Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (38 page)

Kevin, Abby and Hal took the detonator and an AT4 anti tank weapon and went to the garage. I gave Kevin mad shit for having brought the armor piercing weapon (it seemed like overkill, plus the fucker didn't tell me he brought it), but it turned out to be a good decision on his part. More on that later. When we exited the now ruined HRT (and I mean ruined. The entire right front of the vehicle was blown to smithereens. I think the only reason we survived is that it looked to me that the charge blew on the plow blade, and not under the tire where Kevin was sitting.) there was forty or so undead in all directions. We laid down fire to clear the streets, and we split up.

Michelle and I headed northwest to the center of town, and Abby, Hal and Kevin headed southeast to the hospital garage.
 

Here’s the story I pieced together from the trio that went thattaway;

Because of the relative vacuum created with the zombies in the garage, the run to the garage was fairly good for them. They reached the garage with minimal contact, and made a plan to suppress their weapons and head into the still fairly empty bottom level to try and find out what was wrong with the explosives.

I don’t know SHIT about explosives, but I guess Quan had some central detonation system on the bottom floor that all the different charges were slaved to. When they entered the bottom floor of the garage and cleared it, Abby found some loose wires that had been disconnected from the box, thus breaking the circuit I imagine.
 

Kevin switches with Abby, Abby and Hal lay cover for Kevin. At that point Michelle and I were getting gang raped by an army of the dead. I’d pissed through three magazines just moving down a street and a half and I had at least that much further to go again. By that point I would've had five magazines tops left. I cried like a bitch to them to start making noise to get us some breathing room. They dropped their suppressors, and within seconds the gunfire started to distract the undead for us.

Back to them.

So like, two minutes into their louder shooting, they reported feeling a cold wind pick up. Like, creepy cold wind. I can remember the same feeling somewhat, but not quite to the level they described. I guess just seconds after... the entire parking garage filled with undead starts coming down at them, right on their head. All three shit enough bricks to build a new parking garage, and they take off running literally for their lives.

They make it to cover out of blast range (read: theoretically out of blast range) and Kevin hits the switch. Kamotherfuckingboom. All the Semtex goes off, thankfully. Quan’s fear of the stuff being unstable turned out to be unfounded, which is clearly awesome for us.

So anyway, this garage was the one Quan didn’t like. It was squat, with thicker floors and columns, and the bottom floor was half sunk into the ground as well. When the explosive blew, they didn’t take out enough support columns to topple the building immediately. Kevin said it was well on its way to collapsing, but with all those undead marching right the fuck out, he needed to bring the building down right then and there.

Enter the AT4.

Kevin jacks that pig up, lines up a shot straight into the center of the parking garage, and threads the fucking needle. The projectile goes right through a four foot gap at three hundred feet, and hits a pillar dead fucking nuts. Luckily the explosion took the entire pillar out, and like a flick from the finger of fucking God, down went the garage.

I heard the building shit the bed where we were, and wow did that buy us some time. Michelle and I had ducked into a pizza shop that I knew Cassie ate at every once in awhile for lunch. We’d gone in there to take cover and let the noise pull the undead in our area away. My hope was to slip out the back exit into a street or alley and then weave our way to Cassie’s work while the undead went to the sounds of the explosion.

Of course as Michelle and I were getting up from taking cover, I get tackled by a fat undead prick. Michelle warned me just in time, and I sort of launched myself forward as he hit my lower back and legs. When I landed I sort of spun sideways, trying to get to my feet quickly, but he was literally in my junk and grabbing at me. My first thought was Kimber, but I gave the pistol to Michelle to use, and I also realized I wanted to be quiet. I snatched my knife off my belt and stabbed him in his fat head, managing to hit something grey inside there, killing him.

Talk about a close fucking call. My lower back is sore as hell, and bruised something fierce, but I'm not dead, and that's good.

Michelle and I caught our breath, had a nice moment where I built up the nerve to thank her for being there for me (whereupon she touched my cheek, giving me a thrill), and we scooted out into the alley in the back of the pizza shop.

The alley was clear. We made it all the way down to the street that Casse’s work was actually on, and that’s when things went to shit. Well... went to shit isn’t the right expression. Went to weird is more apt.

Standing to one side of the intersection we walked into were... thousands of dead. Tens of thousands, all shoulder to shoulder, standing in foul rank and file. Just a bit ahead of them was Alan, some asshole VP that Cassie hated. He was standing there, missing an arm and had this… malicious look about him. Normally the dead don’t have facial expressions, they don’t show emotion, but I swear to you Mr. Journal that bitch had contempt on his face for me. There was an intelligence there I'd only seen in the worst of moments, like when that fucking zombie was tapping his watch. Creepy fucker.

I looked right, and the other directions had an equal amount of undead. Cassie’s direct boss, a woman named Melanie was standing in front of a wall of the dead. Her and Alan were there like… well, they were like sergeants or lieutenants.

In front of Melanie was Cassie.

She was dead. Very dead. Emaciated, drawn, bony, pale, sunken. She looked horrible. Her eyes had lost all the green intensity I’d loved to look at. There instead was that filthy, milky, pus like white.
 

I won’t lie, nor will I posture like a tough guy here. I lost it. I straight up dropped to my knees in a whole different place in my head and started to apologize over and over and over. I couldn’t say it enough or say it fast enough. I begged for forgiveness. I utterly and completely lost my shit.

Then Cassie spoke. Out loud. I… can’t remember all of the conversation, but I do remember feeling so strange about it. I remember being cold, very cold when she spoke. I remember the clouds coming in, and feeling like I’d finally gotten a chance to make things right by her. I remember her asking me to join her, to go to her in… the afterlife or something, and I remember hearing Michelle there. I remember Cassie seeing Michelle too, and I remember feeling so torn and confused and ashamed. I wasn’t in my right mind. I was lost. Blowing back and forth in the wind.

Luckily Michelle kept it together. If it wasn't for her…

I don’t remember exactly what she said, but I remember when she started talking, the air became warmer, and sweeter. I remember looking down at my hands and seeing my knife resting on my wrist, starting to dent the skin from pressure, leaving a red mark on me. I was moments away from trying to kill myself to join Cassie. Moments from actually killing myself.

I remember Michelle saying one thing before the world got turned around on me. She said something to Cassie about, “Letting slip the strings of evil.”

Next thing I know I’m back on the other side. Teleported, transported, whatever you want to call it. All the undead are gone, and it’s just Cassie and I standing in an empty intersection in the frozen world of June 23
^rd
. The sky is sparkling blue and sun is warm. It’s like the last nineteen months of guilt never happened. It’s like I went to her that day, instead of taking care of just myself like a coward.

We embrace. We kiss. It’s beautiful. It’s everything I’ve wanted. But it’s fleeting. I can feel it no different than watching the sun set on a beautiful summer day. It must come to an end. I know it, she knows it.
 

She tells me to move on. She tells me all the same things she told me in that dream a year ago. She tells me I am a good man, and that I deserve to live, and I deserve to love. She tells me she can see and feel the connection Michelle and I have, and that embarrasses me. I feel very… guilty about how I feel about Michelle. I want to love Cassie, to still be in love with her, as well as fall in love with Michelle, but that’s not possible. Nor is it healthy, or what the world needs.

I know then, in that moment what I needed to do. I need to give Cassie peace, to set her free from the constraints of whatever hell that’s holding her, and give myself fully to someone who I want to love, that wants to love me back. I'm crying at that point. The whole time really. I close my eyes, and when I open them again, I’m facing her dead body.
 

Michelle comes to me, hands me my Kimber and puts her arm around me, and with her support and presence, I was able to do what I didn’t think I could.

That’s what this is all about right? Leaning on our fellow man and woman, and believing that in the end, all will be well. Believing that somewhere out there the faith you have in whatever you believe in is being rewarded by something. Something bigger than you. Something that wants good things for you and for those you love.
 

It’s about having faith in those you know as well, your loved ones, and having hope that those you do not know well will treat you better than you could wish, despite our failings and flaws. It's about being a better person every day, or trying to at least.
 

When I pulled the trigger everything changed. I felt a weight come off me that I didn’t realize I was carrying. I watched—no, I felt a tangible outpouring leave me, and leave Cassie, spreading out into the world like ripples on a still pond. As the first ripple met and passed the ranks of undead, they fell to the ground like dominos. Each and every corpse standing fell to the ground.

Behind them, clutching to the pole of a traffic light I saw Kevin. With him he had both Abby and Hal, and they were slack jawed, staring at what was happening. We exchanged looks, and everyone knew…

It was over.

We checked many of the bodies to see if they were still animated by… Evil, but they weren’t. They were simply dead bodies now. No more murderous intent, no more hunger for the flesh of the living. No more fear of dying, no more fear of the dead. Peace.

There was much embracing.

Together we started walking back. I remember handing my pistol back to Michelle so she could holster it. I also remember taking her hand and squeezing it, holding it like I never wanted to let go again. Our fingers entwined for the first time, and I am still thinking about that feeling. Probably because I didn’t want to let go then, and I still don’t want to let go now. She’s in Hall C still, but I want to ask her to move to Hall E. I feel like we’re at that point.

Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I think fifteen minutes into our slow walk we heard radio chatter over the walkies. It was Ethan and Quan’s group rolling into our area of the city, and they were looking for us. They’d seen the dead fall, and were wondering if we were okay. We told them we were fine, and directed them to our location. They picked us up, and there was more embracing. Tears of joy. Relief.

It’s amazingly easy to travel in the city with no traffic, and no zombies. Kind of amusing how easy it was. We stopped at Spring Meadow for an hour to eat and tend our wounds. I’ve got a motherfucker of a cut on my jaw from the HRT’s demise. If I figure out who dropped those cluster bombs I’ll punch his ass in the hairy beanbag. Fucking moron.

The other team that blew the other garage had zero injuries. Not even so much as a frigging hangnail. I’m so glad for that. I just purged a shitload of guilt, I really don’t want to pile more on.

Sua Sponte is the Ranger motto. It means, “Of their own accord.” It is supposed to reflect that Rangers, as an elite fighting force, is entirely composed of men who volunteer multiple times over and over for progressively more difficult and more dangerous training and duties, simply to be a better soldier, and to help their nation, and the man standing next to them. They volunteer because they can, and because they know that when the job needs to get done, they will be there, willing to give everything necessary to get that job done. I never made it into the Rangers, but I think I understand what that motto really means. What it means to me.

De Oppresso Liber is the Green Beret motto. It means to free the oppressed. To set free those who have been bound into situations that are contradictory to democratic values, as well as human values. It means to help those that cannot help themselves. I think I understand that one too now.

That Others May Live is the motto of the Air Force Para Rescue units. It speaks for itself. PJs are trained, and one might even say naturally inclined to put their own lives on the line to save the lives of anyone. They do what they do, so that others may live when they would otherwise die. Seeing our PJs here shows me that motto is truth. Watching them makes me realize and understand what it really means.

The Marines motto of Semper Fidelis means, "Always Faithful," or "Always Loyal." I don't need to tell you that my brother served as a Marine. That he lives that every day. Faithful to his family, and to the people here at Bastion.

Why am I rambling on about these mottos? Because we’ve got Rangers, one wily Green Beret, a Marine or two, and a handful of Para Rescue men here taking part in the events that may or may not have just given mankind a second chance. These are the men and the creeds that we’ve lived by, and that many of us have died by. My friends. My family.

I hope as time goes forward we continue as citizens of this new world to live by the creeds that the best of us tried to live up to. My hope is that I am a better man today, and that my fellow survivors are better people as well.

It appears that we have earned our second chance.