Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 9): The Dealer of Hope [Adrian's March, Part 1]

by Philbrook, Chris

  Thomas had his knife out almost immediately, using its razor sharp edge to slice Rasa’s clothing in half, revealing the rack of bones that she really was. He tugged her arm roughly, pulling her so she was flat on the ground in front of him rather than leaning against the wall. He rolled her over, looking for what had caused her to bleed out so much, so fast. Directly below her protruding pelvis, right where the longest of the leg bones reaches up to connect, she had a channel of flesh carved out of her. The joint was exposed, and the muscles and connective tissues were flayed apart. The wound stood as a morbid monument to the effectiveness of the AK.

  Thomas set to work confidently and quickly, allowing his training to guide him. He removed all the items he’d need from his bag without even looking at it. Everything in his pack was meticulously organized for moments like this. A single moment’s delay could be the time it took for a heart to pump out one pint too much for life to be rescued.

  “What can I do?” Glen asked as he dropped to his knees in the blood soaked dirt.

  “Pressure right there.” Thomas pointed with a bloody finger where Glen could help stop the flow of blood. Glen responded immediately, pressing downward with both palms heavily. Both men watched as the steady flow of blood slowed to a meager trickle.

  Thomas began to insert expanding material that would staunch the flow of blood into the gaping wound in the child. The white material soaked up her blood impossibly fast, swelling to fill and plug the entire wound. As she stabilized Thomas produced an IV bag and somehow managed to find a vein in her stick-like arm. He threaded the needle in and affixed it to her with tape. Using both hands he squeezed the IV bag, forcing the life giving fluid into her body, refusing to allow her any chance of bleeding to death. Within seconds her color shifted in the dark green of the NVGs and her breathing steadied slightly. As Thomas let go of the IV bag both men heard movement coming from the street where the ambush had taken place. Thomas had the angle on the street and one hand still on the IV bag. He drew his service handgun fluidly, and as another insurgent ran around the corner, AK in hand and ready to spew death, he stroked the trigger twice, double tapping the man in the chest and dropping him like he’d been struck by lightning. He twitched a few times, gurgling blood onto his face, and Thomas pulled the trigger again, ripping the top of his forehead and skull off. Both men remained on their knees for a few moments, Glen still applying pressure, and Thomas still squeezing the IV bag.

  “Fuck these people. Fuck this place.” Thomas holstered his handgun and turned back to the shattered little girl he had every intention of saving.

  October 18th

  Abby and baby are doing well. She looks so good as a mom too. I made fun of her for years (mercilessly, I should say) for having the feminine figure of a discarded popsicle stick with blonde hair on top but I can’t anymore. Having a baby gave her boobs and some hip fat and now she’s actually attractive. It’s not just the changes pregnancy made to her body, either.

  I mean she was always pretty, in that awkward ‘you want to help her talk to people way,’ but now she’s a genuine, bona fide, badass, creeper attracting hottie. I have the overwhelming desire to punch people in the face when they look at her like she’s a piece of meat which I correlate to my fatherly feelings for her.

  She of course doesn’t need anyone to punch people in the face for her. She’s more than capable of doing it on her own. She’s also got to be one of the damn few to breastfeed with a Beretta 92F on her hip and an AR15 within arm’s reach.

  That’s my girl. I love holding her kid too. The look of relief on her face when Michelle or I take baby Gavin off her hands for an hour or two is so worth getting thrown up on. Abby’s so appreciative of us helping. Which leads me to the point that the kid upchucks like, every fucking time I hold him. Never on Michelle, rarely on Hal or Abby, but so often on me it’s a running joke now. Do I need to explain his throw up is Abby’s breast milk?

  I’d relate this to my toe-pusher expression but I can’t think of a way that doesn’t make it sound like I’m the turd in the bathtub circling the drain so I won’t. Let’s just move on.

  About a week since I put an entry in. A goodly amount of shit has been accomplished. Things are quiet on the northern front. No appearances by our neighbors that we’ve observed, but our preparations in the event of their visitation continue.

  I traveled to the Factory with Kevin and a small crew in vehicles to help them sort out the installation of the repeater tower. I hadn’t seen Hector or Celeste in a long time and it was nice to catch up.

  If you recall Mr. Journal, Hector used to work with Sergeant Mike in the National Guard in Westfield but now he’s grown up and moved on. Hector’s hair especially. When I first met him he had short hair to match his short stature but now his locks have grown out a bit and he reminds me of Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite. Hector speaks less like an idiot though, unless you get him started on cars, and then all bets are off. Guy was born with a wrench in his hand.

  Celeste is fun to be around. She’s sassy and tall as hell. Taller than me which puts her at six… three? I bet she played college basketball right up until the point someone showed her she’d make $500 a night taking most of her clothes off for lonely men. Celeste used to be a dancer when the Factory was a strip club. If you recall the two heinous sisters who owned the Factory more or less enslaved their girls to sell sex for supplies and that got them a good ways along through the end times. Food, bullets and pussy appear to be universal currencies. Anyway, the sisters did real well right up until they crossed paths with us, and they damn near kidnapped my little sister Becca and my brother’s wife Sophie to add to their harem.

  I wasn’t having that.

  Since we dislodged the douche nozzles that ran the joint and the oppressed took over, things are great there. The interior of the club has been rebuilt to be more human-friendly and fortified and they/we got some additional large diesel generators in the backrooms so the huge ass building has power until the fuel runs out. Water is still a problem so close to the city, but there are some streams and rivers that are now clean enough to drink out of that keep them going. They use the same water to keep their roof and alley box gardens growing. Their plan is to expand into other buildings soon.

  Hector and his crew had removed the large repeater tower from the closest fire department the month prior and moved it over using a truck from a lumber supply company. Now Hector has a good amount of dudes and hard working ladies there but getting a five thousand pound radio antenna and a series of wires, cables, boxes and attached shit up there with it was a bit out of his reach.

  So we helped.

  Most of the heavy equipment in the city is just sitting where it was left on June 23rd, 2010, waiting to be brought back to life. Hector and Blake are both engine/heavy equipment nerds, so we formed a search party and hunted around until we found a small crane.

  Of course the thing had been sitting in an abandoned lot. An unfinished strip mall. Three years of sitting idle meant it needed some tender loving care to work, and thankfully, our grease monkey nerds were able to do just that. This new world will be built by those with dirty hands, not neckties.

  It took Blake and Hector the better part of eight hours on a crisp day a couple days ago to get the crane up and running, and that was counting the time it took for them to find parts at a nearby garage and swap out the batteries on the beast. Driving it back to the Factory took but half an hour, and after that Martin was able to decipher how to operate it with Blake real quick.

  It helps to have handy men around. I’m good at shooting things, and being a smartass but when it comes to repairing things… I am not your man. I’m a handful, not handy.

  We took a break after all that for the night, had a nice rooftop cookout with the Factory people where we reminisced about the apocalypse and violent things, and then the following day we lifted the tower and all the gear up to the roof with minimal issues.

  I should just say again how much easier it is
to do shit without the fear of zombies killing us at every turn. We still post security on a perimeter to watch for the living when we’re outside the wall but still, that’s like guard duty on base. Most of it is staying awake I hate to say.

  After that we needed to give Andy and Hector a couple of days to install the tower’s innards and link it to their electricity supply. We’re hoping that the project is completed tomorrow.

  When done, we’ll have radio comms all the way out to Spring Meadows from here at Bastion. Life will feel far safer. Is it weird that I constantly cycle through all the names this place has had? Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy aka ALPA, or casually just campus, or Bastion as the newer people have christened it… Eh, whatever.

  Speaking of Spring Meadows, when we left the Factory we swung by there to touch base. You might remember Agnes and Anders, the Nordic married couple that are the de facto leaders of the settlement. They’re still in charge, though Adam, one of our Texas transplants now helps them keep things running.

  Ander and Agnes are stereotypically tall and blonde, and if you saw them on the street you’d be really creeped out when they kissed. They could easily pass as brother and sister, and you’d immediately think that they were from the deep wilds of Kentucky and not Norway.

  Good people though. College educated, good family, pleasant and kind. The walled off community of Spring Meadows served them well when the undead roamed. Sturdy brick walls on all sides topped with iron ‘decorations’ that would fit in at a prison, and a series of iron gates that they blocked off with vehicles to keep out the dead. As long as they were quiet and kept the gate shut they had little undead to deal with, and few living raiders as well.

  Nowadays they don’t need to block off the gate, they simply post a guard at it, and keep it closed. Inside the walls of the high end neighborhood they have turned almost every square foot into food producing gardens. Their water supply is exterior the same as the Factory but with their location to the south and in the suburbs of the city they have potable water far closer. Adam’s skills as a Home Depot manager have him on a project to pump the area water in somehow, though I’m wondering how much of his experience will help him in a region of the country that gets snow and ice a third of the year. Texas experience may not apply here in full effect.

  I have faith in him though. He claims to have faith in me. I guess that should be a two way street.

  There’s some kind of wisdom in that statement I’m missing. Maybe it’ll come to me when I’m three fingers into a bottle of Blue Label in Gilbert’s honor.

  They are otherwise well. All are healthy, one couple is pregnant, food cultivation on their land has been adequate, and the houses are holding up.

  There’s a long term concern we’ve had about home maintenance. Houses decay, especially when they aren’t kept warm during winter, and when the roofing isn’t kept up to shape with fresh shingles. Mold grows inside if the moisture gets out of hand, windows get broken from who knows what, and there are precious few skilled carpenters around. In that regard Texas Adam is a treasure. He’s going to be very helpful training others and such so all of our households can be self sufficient.

  What else?

  Babies are good. Moms are good. Dads are regretful. Fall harvest is in full swing, as is Michelle’s preparations for Halloween at our little school. The kids are cutting out paper ghosts and goblins, and sewing costumes to wear to trick or treat. Having her be the accepted community leader as well as running the school has given our community a strong emphasis on education and family. It’s the path to betterment for all. I truly believe that. The smarter our kids are, the better the chance at a strong, viable future for the human race. Or at the very least, a viable future of our settlement of people here at Bastion.

  Blah blah blah Adrian. No one gives a shit. Well, many of us here do. But they aren’t reading this.

  God I hope not. This journal is embarrassing as hell.

  -Adrian

  October 23rd

  Kevin reported to Michelle and I tonight that his patrols spotted humvee tracks in some mud east of town heading towards the city. Two sets of tracks that pulled off the road, dismounted at least three adults wearing boots, then pulled back on the road heading towards the city.

  We notified the Factory and Spring Meadow via comms, and prayed to God whoever was in those humvees wasn’t listening to civilian police and fire channels.

  Kevin’s now running his military radios 24/7 in the event whoever that was fires their gear up. If they don’t know we’re listening, we could learn a lot.

  Two days to meeting with Maria’s group to the south. Ollie and his group are getting the food and animal stuff we’re hoping to trade ready. I desperately want us to shore up relations with her and her crew. I know we started off a little ugly, but I have a good feeling about her. She’s good people. When I talk to Michelle about her, she and I are certain of it. She hasn’t even met Maria, and still thinks there’s hope to he had.

  They’re coming. The NVC. I can feel it. I hope they’re friendly.

  We’re gonna need more guns.

  -Adrian

  October 26th

  The visit south with Captain Maria Hunt’s team of people went well yesterday. It ran far longer than I anticipated though, which isn’t a bad thing. Just made for a long day. Cue the obligatory “I’m too old for this shit,” complaint.

  We had to transport more supplies than I thought was needed. Ollie came with us and reminded me the day prior that the point of the trade was to pick up a male cow, and if that went through we had to have three barrels of diesel handy, which meant we needed to roll out with the Texan’s horse trailer.

  Bud and Donna, a middle aged married couple that came up from Longview Texas with Adam and Eddie and crew had a nice big truck with a horse trailer and we’ve been using that to move some stuff around. Bud and Donna are good people. Horse ranchers of the small variety from east Texas. Of course when it comes to ranches, and Texas, small is big. They’re kind and charming, right down to the AK-47s they both have. I should add that they had those AKs before the shit hit the fan.

  Bud and Donna believe in preparedness.

  They came with us for the trade today, and we loaded the back of their horse trailer with three barrels of premium, aged diesel and some other shit they wanted. We almost forgot the barrel dolly at home, but Ollie remembered as we were about to drive off without it. Speaking of which, this is one of the rare times Ollie has left Bastion with us. The look of worry on his wife Melissa’s face felt real to me, and it didn’t get any better when he kissed her and their little baby Martha goodbye. I made a promise to myself to make sure he’d come home to his two girls. No matter what I do, I can’t keep that promise when and if I make it, and that hurts more than I can say. I will always do my best, but I cannot control what others do, or how lucky they get.

  We met again on the same overpass we always do, and this time I came up to the top with Ollie and Rich as my buddies. Captain Maria (hilariously) led a big old bull up the overpass on a rope lead as one of her humvees drove beside her, keeping pace. Mind you, Maria is a tiny peanut of a person, and the bull she led looked positively elephantine in comparison. It was like watching a pea lead a coconut down the road.

  The bright eyes Ollie gave that animal as she approached with it told me the deal was sealed. Rich and I had to sit back and laugh as the whole situation played out.

  As our farmer man looked at the animal with inappropriate lust in his eyes, Maria and I bullshitted (pun intended) about the weather, the rest of the trade, and other stuff. I think she too was lusting after Rich, in a strange four-way lust affair. I for sure felt like a fifth wheel on that overpass.

  Anyway, she had pumpkins for us as well as some of the random items that previously were in ample supply but now are getting rarer by the day. Shampoo, baking soda, bleach, vinegar, that kind of shit. For her to be able to trade it to us tells me she has fewer people than we do by a large margin, or she�
��s been sandbagging this shit for premium trade value. People are always telling stories, whether they realize it or not. Devil’s in the details, right?

  Then I told her about the humvee tracks on the east side of our town and shit got solemn.

  “Do you think that’s them? Are they still searching out and trying to expand?” she asked me.

  “If that’s them, then yes. Somehow they slipped around our satellite settlements and came straight to town. Not sure what their logic is on skipping the City. After the scrap yard incident I am not quite sure how to handle it moving forward. They outgun us in many ways. I’d bet they outnumber us as well. Though quality beats quantity in an unfair fight.”

  “That’s very true,” she said, kicking a rock.

  “If we go dark all of a sudden, you’ll know why. I am not in the picking fights business, but we’ll stand up as best we can if they come in guns blazing.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Anything over the radio?” I asked her.

  “More of the same. People heading this way to be closer to you despite winter coming. Idiots. I haven’t seen them yet. Most of them sound like they’re still in the Virginia or Pennsylvania areas. Those that are coming. Oh, I did hear more rumors that more government officials are surfacing from new bunkers and whatnot. There’s more hope stirring the actual United States will reform.”

  Do I need to explain how odd it is to hear that people are moving across country to be closer to me? “That’d be neat. What about Europe? Asia? Anything?”

  “Black hole. Nothing communication wise. We’ve tried to bounce signals off the atmosphere towards Europe but nothing is working. We can communicate down into Mexico and Central America sometimes so we know it’s not the gear. Either the continent is a complete loss or we’re incompetent in sending or receiving signals to and from it. I’m not sure which is the case.”