Michelle isn’t getting any younger, nor am I, and we figure of all the couples that are out there in the world, we’re about as good as any to have a baby.

  Mr. Journal, I think I love her. I can say that pretty comfortably today, many, many months after the whole Cassie thing. I think I was starting to love her before then too, but denial slows things down, and if anything, I’m stubborn as fuck. She’s smart, and sweet, and thoughtful, and kind. I love the way she takes care of everyone so effortlessly. She’s forgiving, and I need someone like that.

  Yeah. I love her. It’s good.

  Not sure what else to say here. School is going great, the farm is growing things as fast as could be expected, our cows are good, the chickens are laying eggs, there are no zombies around, and the assholes that are still living are doing a good job of not killing us at will. I spend my days working on building a large second barn here for our animals, making a second sugar shack for the maple syrup and helping Michelle run the show. She’s the leader now, and I’m okay with that. The barn I’m working on is near the first barn we built last year, and I’ve got a great tan and a lean body to show for all my work and I haven’t had either of those since my days in the service. We should be done with the new stables sometime in late October, barring inevitable setbacks. I said that strictly for the Jinx Fairy. I’m on to you, you lousy bitch.

  It’s not all bad.

  Finally.

  Maybe I’ll post again soon when the urge strikes me. This was nice.

  -Adrian

  Desperation

  Early July, 2010. Afghanistan.

  Thomas s
at up and rubbed the early morning shit out of his eyes. Once clear of sticky gunk and debris, he looked a few steps away at his partner Glen Torrance. Glen was hunkered down at the entrance to the small cave the two men had been holed up in for far too damn long. The shooter had his body prone and looking downrange through the scope of their Navy-issued M110 sniper rifle. Glen’s body lay as still as the stone below him.

  Thomas did a quick check of his person to ensure everything he fell asleep touching or attached to was still there. All his weapons were in check and his gear in place. Once sure everything was so, he finally cleared his throat quietly, and hailed his teammate in a whisper. “See anything?”

  Glen responded quietly, keeping his body completely still under the slate and beige colored mesh he was draped in, “Fuck no. No living or dead my entire shift.”

  “Is that good news?” Thomas asked, smirking. He fished one of their last MREs out of his small ruck and tore it open to make something to eat. All he really wanted was peanut butter or cheese with jalapenos.

  “I don’t know. The village looks empty. Creepy as hell man.”

  Thomas spent a few minutes preparing his morning meal and consuming it. He did his level best to not dwell on their increasingly shit situation as he chewed down the packaged dinner. Once done, he pissed in the small water bottle the two men had been using to relieve themselves, and set it down next to the other full bottles in the back of the cramped cave. The bottles would leave with them. When they eventually extracted from the hide, their presence would be lost to any but the most critical of searches. Such was the way of the Navy SEAL.

  “I haven’t shit in three days Glen. I’m starting to think these MREs are designed by people who make a living repairing torn open assholes,” Thomas said idly as he wiped his body down with a barely damp cloth.

  “Says the gay guy angrily,” Glen responded wryly.

  “Look, my sexual preference has nothing to do with constipation. Just because I love the dick doesn’t mean I want my asshole wrecked,” Thomas said, grinning.

  “Yeah yeah. You say tomato—”

  “—I say go fuck yourself. When do you want to take a break?”

  “Whenever. I’m not tired, just bored. Nothing has moved at all. My journal is empty man, not one thing to make note of.”

  “Alrighty. I’m gonna try to get someone on the horn again. See if I can wrangle up a frigging miracle for us.”

  “Ha. I love the optimism. Sadly I think it’s time wasted,” Glen said. The man finally shifted his body ever so slightly, indicating that the form was actually a living body and not just a paper mache statue with a radio inside it.

  Thomas got their communications gear fired up and spent some time trying to get in touch with their chain of command. No one responded. No one had responded in a very long time.

  The year was 2010. Shit had hit the fan on June 23rd. At least that’s what the two men had been told when the radio had someone on the other end of it. In the city and all across their AO the dead had stopped being dead. Just like in a shitty zombie movie Thomas used to watch with his three brothers when he was growing up, the dead were sitting up, and trying to eat the living. They had listened to men they respected over the radio as they described fellow Americans dying to gunshot wounds, then sitting back up and attacking their comrades. They told stories of locals killed by the Taliban or by their own forces dragging themselves along, their bodies decimated and dead, all the while snapping their teeth greedily at the living flesh walking nearby.

  The world had become a bad joke.

  He’d always imagined he’d be somewhere in America when the zombie apocalypse struck, not balls deep in a sniper hide in north east Afghanistan deep in Taliban country. The shooter-spotter duo had been dropped off about a week prior to the world shitting the bed to keep an eye on a tiny village nestled in a valley. A high value target was rumored to be there, and the two men were instructed to observe, and if they identified shady activity, they were to call in airstrikes, take a shot, or otherwise find a way to eradicate the HVT safely. A typical week in the life of a SEAL. The two men weren’t supposed to be this far out for this long though. Their food supplies, long since rationed to a single meal a day were dwindling. Their fresh water was already out, and they were gathering local water out of a stream to stay hydrated, and so far they had managed to dodge any major illnesses. Purification tablets were working as advertised but they both knew luck would run out eventually. Fortunately their tiny cave, their distance from the village, and the dead and dying locals in that village sitting up and killing the living locals meant the SEALs had used no ammunition thus far. They were both still carrying their full combat loads plus a good amount more. Good SEALs can find food and water anywhere, so bringing extra ammo is the priority. Glen and Thomas were good SEALs.

  They also appeared to be very alone SEALs.

  “Nothing,” Thomas said as he switched everything off. Battery life was a major concern seeing as how they had no current hope for any kind of resupply or extraction.

  “Told ya. We haven’t heard anything out of any of the nearby FOBs, Kabul, Kandahar or Bagram for how long? Ten days? No UAVs or birds in the sky for even longer than that. Our sat phone hasn’t had a dial tone, like, ever. Dude they’re balls deep in a Romero storyline right now, dealing with their own shit. We’ve got to figure our shit out man.” Glen shook his head slowly in frustration, never taking his blue shooting eye off the scope. If anything moved in that village, he was not going to miss it.

  “Roger that. Let’s switch out. Give your eyes a break and catch some shut eye.”

  Glen tossed the mesh camouflage off his back and crawled backwards into the cave interior immediately. He may only have been bored, but being bored was often worse than torture, especially for hyper aggressive men that pursued careers in the special operations community. “Appreciate it brother.”

  The two men exchanged positions and began their day the same way every day in the previous three weeks had begun.

  “Alrighty. You want the good news, or the bad news?” Glen asked Thomas, looking around their dingy cave with a less than enthused expression on his face.

  “Let’s hear the good news. I always like to smile,” Thomas replied as he observed the village six hundred meters away and below in the valley. Nothing had moved there since he’d taken over behind the trigger of their powerful rifle.

  “Good news is we are sitting on a relatively large abundance of ammunition,” Glen said, trying to sound as satisfied as possible.

  “The bad news?”

  Glen sighed heavily, “The bad news is we have two MREs, no bottled water, and only thirty purification tablets left.”

  Thomas let the statement run through his head for a few minutes before responding. “So we start to starve in three days, maybe four?”

  “Well probably more than that, but not long no matter how you slice it.” Glen tossed the two remaining meals back into their rucks, one meal apiece. It seemed like a feeble gesture.

  “What are the meals? Are they good ones?” Thomas asked, fishing for more good news.

  “Chili with beans, and spicy penne. Upside is either one of them is guaranteed to clean out your pipes. You’ll be shitting your entire intestinal tract out in hours.”

  “Fantastic. Maybe I’ll shit myself to death and I’ll come back as a zombie with shit filled pants,” Thomas said dryly.

  Glen laughed. “Buddy if you see any of the dead ones through the scope, they’ve all pretty much shit themselves. You’ll fit right in.”

  After laughing a good while, the two men sat quietly for some time, contemplating their situation. They’d been in bad predicaments before, many times over, but never quite like this.

  “We need to think about going into the village. Gathering food, checking for supplies. We need to start heading to a FOB to see if we can link up with a larger unit. See if we can find any kind of help. We’re a long way from home bud,” Glen said finally.


  “Agreed. Let’s flesh out a plan tonight as it gets dark. With any luck we can slip in under the cover of darkness and get the fuck out fast.”

  “Aye aye,” Glen said, feeling some positivity return. These were men of action, and the thought of direct contact make both their adrenaline levels spike. Glen suddenly became somber, and even without looking, Thomas could feel the man’s mood shift. It was like the air had been sucked out of the cave.

  “Dude what’s wrong?” Thomas asked.

  “I wonder how my wife is doing?” Glen said.

  Thomas had no good answer.

  Later that night the two SEALs worked out a less than perfect plan.

  “How many people were supposed to be in the village?” Thomas asked, even though he already knew the answer.

  “Eighty, give or take,” Glen said as he tested their night vision equipment.

  “How many of them do you think are dead now?” Thomas asked.

  “Eighty, give or take.”

  “Right. When was the last time we heard any gunfire down there?”

  “Five days. Four and change actually. No vehicles, horses or donkeys leaving on the road out either,” Glen said, cycling the action on his as yet unused M4A1. Both men would be wielding nearly identical weapons on this nighttime assault.

  “Which tells us the villagers are either holed up, or dead. Either way they’re still dangerous. Bite us or shoot us,” Thomas mused.

  “Roger that. Luckily the few dead we’ve seen are slow moving as fuck. I think we could literally walk around them if we had to. Barrel strike to the temple and move along. We just need to watch out for getting cornered or surrounded by too damn many of them. We have a lot of rounds, but we can’t afford to waste them.” Glen eyed the magazines the men would be bringing and hoped it was enough. Both would be carrying 270 rounds of 5.56mm ammo into the village containing approximately 80 hostiles. It would be close if they had heavy contact with the living.