I woke up an hour and a half ago to hit the pisser. I blame the lots of water earlier to stay hydrated out there in the heat. The summer humidity and the bugs are back with a vengeance now. It’s hot as balls and muggy. Fucking mosquitoes. After today I am debating what is more of an irritant to us. The bugs or the zombies? At least I can shoot a zombie.
When I left the bathroom I heard a faint sobbing noise, and something about it bothered me. It just... I don’t know. I knew something was wrong somewhere. I slipped back into my room, grabbed my Glock, and investigated. At first I couldn’t find the source of the noise, but after stopping and intently listening, I realized it was coming from upstairs, from the third floor.
I didn’t sneak up the stairs, but I walked quietly up them. I’m naturally pretty quiet. The moonlight outside was faint through some clouds, and the ribbons of bluish grey light coming through the windows were only barely enough to see by. I dislike shadows now Mr. Journal. They tend to hide things that try to kill me. Right at the top of the stairs is the old third floor common room. It’s just a glorified mostly open sitting area that had a flat screen and a few chairs for the kids to relax in. Gavin had turned it into his bedroom when he moved into Hall E.
I got to the top of the stairs and I saw Abby sitting on his bed, staring emptily out the window, clutching his pillow to her chest and crying softly. She had her nose on the top of the fabric, and I could hear her trying to inhale his scent through her runny nose. I watched her try and stifle her sobs for a few seconds before I walked into the room. I sat the Glock down on a table, and she looked over at me, startled. Her eyes were wet, and puffy with what looked like an hour’s worth of tears.
I sat down on the bed and rested my hand on her knee. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
She cried more, and more, and finally sat the pillow down and wiped her eyes. I looked at her, and then I started to lose it too. My heart was broken for her. She was in so much pain, and anguish, and she’s so fucking young, and confused, and scared, and now... she’s lonely again.
I said the only thing I could think of, “Abby I’m so sorry. I’m just so sorry.” It was the only thing I could choke out. I can't handle watching that girl cry.
She put her hand on my shoulder, and rubbed my back and nodded. “I know. It’s not your fault Adrian. It’s bound to happen to any of us, at any time. It was his choice anyway.”
I looked up at her. “His choice? What do you mean? He wanted to die?”
She thought for a second, wiping a tear away once more. “He didn’t want to die. But he knew more than that he didn’t want you to die. He knew he couldn’t let you die. He took those bullets for you Adrian.”
I had no response to that. I didn’t need to hear that. That was one more burden that I am not prepared to bear. I think my face told her I was confused, because she kept talking.
“Gavin didn’t believe you when you said you had dreams. He didn’t believe me either when I told him I believed you. Not at first. But one night after he found out about the dreams, when he and I were together, he woke me up in the middle of the night and said he had a dream. He wouldn’t say what it was about then. He told me before he died though. He told me he dreamt that some of us would have to sacrifice themselves to save the soul of humanity, and he knew that it meant he’d have to give himself up sooner or later.”
“What does that mean? Sacrifice? Soul of humanity?” I was going from heart ache for Abby to confusion over her rambling story and back again. It was an unexpected and unpleasant way to interrupt a night’s sleep.
She shrugged in response, knotting the sheet on Gavin’s bed in her good hand. “I don’t know Adrian. I just know that the man I loved gave up his life for you without even thinking about it. I know that he knew more than anything he’d ever known that your life was more important than his. And as much as it kills me to think he died for you instead of living the rest of his life with me, for some reason, I trust he did the right thing. I need to trust him now more than ever. I love him Adrian. I’ll always love him. But now I need to live for what he died for.”
“Abby what the hell does that mean?”
“It means if it comes down to it, I’ll die for you too.”
She kissed me on my sweaty forehead, and left me sitting in dead Gavin’s bed in the dark, hot night.
I wish I knew what was happening to me.
I’m so tired.
-Adrian
June 4
th
We’ve got a pretty good system now.
I continue to be largely impressed by the amount of work we are getting done on a daily basis around here. We are beyond exhausted every evening, and for the most part it’s all we can do to limp into and out of bed, but shit, what we’re accomplishing is insane. I am intentionally ignoring the conversation Abby and I had the other night. When I think about it, I start getting anxious, and it bothers me a great deal. For the moment, I will keep myself busy, and distract my addled brain as much as I can.
Lemme share some logistics about all this before I die of exhaustion. Angela and Amanda are parking at the end of Auburn Lake Road every day to watch for walkers coming towards campus. We are making a lot of noise up here, and we’re trying to set up a distant/advanced defense system. They don’t have to kill much thankfully, it seems we’ve really put a dent into the population. It also is interesting to note that the undead apparently always follow the roads to get up here. Technically, the straightest shot to get to us is through the woods and up the hills, but for whatever reason, they stick to the pavement. Residual memory? Path of least resistance still makes sense to you when you’re dead? Fucked if I know. It’s just weird shit.
We are taking down trees with axes and chainsaws. If we feel like noise is acceptable at a given moment in time, we use mostly chainsaws. If not, the axes get busted out. We’ve taken down the trees along Auburn Lake Road near the bridge to cut down on any cover for anyone attacking, as well as to create space for any structures we want to build there. No cover means open targets.
Once we have a handful of logs, we cut them to size (about 10 feet). Once cut, we’re digging two foot trenches along the lake side (well away from the water). The logs go into the ground two feet, we fill the holes with dirt, pack it tight, and then we’re dumping earth behind the wall to shore it up good and solid, and to protect us against penetration from projectiles. We’re holding out on using cement for the moment because we don’t have enough, and we really want to use it to anchor gates, and anything that cannot be risked to be weak. We debated using phone poles, but that meant a lot of travel outside of the area up here. We’d need a thousand of the damn things to get the job done, and that’s a lot of wasted gasoline, and added danger just being off the campus. At a later date, we might do it that way, but for now, logs are our best bet.
At some point we need to go out looking for a backhoe. We’re using the plow right now to dig the dirt up, and that’s bad for the plow, and isn’t efficient. It’d also make much shorter work of digging the two foot trench we’re putting the logs in. Eventually we’re planning on putting some kind of an elevated walkway on top of the berm behind the logs, but that’s not a priority at the moment. For the moment if we have to, we can climb the dirt pile. No rush to get that facet of the wall done.
At some point here in the next day or two, we’re going to scour town and try to find a backhoe, or a front end loader. It’ll be really useful for travel if we need something super industrial, plus the fact that either piece of equipment can dig or move earth like a motherfucker will come in handy. It’s just a question of when we feel like sparing some folks to go out and find one. I guess the smart thing would be to do it tomorrow. It’ll speed up the process. Duly noted me.
The cows are in the fucking way. They mosey all over the goddamn place, shit everywhere indiscriminately, and have become a general nuisance. As such, we NEED to get some kind of a cow pen or pasture or something set up. Ollie is working on a rough fence idea so we can wrangle them in for the moment, but that’s a temporary fix at best, and takes away from our security preparations. However, fresh milk is good. We also want to do a cow swap with Lenny over in Westfield to mix up the cow gene pool. Seems healthy to me, but I don’t know shit about cow genes and what exactly the ramifications are of ongoing cow incest.
Shrug.
Gilbert has been working the reloader pretty steadily. It’s good, useful busy work while his eye heals up, and with all the ammunition we burned through during the last siege, we really need to bolster our on hand 5.56mm. The last thing we need is to have another massive wave of those pricks roll up the hill with us largely dry on ammo and reloading rounds as we need them. Might as well be firing muskets at the sonsabitches.
Gilbert also feels somewhat important doing this, and knowing that he’s a bit of a liability behind the sights of a gun right now, this is an excellent way for him to contribute to the cause. I think he said he’s loaded a thousand rounds of various ammo, which is terrific. I wish I’d thought to ask Mike for more 5.56 ammo before they left the other day. I’d love to get another crate or two. We’ve managed to accumulate an ass ton of 12 gauge ammo of late, mostly from The Farm I believe, so we’re actively asking folks to try and use a shotgun for the meantime. Amanda and Angela have been using some of the turkey guns to good effect on the small number of stragglers down near the gas station they’ve seen.
Not a whole lot else to talk about really. We’ve been so busy working and doing shit here that we’re not talking a ton about much of anything other than day to day bullshit.
Abby is less weird than before, but still ‘off’ about things. After the talk we had the other night, she’s clearly in a different place mentally. I’m not sure what to make about the whole, “Gavin dying for me” story, and frankly the less I think about it, the easier I sleep at night. I don’t need to think about people throwing themselves on the fire to save my ass. It’s bad enough that people have died in my presence or due to my actions by accident. I don’t need someone “dead on purpose” because of me too.
I can say this about Abby: She’s definitely more determined about things. She’s very serious compared to the way she was before. Dedicated, professional even. It’s a pleasant, positive change all in all, but I can’t help but worry. What happens if someone rolls in here and starts shooting? Is she going to try and throw me to the ground and protect me? Sigh.
Kim is settling in well, and has started to warm to everyone. Kim’s pretty, with kind of long dark brown hair, and fair skin. She’s also damn near ready to pop Blake’s demon seed baby out, and in this heat, she looks MISERABLE. I mean legit angry at the world right now more often than not. I can’t imagine having a little one using my innards as a trampoline as well as having to piss every twenty minutes, plus aches, pains, stretch marks, and having to put up with Blake fawning over her every half hour like fucking clockwork. It was cute and nice for awhile, but now he’s entered obsessed creeper status. No longer cool, no longer cute.
Everyone’s wounds appear to be healing well. I can’t speak for their emotional wounds, but the physical ones are doing well. Infections seem to be avoiding us, and the pain management hasn’t been an issue. I had Patty take stock of our medicine the other day and try and get it organized in the basement of Hall E, and she should be done with that pretty soon. I have a sinking suspicion we’re going to be pretty low on stuff like Ibuprofen, Motrin, and Tylenol. I know I’ve taken a lot, and if I have, I know others have as well. We might be needing another run to a drug store or something soon. I know that medical clinic downtown is still there, and as far as I know, it’s still untouched.
Sadly that might not mean shit. It might’ve been raided and cleared on day one or two, which does make some sense, with the supplies Patty said STIG had back in the day before they were incinerated.
What a waste Mr. Journal. Dammit.
When the Pastor and his goons made their run on us up here they shot the shit out of Hall B. We need to patch those holes in the siding up somehow before colder weather sets in. At least we’ve got time to get that done. I wish one of us had heard the engines on their ATVs before they got onto campus. I guess they parked on the other side of the bridge, and it’s not like we were trying to be quiet with the radio playing, and kids running around making noise. One of those damn moments I wished we handled differently. We brought the three four wheelers they rode here that day back, and they’ve sat untouched since. They seem dirty to me. Almost as if I were to pick up the Devil’s sword and wield it. They’re tainted, unclean.
Fruits of the poisonous tree is the expression I believe.
Ah shit. I’m tired. Rambling like a motherfucker again. One thing that has been nice to experience the past few days is the lilies blooming. No idea why they’re in bloom now, but they smell amazing, and in between beating mosquitoes and black flies to death, it’s a welcome cover from the stink of the funeral pyre out near staff housing.
Which is still burning, and likely will burn for some time.
I’ll check back in a few days hopefully with more largely good news.
Jinx, go fuck yourself.
-Adrian
Zombie Scissorfight
Mallory Malone wiped the thick blood off her face obsessively, rubbing crimson smears across her nose and cheeks. Her frantic swipes were only making it worse, spreading it into every miniscule pore of her skin, but she couldn’t stop. She was unclean. Her dark brown eyes darted around the room she stood in. There was so much blood on the floor of her boss’s hair salon. It was leaking slowly from the eye socket of the customer she’d just stabbed in the eye with her trimming shears.
Mallory wasn’t a murderer. You can’t murder someone who is already dead. When the woman stumbled hurt into the locked glass pane door of the shop earlier that afternoon, Mallory tried to be strong. She choked down the fog of the previous night’s hangover, and put her foot down. She said no, and no and no, but the woman kept pleading to be let in. Mallory looked at the huge bite mark on her wrist that was purple and bloody, and she knew it meant the woman was infected. Letting her in was a bad idea. As bad an idea as she’d had in a long time. This was one of those moments where Mallory wished she could find and keep a decent man around.