Cassie’s mind was adrift in dreams when she was reached out and touched by another soul. Cassie’s dreams were strange. Very few people were ever in her dreams when she had them, and when a person did appear, it was a rare and wondrous occurrence, much like a shooting star. Cassie always sought the person out, but just as she was about to talk to them, or wave hello, she felt the icy grip of the Voice yanking her away, back to the oubliette she suffered in.
Tonight (or was it today?) in her dream she was back in her company’s office, sitting at her desk. She was shuffling idiotic paperwork for the Nth time and wishing she was home with her man. Day in and day out she missed him more than anything, but she knew things were forever changed. She knew even if he’d come for her the chances of him making it, let alone finding her in the elevator were slim. He’d be more likely to see that shooting star at noon she felt. Cassie longed for his smile one more time.
“Hey are you really here? Are you? You know… finally free?” A woman’s voice asked quietly from behind her.
Cassie spun in her office chair and saw the gentle, round face of her dead boss Melanie. Melanie was alive in the dream, still plump and whole, with both her cheeks uneaten. Cassie’s heart began to hammer out an enthused drumbeat, realizing she might actually have an interaction, fictional or otherwise.
“Melanie holy shit. Are you here too? Is this a dream? Are we okay?” Cassie stood and clutched Melanie’s arms in a half hug. The two women’s eyes started welling up. It was a moment to relish.
“Cass baby I’m here, wherever here is. We’ve been trying to get to you, trying to talk to you, reach out to you, but you’re gone so much. It’s like your soul has been kidnapped, or worse. It's like we're all floating in the ocean and you bob to the surface for a moment, and we go to you, but you sink back down again before we get to you. Almost all of us are here. We’re dead, we’re waiting for all of this to end, but we’re okay. Everyone is so worried about you.”
“Why worried?” Cassie felt a strange fear suddenly. It felt like she was falling. Since her death in the elevator, fear hadn’t been a part of her life. What else could there be worth being afraid over?
“Well your mortal soul might be at stake here babe. You’re being used by the dark forces. The Devil himself has your number.” Melanie said it so calmly and flat. She said it like she was reciting her shopping list. Mel rubbed Cassie's arms, still holding on to her in the cubicle.
Cassie laughed nervously looking around the office as if there might be someone who could come to help her. “Why me though? This evil fucking voice keeps talking to me all the time, and it’s dodgy as hell. Keeps saying this is about Adrian and I. The voice keeps trying to turn me against Adrian. It tries every single day to make me angry at him. I don’t understand it one bit.”
“Well it’s not really about you dear…” Melanie said as if she was telling her daughter about a lost puppy. “It’s about him. It’s about how you’re being used to get at him. That’s what we all think at least.”
“Why is my boyfriend so damn important? I mean, I love him, and that’s important, but this seems so unreal. I mean… unreal in a world filled with the walking dead. Damn it, you know what I mean.”
Melanie let her friend’s body slide away a bit from their hug but Cassie held firm. She felt rooted by Melanie’s embrace. Grounded and normal. Mel thought for a moment, her eyes looking to the pale white tiled ceiling before responding, “He is a part of this. Like a rat in a maze. He's the rat, and some of us are the walls in the maze. Moved around to get in his way before he gets to the cheese. This is all about us failing the world, and being shitty people. If Adrian can survive this, we get a second chance. If Adrian fails, or maybe even just dies… Well, then we all die. We know he’s part of a small group. Three people. A Trinity. They’re all equally important and have special roles to play. Most of us don’t know the whole story about the others yet, but we hear a lot about your man. Apparently he’s the most important of all. He’s supposed to be documenting this so the people who come later can learn all about it. He's a historian, in a way.”
Cassie let slip a sigh that bordered on being a sob. She knew Adrian would eventually come and try to find her, and she knew now that was the Voice’s plan all along. She wanted so desperately to tell the man she loved to move on, to give a new life a chance, to avoid the trap that was being laid for him, but she didn’t know how to. She didn't want to be the lure that would be his undoing.
“Have you tried to speak with him yet hun?” Melanie asked, almost reading Cassie’s thoughts as she had them.
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“Think about him really hard. Right now. Dream of him, and where he might be, and if you try really hard, like Dorothy clicking her heels together, you’ll be zipped to him. There's no place like your man. There's no place like your man. He’s probably pretty easy to find. The big people are like lighthouses in the fog here. Big beacons of hope, quite literally.”
“No shit? You think that’ll work? You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to talk to in these dreams. I've been so alone for so long. It's madness," she said sadly. "If I try and talk to Adrian, I bet that evil cocksucker will yank me away like every time before.”
Melanie chewed a lip for a second. “Baby if there was a night, tonight’s the night. Something is happening. It’s like the calm before the storm right now. I think the Good Lord above is stirring the soup up to make things happen, despite what the little man below wants. I think if you tried really hard, you could do it. But if you’re going to, you gotta do it right now.”
Cassie gritted her teeth and nodded. She wanted one more minute with the man she loved. One minute more might be worth eternity in Hell.
*****
Cassie closed her eyes and concentrated powerfully for minutes. Melanie hovered over her, never taking her hands off Cassie’s shoulders, providing a powerful fetter that gave her confidence. After seeing his eyes, his face, and his hands in her mind’s eye, she suddenly felt the world spin around her as if she was strapped in to a carnival ride. She went with it, letting the swirls of vertigo come and pass, knowing that it was the price she had to pay for the road she needed to walk. When her reality stopped moving, she opened her eyes once more. She was laying on her side in a strange bed beside him. It wasn't their home, or the bed they shared for so many years, but it was comfortable, if only because he was in it. He looked thinner than ever, and weary. His eyes were closed and he was resting peacefully, though his eyebrows were furrowed, showing that even in dreams, his worries of the day never left him.
Cassie leaned in and kissed his cool forehead, pressing her body against his. Despite being a shadow of his former thick self, she felt so much strength and warmth come from his presence. When she lifted her mouth from his forehead, she saw his eyes were cracking open. In his dark brown eyes she saw recognition. She saw loneliness. Her heart ached for him. They sat there for what felt like hours in an infinite dawn. Golden rays of sun kissed across the room through the window, bathing them both in warmth that felt perfect. Cassie knew the little slice of heaven was short lived. The darkness would come eventually. Soon. If she wanted to talk to him, it needed to be now.
“Adrian, it’s almost time to wake up.”
Adrian shook his head, still half in a dream within a dream, “No, there’s still plenty of time left to be together.”
She winced. His need for her hurt like a physical stab to the heart. She wished there was more time. Cassie knew now was the time to inform him softly. She knew he had to hear what she needed to say, if only to try and save his life. Not only was humanity’s existence in the balance, Cassie simply wanted the man she loved to survive this. To be free of her. To get away from what she represented to him. The redhead gently caressed Adrian’s ear and let out a sigh that took all her breath. “Our time is over baby. There’s someone else out there for you.”
Adrian’s half asleep eyes widened, taking Cassie in. The two of th
em looked at each other longingly, like the years they spent together, slowly falling in love. Cassie watched as he replayed their entire relationship, and realized what she meant when she asked him to move on. Only one thing would lead her to tell him that; her own death.
Adrian’s connection of the situation was crushing to watch. He closed his eyes and put his head back on his pillow as hot tears streamed from his eyes. The moist stain on his pillow grew impossibly fast as Cassie put her hands on his chest, trying to make him feel alright. When he opened his eyes again, all she could do was nod and wrap a thin arm around his chest. She squeezed him and they lay like that for some time. Cassie felt the warmth of the sun peel away off of her back like a cloud had passed between. She knew instantly something was amiss. Nothing happened randomly in this lost existence. Cassie almost blurted out the last thing before the cold suddenly overwhelmed her.
“Adrian you must prepare yourself. Trials and tribulations are the way of the world now, resting is not part of what judges our worth. Everything happens for a reason Adrian. Sometimes we don’t understand when things happen, and sometimes we never understand. Just understand I always loved you, will always love you, and that you are needed by more than just me now. Someone must be the memory.”
And like a candle being blown out, the world went dark and cold. Cassie was torn out of the strange bed she was sharing with her love, and thrust back into her corpse body violently, like being slammed forward in a massive collision. The transition was painful, and her dead body ached like it never had before.
The Voice was angry. Angry with her. “Stupid, stupid woman. For this he shall suffer. Your foolish arrogance will be the end of him. He’ll never make it to meet you and see your dead face now.”
“He won’t break. He’s too strong. He understands now that he can move on, and love another. I told him everything. You don't know him."
“We’ll see. I suspect he’ll make the trip to you no matter what you’ve said. You see… his guilt over failing you is greater than his love for you ever was. He’ll eat himself alive until he puts you to rest, and when he comes to you… oh dearest Cassie he’ll have to deal with all of it, every single ounce of his pain, all at once, and all while staring his dead, rotting love right in the face with her white eyes. Do you think he’s so strong to walk away from that?”
Cassie’s corpse would’ve wept if it could.
February 28th
A wise person once told me in order to gain courage in life, you need to face your fears first. Everything you face and conquer gives you confidence, strength, and courage for the things you have not faced yet. Courage is funny like that.
We went into the city yesterday to the other parking garage next to the hospital. I can safely say that I’ve gained a lot of confidence after this trip. Sadly, I’m still a little scared.
We left here in a four vehicle convoy heading straight for Spring Meadows literally at the crack of dawn. By the time we were rolling past MGR the sun had crested, the sky above had turned a lighter shade of blue, and we could see easily. The weather had finally broken, it was dry, and things looked good. It was an auspicious morning.
The ride getting to Spring Meadows was gravy until we reached the primary intersection somewhat near the airport that we’d left a radio hanging at. We had skirted that area on our way here the other day, but this time we decided to check the intersection and see just how successful our radio hanging off the traffic light was.
As it turns out, pretty fucking successful.
We stopped around a hundred fifty yards out from the gate at the community when we saw the fucking mob of undead, milling about in the center of the crossroads where we hung our very first radio. I want to give the Meadows people a high five for saying that this number of zombies was just 'above average.' I’d guess and say there were between three and four hundred undead wandering to and fro. Of course once they heard our motors running, and saw us pull into view, they started our way. They're good like that. I pulled Kevin up on the comms and told him I wanted to try my M203.
If you’ve never seen one before Mr. Journal, they’re a grenade launcher attachment that sits under your M4. You slide a single 40mm shell in, sort of like loading a shotgun with a hormone problem, slide that bitch shut, and seconds later you’re lobbing a fun and exciting explosive high through the sky towards your enemies. I hadn’t fired mine since Kevin hooked me up with it, so I wanted to. No real reason otherwise. I had a toy, and wanted to use it.
I fired three 40mm shells into the mass of undead. I wasn’t sure on the effective range of HE rounds, so I sent them about a hundred yards out, and hoped for the best. The three shells hit and blew with a powerful thump, bringing back memories of hot days in the sandbox. I missed the sensation of hearing and feeling the small projectiles explode at range. It’s strange I know, but true. Like riding a bike.
When the shells hit they sent multiple walking dead sprawling. The force of the explosion wasn’t tremendous, but their balance is terrible, and even a slight push can topple them. Abby and Caleb were spotting for me, and sadly, almost every one of the knocked down zombies got back up. The 40mm shell doesn’t have enough shrapnel to guarantee a lethal head wound. I hate to say this, but as an anti-zombie weapon, the M203 is lacking oomph. We'll just have to use them versus the living. Shucks.
The SAWs have no such drawback. They kill everything equally well. Ethan and Hal were in the turrets yesterday, and when they opened up on full tilt the bodies started dropping to the pavement faster than we could count. It was disgusting and exciting at the same time. So many shattered heads and skulls, and faces. But, each dead body was one less threat. One less mouth full of teeth that wanted to sink into our flesh. Sort of the soldier’s conundrum isn’t it? You must kill to save lives.
Once we’d smashed in enough skulls to ensure the vast majority of the dead we’d shot into were down, we hopped back into the vehicles, and using the HRT’s plow blade, we cleared a path through the dead bodies and continued on.
Not too far away from that, Spring Meadows had a small crowd of undead at their gate. I think ten, maybe twenty stayed and didn't come towards the sounds of our shooting. We popped them off from about twenty yards out, dragged their bodies out of the way, and the locals let us in. They were stoked to see us, the liberating force. They’d been laying low, trying to make as little noise as possible hoping the undead would simply leave. It was a decent plan, and many of the dead had in fact walked away towards the sounds of our dying radio. Unfortunately, they’d made enough noise to keep this little pack of them around.
Not much else to report from them. We dropped off our care package of supplies, garnering endless glee from the locals, and we shipped out fairly fast. We didn’t want to stay too long after making all that noise, and lead whatever might be following us to them. Always better to have the threat chasing the dudes with the most firepower. When and if they ever catch us, we’re prepared for them. See: famous last words. See also: Jinx Fairy.
Our first order of business approaching the hospital where Fitz died was checking on the perimeter radios. We had two radios near our approach to look at, and to a lesser degree they were packed with undead. We knew that any kind of operation at the parking garage with those populations nearby would be met with failure of the higher possible level, so we took the time to smash into them with the HRT and mow them down with fully automatic gunfire. Yay us. It’s amazing how much easier doing this is when you have weapons that fire 800+ rounds per minute and people experienced with shooting them.
I laugh at how hard it was to just drive ten minutes a year ago.
Getting the four intersections cleared on all sides of the parking garage was short work. We started in the south. Of course we also knew that our noise clearing the southern two intersections would draw the undead down from the northern two intersections. It was just a matter of time for them to shuffle, feet dragging all the way down to us where we were in the garage. Getting them moving isn't
the worst problem, as often as not, that means they're spread out, and can be easier targets. After some suppressed M4 action to the south, then some suppressed M4 and M9 action to the north, we wrapped up the exterior street work with halligans and crowbars. It took over an hour, and was dirty work, but from the safety of the vehicles, and at range with people you trust covering your back, it was more methodical than frightening.
We got to work after that, as best we could. Sadly, that wasn’t all that well. The parking garage at the hospital was far different than the one at the apartment buildings. The ceiling clearance that allowed us to drive our trucks in at the other place was sadly missing here. When we started down the slight dip to go into the parking garage it was immediately apparent we would never get either the HRT or the deuce to the top floor, let alone just inside the damn garage.
We started to think of scrapping the plan. We knew we’d have another wave or two of undead on us sooner rather than later, and with no ability to drive our wood to the top floor, we’d take hours longer than the last time to get anything done. Ferrying by hand or in a jump started vehicle wasn't a pair of option we cared for. That’s when Blake’s eyes lit up like Christmas trees.
Blake saw that the Deuce was almost perfectly the right size to plug the vehicle entrance to the parking garage. The concrete barriers and fences would make for a pretty flush fit on the garage. If we shut a few of the doors and barred them, we’d be in business for keeping things shut out. We could easily transfer all the wood to the backs of the two humvees, drive that stuff upstairs, set the fires up, and lo and behold, we’d be done.
We elected to move forward using that plan.
Caleb parked the HRT in the street, well out of the line of fire should we need to open up on the encroaching undead. Martin pretty expertly parked the deuce across the entrance, ensuring that only undead that were smart enough to crawl under the deuce could get through. We solved that riddle after one of the humvees pushed a pair of cars behind the deuce, inside the garage and more or less blocking the path through entirely. For better or for worse, we were trapped in the garage.
Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) Page 22