Adrian yawned powerfully and took a sip of water from the plastic cup on his nightstand. He sighed deeply, and just before he closed the browser window he caught a glimpse of something moving in the rear gate camera feed. Instantly the drowsiness disappeared and he brought the camera up closer to his face, straining to see something in the grainy grocery store camera view. He stared for sometime before realizing he’d seen nothing. Just his mind playing tricks on him.
The young man tasked with leading the group of survivors shut his computer down, blew out the candle next to the red Solo cup filled with water, and got comfortable in the bed next to his faithful cat Otis. It would be a cool night, and both man and furry pet would need to share warmth to stay comfortable.
*****
The next day at lunch Adrian caught up with Harold, one of the men in Kevin’s group and the sole person on campus from England. Harold had been assigned the late night video monitoring shift for the week, and despite his complete confidence he had just been seeing things the night before, he wanted to double check with him to ensure his sanity.
“Hal, brother, how’d it go last night?” Adrian asked as he sat down with a plate of roasted potatoes, carrots, and some of the turkey James had taken down a few days prior. The food smelled warm and fresh, and made Adrian's stomach growl. The men were sitting in the main cafeteria where they’d started to do central meals for the school’s residents.
Hal finished chewing a bite of a nearly identical meal before answering. “Good mate, good. Nothing at all on any of the views. Seems like a tit job.”
Adrian loved hearing his British accent. It spoke of a world that was far away. Adrian had loved to travel, especially with his girlfriend Cassie. But she was gone, and so was his chance to see the rest of the world. “Good. Good. I thought I saw something on the rear gate camera last night and wanted to double check with you. Was worried my head had come undone.”
Hal shook his head as he gobbled down another large mouthful of delicious warm food. “Nah. Not at all man. I saw naught last night and your head is right fine. Tonight I’ll make double sure to keep an extra eye on the rear gate just in case. Help you sleep a little better at the very least.” Hal ate greedily. Their journey to find Adrian meant many days and nights skipping more than one meal. To have hot, good food was a luxury he couldn't afford to waste.
Adrian dug into his food after thanking the young black man. He really would sleep easier knowing that Hal was on the job. Adrian was already building a solid level of trust with the new men, and that made him feel terrific. The seasonings on the potatoes and carrots was helping as well.
*****
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Several nights later Adrian was woken by a rapping noise on his bedroom door. Always a light sleeper Adrian opened his eyes and picked the 10mm Kimber pistol up off the side of the bed right near his cat. The hammer was already drawn and with a slight movement of his thumb the safety flipped off and the gun became lethal. He watched the door as the rapping came again, this time more clearly from a living person.
Tap. Tap. Tap. “Adrian, are you awake man?” Said Hal from the other side of the closed door. It was the British marine.
“Hold on Hal.” Adrian crawled out of bed as his cat Otis rolled over onto his back, yawning wide. The tall man with his fresh Mohawk haircut got to his feet and walked to the bedroom door. Despite his growing trust with people he didn’t put the gun on safe until the door was open, and he was sure it wasn’t a strange, late night attempt on his life. Who knew exactly what was inside the hearts of the people? Adrian had been wrong before, more than once, and had a hole healing in the back of his neck as proof of it.
After Adrian got the door open, Hal’s expression told him something was amiss. “Have you been looking at the feed at all? I just saw something fucking off. You have the computer that records all this bullshit yeah?” Hal asked, a bit of confusion and fear in his eyes.
“Yeah. Come on in.” Adrian put the weapon to safe and tucked it into the waistband of his boxers. The metal was cold against his skin. The pistol tugged them down a bit but the elastic held as he sat down in the rolling office chair at the student desk the other computer was installed on. The solar panel array on the roof of Hall E kept enough power in the dorm’s batteries to keep many things in electricity at night, and this computer was one of those items. Adrian powered the monitor on, and started looking through the saved files the system generated every hour.
“When did this happen?” Adrian asked Hal as he clicked through dozens of files.
“Like, 20 minutes ago, tops,” Hal said as he had a seat on the edge of Adrian’s bed. Otis got to his four feet and plodded over to him as Adrian continued his search. Otis bonked his head affectionately against the young man from east London, seeking a scratch on the head. Despite his concern, Hal obliged the furry cat.
“It just saved ten minutes ago. Talk about lucky. Here it is. I’ll fast forward. Rear gate, right?”
“Yeah.”
Adrian clicked on the file until it opened in a video player. He clicked down the bar until it was three quarters complete, and then let it play the last fifteen minutes. At 51 minutes and 10 seconds precisely, Adrian saw what made Hal so uneasy. The image immediately brought Adrian back to his sleep soaked half glimpse the other night. He HAD seen something.
The faint green tinted image showed a downward camera angle from just above the rear gate into Bastion. In the immediate bottom of the image was the rear gate itself, a thick wooden structure that stood out against the natural ground in the upper portion of the screen. A thin, wispy figure appeared suddenly out of nowhere at the base of the gate. It appeared to be human, likely a girl, a tiny waif that wore insubstantial gray and white clothing, as if she was surrounded by fog, or a ghostly shroud. She hit the ground as if she’d appeared from the ether itself, and then took off gliding across the grass smoothly and calmly, without a care or concern for her own safety in the dark forest.
She was a wraith.
“Holy fuck,” Adrian said softly.
*****
The next day at lunch Adrian sat at the round kitchen table in Hall E, flanked by his most trusted friends and advisors. Kevin and Michelle were both there, Kevin as his friend, and Michelle as the third part of the mythical Trinity the three were members of. Caleb, Adrian’s elder brother was present, as were Abby and Mike, long trusted friends and residents of Bastion. Adrian had asked Harold to be there as his voice would be relevant in the talk. At Kevin’s request Fitz had come to the meeting, and at Mike’s request Patty, Abby’s mother, also had come.
The topic was to be the strange creature seen on the video the night prior. Adrian sat at the round table with his closed laptop directly in front of him. Once everyone gathered had finished their small talk and gone quiet Adrian addressed them in a somber tone. He sounded worried.
“The night before last I thought I saw something at the rear gate. It was really late, and I was mostly asleep, so at the time, I figured I was just seeing shit. I asked Hal to keep a close eye on the same camera feed last night, and he saw something around 3am.” Adrian looked over at Hal and nodded, passing the conversational torch to him.
His accent was thicker than normal. “So there I was sitting, watching, and pow, like a goddamn ninja this little figure appears on the monitor. I says to myself ‘holy shit Hal, that’s what Adrian saw last night,’ and I runs over, and show him. We looked it up on the main recording, and we both aren’t pissed, or crazy. We saw something fucking strange.” Hal’s face conveyed a seriousness that kept everyone intently listening. Hal looked back to Adrian.
Adrian took the conversation back. “We watched the feed for an hour after that, and checked the back gate to see if there was anything there, but we saw nothing. When we got back, I moved the file from the desktop to my laptop to show you all today. I’m looking for feedback. Ideas. The floor will be open.” Adrian opened the laptop and waited until everyone there had gathered into loca
tions where they had a view of the small, flat computer screen. Once he was satisfied everyone could see, he hit play on the file.
It didn’t take long for the people to start their exclamations. The vast majority of the people were speaking quietly to each other, probing for what the others thought were on the screen. After a few minutes of tense conversation the insistent voices started to ask to see the video again. Then again, and again once more. Every viewing changed their opinion at least once, and sometimes more. The silent person in the corner of the room, sitting on the kitchen counter far off broke the mounting debate.
“I’ve seen that thing before,” Abby said loud enough to be heard by most of those gathered. The group slowly became silent. One by one they all turned to her, waiting for more. She waited until she had all of their attention. “Remember Halloween? Remember when I said I saw that kid running around the end of Hall E? The kid dressed as a ghost? The one that just disappeared? I wasn’t sure at first, but the more I think about it, the more positive I am of it. Whatever is on that recording, is what I saw that day. No doubt in my mind. That person, this thing has been here awhile.”
Looks of unease spread across the room like a foul odor had invaded the space. It was bad enough to have video of an unknown person in their midst. It was far worse to have video of a person or entity that seemed to have been around, right under their noses for some time. The sense of violation, the sense that things weren’t as safe as they should be was potent.
“Are you sure?” Mike asked her.
The young woman responded quickly, and confidently, “I said no doubt Mike. I’m positive. Same look to it. About the same size too.”
Adrian followed her up quickly before others could add their opinions to doubt her, “That doesn’t change the simple fact that we have an uninvited guest that apparently can pass through our rear gate like it isn’t even there. Ghost, wraith, phantom, or really nifty scout for another group… who fucking cares? One way or the other we need to get this person, or thing in our hands, and find out what’s going on. If we’re LUCKY it’ll just be a fucking ghost. We’ll be pushing shit down the drain something fierce if it’s actually a spy, or thief.”
“I agree,” Kevin said, tapping his toe on the floor for good luck. “We need to keep that back camera on at least two people’s screens 24 hours a day. I know we’ve got folks working on that third tower over near the maintenance garages for the next few days, so that’ll help during sun up hours. We stage a group in a garage as a QRF, and the second anyone sees he, she, it or whatever the fuck it is, we roll out and put hands on. If he, she, or it puts up a fight, we send some 5.56 through it and see what happens. I wonder if a ghost bleeds?”
Michelle spoke, “I hate to sound like the anti violence person every time I open my mouth around you guys, but we are going to try and talk first, right? Just snatching someone up that pretty clearly looks like it could be a young kid seems somewhat like overkill?”
Kevin answered her, “We’ll do our level best to talk them into surrendering to us, or engaging us in conversation. However, we can’t afford to let anyone escape with intel or supplies. It’s too critical for our ongoing safety and survival.”
Adrian added his own wisdom. “Michelle, I watched a sixteen year old kid blow the head off a cop not too long after this all happened. Teenagers can operate weapons too. Age isn’t really a factor when you’re fighting for your life every day. If a kid is threatening our existence, we need to treat them as if they were as dangerous as any adult.” Adrian looked to Michelle like he was accessing a memory he would’ve rather forgotten. It was one of the first times he seemed introspective, and intelligent to her. Maybe there was a conscience in there after all.
“I understand the security risks, and if we have to get violent, I get it. I just want us to give whoever or whatever that is a chance to give up before we start pumping them full of lead,” Michelle said in return. Everyone nodded, reassuring her that’d be the case. No one wanted unnecessary bloodshed, especially the blood of a potential child.
“Hal I’d like you on the camera feeds again tonight, and Abby, if possible, I’d like you on there as well. If we can swing it, I’d like you both on there until it is dealt with. I trust your eyes, especially in light of you having seen this thing before. Anyone else who can’t sleep can grab one of the kid’s laptops stored in the closets in the dorms. One of us can get you the address for the network. Hopefully this will all end with no violence.” Adrian took a deep breath, almost out of frustration before continuing, “Alrighty, the plan is in place, let’s get this moving. If anyone needs anything, I’ll be available as usual. Thanks everyone.”
The meeting took less than an hour.
*****
Multiple nights of dry, staring eyes passed. Unlike the nights, the days at Bastion were spent being productive, trying to shield the fact from the rest of the population that something was very amiss. Michelle, the settlement’s resident historian and theologian, was working on transforming the downstairs of one of the dormitories into a school for the upcoming winter. They hadn’t educated their children properly in over a year, and it was high time they invested significant effort into that task. Many of the residents had already stepped up to offer their expertise to help teach.
The third guard tower that Kevin and Fitz worked hard on building was completed. It stood over the parking lot of the maintenance area in the far rear of the school’s largely empty campus. Separated from the central campus by woods and a winding road down a hill, the tower stood above the garages and dumpsters like a lighthouse stood ominously over a treacherous coast. It was an alien structure where it sat, but it offered an excellent view of the rear gate, and the surrounding woods. When Adrian climbed the ladder to the top of the tower he immediately suggested that once they got the mysterious interloper under control, they should start cutting down the trees that ringed that area of campus to increase the space and visibility. There wasn’t enough open area to shoot or see anyone approaching.
Kevin issued sets of military grade communications gear out to the residents of Bastion that were frequently engaged in combat. Taken from the air base in England where they stayed for quite some time, the special operations style gear was small and compact, and worked on frequencies that didn’t interfere with the radios currently in use by the survivors. They used regular civilian issue or police issued radios. The cleverest part of the gear was the ingenious throat placement of the microphone. Even a whisper would be picked up on vibration with the mics, and it would make their most dangerous moments much safer. Kevin also promised extra items to Adrian, though he didn’t say exactly when he’d be able to give them to him.
Adrian continued to work his damaged body back into shape. When the cut in his neck was mostly healed, he started doing more pushups and sit ups. He ran around the campus constantly when he wasn’t needed to get his withered leg muscles and stamina back to where it had been. He pushed and pushed until every fiber of muscle from head to toe screamed at him to stop, and then he went a little further. There could be no quit in him. If he failed, he knew all of mankind could fail.
Adrian had stepped out of the second floor shower in his dormitory in the late morning shortly after returning from one of his longest runs when he heard Kevin calling up to him from the stairs. “Hey Adrian, when you get a minute can you come down here? I have a present for you.”
Adrian wondered what that might be before telling Kevin he’d be down in a bit. The tall warrior dressed himself in a pair of khakis and a flannel shirt that was at least one size too large and headed down. Kevin was sitting at the table with a rifle case in front of him. He sipped on what smelled like a cup of sweet tea.
“Can’t shake that chai shit huh Kev?” Adrian provoked as he plopped down in a chair.
“Well, too much time in the fucking mountains of Afghanistan man. This shit gets into your veins. However, if I never eat goat again, I’ll be happy as a pig in shit. Fuck goat grabs,” Ke
vin mused. He sipped the frothy cup of tea and closed his eyes, smiling. Some comforts soothe more than others.
“What’s this present you’ve got for me? Tell me it’s in that rifle case.”
Kevin’s smile turned to a grin. “You bet brother.” Kevin turned the bag around and pushed it across the table to his long time friend. “All yours. Got a few more too in storage, but I prepped this one straight as I thought you’d want it.”
Adrian unzipped the black nylon rifle case and flipped it open, revealing a gleaming rifle, covered in modifications and special equipment. “Holy fuck Kevin, where’d you get this?”
“I stole it.”
Adrian laughed heartily. “What is this? A SOPMOD'd M4A1? Do my eyes deceive me?” Adrian hefted the weapon and went through the motions, cycling the action, inserting and dropping the magazine, and giving the weapon a basic run through.
“That it is. I set you up with the foregrip, the Aimpoint sight, the crane stock, and in the bag are three magazines, and the suppressor. Some of the other gadgets are in there too, but I knew this was probably how you’d like it. I tried to remember how you had your weapon set up in Baghdad. Hope I did you justice.” Kevin sat his tea down and watched as Adrian rifled through the bag, evaluating all the toys that could be put on the weapon.
Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 7): The Trinity Page 33
