Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (25 page)

We had a bunch of our younger kids work on splitting wood and loading the deuce up today. We’re setting up multiple large piles of wood on the top level of the garage in a manner so when one is about to burn out, the second pile next to it should be just getting going. We've also got some left over pallets to burn. If it goes well, the fires will burn visibly on the top levels for about six to eight hours. We’re not sure how long the car alarms will go off for, but we’re betting it’ll be long enough to draw in a fucking absurd amount of undead. Either way, we’re going to do our best tomorrow to get that garage ready.

Large team of experienced shooters, multiple vehicles, a good plan… Should be horrible. I am not giving that bitch Fairy anything to work with right now. She can suck my fat cock.

Headed to bed. Early morning, and I still need to clean some of my weapons for tomorrow. Again. Can’t deal with a dirty weapon…

-Adrian

February 24
^th

I’m glad I’ve got a big toe. Big feet. Large size, complete with large toes at the end. Large piles of shit require large toes to stomp them down the drain when necessary.

How large a pile of shit? Allow me to go into some detail.

Our team left Bastion fairly early yesterday, in force. We left with pretty much every gun we could muster and headed straight to the Factory. The roads between here and the Factory were largely clear of undead. I think we might’ve had to steer to and fro ten times at most to hit and kill a zombie. It was a pleasant change of pace, and very much unlike some other driving moments later in the day.

As we rolled into the area surrounding the Factory we encountered a rather large amount of the dead. They weren’t ranked up tightly per se, but everywhere you looked in the surrounding streets there were walkers. I’d guess and say no more than ten to fifteen feet of space was between any given undead and another. That’s a lot of targets. You could say it was a rich environment for shooting opportunities. To clear us some space to work Caleb punched the HRT and literally plowed us a straight line into the area right in front of the old nightclub. Once we were close to the building, Abby and myself got onto the roof of the ambulance and we sat down crosslegged and started plinking away with .22 rifles in one direction. At the same time, our two humvee crews dismounted and began to lay down heavy clearing fire in the other direction, emptying that space of threats at a fast pace. After perhaps ten minutes of steady fire, we were able to move on with the plan, and pick up three more Factory shooters who volunteered to help.

Two younger men, both around 18, and then Barry. You remember Barry? The poor kid from the car dealership way back when? Good kid. Apparently he's been a fine upstanding citizen according to Lulu.

We checked on them for about thirty minutes, getting a face to face update with them, and then we headed out to the apartment building's parking garage that was our actual target. The garage was several city miles away from the Factory, so we got going without taking too long. On approach we knew we were in for a rough trip. Tough enough that we almost called it off. The undead were packed in fairly tight around the garage, and just driving into the garage was going to be a challenge. However once we talked over the radio we decided it was worth a shot, and at worse, we could drive to the top, drop the wood we brought for the lure fires, and then take off before things got any worse.

Caleb behind the wheel of the HRT yet again meant we were making zombie pate. He loves hitting those things as they walk along. Sometimes he calls out his score when he hits them. The entrance to the parking garage barely fit the HRT. And by barely, I mean we lost the horn off the roof as we drove up the concrete slope into the first level. I nearly shit a brick when it ripped free with a rending screech, but Kevin in the humvee two vehicles behind us called out what had happened. I elected to move forward, and Caleb drove on.

Inside the parking garage there were perhaps a third of the vehicles it could hold on a busy day. Many of the vehicles still had their doors open, and the concrete floors right below them covered in dark stains of old blood. These stains are nearly two years old now. I’m sure many folks running from their places of employment met their demise fumbling with keys, or trying to start their car back in June of two years ago. Imagine building the nerve to run out of your office building alone, run through the crowd of undead, into the garage, and reach your car, only to butter finger your keys onto the floor mat long enough to have a zombie yank you out and then forcibly and eat you? What a shit way to go. How do you play that? Do you wait in the office for it all to blow over? Hm.

To help buy us some time the third and fourth vehicle in the group started ramming parked cars across the entrance to the garage. The fourth vehicle was a humvee, and with the powerful motor it was able to push a few small cars into the way, forming an impromptu roadblock for us. Security on the first floor was obviously our greatest priority and the roadblock was step one.

 
The HRT and the Deuce went all the way to the top floor, stopping as needed to take down any and all undead we saw. Frankly Mr. Journal, I’m surprised at how many there were just wandering around the damn garage. I’m not sure if they were lost, or that they hadn’t been lured out by any other noises the entire time. I mean shit, who knows at this point?
 

Anyhoo, I found the overall amount of targets inside the actual garage to be higher than I would’ve liked. We had no difficulty on the upper levels clearing as we went up. Staying in constant radio contact with Kevin and the first floor crew meant we were only a minute away from supporting them, and vice versa. We were worried that at any point more of the assholes who shot at us the other day would return, opening fire, but in reality the only threat we faced was undead. Lots of them too.

On the top floor we emptied the entire back end of the Deuce onto and underneath a pair of parked cars. The two cars were in adjacent spaces, and we arranged the wood to burn on top, inside, and on the bottom. As three of us did that, two more went vehicle to vehicle with hoses and gas cans, draining car gas tanks.
 

Amazingly enough, most of the gas tanks on that level still had fuel. So much fuel in fact, we started prying trunks open to try and find more fuel tanks to get the fuel. I forget the exact amount of gas we pulled out of there, but we brought every single one of our fuel cans, including the fat ass tanks in the humvees, and we filled every single one. I’d comfortable say we left with 200 gallons. Now if we had brought our 55 gallon drums…

Makes me want to postpone this trip into the city just to get the damn fuel. By now though we’re pot committed. We made far too much noise shooting, drilling, yelling, screaming, and farting yesterday. The garage should be crawling with undead, and we need that population to get smooshed by the decks when they collapse.

There will be more vehicles with gas tanks, and the gas inside those cars will be useful to literally add fuel to the fires. Plus Blake has little to no time to filter the fuel right now. He’s far too busy working with Martin and Quan, learning explosives. Does that sentence scare the shit out of you like it just did me? Damn.

Speaking of which, while my crew was upstairs on the top level, Martin, Blake and Quan plus a handful more were downstairs using the concrete drills to make holes to sink the plastic explosive into. Quan was paranoid as balls about the Semtex due to its age. I guess it was old, and old explosives are… fickle. He insisted no one touch them but him, and he simply linked all the charges and hooked them up as needed. Martin and Blake simply drilled holes where he marked them while the rest of the team provided security.
 

I guess they had multiple very close encounters with zombies crawling out from underneath vehicles. On the second occasion of one of them dragging themselves out from under a fucking parked car, Kevin radioed up to us, freshly shat brick in hand, yelling for us to watch out for more where we were. We got really lucky up top, not gonna lie. Several of us spent many a minute on bended knee at a gas cap getting fuel. We easily could’ve lost someone to a surprise bite out of nowhere.

I listened carefully to the radios the entire morning and into the afternoon until we’d finished with our fire piles. We didn’t light them yet, we just got them ready. Lighting them will be for when we’re about to go, which will be another couple of days. Four days maybe, not positive just yet.

We relocated to the third deck and called for Blake to join us. He grabbed one of the humvees, drove up to us on the third level, and one of my crew switched out with him so they had full staffing and vehicles on the bottom floor. Fortunately while we were doing the swap, we had a brief lull, and no one was in extra danger.

Blake grabbed the spare car battery we brought along and popped the hood on a car that we knew had a car alarm. It took us two or three tries to find a car that didn’t simply have a starter kill feature, and an actual car alarm. In case you were wondering Mr. Journal, car alarms are useless. I can’t even tell you how many times I heard a car alarm going off in the distance and did nothing about it. Now starter kill on the other hand was far more effective. Anyway, Blake got the battery into the car, jury rigged it, and after playing around with a few wires, the car alarm went off, loud as shit and right on cue.

Noise maker now effective, we packed up and went downstairs to back up Kevin’s team as Quan and Martin finished working on the explosives. Quan was wrapping up the final wiring on the radio controlled detonator when we arrived. We were pushing the two cars blocking the garage out of the way less than twenty minutes later, and after smashing through a few dozen undead milling about beyond the car-roadblock, we were back on the road, all in one piece.

I know I drew the lucky straw upstairs with my group setting up the fires. I also know that was entirely intentional on Kevin’s part. He’s trying desperately to keep my safe, yet also putting me near enough the action so that if something really bad DOES happen, I can be there to help. It’s a fine balance. On two fronts really. He’s trying to keep me safe while still using me as an asset, as well as keep me in the loop, but not offend me all at the same time.

I am also sure a huge portion of this is Michelle’s handiwork. I doubt this is happening without those two colluding on the matter.

We ditched the Factory guys back at their base of operations with a heartfelt thank you, and took the long drive home in shitty weather. While we were inside the garage the weather turned south on us. Sleet and freezing rain were the order of the later day, and the roads were treacherous. We had one gut buster moment just as the sun was done being useful. A zombie was coming down a side road right near Gilbert’s old warehouse. It must’ve heard us coming from a bit away, and just as we were crossing the road it was on, the damn thing slipped in some freezing rain and went down hard on its back. I think it cracked its skull too, because it was still very still when the fourth vehicle passed it.

I guess it’s good to be lucky every now and then. I take that as a good sign. Zombies are now killing themselves when we roll through.

Things here at Bastion are quiet. We’re prepping for our next trip to the other parking garage near the hospital. Not sure exactly what day that’ll be, but I’ll let you know as soon as we iron it out.

Ollie and Melissa are well, as is their baby girl. Kim is well, as is little Adrian Gilbert. Sylvia is behaving better than ever, and the school kids are learning. Our hydroponics facility is running well, our walls are built, our gate is built, and our camera system is running flawlessly. We are eating better than we anticipated we would (And I hate to say its because we lost Fitz, but that did help. Fitz if you ever see this, wherever you are, understand I mean you no disrespect brother. I'd skip a meal a day to have you back.) and things are stable. More stable than ever possibly.

Getting nervous Mr. Journal. That went fairly well yesterday, and I’m sure that despite how crappy it actually was, that was still just the calm before the storm.

I'm going to kill the lights here, and try to stay focused on relaxed. Maybe I'll do some deep breathing, and think positive thoughts to unwind. My adrenaline is still lingering. I may or may not think about Michelle when I turn out the lights. Otis wants some company, so I’m gonna turn this laptop off, and give my homeboy what he’s jonesing for.
 

A scratched tummy.

-Adrian

February 26
^th

I find it rather impressive how much work this trip into the city is taking. Never mind the trips into the city themselves, I’m talking about the preparation for these little trips too.

Primarily I’m speaking of cutting wood. We have a pretty steady crew of kids and adults that stand there chopping wood all day, every other day or so for the stoves, but we need a solid cord or cord and a half of wood for each of the fires we’re intending to set on the top of the parking garages. The kids spent all day today and much of yesterday chopping the wood up and loading the back of the deuce up for our next trip to the other parking garage. And if you didn't know, chopping wood means you need to take trees down, which in and of itself is an undertaking.

Never mind the weapons maintenance, magazine loading, medical supply preparation, and the two hundred other things that need to be done here at Bastion on a daily basis. I definitely feel selfish having all these people devote this much time to something that mainly only benefits me. I mean sure, if this parking garage bullshit works out and kills a few thousand undead, we’ll be sitting much prettier. However, if you look at the odds, look at my luck, and then weigh that against this being successful, we’re already bent.

Yawn. I’m tired. Little cranky too. I’ve been a smidge under the weather for a couple days now. Since we returned from the last downtown run really. I didn't sleep well that night, or since. The weather has been drizzly and cold, forming some black ice here and there, and I think the time outside coupled with meeting the new folks over at Spring Meadows has given me a wee bit of the cold. Irritated. I’m just a little sniffly, just a little achy, with a touch of a headache, and a tiny bit of an upset stomach. Just a little irritation, but it's all over. I'm on my man-period.