The Failed Coward

by Chris Philbrook

  Shrug. Play it safe, and don’t get any injuries at all from anything anywhere near the mouth of a zombie I guess. I’m practicing zombie bite abstinence.

  We have adjusted our plans slightly to allow for recuperation. As I said, we did little today, and tomorrow we plan on doing little at all again. Campus activities. The day after that I plan to head into town solo. Gilbert’s foot is very painful, and there’s no expectation that should he need to move on foot, he can. Bringing him anywhere off campus right now would be a mistake.

  Patty can go with me I suppose. There’s nothing to keep her here. Abby seems… a little distraught. She’s jumpier today than she has ever been, and she seems twitchy, bitchy, and frayed. Bringing her into potential danger so quickly might start the whole PTSD cycle, and I can’t afford to lose her to that. Incidents like this make me wish Gavin and Ollie were here. More able bodies to deal with violence. Able minds? Now that’s a different question I guess.

  I’m heading out on the 20th. If all goes well, we can start making real plans for driving a wedge into the town, finishing off the undead there, and maybe finding survivors.

  I can say this with certainty today; I am less enthusiastic about children being here now.

  -Adrian

  March 20th

  Despite how large campus is, it astounds me how large the world is outside of it. For the most part, I have been cooped up here on campus for almost nine months now. This town is huge Mr. Journal. Gigantic compared to this frigging place. As you can probably surmise, I’m not dead, which means my trip downtown was a success. I’ve learned quite a bit about the barrio, so to speak.

  Keeping with the theme of trying to make constant progress on campus, yesterday we went back to work on Hall B. We’ve ripped out the rug, the pad underneath it, the drywall and all the furniture in the room where those girls died. The furniture went on the smoldering funeral pyre, which was largely burnt out, but with the fresh infusion of grody ass lumber, has flared up for a bit. The bunk beds and dressers and chairs and desks out of that room were heinous Mr. Journal. Filthy and crusted over with thick, dark blood. Made me want to hurl just looking at the stuff.

  After we tossed that shit out of the window and got it on the burn pile, I grabbed a spare window out of the maintenance storage area and we got the busted one out. All we need to do now is find drywall and new rug padding, and a rug, and some fresh paint, and the room will be good as new. I am so all over that task. I think that job has “Ollie” written ALL OVER IT.

  All of the windows and doors on the basement and first level are now barred with 2x4 and three quarter inch plywood barriers. I did them the same as the Hall E barriers, so the upper window can be lowered, and you can shoot over the barrier. They’re reinforced with three 2x4s per window, and they’re attached with some heavy duty screws right into the frames of the window and house. It’d take an army to beat them down. One just about the same size as the one we repelled a few weeks ago. Maybe I need to start looking for iron bars. Hall E’s window barriers held, so they can’t be all bad I suppose. Nothing a good field test to reassure yourself of something.

  Beyond that, we did dick yesterday. Gilbert is now a really big fan of Percocet and Johnny Walker Blue. He’s gone through a whole bottle of the stuff (the liquor), and he’s taking a perc every 5 or 6 hours so he can walk around. As long as he’s three sheets to the wind he’s pretty funny, and Patty is in stitches babysitting him. She’s telling us some of his more hilarious war stories when he’s blacked out on the couch, and they put my shit to shame. I feel like a choirboy, Boy Scout virgin when I hear his shit. I just pale in comparison. Adrian Ring, chairman of the knitting club, wearer of tightie-whities.

  That’s neither here nor there though. I need to make some progress on this so I can go to bed. It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. Plus Otis looks cranky. He’s glaring at me from the foot of the bed, and I think he wants me to stop clicking incessantly on this keyboard.

  Patience buddy, I feed you. Understand the food chain in this household. I love you, but my patience does have limits.

  Speaking of food! Our indoor gardens have borne us good food the past few days. Forgot to mention it earlier on. We’ve got some small tomatoes, which are to die for, and we’re using fresh herbs and spices to make things interesting. Very cool. I wish I could celebrate this more, but I want to go to bed and I’ve still got a good chunk of shit to talk about.

  So anyway, the weather continues to hold for us, and the snow seems to be shrinking every time I go outside. Under normal circumstances I’d take the plow out just to have the snow removal option, but even in the places I haven’t cleared the snow, it’s only 4 or 5 inches deep at most now. The trade off is periodic fog in the evenings/mornings, and the running water. Sewer drains across town haven’t been cleared all winter, and the runoff is just streaming down the streets near the curbs. In some spots the water is 6 inches deep, and fucking cold as balls if you step in it.

  Moral of this whole story is that to save gas, I left early this morning with the HRT. I also snuck out by myself early-early. I knew Abby would put up a stink, and frankly I didn’t want to deal with Patty. I’ve been jonesing for some “me” time anyway. I keep thinking about the time in Westfield when I was spying on the folks at the school and how awesome it felt to be on my own, doing my thing. I dunno. It’s the little adventurous boy in me that misses getting lost in the woods with his brothers.

  I left with a bunch of food as well as copious amounts of ammunition and water. I fully expected to have something go bad on me, and not be able to drive back today. Obviously I made it. One handwritten note to explain my absence later, I was off. I trucked off in the fat pig around 7am right as the light was good enough for me to see everything comfortably. I sort of timed it so the light would be better when I got downtown too.

  As I said, downtown is enormous. Legit huge. I have long since forgotten how many side streets there are all over the place. There are little cul de sacs with four houses at the end of dead end streets, side roads that connect to other side roads, and a bunch of the downtown streets as well. I didn’t count precisely, but I know there were at least 250 homes that appear to be unravaged by fire or looting.

  Speaking of fire… There are a LOT of burnt out homes in town. I don’t know how it happened, but I’d guess and say as much as ten or fifteen percent are history. Idiots fucking up home heaters, or woodstoves, or electrical shorts, or candles or cigarettes, shit I don’t know. My point is there are a lot of flattened and charred homes.

  Based on today’s recon mission it appears that the population of undead on this side of town is remarkably low. By driving slow, and honking the amazingly loud horn on the truck, I was able to run over nearly forty undead today. I’d guess and say that was probably half of the undead I saw the whole day too, which is either awesome, or fucking horrifying. I’m hoping it means they are all dead, and not waiting patiently at STIG, or at another survivor’s home. Speaking of which….

  Not one sign of life anywhere I went today, despite all my horn blaring zombie drawing antics. Speaking of zombie drawing antics, I think setting up noise stations to draw in the undead is a really solid strategy. It worked fairly well when we hit STIG to rescue Patty, so it stands to reason that if we set up some kind of really loud stereo, or noise that went on for a prolonged period of time, we might be able to draw in large amounts for a turkey shoot. If we didn’t want to shoot them, we could hit them with the plow. Over, and over, and over again. Obviously hoping for the best that the windows don’t get smashed out, or we get a flat. It’s not a perfect plan, but oooooooh…

  A ditch. A giant hole in the ground that we can lure them into. Like the foundation at the daycare. Then we can actually use fire to kill them effectively, or we can poke them in the head with sharp sticks or something. I might be onto something with that idea. Once Gilbert gets off his liquor and painkiller binge, we can talk about that.

  Otis is still giving me the stink
eye.

  Alright, so our area of town leading almost right to the center of downtown (School Street, where my mom lived in the home) is pretty clear of undead, and has about 250 homes in it.

  Businesses are more of a problem though. Most of the businesses on this side of town were cleared out hardcore “that day.” The grocery store, the pharmacy, the hardware store, etc. There is a coffee shop, a few small restaurants, two small gas stations (one of which we already cleared), a corner store market, and a smattering of “at home” businesses that may or may not be of any use at all. The two that stuck out to me as possibly awesome were a knitting supply shop, “Yarn Heaven by Doris,” and one of the local contractors who did heating and cooling stuff, “Tyler Mattheson HVAC.” One place that still might be worth hitting, is the town’s Health Clinic. I’m petrified of that place though. Hospitals and clinics were hot spots for the undead when the shit hit the fan, and I’m concerned the dead might still be in the building. In force, in large numbers, cranky, and hungry.

  I did find one of the housing developments on the fringe of town I was thinking of. There were five houses all in various states of construction, and an ass load of raw materials lying around. The houses themselves were falling down and rotten due to the exposed innards, but I am pretty sure I saw two large pallets or stacks of bricks, which would be very nice to get back to campus. Sitting on the side of the road there as well was a gigantor F350 diesel dualie. Getting that home and in working order would be swell, as we could use that instead of the Chevy, and cut down on our gas consumption even more.

  Truck retrieval is not a huge priority for us though. We’ve got access to enough gas to last for some time, and supplies are a higher need in my mind. That and decimating the remaining undead in our local vicinity seems to be really important. Imagine a life without undead in it? Seems completely impossible to me.

  Fuck off Otis, seriously, kneading my crotch is not a persuasive way to GET what YOU want. Gonna punt him like one of those kids from the daycare here in a second.

  And if that didn’t seal the deal for me to go to hell, I don’t know what will.

  Where was I? Ah yes, what to do now? I didn’t go all the way to STIG, but I am pretty sure we should at least make a run to the Industrial Complex and see what’s left there. I’m almost wondering if we should wait until we have more bodies here. I don’t want to wait that long. If we drive over, check it out, and come home, there is no skin off our teeth. I think we’ve thinned the herd in town so substantially with the STIG explosion and the recent mass assault on campus that we can assume it is safe enough for a drive by at least. You catch that?

  Assume.

  I know, right? Kiss of death much?

  I should really learn. Definition of slow learner.

  Eh, whatever, I guess it’s my lot in life to be stupid, and write my exploits down here for no one to read. My best friends are a cat with a brain the size of a pecan and a laptop I’ve named Mr. Journal. I’ve gone through enough lotion since the apocalypse keeping my… manhood thoroughly moisturized to fill a pond. I’ve shot people lately, chopped the heads off of zombies, and don’t even get me started about bite wounds to my crotch. (that’s the real root of the lotion needs, btw Mr. Journal. I am keeping my crotch from scarring. I swear.) Kinda sad when I think about my life in those terms.

  Holy off track.

  Tomorrow is a relaxation day yet again. My goal for tomorrow is to convince everyone that we should make the trip to STIG on the 22nd. I think the girls will be on board, and if I can get Gilbert to cut back on the sauce, he’ll go for it as well. I think by then he’ll be good to go, or at least he’ll be able to render some kind of coherent advice that will make our lives useful.

  If not, I’ll see what the girls want to do, and we’ll take it from there.

  Otis now gets his wish. Goodnight Mr. Journal, as always, your company has been a great way to waste time.

  -Adrian

  March 22nd

  I sit here often on the nights I make the time to start an entry and wonder how exactly to start writing. Some nights I open a document and my fingers have a life of their own, and it is almost as if I’m able to connect my brain directly to the screen, and my thoughts fly out with little effort. It’s like I am a marionette, and my fingers are the puppet.

  Other nights I sit staring at the screen and despite whatever it is that I want to write about, I can’t find the words, or my fingers flat out refuse to do my mind’s bidding. Tonight is one of those nights. In fact, were I not talking about how hard a time I am having writing, I’d still be sitting here staring a sheet of white, pixilated paper.

  We returned to STIG earlier today. And we probably shouldn’t have. It’s obvious to me now that we should’ve waited. That whole hindsight thing is a motherfucker. Gets me every time.

  Yesterday we made preparations for our trip to STIG earlier today. My main goal for yesterday was sighting in the M4 I got from Mike. Turns out, it was already sighted in for dead nuts at about a hundred yards. Shoots straight and true, which tells me someone already used that weapon. I don’t know anyone who took one of these bad bitches out of the packing grease and had it shoot properly. I’m not nay saying US government issued equipment mind you. I’m just saying everything we used was made by the lowest bidder. From can openers to helicopters. Just saying.

  While I was sighting in the M4 (which ultimately might be dumb of me if I get an ACOG off Mike) I had Patty and Abby work on magazine changes and snap aiming drills with the two M15’s. Functionally they’re the same as the M4, and with our lack of spare .22 weapons it seems likely we might need to rely on them a little more often in the near future. Plus the range of the 5.56mm round is better, and I’ve had several rounds out of the .22’s splash off the skull of a zombie. They’re not high velocity enough to punch through every skull, especially the forehead where the bone is extra thick. Lucky hit on the eye, or the temple or the back of the head, it’s no problem.

  Anyway, as I ranged in the M4, they did magazine changes, and we worked on going from safe to semi, then to three round burst, and back and forth. I gotta tell you though, as a general rule of thumb, three round burst has never popular with me. The muzzle lift sucks on shot number three, and really, we’re almost never in situations where we need to lay down a HAIL of fire that fast. A good example of where quantity does matter was when Gilbert was stuck near the basement in the daycare. I wanted to send as much lead down that staircase as I could to buy us time. Normally I’d set it to semi-auto, and aim each and every shot.

  I explained to the girls the same idea, and they agreed on principle three round burst was a waste of ammo. They really agreed after watching how hard it was to aim the entire pattern of shots on a target. Neither of them was able to get all three rounds into a skull sized area, which means every pull of the trigger they’d likely be wasting at least one bullet. And we just can’t have that.

  For our run to the campus we opted for the HRT, and the plow truck. We all decided that two vehicles were needed, and the plow could be needed if there were any weird snow accumulations anywhere along the way. Just like our trip to the daycare, we stocked up on supplies assuming we’d not be coming home. I also knew we’d be hitting a lot of dead bodies with the trucks, so I made sure we had two spare tires for the plow in the back of the truck. Broken bones flatten tires. We don’t really have spare tires for the HRT. That’s a big risk.

  For this trip the girls took the M15’s, I took the new M4, and Gilbert rolled with his trusty AK. I drove the plow with Abby, and Patty drove the HRT with Gilbert riding shotgun (AK). We departed something like half an hour after sunrise, and made good time on mostly clear roads to the area STIG was in. We took the direct route straight through downtown. There was little reason to avoid drawing in zombies, as this recon mission was more of a “recon to contact” situation. Essentially we wanted to pick a fight today, and we definitely got one.

  In the light of day downtown was awful to look a
t. All the windows of the local businesses have been busted in, and the snow drifts over winter pushed their way inside. Most of the snow has gone from inside, but you can see the wreckage. There are bodies everywhere. The worst of the bodies are the ones that are trapped under the snow. People were killed, or zombies were killed, and then the snow fell. Now that it is melting, there are dozens and dozens of decaying corpses being revealed. Some are still purple and bloated twice the size of normal. It’s disgusting.

  Abby stopped counting when she got to 50 “zomb-pops.” Luckily none of the bodies being revealed appeared to be zombies, but we did see a few undead that were stuck in deep snow that had yet to melt away and free them. We actually had the time to stop and kill two of them before we got into truly dangerous territory. I left the truck running and smashed their heads in as they reached out at me, buried in heavy wet snow up to their waists. I’m thankful for that I guess.

  Just past School Street the undead population got noticeably thicker and more aggressive. Maybe aggressive isn’t the right word. They attacked us as any undead asshole would. As soon as they see, or hear you, they turn and shuffle in your direction in this… urgent apathy. I don’t know how to describe it. Like flesh eating robots. Incidentally, urgent apathy would make an AWESOME band name. It could be emo, or punk, or whatever. I’m so fucking creative.

  We slowed our drive speed down so we drew in a reasonably large following of undead. By the time we reached the industrial park that contained STIG, Gilbert said we had along the lines of 75 dead folks heel-toeing behind us. It was a pain in the ass to drive that slow. I wasn’t plowing as we went, and the few inches of slush left in the street hindered the retards just enough that we almost hit the gas and said fuck it. We didn’t though. Patience saw us through the irritation.