Wish me luck Mr. Journal.
-Adrian
A Stranger Among Us
“Push Melissa. Push. Almost there.”
Melissa’s strained face focused intently on Ethan, the young medic gently handling her baby as it came into the world. The sweat ran off her in rivers as the father of her baby, Ollie, held her hand firmly. Melissa grunted powerfully, contracting her entire body like a cable straining to hold up a thousand pounds of weight. Ethan’s smile widened again, and Melissa felt a sudden burst of relief as her child's body came into the world.
“It’s a girl! It’s a girl. It’s little Martha!” Ollie exclaimed from her side, tears running down his face.
Ethan scooped the baby into his arms, cradling it against the blue medical smock he was wearing. The older woman Lindsey standing at Ethan’s side offered the medical scissors to Ollie, who quickly cut the umbilical cord, freeing his daughter from her mother. A tiny wail came out of his infant’s mouth as she started to shake from the cold air. Ethan and Lindsey stepped away to address the needs of the newborn, and Ollie took Melissa’s hand again, embracing her, showering her with praise and love.
In the bedroom near the door was Patty, one of Melissa’s close friends at the sanctuary. The dark haired friend caressed the new mother’s forehead, kissed it gently, congratulating her. She hugged Ollie warmly and excused herself from the room to share the news with all the others who were eagerly awaiting news downstairs.
*****
Adrian sat quietly at the same kitchen table he had worked at the night the world as they knew it ended. Adrian had watched the news unfold on his laptop as he sat alone, keeping watch over a dorm of sleeping girls. That’s what this building was back then. It was one of the dormitories on a private school campus. Now it was a home to several survivors of the apocalypse.
“I heard a door shut,” Adrian said quietly to his friend Kevin. The two men sat together at that kitchen table, chatting about the plan for tomorrow. Kevin was taking the majority of the labor force they had on hand and was going to start building the guard towers across campus. Despite being encircled by a twelve foot tall berm and log wall, the place didn’t seem safe enough. Towers with mounts for the new light machine guns Kevin’s group brought would give them far better visibility, and elevated firing positions. While Kevin was doing that, Adrian planned on taking a few of the less skilled residents and taking a thorough inventory of food on hand at Bastion. Adrian felt from the complaints of the people living at the repurposed school that they were going through food far too fast. That was a scary idea especially seeing as how the snow had already begun to fall. It could be a very long and harsh winter.
Patty walked into the crowded kitchen with a tired smile on her face. “Well, it’s a girl. Big one too. Ethan and Lindsey are weighing her right now. She’s a pudgy one. They named her Martha. Looks a lot like Melissa.”
She had no sooner finished her sentence for the gathering of 20+ people to start their whooping and cheering. The birth of a baby was always cause for celebration, but now, surrounded by a world filled with the walking dead, every new life was that much more precious. The first baby girl brought into their community was also a wondrous gift, creating smiles on every face. Adrian looked across the table at his good friend Kevin and let the warm smile spread. Both men had seen unspeakable horrors in war before the undead rose, and many more since then. A new baby born to their group meant the world was returning the tiniest bit more to normal, and that was worth a smile.
Adrian reached down to his belt and pulled the large walkie off of it. He hit the transmit button, and spoke to the two other locations where his people were fortified, “I am pleased to announce the birth of a brand new baby girl. Everyone please welcome Martha McDowell to this world.” The radio was silent for a few seconds before everyone gathered around heard collective cheers from the other places that heard the message.
She was one more person to help restart the world.
Kevin and Adrian scooped up their M4 carbines out of instinct as they left the table. Kevin slid into step with his weakened friend to make sure his tired legs didn’t fail him. They had a long day ahead of them tomorrow.
*****
“I was under the impression we had a shitload of this stuff? Did you guys go on a sugar eating rampage while I was out? This seems retarded,” Adrian said scratching his head. He was frustrated because the food inventory was turning up far shorter than it should have. It was also strange what they appeared to be short of.
Jenna replied to him as she closed the large plastic container, “Adrian I don’t know. We’ve been real careful making sure none of this goes out without us knowing. I mean maybe someone has access to the cafeteria and they’re taking stuff when they’re not supposed to? Do we need to do a key inventory?” Jenna sat down on a milk crate filled with canned goods and wiped the thin film of sweat off her brow.
“It’s someone with a sweet tooth. That’s clear enough. Most of our little snack cakes, and apple sauces, and candy bars are all gone from the cafeteria here. The stashes in the halls are all where they’re supposed to be, right?” Adrian asked as he got to his feet slowly. Out of habit he gently rubbed the back of his neck where his gunshot wound was. He was still weak from his time in a coma.
Jenna watched the man that had been so strong a month before wobble. He already looked better, but he still had so far to go. He’d lost so much muscle. “I can start asking around for everyone to search the rooms and dorms that have the kids in them. We’ve got about ten kids now right? There’s plenty of perps right there.”
Adrian snickered. “Has anyone put weight on? Any new beer bellies on anyone?”
Jenna thought carefully. “I can’ think of anyone that’s plumped up. Of course we’re all wearing winter jackets and sweaters now so it’s a little harder to tell. But no, no one I can remember.”
“Alright. Tomorrow or the next day if you can, try and get some of the rooms searched. We need to get this under control or we’ll have a riot on our hands. If all our candy bars disappear, Ollie and Mike will start stabbing people. It could be worse than this whole zombie problem we’ve been toughing out.”
Jenna grinned.
Adrian’s walkie lit up with a voice from somewhere else. It was a young woman’s voice. “Hey is there anyone who can come to the back gate for a second? We’ve got some dead outside on the edge of the wall I’d like checked out.” Adrian stopped to listen to any responses. He didn't want to talk over anyone who was higher in the line of folks who should be responding.
“We’re all committed at the moment. Is it an emergency? I can free up a couple people to head over,” Kevin replied. Adrian knew he’d taken most of the people outside of the wall to cut down trees and start work on the guard towers. Adrian pulled the walkie off his belt and joined the conversation.
“I can swing by the gate. I’m not that far away, and I’m free.”
Kevin responded to him, “Adrian you sure buddy? We can free someone up, you can skip this.”
“Nah I’m good. I gotta earn my chow sooner or later here. People have been wiping my ass for plenty long enough.”
“Amen to that. Be safe. Holler if you need a hand.”
“Up for a walk?” Adrian asked Jenna.
“Sure. It’s getting cold out. The sun will be down in about an hour. Let me get our jackets.”
“Thanks.” Adrian slipped the sling of his rifle over his shoulder and chambered a round. He saw no reason for risk.
*****
“Not sure where they came from. They sort of wandered up to the gate an hour ago. They’ve been standing there ever since.” The young girl’s voice on the radio earlier was Wendy. Wendy had recently returned to Bastion from Ollie’s father’s farm. Things had not gone well there, and Ollie’s father had died. Since her return to the fortified campus Wendy had invested into the protection of the campus heavily. She volunteered for extra shifts to watch the gates, and walk about, trying t
o ensure a higher level of safety. Paranoia might've been the cause, but it meant everyone was a little safer.
Adrian stood carefully at the top of the berm, looking over the logs and the platform that spanned the width of the gate. The gate itself was a pair of massive wooden sets of doors that looked like they belonged in a medieval keep. The group had designed them to be wide enough to allow for a semi truck to drive out of them, and strong enough to stand up to a semi truck hitting them. This gate hadn’t been tested yet, as they hadn’t been attacked in force by the living yet, and certainly not from the direction this gate faced. This was their rear gate, and it opened up towards the forest that surrounded the school’s wall.
“I count five, is that what you got?” Adrian asked, never moving his eyes off the cluster of dead bodies shuffling around the base of the gate.
Wendy squinted to count the undead again in the fading afternoon light. “Yeah. I had five earlier, looks like still five. Same five too, which is reassuring.”
Adrian pulled his walkie again, and spoke into it, “Kevin and whoever is at Bastion and on comms: I am firing on five zombies at the rear gate. No emergency.”
“Roger that,” Kevin said. Several other voices echoed Kevin as everyone listening affirmed. Adrian didn’t want to risk anyone hearing the shots and panicking. Communication was very important. Adrian methodically put his weapon on semi and shouldered it, putting the crosshairs of his ACOG sight on the head of a zombie standing almost directly below him. The tall man steadied himself, and gently squeezed the trigger, sending a loud crack into the forest, dropping the zombie to the ground with the top of its head missing.
Adrian’s mind reeled as the body fell lifelessly to the ground. His eyes blacked over for a moment and he was brought immediately back to the moment when he was shot in the back of the neck standing in apple orchard a month and a half prior. He vividly recalled his vision going black then as he felt the bullet pierce his neck, sending him facedown on his side into the damp grass between the rows of fruit-bearing trees. He could completely recall in every iota of detail the swelling, the pain, and how hard it was to breathe as his soft tissues reacted to the foreign bullet inside him. He felt like he'd been shot again.
Adrian lowered the rifle and took a deep breath in hitches, reassuring himself that he was just re-experiencing the moment, and that he wasn’t shot again. He pulled his left hand away from the still sealing incision from where Ethan and Roger removed the bullet. He hadn’t realized he’d even put his hand there.
“You okay?” Wendy asked him.
Adrian swallowed hard and shouldered his rifle again, stifling the fear that was creeping up into the back of his mind, almost as if it were coming directly from the wound itself. He couldn't appear weak. He had to be strong for everyone. “I’m fine.” With that said he lined up his remaining shots, and killed the four undead that had staggered closer to the base of the wall that he stood atop. Each pull of the trigger hit him like a bolt of lightning, threatening the memory of his injury, and making him weak in the knees.
When he was certain they were permanently dead, he put the weapon back on safe, and walked down the berm towards Hall E, his home. He was not looking forward to his dreams later that night.
*****
Two days later Adrian met once more with Jenna. Adrian had been too busy with other tasks to follow up on the missing food on his own, so he asked her to take charge of it. She’d taken the time to search the kid’s bedrooms and dorms for the missing food. The search had turned up nothing.
“How did Andy’s visit go? We getting security cameras?” Jenna asked. She had to pause between sentences to allow someone with a power saw outside to finish cutting some wood. The construction of the guard towers was in full swing. It felt good to have all the commotion.
“Yeah. He’s making a plan with Mike and Kevin to get some bodies to accumulate some additional cameras for here and Auburn Lake Road. I guess he already has enough for MGR. They’re hitting the police station downtown as well as the grocery store. There are cameras all over the place there. He’s also going to need some solar power cells for them too, but I guess he knows where to find them. Some electronics store near the Factory has them. With any luck, we’ll have the first few installed and operational within 4 or 5 days,” Adrian said as he ate an apple. He considered it sweet justice for being shot in an orchard. The apple was grainy.
“That’s awesome. Can we get some cameras pointing into campus? Because I searched all the kid’s rooms, and I found zilch. I think we’ve got a far more clever animal on our hands. Perhaps an elusive adult.”
“Hm. I guess that’s possible. Do you think maybe we’re just allocating too much food to everyone regularly? Like, are we giving them too many sweets each week and we’re just not keeping track of it?” Adrian mused.
“I doubt it. The few of us who have been watching the food go out regularly are all pretty aware of it. Of course we don’t always lock the door of the café, especially since the wall was finished, so I guess anyone could just waltz in and take what they want. I’m telling you, this stuff is being taken by someone,” Jenna answered.
“Hm. Alright. I think I can have Andy set up a camera or two inside campus for us to fool around with. If we have those set up initially to watch the cafeteria, then we might be able to figure this out. I’ll ask him when he can get us a couple up and running. Hell, if we have to record the footage on VHS to start I’ll be happy.”
“Ha. Then maybe we could listen to Vanilla Ice, and Def Leopard on cassette tapes too. Way to date yourself,” Jenna poked fun at the man who had made all this happen. She joked, but inside she was still very thankful.
“Ha fucking ha-ha. You aren’t that much younger than me you know. I’d stow the comments unless you want me dropping some serious smart-assed comments on you. You can’t take what I bring to the table missy.” Adrian gave her the most serious face he could muster, but they both knew he was laughing.
“Yeah yeah. Heard that before. What can I do in the meantime while we’re waiting on cameras?” Jenna asked.
Adrian thought for a few seconds before responding, “Jenna is there any way you can get an idea on our clothing and bedding situation? We’re headed into winter and we need an accurate idea of whether or not we’ve got enough blankets, and jackets, and boots. Kevin and Michelle's people don't seem to be equipped for the cold weather either. I’d hate to be running around in foot deep snow in February trying to find clothing we could’ve gotten now.”
“Yeah no sweat. I’ll gladly check it out. Do you want me to put it anywhere when I find certain items?”
Adrian looked at a loss. "Um, I guess just take a quick look at it, and put it somewhere they or we can get at it easily. They can pick and choose what they need when they need it."
"Easy enough," she said. She was happy to help.
“Terrific. I’ll let you know when I hear more. Check in with me in a few days, yeah?” Adrian asked her.
“I’m on it.” Jenna smiled, and left to take on her new task.
Adrian wondered just which asshole on campus was the one stealing all the good food.
*****
The young man with the pale skin and the thick glasses looked happy as he spoke. “And that just about does it. You can’t manipulate the cameras at all, as they aren’t on swivels or anything, but you’ve got a whole shitload of them pointed in all different directions. You should be able to view just about every approach, minus the woods, but you’ve got a camera on the rear gate so even that is sort of covered. I also have an additional camera mounted on a telephone pole at the corner of the road here,” Andy said proudly. He’d just finished up the final installation of the massive security system. It had taken him and the rest of the group assigned to the task just six days since Adrian and Jenna’s conversation about it.
Adrian and Kevin looked down at the scrawny, vampiric technology wizard and were amazed. He’d set everything up so fast it seemed like someone me
rely half-assing it. As they hit the space bar on the laptop they were amazed that the view in the browser window switched through the cycle of all the cameras available to them. Anyone who knew the address for the system Andy had broadcasting could watch every single camera from the comfort of their own bed. Not only could they access all of their own cameras, but each camera in the Factory where Andy resided could be accessed as well. Within a few days the cameras would be installed and operational at the apartment building they had fortified in town. They’d have camera access covering almost every inch of town it seemed. To make things even more impressive, not one soul had been killed or injured while the supplies were being collected.
It was in a word: amazing.
“You can pick your jaws up boys. This kind of miracle is what I do,” Andy said. The two men clapped him firmly on the back.
“Andy I love you,” Kevin said with seriousness in his voice. And a good part of that was the truth.
*****
One downside to having 24 hour closed circuit camera security is the overwhelming need to watch the feed, as often as possible. Adrian spent hour after hour later that day and the next, obsessively going to his room, and checking the situation wherever he felt he needed to. He spent an especially large amount of time looking at the cameras that were at the Factory. The converted strip club on the fringes of the city had quite a few survivors living at it, and when Adrian realized that he could watch them live their lives right there in front of him, he felt compelled to watch.
As it turns out, they were boring people.
As Andy and the crew completed and installed cameras the list of available views increased accordingly. The day after the system was launched two more cameras were installed at the apartment tower downtown, allowing for good views to the north and south along the street it was on. Adrian spent a considerable amount of time watching the town silently age on the screen when they came alive. A quiet sadness crept into him as watched nothing happen, hour after hour. Piles of the new snow sat white and barren in the roads, and no vehicles moved where there should've been many. The trees were bereft of leaves, and were slate gray and seemed lonelier than ever. The only thing missing was the occasional tumbleweed blowing past to put the stamp on the terrible desolation mankind's departure left behind. Late in the night as he sat alone in his bedroom, computer in his lap, he sat and stared at the faint green images on the screen. It was like watching a funeral procession for the world that no one went to.
Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 7): The Trinity Page 32
