Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family (33 page)

As it is, he still dreamt of our parents, and I guess in the dream they told him that I would need his help once he was healed up, and that he would be okay and so would his family. The dream was auspicious enough that he made sure to tell me, and from the look on his face, he knew something weird was up. At that point Sophie said LaFrenz and Angie had told them about how I was “connected” to a greater power or something, and that she was, “Really curious,” what that meant.

Her skepticism was… really powerful.

I dodged it as best I could. I didn’t want to have that conversation right at that moment. It was too much for me to explain, and I didn’t want to come across as a crazy person. Well, crazier than they already knew I was. It’s hard to say I didn’t want to come across as a crazy person when I go everywhere with a M4 rifle, and 10mm handgun sporting a Mohawk, wearing body armor with tattoos all over the place. I am the definition of sketchy from a distance.

I told them now wasn’t the time, and that we could revisit the conversation at a later date. That seemed to work. Sophie looked at me with a really odd expression. Almost like respect maybe. I can’t quite place it. My gut tells me she knows more than she was letting on earlier tonight, and that wouldn’t surprise me. She was always the observant type, always one step ahead of everyone. I’m glad she married my brother. He needed someone like that to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow. I just hope I’m right and she’s not ready to tie me to a post and set it on fire while screaming, "Witch!"

I’m not sure what exactly to do next. I want us to take tomorrow and finish the wall. If we put extra effort in, we can wrap it up tomorrow or the next day. The gate really took up a lot of real estate, and with that in place, I think we have maybe a hundred feet left to do. I mean there will be finishing touches to be done for months, but with that last length completed, we will have 360 degree surface protection.

As far as outside the wall stuff goes, we can send Martin out to get his supplies with some warm armed bodies for support at any time. If he does that though, I want him to take the time to remove the solar panels from the houses that we recon’d the other week, or whenever the fuck that was. The big thing we need to achieve right now though is the run back to plumbing supply store to get all the hydroponics supplies back here. It’s silly how badly behind the eight ball we are on that project. These guys have been here how long now and we still haven’t addressed the issue?

Poor Ryan being overlooked constantly. He must be developing a complex at this point.

I think we’re going to let Martin do his thing here the next few days while we get the wall done. He can do the solar panels, the welding resupply, and tomorrow MGR needs a resupply run as well. Maybe on the 21
^st
or 22
^nd
we’ll head back to the Warehouse. Now that we’ve been there, I’m a lot more confident in us returning and getting the plumbing store operation done. We’ve been to the territory, cleared it pretty well of undead, and sent a strong message to the Outsiders that if they cross us, they will bleed.

Another full sized run on the 22
^nd
would be pretty nice all things considered. Get the plumbing gear, get the fuck back, and get Ryan’s hydro operation kicked into gear.

I’m headed to bed. Tired as fuck.

-Adrian

August 21
^st

Happy birthday to me. Yup. It’s my birthday.

How old am I? 35 right? I forget. It seems like I haven’t thought of my age in a long time. Maybe I’m 36 now. I forget. I guess it doesn’t matter. If Becca and Sophie hadn’t thrown a small party for me today I would have completely forgotten about the whole thing.

So yeah. What’d I get for my birthday? I guess it could be argued that my family arriving here on campus was the present I got. Granted, my present didn’t quite arrive on the day itself, but they’re here now, and that means more to me than any other present I’ve ever gotten.
 

The present I still haven’t gotten? The wall’s completion. We’re still building that bitch. I really thought we could’ve finished it yesterday, but we had some delays with a broken chainsaw, and the backhoe needed some maintenance, and the process just ground to a near halt. I think all of yesterday we got maybe 30 feet of wall up, and that was with a huge work crew going at it all day in the drizzle.
 

What else happened yesterday? I Um.. nothing. Caleb was awake all day in his bed, talking with Sophie. He’s doing much better, and at the end of the day yesterday Doc Lindsey told him he could walk around a little bit in the room, which he jumped at. Well, he didn’t literally jump at it, it was more of a, “Crawled out of bed with a wince at it.” I’m happy to report that he was moving about the room pretty well, and it looks like he’ll be good to go to move about on his own in a couple days. He might need a cane for a smidge, but then I can make jokes about how he’s an old bitch.

Heh. One more good reason to have a brother around. A place to point my merciless ridicule.

After he got back to bed, exhausted I might add, we fed him his first decent meal in months, and he slept the sleep of babies. It was funny. I joke and bullshit and everything about it, but I love that man. He’s my older brother, we grew up together, and knowing he’s still alive makes me a happy man. I wonder now where the fuck my other two brothers are? I know they were both deployed, but where are they now? A deployment in the Navy could be months on a boat, which would certainly increase their chances of survival dramatically, but my brother Thomas was in the SEALs, and he was somewhere on the ground, doing something dangerous when this all started. I don’t know where he was, or what he was doing back in June, but I hope to hell he’s doing decent.

I know one thing: they make SEALs tough, and Thomas was a man among men. I don’t care if he was gay or not, he was more hardcore than a hundred straight men.
 

Have I mentioned that Tom was gay? I don’t remember. We kept it under wraps for years because of my dad. Dad was a wee bit of a homophobe, and the whole don’t ask don’t tell bullshit was a real drag for Tom. He had to keep his sexual preference on the DL for years just to do what he wanted to do with his life. It sucks that the military would turn away a Grade-A special operations operator just because when he’s got time off he chooses to sleep with men.
 

Don’t judge my brother Mr. Journal. Judge me all you want but leave him out of this. He’s a decorated hero, and the last thing you want to do is go after my family. My brothers and sister can call him a faggot until we turn blue in the face but if you do it, I’ll murder you. It’s strange, but it’s how we roll.

I hope Tom is okay.
 

So today was my birthday. Martin took a crew with the new dualie and a humvee out to scour the area around here for usable metal and to remove the solar panels from as many places as possible. Amazingly, he was able to clear out two houses of their panels today, as well as find a few hundred pounds of scrap metal that he says he can salvage into good shit. At some point though, we’ll have to start cannibalizing cars and shit to get the raw materials we need. The ultimate in recycling.

Martin and his crew returned late, around 8pm. He said the entire area that his team moved through today was utterly and completely empty of all signs of undead, or assholes. He did see a few animals moving around. I guess there were one or two deer moving about, but no one got a clean shot off, so at some point when he heads out again, they’re going to add “shoot deer” to their agenda. As I’ve said a shitload already, we desperately need wild game to supplement our food consumption. Even with all the food from Gilbert’s warehouse, and the crops, and the cows, and the chickens, and fishing out of Auburn Lake, we still need to gather as much to eat as possible.

Martin did say that when they swung by MGR there were a fair amount of undead roaming in the streets, but the numbers were manageable. Once again the HRT’s plow blade comes to the rescue. As long as they maintain a steady speed, and deal with the undead that are wherever they stop quickly, they can get in and out fast. Mike is always waiting at the heavy duty doors when we arrive now, and he and Patty hop out to help clear the space. What does suck is the large amount of bodies piling up in the area. We’ll need to remove those soon to draw less attention to the building. Plus there’s just a health concern.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so Sophie and Becca in their infinite wisdom gathered a grass roots team and threw me a half assed birthday party, which I really kind of resented. I don’t need to be reminded that I am a year older now. I also didn’t want to waste resources on a party when we’re already struggling to make sure we get by.
 

They made two cakes. We’ve found boxes and boxes of cake mix and whatnot over the past year, and we’ve kept them nice and dry so many of them are still usable. We’ve got oil and eggs now too, so making them is possible. It was nice to get a cake. I won’t lie. We don’t have a lot of sweets lately, and mowing down on a nice cake with some year and a half old icing on it was awesome. Plus watching the kids smash frosting all over their mugs was a great time.

The older I get, the more joy I find in watching kids. Is that my paternal instinct kicking in? Is that my age showing? Dunno.

Martin’s crew came into the shindig about halfway through it, and joined in on the festivities. It was a nice way to welcome them back after a long day outside the wall. It was also good timing because we really needed to talk about our run back to the warehouse. Well actually the run back to the plumbing shop next to the warehouse.
 

After a long discussion, we decided that sooner was better than later, and we’re doing it tomorrow morning at about ten am. Everyone other than Mike and Patty will be going with us. I’m figuring we’re looking at maybe a three hour operation, and if we’re lucky, all we’ll run into is the undead milling about in that area of town. I realize the noise we made the other day was likely to draw more undead in to that area, which is to be expected.

What I am really hoping for is no Outsider presence. I can’t imagine they aren’t hurting right now. We’ve killed several of their people, and taken out of one their vehicles. I realize they probably have more vehicles on hand, but by now they HAVE to realize that coming near us will be costly. I just hope we’ve put enough of a hurting on them to send them away with their tails between their legs.

What might bother me as time goes on… is what the fuck is this factory they were talking about? Are they really enslaving people? Are they actually forcing women to have sex for food? Has humanity really fallen that fucking far this fucking fast?

Can I sit here, safe inside my large ass wall knowing that this is happening within driving distance? Knowing that I have the means and ability to make it right?

Blood will be spilled if I make that call.

But blood might be spilled if I don’t.

That’s a decision for another day. Tomorrow we hit the plumbing store. The day after that we are returning to try and finish the fucking wall here so we can finally move on to new and exciting projects that actually improve living conditions, as opposed to just stabilizing what we have now. Projects like finishing the hydro set up, installing the new solar panels, searching for more panels, and maybe, just maybe we can find more folks out there like my family that need a safe place to live.

Wish us luck tomorrow.

Happy birthday to me.

-Adrian

August 23
^rd

The decision to make some kind of move on the Outsiders is being pushed on me. It appears that every time we move anywhere on the eastern side of town we are encountering these assholes. Yesterday when we returned to Gilbert’s warehouse to hit the plumbing supply store, they made their presence known yet again.

Remember how I was going on and on about how they need to know that they are outgunned and out skilled, and out geared by us? I mean shit, there’s no way they can beat us in any kind of fair fight. Common sense dictates that when you are not able to engage in at least a fair fight, you avoid the fight. Shit that's the first thing they teach you. Never engage in a fair fight let alone one that's unfairly against you. So how do you combat an enemy you can’t beat in a fair fight?

You fight dirty. You fight smart.

Someone at that factory has a small brain inside their head, and they’re putting it into overdrive, directing every teency weency ounce of hatred they can muster in our direction. When we returned to the plumbing store the other day we rolled out in the same exact setup as our first trip. Personnel was slightly changed up, but all in all, a comparable team. We all decided that even with a heavier presence of undead possibly being there, it was still a reasonable risk for us to roll out without a specific recon mission. We also (foolishly, in retrospect) thought the Outsiders would steer far clear of us.

The undead presence was a bit heavier. I’d say there were perhaps twenty or thirty milling about in the street and parking lot, and despite my best efforts in the HRT, there were still most of that number on foot. We elected to clear the place manually, rather than waste fuel driving in circles.

I stopped the HRT in the parking lot, popped open the roof hatch on the truck, and got on the roof, hooting and hollering to get the undead right up on me so we could take them out easier. Immediately I regretted it. I think I was maybe three or four hollers into my zombie calls, and I bent down to get my rifle through the hatch from Angela when I heard and felt a heavy round zip over my head. Sounded like a fat, angry bee. I dove right down into the truck and radioed for everyone to get low. If it weren’t for me reaching for the rifle… There’d be no more Adrian. Yay for being fucking lucky.

The next ten minutes was us being pinned down, by amateur hour sniper fire. Every one of our visible vehicles took fire. Fortunately, the motherfuckers didn’t shoot tires out, and once I had a breather when they were shooting at one of the humvees, I slipped into the driver’s seat and drove the HRT to the opposite side of the strip, away from their position. Before I rounded the corner though one slug ripped into the frame of the truck where the door meets the windshield. Luckily I had the window down at the time, so it didn’t get broken when the frame of the door warped a smidge. That would’ve pissed me right the fuck off.