I only had the last house to clear, and I decided I’d do that. Kinda crappy thing was snow. When I was headed down you could see it in the sky, and it fell all damn day today. I think we’ve got about 4 inches outside right now, and it looks like it’ll keep going for awhile. Might get a foot if it goes all night. At least I’ll have a white Christmas.
So in the snow I cleared the last house. This one has drama so bear witness Mr. Journal. This ranch was right across the street from the house with the huge woodshed. There was a car driven into the yard that up until today I hadn’t noticed. The compact car was driven into the side of house, and from the looks of it, had rolled back some, and was parked in a pretty normal spot. I noticed the damage to the house when I was doing my exterior check.
A dusting of snow was covering pretty much everything so I didn’t see any footprints or anything. All the house windows were wide open, and the back door was open, with just the screen door there. I wound up entering through that. The house was set up with the kitchen, dining room and living room running into one another, and then a single centered hallway heading down the length of the house. It had vaulted ceilings, and actually would’ve been a damn fine house.
I cleared the open area of the common rooms, and noticed some serious wreckage as I went. There were knocked over chairs, shit smashed off some shelves, a few pretty substantial dark brown crusty bloodstains on the carpets, and most importantly, the distinct odor of the dead. I stopped at the edge of the hallway and listened, and could hear a faint thumping noise coming from one of the rooms.
I went into panic mode for a few seconds, then got myself calm. Of the four doors off the hallway three were open, and only the one thumping was closed. I checked and cleared the three open rooms with the .45. Yeah Mr. Journal, I should mention that I’m using that for clearing right now. I still am a little nervous about the shotgun recoil with the sore leg, and seeing as how I’ve lost a step, it’s a lot easier to move and shoot with the smaller pistol. Anyways….
Without the shotgun, I couldn’t blast a hole in the door like I have been. So I went outside and checked the windows, and all of them were too damn high to see in. I limped across the street and found the woodworker’s stepladder, and brought it back. Clever me, I set it up outside and used it to get a look in the window for the room with the closed door.
The room was pretty dark, but I could see a female body face down on the floor, scratching and pushing against the bottom of the door. There was another body laying all half upside down next to the bed in the middle of the room, but it wasn’t moving. I took a few seconds as I got the .45 out and realized they were definitely dead. The woman’s right leg was shattered. I could plainly see she had one foot twisted almost all the way the wrong way, and the bone was sticking out of the side. The color of her skin down near the wound was pretty fucking clearly gangrenous. Skin tone of the undead is almost a bluish yellow color. Sort of like someone with jaundice freezing to death. Her leg was filthy green and brown with crusty yellow pus streaks.
It looked to me like she’d gotten her leg broken, and subsequently died of an infection. I got one word for you Mr. Journal. Antibiotics. Fucking A. The window was open, and I put the sights of the .45 on the back of her head, and pulled the trigger. Her head popped open like a crushed egg and she fell silent and still after a twitch or two. No more movement anywhere.
I got down off the ladder and headed back around front and reloaded the .45. I opened the front door and started searching when I heard a car moving in the snow outside. I drew the gun and looked out the window, and saw Gilbert outside, shuffling through the snow towards the house. He started yelling my name when he got ten feet or so from the door, and I hollered back. I went outside and told him what happened.
He looked like he had a heart attack. He heard the shot and came running, figured I was in trouble. I told him I was okay, and there had been a zombie. He smacked me on the shoulder and told me I was, “a fucking head case” for not telling him I was clearing houses. He said never to do that again, and to tell him so he could be on alert. I apologized, and he and I went through the house together.
I could tell at first he was uncomfortable going through other people’s shit, but once he found something neat, it was like watching my dad pillage a yard sale. “Holy shit, you see this? They only want a nickel for it!” Gilbert found so much crap I’ve left in other places that he thought was amazing. For example, salt shakers. I’ve left a hundred salt shakers behind, but he pointed out that salt is a terrific seasoning as well has having other practical uses, and eventually, we were gonna run out. Every speck of salt was valuable. He wound up taking pretty much everything back to his house in the trunk of his Buick.
When I finally got back to the rear bedroom and pushed her body out of the way of the door, I could make some sense of what happened. It looked like she had been hurt. Her leg was broken. She was dressed pretty nicely, in a business casual slacks kind of way. One of her high heels was missing, and I found it lodged in the eye of the body that was upside down and half on the bed. I’m guessing her leg got broken in the car accident outside, she made it in here, and somehow for some reason she had to kill the other guy with her shoe. That told me she must’ve sat here, starving, getting infected, since the end of the world. It must’ve been a horrid way to die. Very slowly, and painfully. I felt bad because if I’d have known she was in here, I could’ve saved her, or at least helped ease her suffering. If only right?
When we got out of there all I had to show for it was half of a pretty decent food split with Gilbert. We’d found a damn good stash of energy drinks, which I got all of. They also had a lot of coffee and soda, mostly diet stuff, but whatever, I’ll drink anything at this point.
I said adios to Gilbert, and thanked him for his help. I think he was excited to have gotten out of the house and joined me on my adventure. Spry guy for a dude his age. I like having him around.
So I got back here pretty early. With only one house, Gilbert’s house, and a moderate haul to boot it was a short day. I tended my plants, listened to some music, stretched the leg out, made sure the generator was filled, and made some dinner. I boiled some of the spaghetti I found and opened a can of asparagus. Added some spaghetti sauce, warmed the asparagus and mixed it in, and it wasn’t bad at all. Reasonably nutritious and tasted pretty good to boot.
I’m going to spend the rest of tonight in a similar and enjoyable fashion. Tomorrow I am staying in all day, and I want a nice quiet Christmas day. Oh wait. I need to give something to Gilbert for Christmas. It’s the only sensible thing to do. What can I give the guy? Ooh. Tough call.
Hm. What do you get the guy that you know next to nothing about? Food? That seems generic. A cook book seems insulting. Gift certificates have lost their allure given the state of the world. I know. I’ll gather him some firewood from campus and bring it over to him tomorrow midday. I’ll sleep until I’m done tonight, then head out and gather some wood for him. I know he’s been struggling to keep himself in wood.
That makes me feel happy. Mr. Journal if I don’t put in an entry tomorrow, Merry Christmas to you. Despite everything, I think this will be a good Christmas for me.
-Adrian
December 25th
Merry fucking Christmas.
I killed some people today.
But I’ve got more neighbors now. I just wish they didn’t live in Hall E with me. Although it was nice to see a familiar face today. More details soon Mr. Journal.
-Adrian
December 27th
Sorry it took so long for me to get an entry in here Mr. Journal. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind here and frankly, dealing with what’s going on is far more important than typing it down for posterity. I want to record history, but I need to get past the events before I can find time to write them down.
I am typing this from my bedroom, which has become my sanctuary now that I have been overrun with the frailest, skinniest, and most grateful family in the histo
ry of mankind. Christmas day, right around dark I heard banging down on the front main door of Hall E. I was sitting in the living room in the recliner and I’d just put the movie The Ref on. I fucking love that movie by the way. Denis Leary is the fucking man.
I snapped my head around and through the window plain as day I could see movement over at the door. I snapped up the .22 and the maglite and got myself to my feet, and shined the light out to see how many zombies there were. Lo and motherfucking behold, I hit Abigail right in the face with the beam of light. She was waving her arms up at the window at me and I could hear her yelling my name. I nearly shit myself with excitement. I couldn’t see how many people she had with her, but I bolted down to the front door and opened the inner door. You remember Abigail Mr. Journal? The young girl I sort of rescued from the staff office building after the world shat the collective bed?
Now I kept the outer door shut in the event something was up, but she came to the window and told me they’d come here to stay, and that they were freezing, hungry, and were happy to see me alive. I think she said oh my God ten times. I only waited maybe 30 seconds to think about it, and I let them in.
There was mom, dad, little brother, and Abigail. I’ve got opinions on each of them I’ll share below afterwards.
I let them in and I’m pretty sure Abigail sodomized me with her hug. I mean straight up rape. She grabbed me like I was the only person left in the world. She was freezing. Her parents were crying the whole damn time I was getting them into the kitchen, and the little brother was staring at my rifle with a mixture of horror and admiration. I got them into the kitchen and got them sat around the table. The dad had a double barrel shotgun, but as soon as he got inside he popped the barrels open and emptied it. I felt pretty uneasy at first, but he sat it on the counter a few feet away from where he sat. That gesture made me feel a lot better.
Mr. Journal they are so skinny. I mean… almost at the point of distended Ethiopian belly hungry. I got them all some water, and cracked open one of my multiple cans of tomato juice. I wanted to get them hydrated with something nutritious before I fed them anything. I metered the juice into them about a shot glass’s worth at a time while they told me about their trip to get here. Pretty smooth from the sounds of it. I guess they got jumped by a lumberjack zombie near here and after a struggle, they put it down. I made all of them strip down to minimal clothing after that to make sure there were no bites. Not taking that risk. They were fine.
The mother had a pretty bitching sore on her foot though, and I got her the first aid kit so she could start taking care of it. I think it was a blister from all the walking they did. After about an hour or so of them telling me how bad their life has been since June, I decided I’d feed them. Usually you don’t want to stuff someone who has been starving. Typically they’ll just throw the shit back up because their stomachs are not used to digesting anymore. I wanted to feed them something bland and easy to digest. I warmed up a can of green beans for them to split, and after that I gave them some hot oatmeal with a little bit of brown sugar on it. Really small amounts too, maybe the size of a deck of cards.
As they ate Charles, Abigail’s dad, told me all about the group of assholes that had taken over their town. Apparently a bunch of the powers that be had set up shop in the local high school, and had instituted a form of martial law. Ex cops, National Guard dicks, city politicians, etc. Well, they ran around doing whatever they wanted, took everything, and anyone that couldn’t contribute was left to die. This whole family had nothing to put on the table other than slave labor, and Charles said he was scared to death they’d rape his daughter and wife. He busted out crying when he said that, and I almost lost my shit with him. Been emotional lately.
They thought they had avoided being seen when they left town. The whole family packed into the same wagon that Abigail left with in June, but they ran out of gas. They found the truck I had tried to go to the gas station with back in October, and as you’d expect, the thing turned right over for them. My luck right? It dies on me, but starts for them. Of course I did put that whole thing of dry gas into it after the fact, and I’m sure it cleaned out whatever it was that was fucking up the engine. Water in the fuel line or something? Fucked if I know. Chuck said he parked the truck at the edge of the bridge on the other side of the vans. He tossed me the keys and I heard another bang bang on the door.
Instantly I could see a tremendous amount of panic on their faces. I mean shit, even I felt my heart jump straight up into my goddamn neck. Two people knocking on my door in the same day? That rarely happened to me when the world was normal, let alone since the dead started being so active.
I motioned for them to sit still, and I definitely motioned for Chuck to keep his double barrel on the counter. I moved to the upstairs as fast as I could and went into one of the bedrooms I’m not really using. I crawled pretty painfully across the floor and peeked down to the door. Standing at the door was three fairly large men. I could clearly see they had guns, and they were scanning the area with them, looking for threats. I got the immediate impression that the two in the back knew what was going on with their guns. They were either hunters, or cops, or ex military. They just had that look. The dude banging on the door looked reasonably normal. Skinny, kinda tall, was wearing a knit cap, and I could see the glint of round eyeglasses on his face from the lights coming from inside. He didn’t have a long gun that I could see.
I lowered my head and sat down and thought. I could see Abigail crouching low in the doorway. She was smart, staying low. They couldn’t see her. She crawled towards me and whispered as I heard the guy downstairs start to yell out hello or something.
Abby whispered something to me like, “Those are people from the high school.”
Fuck me, right? I wasn’t sure what to do. Plus I was suddenly remembering I had left the shotgun and the .45 in the living room downstairs, not 15 feet from three total strangers, one of which was a goddamn teenager. Responsible of me, right? Fml. I started to think this was all just a clever way to separate me from my guns so the family could let these guys in, and then I’d have fuck all I could do about it.
The skinny fuck was banging real hard by then and yelling out something like, “We know you’re in there, we just want to talk!” Like Gilbert said, people don’t talk with guns. I decided to risk it. I had to trust somebody, and if they were going to fuck me over, they were going to fuck me over. I asked Abby to go get my shotgun and run it upstairs to me and to get her dad too. They both came up and Chuck had his shotgun ready to roll. I told him to get down to the front door and stay real low. If I started shooting, then he should open the inner door, then the outer door, and blast them too. He took off with no hesitation.
I told Abigail to get her mom and her brother down into the basement where the generator was. It was safe, solid, and secure down there from errant fire should shit hit the fan. She left me with the shotgun and crawled out. Very slowly I reached up and undid the window lock, and slid it up about three inches. Luckily the new dorm windows open quietly.
I got into a firing position kneeling, hiding behind the corner of the window. I had the very edge of the barrel on the inside of the window frame so it wasn’t visible to them. It hurt my leg like I can’t even explain, but I had to do it for good cover and a good firing position. Discomfort is better than being shot. I waited to about the count of 20 to make sure Charles was ready, and then I hollered out. Here’s the conversation as I recall it;
“Stop banging please, we can hear you.” And he stopped and backed up, looking for where my voice came from.
“Who’s there? Where are you?” He had a pretty deep voice for a skinny dude wearing a beige trench coat. I could see a bulge at his hip, which told me he had a pistol. He didn’t draw it, but his hand dropped down to the bulge and hovered there. He wasn’t a tool, I could tell by his body language, but he still wasn't like the other guys. The two dudes in the rear brought their guns up to my rough location pretty quickly, which w
as a little disconcerting.
“My name is Adrian, who are you sir?” That was me.
“I am Sean, I’m one of the council members from Westfield down the way. We followed some people here and wanted to touch base to see if we could establish a relationship. This is quite the place you have here Mr. Adrian.” He did this queer grandiose kiss ass motion as he said the last part. I could FEEL the politician coming off of him. Mr. Sean had gone instantly on the Adrian Ring shit list.
“Thank you. It’s currently private property. We are not interested in establishing any trade relationships at this hour. If you’d like to return in a couple days, we can meet somewhere and talk then.” I said WE because I wanted him to think there were several of us.
“How many people are here?” He asked.
“We’ve got about thirty at the moment.” And there goes my whole thing about lying to people. Remember that whole diatribe about honesty, and relationships? That lasted.
“I don’t think you can fit thirty people in that building Mr. Adrian.” I did not like his tone.
“I don’t think you know as much about our situation here as you think you know Sean. And I suggest you and your men come back later if you want to talk like civilized people. We’ve had some bad experiences with people who are desperate, and I’d hate to feel threatened and have all these guns go off by accident.” Low. Threatening. He stiffened at the statement, I could tell he didn’t like being threatened before he said what he said back to me.
“I don’t like your tone Adrian.” Same low, threatening tone I gave him.
“Sorry to hear that. Make your decision Sean, leave now and come back later, or I’ve been told I’m supposed to shoot you guys where you stand.” I didn’t want him thinking I was in charge. The two dudes behind him lowered their guns and looked over at him. My leg was SCREAMING in pain, and one way or the other something had to give shortly or I was going to stand up, ruining most of my cover.
Alone No More Page 24
