Adrian's Undead Diary (Book 6): In the Arms of Family (7 page)

Kevin assisted the blonde lady out of the back of the truck, and the two of them strode wordlessly towards the back of the plane, stopping when they reached Kate. Kate looked Kevin in the eye, and she saw the pain and guilt of Jaden’s injury on his face.

“Shit happens," she said.

Kevin nodded somberly. “Yeah. How long until we’re out of here?”

Kate did the math in her head and hoped it was right. “Two minutes maybe. Who’s your friend?” She looked at the blonde.

The woman came to out of a daze and looked at Kate. Kate was stunned how pretty she was, even covered in filth and blood. “I’m sorry. I’m Michelle," she said. "I can’t believe you all made it. I’m shocked that this is really happening.” She smiled, and Kate felt a rush of warmth. She had known this girl thirty seconds and was already falling in love. Fairly typical for her.

Kevin looked at her, vaguely surprised. “Were you expecting us?”

She smiled again and nodded. “Definitely. You’re The Warden. You were sent here to save my life.” Her voice was full of conviction. Not the false hope and certainty of someone who has lost touch with reality, but the genuine knowledge of someone who knows they are right.

“Warden? Odd choice of words.” Kevin looked at her. He was skeptical, but inside he felt her words ring true.

“You are the protector. My protector. You were sent here by a greater power to save me, and help us unite The Trinity. You, I, and one more are part of the solution to ending this,” Michelle said.

“Are you saying Warden because of my hat? It says Warden Protective Group on it.” Kevin pointed at the front of the white cap he perpetually wore. His company’s logo was centered on the cap.

Michelle looked up at the white cap suddenly, as if she hadn’t seen it yet. She smiled again, pleased. “Wow.
You will know The Warden by his garments of white.
That’s so funny.”

Kate looked at Kevin, and when she saw the seriousness on his face, she suddenly became frightened. Her fear and uncertainty grew when Kevin spoke again.

“Have you dreamt of a white room? Have you spoken with the dead?” Kevin asked her, interrogated her. He seemed desperate to hear her answer.

Michelle nodded slowly once more, and both Kate and Kevin felt like they were in the presence of very wise person. “I have spoken with the dead in The White Room. I know what’s happening. I was there when it started. The first undead. Once we’re away from here, I’ll explain everything, but I have the feeling if we stay here much longer, we won’t see noon.”

Kate and Kevin gave the blonde woman hard looks. Kevin nodded in agreement, conceding, and he led her into the wide bellied aircraft where it was safer.
 

Kate had no idea what was happening but was very afraid.

*****

The plane was in the air minutes later, and once they leveled out at their cruising altitude, heading towards the Azores, Kate put the autopilot on and made her way back to the bay to listen to the story Michelle promised she’d share. It was still loud in the plane when she got to the back. Everyone not caring for Jaden or operating necessary equipment to keep the bird in the air was gathered around the radiant blonde. She had a following already.

Michelle was seated on a small crate of ammunition in the center of the gathered men. She looked very small, and very much out of place surrounded by the rough and ready warriors. Despite their softened visages, blood soaked and tired bodies, they were still quite frightening people loaded down with their guns, blades, and bullets. Even at rest they exuded potential violence.

Michelle took a deep breath, and in a voice loud enough to be heard over the buzzing of the prop engines, she began her tale, starting with the village in the Congo, just before that fateful meeting the glade.

All told, her story took an hour, and not a single word was uttered by anyone else as she told it. They were transfixed by every moment of her tale. They listened as she told of the cold voice in the glade, the sick taste of blood on her tongue, and of little Oudry leading her. They listened to her tell the story of her father in The White Room, and of the smell of lilies and the sweet flavor of honey. The gathered warriors listened to her talk of The Trinity, and her role in it, as well as the role of Kevin as The Warden.

In the end, most of them believed her immediately. They’d seen enough in the past 24 hours to find very little in the realm of the impossible. Those who were skeptical were brought to bear by Harold.

Kyle was the person most against her tale. He believed she was a fool, a lost religious nut wandering in the African sun for far too long and he had no qualms about sharing his disbelief. “I don’t buy it. It’s bullshit. Crazy dreams, sun stroke, peyote, whatever. Sounds like Latter Day Saints rapture bullshit.”

Hal looked up at Kyle and shook his head. “Mate, remember the priest in Mildenhall? Bloody bastard KNIGHTED Kevin. Then he sank that sword six inches into the concrete like it was sand. Why the bloody hell were all those dead fuckers carrying bladed weapons too? They never done that before so why start now? I'll tell you why; they were sending a goddamn message. Kevin is the protector, he’s the warrior. He’s the Knight in shining armor. He’s the one sent by God to ensure we have a chance to redeem ourselves.”

“So why weren’t the dead people in Morocco carrying anything? What message were they trying to send?” Kyle asked in a sharp retort.

“There was no message to send today,” Michelle said quietly, interrupting their argument. The men turned to her, listening. “That’s not true actually. The dead in England you were speaking of I believe were sent by good—not evil—to tell Kevin he was special, and a member of The Trinity. They only reverted back to the control of evil when they were attacked. Good can only borrow the dead from evil for so long. These undead here just now were always under the control of evil. This was evil’s moment to break The Trinity and condemn humanity in one fell swoop. The message today was simple: Die.”

Save for the rumble of the props, the plane went silent.

“She’s telling the truth,” Kevin said, his face lowered to the floor, his forearms resting on his thighs. “I’ve dreamt of the same white room. Corey and Nate visited me there and told me about stuff. They told me about the rule of three. The zombies in Mildenhall, they all arrived at 0333 remember? And when we came here, I saw the three flames from the air. Now she’s talking about a Trinity. We need to look for things in threes. Anything conspicuous. I don’t know where we all fit in, but she’s telling the truth about it.” Kevin looked to Michelle, lifting his head for the first time since she started speaking. “Where do we go from here?”

Michelle thought long and hard. Everyone knew she had no idea. “I don’t know. We are meant to find the third. The Soul. He’s the key to this all. If he fails, I think we all fail. We need to find him before evil gets to him, and either kills him or corrupts him. Where were you heading anyway?”

Kate answered her, “We’re now heading to the Azores for a final refuel. From there we’re headed to the eastern seaboard. We’re aiming to land somewhere in New Hampshire, or Maine, or maybe Massachusetts. It really depends on the headwinds. We might wind up ditching in the fucking ocean a hundred miles offshore. In which case, we’re headed for a long nap with some lobsters.”
 

Michelle smiled at Kate’s pessimistic outlook. “To the Azores then. Whatever happens will happen. We all need to understand that there are grand powers at play right now, and we are a part of the story. If we are meant the find the Soul, then we’ll find that person. One way or the other our paths will cross, unless evil gets to him or her before we do. Until then, we push on.”

Kevin asked a question that popped into his mind, “How will we know they are the third? You said you’d know me by my what? Garments of white? Any idea on how we figure out who the third is?”

Michelle shook her head, unsure. “I don’t know yet. But I suspect that when we meet them, we’ll know who they are soon enough.”

Kate swallowed. “Let’s hope we catch a tailwind then. I’d hate to have the world end with us on our way to rescue our unknown hero. I really don’t want to be late to that prom.”

“Amen to that,” Kevin said.

July 5
^th

Busy beavers once again Mr. Journal. But, we are productive and lucky beavers. Lots going on here on and off campus, and once again, it seems to be largely all positive. The Jinx Fairy appears to be on vacation right now. I’m sincerely hoping I can shove that bitch down the drain with my big toe when she comes back, but she’s an elusive cunt.
 

That sounded really bitter. I’m not even bitter today. I’m very positive. One might even describe me as being… happy.

I typed that and ducked. Usually when I say shit like that I get hit in the fucking face with a brick, or a dog bites my crotch. That's just how I roll.

Yesterday we broke off into two groups again so some of us could hit some houses near that welding shop again. The street it’s on had maybe ten houses on it, and we all felt like it was unfinished business just leaving them be. Plus I wanted to try and find more food and God forbid another generator so we could get the hydro set up operational. Once that was done, we can worry about staffing MGR as the observation post we were talking about. Of course, who is gonna staff it?

Cross that bridge when we get there I suppose.

Abby, Angela and I did the trip downtown yesterday while everyone else stayed behind. We wound up doing four houses, which was a neat coincidence, seeing as how it was July 4
^th
. (No fireworks either which sort of blew.) Most of the houses had little to nothing of use inside them, but we did manage to find a small gas generator. It was a tiny one though, and I’m really hoping in conjunction with the other generators we’ve gotten it’ll be enough to keep our hydro operation working.
 

The house clearing was a little more dicey than the other day. We had a few undead in each of the houses, and working with Angela on a more direct level made for some scary moments. At one point we’d just breached the front door of a small cape, and were moving through the living room towards the kitchen in the back, and all at once one fucking zombie came down the stairs to our left, one through a hallway at the corner of the room, and one through the opening into the kitchen. Angela was the ass of our stack, and without calling out contact, or any kind of helpful warning she started shooting at the one coming down the stairs.

Now as you can imagine, the head of the damn thing wasn’t visible, and she wound up shooting the legs of the fucker to bits and it tumbled down the steps ass over tea kettle. Fortunately, it bowled the one at the bottom of the stairs over, and Abby popped the one in the kitchen as it was all going down. I wound up crushing the head of the one Angela shot the legs of, and to be honest, it came out fine. Just not a good way to do things. Angela apologized profusely, and it was fine. I do guarantee though that the next time she sees something dangerous, she’ll call out contact before opening up.

Plus, very rarely do we ever need to open up in a hurry. These fuckers are pretty damn slow, and unless they’re a foot away, we’ve got a second or two to communicate clearly with each other before firing.
 

I can’t spare the goddamn underwear. Shit myself far too easily to risk it.

As I said, we didn’t find much. Clothing. Which is important with all the bodies we have now I suppose. We really need to make sure we’ve got stuff like that on hand. Especially baby clothes. We’ve got one at the school here now, and Melissa is getting fatter every day. I guess the good thing about baby clothes is we can reuse them. That and if we have to, we can let them run around nekkid. Although nekkid babies post zombie apocalypse seems really fucking irresponsible.

On the way home from the house clearing yesterday Abby saw a van parked in someone’s yard. Thank God she has decent vision, because she hollered out to stop over the radio, and when we checked it out, it was an abandoned electrician’s van. We desperately needed more electrical gear and supplies, so getting it back here was a real great find.

Granted, the driver was still in the van and dead and biting at us through the window, but I had Abby open the door and he fell out on the ground, and I clubbed the poor bastard like a baby seal. He was still wearing his electrician’s blue uniform too. On his forearm was a nasty gouge that looked like a fat ass bite wound. I bet he died right there in his own yard from that bite a year ago, and has been sitting in that van the whole time.

Of course, the inside of the van smelled like death warmed over. Dead bleeding man trapped inside for a year can’t be touched by one of the little tree air fresheners. Smelled like someone died in a goddamn pine tree. Nastiness. We held our breath, and of course the van wouldn’t start. Fortunately, we had brought chains with us, and after tossing it in neutral, we pushed it into the road, and chained it to the dualie.

I asserted seniority, and the girls did rock paper scissors to see who had to sit in it to steer it as we went home. As it turns out, Angela won the best of three, and she got to drive the plow truck home and Abby got to gag for ten miles in the electrician’s van. We made it all the way back to campus without any issues of note, and parked it in the lot where it remains with the window cracked open in an attempt to air it out. We need to inventory the stuff inside it I suppose, but to be honest, I doubt any of us would have the foggiest idea of what to do with most of the shit. However, we have it now, and I’m sure it’ll be beneficial soon enough.

Today we went back to working on the wall. All of us except a few tending to the gardens, fields, and hydro shit. We made crazy progress. We split into two teams and focused one team on cutting down trees, and the other on rooting them into the trench we’re digging with the backhoe.

It was awesome. We wound up cutting down a ton of wood and getting them all cut to length and trimmed and such, and without having to take breaks to move the whole crew back and forth like we had been, we were able to basically stay 100% on task the entire day, right to dinner time.