Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (10 page)

I was unable to turn the HRT around in the narrow road, so we had to drive the long way home. The roads we took led us very close to the area of town where I saw a few of the fires from MGR, so we naturally were nervous we were driving into an area that had hostiles. We saw nothing moving, nor any fires, and we didn’t encounter any hostility, so that was nice. I didn’t really feel like getting into a prolonged firefight after having to lift that motherfucking generator. I’m still sore today.

Not much else to report. We left the generator in the deuce for delivery to MGR in a day or two. I am not looking forward to hauling that fat bitch up the stairs. I wonder if there’s a way for us to hook it into the power grid for the entire building in the basement. There's gotta be a way to do it. One floor down is a lot better than five floors up. Of course one more generator running means more fuel consumption, which is shitty, but at least this one will be eating at our diesel supply, instead of our gasoline reserves. But, the electricity there will help them get through the winter.

The dog situation here has been sorting itself out nicely. Angela and Amanda have been doing the rear gate feeding thing, and the animals have been much quieter, and far more obedient as a result. They are now largely staying at the gates, waiting patiently for us to feed them twice a day, and they’ve even barked a few times when an undead came nearby. They are serving as an excellent auxiliary warning system for us. I just hope we have the food to maintain it. Some of the kids are getting attached to the nicer, cuter dogs, and that scares me. One more thing we can disappoint the kids over. I guess let it ride as long as we can.

Syl is the same. Michelle said she’s getting better at being around people. We can now have two people in the same room with her and she won’t get violent. Doesn’t sound like much of an improvement, but it’s something. Michelle also had James and Mike trudge over to the cabin to get some photos and keepsakes for her. Now her room is far more “homey” and maybe that’s what is helping.

Mallory is the same. Getting better, getting used to having just one arm.

MGR is quiet, for now. We are setting up a plan to establish ambush points to get the jump on the folks if they attack again. There are a few small storefronts we can get inside, and when and if they try to come at the tower again, surprise motherfuckers. We’re behind you, on the surface. Hard to retreat through gunfire with no cover.

Granted I’d rather they just disappeared off the map entirely, but I’ve got the sinking feeling that isn’t in the cards for us. These people are aggressive, crazy or desperate, and if losing one of their number wasn’t enough to scare them off, not much else will. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Something I noticed yesterday that I didn’t say anything about was Abby and Hal. There was a moment when the two of them were inside the house, alone, and I caught a glimpse of them through a window. They were talking, and when Abby turned away to go do whatever, Hal gave her a playful pat on the ass. She turned, DIDN’T glare at him, and then walked away.

There’s something in the air between those two. I am not displeased by this. I’m hoping that Abby moves on from Gavin, and if she’s going to, Hal is a damn fine man to do it with. Kevin has said nothing but good things about him since they got here, so I’m sure he’ll be worth her time. I give it my blessing.

Kids.

We've dedicated two adults to helping Ryan and Becca in the gym. You may remember Angie, LaFrenz's girlfriend, and Jeanette, one of the ladies who came over from Westfield. The two new ladies to the gym are working on taking on the feeding and maintenance of the hydro units while Ryan and Becca work on building the new setups. This got my sister out of my colon, and put a smile on Ryan's face, and I consider that a win/win.

I might take a few day shifts at MGR here just to relieve some people there. We’re slated to move some folks in tomorrow, and I can easily insert myself into the rotation when we bring the generator and supplies. We’ll see.

I’m off like a prom dress. Widescreen porn awaits.

-Adrian

January 20
^th

I took my three day shift at MGR a few days ago. I’m writing this from Bastion though, so if you do the math, you probably have figured out that I didn’t finish my three day shift. Mr. Journal, we had yet another run in with the “bad guys” at MGR, and there was gunfire.

I think I am being reckless. I felt like I was making a good, solid, tactical decision the other night but in retrospect, it now seems foolish. I feel like I was taking an unnecessary risk, despite it actually being a very solid idea in a military sense.

I’m no master tactician, and I’ve forgotten most of what I was taught in the military already, but I consider myself a fairly bright guy with good instincts. Flanking an enemy is key to breaking them, that much I can remember. Allowing them to assault our immobile position repeatedly, no matter how well fortified it may be, will eventually result in it failing. It’s simply mathematics. Do they have more assaulters than we have guns in the fight? Can they simply bleed us dry of resources in a siege fashion? What if they surround it? Attackers will test a defense repeatedly until they find the weak point, and then they will attack it with enough force to accomplish what they need to do.

We haven’t been able to find their tracks yet, and with the rain mix lately the snow on the ground has turned into a slippery, slushy mire everywhere. It’s that shit kind of situation where every step gets your entire foot soaking wet and freezing cold. Even the rain seems to soak directly into your soul in seconds if you’re not completely covered up. Shit ass weather.

Anyway, because we’d had no leads, and because we had a reasonable expectation that we would be attacked again at the tower, when I arrived on the morning of the 18
^th
and after we helped Martin and Blake install some more serious doors and locking mechanisms on the ground floor windows and doors, and get the new diesel generator placed in the basement, I decided I’d use the cover of the rain and darkness to leave MGR on my own, and insert myself and my partner in crime Ethan into a hide about two hundred yards north east of MGR.
 

Two hundred yards north of MGR you are more or less out of the real downtown area, and into a much more residential area. Downtown isn’t much in my little village here. The area I chose for my hide was a small duplex that sat back off the road about twenty feet. It was a split level two-family with the doors to both units side by side in the center of the house. Red siding.
 

I left MGR with Ethan right after dark and we moved as fast as we could on foot using the NVG gear. It was pretty thrilling. Running in an urban environment at night with everything in that green filtered field of view brought me back, that’s for sure. We chose the home based on the elevated second floor, and the large bay windows that overlooked the street. It was also wide and clear there. No cars for cover, and a lot of real estate to cover should I need to open fire.

Ethan and I breached the front door using the M4A1s with the suppressors attached. It was a good thing. Right inside the door on the floor was a completely gutted zombie, on his back, looking at us and slowly trying to get to his feet. Luckily his innards were outtards, and they were all wrapped up around his shoes. As he struggled to get up at us, I snapped off two quick shots, thunk-thunk, and one of them ripped the side of his skull wide open, making a hell of a mess, but killing him.

We opted to go up and clear the upper floor first, which was fortunate as that was the only place there was danger. In the kitchen were two small kids, both dead but not all dead. They came crawling in our direction and as I walked up the few steps to the living room I did my best to remember that I HAD to kill these kids, and I squeezed off two rounds at each kid. My first two shots weren’t lethal on the little girl. They did stagger her long enough for my second two shots to put the little boy down and for me to return to her, and put a more accurate round into her face. The memory of her young little teeth gnashing at me in raw, feral hatred will sit with me for some time. It's unusual for me to miss a point blank target like that. I chalk it up to still unsettled nerves.

The rest of the house was empty. Ethan helped me set my shooting position up at the kitchen counter deep inside the house. We also used a shitload of bedding from the house to completely cover me and set up dark partitions to make the interior of the house almost opaque. At night, it would just look like a dark interior to a home, and at day, the same. However, there was enough of an opening for me to see the entire street, and have an excellent field of vision in the corridor we wanted to dominate. Ethan left me late that night, returning to MGR and I was alone.

Cold fucking night Mr. Journal. I had to do a serious gut check to get through it. Luckily we had some of those little packets that are hand and foot warmers, and those combined with a thermos or three of hot coffee and fresh chicken soup straight from Melissa’s kitchen got me through the night, and the day until shit hit the fan.

It was dusk, just about at the end of the day when the sky is turning gray and blue, and your vision sucks. It isn’t dark enough for your eyes to adjust yet, and it isn’t light enough to really see shit. I was sitting there, thinking long and hard about how I hadn’t gotten laid in a very long fucking time when I saw movement out in the street. I immediately snapped into hardcore mode and radioed out movement over my throat comm.

Ethan, Kate and Nick responded in the affirmative, and they were ready within a minute at the tower. I watched from my hide as three more figures crept down the street. They were wearing heavy winter clothes, and were armed with a variety of publicly available weapons. Not ex Guard, or Army, or anything military. They reminded me a LOT of the folks that came at us from the Factory way back when.
 

They were also all wearing large backpacks that looked full of stuff. I thought that was suspicious, and called that out too. When they reached the point of no return, my people at MGR opened and engaged. I heard the short gun-battle. Ethan called out three shots fired, Kate fired one, and Nick two. From what we pieced together after the shoot out, Ethan downed one guy that was danger close and lighting a Molotov cocktail. I guess his round hit the fucking bottle dead nuts by sheer stroke of luck, and it exploded in the guy's hand, showering the dude in his own bomb. He went up in flames, and Kate took the second shot, putting his ass down. Letting him burn alive would not have been cool.

I guess there was some panic moments where the remaining attackers tried to light more cocktails to throw at MGR, but Ethan’s follow up fire as well as the other rounds either pinned them, or forced them to drop the bottles. Either way, their plan to set shit on fire was dashed, and they ran like fucking hell to get away, directly down the street I was set up on. The tower passed the message along to me where they were heading, and when the two still upright and alive folks passed through my kill zone, I fired two fast shots, center mass, as they came across my sight picture. The bay window shattered into a million pieces, completely giving my position away. If I missed them, I was fucked.

I hit the lotto though, and the breaking window didn't send my rounds too far off. Both tumbled down, doubled over, kicking and screaming in pain. I'd hit them. They lost their long guns into the slush, and I called out that I needed support at the house, and I had two enemy casualties that needed medical assistance. Ethan called out that he was on the way in the Prius (which did really well in the snow).

I moved outside to the street with my ruck and hollered to them to sit very fucking still or they’d get shot again. They didn’t sit still in the least, but judging from their groans and moans of pain, they were no threat. I decided I’d start medical care.

I cleared the vicinity for threats while Ethan was on his way, and I ripped the jacket off the closest casualty. It was a woman. She was young and frail, no more than maybe twenty two or twenty five. I checked her for bombs or grenades (Iraq memories), and made sure her weapon was well out of reach. I got all pervy and ripped her shirt off to check for the wound. I had a single round entering her left torso and exiting through the back on the right, just above the kidneys. The entrance wound was tiny, like she’d been stabbed with a pencil. Her exit wound was much larger, about the size of a small orange. I could see her insides through the hole, and I used her shirt to plug the hole and make a pressure bandage to stem the flow of blood, and keep her guts where they belonged.

I ran to the man on the ground about five yards away and did the same check to the guy. Both of my rounds struck him in the torso, both going from left to right, same as the girl. My first round hit him in the hip, and had no exit wound. The second hit struck his left arm just above the elbow, pretty similarly to Mallory’s wound the other day. The high velocity round mangled the poor bastard’s bicep and more or less severed his arm. Fortunately the PJ guys had given me premade tourniquets, and I slapped one on just above his elbow, and the ragged flesh. He started slipping into shock almost immediately.

Luckily Ethan and Amanda arrived just a minute or two later, and Ethan went to work. He’s a helluva guy that one. A professional. Within fucking heartbeats he’d gotten IVs into both of them, and had much more impressive bandages in place. I covered him and listened to Kate radio back to MGR for our QRF to send the HRT. Shit that’s a lot of acronyms.

We didn’t want to move the guy due to his hip wound. Ethan was petrified (rightly so, after a more thorough examination) that his hip was destroyed and moving him without a proper stretcher would aggravate the injury. We moved the woman onto a porch and comforted her. She was freaking out at her injury as well as the sheer terror of suddenly being under the sway of three total strangers that had just hurt her. Amanda did a good job of keeping her from completely losing her mind while Ethan kept the guy alive.