Alone No More

by Philbrook, Chris

  She called me the next day, and we talked on the phone for hours. I never talk on the phone, so this is a pretty substantial thing for me. We had so much in common. She hated her dad, I hated my mom. We had the same tastes in music, we both wanted to travel the world, and we both liked porn. Too good to be true. The next weekend she had dinner at my place, made by me, and she spent the night. I called her a slut for putting out on the first date, and she called me a manwhore for doing the same. I blamed my parents and their shady morals. She blamed her poor ability to recognize assholes. It was a really nice night. Comfort right off the bat. We had skipped the whole awkward “getting to know you” phase.

  She moved in as soon as she finished school. Once I settled in at work here I bought my condo with the GI Bill. My mortgage was jack shit and when she moved in and got herself a full time job working in the city, we were rolling in it. We took long vacations all over the place. I get weeks off because of the school schedule and she wound up doing CPA work so off of tax season she had a lot of free time. We backpacked Europe, took a few cruises in the Caribbean, spent a week in Hong Kong, climbed ruins in Guatemala, and a bunch of cool shit in between.

  I knew she was awesome after she met my mother. We went over my parent’s place for Thanksgiving and we had our typical disheveled holiday. Dad was telling war stories, mom was being bitchy, Caleb and his wife were trying to contain their little son Adam, with Rebecca watching it all in horror. I was completely fucking mortified. It was the exact scenario I had dreaded my entire life. My family in all their backwards glory. In fact, that was the first time I had ever brought a girl home for a holiday. As in ever. I almost never took girls home growing up and sure as shit never took any of them home for a holiday. No fucking way. Cassie took it all in stride, smiling, being sweet, she even laughed at my dad’s shitty misogynistic jokes. I can remember the way she looked sitting next to my dad at the dining room table, as all of us guys retired to the couch to watch football. She was leaning on the table, resting her chin in her palm. She had her hair in a ponytail again that day and I can remember the faintly crimson shimmer of her hair as she pretended to like all my dad’s stories. I could almost envision my family life as being normal right then. It felt good. I wasn’t embarrassed, and she just looked so…. Beautiful.

  Our conversation in the car on the way home that day went something like this:

  “I like your brother,” she said.

  “Yeah Caleb’s cool. I like his wife too, and their kid is awesome.”

  “Three years old is a tough age.” I think she said. I replied in the affirmative and we sat in silence for a bit. I could tell she was trying to find a way to phrase her next statement. I remember resting my hand on her leg. I always did that in the car with her. I just liked touching her. I wanted the contact.

  “Your dad seems… interesting,” she said awkwardly.

  “My dad’s a great guy. He just postures up to impress cute girls.” I laughed. She laughed back. She knew I was full of shit.

  “Your mom seems like a complete cunt,” she said without missing a beat.

  It’s rare when two people connect so thoroughly in life. She had it all figured out the first time, and I couldn’t have been happier.

  We had a great relationship. She was a redhead, so she was pretty hot tempered. Full of passion she used to describe herself as. When she loved, she loved hard. When she was angry, she was pure Scottish fury. Caber tossing and all sometimes. I think she was the only person I had ever met that could actually scare me when they were angry. Even my dad didn’t scare me after I was 15 or so. Cassie did.

  Cassie worked her way up the ladder in the company she worked for. When she dressed herself up she could knock ‘em dead, and she was damn smart and motivated. She kicked ass at her CPA firm and made junior partner this spring. We were looking at new houses closer to the city to cut down on her commute right before the world ended. Between what we’d saved and what we could afford we were actually looking at some really nice places.

  I don’t know why I never married her. I’ve wracked my brain over and over in the long nights here trying to figure it out. I just can’t come up with a real answer. Were we too busy? Was she too career oriented? Was it some form of PTSD I was in denial about? Was it some repressed bullshit mommy issue? Fucked if I know. If I could take anything back I’ve ever done, I’d take back not making her my wife a long time ago. If I knew the world was ending I would’ve told her how much I loved her, and told her I wanted her in my life forever.

  Maybe that’s the moral of this story? Maybe that’s the lesson I’m supposed to learn out of all this death and destruction. Live each day like the world will end tomorrow. I know that sounds like a fucking Hallmark card, but it’s really true now. The irony of it all sickens me now. I’ve almost died too many times, and ended too many lives during my 34 years on this earth to take anything for granted anymore.

  Cassandra Ann MacKenzie, fury of the highlands. Cassandra Ann Ring. Cassie Ring.

  God I miss her. We would’ve made such fun babies.

  I feel numb without you.

  I love you.

  -Adrian

  December 15th

  All that talk about Cassie the other night did me some good. I didn’t stop to jot down all the times I had to wipe my eyes while writing, otherwise that entry might’ve been 10 pages longer. Shit I might still be writing it. I’m such a pussy.

  Mr. Journal, it is nice to be more clearheaded today. I am off the vicodin, and as far as I can tell, I won’t be needing them again for this wound. Time will tell I guess. I’m dealing with the soreness through brute ignorance, and about four ibuprofen at a whack. As long as I stay relatively still, I am fine, it’s just when I am moving about that I start to build up the pain. My redness is almost totally in check now. It doesn’t look anywhere near as angry anymore, and the clear fluid isn’t seeping out at all. Antibiotics are a wonderful thing, it’s a shame there’s a finite amount in the world now. Very frustrating being laid up like this, but such is life. Not my first time being hurt. Probably won’t be my last.

  As you can imagine, things have been really frigging boring. The plants are wonderful, thanks for asking. Otis is finally leaving them alone, and he’s gone back to being friendly again. I don’t remember if I said it before, but he was sort of avoiding me right about the time the infection got bad. I think he could smell the sickness in my leg. I know a lot of animals can tell when other animals are sick, so that stands to reason. Other than his constant attempts at eating my fledgling tomatoes, he’s a prince. He’s been keeping me company on the recliner most days and nights. By company I mean he sits right on my hands when I’m trying to play Playstation or read a book. Love the guy, but shit can he be irritating.

  Zero activity on campus. Well, the parts of campus I can see here from Hall E at least. I’ve got decent views from the windows when I hobble around on my interior patrols. All quiet on the western front. I can’t imagine at this stage in the game I’ll get many wandering zombies up here. The road leading up here is pretty much cleared out with the exception of whatever’s left on Prospect Circle. I just can’t imagine there are that many free roaming undead on that street that could be a real problem for me. The past few days the more I think about it the more likely it is that the group of undead that was banging on my door was zombies from Prospect Circle that I attracted back here. I had been making enough noise to attract them for sure. No way to know really unless I check their driver’s licenses for addresses, and frankly, I don’t need to know that bad to go pick through their fucking pockets.

  Isolation can be a successful strategy. Write that down Mr. Journal.

  So what to talk about? Well I can recant the bullshit nothingness of the 13th and 14th if you like. Ready:

  Not shit happened.

  Well I’m fucking exhausted. Can’t speak for you Mr. Journal but I might need a break after that long winded affair. Might need to crack open one of those bottles of booze
I have stored away. Could be an effective way to cut the pain in the leg.

  I think not. Last thing I need is another sad drunken binge. No one likes the sad drunk. Debbie frigging downer.

  I think I can recall back to the early days here and try and talk about some of the shit that’s happened to me. Or shit that happened to other people that I witnessed and whatnot. I remember talking about the grocery store trip. I vaguely remember talking about how the phones were caput, but the television and radio worked for awhile. I want to say the television lasted maybe 3 or 4 days after the end, and the radio maybe 10 days. Again, there isn’t much useful information to share about the media. Lots of rumor mongering, paranoia, and pointing of fingers. Even ten days after they were still unsure of whatever was going on. The internet was down almost immediately. But that stands to reason, because our internet up here on campus always fucking sucked. The side effect of being so far off the beaten path I guess. Might also explain the problem we had with phone service when the shit hit the fan. Small town phone exchange maybe got overloaded? Dunno.

  It was day 12 when I decided that I should go back to Moore’s Sporting Goods and try to get more guns and ammo. That was my first real trip downtown after the world farted out a potato. The zombie potato, as it were. Campus during the first 10 or 12 days was pretty quiet. Well, at least a lot more quiet then I had expected it to be. I saw about half a dozen more zombies creeping their way along outside, and that was when I started to practice using the sword. By trade I’m more of a firearms guy, so facing off one on one in open ground definitely helped me get better using the short sword I brought from home. Thank God for not skimping out and buying shitty prop replica swords. Cassie always used to give me shit about all the money I spent on shit like swords and comic books.

  “Seriously Adrian, you really NEED an authentic, forged Celtic short sword? For what? Are you invading England or France this spring?”

  “I like the color Cass. Besides I need a nice short sword to go along with the new Timberland boots I bought. Can’t have my accessories clash babe. They have to match…”

  That line got me beaten about the face at least twice. I think variants on that conversation were had at least ten times. Domestic bliss!

  The worst thing that went down after the world came crashing down was the arrival of a few desperate parents. There were maybe 10 in all, and they showed up starting the day after the grocery store trip. Two, sometimes four a day for a stretch of a few days. I avoided the first couple that came on campus for fear of infection, plus one guy had a rifle, and one time the car pulled up and managed to time it just right to get attacked by one of the handful of zombies that’d wandered onto campus. The second day I just had to go down and talk to them though.

  It broke my heart to see the parents crying when they couldn’t find their children. The remaining parents that came to campus were the same. Heartbroken, and there wasn’t shit I could do for them. Most of the kids they were looking for I had seen dead, or killed myself. Well, killed their shambling undead bodies, but you get the idea Mr. Journal. Those parents at least got some closure. It was the few parents whose kids I could not verify that were the ones lost. I don’t know where their kids went, but they could be anywhere. Many cars left campus that day, and there is no way of knowing who was in what cars. Many of the kids left, there’s no doubt about that.

  Some of the parents were so grief stricken they attacked me. How out of your fucking mind do you have to be to go after a guy my size that’s holding a shotgun? Far fucking out that’s for sure. I didn’t hurt anyone, but I definitely twisted some shoulders and elbows out of joint to get them to calm down. I hated having to do it, but I couldn’t risk injury, and I wasn’t about to be their fricking punching bag. I told them the same thing I told Abigail, that I was making the campus safe, and that they were welcome to stay, but no one took the offer.

  It hurts to watch someone give up like that. To watch all their will just drain away. And make no mistake, there is a moment when it happens. I watched it half a dozen times the first week when I told those parents that their kid was dead. Sometimes they look down at the ground, sometimes they stare at you, other times the color just fades from them. They’re like shadows of themselves. Black and white people in a color world. Those are the real undead we’re dealing with. The people that have lost hope.

  I heard a fair amount of gunfire in the distance. The first day, the day I did the majority of the cleaning out of campus I heard scattered shots. One here, one there, but nothing approaching the level of a firefight. The next few days were the same, but about a week into it, after I’d gone down to the store, there were several days of fairly heavy gunfire. Again, not exchanges of gunfire, but stretches of four or five shots here and there. I’m guessing it was people encountering zombies, or perhaps folks making a break for it after they ran out of food. Think about it Mr. Journal. How long would the food in your cupboards last you if you couldn’t go shopping? Three days? Five days? Not as long as you’d think.

  As I was saying about the trip to Moore’s it was on July 4th. I found it odd that I would be attempting to raid a gun store on America’s Independence Day. Ironic? Fitting? I’m not sure what to think about it really. I just remember it was on that day I went down there.

  I left super early that day. I thought it would give me the best chance if I got in and out right after dawn. My bet was that people would be asleep at that hour, or be awake keeping watch on their fortified homes. I guess it’s also the military history in my past to get up early. Oversleeping isn’t my nature anymore. It hasn’t been for some time.

  I geared up. Pistol, knife, sword, shotgun and .22 Now I had lost my Camry in the grocery store trip, and there was no way in hell I was going to raid a gun store in a fucking Ford Focus. Not a tactical vehicle by any means. Plus If I did run over anything taller than a can of soda I risked getting the car stuck, and the last thing I wanted to do was get stuck downtown without a vehicle. This was the first and last time I opted to take a school van out. Of course in retrospect I should’ve taken one of the maintenance F150’s, but I knew where the keys were to the vans, and back then I wasn’t sure about the keys for the trucks.

  We’ve got four of the large Dodge cargo vans. They’re big and dark blue with the school logo and shaded windows. There are three rows of seats and they have really good ground clearance. Not the best vehicle by any means, but they would work for this trip. Now I’ve got two of them blocking the bridge to get onto campus, so even if they aren’t being used to drive around with, they’re still being useful.

  Now Moore’s is on the opposite side of town from the school here. I had two options the way I saw it. I could drive straight through downtown and brave whatever the fuck was there, or I could skirt downtown using side roads and hopefully dodge… whatever it was that might be there. There were upsides to both ideas. Downtown is heavily populated, had a lot of businesses, and would likely be worth fighting over. Look at what happened at the grocery store already for an example of what might happen. That shit happened with a few days of it all going down. Now the side roads were mostly neighborhoods, but that meant a huge number of people. Possibly dead people. Possibly living folks.

  I opted for side roads. It just seemed safer to me.

  That meant driving about 5 extra miles each direction. At 20 miles an hour or so I was looking at a solid 40 minutes each way, barring unforeseen…. Dead people. I left the school all kitted up, drove down Auburn Lake Road, and hung a right onto Route 18 to head towards town. Now before I took the turn to go directly to main street, I took a side street and headed into the great unknown of...

  THE SUBURBS. DUM DUM DUM. (ominous drum sound)

  It was pretty fucked up. Now in a stroke of amazing arrogance I made the assumption that because I was going to the gun store, I would be returning with additional firearms related supplies. I kept the Sig handy as I drove, and whenever I saw a zombie moving towards me, I slowed down and popped it in
the brainpan. Sitting here with no 9mm ammo today, I feel like an epic moron. I easily could have just driven past the damn things, or hit them with the van if I felt I had to kill them.

  I forget exactly how many rounds I wasted in the van that day but I know I burned through all my magazines, which is 45 rounds. I know at one point I was reloading the magazines from my vest pocket and I know there was more shooting after that, but the numbers escape me. I guess it doesn’t matter now, seeing as how I am sans 9mm. That’s a shitty feeling Mr. Journal. Being out of ammo. I felt invincible back then. Well, as far as ammo is concerned. I guess I should say I felt flush. 9mm hood rich.

  The side neighborhoods in town were a lot like it was up here. Houses spread out in varying densities. Most of them looked to be abandoned, but there were quite a few that were boarded up and looked Alamo-ish. Almost every single house that was fortified like that had zombies around it. I mean damn near every single one. The zombies were slowly banging on the barricaded windows and doors, trying to get inside. If anything, my trip around town pulled a bunch of those undead off of the houses. The ones I didn’t shoot followed me until I left their eyesight. As it turns out, many of them followed me much further than that.

  In the 15 or so miles to Moore’s I would estimate that I saw about a hundred undead. Give or take 20 or so. The majority were wandering the streets, with a strong emphasis on harassing the houses that obviously still had people holed up inside of them. Well, I don’t know there were people still inside the houses, but judging from the appearances of the houses, and the attention they were getting from the zombies, it seemed likely.

  I didn’t see a single living person until I got to Moore’s itself. Moore’s from a distance looked a lot calmer than the day I had last been there. Other than a really nice Yukon, a shitty pickup truck, and an Ambulance, there was nothing else in the parking lot. Moore’s is in a largely residential area, so there were no businesses around to speak of. Quite a few houses of course. There was one zombie in the parking lot moving with some serious purpose when I finally parked.