Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 7): The Trinity

by Chris Philbrook

  The undead presence was slightly heavier than our first trip out, but with not two but three suppressed pistols, we were able to make quick work. Keeping moving, and dropping anything in sight kept us safe. We searched for about a two block radius looking for a place to hide up in before we settled on a building on a couple of fairly main streets. It was centered in a block on a main thoroughfare, and faced a street going away from it. Kind of like the top of a T intersection I guess. The building was retail on the first level, and had two floors of offices and apartments above it.

  On the first floor at street level there was an insurance agent’s office, and Hector established himself inside there, deep in the back with a sniper hide that looked out and down the length of one of the main streets. If anything came straight at the front of the building Hector had a clear line of fire straight at it.

  Mike and I kicked the door to the stairs leading upward in, and did a combat clear just as dawn was dying off, and the morning sun was taking over fully. The inner stairwell to the building heading up to the offices was devoid of anything living or undead, and when we got to the top floor, we actually chose the correct fucking door this time. It helped that the door was already opened. Kicked open in fact. All of the doors inside the building were the same. It had been ransacked.

  I don’t know if it was the Outsiders that did it, but the building had already gotten the once over by someone. Nothing of use was left behind which was the bad news, but the good news was that the undead inside had already been dealt with a long frigging time ago. There were a small number of desiccated, rotten, moldy skeletons on the floor here and there, which meant they’d been dead for a long frigging time. So cheers to whoever cleared this building for us. From my count, they saved us about eleven rounds of ammo. Yay for the little things.

  Mike and I set ourselves up in the office facing the street. It happened to be a yoga studio, and we needed to drag desks and chairs into the space to set up a comfortable shooting position. Mike and I put the desks about ten feet recessed into the space so we weren’t visible from the outside. We also set up far to the outside of the windows, so I was looking across from the right, and out the left window, and Mike the opposite. We were invisible from the street level, and with about a three or four second adjustment, we could swing ourselves to the straight facing to back up Hector’s avenue of fire.

  Mike dug his radio out and set it up to scan the channels for any radio traffic, and I left mine on our channel so if we needed to talk we could. I also sent a test message out, and Dwayne back at MGR came back all crackly. We were barely in radio contact with our backup should something bad happen. A little scary. Although, I went without any backup for a very long time, and I’m still here typing in this fucking journal.

  We went radio silent after that.

  Long fucking day. We observed a fairly small amount of undead wandering the streets, but because we were dead silent, and out of view they didn’t bother trying to mess with us. We could’ve popped them with our rifles, but frankly it would’ve made more noise than needed, and they were too far away for us to take them out with the pistols. They un-live to try and eat us another day. Fucking dead people man. What a nuisance.

  So the entire morning and afternoon we observed nothing. Fuck all. Some birds flying around, a couple of sketchy frigging dogs, the sun being warm, and the few random undead staggering to and fro, looking for someone to eat. Mike and I started to make bets on which way the undead would go when they came to the intersection at the end of our observation area, and I am happy to declare that I was correct 17 out of 25 times. I am the King of undead movement guessing. The Zombie Whisperer.

  Once the sun started to fade over the horizon things got more interesting. We knew if we were going to shoot at any point in time, we needed light to do so. When the first of the vehicles appeared coming from the northeast street direction, Mike and I decided it was a little too dark for us to engage, and we would just sit tight and observe. We saw three vehicles move across our location over the span of an hour. Two were large diesel trucks, and one was a large box truck, modified to have windows/openings in the back. Square holes just hacked in the back with a saw or axe. I didn’t see any people in the back of the truck, but that doesn’t mean anything. I wonder if that is their version of a gun truck.

  None of the vehicles came our way, and they all came from the same exact road to get to our area of the ‘burbs. Happily, they moved out from that location starting around… 7pm or so, and all returned to that direction around 10pm or so. Once everything went dead for an hour, Mike and I decided we all needed to relocate right then and there, and get over on the road they were coming down.

  We packed up, zipped downstairs, and told Hector we were displacing immediately. He was nervous as hell to pack up and move anywhere at about eleven in the pitch black in the city, but honestly, we had the Prius nearby, and it’s not like we weren’t ready and able to dish out pain should we run into the undead.

  Having said that, and been all macho and shit, I was kinda scared too. I just don’t like moving at night. The undead are too quiet, we can’t see hardly for shit, and it is just damn risky. However, you need to take risks every once in awhile, and frankly, this one felt worth it.

  We moved literally at a sprint back to the car. Hector was out of his mind afraid, and I am now reasonably sure that dude is just afraid of the dark. Luckily we had a little bit of moonlight when we were moving, so we were able to see enough to not need any flashlights. We wound our way back to the Prius, and in the alley where we parked it I had to pop a single undead dragging its way down the side of a building, slowly scraping its own face off on the rough bricks. Nasty. Plain old nasty.

  We piled into the car, and sat still for ten minutes to ensure we hadn’t drawn a crowd. Nothing happened, and Mike drove us in the black about six blocks over and north until we found another good parking spot. Ironically, it was in an old used car dealership. The cars were trashed something fierce. Smashed out windshields, flattened tires etc. I don’t know why anyone would do that, but if I had to guess, it was because they were assholes. We parked our ride far to the back of the lot, and in between a large Dodge truck and a used Pathfinder. For all intents and purposes, it was invisible.

  The three of us set ourselves up in the dealership. The building itself was wide open. I imagine they were open for business on the morning of June 23rd when everything went down, and the salesmen just up and left when things went down. The building wasn’t that large, just a corner showroom floor with some desks inside it, and a small two bay attached garage and parts room. Nothing fancy or particularly clean. The rotten food in the small fridge in the back room still reeked. Not sure how the fuck lasted over a year, but it did.

  Hector popped one undead that was roaming around in the garage with his pistol and nearly shat a giant Mexican brick when he heard how much quieter the pistol was with the suppressor on it. He literally shouted out an, “Aye carumba,” just to get a laugh out of Mike. Hector’s too damn funny man. Just a genuinely funny guy. I think he enjoys the whole, “I’m Mexican, and can be ridiculous at will,” aspect of his life with us. I mean he can literally be completely retarded around us, and we will always laugh. I like him.

  Anyway, we set ourselves up in the glass windowed showroom. We tugged the desks back into the room and placed them behind a couple of used cars still sitting there. We had a good vantage point for the road, and Hector pulled security for us to ensure nothing slipped into the building behind us. We had to leave the garage doors open because that’s how we found them, and the door going into our sales floor area from there didn’t lock, and we didn’t want to barricade it should we need to move in a hurry. Ergo, Hector pulling security for us.

  We rotated naps on a couch in the sales area to make sure we got rest during the night. Our plan was to exfil like a motherfucker at dark today after another full day observing, but that changed in a hurry when we wound getting into an unexpected engagement
. Now we haven’t really seen these people move much during the day. Primarily, it seems to be at dusk or dawn.

  About an hour after dawn another vehicle came through the road we were on, and I shit you not, pulled right into the fucking dealership lot and drove straight to the garage. We were not expecting that. It was the same diesel truck we’d seen the other day, and it had two people in it.

  Mike and I exchanged looks that could’ve either passed for, “Fuck our lives,” or, “Sweet tits, we get to shoot assholes today.” All in all not too much of a problem. I leapt up and drew the Beretta, and Mike did the same. Hector was rear facing, looking out the door that headed to the garage, and when we got to where he was sitting in the back of the dealership he was pulling his chair out of the way to make space for us to come through. The glass door he was looking out of afforded us zero cover, and we all went to the side of the door to hide. I stood with the Beretta held at temple height.

  We heard them coming before they pushed the door open to come in. I didn’t make out exactly what their conversation was, but as soon as that door opened, I motioned for Mike and Hector to duck, and when I saw a head appear, I squeezed the trigger. The gun popped off a single round, and I blew the first guy’s brains out all over the glass door. The round didn’t penetrate the skull thankfully, and the door was spared.

  I screamed FREEZE and took a step out to threaten the second person. It was a young man, no older than 18 or 20. He froze solid when he saw the look on my face, and his shotgun clattered to the concrete of the garage. I took another step into his space and threw an elbow into his jaw. He was so rooted to the ground he didn’t even try to duck, and I hit flush, sending him straight to dreamtime. He went down hard on the hard floor, and we moved to clear the truck in case something was out there in the back.

  Long story short, we stole their truck.

  We formulated a plan and after getting our shit together, we sat the kid up in a chair in the sales room, and woke him up. We figured he wouldn’t run when he saw the guns pointed at him, and we were right. I will always remember how big his green eyes were. He had brown, unkempt hair. All I could think of was how respectable he’d look if Mallory gave him a haircut.

  “Hi. I’m Adrian,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said after coughing a few times and looking at the guns pointed in his direction. We knew he was staying put.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Barry," he said back.

  “I run a settlement of survivors that I think your people have been harassing. Are you from the Factory?” I tried to keep my tone safe, and low.

  He nodded in the affirmative.

  “Excellent. I’m sorry about your friend there, but I couldn’t afford two folks in here. One I can deal with. If he has family, you tell them I said I was sorry about that, but you know how it goes nowadays.”

  He nodded again. He looked pretty scared.

  “Where is the Factory?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell you. Seriously. If you find it, and attack them, they will definitely kill me,” he pleaded.

  “Well if I find it, and find what I suspect is going on there, you won’t need to worry about anyone killing you. I fully expect to put a hurting on the folks there. You know your people attacked my sister and brother the other day? Told them they were going to kidnap them? Told them they had to fuck and suck dick to eat?”

  “You killed Ed and Larry? Holy fuck they were assholes. You’re gonna pay dearly for that though man. They were family with the two women who run the Factory, and they’re hot as hell to find you people. They’ll hunt you like an animal once they catch wind of who you are, or where you are from.”

  “I hate to say this kid, but I am not afraid. In fact, I’m excited. Because knowing they want to kill me because I protected my family just makes me feel better about burning that place to ground. Are there innocent people there? I don’t want to kill folks that don’t deserve to die. Do you deserve to die?” I asked him as I thumbed the hammer back on the Beretta.

  His eyes opened wide as all hell. “Nope. I’m one of the good ones. The women are just used to running the show. They’re sisters. They’ve taken a lot of folks in, and they think women are useless, but having the women there brings in more men, and they think the men are useful. Most of the women are innocents there. Some of the men too. But dude, there are a lot of us. At least thirty.”

  I thanked him in the back of my head for telling me that little factoid without pressing for it. “Where have you gotten all these diesel vehicles?”

  “The Factory is down the street from a used diesel dealership. There were dozens of the damn things just sitting there. We confiscated the dealership early on last year, and we’ve been using the cars and trucks from there ever since,” Barry said.

  “Okay. Here’s the way this is going to work. I’m going to let you live to bring a message to these sisters. Here’s the message: stop going west. If we see anyone from this area of the city heading west, we will shoot them on sight. One by one, bullet by bullet, every single brave cocksucker in your Factory will get put down like a rabid dog. You can have your city, all we want is our town. Pass that message along.”

  He swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Sorry we are meeting under these circumstances Barry. But pass that message along please. I don’t want more bloodshed here. If we see no more of your people come our way, we will consider this matter resolved. But if one more set of vehicles comes in our direction with mayhem and discontent on their agenda, I will consider it an act of war on me and mine, and I guarantee you, this is one hornet’s nest you do NOT want to stir.”

  I smiled like a poisonous snake, and we left Barry.

  I am not kidding. If I see one more of their vehicles in my town, I will not rest until they are dealt with.

  My way.

  -Adrian

  September 10th

  I really want to sit here and type that I feel that the Outsiders won’t make another move on us, but you and I both know Mr. Journal that they will. I’m just not that lucky.

  They haven’t made any moves that we’ve seen in town yet, but that might just be them getting their ducks in a row. The good thing about them taking time to get their ducks in a row, is that it allows us to do the same. I like our ducks. They kick ass.

  We know how they’ll come at us. There is only one real way to get to town from the area they seem to be coming from. Granted there are some long, circuitous routes to take, but the distance you’d have to travel would be pretty excessive, a huge waste of fuel, and likely quite dangerous. And you know what Mr. Journal? These people don’t seem like brain surgeons to me. They seem more like the “See nail, hammer nail,” kind of folks. Linear. Kind of dumb. I know I am risking underestimating the enemy by saying this, but look at their track record. Every time we cross paths with them, they go home in body bags with custom toe tags.

  They also appear to be really under-armed. I’ve seen a mess of shotguns and lever action rifles in their possession thus far, and that’s sad. I’m guessing they used up the good guns or the ammunition for the good guns early on. I’m not saying shotguns aren’t good, but a 4 shell capacity turkey 12 gauge is not exactly ideal for surviving the apocalypse we’re balls deep in.

  Not to mention our body armor stops shotgun shells pretty effectively unless it's point-blank range. I mean yeah, we can still get peppered with some pellets due to spread, but the brunt of most shotgun shells should be handled by the IOTV. Famous last words. HEEELLLLLOOOO Jinx fairy.

  Fuck off, Bitch.

  In an attempt to setup a preemptive strike in the event they make their way towards us again, tomorrow we are moving out and setting up an ambush site right off the interstate near Gilbert’s place. We’re setting up a double ambush. Well actually, one real one, and one fake one. Remember how we found an area near Gilbert’s Warehouse that was very sketchy, and looked like someone had set up some kind of road block? My brother and sister said it set off th
eir “what the fuck” radar, and it forced them to go down the road the warehouse was on. We’re setting up that fake roadblock as a real one tomorrow.

  There are several accident scenes right there, as well as a few abandoned vehicles. A handful of us are rolling out to that location, and we’re moving those vehicles in a fashion to indicate that there is a roadblock there, and it will be dangerous if someone moves through that area. That will hopefully give them second thoughts about going down the warehouse road. On the warehouse road we will be doing… nothing. This is just a little red herring to give them pause, and to make them think twice about coming our way.

  About a mile from that location there is a decent sized church on one side of the road, and a decent sized house on the other side of the road. If we put someone in the church bell tower, and someone in the upstairs of the house, we will have interlocking fields of fire on the main approach to town. If they come that far into town, they have a single purpose, and that’s to either steal our shit, or as I said to Barry, cause mayhem and discontent. We are setting up there for a two day hitch, then rotating a new team in. We have enough skilled shooters that if they roll in, we can simply light them up, and send them packing. I don’t think they have anything heavy for weapons to fight back with, and honestly, if we have four to six shooters fire at the drivers all at once, they won’t have much in the way of a response anyway, unless they're smart enough to assault through our ambush. See: fire superiority.

  Myself, Blake, Martin, Hector, Angela and Mallory are in the first squad to roll out. We are setting up four people in the house, and two people in the church bell tower. If we see anything come our way, I pull the trigger, and that’s all she wrote.

  Next rotation will be led by Mike and Abby, and I think by then Caleb might be able to go out too. It’s been a long heal for him, but really he’s doing quite well now, and in another three days he could be mobile enough to set himself up as a stationary shooter. We’ll see. There is little sense in having him go out early if he needs the rest, and besides, having him back on campus makes me feel a little better about the level of security there.