Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) Read online

  Food is a serious concern right now for me. It was bad before when Syl was stealing from us, but now that we’re into the thick of winter, moving around off campus is a bitch, and there’s little left to search for anyway. We’ve pretty much got what we’re going to have. Grow it or go without shall be our motto. I talked with Jenna and Ollie while Patty and Abby were there, and after taking a pretty careful stock of the situation, we’re looking at maybe putting the oldest cow down for meat.

  James has also said that he will double his efforts outside the walls to try and get us a deer, or something we can eat. Of course he dropped a fair amount of deer already, and I’d hate for him to hunt the area’s deer extinct or something. Although, I can’t imagine more won’t come through here eventually, and if we have to hunt them into oblivion for a year, it’ll be worth it to get us through to the summer where we can plant far more crops to get through the following winter and so on and so forth. I do know that this is robbing Peter to pay Paul, but people might die if we don't.

  We’d start fishing too, but the lake is freezing over. The ice isn’t thick enough for us to ice fish on either just yet, so that’s kind of a shit situation too. We’re discussing better ideas on rationing as well, and we've talked more about amping up Ryan and Becca’s hydro production, but we've had to put that off because other fires have sprang up on us. We can start on assisting them in maybe three or four more days, depending on how things settle out at MGR. Downside to that, is listening to my sister bitch at me about how badly they need more help, how important it is what she and Ryan are doing for us, and how I'm 'not seeing the big picture.' Insult, and injury. I want to yell at her so badly, but she doesn't deserve it, and on many levels, Becca is right. I cannot deny her the passion she and Ryan have for what they're doing.

  Despite the snow, the cold, and the shitty road conditions we might deal with, we need to try and get some supplies one way or the other. We need at least two more generators. That's feasible for us. One needs to go to MGR so they have extra electricity, as well as a second generator in the event the first dies, and we also need a spare generator here in Hall E. The solar panels and batteries in this dorm are going to start shitty production with the snow on the roof, so we will need to run more generators to stay warm. The wood stoves help all over our little 'town' here, but some of these dorm buildings are deceptively large, and get pretty cold, pretty fast, no matter what we do.

  I know a place sort of near the other house we hit a few days ago where there’s a big generator. Diesel powered if I recall, which will be clutch. It will be a tough drive if the snow is as deep as I think it might be, but we can manage. We still have that technology. I forget what else is in the house, but the generator alone is worth going for. I think there’s two other houses right near it as well, and despite thinking long and hard about it… I can’t remember what’s in them. Like the fading memory of a dream, what I remember searching for while on the other side is leaving me. I feel like I’m on a clock here… Everything I did on the other side is starting to leave me. Better get moving eh?

  We’re meeting to plan the run tomorrow morning, rehearsing everything, getting some other shit done, attempting to free up at least two people to help Ryan and my sister, and then heading out. If MGR has a set of tracks that we can follow, then we’ll change plans, and possibly launch a heavy recon to find out where the attackers are coming from.

  Either way, it’s time for Adrian to kick some doors in again.

  -Adrian

  January 17th

  MGR found no tracks that were suitable for us to follow. The wind was blowing a little too hard, and with the walking dead moving about as well, there was no way to get a clean follow on them. Certainly not worth it in the face of so much needing to be done. With nothing to go on for that, we opted to hit the house with the generator early yesterday afternoon.

  Because of the overall level of tension with everyone, we came up with a plan that made everyone feel safe. We wanted to send a team of people that had experience, was able to work together, but one that also wouldn’t leave Bastion unprotected, nor would it totally neuter our ability to respond to MGR fast. Kevin, Mike and I got The Factory on the line, and they’ve committed to sending assistance if needed, but they don’t have the firepower, nor the vehicles. They've already got their own fish to fry, as you might imagine. Plus, coming from the edge of the city is scary, because if the undead presence is flaring up, they can’t respond either.

  They are unreliable, but in a pinch, I believe they’ll send us some help. How much help, who knows.

  Anyhoo, we opted for a team I was infinitely comfortable with. Myself, Patty, Abby, Angela, Harold and Blake. We’d roll out in the deuce, and the HRT. The humvees would be left back for the QRF if needed, and Kevin’s entire team minus Hal was then still available to pull security for Bastion as well as respond as the QRF should MGR be attacked again. If that happened, we’d abandon our house clear, and head back to staff Bastion immediately. Like one of those little puzzles where you can only move one little square at a time.

  We left the campus at about noon, anticipating we’d need twenty minutes of transit, two hours of clear, and then twenty minutes back. In reality the house was closer than that, but with the snow, we figured it’d take longer.

  It did.

  The side roads the house I took us to were all still covered in about six inches of smooth, ice crusted snow. You could hear it crunching under the wheels as we went. As long as we took it slow, we were fine on the roads. What was disturbing though, was the presence of undead on the side road.

  The house was maybe two miles down a tiny road that connected two slightly more major streets in town here. One of those old cow paths that people built farms on a century ago. As time went on, less cows walked on the path and more wagons, then cars, and here it is now as a poorly paved town road with five houses on it.

  Anyway, with just five houses on it, there was little intelligent reason for there to be about fifteen undead walking up and down the road. It was also strange because the snow surface on the road was still fairly smooth, indicating that the undead hadn’t wandered there recently. Very odd.

  The first couple of undead we saw were in the road, and I simply drove the HRT right over them. The plow blade makes for a highly effective zombie smashing weapon as we've proved time and again, and it also saves us the effort and physical risk of getting out of the truck. When we got close to the house in question, I realized that we were in a bit of a pickle.

  The house was nestled in the elbow of a corner in the road. The driveway was small, and opposite the house was a twenty foot drop to a stream. We had damn little area to drive the vehicles. I parked the HRT in the curve of the road, completely blocking it, and Angela parked the deuce in the driveway. I don’t know how she managed to turn it around so smoothly and back it up perfectly, but she did, and it was awesome. Team Vagina, breaking stereotypes every day.

  Right at the house as we were parking we saw three undead. Two of them immediately started at the vehicles, trudging through the snow as fast as their disorganized, frigid bodies could move through the snow. I slid out of the HRT, walked around the front of the truck calmly, took a breath, got rid of the heart in my throat and bad memories of being shot in the head, and put the first one down. Lining up that beautiful red dot on a head makes shooting quickly so much easier. The first bodies impacted the crust on the snow, and nearly disappeared under it.

  Abby was out the other door of the HRT simultaneously, and she needed two rounds to put the second zombie down. Hers fell sideways into an overgrown hedge at the front of the house and never quite made it to the ground. It was a pretty, young woman in a thin summer dress. She looked very out of place in the cold of January. The reddish grey mist of her brains looked very strange painted across the porch behind the hedge.

  What a world.

  From the driveway behind Abby and I we heard Patty snap off a round from her AR at the third undead co
ming down the road. She was accurate on her first shot I can happily report, and within a minute, we were ready to breach. I remembered the layout of the house pretty accurately, and I knew it was narrow hallways, and lots of small doors. It was an old house, and if you’ve ever been in old, small houses, they are kind of claustrophobic. When we checked inside the windows we could see a few moving figures, so we knew the breach would be violent.

  As a result, I decided I’d breach the house on point with a 12 gauge. Nothing against the M4A1, but I wanted the knockback power of a shotgun. The 5.56 rounds are so high velocity, they can frequently buzz right through someone and barely stagger them. However, buck shot from a 12 gauge to the chest… does a bit more than stagger someone. And besides, close is often good enough with a shotgun.

  We breached with a team of three. I was on point, Harold second, and Abby third. Abby and I are a pretty well oiled machine for this, and Harold in the middle was added comfort. He’s a good man, and a very good Marine. Royal Marine to be specific. Have I mentioned I dig his accent? It reminds me of watching Guy Ritchie movies. Note to self: Watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels soon. I had Angela make noise on the far side of the house as we prepared to go in the door. Hopefully she would attract the undead inside away from us, or at least get them turned around to buy us a few seconds.

  I pried the door open with the halligan and we were in. The house was tight, just like I thought I remembered from the other side. The main hallway led straight, then hooked right sharply. To the left was the kitchen and living room. Bedrooms were all off the right side of the hallway, with the stairs up after the hook right. Does that makes sense to you? Makes sense to me. I hate describing shit like this, I feel like I suck at it.

  The hall was clear, and I went left into the kitchen. An older lady was in the doorway at the end area of the room, facing towards the dining/living room. She was gone, and after calling out contact, I bucked her up side the head with the 12 gauge. Her head disappeared, and I stepped over her body into the dining room. Immediately after stepping through the doorjamb I saw two more zombies turning from the windows to face us.

  I saw Angela through the window, and after racking another shell into the chamber of the shotgun I motioned for her and hollered for her to get down. I didn’t want her to catch any errant shotgun blast bits through a window. Once I saw she was out of danger, I blasted the dead older man in the upper chest, disconnecting his head from the rest of his body. What was left of him went down on his knees for a moment before falling chest first on the hard wood floor. The other undead in the home was just a young teen boy. He’d been bitten several times on the neck and chest, and judging by the blood on his grandparent’s faces, they’d done it to him. I pumped the scatter gun one last time, and put him down, breaking the window behind him in the process.

  The rest of the house clear was fine, although very cold. The broken windows from all the shooting let in the cold air from outside. We took our sweet ass time checking the upstairs, as each door was locked. The whole house smelled bad too, so there was no way of telling if a room had a zombie in it just by smell alone. No fun. Fortunately, no injuries, no deaths, no problems.

  We radioed Bastion all was well on the breach, and started clearing the house. As usual, Patty and Abby took everything not nailed or screwed down. Blake and I focused on getting the generator in the basement out of the bulkhead door, which meant shoveling an assload of heavy snow, covered in crusty, sharp ice. Unpleasant work, that.

  The generator was a beast though, and was diesel, which is nice two-fer. It took Hal, myself as well as Blake the better part of twenty minutes just to get it into the back of the deuce. Heavy fucker. The old guy who I assume owned the place also had some pretty awesome handyman books in the basement too, which we grabbed. Blake was impressed by them, which meant they had the how-to on stuff he didn’t know… how to do. New information is great. As I’ve said before, Google is still down.

  Which reminds me… we need to hit the town library. I’m sure there is a ton of useful information still there. Books on practical knowledge that we really need. Farming, agriculture, construction, electrical engineering, all that jazz. Maybe there’s a book on how to build a small hydroelectric dam, or solar cells, or something that’ll help us out as we slowly and steadily run out of resources that are left behind.

  Gotta be renewable Mr. Journal, or we've got to figure out how to make it continually again, or why bother?

  We were on site for longer than we figured, about three hours. As you might know, anytime you are anywhere longer than you want to be, you’re opening yourself up for exposure, which means attack. Luckily the only thing we saw was a scattered walker or two out in the road, meandering towards the noise we were making. Nothing really pressing that we couldn’t deal with. Most of our haul for the day was the generator, bedding, a few tools, nails, screws, bolts, the books, and a 12 gauge shotgun with ten shells.

  I was unable to turn the HRT around in the narrow road, so we had to drive the long way home. The roads we took led us very close to the area of town where I saw a few of the fires from MGR, so we naturally were nervous we were driving into an area that had hostiles. We saw nothing moving, nor any fires, and we didn’t encounter any hostility, so that was nice. I didn’t really feel like getting into a prolonged firefight after having to lift that motherfucking generator. I’m still sore today.

  Not much else to report. We left the generator in the deuce for delivery to MGR in a day or two. I am not looking forward to hauling that fat bitch up the stairs. I wonder if there’s a way for us to hook it into the power grid for the entire building in the basement. There's gotta be a way to do it. One floor down is a lot better than five floors up. Of course one more generator running means more fuel consumption, which is shitty, but at least this one will be eating at our diesel supply, instead of our gasoline reserves. But, the electricity there will help them get through the winter.

  The dog situation here has been sorting itself out nicely. Angela and Amanda have been doing the rear gate feeding thing, and the animals have been much quieter, and far more obedient as a result. They are now largely staying at the gates, waiting patiently for us to feed them twice a day, and they’ve even barked a few times when an undead came nearby. They are serving as an excellent auxiliary warning system for us. I just hope we have the food to maintain it. Some of the kids are getting attached to the nicer, cuter dogs, and that scares me. One more thing we can disappoint the kids over. I guess let it ride as long as we can.

  Syl is the same. Michelle said she’s getting better at being around people. We can now have two people in the same room with her and she won’t get violent. Doesn’t sound like much of an improvement, but it’s something. Michelle also had James and Mike trudge over to the cabin to get some photos and keepsakes for her. Now her room is far more “homey” and maybe that’s what is helping.

  Mallory is the same. Getting better, getting used to having just one arm.

  MGR is quiet, for now. We are setting up a plan to establish ambush points to get the jump on the folks if they attack again. There are a few small storefronts we can get inside, and when and if they try to come at the tower again, surprise motherfuckers. We’re behind you, on the surface. Hard to retreat through gunfire with no cover.

  Granted I’d rather they just disappeared off the map entirely, but I’ve got the sinking feeling that isn’t in the cards for us. These people are aggressive, crazy or desperate, and if losing one of their number wasn’t enough to scare them off, not much else will. I guess we’ll see what happens.

  Something I noticed yesterday that I didn’t say anything about was Abby and Hal. There was a moment when the two of them were inside the house, alone, and I caught a glimpse of them through a window. They were talking, and when Abby turned away to go do whatever, Hal gave her a playful pat on the ass. She turned, DIDN’T glare at him, and then walked away.

  There’s something in the air between those two. I am
not displeased by this. I’m hoping that Abby moves on from Gavin, and if she’s going to, Hal is a damn fine man to do it with. Kevin has said nothing but good things about him since they got here, so I’m sure he’ll be worth her time. I give it my blessing.

  Kids.

  We've dedicated two adults to helping Ryan and Becca in the gym. You may remember Angie, LaFrenz's girlfriend, and Jeanette, one of the ladies who came over from Westfield. The two new ladies to the gym are working on taking on the feeding and maintenance of the hydro units while Ryan and Becca work on building the new setups. This got my sister out of my colon, and put a smile on Ryan's face, and I consider that a win/win.

  I might take a few day shifts at MGR here just to relieve some people there. We’re slated to move some folks in tomorrow, and I can easily insert myself into the rotation when we bring the generator and supplies. We’ll see.

  I’m off like a prom dress. Widescreen porn awaits.

  -Adrian

  January 20th

  I took my three day shift at MGR a few days ago. I’m writing this from Bastion though, so if you do the math, you probably have figured out that I didn’t finish my three day shift. Mr. Journal, we had yet another run in with the “bad guys” at MGR, and there was gunfire.

  I think I am being reckless. I felt like I was making a good, solid, tactical decision the other night but in retrospect, it now seems foolish. I feel like I was taking an unnecessary risk, despite it actually being a very solid idea in a military sense.

  I’m no master tactician, and I’ve forgotten most of what I was taught in the military already, but I consider myself a fairly bright guy with good instincts. Flanking an enemy is key to breaking them, that much I can remember. Allowing them to assault our immobile position repeatedly, no matter how well fortified it may be, will eventually result in it failing. It’s simply mathematics. Do they have more assaulters than we have guns in the fight? Can they simply bleed us dry of resources in a siege fashion? What if they surround it? Attackers will test a defense repeatedly until they find the weak point, and then they will attack it with enough force to accomplish what they need to do.