The Failed Coward (32 page)

-Adrian

April 15
^th

Yo. 

I need to use that as a greeting more often. I think it’s highly underrated as a means to opening up dialogue. For example, the next time I see a zombie shuffling its dead ass down the street at me, I’ll belt out a “YO!” And then I’ll shoot it. Can’t say I wasn’t fair in greeting it first.

Feeling a little silly today. It’s been a good couple of days and everyone is in high spirits. We are all waiting for the inevitable shit storm to come around. Mr. Journal if you haven’t figured it out by now, things are never that good for long. Technically, the last bad thing that happened to us was when I found that crashed station wagon, and if I look at in a certain light, that incident wasn’t much of anything. I found some dead bodies. Big whoop.

Lots to shoot the shit about today. Been busy as all hell. Where to start? Well, the weather has been pretty awesome. Little cloudy and rainy here and there, but for the most part it has been pretty warm. Temperatures have hovered in the 60s, and when the sun comes out, it’s pretty fucking awesome outside. It almost makes risking our lives when we’re out worth it.

Yesterday we cleared three houses, which was less than we normally manage. It seems like our sustainable rate of house clearing is about four houses a day. Three sucks, but then again we ran into a LOT of undead yesterday. Fortunately, they were spaced out physically, as well as over time, and at no point did we get overrun or anything of that sort. With two of us pulling security we were safe the entire day.

The shitty part about yesterday was the usage of our 5.56 supply. I drew the long straw and hung out with Gilbert and we poured through almost two magazines worth of 5.56 during the day. If we have ten more days like yesterday, we’ll be at the “oh shit, we need to trade for more ammo” point, and that’s not good. I hate being low on ammo. I hate the thought of being low on ammo. I hate Neil Diamond, and that has nothing to do with my previously stated hatred for being low on ammo, I just felt like I needed to add a third thing I hated to make that sentence balance for you Mr. Journal.

I love me some crack.

Yesterday was a positive day for several reasons. Primarily it was good because no one got hurt, and I think Gilbert and I counted out 85 kills over the course of the entire day. That’s a lot of additional safety added to town. It was also awesome because we finally found a few houses with some decent shit inside. I won’t go over every single item, but the main score was an industrial food dehydrator. This thing was the SHIT. It’s electric, plugs into the wall like a toaster oven, but is the size of a regular oven. I think it has 20 racks to make dried food on.

Ya think that’ll come in handy when we bag our next deer? Can you say venison jerky for the win? I’ve got a Chubber just thinking about it. Note the capital C for extra emphasis on Chubber. Adult strength chubbation sighting!

Enough about my erection. Same place oddly enough also had a pretty sweet handgun. It was a Kimber 10mm. Now, Kimber brand guns are fine weapons, and this 1911 clone is just that. I’m kinda pissed though that it was in 10mm. We haven’t found jack shit for 10mm ammo up until yesterday, and despite being pretty terrific as a caliber, all we have is the ammo we found with it. 4 boxes, totaling 80 rounds. I guess it was great because in the gun case with the gun the owner had two spare magazines. It’s a great handgun, but with that small amount of ammo, I’m guess I’m bummed. I stashed it away for use at a later date.

Oh shit yeah, forgot. One thing that I’ve been doing since… October? December? Whenever I started clearing houses basically, is stashing away fire extinguishers. I know they have a shelf life, and eventually they’ll shit the bed, but with the lack of fire department response, I’ve been grabbing them when I see them. I guess it’s on my mind because for whatever reason we brought back 6 the past few days from the houses we’ve been to. Thought that was kinda neat, and weird at the same time.

Anyway. Last night we had another family dinner, and it was nice. We polished off some more of the venison cooked on a charcoal grille that was stashed here on campus. The charcoal took forever to light, but once it was all said and done, the meat was out of this world. Huzzah for warm weather. We’re also already kinda low on venison. I think I need to spend some time wandering into the woods looking for more deer. I know they’re out there, I just need to make time to bag one. I think Ollie could be tapped for that, but he’s already working on clearing out crap on the field to get crops rolling. He’s asked for help with getting the tractor out of the barn at the farm on Jones Road, so that needs to be addressed.

Mike came to campus earlier today for another water run. Seems like forever since we sat down with those guys. For this trip he brought LaFrenz back, as well as Hector (complete with sweet ass), and a new face. Namely he brought a middle aged lady he introduced as Vicky Brown. Vicky was… maybe 50 years old or so, with short gray hair, and a fairly severe face. As it turns out, she is (was) a teacher. Apparently she made the trip over here for the express purpose of checking out our library, and seeing if we had any useful books. Abby gave her the nickel tour, and she wound up borrowing a few books none of us will miss if they don’t get returned. I will never understand the allure of Moby Dick.

Just like their last visit, we got the hoses running into the truck, and we chilled out for a few hours while it filled. We completed a trade that was pretty awesome in my opinion. Lenny had been baking bread this week I guess, and Mike brought over four fresh loaves of it. He also brought a fairly substantial amount of medical supplies which was fucking rad. (trying to bring back the word rad as well here Mr. Journal) I guess there was a small medical supply company over in Westfield that somehow had been overlooked by them. Mike said on a routine patrol they went inside, and found a bunch of awesome stuff.

He had crutches, canes, splint materials, casting materials, bandages, scalpels, forceps, additional medications, lotions, ointments, and all different kinds of surgical gear that would be great in the event of a medical emergency. He said there was a ton of it, and there was a lot to spare. Mike also traded us a chicken to eat, as well as two tires that will work as spares on the HRT should we get a flat. Like I said, that’s pretty awesome shit. I guess he found the tires at a construction site over there, locked away in the back of a large truck or something. Dunno for sure, I’m just glad they were found, and traded to us.

Now for all that, he wanted the water, a couple dozen cans of various foods, something to drink (which translated to a canister of iced tea mix, a 12 pack of soda, and a half empty bottle of Bacardi), and two handguns, sans ammo. They needed guns for starter shooters, so we decided on .38 revolvers, of which we had two spare. They’ll work out well for them I believe. If not, they’ll figure something out.

We told them about our Blake encounter, and his story of the farm. Mike threw his lot in with the Gilbert wait it out plan. Mike was pretty cut and dried on the matter of making town safe. He basically said that if they could clear their town of undead, then we could get our town safe as well. Not much sense in dragging ass on it, splitting the group up, or wasting resources investigating a farm that may or may not have anything sketchy happening at it.

Once again I am overruled, and I guess I should just sit in my pile of rejection, and eat crow. I suppose I should take that as a sign that my initial reaction to investigate and/or launch a full scale attack immediately was a bad idea. Everyone else can’t be crazy, right?

Although I love me an ass whupping… I could really go for some ass whupping too. Killing zombies isn’t satisfying like manhandling someone is. It’s my sincere hope I get to punch someone in the face soon. I never got to punch Sean, and I think I’m harboring repressed physical violence over that.

Um. What else? I can’t think of much regarding our trade, or the meeting or whatever you want to call it. Oh yeah. Me getting laid. Lol. Speaking of repressed urges.

As we were heading them out to go home, I pulled Mike aside, and straight up told him what was going on. I basically said it’d been a very long time since my you-know-what got stuck in a woman’s you-know-what, and it was high time I addressed the issue.

He laughed. I think he knows exactly what I’m talking about. I went on and explained how there was no one around here that I could hook up with, and I wanted to know if he knew someone over there that may or may not be interested in me, that wasn’t bat shit crazy, and might be decent looking. I’m not looking for marriage, or babies, or even a second time around. I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

Does that sound selfish? I think it does. “Hey, female. I’m interested in fucking. Nothing you have to offer me other than your vagina is of issue or interest to me. In fact, if you could not talk, or have any kind of emotional attachment to me, I’d be thrilled with that.”

Yeah that’s selfish. Jesus I’m a dickhead. I am now slightly regretting having asked Mike to help me get laid at the expense of his female populace.

I guess the lemons into lemonade part of this story is that Mike said I’d have the pick of the litter over at the school where they’re at. He said I was decent looking, cleaner than his guys, and as long as I wasn’t a totally awkward asshole, I shouldn’t have any trouble getting my dick wet.

Of course now I’m all nervous about it. What if she doesn’t like me? What if she wants a commitment? What if I like her and she doesn’t want a commitment? What if she has herpes, or something worse? What if she wants to stick a finger in my ass unexpectedly? What if she’s into German poop porn and she wants to take a dump on my chest? 

So much worry to worry about. Maybe I should stick with beating my meat. 

I can’t pussy out on this. I need to get some, and deal with the consequences later. I’m sure it’ll go fine, and I am just being weird about it because I’m nervous. I’m sure I’ll march into there like the pimp I am, and within no time I’ll have three chicks all swinging from my dick like chimpanzees on an enormous banana.

Lol. Sure.

I’m headed there on the 17
^th
to begin phase 1 of Operation Snatch.

Wish me luck.

-Adrian

April 17
^th

Westfield women are horny and nutty as squirrel turds. I can’t think of any other way to say it. I mean on one hand, they’re horny. On the other hand, they’re nutty as squirrel turds. Normally I’d be all excited about finding a bunch of women just itching to get it on, but this isn’t really a “normal” situation we’re all living in.

Well. I guess this is what passes for normal now. Might as well make do as best I can.

That means I might get laid soon! Cassie forgive me and my hormones. Love ya babe, but I… Need to get laid in the worst way. In fact, the closer I get to getting laid, the worse off I get about it. 

Have you ever been in a situation where you pretty much KNOW you’re going to get some, but there’s like this, disconnect of time or distance where you have to twiddle your thumbs, and you just sit in anticipation until that proscribed time passes for it to happen?

Like, a long drive to the significant other? Or for example, they’re at work and you have to wait until their shift ends? And you know, you just fucking KNOW that when that time is up, or that distance is traveled, sensual, nasty, dirty-filthy-sex is there for you? You know that waiting period Mr. Journal? Oh man it’s horrid in the best way. That anticipation is killer.

Nice tangent huh? I’m fucking hardcore loony for vagina right now. I guess flirting will do that to you.

So anyway.

Stuff happened yesterday. It isn’t as interesting to me as me talking about women, so Mr. Journal, you get squat. Sufficed to say, no one was hurt, no one died, and we managed to get the solar panels off of crazy Walt's roof. Nothing more important than my quest for vagina occurred. Back to the subject at hand.

Today was much more interesting to me than clearing houses on a personal level. I went to Westfield to hang out for the day under the false auspices of a social meeting with Mike and Lisa Goldman. I didn’t feel like driving the plow all the way over there, so I borrowed Gavin’s truck. I told all the folks on campus that Mike and I were talking about things and I he wanted me to go over and he was going to show me some stuff at the school. Nothing serious of course, just social things and whatnot. I also said we needed to set a firm date for their next visit.

Apparently I am a terrible liar. Abby gave me the, “You’re full of shit, I know it, and I’m judging you” look the whole time I was spinning my yarn. Maybe it’s because she’s still young, and she’s in a sexual relationship herself at the moment. (well, I think it’s sexual. If Gavin hasn’t managed to hit that yet, he needs more help with his penis than we realize)

Anyway, I skidaddled over to Westfield in what felt like record time, and I made it to the school with no problems. The zombie population between here and there has more or less disappeared. I guess hitting them with the plow over and over going back and forth all winter has actually paid dividends. I radioed Mike that I was enroute when I was a mile or two out. There weren’t any undead surrounding the car barriers at the school, so they let me right in. I said hi to everyone as I went inside. Mike met me in the parking lot and we went inside to sit down with Lisa for a bit.

The school seems nicer and friendlier than when we first visited, I should say that. Everyone has a much more positive outlook and it’s palpable in the environment there now. Lisa herself seems a little weary of having the lead role, but she strikes me as a strong lady, and I think she’ll be fine. She might want to retire after her first year in ‘office’ though. However, I think her first term has served to bring a much needed stability to their constituency.