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

by Chris Philbrook

  Abby

  November 10th

  I’m really surprised at how cold it’s gotten the past week or two. Maybe I’m spoiled by being outside so much all this summer, but dang Dad, it’s chilly out there. Adrian has this big red thermometer mounted on a tree outside the dorm here and it’s holding steady at about 50 to 55 degrees during the day, and at night, it’s halves. Frost everywhere in the morning. It’s also making the night watches tough, but we need to adapt. It’s only going to get worse.

  I got a nice big scratch on my forearm earlier today when we went downtown to check out the gas stations. I’m overdue for injury really. I should’ve suspected it. Everyone else around here is always breaking fingers and toes, or cutting themselves, or getting burnt on something, and other than the missing finger I have, I always seem to skate through. Heck, even Adrian has been shot twice.

  That probably wasn’t the best thing to say eh? Dad I miss that guy. Doc Lindsey said he’s stable, and she thinks that she’ll be ready to operate on him within a couple days. We’re talking over whether or not we should move him down to the clinic downtown there the facilities are more appropriate, but moving him is enough of a problem as it is. The little clinic here might not be perfect, but it’ll do. Besides, what do we have to lose? He’s just the leader of our group, and an all around super duper fella that might end all this nonsense.

  I’m jaded because my arm hurts. I can’t make this a long entry because my wrist where the cut is has been rubbing on the edge of the laptop, and it’s starting to get all stingy and raw. No fun.

  A large group of us went downtown today to swing by the three gas stations. What we found was really quite surprising. Actually, that’s horsepucky. What we found was pretty standard.

  Zombies. Zeds fricking everywhere. Each of the gas stations had a mob surrounding the smoldering wreckage of the pumps at least ten deep, and entirely encircling the whole place. It was like a free cocaine table at a rave. When we drove around the few building to approach the gas station we were shocked to see the huge mob of zeds there. It was crazy. We hadn’t seen that many undead anywhere in a really long time, and I think we all kinda sorta froze up trying to pick our jaws up from our laps. Luckily, Martin and I were in the ambulance in the front of the pack, and after a few seconds of making a plan, we drove straight into the crowd and started bulldozing.

  I’m really impressed by Martin. He’s a pretty cool cucumber now when it gets a little dicey, and the dude just KNOWS stuff. Like, how to fix things, and make things, and break things. If it weren’t for him and Blake, we’d be struggling so much harder. It’s funny how the jobs that made tons of money before are useless, and the jobs that paid kinda crappy are super important. The investment banker? He's useless. That housewife that knows how to bake bread? She's priceless.

  Needless to say, we spent an hour or two driving around and through the gas station running zeds over, and shooting a few, and then getting out to bash heads in. It was just too large a group to leave, and we wanted to get out to investigate. I’m displeased to announce that we discovered no real evidence of anything. No bomb parts, no smoking gun, nada!

  The remaining gas stations that were on fire the other night had exactly the same thing going on. A hundred walking dead pawing at them like they were fresh meat factories. I think we left school here at like, maybe 9am? Maybe 8am? I forget now, but we didn’t get back here until after dark, sometime around 6 or 7. We were out there putting down zeds until we were blue in the face from exhaustion and cold. Quite a few of us will be sipping on hot cups of bad canned soup tonight to warm up and get some nutrients into our bodies. I know I am, sore wrist and all.

  The trip into town tonight was not only dangerous, but discouraging. We were looking for answers, and got none. We were hoping town would be mostly clear of the dead, and it was surprisingly full of them. We were hoping for an injury free day, and a few of us came back dinged up. We were hoping for something good to happen, and the only thing good that did happen, was us killing all those zombies.

  Blech! What a crap day.

  I’m tired and cranky, and I want to go to bed. Adrian is a stickler for taking good care of ourselves when we’re hurt. He’s a freak when it comes to infection, and whenever any of us gets a cut or scrape, he’s all up in our faces about making sure we clean it out properly, and put antibiotic ointment on it and bandages and stuff. I’ve picked up the habit as well, and it is time for me to take care of this scratch before it gets infected. I’m sure it’ll be enough of a bitch without getting infected to boot.

  You know what I just remembered from earlier?

  Hm. Bothering.

  I can remember seeing a lot of zeds dead on the ground, burnt to a crisp. More than just a handful at each gas station, I remember seeing them. Clear as day now that I think about it.

  That means… That means the zeds were there when the places exploded.

  Why would a zombie be hanging out at an abandoned gas station?

  Hm.

  Abby

  November 13th

  Sorry it’s been so long since I wrote anything Dad. My arm has gotten a little infected, and it’s really sore right now. Doc Lindsey said I’ll be fine, but it’s puffy, red, and it hurts like hell to use at the moment. Typing is the worst too. It’s like resting my arm on a row of tacks that are dipped in lemon juice. Super stingy and sore.

  Having said that, I will keep this short.

  Melissa’s contractions are tightening, and Lindsey is now thinking she’s gonna pop within a day or two. I’m super duper excited for the two of them! It’s so cool to see them all happy and excited, and scared, and getting the last little bits of Hall B ready for the baby. Blake and Kim are also super happy too to have another set of parents in the same building. I bet they are NOT excited to have another crying baby though.

  BABIES! Fun!

  Of course I am NOT the one taking care of them, so babies are fun for me. I bet the whole “raising a kid” thing is far more work and pain than I could possibly realize, and I’m okay with that. Currently I am not in the position to start squirting little Williams babies out, which I’m sure pleases you to no end Dad. Although, you would probably have loved a grandkid. Especially seeing as how I know you and Mom thought I was a lesbian for a few years there. Can’t say that I blame you. I didn’t like boys and the crap they bring for a very long time.

  Um so yeah, off topic much?

  Not much new here. Gavin’s tower is doing okay, though they are pretty much always surrounded by a few zeds. They’ve taken to dropping large bricks like the Factory does, and with a few day’s practice, they are now hitting pretty accurately. I guess Danny is a great shot with concrete blocks, and he’s managed to kill something around 20 zeds that way. Talented kid. We should invent a professional block dropping league just for him. Where did he get the concrete blocks from? Did he carry them all the way up all those flights of stairs, or were they already on the roof?

  The gas stations are history, but I already said that. Blake is pretty sure we’ll be okay for gas for the generators for some time, but we’re working with some pretty harsh electricity conservation here. We run the generators for two hours a night ONLY, and only overnight to power the furnaces when it drops below 40 degrees. Otherwise, we’re screwed.

  Well that’s not true. We’ve got a LOT of wood stoves now, and with all the logging we did to build the wall that surrounds school now, we’ve got a huge stockpile of dry wood to burn. Blake and Martin are still saying it isn’t enough for the winter, but I can’t see how they’re right. There’s so much wood. They’re now working on a plan to head into the woods near here to chop down trees solely for the purpose of heating. It seems like so much work.

  Blake is doing well by the way. He still winces with pain from his gut shot near the factory, and it's still pink and healing, but he seems well. Taking it easy most of the time, and for him, that's good.

  Adrian is also stable. He’s isn’t bleeding, and he�
��s got a feeding tube now because we couldn’t keep using all the IV bags. We’re down to something like 20 bags, which sounds like a lot, but apparently isn’t. I guess Lindsey put the same kind of tube in Adrian that she put in Blake, so she had experience, and I guess it went well. Supposedly the tube will be okay for a week or maybe two, so that’s kind of a good thing.

  The kind of bad thing, is what do we do in two weeks when the tube has to go? Use the rest of our IV bags on Adrian, or do we stop feeding him, or do we operate? Lindsey is still getting closer, but I’m starting to wonder if she’ll ever be ready.

  So we’ll be outside of the school walls for the next few days as we cut down trees for wood. I think the zeds will be manageable, as the influx has slowed to a trickle. I think the gas station explosions, and our huge purge at those gas stations cut into the new surge we’ve been dealing with. Scary stuff.

  Tired now. Gonna nap with Otis.

  Oh crap, I almost forgot. Mallory decided to tough it out, and stay “with” Adrian until he wakes up. She figured the alternative was shitty, and she also figured she’d wait until he was up and about to see if her feelings changed about the whole affair. Smart I think.

  I’m out. See you later Dad.

  Abby

  November 16th

  Alright. I don’t know what is happening, but things are definitely getting ramped up at every place we have people. Earlier today around dinner time the gate radioed to everyone that about forty undead had shuffled their way down the road, and were pressing themselves against the gate. By the time we all gathered at the gate to start to make a plan about what to do about it, at least a hundred more had started to fill the road and bridge.

  What makes that situation worse, is that many of them walked directly into the water, and disappeared under the surface. I thought dead bodies floated. These ones do NOT. About two hours after they disappeared under the surface of the water, some of them started to walk ashore on this side of the bridge, and now they’re scratching at the log wall, trying to get inside. Olllie’s gate is holding strong still, but it’s only a matter of time before it gives. More and more zeds are coming down the road, and literally coming out of the woods as well. They’ve never come from anywhere but the road.

  This is a whole new ballgame , Dad. Not cool.

  Gavin’s tower is starting to be surrounded as well. Angela just radioed and said there are about thirty or forty of the bastards scraping at the bottom floor trying to get inside. They’re out of bricks and stones at the moment too, and they’re low enough on ammo that they can’t really shoot their way out. We need to find a way out of here to help them, but we aren’t sure how we’re going to kill 150+ zeds right now.

  The Factory is also surrounded, though not that bad yet. We’re afraid to ask them to come to our aid though, because how bad is it where we can’t see? Plus, we have little faith in their combat ability as Mike says. We already killed most of their decent shooters.

  Not frigging cool.

  We’re freaking out. I’m freaking out. Oh and to make matters worse, Adrian’s feed tube is all fucked up, and Lindsey had to take it out. He’s back on IV bags, but like we said, we don’t have many left. It’s do or die time for him.

  Literally.

  I’ll write more when I know more. I’m headed out to the gate to figure out a plan.

  Abby

  The Road to Bastion

  “I don’t fucking believe this. Every single approach to the city is ruined. Who the fuck made the calls on where to bomb? This is a joke. Look at the goddamn cars trying to get out of the city. What the hell?” Kevin said in smoldering anger. They’d spent the last three days skirting Boston, trying to find a way to get to where his mother lived, but every path heading into the east coast city was destroyed by bombs, or blocked completely by massive roadblocks.

  Fitz was standing next to Kevin, and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Kevin had been furious for days as they struggled to find a way to get to his mother in the ruined city. “Kev brother I’m sorry. But we can’t stay here. This is not gonna work for us. The zeds are crawling everywhere. Look over the side of the damn bridge. We gotta move and soon or we’ll be so surrounded we’ll need every bullet to shoot our way off this bridge.”

  Kevin looked around. The entire team was parked and standing on what remained of the Leonard P. Zakim Bridge just north of downtown Boston. The center of the bridge had enormous holes blasted through it straight down to the surface streets and water below. The holes had been created by massive bombs that could only have been dropped by American forces. Bombs that had probably been dropped to stop the spreading of the undead menace. Bombs that had stopped nothing but the ability of the living to escape from the city center.

  Kevin looked over at the Bunker Hill Monument off in the distance in Charlestown and took a deep breath. The thin stone spike rose high above the neighborhood that grew around it. It was a memorial of the American Revolution and stood as a reminder that this had once been a place where a great battle had been fought. Few people knew the monument was actually built on the wrong hill. Kevin wondered silently if the monument would soon stand as a memorial to a dead city, and a dead nation. He thought about all the other important historical places around the world that marked locations that would never matter again. The battle of Bunker Hill didn't matter anymore. Would never matter again.

  “What’s the plan Caucasians?” Harold, the British Marine asked as he walked up beside the two older men. Harold’s dark skin shined in the pale November sun. He looked like he was sweating despite the cool chill in the afternoon air.

  Kevin took off his well-worn white baseball cap and ran his fingers through his lengthening hair. He desperately needed a shave, but they had been moving constantly for days, and hadn’t made the time for hygiene beyond wiping themselves down with salvaged baby wipes. He looked over at Harold after seating his cap back on. “Well Hal, the way Fitz sees it, we need to move right now, or we’re fucked. I guess he’s right. I can’t imagine my mother is still alive anyway, and I’ve spent far too damn long with us driving around trying to find a dead body. Selfish prick aren’t I? Sorry guys. Where the hell do we head from here?”

  Neither of the men had a good answer, and after a minute of silence, they followed Kevin as he headed back to the ramshackle convoy of vehicles the group had been using since they arrived back in the States. Kevin would consult the others, and the group would make a plan for at least the night. Much beyond that was beyond their ken.

  *****

  People were unhappy.

  “Where is this Gavin guy Michelle? The guy from your dream that is supposed to lead us to this damn promised land? The frigging Soul, or whatever? We’ve been here for months now. It’s almost halfway through November and nothing. We aren’t going to be able to move on the roads once the snow really starts to fall. There are no plows anywhere, and we’ve got to start settling down somewhere. We need to start making a real frigging plan soon.” Jaden, the leader of the Air Force para-rescue team said over the small fire they had lit in the small office they’d taken over for the night. They were on the second floor of a small office building half an hour outside of Boston. It was still incredibly urban there, but the zombies were spread out acceptably thin, and they’d been able to get into the building without attracting too much attention. It helped that the men had suppressed firearms to kill quietly.

  Michelle sat on the floor with her knees tucked under her chin, trying to conserve her warmth as best she could. “Jaden I wish I knew. All I know is the old man Gilbert and the young man Gavin said they would find us somewhere near the east coast. It could be any day, or next year for all we know.” Michelle pulled the small military blanket up over her knees and huddled underneath it. It would be another cold night. The cold always made people unhappy.

  Becky and her daughter Shelby sat beside Michelle, huddled up with Kevin. Michelle smiled at the three people who she’d grown close to. They were a very impromptu
family, but a loving one nonetheless. Sometimes great things can grow out of tragedy.

  Joel, one of Jaden’s special operations men screwed a long pipe-like suppressor onto his pistol and sat it down on a rag. He’d just cleaned and reassembled it for the umpteenth time. The weapon had seen heavy use lately. “Well we need to assume that we aren’t going to be contacted by anyone, so we need to start thinking about a safe place we can secure that’s near water, and can sustain us. Food is a major concern right now. We’ve only got maybe two more weeks of MREs and that’s assuming we stay on two a day. We could go to one a day soon but that’s gonna suck.”

  Everyone agreed with his reasoning.

  Quan, the Vietnamese operator that had worked for Kevin before the end of the world, spoke up with his heavy accent. “What if we go into the mountains? Or to the lakes? Drive very far. A few days of driving at least. Some small town. Less people means less dead people. More animals to hunt, more land to farm.”

  Everyone also agreed with his reasoning.

  After thinking, Kevin finally added his two cents, “The highways seem fairly clear near here. We can make good time heading out. Maybe find a town off the interstate. A few towns off the interstate. We find a place large enough for us to all live in with land nearby. Something industrial maybe like an old grocery store, or a school. Maybe not a grocery store. Too much glass to protect. Something sturdy and large. We can build some walls fairly fast, or maybe even just relocate some fencing. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Once the snow falls the undead will be hamstrung and it’ll likely be a lot safer for us.”

  “That’s all true Kevin, but don’t forget, that snow also means we can’t run for shit either. We need to get our hands on a plow. One of the big state operated ones if possible. You and I both know that the vehicles we are driving by now are total shit. All the batteries are dead. Half the gas tanks are water logged, and the rest are drained dry. There’s dry rot to contend with, and most of the tires are flat as fuck,” Jaden said, his hands rubbing at the stump of his missing leg. He'd just taken off his prosthetic and after a long day of being on his feet, he was always uncomfortable. It was a testament to his strength that he was even able to move now with just the single leg and the ramshackle false leg he used.