Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family (10 page)

Pretty special little shit. Once we had that accomplished, we radioed for the other trucks to come back, and we got to getting the gas up and out of the ground. Martin and Blake had discussed a way of testing the fuel, and it involved using a long, clear plastic tube that they managed to find somewhere on campus. Martin lowered it straight down into the tank, put his thumb on the end creating a vacuum, and then lifted it out. At the end of the tube, in the bottom three or four inches, you could clearly see water. I guess water sinks below the gas.

Once we knew how much water was at the bottom of the tank, we knew exactly how far we could drain the tank to and get mostly clean gas. It’ll still need to be treated with the shit Blake has, but it’ll be a lot better than if we’d just drained the bitch dry.
 

Once we were ready to go, we backed the plow up to the pumps, unloaded all the barrels, and the barrel jack, and started going to town with the sump pump.
 

We had ten barrels to fill, and we were eight in when things started to go awry.

At that point we started to have a problem with approaching undead. We had Danny trained to holler out “contact” and the direction it was coming in when he saw something and was about to shoot it. We knew we had problems when he started to pretty much yell contact one right after another. The Marlin M60 only holds 17 shots, and he was a bit of a rookie when it came to reloading it, so the rushed, fearful reloading process was a problem. To be fair, the gun is a bit of a pain to reload. Our other shooters started supporting him with their heavier guns, and by the ninth barrel of fuel in, we were firing on a constant basis.

I was helping Martin pump and load the barrels, so our guns were out of the fight. I was trying to watch what was going on around us, but it was hard to do both things at the same time safely. We reached a tipping point thought when the firing started to abate. Thankfully, none of the undead got through our perimeter, and no one got hurt badly. We had two freak injuries though. Patty was doing a magazine change on her AR15, and when she slapped the magazine home, she somehow managed to pinch the webbing of her left hand something fierce. Literally split the web about a half inch deep. I’ve seen that injury before, but it’s pretty freak.

Our second injury was Martin. When he and I were moving the barrel on the tenth and final barrel, the dolly wheel hit a fucking spent shell casing that wasn’t there earlier, and stopped cold, spilling the fucking barrel right off the dolly. The barrel comes down like a fucking flammable sledgehammer, smashing open on the pavement, and sending the dolly backwards right into Martin’s foot and gut. He at least broke one toe on his right foot, and he’s got a bruise right above his junk that looks an awful lot like he was hit with an anvil shot out of a cannon.

That’s where it gets spicy.

So I said the barrel smashed open right? Well, being full of fuel means that the gas started to run, and it ran right straight towards the dualie, which fortunately was unoccupied at the moment. Now just because the firing had abated, doesn’t mean it stopped entirely. I still don’t know exactly how it happened, but the most plausible causes I can think of are either a spent shell casing hitting the gas, or maybe some kind of muzzle exhaust from the guns, or maybe even the hot exhaust pipes from the dualie itself, but not one fucking second after the fuel ran underneath the fucking truck, ka-motherfucking-pow, the gas lights up. At first it was just a few moments of flaming fuel, but I saw it start to creep back our way, and it was heading right at the plow truck, which had all nine other barrels sitting in the back of it.

I freaked my shit.

I pointed and hollered to Martin to get the fuck out, and I jumped inside the plow, started it, threw it in reverse, and punched it. I’m gonna go with me being lucky here, because had I gone forward, the other barrels in the back would’ve fallen out. Going in reverse kept them from cascading out the ass, and we’d have lost all of it.

So as I slowed down, maybe thirty feet away, the dualie catches fire, and within maybe a minute, the whole fucking thing was engulfed in flames. Luckily as a diesel it didn’t explode, but the damn thing sure as shit went up in flames, and car fires suck. Lots of thick, dark smoke, and the fumes are just awful.

Everyone started to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, moving the other vehicles out of the way and such, and after about five minutes of all of shitting our pants in unison, we calmed ourselves, and realized we were fucking surrounded again by undead.

Danny was already back up on the HRT plinking into the crowd that had entirely surrounded us, and the people who could get their vehicles away and free were getting out and firing again. We couldn’t travel without securing the barrels though, so we were kind of stuck until we were free and clear of the dead.

Despite my fear of being eaten alive, I stepped out of the truck. Martin was hobbling really bad, and in our panic to get the vehicles moved away from the spreading flames, he’d been left on foot outside. I couldn’t risk orphaning another kid.

I got out and started opening fire with the M4. I needed heavier fire, and with the M4 I was able to start dropping everything that had somehow managed to get close to Martin. Martin had sat his AK in the back of the plow bed, so he was entirely unarmed. I snapped off an entire magazine before I reached him, and while I was changing mags out, he limped his way to the rear of the truck, and got his AK into the fight.

I stopped to make sure he was okay, and to check on everyone’s safety real quick. All my people were firing accurately, and backing into a circle so we couldn’t get our lines broken. It was damn near picture perfect. Almost one whole magazine later I had a misfire. It was a jam, and at that very moment Martin was struggling with getting a fresh magazine into his rifle, so instead of taking the time to clear my jam, I slid the M4 to my hip, drew my Glock, and dropped the three undead that were danger close to him.

I went to drop a fourth zed, and the Glock fired, but no bullet came out. I knew I had a plugged barrel, and I knew I was fucked. Both guns jammed. I keep the Walther in an ankle holster still, but after swearing like a drunk Irish sailor with his balls jammed flush in his zipper, I opted to holster the Glock, and clear the jam on the rifle.

It was a fairly easy jam to undo, and I only had to throw maybe five more rounds out before we had time to get the barrels strapped in, the lids back on the fuel tanks at the station, and get us the fucking hell out of dodge.

Oh, and somehow I managed to cut the fuck out of my left forearm. It isn’t deep, really just three nasty scratches. It’s already really red, which means it inevitably will get infected, so I have that to fucking look forward to.

The Glock’s barrel is a wreck. The round jammed up bad for whatever reason, and I can’t fix it. I’m saving that one for parts for the moment, and I’ve switched to the 10mm Kimber. We’ve got a plethora of 10mm on hand, plus it’s a 1911, and after Gilbert’s death, I’ve really wanted to carry a 1911 in his honor. I rarely need to use my handgun, so the magazine capacity isn’t a do or die issue, especially when you consider I’m not out there alone all the time now. I’ve always got at least two or three guns with me in the hands of good to great shooters.

I’m frustrated. Lost a truck today, lost a Glock today, and damn near had someone set on fire.
 

The good news is that based on our measurement of what was in that gas station’s in-ground tank, we should be able to get at least another nine barrels out of there, which is a fair amount of fuel. As I said, there are also other stations in town we can check. Granted, the longer we wait to pull fuel or supplies out of somewhere, the higher the likelihood that someone else has gotten to it already. Finite resources, right?

I’m out. Angry masturbation while watching widescreen porn is calling me. Otis might get kicked off the bed here. I hope these scratches don't distract me.

-Adrian

July 13
^th

I should expect bad things to happen more often. That way I won’t be surprised when they happen. For example when we hit the gas station the other day, I should’ve expected two weapon jams and a vehicle to be sat on fire. That way when it happened I wouldn’t have been quite so pissed or surprised.

Zach died today.

I thought I would be sad to say that, or pissed, but mostly I’m just… empty about it. Neutral. I almost feel angry because it was a needless accident, and it means we are one hydroponics brain short. In all actuality we have been tremendously lucky that we haven’t had more deaths via accident or sickness here. A few violent deaths, lots of injuries, but no major accidents or cases of diphtheria, cholera, or some other random ass fucked sickness.

We were out working on the fence both today and yesterday. Martin has been given a few days to elevate his busted toe, so we were sort of moving at half speed just to take a break, and try to be extra safe. Clearly, that failed.

We had split into two groups again to try and be efficient. I was with the group on the campus side, and Zach was in the group that was opposite the river cutting down trees for the wall. We’d been waiting on the tree side for maybe twenty minutes when Angela came over the radio saying there had been an accident. Right down the way in the center of campus we keep some of the mountain bikes the kids used, and we’ve been using them all summer to get around campus. A few of us jumped on some bikes, and rode across the bridge and into the desolate area of forest that was just stumps. It's a funny feeling to ump your legs like a madman on a mountain bike while you've got a rifle strapped across your back. When we were young my brothers and I would do that crap for play, and now it's just the way things are.

Sitting on one of the fresh stumps, head in his hands was Alex. He’d been operating the chain saw today for the second time, and from what I was told after the fact, he was cutting down a pine tree that was about ten inches in diameter, and I guess Zach walked underneath it just as it went down. Everyone hollered for him to run or get the fuck out of the way, but he didn’t hear them in time.

His body was crushed under the tree, and he was pinned to the ground. The tree had landed on his shoulder and neck, and the wood had crushed half his side like he was made out of play doh. Just nasty. By the time I’d gotten there he had reanimated already, and from his spot underneath the tree he reached out hungrily, hands clutching at the air, trying to kill me. No one had put him down yet.

I walked back to the truck the wood crew had been using, and grabbed the wood axe to finish him off. Everyone looked away, especially Alex, and I brought that big blade down into poor Zach’s skull. Split it open as easily as a log. It was tremendously painful to drop someone that was in our group, especially after they’d reanimated. I can’t quite recall, but I think this is the first time I’ve had to do that.

We’ve always killed them before they’ve reanimated, or destroyed the brain after death, but before they come back.

It was a shitty feeling. I don’t want to do it again, even though I know I will have to eventually. That thought sucks too.

I tossed the axe away and went to Alex and got the whole story from those around. Everyone kind of rallied around the guy and made sure he was okay. We called back to campus and got George, and he ran right out to be with Alex. It was a little weird for me to watch two gay guys hug affectionately, but at the same time, it was kind of neat to see it firsthand. I don’t know how to describe it. It felt really normal.

I can definitely say that Alex was hurt, angry, and will be suffering from guilt for awhile until he figures out how he feels about it. As I explained to him, Zach should’ve been paying more attention to what was happening. You can’t just wander around where trees are being cut down and not watch what’s going on carefully.
 

No blame to lay here.

Myself and Patty wound up riding our bikes up to the gym to tell Ryan the bad news. He took it surprisingly well, and frankly, I think he looked a little relieved. That made both Patty and I wonder about their actual dynamic. Patty said all along she’d felt like Zach was the alpha male between the two, which I guess does make sense the more I think about it. Zach did always tell Ryan what to do, despite Ryan seeming like the more intelligent one.

As I said Ryan was sad, but also seemed a little relieved.

That happened pretty early today. Once we got Alex and George away from the scene of the accident we cut the tree apart, and removed Zach’s body from the graveyard of stumps. It didn’t seem quite right to just toss his body on the funeral pyre way out in the back of campus, so we used some of the branches and wood clippings we’ve been saving for winter and the stoves to make a fresh, immediate fire, and we gave him an impromptu funeral right there. No one said anything really, we just sprayed the wood with lighter fluid, shot a little on him as well, and gave it a light. We didn’t stick around to watch it finish, we just made sure he was going well, and left. I hope he’s fully burnt to ashes. I really do not want to go out there and start another fire under his half burned body tomorrow morning. I just don’t want that problem in my life right now.

As a result, we called off the wall work and moved on to a new project that Blake and Martin had been working on together. The two of them had figured out how to install the solar panels we’d stolen off the roof of MGR. We got the ladder truck in place, and moved all the needed folks to the roof of the gym as well as the tools, parts, and panels.

Martin stayed off the roof and watched from a lawn chair in the grass, and Blake came up and worked with us. It took us the entire afternoon and a few hours into the evening to get everything done and wired in, but we did it. Of course we don’t really know if it’s working, due to the fact that the sun had largely gone down by the time we were done, but first thing tomorrow we’ll check it out, test it, and make sure that the shit was set up correctly.