Authors: Chris Philbrook
It’s infected. But we knew that didn’t we Mr. Journal? Could I have expected anything else? Remember that punch line to the cosmic joke bullshit I was talking about? It’s not funny anymore.
I don’t want to die like this. Let someone shoot me, let me get eaten alive, let me get hit by a goddamn falling airplane. I don’t want to slowly die from an infection. This could take weeks to kill me, and I don’t think I have the balls to kill myself.
Sigh.
There are four places to get antibiotics in town that I can think of. There are two chain store pharmacies. One is on this side of town, the other is on the opposite side of town near my condo. The closest pharmacy is right near the grocery store. The further pharmacy near my house is in a small cluster of businesses, but more importantly, it is right near a residential area. There could be a lot of people, or undead over there.
The third place to get drugs is the town clinic. I’m sure they have ample supplies of various medications for samples and in case of emergencies. The clinic is a two story building right near the closer pharmacy and the grocery store.
The fourth and last place I can think of is the veterinarian’s office. Granted probably not ideal, but antibiotics are probably antibiotics, and in this situation it might be the only place that hasn’t been raided yet. If there are survivors in town, there is a very good chance that the clinic and both pharmacies have already been picked clean.
I can’t get around for shit Mr. Journal. I can hobble, but if I spend too long on my feet the thigh starts to pulsate right along with my heartbeat, and the pain becomes unbearable. I start seeing all those pretty fucking stars, and then whether or not I want to, I go down in a heap. What that means is that I am not very mobile, and I need to sit down or lay down after being upright for a short amount of time. I can’t afford to be out in the open at all. I really need a drive through here.
Literally and figuratively, a drive through. The pharmacy closest to me is the one nearest to the clinic. It also has a drive through window. I can literally drive the truck up the window, smash the window, get right into the pharmacy area, throw what I need through the window into the truck, and then climb back out. In theory, unless there are undead in the pharmacy, I will never even encounter undead at all.
I can shoot the undead inside through the window before I go in as well, or draw them out with the truck. If the pharmacy is untenable, I can cross the street and try the clinic. That’s really, really not a good idea though. Anyone sick around here during the fiasco days will likely have gone there, and if they died, the place could be crawling with zombies. As in balls deep.
If plan A and plan B fail, I can hit the vet’s office, which is about a mile away from there. If that fails, then I can cross town and hit the pharmacy near my old condo. And won’t that be a piece of cake.
So that’s the plan. Try and hit the pharmacy via the drive through window. If all goes well, I’ll be in and out in no time flat.
What’s that Mr. Journal? You want to hear the bad news? Oh there’s plenty of that still left to share sir.
I can’t shoot the shotgun. I can’t balance enough to brace for the recoil. If I let loose a single shell I fucking know I’ll tip over in slow motion and crack the back of my skull open on something. Shotgun is just not going to happen. This sucks too because I just double upped on my shotgun shells with the stash I found the other day.
Which means… I need to use my pistols, or the rifles. The rifles would be decent, especially the .22, but I don’t feel comfortable moving around holding a rifle right now. I can’t balance like I said, and having to stop all the time and rest means I’d have to sling it, or set it down. Rifles get in the way, and I need to move fast as I possibly can, which means this is a pistol only mission.
Yes Mr. Journal, I did say the other day my 9mm ammo was almost in the red zone. Oh what’s that? How many 9mm rounds did I use to kill Cujo the pony? Sigh, the shame. I emptied a full magazine of 15 rounds into it. Are you suggesting that was overkill? Well Mr. Journal despite our close and otherwise amicable relationship, I’m offended at the suggestion of overkill in this instance.
That fucking dog was huge, and had nearly bitten my balls clean off. Not that I should let that of all things get to me. I haven’t really used my balls in forever. Well, besides for beating off, and I’m not really “using” my balls per se. They’re just sort of in the neighborhood of the process. Men wouldn’t beat off at all if we had to do to our balls what we do to our cocks. Well, some really fucking weird men might.
I am down to 32 9mm rounds. I have 17 .38 caliber rounds, and 18 .45 cal rounds. I hate revolvers. I mean mechanically they’re superior. They’re easier to clean, easier to maintain, less prone to jams, etc. But reloading a revolver in a hurry without speed loaders is a fucking death sentence. The .38 is a last ditch thing.
So I’m rocking the 9mm and the .45. I am pretty fucking glad I found that thing now. Plus the sheer knockdown power of those slugs can’t hurt. I can easily take the recoil of the pistol without going down in a jumble.
Um, what else for bad news? I can’t walk for shit. I need to go downtown. I’m low on 9mm ammo, I can’t shoot my shotgun, I have a festering leg wound, I think I’ve got a few bones broken in my right foot too, which is just about right all things considered.
Fucking A, right? I mean seriously. What else can go wrong?
Ah DAMMIT! Why do I say that shit? Definitely gonna pay for that jinx. I’ve half a mind to hit backspace and hold it down until it’s gone. But you know Mr. Journal just as well as I do that what’s said is said, and I’m fucked even if I delete it. Whatever. Gonna throw my hands up at myself. Stupid Adrian.
Back to the topic at hand. The Pharmacy. It makes some sense to go down at night to avoid anyone seeing me, but as I’ve said, I’m scared of moving around at night. I can’t see well, and it’s not like I have NVGs. I’ll go in the morning, as soon as I can get up, get showered, get bandaged, get dressed, get fed, and get motivated. I’m guessing that puts me at noon.
Pharmacy drive through, that failing I’ll try the clinic. If that falls through I hit the vet. If the vet is a failure, I go to the pharmacy near my place. If that fails, I might be a dead man. Once I get the meds I need I get out and get back here. I lock the damn door, wash off, put my leg up, take some pills, and heal up.
No problem, right?
-Adrian
December 10
th
I made it.
Paid a high price Mr. Journal, but I am here, and I am still alive. Let it never be said that I was not a little lucky here and there. Even if it was my own mind numbingly powerful ignorance that imbues me with said luck. Both good luck and bad I guess.
Yesterday I went downtown to the pharmacy. What a trip Mr. Journal. Just like I suspected it took me almost until noon yesterday to get my shit together for the trip down. I had to gear myself up after wrapping the leg tightly in bandages. Speaking of my leg, it was ugly yesterday morning. The redness was a solid inch and a half out from the edges of the wounds on all sides. There was a faint red line starting to form near the deepest and most angry looking hole in my thigh. That’s not good at all, right?
I already know the answer Mr. Journal. It’s bad news. So I cleaned it, bandaged it, got my shit together, and worked my way out the front door despite having the Tundra parked about 8 inches in front of it. I have no idea how I got inside the dorm the other day. I must’ve thought very thin thoughts and squeezed my way in. I think I scraped a frigging rib off on the way out yesterday. Gotta cut back on the desserts I think.
Geared up, ready to rock and roll. When I left campus I realized I hadn’t done a patrol in some time, and vowed to do one when I got back, but I forgot. I also had forgotten to move the two school vans into the normal V formation on the bridge, which was a huge lapse in security. Anyone could’ve driven across and onto campus while I was laid up. Bad, badness Mr. Journal. I hopped out and got the vans moved so they were set up while I was gone. Did I mention it fucking freezing out? What a miserable time to get my leg mauled. As if there were better times for that to happen.
The drive downtown was clear. I saw nothing out of the ordinary on Route 18, which is normal I suppose. No shambling undead, no people walking around, nothing. I drove really slowly as well so I could look around and see if there was anything of value I could come back for after I was healed up enough. Every trip out is a recon op.
I saw some cool shit, but nothing really outrageous. I made my way down to the Main Street area near the grocery store. Remember when I went down there before and I said I saw a couple of houses on fire? Or burnt down or something? There were quite a few more burnt down this trip. I’m guessing here, but if there were people holed up in them, they probably started fires in their houses to stay warm, and I’m betting they set their own damn houses on fire. That or idiots using gas generators and electric heaters. Might as well throw a match on your fucking couch. Dangerous shit right there.
Just as before the more urban-ish, retail-ish areas were loosely populated with shamblers. I think I ran over about 10 of them heading down to the pharmacy. I was most definitely a little less careful about the Tundra, I’ll admit that. The windshield is all fucked now, one of the headlights is busted, and the grill is cracked. Don’t even get me started on the paintjob. Good thing insurance isn’t really an issue anymore. So I carefully lined up my zombie speed bumps and made sure to hit them with the tires. I wasn’t worried about killing them I just wanted to make sure all they could do was crawl, instead of walk. That’d buy me the time to get in, and get out.
I noticed a few things that were eyebrow rising. The small metal caps that go on the tops of gas station storage tanks were removed at the gas station I stopped at when I was heading up to the school back in June. Someone has been getting gas out of there manually. I guess that makes sense. It means there are, or were survivors in the area. That’s scary and encouraging at the same time.
There were also several new car wrecks along the main drag. I remember seeing a few small ones, but there were a LOT now. So many in fact that at one point I had to slalom the wrecks in the truck to get through. A couple of the cars were flipped over on their sides, complete with zombies still seat-belted in. It was almost funny when I drove by the wrecks and the zombies reached out, trying to grab me as I drove by. Creepy more than anything.
The good news right off the bat was that the pharmacy parking lot was pretty clear. There were maybe 5 or 6 undead wandering about, and as soon as they saw me they started heading my way. The cars in the lot were spaced out nicely, and when I did a loop around the building, the drive through was unobstructed. The bad news was the front door of the pharmacy was destroyed. Someone had obviously driven some kind of vehicle through the sliding doors to get inside. I was hoping they’d left something for me.
I swung back around again and checked the surrounding areas. The only thing I could see for threats were about eight undead wandering in a small plaza across the street. They were heading over my way, but I figured I had enough time to get inside. On my third trip around the building I swung into the drive through so the passenger side window was nearest the building, and climbed over to smash out the drive through window.
I think I sat there staring at the steel shutter in the window for about thirty seconds. I had totally forgotten about the steel shutters. I think I’ve seen them a hundred times in the past few years. When they close up shop, down they come. Matte steel, just like a garage door, only reinforced. I think I cried a little. I'm man enough to admit that. I mean by that point my leg was in excruciating pain contorted in the cab of the truck, and I felt totally fucked. I mean serious anal pillaging fucked.
I was bending myself to get back behind the wheel when I saw into the bed of the truck and gave myself a mental high five. The chainsaw. I had left the chainsaw I found at the barn the day I was bitten in the bed of the truck. Fucking A! I slid the back glass window open, reached out and grabbed it. My leg protested in pain hardcore, but it had to be done. The saw was heavy, but I got it in the cab and shut the back slider. Now it can’t be a particularly bright idea to start a chainsaw in a car Mr. Journal, so I really don’t recommend it, but I was in improv mode. The saw started on the first pull. I gave it some gas, and like a fucking champ the chain moved perfectly. I leaned out the window of the truck and brought the chainsaw down into the glass. It shattered and went everywhere. Luckily it was safety glass, so it wasn’t too sharp or anything.
One I got the glass removed I started to lean on the saw as best I could, pressing it against the joint where the shutter and the frame met. It took about thirty seconds, but eventually the whizzing teeth ate their way into the locking mechanism, and with a giant shudder everything broke loose. I grabbed the metal shutter and lifted it, and smooth as silk it slid upwards into its hiding spot. I’m a fortunate motherfucker Mr. Journal.
I left the saw in the truck, double checked that I still had my handguns, and threw the big black gym bag through the window into the pitch black pharmacy. I could see inside enough to tell the gate to the rest of the store was still closed, so unless there were zombies inside, I was good to go. The darkness was a worry, but I was pretty confidant
I worked my way up and out of the truck, onto the drive through window’s edge, and I toppled over onto the counter, then somersaulted onto the floor with a painful thud. My back was killing me from the fall, but to be frank, getting my leg straightened out was such a relief I hardly noticed it. I laughed for a second, then opened my eyes. And you know it, there was a form coming down on top me in the dark.
I couldn’t tell at the time if it was a person, or a zombie, so I just reacted on gut instinct. I punched the motherfucker in the side of the head. The female body went sideways like a mule kicked it and I crawled backwards, further into the pharmacy. It was then that I noticed the smell. That God awful smell. So here I was, crawling backwards to get away from the zombie that had just tried diving on top of me, and I come to sudden halt against an object at my shoulders. I had backed into the shins of another one. I looked up just as the zombie of the pharmacist, white lab coat and all was leaning over to rip into my guts. I got lucky and punched kinda upwards at his right knee just as he started his plunge and it threw off his aim. He went from savage plunge to face plant right between my frigging legs. I actually heard his nose and teeth break on the tile, and could hear the scraping sound of his jagged teeth scratching the floor as his body stretched out on top of me.