Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 9): The Dealer of Hope [Adrian's March, Part 1]

by Philbrook, Chris

  “Alright, I appreciate that. Thank you. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions? About your place here?”

  “Depends on what you’re asking. I suppose you ask and see what happens?”

  “Yeah sure,” Picarillo said. “Can you give me an idea of how many people you have here? Are you 50/50 men and women?”

  “That’s easy enough. We have about 50 of us, and we’re more women than men. The place used to be a strip club and many of the girls have stayed here. We lost most of our men during the worst of the zombie days. I’d say we’re like 35 women. Half dozen of us are kids.”

  “You’re safe here? Well armed?”

  “Well enough. Few military rifles, hunting rifles and pistols. A few National Guardsman and vets mixed in with our numbers. We do very well. It’s a safe area.”

  I heard some squeaking and imagined the Captain moving around in the open hatch of the tank. It’s a noise you don’t forget.

  “How do you guys get water? This building has to be on city water here. You can’t have a well.”

  “Yeah that’s a struggle. We collect rainwater and snow, supplement with water from outside the city limits. Creeks, streams, that kind of thing. It’s been enough as long as we don’t overpopulate. Since the zombies died off we’ve been heading over to the river with buckets and pails, bringing the kids. It’s not ideal, but the building is safe, and it’s home now.”

  “Whatever works. Are there other groups in the area? Anyone known to be hostile? Anyone we should be on the lookout for?”

  “More people every week it feels. Some moving into apartments and houses in the city, or suburbs. People coming home I guess. We can’t keep track of them all. No large groups to my knowledge. We haven’t had a run in with anyone in a long time. Life’s just… easier now, Captain. People are feeling safer. Food is growing. The sun is shining. Yeah winter is on its way but the summer was good.”

  “Wow, alright, great. Thank you for the information. That’s very helpful. Please consider hearing more about Calendar Mountain. We have room if any of your people are interested in relocation. I don’t want to keep you. We’ve got other places to check out as well. I’ll be back in a few days. Today is the 5th? We’ll swing back through at about this time on the 10th. Does that work for your people?”

  “Is there a better day? I think we have an intramural softball game followed by a pig roast that night.”

  Kevin and I laughed at her joke, but Picarillo didn’t. It took him a solid ten seconds to catch up that she was being sarcastic. Told us a lot about him. He walks on stilts.

  “Okay then, about an hour or two after noon we’ll swing by. Do you need any trade goods? Do you have a surplus of anything you’d like to trade?” He asked, all back to business. It’s funny how the people who think they’re strong move the conversation without regard to the ideas or wishes of who they think are the weak.

  Celeste thought about it. The radio went silent other than the hiss of having the mic on for a good half minute. “Well, we have a lot of cucumbers, and about eight jars of homemade garlic and dill pickles. We’d be happy to trade those for anything canned. Or meat. Any kind of protein sources. We don’t get much game here.”

  “That’d be great. I’ll see what Calendar Mountain has to offer. We’ll see you in five days. Mount up everyone.”

  Celeste walked away and the audio faded off. I heard the APC’s treads on the street clank away and we shut down the QRF’s movement to the Factory. No need to let them know we had a hammer swinging towards an anvil. Celeste and Hector came here to Bastion much later and filled us in.

  We covered so fucking much it’s not even funny. So fucking much there’s too little time tonight to talk about it here Mr. Journal.

  I’ll list off our next steps tomorrow.

  -Adrian

  November 6th

  Alright. I’m not the best military planner, but Kevin’s fairly solid and together with our other brains earlier this morning we sketched out a preliminary plan to be ready on the 10th for the NVC meeting.

  Using actual paper maps salvaged from gas stations and libraries, we hand drew ourselves a brand new map of the neighborhood around the club and we guessed at their most likely routes of approach. If they were smart, they would roll in on a different street than the one they came in on originally. Now because we know the area they are working in, we’ve got a very strong idea of the alternate route they’ll take. Accordingly, we planned on them coming towards the Factory on the original route, and the route most likely to be their secondary route. Either way we have a central kill box in front of the old strip club and a portion of our perimeter forces will fall back to make sure if the situation develops poorly, we have overwhelming firepower, M113 APC or not.

  Now against their M2 machine guns an elevated firing position is a direct requirement. We must engage from above their armor to get their gunners back down inside the humvees. Luckily the area of the city the Factory is in has plenty of buildings that are 3-6 stories tall. A few offices but mostly large brick mill buildings with shot out windows and deep dark recesses. A few good shots with a deer rifle theoretically shuts their big guns down.

  Now the AT4 anti-tank weapons can be fired from above as well. In fact, it’d be ideal. Tank armor is thickest on the sides and front, and weakest at the rear, bottom, or on the top. Putting a couple AT4s up high is good, and for shits and grins a couple low is solid too. We know the terrain better than they do, and we can maneuver behind them for a better kill shot. Again, in theory.

  Kevin selected a few innocuous places for folks to set up along the two routes we felt were most likely, and then we established a plan for my appearance. Unanimously we agreed that my showing up would put Picarillo on his heels and really test his mettle. It puts me in a precarious position, but what the fuck is new about that?

  I’m nervous and excited all at once. My hands are trembling. I’m like… a fart away from breaking a sweat and I’ve cleaned all my weapons twice this afternoon. Michelle gave me a rash of shit for it but she’s never had a gun malfunction on her in a firefight. Against zombies is one thing, but against people it’s another thing entirely. Yes, it’s obsessive. Yes it’s excessive. Yes it’s a compulsion.

  It’s also all warranted.

  And if she wants me back in this bed, whole or mostly whole on the night of the 10th, alongside my friends and family, it’s what I have to do.

  Ugh.

  Kevin has training on the AT4. We have the spent AT4 from the day we went into the city to find Cassie on hand and he says we can use that as a training tool. I haven’t shot one since infantry school so I’ll be attending. You can never train enough.

  We’ve also appropriated 20 rounds per shooter to hit our range at the back of campus to hone in their trigger time. We haven’t been shooting nearly as regularly and proper gunplay skills expire if not used. Many of us will be rusty if shit goes down.

  Anyway, my plan is to go against my own grain and play up the religious/icon role at the meet. Try and convince him that we are actually good people, and literally chosen (as we were). If I can convince him to leave us far behind and move on because we’re like, divinely awesome, all the better. I’d rather be thought of as a kook to be avoided than a target to be eliminated.

  Maybe this plan is us playing it wrong. Michelle doesn’t think so. She’s all for the spread of the idea of faith and truth. She believes to her core that we really are a new beginning, and we need to embrace it in every way we can, whether it makes us uncomfortable or not. Kevin’s got it easy. As the Warden, the protector (the enforcer if you want to take it a step further), all he has to do is kick ass and optionally take names to live up to his part in this. I’m jealous.

  I’m supposed to be some fucking icon to teach people how to live again, and I’m terrible at being an adult, let alone a role model. It’s fucking embarrassing.

  You know what’s the worst piece of it all for me? Kevin and I just had a moment of quiet time t
ogether after dinner as he puffed one of our few remaining cigarettes, and we just exchanged this hard, knowing glance about the situation.

  This would be a dangerous meet with people who we would expect to safe and reasonable, and we have hard firsthand account evidence that these people aren’t always safe, or reasonable. They engaged the Wilson scrap yard people for no good reason we could define, and we know from the survivors who came south previously that these people have a history of treating people badly. Remember Lindsey’s story of her and Doug getting pushed out because the NVC were expanding, and taking over their property? We’ve heard it multiple times over. They’re expansionists. They want control.

  A smart leader would strongly consider pulling the trigger at this meet and taking their patrol group out. Neuter the clear threat, remove their ability to intimidate your people, and show whoever the fuck you leave alive that you are the baddest wolf in the baddest pack running in the forest.

  But I can’t do that. I just fucking can’t. I have to give them a chance. I need to try and redeem their past mistakes. I have to extend the open hand of kinship and hope that it goes well. I just have to. It’s what I fought so long to achieve. I need to give them an opportunity to right themselves before I…

  Well. Let’s not think about what happens if they turn out to be the enemy Jay Wilson thinks they are. I’d like to think those days are over, that my wolf skin is hung for good, and I’m just walking amongst safe sheep.

  Training and preparation between now and the 9th. We’re headed there the day before to setup for the meeting. It’ll be a long day and night for us, but being in position far in advance will be crucial.

  I’m nervous. A smidge hopeful too.

  -Adrian

  November 11th

  We have… problems.

  Yesterday we ventured to the Factory to meet with Captain Picarillo and his scouting/strong arm appropriations committee. I’d intended on putting the fear of God into the little man with the big tank, but things don’t go always go as planned. It’ll be easier if I just explain what happened.

  We were ready for them. Our anti-tank weapons were in “trained” hands, ready to fire on their armor if need be. Communications gear and signals were prepared. IOTV vests were on our combatants as were helmets. Ammunition disbursed; cover prepared, dialogue kinda scripted, and teeth brushed. Hell, most of us started the day with clean underwear too. We dispersed our vehicles into local garages and ground level warehouse entrances so they weren’t visible, yet were still easily accessible. We could need our humvee mounted SAWs on the move fast and staged them in a place where they had a fast exit.

  I myself had a spot across the street from the Factory in the second floor of the warehouse opposite. I took up position ten feet inside an office with my marine brother Caleb plus Danny McGreevy Junior and his daddy’s hunting rifle. There are few people on the Earth I’d want looking down a scope on my behalf beyond the kid. Abby and the PJs maybe. Maybe. He may be young but his cop dad taught him to shoot, and we’ve only built on that. I’ve taken to calling him the Ginger Reaper for his head shot skills.

  Anyway.

  The air yesterday felt dry and bitterly cold. A few snowflakes came out of the sky every few minutes as well. A strong west to east wind kicked up the leaves that were covering the ground and gave our longest distance shooters a bit of worry as to whether or not they’d make their shots when it counted. I felt confident in them. They’d come through for us in the clutch before. Ethan and Joel (the PJS were on hand to shoot and lend medical care, plus Kevin and Quan were in elevated positions to make shots. That’s not even counting Abby and Hal, plus Blake who were there yesterday too, despite my protests. I believe our newest parents need to raise their children. Hell, I wanted my brother Caleb to be elsewhere too, but I don’t get my way often.

  Right on time Picarillo’s convoy came into our AO and we knew shit had changed. They came to our subtle ambush with a show of force that outclassed us in every way.

  Picarillo’s M113 led the way with four up-armored humvees in tow, followed by a pair of up-armored HEMTTs, and two more M113s playing caboose. The new APCs had M2 .50 cals, and the two new humvees had the Mk19 grenade launchers we prayed didn’t exist. They approached on the avenue we anticipated as their second path. We were ready for that, but not for the amount of armored targets they presented us with. Before they stopped moving, we were behind the eight ball, and if we pulled the trigger, we would be outgunned, and I soon saw we would be outnumbered too. We couldn’t miss a shot with the AT4s or we’d be fucked and that margin for error wouldn’t work for us.

  It’s too close to a fair fight. You know what the first rule of a fair firefight is?

  Find a way to make it unfair for the other guy.

  Picarillo’s tank stopped with one humvee directly in front of the old strip club’s fence opening and the rest of the group spread out well along the length of the street. The uniformed soldier-types immediately dismounted to pull security. I couldn’t see it all from my hidey hole but I could hear their chatter on the military frequencies in my earpiece and could put two and two together.

  The pit of my stomach felt filled with lead. Lead and fucking sadness. The writing went on the wall and we knew it. We were not the biggest wolf in the forest that day.

  Kevin grabbed up our police radio and sent out a tiny transmission on that channel so theoretically the NVC people didn’t hear it.

  He said, “Hold steady everyone. Adrian has the ball.”

  Yeah right. Like I’m going to make that call and enter into a firefight with multiple armored vehicles, numerous heavy machine guns, and several fully automatic grenade launchers. I know how that decision pans out. I fought in Iraq. I saw what we did to those insurgents with the same tools…

  Celeste greeted the captain with a smile that didn’t give away any of the nervousness she later confessed to, or any of the knowledge she had of our prepared counterattack. I won’t recant their conversation here. It’s all been said before, and you can imagine what he said, and what she said. It started boring, moved to trade talk (they brought a dozen plastic gallon jugs of water as a gift), and then meandered to the Captain bringing up the idea of allying with the Factory people, then flat out suggesting that they up and relocate to the valley where Calendar Mountain is.

  I had felt my mind slowing during Celeste and Picarillo’s conversation. I felt it drift away, trying to bury itself in the logistics of a hasty retreat from this situation. How to lay down suppressing fire on the vehicles to buy us time to get out in ours. How then to elude them on the surface streets, lose them so we could get home to Bastion. If they followed us all the way there though… we still couldn’t take them out. They’d smash our gates down, and roll over us like dough in a bakery. My brain refused to focus on the moment, in the moment, and it took Celeste laughing at something Picarillo said to snap me out of it.

  I was here to make a statement. I needed to make a statement. I might not be able to turn them away with our quasi-military might, but I could use words to instill doubt… or trust. I told my older brother I was going to head down and talk.

  “Dude. What if they shoot you?” Caleb asked me.

  “I don’t think that scenario was one we skipped when we planned this. It’ll be okay,” I said to him. “Or it won’t. Either way it’s gonna happen.” For some reason I stopped before I left the office and looked at the growing Danny. He’s getting bigger every day like his dad. Tall and broad. Popular with the girls. He looked fearful. Worried for me.

  I winked at him, and for some reason I took off my military radio, and the police hand radio as well. I didn’t want Picarillo to know we had that gear. It was bad enough that I would have body armor and be carrying my M4A1 and the Kimber 10mm.

  I took a huge risk leaving the warehouse. When I reached the open door I knew there was a young male soldier on a knee less than five feet away covering the entrance and I really didn’t want him to shoot me.


  “One coming out,” I hollered at him, and he twitched like I’d tasered him. His gun pointed into the darkness of the doorframe past where I’d slid to the side, and I showed him both my hands as I slowly emerged into the street. I’d moved my rifle to my side.

  “Captain!” the young soldier yelled to Picarillo as I walked into the brisk November day. I saw a single snowflake float down from the sky, and somehow that made it all feel worse to me. Made me feel alone. Exposed.

  I watched the short Italian wearing cold weather gear and an olive drab winter hat spin in his turret to see me. His face hardened and I knew he felt like the balance had shifted, even with his tanks and big guns. I’d been there all along and he hadn’t known it. I had gotten inside his head, for better or for worse.

  “You must be Captain Picarillo,” I said to him with a guarded grin.

  “Of the Northern Valley Cooperative. Who are you?” He replied, gravelly and terse.

  “I’m Adrian Ring.”

  I might as well have opened up on him with a minigun. He froze, the kid in front of me stood and froze, practically at attention and all the soldiers who could hear me say my name stood and turned, doing the same. If I had wanted to pull the trigger on an ambush, that would’ve been the moment. Their collective pants were down.

  The Captain gathered his wits and gave me an epic head to toe eye-fucking. He looked at my gear, my stance, my face and then my hair. He wasn’t impressed.

  “I thought you had a Mohawk,” he said.

  “I’m going for a more adult look lately. I like your hat. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said.

  He nodded and agreed, saying the same. Fake. “Celeste here said she knew you. Said she could arrange a meeting. I can’t say I was expecting that to happen today.”

  Without breaking eye contact I laughed at him. “With a show like the one you brought today I find that hard to believe. All this armor seems designed to impress or intimidate.”