Dark Recollections

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Dark Recollections Page 12

by Chris Philbrook


  Many things happened that night. There was still a small number of staff, parents, and students on campus. I saw several of them escape, driving at breakneck speeds over the bridge. I even tried to flag them down, jumping up and down, screaming, waving, but it was all to no avail. I thought at several times I would be able to get off the roof when they left, as some of the zombies started to follow their cars, but they came back too quickly to risk it. I spent long stretches that night just trying to be quiet, observing the zombies. I learned a lot that night watching them, and I’ve put it to good use since then too.

  Lowlight of the cool night up there was when the last car came on campus. It was another parent coming for their child. I don’t know what kid, or who the parents were, but I remember vividly how they died. Their sedan crossed the bridge cautiously at about midnight, creeping along. I was already starving by then. They crept up to the admissions house and I remember jumping up and waving at them. They didn’t see me. The car came to a stop, and mom and dad got out of it, and walked carefully up to the door. I didn’t want to holler at them as I felt I had just gotten the zombies below to forget about me, so I was trying to do a “loud whisper” if that makes any sense. They didn’t hear me.

  The dad was older, probably mid 50’s, with grey hair, and had an aluminum baseball bat. Mom was much younger, struck me as sort of a trophy wife, but you could tell she wasn’t a gold-digger. I don’t know how exactly I knew that, but I could tell she was emotionally invested in the dude and the kid she came for. She looked... concerned I guess. They tried the door, but it was locked. Had they kept quiet, I think they would’ve been fine, but one of them said something to the other, and the zombies below me heard.

  It didn’t take long for them to shuffle around the corner of the building, and as soon as I saw the zombies moving I started to yell. I screamed at them to get back inside their car and get the hell out. The woman did turn and start moving, but hero dad decided to beat some ass with that fucking bat. Lemme tell you right now: bats are not that effective. I mean, if you’re a rugged person, and can swing it like a pro, yeah sure, you can split some wigs, but not this guy. He clocked several of the zombies pretty good but didn’t get any head shots in. I kept yelling to hit them in the head, but he didn’t change tactics in time. He kept hitting them in the sides and the arms and as you can imagine, it had no effect. It was as useful as trying to beat a tree into falling over. They swarmed him pretty quickly and collapsed on top of him. I could hear him scream as they ripped him apart one bite at a time.

  MILFy had made her way back into the car. Passenger side, where she started this fiasco. She must’ve dropped her purse though because she didn’t start the car. Daddy Rich probably had his keys on him as well, so she was just as stuck as I was. Half of the zombies shuffled over after eating the dad and listlessly scratched at the windows of the car. I don’t know if a zombie has the strength to break auto glass. I suspect a big one could, but I didn’t get my answer that night. The other half of the zombies came back to the admissions building and returned to their incessant scratching, trying to get up at me and my skin again.

  That’s how things settled for an hour or so. If I got right up to the edge of the roof nearest the road I could watch MILFy in her car without being seen by the undead below. She cried a lot. The more I sat there, the more I started to realize she was really beautiful, and how sad everything was for her. It’s like the fantasy that’s always better than reality I think. I wondered what her family life was like, I thought about which of the students her kid was. I fantasized about how the kid would hate how hot his mom was, and how hot his friends thought she was, and how much he would’ve hated that. It was how I passed the time for that hour. I really felt like I got to know her.

  I was totally shocked when she opened the car door and got out. It was obviously suicide. I think she came to the conclusion that she had no more life left to live, and she just gave up. Can you blame her? One of the students, one of the nerdy ones killed her. She just tilted her head back against the door frame of the car and he ripped her throat out, right where the Adam’s apple would’ve been. She died pretty quickly, never put up an ounce of fight either. Her mind was made up the moment she got out.

  I hated to see her die like that, but you have to respect the will it must’ve taken to do what she did. I’m not condoning suicide Mr. Journal, but there is some sense in what she did, after what just happened to her and her family. I was genuinely sad to see her go. I actually was hoping to talk to her after we got to safety. Maybe in a way I was trying to rescue her like I didn’t rescue Cassie. I felt really miserable after that woman from the car died. I felt even more miserable after her body got back up, and started meandering around, looking for something to eat. Namely, something like me.

  The rest of the night was spent laying as silently as possible on the roof of admissions. Eventually everyone who was capable of leaving campus was history, and I was left alone with no help anywhere to be found. My stomach was growling like you can’t imagine, and I was really thirsty. At about the time of dawn when the eastern horizon takes on that faint bluish tinge I remember I felt a little bit of optimism. Maybe I would make it. I had fallen in and out of sleep a few times that night, and I don’t remember my dreams. I do know when I saw that horizon I was achy and my back was killing me. When I launched myself away from my mom at her elderly home earlier I really smashed my back against the wall. Falling asleep on the roof did me no damn favors. So I got up to stretch.

  I walked around my little roof world and re-assessed things. About ten zombies had walked off. I was happy to notice that when I shifted my weight, and heard a loud crack under the shingles. I nearly dented my head when it dawned on me how retarded I was. I knelt down, and noise be damned, starting ripping up shingles. Below the shingles was plain plywood. It was a gamble, but I felt the house inside was empty, and if I could get through the roof and got inside, I would be one step closer to safety.

  I had no hammer, but the sword would work as a lever pretty good to pry up a sheet of the plywood. As quietly as I could, which wasn’t very quiet at all, I pried up one edge of a sheet of plywood, and got it torn up. That was loud though, and by the time I had the wood up, I was fully surrounded by even more zombies than before. The crowd on the ground below was at least 3 or 4 zombies deep now, and surrounding half the building. Below the plywood was the ceiling, which was drywall. A few good hacks with the sword though, and I cleared a space conveniently right above a desk. I started making noise inside the building to draw attention, but nothing came. I dropped down into the office, and proceeded to clear the house and check the doors. Empty, and locked, respectively. The zombies were gathering outside en masse though, so I needed to work quickly.

  As I said, the campus doors are strong, so that was going in my favor. Windows though were not. I had just watched a handful of the dead try and break car glass with no success, but regular window glass is a different animal all together. I needed to get into a room with more security. Luckily one of the back offices had only one small window, and had a strong interior door. I checked one more thing before I began my plan for escape: the refrigerator. The staff fridge had two lunches from the day prior still in it, as well as some bottled water, and I started eating the crappy little sandwiches and gulping water as fast as I could. Reminds me of my military days. Eat as much as you can, as fast as you can and worry about digestion later. I didn’t know when my next meal was coming.

  New plan was this: make a shitload of noise on one side of the admissions building, then run into my secure room after drawing them in. I would have to be really quick, or really clever to get the majority of them inside the building with me. Open the small window, escape to a hopefully clearer exterior, get into my car somehow, get the rifle and more ammo for the pistol, (possibly retrieve the shotgun as well, but that really seemed like reaching at that moment) and start doing some serious yard work on these fucking undead. No rest for the wicked.
/>   I implemented plan “day after that day” immediately. Well that’s not entirely true. I kept a small chunk of turkey from one sandwich for Otis. He needed something to eat badly, and I do not want anyone to think I don’t take good care of my cat.

  Love that guy.

  Talk to you soon Mr. Journal.

  -Adrian

  Crime/Incident Report

  Case # DRM062310-01

  Month June Day 23 Year 2010 Day of Week Weds. Time approx 1625

  Code section or description of incident Officer involved fatal shooting.

  Location of Incident Moore’s Sporting Goods, 1421 Riverside Way

  Victim or witness name Daniel Roger McGreevy Address: 14 Wilbur Street

  Phone: 4995553459 Ht 6ft 5 in Wt 265 lbs Sex male Eyes Green Hair None

  Race Caucasian

  ID type: Badge# 114 ID# 114. Issued March 8th, 2004

  Relation to victim/subject None, arresting officer

  Addt’l information (vehicle) City police cruise 06

  # witnesses of crime/incident 6 direct witnesses, 1 more on scene that heard incident, 1 more witness who returned to scene directly following.

  Names of witnesses and relevant info regarding Direct witnesses are as follows; 1. Off. Daniel McGreevy, 2. Mike Desmaris, 3. Robert Zewicki, 4. Benjamin Barnes, 5. David Johns(son of deceased), and 6. Phillip Thompkins. Indirect witness inside business was 7. Gerald Moore, CoP, retired. Witnesses 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7 are all employees of Moore’s Sporting Goods. Witness 8 left scene before statement could be retrieved. Filing Officer recognized witness as Adrian Ring.

  Place of attack (if applicable) Parking lot of Moore’s Sporting Goods, north side. Directly in front of customer entrance.

  Weapon used (if applicable) Filing Officer discharged his service weapon twice at suspect. Weapon is a Glock 21, identified as property of City Police Department, weapon ID# 22161

  Suspect arrested Y/N? Suspect was DOS.

  Suspect name Paul Matthew Johns Address: 11 Oak Ridge Blvd, Mount Temple

  Phone: 6705554141 Ht 5ft 7in Wt 145 lbs Sex male Eyes brown Hair lt. brown

  Race Caucasian

  ID type: OOS Driver’s license ID# DL06JSP41280

  Addt’l information (vehicle) 2009 Nissan Maxima XLE. Burgundy/wine. OOS tags 14198S

  Physical description of subject Subject exited vehicle wearing a light blue dress shirt, and corduroy pants. Subject had a large blood stain spreading on his right forearm, appeared sweaty, in pain and confused. His hair was disheveled as was his general appearance. On closer inspection he was found to be covered in fine mists of blood, similar to those found on attackers using blunt force trauma.

  Evidence collected at scene relevant to prosecution No evidence was collected at the scene of the incident. Directly following the shooting ambulances arrived, and the son (David Johns) entered into some form of seizure/shock. He became physically aggressive and attacked witnesses as well as responding EMT’s. The scene was cleared after that. Evidence collection would have resulted almost certainly in Officer injury.

  Narrative AO was stationed at Moore’s Sporting Goods for the day to ensure customer safety due to concerns regarding attacks on the general populace by sick/infected citizens. Store owner made the request to Chief Moore and instructed AO to station there.

  Majority of early afternoon was spent maintaining basic order in parking lot, and keeping a visible presence to deter crimes against the business and its employees. AO neither witnessed nor intervened in any criminal activity. During afternoon Chief of Police Moore instructed AO that any citizen that appeared injured, and did not respond intelligently should be handled with extreme caution. The CoP advised that deadly force was authorized if the AO felt that safety was a concern, and if the injured was unresponsive to verbal commands.

  At approximately 1625 the suspect arrived in Moore’s parking lot driving at excessive speeds, and recklessly. Suspect pulled into parking In such a dangerous fashion his vehicle nearly struck City Cruiser #06, as well as the AO. AO then backed away, drew his service weapon and instructed driver to exit the vehicle with his hands raised. At this time the AO noticed the subject had a passenger in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. Passenger was later identified as David Johns, the suspect’s son.

  The suspect exited the vehicle, and started walking towards the AO, ignoring all verbal commands. Behind the AO the Moore’s Employees were getting dangerously close to the unresponsive suspect. AO knew that the employees were legally armed, and wanted to take control of the situation before it escalated into a multi-person firefight.

  AO then visually confirmed that the suspect had an injury. The right hand sleeve at the forearm location was covered in fresh red blood, and appeared to be a bite wound. At that point the AO decided that being bitten as well as unresponsive combined with directly approaching the AO ignoring all Officer commands authorized deadly force given the prior instructions by the CoP.

  The Officer cleared his lines of fire to ensure the passenger was safe and that the subject had no one behind him that could be hit by any rounds missing and/or passing through. Once cleared, the Officer discharged his service weapon five times into the center mass of the subject, whereupon he collapsed in the parking lot, directly in front of suspect’s vehicle. The Officer observed the subject for some time, and identified that the subject was dead.

  After ensuring the subject was dead, the AO made the decision to shoot the subject one additional time in the head to fully ensure death. With media reports and police reports earlier in the day instructing those in danger to shoot or damage the brain, the AO wanted to ensure further public safety and took the extra step. This course of action later proved invaluable, as the son David Johns was bitten, entered into some form of seizure/shock, and became violent. It is quite possible that the suspect would’ve done the same thing were he not shot in the head.

  AO notified Emergency Reponse Units and the CoP, who responded almost immediately.

  Charges filed or to be filed: Threatening an Officer, Assaulting an Peace Officer, Resisting Arrest, Reckless Operation, Endangering the Welfare of a Child.

  Additional Notes not related to incident (if any) AO McGreevy is leaving town. I am gathering all my things and heading three towns over to my mother’s home. You can reach me there if needed. Assuming we even do an investigation any further. I think the state internal affairs department is going to be a little swamped with all these attacks. Good luck to whoever reads this, and God bless.

  November 4th

  Hey Mr. Journal! How’s life? Mine is fucking phenomenal! OMG! I almost totally, like, fucking died today! LOLZ! That’s super l33t!

  Sigh. Sarcasm font off.

  Vigilance, and attention to detail. I used to preach that shit at work all the time, my whole frigging like. Attention to detail. Attention to detail. Vigilance. I cannot cut corners anytime I am out of Hall E anymore. I am so furious at myself right now I can barely type.

  In fact, fuck this. I have to calm down.

  -Adrian

  November 4th (2nd entry)

  Much better now.

  Let me dial this back a little bit and rehash why I was so pissed off and all ‘roid ragey earlier at myself. I went to the campus cafeteria this afternoon to get some canned food to move it here to Hall E. I was running low on a few different things, was jonesing for a bit of variety, and I haven’t yet moved all the supplies into here so it was a pretty standard food run. We’re talking a hundred yards from door to door.

  I’ve checked campus twice a day for weeks now I think making sure nothing is here. I mean shit, why would anything be here anyway? I make little to no noise, I stay inside as much as possible, I give those motherfuckers no reason at all to come up here. Apparently I need to re-think my whole vision of how and why these things move about. Because one of them made his way onto campus, and all the way into the frigging cafeteria.

  So I always do my errands during daylight hours. As you may have gleane
d from my prior entries here Mr. Journal, I do not operate at night. Clever guy that I am, I use the campus maintenance four wheeler to get around when I need to move a lot of things. It has a little trailer that can be hooked up to it which makes moving heavy things, or lots of little things a lot faster and safer. Plus if shit hits the fan I can peace-out like a girl scout and regroup somewhere safer.

  I keep the ATV 10 paces from the door of Hall E for convenience. Hopped on, fired it up, and motored over to the cafeteria at a leisurely pace. Now when I do my little patrols I always bring the Sig, one of the swords, and the bow. I use them in the exact opposite order listed should something happen. As I said, I believe noise is really bad, and draws them in. The bow and sword are both silent, so it suits me and my plan.

  Today was no different. I rolled over to the cafeteria, parked at the kitchen door, which is on the side, as opposed to the main entrance the kids would’ve used during school hours. Staff never used the main doors at night, as we primarily would be going there to raid the fridges to feed ourselves. SOP as they say.

  Hopped off the quad, grabbed my banana box out of the trailer, unlocked the kitchen door, and moved in like any other day. Now right inside the kitchen door you entered a short hall and there is the walk in cooler, and walk in freezer. Opposite those two doors in the hall was the area we used to call “they honey hole.” Where they kept staff only food. All the good shit basically. It meant all the food I needed was within 15 feet of the back door. Now the electricity has long since been off in this building, and that means the cooler and freezer are offline. Now if you’ve ever had your electricity go off for any time, you probably know that frequently the fridge can get pretty warm all on its own. Especially after any food inside it begins rotting. The freezer stayed cold for quite some time, which was awesome, but the cooler was basically a total loss within a week. Fresh veggies didn’t keep, rotted, warmed the cooler, lather rinse repeat.

 

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