Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family Read online

  The day after tomorrow we’re going back to MGR. Martin wants to go back to reinforce the doors we had to cut open so we don’t have to use the ladder truck to get into the building. He wants simple, but strong bars to shut the door with, and I’m all for that. Once MGR is safe to occupy again, we’re going to work on staffing it, and then possibly hitting the police station to remove the repeater tower so we can get it on top of MGR. Then we’ll have radio contact over the entire length of town, which makes me feel all kinds of warm and fuzzy on the inside.

  Mike has expressed some interest in staffing MGR consistently, and I think Dwayne is also interested as well. Both of them like their space, and if they want to live there, I’m fine with that. I also like the idea of having a military man as my eyes on top of the building. We’ll see a lot more that way than with a civvie up there half assing it.

  Well, I think that’s it for now Mr. Journal. I appreciate you listening. I often forget how much it helps me to write all this shit down. Some days it’s hard to organize my thoughts, and being able to record it makes me feel a little bit better about the chaos inside my head.

  Thanks.

  -Adrian

  July 22nd

  Well we’ve got rooms sorted out here. I’m not entirely sure it’s a final arrangement, but it’ll do for now. We’ve elected to keep Hall C empty for the meantime. It’s the most meh of the dorms, and ideally we want to keep people clustered in easy to manage groups so we can minimize fuel consumption for generators. As it is, Hall D is now occupied, but we have no generator spare for it, so they’re in the dark. I’ll lay out who is where now.

  Hall A:

  Alex and George in the upstairs Hall A apartment

  Hector Gutierrez, James Halwitz, Rita Newman (15), Adam McDonald (14), Allison Stein (12). Angela and Danny jr, Amanda, Alan, and Tabitha.

  I love the mix in this dorm. We’ve got plenty of experience, lots of ass kickery, and people I trust. Amanda and Angela will make sure the new people toe the line, as well as make sure everyone is eating and drinking appropriately.

  Hall B:

  Jeannette and her little boy Jeffrey, Ollie and Melissa, Martin, Julie, and Chester.

  The dream team, if you will.

  Hall C:

  Empty for the moment. If we get an influx of people, we’ll backfill mostly into Hall A, as there are still over a dozen beds empty there. Once Hall A is full, we’ll go to D, and then from D we’ll fill C.

  Hall D:

  Chris, Chad, Lindsey (Lisa’s med student), Dwayne Chilton (34ish), Emily Weinberg (15), Danielle Stevens (13), Tina Michaels (10), Chantelle White (9), and Veronica (last name unknown, 5). How sad is it that little Veronica has no idea what her last name is? Her parents are dead and gone, and we will never know her last name. Not sure how to handle that going forward. Really wish we had more of an adult female presence here. I’m half debating asking Angela or Amanda to move over to this dorm, but I’d feel like a douche splitting the sisters and their kids up. Lindsey is mothering the whole show, and I feel like that's a lot on her.

  No electricity here, and these folks volunteered to crash there no problem. Good people.

  Hall E:

  Me, Abby, Patty, Mike, Mallory, Ryan.

  Plenty of room left in Hall E for people, but frankly, I don’t like the idea of people sleeping in my space. We’ve got the armory in the basement, as well as the batteries and solar panels, and we store a lot of food in here too. I’d much rather save this space strictly for people that I trust implicitly, and am close to.

  Jones Road Farm:

  Lindsey and her daughter Andrea, Jenna Reilly (30ish), and Renee Parker (35ish).

  I pushed hard to get either Jenna or Renee to move to Hall A or Hall D just to spread the female presence around, but both were just not having it. I think they were disinterested in living directly on campus at the moment. I can’t blame them. The farm is nice and cozy, smells like a home, Andrea is just fucking adorable, and Lindsey is a sweetheart. It’s also nice, because with two extra sets of hands out there, we can expand the garden. Incidentally, Lindsey has that thing cranking out cukes and tomatoes, which are fucking terrific. Small, but yummy.

  Speaking of yummy, we finalized these living arrangements when we were midstream on our huge cookout. Everyone bailed on the wall work early yesterday and started the shindig. We broke into the stores and got out some soda, beer, and chips, and Ollie popped the nuggets off the top of about eight chickens. We fired up one of the grilles, opened up some marinades we’d been holding on to for a special occasion, and in short order, everyone was eating and loving life.

  We really needed this. Watching kids run around playing, free from danger outside, watching everyone open a can of beer, or a can or soda and toast to each other’s health, and best of all, watching hungry, scared people sit down and eat a freshly cooked meal safely together was precisely what we needed to unwind and deal with the events that brought Westfield down. A simple cookout was a great bonding experience, and it brought us more together as a single group, as opposed to two groups sharing space uneasily. Friends were made, hands were shaken, laughs were shared, and all in all, I feel much better about our overall social dynamics today.

  I more or less also learned everyone’s name too, which was good. I know I said before that I have no interest in learning people’s names, but I was starting to have those awkward exchanges where I needed to ask someone to do something, and I'd just gesture at them and say, “Hey, uh… you.” And as we all know Mr. Journal, that is not the best way to make friends. Nor is it a good way for me to connect with the people I am asking to do shit according to my rules. Be genuine, care, and good things will happen. Be a leader people want to follow.

  Speaking of good things…

  Earlier today we broke off into groups again. One huge party stayed here on campus to work on the wall, and the other group broke off to go outside the wall back down to MGR. Martin wanted to reinforce the ground level doors, and Mike and Dwayne wanted to give the building a once over. The two of them have been talking more or less consistently that they are interested in making MGR their full time home, and as I said before, I’m all for that.

  We took a very small group down to MGR earlier, mostly to leave folks on campus working on the chicken coops, the wall, and getting everyone situated. Martin, Mike, Dwayne, and I were the only people who went. Back at ALPA I left Abby and Patty in charge, and they held down the fort admirably but I knew they would.

  The trip downtown was in the Humvees. Martin loaded some metal supplies and his basic welding gear into the trucks, and we were off. The road down to MGR was largely clear, but when we got close, the undead population definitely thickened somewhat. I’d say we skirted something along the lines of twenty zombies on the way there, and I’d say at the base of MGR we had about thirty more to contend with. Because we were at ground level, and we would be working half outside all day, collectively, went to fucking town and wiped the undead out, old-school style.

  Halligans and three pound sledge hammers were the order of the day. My forearm is pretty much all set now, so I grabbed my trusty fireman's tool and joined in on the fun. Saying it was fun is a wee bit douchebaggish, as we were crushing the skulls of our dead former neighbors. But… it was fun to play with the guys. All of us are large, physically able, level headed, and organized. Having the four of us armed and dangerous gave me a strange sense of comfort. Together, the four of us were able to smash in the thirty heads in just a few minutes, and because we were able to do it silently, sans gunfire, we were able to keep the undead in the area away. Well, most of them at least. Some inevitably wandered our way for whatever reason, but we dispatched them the same as the rest, and everything stayed very manageable for the bulk of the day.

  While Martin and Dwayne worked, Mike searched MGR from top to bottom to get a good idea of what the building was all about. I kept watch on the street, and dropped the few random undead that moved about. Incidentally, it was
HOT AS FUCKING BALLS today. Good fucking Lord. Easily a hundred out with humidity. I was melting. Fortunately, we had the presence of mind to bring a lot of water.

  Anyway, Mike was all thumbs up when he got done searching the building. He identified the good parts, the bad parts, and volunteered to relocate there as soon as we needed him. We left some of the panels on the roof before, and the batteries inside the building are holding a decent charge. If we can find another generator shortly, coupled with the panels, the building will have plenty of power to house 5-6 folks regularly. Almost the same as a dorm, but safer now that Martin has started to work on the bottom floor doors.

  Speaking of which, we didn’t finish today, but we’re going back tomorrow. Martin’s got maybe two or three hours of work left, and the same group is going down in the morning to finish it off. Dwayne wants to search the building for himself, and he is very interested in moving there with Mike. I think he wants his privacy, which I can identify with. I don’t have much of it anymore either with all these people milling about campus.

  So we made it back in one piece, and we had our little meeting in Hall E after dinner to discuss whether or not anyone had any leads on the asshat that set the Westfield fire. After checking Abby’s notes, we found nothing. It sucks, but I think we might be doing this for sometime before we find anything of note. The life of a private detective.

  Oh, I forgot to mention that while we were gone the wall crew got almost 80 feet of wall up. Progress might start slowing here, as we’re not rounding the area where the dorms are, and heading into thicker, and uneven wooded areas. Although, we NEED to cut down trees right where the wall is going, so it might level out on time because there’s no need to truck the trees across the bridge, then across campus as well. We cut it down, trim the branches, cut it to length, and within minutes the tree is in the hole, and we’re packing the dirt door and pushing the berm wall into place behind it.

  Not sure what we’re doing after that. Oh, I should also mention that James dropped a wandering zombie coming up Auburn Lake Road at about noon. That’s the first one we’ve had up here in some time. I wonder if it’s related to the amount of noise we’re making lately, with all the chainsaws and the backhoe, and people talking.

  Dunno Mr.Journal.

  -Adrian

  July 24th

  How do you get an undead body hanging from a noose down?

  Do you kill the zombie, as it swings to and fro, dangling from the ceiling first? How do you do that? Let’s add the detail that you really don’t want to shoot the zombie, because the round will go through the head, possibly through a wall or ceiling, and at the very least, make one hell of a mess, and possibly destroy something important, or hurt someone else.

  These are the kinds of problems I have when I am woken up at 4 in the morning in a panic. Not the, "Hey, there’s a noise downstairs, or the, hey, can you take out the trash for me," kinds of problems. I get dead kids dangling from jerry-rigged nooses made from electrical cords. Undead kids I should say. Undead teenagers I should say.

  I mentioned her name before, but the darling Emily Weinberg hung herself until she asphyxiated the night before last. She was just 15 years old. Mallory and I were woken up by Abby knocking on the door of my bedroom. She said Chad was downstairs with bad news. Apparently he had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and Emily’s door was open, which struck him as odd. He poked his head in, and there she was, hanging from a pipe she’d revealed by pulling one of the hanging ceiling tiles away. Of course she was undead, so when Chad made himself visible, she kicked into action, and started reaching and kicking at him, sending her into a tailspin.

  Chad wasn’t sure what to do, so he shut the door, and came over to get me or Mike. Abby and I wound up going over to check it out. Emily was wearing a student’s left over pajamas that night, and she looked like a little kid that had made a bad decision hanging there. It gave me a bit of gasp when I laid eyes on her. She looked so tiny.

  Abby and I couldn’t shoot her. Most of the other people in the dorm were still sleeping, and there was always the chance the round would pass through her skull, and we really didn’t want to paint the damn wall with her brains, so we had to figure out how to get her down, put her down, and get her out without rousing the dorm.

  We wound up taking a fairly easy route out. I made a slipknot on some nylon cord, and when she reached out to grab Abby, I slipped the cord over her wrist and yanked it tight. Once snug, we spun her by her feet, and tied the rope around her, binding her arms tight to her body. Once that was done, I grabbed a roll of duct tape, slapped it on the back of her head as Abby held her steady, and we gave her another spin, covering her mouth. After all that, she was rendered as safe as we could get her.

  I cut her down, and we slipped her out the side door of the dorm with no one the wiser, and drove her out to the spot where the body pile was. Abby brained her with a knife to the eye, and we started a small fire to get rid of her body. Small is relative by the way. Burning a body takes a fair amount of wood and flame no matter what.

  So yeah. Not exactly starting your day off well. Cutting down a dead teenager and burning her body. No suicide note, no signs of foul play. There was a tipped over chair at her feet, so it looked as legitimate as a suicide as it could. Of course now our minds are racing. Some of us are fairly sure that whoever set the fire in Westfield was likely her murderer. We’ve no way of knowing. No cameras, no witnesses, nothing.

  Once everyone in Hall D woke up, Patty, Abby, and Doc Lindsey addressed them, and told them what had happened. Honesty is the best policy as they say, and everyone looked pretty shocked to hear of her death. No one seemed truly surprised she’d killed herself though, which makes me wonder if she really was suicidal. Not one person said, “Not her, no way.” And usually, that means she’d been sending some kinds of signs to someone. Complaining, distant emotionally, cries for help, who knows.

  One more dead body. It sucks. The younger girls who were friends with her took it fairly hard. Lots of early morning tears, painful hugs, and general dismay. Shit happens. I just hope this was a sincere, honest suicide. Otherwise, that means there was foul play involved, and that means whoever set that fire in Westfield is here, and has picked up right where they left off.

  I didn’t sleep well last night.

  After dealing with the Emily issues in the morning, Dwayne, Mike, Martin and I went back downtown to MGR to finish the weld job on the other main ground level entrance. Martin set the doors up to have a sliding steel bar on the inside for protective purposes. He also set the door up so it was reinforced with rebar so if it was rammed, a straight rod of steel would be there to shore up the door. If someone was clever enough to attach a winch and yank the door though, that might be trouble. Basically we are expecting that MGR will be staffed 24/7, so the locks are internally enabled. Bars across the door, reinforcing bars on the inside, etc. If the people inside MGR drop dead or are killed, we can always enter the building the way we did at first, using the ladder truck.

  We spent about six hours downtown with Martin doing the majority of the hard labor. The undead population was mild, and I chalk that up to our constant presence, and hard work at eliminating everything we’ve been seeing day after day. I mean shit, how many undead could there possibly fucking be in this town? It seems like we’ve killed fifty thousand undead lately. Of course, there’s no way to account for the migratory activity of these pieces of shit, so we might be dealing with walkers from all over the county now.

  We returned last night with no issues, and had a mild evening where we compared notes about stuff people said, and had a severe bout of paranoia about the death of Emily. Most of us are convinced her death was suspect, but again, no proof means we’ve got nothing to go on. After our paranoia filled evening, we crashed hard.

  Today started with no dead bodies, hooray. Celebrate the little things, right? Despite the shit day we had yesterday with Emily’s death, both today and yesterday saw another batch of amazing pro
ductivity. We did it all despite a terrible heat wave of the mid nineties again. I think it actually hit a hundred yesterday at about two in the afternoon. Just scorching hot here. It’s the kind of heat and humidity that causes you to instantly start sweating as soon as you’re outside doing anything. I mean peeling a fucking orange would be sweat inducing right now, if we had oranges. Mike keeps going on and on about how thankful he is they aren’t doing water runs anymore. In this heat, they’d have been pissing through fluids over there at easily double the normal rate. Probably much faster.

  I’m happy to report that Blake has completely filtered all of our on-site fuel. He also got some fuel additives from Hector that will stabilize the gasoline for, “A fucking long time,” as they both said. I don’t know what it’s called, but they both claim the stuff can hold fuel potency for a long time. As a result, both Hector and Blake are advocating strong for another fuel run. Hector had five barrels in that garage we took that are all empty now, and we’ve emptied two more since our last fuel run, so I’m thinking another couple barrels, and we can send a crew outside the wall back to the convenience station to make a fuel run. I’m also wondering if we should shit can the water truck as a water truck, and just fill that bitch with gas.

  That’d be a lot of gas on hand, and Hector says there’s enough fuel stabilizer or whatever to keep it fresh for us for some time. It’d be nice to have that much fuel on hand, but honestly, with a pyromancer/murderer on site here, I am really goddamn skeptical to put that much of a highly limited resource in a single container, that we can’t really restrict access to. I’ve taken the truck idea under advisement, but the fuel run is a go in a bit. If the undead levels downtown are as low as they were the other day, we’ll be good to go with a fairly rookie crew. I’d like to get some new folks some trigger time, if only to get my own eyes on the new folks to see how they perform.