The fifth floor was more of the same. Well that’s not entirely true. I guess a bunch of the folks on the fifth floor got really sick sometime in the fall, and they wound up dying from whatever they had. Crazy to think about how many people have gone belly up to sickness and disease. Typhoid, cholera, so much sickness and no infrastructure to either prevent it or cure it. So much for modern medicine. The seven still alive managed to lock and bar those doors too, and now they’re sandwiched in, and can’t leave. Luckily, the single elevator in the building is dead, and as luck would have it, it apparently is stuck on the top floor for whatever reason. I was really hoping to use the elevator shaft for our plan, but that seems to be a no-go. More on the plan later.
They have been surviving due to two things. First, Martin and Julie had a rope ladder that they had been using to get down to the ground from the third floor every once in awhile to search for food and supplies. Of course everything in this area has been cleaned out as a result, and they’ve been pretty much out of gas for months. I guess around a month and a half ago, the rope ladder broke on them, nearly killing Martin, and since then, they’ve been staying inside. With nowhere left to look, and no real way to get down safely, and with no bullets left for the few guns they have, they’ve been focusing inward. Can’t say that I blame them.
Zach and Ryan are stoners. Industrial stoners though. God bless them. They have their own hydroponics grow operation in the apartments on their floor, and when they realized that growing food was more important than growing weed, they re-tasked their gear, and they’ve been growing stuff to feed everyone. Marijuana is a gateway drug. It leads to indoor gardening, and apparently allows you to survive the apocalypse. Cheech and Chong to the fucking rescue I suppose.
Zach said that they have enough supplies to last another month, and if they can hit a supply store, the two of them could theoretically start a large enough hydroponics grow operation that could feed… dozens and dozens of people. Gilbert and I just looked at each and salivated when he said that down to us. We need to get these people out of there, if only to get that hydroponics plan moving. We’ve got some serious indoor real estate here on campus these two kids could put to good work for us. Our gymnasium, or the arts building are entirely up for grabs for something like that.
To run their hydro operation, they’ve been collecting rainwater and snow. Also they said on the roof there are some solar panels, and if I were a betting man, I’d say they’re STIG brand. They’ve also got a small gas generator they run every once in awhile with the small amount of gasoline they have left. I guess they’re down to fumes now though.
So. What the fuck right? What do we do? Martin said the welds on the lower doors are going to require a battering ram to break through. Martin also said the lighter welds on the upper floor will require a battering ram to break through. Fortunately, I have passed for a battering ram before.
Here’s the plan we fleshed out a little bit ago.
Smashing down the main door on the first floor is a waste of a perfectly good secured door. Not to mention, fighting uphill is far more difficult than fighting downhill. It’s always easier to go down, than up. (That’s what she said, incidentally) Plus it’ll be a shitload more work, and more dangerous to clear two whole floors of undead before we can get to the living folks we’re trying to rescue.
We are going to insert on the roof, and fight our way down through the fifth floor. The residents of the building (Surviving residents, that is) think there are as many as eight to ten undead on the top floor. That’s not an overwhelming amount, and if we breach strong, and move smart and slow, we can take them. What scares me is the confined space, and the dark.
I suddenly miss my boy Gavin…
Goddamn it.
Abby and I will breach with Hector. Blake is still gone in Westfield with Kim. While we’re up on the fifth floor clearing it, Mallory, Gilbert, Patty, and Angela will pull ground floor security for us. Hopefully a three deep stack is enough firepower to do the fifth floor safely. Once we clear the fifth floor, we smash down the welded fire door, and free the seven people inside so they can either come and go as they please, or they can relocate to campus with us. We haven’t officially offered them sanctuary, but based on the looks of desperation on their faces, they’re looking for an escape right now. With the hydroponics set up we can easily feed them, and they won’t be a burden on us. We have the space.
How are we going to reach the fifth floor you ask? Ladder truck. Boo yah. We just got back inside from testing it in the parking lot to make sure everything works fine on it still, and wouldn’t ya know, it does.
Suck it Jinx Fairy.
So yeah. Breach the rooftop door. Clear the fifth floor. Save the princess. Once that is achieved, we will open the third floor barriers in the stairwell, and clear down through the second and first floors to make sure the entire building is safe again to occupy. Once that’s done, if possible, I’d like to use it as an outpost in downtown. As I surmised in an earlier entry, if we can get some spotters on the roof of that building, we can see almost the entire town, and as we all know, controlling the high ground is a pretty big damn deal.
Ammunition is a bit of a concern, but luckily Gilbert has been restocking the 5.56 for us using the reloader. He’s managed to load a lot of rounds for us, and if he did it as well as he’s done everything else, they’ll fly straight and true, and pop holes in the heads of everything they hit. I’m excited.
A little scared though. Not gonna lie.
Tomorrow all day we’re gearing up. We’re trying to assemble some body armor to wear inside the apartments as we’re clearing. Abby and Patty’s shin guards are part of it, and I’d like for the rest of us going in to wear something a little more robust on the arms at the very least. The IOTV armor will protect our torsos, and I suppose we can wear helmets as well, but our forearms will be exposed, as will our thighs. In a dark, enclosed space filled with who knows how many undead, we really need to be mindful of unprotected skin.
Last thing we need is to have someone get bitten, and die. I am not sure how I’d handle one more person dying right now. I’ve picked enough shit out of my cornflakes to last a lifetime.
Oh, interestingly enough, we saw a bunch of cats and dogs around town today. Most of them ran when they saw us, but the fact that they are even alive is a great sign. I don’t know what they’ve been eating to stay alive this long, but I’ll take it as a good sign that they’ve made it.
Day after tomorrow, we hit the fifth floor of the building. If that goes well, we’ll extricate the locals, get them wherever they need to be, and then make a plan to clear the first and second floors.
Wish us luck Mr. Journal. I suspect we’re gonna need some.
-Adrian
June 20
th
From the roof of the apartment building you can see for miles in every direction. The entirety of downtown and most of the fringe neighborhoods are all visible, and if you have a scope, or a pair of binoculars, you can even see a corner of Lake Auburn. None of the school buildings are visible due to the hills and tree line, but you can certainly see all that way.
It’ll be a great view to have access to regularly.
We cleared the top three floors today.
I breached the steel fire door on the roof using one of our halligans. The pry bar hook at one end damn near ripped the door right off the frame when I leveraged it. Whoever invented that tool should be given some kind of an award if they're still alive. It’s outstanding stuff.
As soon as I got the door open though, there was a dead guy standing at the top of the stairs. He was covered in dried vomit and stank something awful. Opening that door was a lot like popping open a sewer lid. Luckily, Abby had the doorway covered, and once I was clear of the firing line, she snapped off a single round from her Beretta, and the fucker went tumbling down the stairwell and into the darkness.
And with that, Hector, Abby and I went into it.
We don’t have tactical lights on our M4s and M15s. We just don’t have them. To make do on this, we taped some of the small flashlights we’ve got to the foregrips of the rifles so wherever the barrels go, light is there with it. We all clicked on our lights, and headed down into the belly of the beast.
The first set of steps was perhaps twelve deep and ended at another steel door. The door was locked, and just like the upper door on the roof, I ripped that bitch open with the halligan. Hector was second on the stack, and he covered the opening while I pulled the door open. It was clear. The inner hallway of the building went left and right, and as we usually tend to do, we went right.
It was pitch fucking black in the hallway. No light came in from exterior windows, and there were no electric lights either. Miserable. The hall of the building formed a big O and we were at the bottom of that O. The elevator was right near the fire door, and as we swept down the hall, we engaged three zombies wandering towards us. Every time we walked past an apartment door, I gave it a tug to make sure it was shut. If I had to kick it in after, so be it. I didn’t want one of the dead fucks to push or pull a door open and slip in behind us. Fortunately the hall was pretty narrow and the zombies had little space to move. I snapped off three rounds when they were at about ten paces and dropped all three of them.
Just for the record, in case you were wondering, the fucking stench on that floor was rigoddamndiculous. Once the three wandering undead in the hall loop were dealt with we had to stop and tie a wet rag around our face to keep the dry heaves in check. However when these people went, it created one of the most foul odors I can imagine. Bacteria, old vomit, feces, rotting flesh, oh my shit it was terrible.
We radioed down to the ground crew the fifth floor hall was empty and that we were about to start clearing apartments. We backtracked to the first apartment door we passed, and in we went.
The doors on the building automatically lock when they’re shut, and because of that, we had to kick in or pry open every single door. I suppose we could’ve taken the time to search the dead bodies for keys, but they were fucking rancid, and I didn’t feel like getting anything on me. Besides, it’s a bit of a rush to put boot to door.
Granted these were tough ass doors, and I had to kick them a few times to get them to break free of the frame, but in the end, one way or the other, I was victorious over all the doors on that floor today.
Adrian: 8. Doors: 0.
The first two doors I sent in were dry. The apartments on that floor (all eight of them) were two bedrooms, so it was reasonable to expect as many as four undead inside each door. Like I said, the first two doors were empty. We gave them a full clear, and left everything lootable behind. Today was not a day for scrounging.
The third door we kicked in was a problem. I booted that bastard five times with everything I had before it started to crack and cave in. By then my knee was starting to get sore, and just as I was about to switch to the halligan (which would’ve been a much better idea in the first fucking place) it finally busted inward, and thunked off of something solid right behind the door. I brought the M4 up as fast as I could, and the damn door shoved closed in my face again, pushed by something on the other side.
Not wanting to deal with anything, you know… dangerous, I flipped the M4 to burst, and ripped three rounds through the door at what I guessed was chest or neck height for a normal person. The high velocity rounds put holes shaped like flowers in the thick wood and I heard something backpedal into the room away from the door. I stepped strong into the living room, opening the door with my foot, and saw a fragile woman regaining her balance across the way. She was dead as hell, and my three rounds had hit her center mass. I should’ve let the barrel walk up more.
No thought required I flipped back to semi, and popped her in the face. She collapsed into a recliner which automatically sat back on her, as if it were a fucking comedy. I heard Hector laugh out loud as she slumped dead with her arms over the side of the seat. Of course he didn’t see the other two undead coming around the small island in the kitchen, and when I opened up on them with two shots, he shut he fuck up. I called Hector one of the new names he taught me, and we exited the apartment. Pendejo was the word, incidentally.
So by that point we’d killed what, one in the stairwell, three in the hallway, and then three in the third apartment. Too many three’s there for my comfort, but it turned out to be a non-factor. That was eight, and the guys down below were guessing at maybe ten undead, so we were hoping for blue skies.
GONG! Fail. Every apartment past the third had undead in it. Granted, it was only a single undead in most of them, but the bottom line was, we found six more undead in the remaining rooms, which brought our total to 14 bodies for the fifth floor.
Most of the doors had to be pried open with the halligan because just like the third door the dead people inside were pushing their way out, scratching and biting to get to us in the hall. It sucked too because having to pry the door open against their body pressure made it more dangerous. At one point I got one door pried open just enough for one of them to get her fingers in the jam, and when the lock gave way, she yanked it just right, and I lost my balance and went right into her.
Fortunately my momentum took us both to the floor and I landed on top. It was an older woman, little overweight and wearing a frigging awful skiing jacket and pants. She must’ve lasted into the cold weather months. I smooshed her something fierce and did what amounted to a forward roll to get off of her. Abby lit her up with a few shots from her M15 as I rolled away, and I tell you what, I was about a red cunt hair shy of getting bitten on the ass. Once again, my little girl saves my bacon.