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

by Chris Philbrook

James has also been bringing in turkeys here and there too, which has been good for our overall sleeping habits. Bad for our gas though. Lots of farting all over school, which really isn’t all that different from when there were just us kids here. I’m used to it. Boys being boys and all that jazz.

  Oh, and I haven’t done it yet, but I have decided that I talking to you Dad. Mr. Journal is Adrian’s buddy, but I think this will be a good chance for me to get some things off my chest to you, so congratulations Dad, I’m talking to you.

  I miss you! And Randy too! I wish I knew what happened that night when the factory blew up. I still remember the sound of the explosion that night. The look of the light in the sky as it burned. I’m so happy Mom lived. Sad you two died though. If Randy is there, tell him I love him. I love you too.

  So before I go, I said I’d share a little thing about Adrian every time I write in here, so now would be the time to do that. I’m fricking exhausted.

  Sooooo… Now I draw a blank on what to say about him. Oh, here’s a juicy one.

  He frequently walks to the bedroom at the end of our hall butt nekkid. He has zero qualms about being entirely unclothed in front of people. It wasn’t until his Nephew Adam arrived in our Hall that he started putting on his underwear to take a piss.

  Fucking guy. Not that I’m complaining about the view. The dude is put together in the right ways, in the right places, but he’s like my uncle or something, and having to look at his junk when I’m half asleep has been a strange experience to say the least.

  Take that Adrian. A shot across the bow!

  Abby

  October 14th

  I’m finding it really difficult to find time to write in this fricking diary Dad. In fact, the only reason I am sitting here with Adrian’s cat curled up in my lap writing at all on my bed is because I wanted to make sure I took the time to check in with you.

  Does that sound as crazy to you as it does to me? Like, a few chicken wings short of a Hooters basket crazy? I’m telling my deceased father that I wanted to talk to him in a diary that belongs to someone else, and all this is happening after the undead have sat back up, and eaten our world nearly empty.

  Yep, that sounds crazy. All real, but still loony.

  Hope things are well in the afterlife, whatever that means. As someone who spent a good amount of time believing that religion was a bunch of hokey nonsense, I am kind of amused by the fact that I sincerely believe there is life after death. I don’t buy into the whole religion thing though. Not yet. I haven’t found one I am into yet.

  Maybe I should make my own. Abbyism. Where we worship B-Grade horror movies, milkshakes, and smarmy comments to people that are stupid. We could even do it in an Abby, which is awesome. That is so cash.

  Things here are a soup sandwich as Adrian has said many a time. Not sure what soup sandwich means, but when I visualize a sandwich made with soup in it, I conjure the general image of a mess, and if that’s what it means, then that is what we have on our hands right now.

  Disarray. I like that word. It is what we have here, but I still like the word. I’ve also really enjoyed the word discombobulated. It’s fun to say. Like flabbergasted, or shenanigan. Just good times.

  Right, shit show. I honestly think we’re all going to kill each other before Adrian has a chance to get fixed. I don’t think we have long to wait, perhaps a few more days before Lindsey goes in and tries to remove the bullet that is preventing his wakeup.

  Where do I even start? This is like cleaning my room at home. What do I pick up first? Underwear? Socks? Shirts? It’s just easier to sit in the pile and let it grow than figure out where to start sometimes. Yes, that’s lazy and a bad habit to get into, but let’s be honest Dad, sometimes it is the easiest route.

  Okay so folks do NOT listen to me. I apparently am too young, and too inexperienced to make any kinds of fricking decisions here. Despite being the longest resident of school, and one of the people closest to Adrian, people almost immediately dismiss my ideas. If it wasn’t for Mom and Mike, nothing I say to anyone would be listened to at all. I know you’re probably pissed that mom is hooking up with another guy, but dad, I think you’d like him. He was in the National Guard, and he’s kind of handsome for an older guy, and he takes really good care of Mom. Try and understand for her happiness if you can. Someone is taking care of her.

  I have been trying to help Mike get things done and steer folks along here, but I am pretty much either ignored, or flat out told to go find something useful to do. I think these assholes are blind. I have a machine gun. I can easily go postal on them at any point in time. If it is the wrong time of the month, I am really apt to do just that, and here’s warning people: we’re not that far away from Aunt Flo’s visit.

  Lock your doors, wear your bulletproof vests.

  Mike has been great at listening to me, and agreeing with me on a lot of my ideas. I’m not stupid. I’m really not. I may be young, but I listen, and I am educated beyond my years. Remember how you sent me to ALPA in the first place Dad? A school for gifted over-achievers? Yep, that’s me. Your studious and mildly brilliant daughter, Abigail, at your service.

  I shudder to think how much tuition you and Mom sent to these people only to have the world come crashing down around us before I was able to graduate. Now I carry around a 9mm pistol and an assault rifle, and shoot zeds in the head. So much for British Literature, calculus, and studying the classics. I now wish ALPA had offered a shooting class for a phys ed. choice. It would’ve made the first few months of this nightmare a lot more manageable. Remember those times Dad? Back in the house in Westfield with all of us hunkered down? The trash bags over the windows, and the paint covering everything so the zombies couldn’t see us? Ha, Randy being such a dick.

  We were SO STUPID. One loud noise and our ticket would’ve been punched. How we didn’t get the windows broken is beyond me. We were so lucky.

  I am super off track tonight. ADHD for the loss.

  Melissa is huge. Lindsey has her hands full with keeping Blake, Adrian, and Melissa all in good health, and that doesn’t even cover the little things that have come up here and there. Splinters, sprains, broken fingers and toes (which are amazingly common when you’re doing hard labor all the time, who knew?!?), as well as the sudden increase in stomach bugs. Adrian’s brother Caleb is still on the mend from his wounds the day we reunited with them too. I think Mom brought back whatever bug she got at the skank factory. I feel icky just thinking I might catch a cold a stripper had. No standards on these women. It sucks they were put through hell at the hands of those heathens… but they were still strippers. Arguable they had souls.

  Yep, going to hell.

  Lindsey is fairly sure Melissa is due sometime next month. I think she could pop at any time. Like, spork out a little redheaded screaming turd at any moment. I can’t wait. I am super excited for us to have another baby here. I like the idea that we are back to making babies.

  Speaking of making babies, or never making babies as the case may be, Alex and George are asking to move back from Gavin’s tower. I guess Dwayne is being an asshole to them because they are gay, which is gay. I mean it’s stupid. It’s dumb of me to complain about slurs of sexual orientation, and then use one. That's very hypocritical of me.

  They radioed the other day and made a pretty clear case that Dwayne told them he, and this is a direct quote I heard with my own ears, “Had no interest in living with fags.”

  Since then Alex and George have ignored him and Renee as best they can, and I think tomorrow we’re figuring out what to do. If Mike leaves here with Mom, I think we’re bent. If it wasn’t for Mike doing like, 16 hour days, nothing would get done here. If he goes back to relieve Alex and George, then I think things are going to unravel on campus even faster.

  Ollie and Martin are working their asses off. Amanda and Angela are too. It’s the folks from Westfield that seem to be struggling. I think some of them came here because they wanted to live with Adrian, aka the second coming,
and now that he’s down for the moment, they’ve lost their interest in staying here, and doing their part. They’ve had it so good with us, and will continue to because we are really well stocked, that they just don’t feel that sense of urgency Adrian always seems to have. He always has us looking at tomorrow, and next week now. These people can’t quite seem to think about anything past their next meal, or bowel movement.

  Turds away!

  Another really alarming thing that’s going on is the amount of new undead in town, and right here on Auburn Lake. Alex and George said that they’ve taken about ten or so shots at some random zeds the past couple days, which is the first time that I can recall we’ve actually shot anything from Gavin’s tower. All we’ve done is look at stuff from the roof. Which by the way, is getting harder and harder to do as we get into colder weather. Eventually we’ll be looking out of the windows of the apartments there, which I guess isn’t all that bad.

  James was out hunting again this morning, and said he saw and shot two zeds making their steady and retarded way up the road. We haven’t seen any zeds up here in forfrickingever. I know Adrian right before he got shot was saying that he was starting to think we’d finally killed them all. Oh well, the Jinx Fairy must have been listening eh?

  Oh yeah Dad, Adrian says that a lot. The Jinx Fairy. It’s the skank-ho that always comes around when you jinx yourself to make sure you take it in the crapper. Adrian’s always cursing at her. Of course he frequently jinxes himself, so I guess that’s a natural consequence.

  Not sure what else to write here, Dad. Hope all is well with you and Randy and Gavin. I don’t know what’s up with Gavin, but I hope you’ve gotten to meet him. I really loved him, and I was hoping to spend the rest of my life with him. I know you’d like him. I hope you two can meet each other sometime if you haven’t already.

  Um, so a tidbit about our friend, right? I said I’d do this every time I wrote here. Not sure what to write again though. He’s pretty good at writing about himself. Weird how that works. Although it’s weird that I’m telling this to you Dad. It made more sense when I was just sending this out into the aether, and hoping someone was listening that didn’t know any of us.

  Okay so he has written a lot in this diary about guns. About how good he is with them, and how he cleans them all the time, and his inventory counts of them, and how many years he’s been shooting, and all that silly boy-stuff. Here’s something he hasn’t said: I don’t think he likes guns. I think he looks at them as tools, not something to enjoy using. I know it pisses him off having to carry a gun all the time, and I know he hates the fact that there are so many inexperienced people carrying guns around him. He’s like a cat on a porch filled with old people and rocking chairs.

  I do not blame him one bit. Imagine if a gun got into the hands of a kid that didn’t know what he was doing? God it could be horrible.

  I’m out. Sleeping is looking good, and Otis is like, planking on me.

  Abby

  October 16th

  So I wasn’t going to write anything tonight, but the weirdest thing just happened in the clinic, and I really think I should write it down.

  Lindsey just sent out a radio about like, an hour ago or whatever, and said that a few of us should come to the clinic really fast. I grabbed all my stuff, and ran over in the dark. It’s cold out at night now Dad, you’d freeze your butt off if you were here.

  So a whole bunch of us run down there and let ourselves in, and in the two beds in the clinic are Blake and Adrian, and the two of them are like, twitching and stuff. They’re moving their feet, and making fists, and even their faces are making expressions, like when guys play video games and they think no one is looking. Randy used to do it all the time.

  Anyway, I get there, and we’re watching them kibby and stuff, and it goes on for at least ten minutes, then all of a sudden, Adrian’s sheets turn bright red near his neck, and Lindsey straight up goes mental. Her and Caleb rush up, and after like, ten minutes of freaking out and bandages and some metal tool that looked like huge tweezers they got him to stop bleeding again, but Dad there was blood everywhere.

  I have never been so scared. I thought that was it. I guess Adrian twitching and whatever caused him to tear something open. Lindsey thought it was an artery, or a big vein or something, but it turned out to be less severe, although still pretty scary stuff.

  After that, Caleb wound up rolling up his shirt, and Lindsey did a transfusion or whatever. Adrian lost a fair amount of blood she said, and Caleb’s blood is the same as Adrian’s or something. I left after a bit, because I was being all freaked out, and emotional and stuff, and I hate being emotional in front of anyone other than family, or Adrian. Wow, never thought I’d say I’d be okay with being emotional in front of Adrian. I hated being emotional in front of any guy.

  Introspection. It’s what the cool kids are doing.

  So yeah, that just happened. No one knows why they were freaking out at the same time, or why they stopped at the same time. It was creepy, like they were in sync or something. Not the boy band. Moving in unison Dad. I didn’t want to confuse you, I know you were a big 'N Sync fan when they were big. Hehe.

  I’m tired as hell, there’s more to talk about, but I can’t straighten my thoughts out enough to get it out. I just wanted to write something before I fell asleep.

  Oh, and Adrian shoots snot rockets. In front of people. He says it allows him to clear his nostrils, and still keep his trigger hand on his gun. Says he learned it in the Army.

  The man has no class.

  Abby

  October 19th

  Hey Dad!

  Tired. Little sad.

  Mostly tired. Also some worried mixed in for good measure. Adrian is still asleep, and so is Blake. Neither have done their little seizure routine since the other night, and I think everyone is happy for that. It wasn’t a pretty scene at all watching the big guy bleed out of the neck as if he’d been tapped like a maple tree.

  The routine here has been filled with stress, and drama. I can safely say Dad that without Adrian, things suck. Mike is really good at motivating people, and with him here rattling cages and getting folks to work to do whatever it is we need done things are better than they would be, but the simple fact is, people are freaked out without Adrian, and they are either frozen up with worry, or they’re sitting around taking it easy because they know Adrian isn’t watching.

  It really blows Dad. I mean it like, sucks.

  So the good news on the health front is that Blake seems to be getting better. I was in the clinic last night relaxing with Adrian’s family and Mallory, and Lindsey said Blake’s been a little more alive than he has the past few days. I guess his temperature is up a bit to a better level, and he’s been showing more signs of being in his own head. Eyes moving, fingers twitching, that kind of stuff. Lindsey thinks he could sit up alive and well at any time.

  We could use it. Blake was really really popular here at school, and we could use his knowledge of cars and trucks, that’s for sure. Martin is kind of good at fixing things, but Blake was really good. Plus his girlfriend Kim and little boy could really use him. Kim is doing okay, but you can see the worry on her. It’s like she’s always standing under a storm cloud, no matter how sunny it really is.

  Adrian is unchanged. Lindsey is thinking after his rupture or whatever he had the other day that made him bleed out big time, she needs to wait for a few more days before attempting to remove that bullet. I am almost ready to start gathering support from Mom and Mike to tell her to just do it. It isn’t doing any of us any favors to have Adrian like this, and even if he died, at least we could move on.

  Callous bitch aren’t I Dad? You now know why Randy and I fought like cats and dogs our entire childhood. I was a bit of bitch to him. I also was really good at playing innocent, and he clearly was really good at acting guilty. It didn’t help that he flipped out whenever he got angry.

  Man I miss my little brother. Crazy as he was, I loved him so much
Dad. I miss you both.

  So I have been spending my time on the walls here. Well, mostly at the gate pulling security as Adrian says. I’ve been using one of the rifles Adrian said we had a lot of ammo for. It’s a .270 Winchester bolt action, and I like it. Although it does kick like a drunk chick trying to get her underwear off. Did that sound like something Adrian would say? I thought hard on how to add an "Adrian-ism" in. The gun is also very accurate. Why am I at the gate so much?

  Zeds. Not a lot Dad, but enough that I don’t dare leave the gate for too long. I’ve been shooting one or two an hour pretty much all day. Normally I’d just skip along merrily up to them and smack 'em up side the nugget with a bat or a fireman’s tool, but with the double gates we’ve got built on the bridge it is far too much work to leave and come back. It doesn't make much sense to open the gate we built for security purposes every time there's a small threat to us. Besides, I found ten boxes of .270 ammunition in the armory in the Hall’s basement, so I feel like I’m justified in doing this slowly and safely from the safe side of the gate.

  Oh, jeezum it’s cold. During the day it’s not too bad, but as soon as that silly sun goes down, that night chill hits. I wear like, three layers when I’m out there, and I still shiver. I can see my breath almost the entire evening I spend out there until whoever is coming out to relieve me arrives. The night watch doesn’t shoot during the night unless they have to. They just sit around and make sure no one tries to ram the gate in a truck, or like, fifty zeds don’t all show up at once and start smashing together.

  Stranger things have happened here, so it totally makes sense for us to have a guard posted 24/7. We haven’t had a real scary issue here in a long time, but the worry right now is Gavin’s tower.

  Remember how I said Alex and George were having words with Dwayne? Well that got kind of awkward, and a little dangerous yesterday. Mike freaked his shit. I guess Alex or George were in the hallway and Dwayne walked by, and he said something rude to them, and they said something rude back, and I guess it escalated to the point where hands were put on weapons, and that was when Renee flipped the hell out on everyone, and sent them all to their rooms. She called here on the radio and told us to send new folks here to split everyone up.