Dead Cities: Adrian's March. Part Four (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 12)

by Chris Philbrook

  His home was brick, entirely without defensive measures in place. No boarded over windows, no car parked to block the yard off from the zombies that had once filled the streets, nothing. Just another abandoned home on an abandoned street in the middle of the suburban apocalypse. Except for the bees. Fucking bees everywhere, man.

  I had Oak and Maple post up in the street in outer blocking positions. Fagan and Hal were the secondary line, Abby was the roamer to support any issues that came up in either direction. Kevin and I were the breaching duo.

  The front door of the home was arched, and made mostly of glass. When we approached it, guns up and ready to fire, I saw movement inside the house. Looked like a foyer area that fed into a galley-style kitchen, dining area and living room adjacent.

  Big movement, and I mean big. Like, appliances moving around big. His fucking kid was gigantic. Like… freak of nature gigantic. His head scraped on the doorways, and I saw a glint of glass on the floor where his dome had smashed down some light fixtures that used to hang from the ceiling. He was wider than Kevin and I added together, and just… just fucking huge, man. Should’ve been playing offensive line in the NFL without pads, one arm tied behind his back. He’d still be fucking all-pro. He was an entire rugby team by himself.

  He pressed against the glass door, and his momentum didn’t even rattle it. Tobias spent good cash on doors, and it showed.

  “Don’t shoot him in the doorway. He’s too fucking big to drag. We gotta get him outside if we’re going to get anything out of the basement,” Kevin said as I was pressing the suppressor against the glass where the monster’s forehead was. “Step out of sight, I’ll holler at him through the living room window, then you get the door open so he can walk outside. We’ll monkey in the middle him. Drop him in the yard.”

  “Go ahead,” I said, and after telling the others what was about to go down, that’s what we did. Kevin drew him away from the door after I stepped into a blind spot for him, and when he got to the living room, I tried the knob. Locked. I slung my rifle and got the halligan out. Ten seconds of grunting and groaning later, the frame splintered and broken, and the door swung in. Kevin dropped down, and I stepped back. The refrigerator came to me at the front door.

  I can only equate the moment to being charged by a bull. Pamplona, Brighton Undead style. Out of sheer panic and insurance I put six rounds into his chest and face, and I still had to backpedal at a good clip to not get crushed by Godzilla as he came down. Unreal. What kind of genetics makes that?

  Bell End must be two thirds sasquatch.

  After wiping my ass and throwing out my underwear Kevin and I breached the home, and cleared it. I know Wiltshire said it’d be safe, but events transpired here without his eyes on them, and anything could’ve changed. But, accurate to his assertions, the home (dirty, cobwebbed, and stained in so many places with blood, and feces) was empty of threats. The place was nice, too. Brass fixtures, furniture probably handed down through inheritance. No Ikea in sight. He even had a hutch with nice china in it.

  Nice place. Pictures of the family were all over, and we saw mail with his name on it. So he at least had to know that we were going to see his name when he sent us there. Curious way to tell us.

  The basement was reached through a door off of the kitchen in the back. Dark as midnight, and awful-smelling, like… chemical awful, not gore-awful, Kevin and I went downstairs. I tossed a green chemlight down to give us something to gauge movement by, then we headed down with the flashlights on our rifles lit.

  Clean. Spotless, really. Well, I say that, but there was still dust and cobwebs, and a few rats or mice that had gotten into a few open barrels of organic materials. But what was left… was valuable.

  Bell End like his booze sweet. Honey sweet. Explained the bees.

  Meadery. In his basement, taking up the entire place was a giant mead-making, mad scientist’s lair. Jugs and jugs of honey still in good condition were all over the place, as were several dozens of old Grolsch, flip-top style bottles, all filled with fluids of varying darkness and clarity. Handmade labels explained that their contents. Berry meads, sweet meads. Melomels, sack mead, braggot, myment, cyser, fucking words I didn’t understand, but wanted to try sips of.

  He was right when he said it was fragile, and I understood what he meant about transporting the real value. The $$ wasn’t the mead. It was the distilling set up. All they’d need was more honey from bees, and they’d be in business for the rest of time with a high-value product. The mead itself was just trade goods for the meantime.

  So… after exiting, making a plan to get the shit out, and communicating that plan back to Point Hope, we did the deed, and packed up the fucking ambulance with every single thing that we could pick up. Everything in that basement went into the ambulance, leaving almost no room for us to get in for the ride home.

  I had a sudden pang of guilt as we saddled up; Bell End’s goliath child still lay in the yard. That didn’t seem fitting to me. He had to get some kind of… ceremony, or burial. He had to get that, for us to really and truly call it a job done.

  Maybe that was my own guilt.

  I burned him. We piled up some furniture, nice stuff, before we broke it up, and then poured a little high-test whiskey we found in the hutch on him. A few matches later, and he was getting something of a ceremony.

  We had to go then; it was about to get dark. The ambulance was so full, I wound up riding on the roof of the ambulance with Hal on the way back. Kevin drove us at a whopping five miles an hour, so it wasn’t too risky, but we did drive by five undead as we rejoined Kingsway to head west. We took them down on the move from the rooftop with our suppressed M4s. Still loud enough to draw attention, but by that point, we figured that ship had set sail. We’d made noise earlier in the day already, and if we were seeing the dead now in small numbers, it was just a matter of time before we were inundated once again anyway. Didn’t make much difference if we were surrounded now, or in twelve hours.

  They were all going to meet their end.

  Proximity, right?

  -Adrian

  October 19th

  A tiny curl of smoke rose into the sky where we put Wiltshire’s boy to the fires. Even a day later.

  It made sense to leave the ambulance loaded until we returned to the fire house, which we did today. Before I get to that part of the story, I do want to talk about zombies first.

  Definitely more in the area now, and that’s complicating humanitarian efforts. We still have a line of people outside our gates looking for help of one form or another. We’ve been offering 24/7 security to those people (as we should) but up until now, we haven’t actually had to do anything to keep them safe. Now, that’s changed.

  Our snipers in over watch have had to take twelve shots on distant undead since midnight last night. It’s what we expected on the way here, but it hasn’t been our experience yet. That means… officially, and without doubt, anyone moving in the streets isn’t safe. It doesn’t seem to be stopping them from coming for this that and the other thing. They just stand there, paranoid, eyes looking for danger in the shadows and at the corners, and then to our soldiers and sailors for safety and hope.

  It’s gonna get worse, and then getting these people help will be almost impossible. I hope they can get what they need from us today, or tomorrow, or before the shit really and truly returns to the fan. When that happens, everyone will have to lock down for… who knows how long. And, let’s not forget Mr. Journal, there is some level of intelligence at play against us.

  Evil gets a say, and boy, when it does, heads will roll.

  Then again, I get a say too.

  We brought the ambulance to the fire station this morning without issue. Trip there we crossed paths with eleven undead, and took care of them in the same way we did the others. Rooftop ambulance firing positions for the win. Granted, with Hal and I holding onto the roof of the vehicle with all our life, we had to go with more caution, so what we’ve turned into a fast trip, ret
urned to a slow one. Slow but successful is fast though, as you might say.

  So we got to the fire station, without Crystal, as this wasn’t a car-repair trip, and we just… sat around. We cleared a few street-level rooms, and pushed out the area we’ve made safe by about thirty yards. Moving slow, checking windows, and doors, looking for signs of undead where we hadn’t seen it yet on previous trips. Abby and Hal found three undead trapped in a parked car around the corner. Smashed a window and cracked the skulls with minimal risk. Seatbelts save lives. Didn’t fucking save theirs, but when they strapped in, they were saving ours.

  True to his word, Chief Bell End in the flatbed with the gun emplacement with a van in tow showed up within a few hours. He certainly wore a smile when he hopped out of that truck’s front cabin and fired up his cigarette.

  Oh… sudden wonder; the house had no ashtrays, and didn’t smell of smoke. There weren’t any piles of cigarette butts in the yard, driveway, or back garden either. Hm. Strange for a chain smoker to live in a house with no cigarette butts.

  I digress.

  Not long after he hopped off and fired up, his smile evaporated. He looked at his feet and then found my feet, and eventually, he looked up at me. Tears came then; thick, and fast. Streaks of soot from the tiny wrinkles in his skin ran down, giving him clean stripes in the middle of his filth.

  “Um, is it uh… is it uh…?”

  “He’s at peace,” I said, slow, and calm. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was… humane?”

  “As human as we could’ve made it.”

  “Did you bury him?”

  “We sent him up proper Viking style.”

  He stopped and faced me with raw… I mean I guess the base emotion was grief in its various forms, but riding up and over that was fury. He started to shake with anger, and took a big step towards me.

  “You fucking wot?” he said, spittle foaming at the corner of his lips.

  “Gimme a sign and I install a skylight in his chest,” Sgt. Maple said into our network. I didn’t move, or respond. In that moment, it was taking everything I had to not react, and meet Tobias at the level of rage he had. I felt.. I felt fucking incredulous. Furious, angry, all of that. How dare he scream at me? How dare he threaten me? I fucking did the worst thing he could think of having to do, and I went that extra step further, and gave his kid a remembrance? How fucking dare he?

  He kept yelling, staying in place, loud as fuck, raging at me, bellowing about how he should’ve been buried, and how he was a kind kid, and didn’t deserve it, and I kept seeing flashes of Hal, and Abby. Ollie and Melissa. Blake and Kimberly. Kevin and Shelby. Chris Fagan. The parents in my world. I kept seeing their faces, and the inextricable… crushing, awfulness they would be feeling right now, were I talking to them about what happened.

  My fury died away, and I was left empty, and dare I say patient. Time passed, minutes passed, and then, just like a door being slammed, Wiltshire shut down. He went to the ground, overwhelmed by everything, and I took a knee near to him. I didn’t say anything; there wasn’t anything I could say. Nothing would’ve made it better. It wasn’t my job in that moment to make it better. It was my job to bear witness, and not let him be alone.

  So that’s what I did.

  “He would’ve fucking LOVED it, you know?” he managed to stutter through a river of tears. “We’re part Scandinavian. Over half. He fucking loved Vikings. Thought they were… they were the tits.” He wiped his eyes, making more clear spots. “Ahhh fucking Hell. Fucking Hell.”

  “You can’t speak more truth than that,” I whispered to him. “All of this, it’s Hell.”

  “Ahhh you’re right. I’m right. It’s all fucked,” he said, still crying. He went quiet. Contemplative. He looked up to me, then nodded. “I need to apologize, and say thank you.”

  “Apology isn’t necessary. I will take your thanks.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop, there’s no need.”

  “You’re right, I’m sorry,” he added, refusing my hand as he got to his feet.

  “You literally can’t help yourself from apologizing, can you?” I said with a little snicker.

  “English understated, polite nature, I’m sorry to say.”

  “If there was a high score to be set for apologizing, I think I’d take you and a few Canadians to form a Dream Team of politeness. You’re the Michael Jordan of saying sorry. Gold medal, done.”

  “Is Jordan a baseball player?”

  “Well, kinda. Close enough.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “My wife and I… she… she would be very appreciative. She’d be a bit more, aggressive in her grief, I fear, but… she’s every right to that.”

  “No argument.”

  Bell End went back to his flatbed, and grabbed a small courier bag from the front seat. He returned, tossing me the bag. I caught it. Heavier than I thought. He’s a strong one.

  “All of what you’re missing from the ladder truck. She’ll need some love beyond that, but it looks like you’ve got that kind of love handled.”

  “All night long.”

  “Five minutes, tops, from the look of you.”

  “Yeah that’s pretty accurate, actually. Best five minutes of several people’s day though. Once. I think.”

  We laughed. Felt good. He was still working on managing his tears.

  “Look, I need some time for the second project, right? Just a few days on our end. It’s… delicate for my people. We’ll also need time setting up my old gear here. We’ve been collecting honey all summer, we should be able to jump right in and get brewing. But in say, three days, we meet back here again, just like so, and I’ll send you off on your own little quest again for the gear for the pumping engine.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Then he had his small group of dudes unload the ambulance with Hal and Kevin’s help. It was quiet. He stood back, smoking more cigarettes, and watched. We didn’t talk at all, either. Seemed he was doing some awful heavy lifting, thinking about whatever it was that he had to do next.

  Delicate things, can be tough to move.

  We will return on the 22nd, in the hopes that Bell End has our second side quest ready for us. I am officially taking votes on whether or not he’s one of my precious Trinity. He’s got Soul written all over him. Didn’t say anything about his name, and I might be making this up, but somehow, I felt relief from him that I didn’t.

  -Adrian

  October 22nd

  Rain and fucking fog, Mr. Journal. Most of the last two days, just rain and fucking fog. Spots of sunshine here and there, but clouds, then some more clouds and soaking drizzle, today included. You know what’s a real fucking downer when it’s foggy, Mr. Journal?

  Zombies.

  Zombies are a real fucking downer when it’s foggy. Like... worst nightmare imaginable. I feel like I’ve spoken about this before. Foreboding? Foreshadowing? Doomsaying?

  It’s made the last few days, ever since we met with Bell End and got the rest of the ladder truck parts a mess. Utter shit show.

  So to set that stage… our little peninsula has been fogged in. The ocean is gone while it’s settled in, and the gate area, and the Kingsway beyond, plus the streets adjoining and adjacent, are all thickened over with a hundred yards or more of complete concealment. Visibility can be as low as twenty yards, and with how fast these cock gobblers can move, twenty yards is three, or maybe four seconds of reaction time. Our staff on the ground, at the gate call out movement, and our snipers then try to find it, but they’re further out than the gate, so they can’t see the threat for several seconds, which leaves gate people in the lurch. Eventually, they need to fire or go melee themselves, and our snipers are only able to watch.

  I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Journal; why not use thermal scopes to see?

  Well shit, that’s complicated. We tried that, and it failed for a couple reasons: first
and foremost, atmospheric conditions mess with getting a clean thermal image to shoot. Fog, being thick with moisture, absorbs and diffracts heat rather well, rendering the image you see pretty shitty for a headshot. Second, these undead aren’t as warm as a human being. They’re warm enough to stay unfrozen, and have slowly fluid blood, but they’re not the 98.6 we are. Thermal just didn’t work beyond helping our shooters see a threat a second or two earlier. A threat they couldn’t do anything about.

  Oh, and William and Kate plus Seahawk are grounded in this pea soup. It’s too dangerous to fly, and they can’t see shit anyway even if they flew above the fog. No air support at present.

  So, we’ve tripled our forces on the ground, at the perimeter at all times, and have three more shooters in observation the moment the weather turns even a little soupy. So far, that’s been enough to keep all of our people whole. We did hear this morning that a group of five locals making their way to us for medical care from the northeast were attacked as they went, and they lost two of their number.

  A tragedy, but one we couldn’t do anything about.

  I asked Rosario if she could put some brainpower on seeing if we could extend our perimeter to offer more security. I’m not even sure if it makes sense to, honestly. We’re already overextended just keeping this fucking port, its buildings, and our boats safe. If we push out in that way, we might be using resources better put to use elsewhere, in a way that’ll make the whole country, and maybe even all of Europe safe, if we’re successful.

  We returned to the fire station with Crystal, in our empty ambulance to complete the repairs and tire fixes, and of course, to meet up with Chief Bell End, aka Tobias Wiltshire, but he doesn’t want us to know that name yet. Not sure he wants anyone to know that name.