Authors: Chris Philbrook
“How many people are here?” He asked.
“We’ve got about thirty at the moment.” And there goes my whole thing about lying to people. Remember that whole diatribe about honesty, and relationships? That lasted.
“I don’t think you can fit thirty people in that building Mr. Adrian.” I did not like his tone.
“I don’t think you know as much about our situation here as you think you know Sean. And I suggest you and your men come back later if you want to talk like civilized people. We’ve had some bad experiences with people who are desperate, and I’d hate to feel threatened and have all these guns go off by accident.” Low. Threatening. He stiffened at the statement, I could tell he didn’t like being threatened before he said what he said back to me.
“I don’t like your tone Adrian.” Same low, threatening tone I gave him.
“Sorry to hear that. Make your decision Sean, leave now and come back later, or I’ve been told I’m supposed to shoot you guys where you stand.” I didn’t want him thinking I was in charge. The two dudes behind him lowered their guns and looked over at him. My leg was SCREAMING in pain, and one way or the other something had to give shortly or I was going to stand up, ruining most of my cover.
They stood there for a solid minute, and I could see the gears turning in the Sean dude’s head. I think he was debating asking them to open up on me, but the bottom line was he had no idea who I was, or how many guns actually were pointed at him. He started nodding slowly and I could see him smile. I wish I could’ve seen his eyes, but all I could see was circles of light where his glasses were.
“Alright Mr. Adrian, perhaps you’re right and this is a bit dangerous for everyone. How about we return tomorrow at 3pm and we meet on your bridge, where those vans are parked?” He thumbed over his shoulder towards the general area of the bridge.
I waited a second, then said, “Hold on, lemme ask.” Then I waited another minute, and responded, “That’s fine. If you want to trade, we have extra wood we can trade, and we have a few extra cans of grapefruit juice.”
He nodded, I think he read through my bluff, “Sounds good my friend. We can probably scrape up some batteries if you need them. We also have a few spare crank radios that don’t need batteries if you need one.”
Generous counter offer to my crap offer. Smelled fishy. “Sounds fair. We can definitely work something out tomorrow at 3 on the bridge.”
“Sorry for your troubles man, we’ll be back tomorrow.” He waved, and the three of them were off.
I stood up and wiped the sweat off my brow. My leg was throbbing in red hot agony and I shook it out as I heard Abby come into the room behind me again. She and I talked about what the fuck we were gonna do as I headed downstairs. I also scolded her for leaving the basement. When we got down to the kitchen, her mother was *pissed* at her too.
Charles was sitting at the table cradling the shotgun and he looked nervous as fuck. He was so skinny the absurdity of him even shooting a shotgun was hilarious. He’d snap like a twig. Once we were all down there I belted on the .45 again and got the vest with my shells handy. I turned off some of the lights and we sat down and talked about the situation. They were all equally adamant that this was a bad idea, and I agreed. I wanted them out though, and that got them gone. Or so I thought.
I was sitting there thinking about how we would handle tomorrow when Otis made his first appearance. He was a sort of skittish guy, and whenever Cassie and I had company he’d always hide for an hour until he realized it was safe. I said “Hey buddy!” Then I reached down to stroke his back and I heard a gun go off outside. One of the windows smashed apart in the living room and I felt something hit my head. Within half a second my left eye clouded red with blood and I dove to the floor. There was a second gunshot and a hole the size of my fist appeared in the wood I have halfway up the windows on the first floor. From the floor I knew where the shots were coming from. All of the new people had hit the deck and I made sure they were fine.
Patty, (the mom) saw me and she went white. Apparently I was fucked up pretty good. I’ll tell you about that later Mr. Journal. I said “stay low” quietly to them and Otis bolted up the stairs, hair standing up straight as an arrow. I got the vest on somehow while laying on the floor, and I low crawled around the bottom floor as fast as I could with the pain in my leg and made it for the side door. That door had the porch that I’d taken the stairs off of and barricaded. It’d be good cover, and it was around the side so I could slip out more than likely and flank them.
I got to my feet at the door and peeked out the inner door into the foyer area. That area was clear so I went out and peeked in the second door. I couldn’t see anyone outside, so I popped the door open quickly and stepped back inside, trying to bait out a shot. No one fired, so I peeked out at knee height and looked around. It killed my leg, but I didn’t see anyone.
I let myself out silently and hugged the outside wall. The left side of my forehead was starting to throb pretty good by that point. The snow was starting to fall again, and it definitely helped to muffle the noise. I peeked around the corner slowly, and saw the two goons crouched about 25 yards from the house. I already had the gauge ready to go, so I drew a bead on them, wiped the blood out of my left eye and unloaded three quick rounds at them.
In movies people get shot with a shotgun and they fucking FLY backwards. They go through windows, into walls, over cars… That shit doesn’t really happen. When people get shot they usually just double over in pain and go down, or they just fall straight down. There’s no huge impact that sends them flying. Unless they’re hit with a massive bullet from up close, and even then it’s not like the movies.
Both of these assholes doubled over and went down. Direct hit! I sunk their Battleship! Bitches. Common sense escaped me though, and after I threw three shells back in the shotgun I got myself over the railing and dropped down to the ground. Yowzas. Talk about stupid. Felt like I drove a railroad spike into my thigh. My leg was weak as fuck, giving out on me every other step.
I hobbled around as sneakily as I could and came up to the guys. Just as I got to them I saw headlights turn on at the bridge, and a large vehicle spin out in the snow backing away. My guess was Sean making his escape after his failed assassination attempt. I had to wipe the blood out of my left eye again too. Anyway.
The two dudes were down in the snow and one of them was fucking done for. Some of the shotgun pellets had gone right through his neck and he was pumping out blood like a goddamn fountain. By the time I addressed the two of them he was already fading fast. The other guy was rolling around next to his dying buddy as I swung around to get a good look at them. They were wearing something like Dickies pants, and had heavy coats on. Both of them had pretty full beards going on, which is sensible seeing as how shaving is a bitch without electricity or hot water, plus its winter.
The dude rolling around was moaning in pain and I finally told him to freeze. He jerked when he heard me say something. I don’t think he realized I was that close. As soon as he froze, he looked over his shoulder at me and reached for his gun. I yelled stop, but he kept going for it, and without missing a beat I shot him on the ground where he lay. Is it strange to say I intentionally shot him in the face? I knew he’d come back as a zombie if I didn’t do it. The other guy was dead, and I knew he’d be up and moving around in less than a minute. I hollered inside for the sword, and the little kid Randy brought it out to me. He watched as I stabbed the blade into the eye of the body.
I didn’t want him to watch, but if this is reality now, he needs to see it firsthand. We can’t hesitate when there’s a body around. Hesitation breeds more bodies. His age needs to be seen as an advantage, not a hindrance. He’s young enough that the habits can hopefully be instilled into him without too much trouble.
I grabbed up their guns and searched them for ammo and stuff. They had ammo, I’ll go over all that later. Once I got back inside Patty immediately took over and sat me down. She took my first aid kit and went to work on my eye. Well, my eyebrow really. She used the tweezers in the kit to pull a shard of glass out of my upper eyebrow the size of my pinky. Strangely enough, once it was out, it felt better, but it bled like a bitch. We ruined one of the dishtowels trying to staunch it. She got some butterfly bandages on me and I washed my face in the sink. I excused myself and redid the bandage on my leg too. My leg wounds are mostly healed, but the scabs broke loose on the deeper bite wounds and I was bleeding some. I cleaned it off, got a new dressing on, got about six Advil down and went back out.
I had no sooner sat down at the table when the third banging came on the door. I was like seriously God? Really divine presence of an as yet unnamed religion that I don’t care about? What. The. Fuck?
Abby was right near the window, and she peeked through the hole in the wood the dead dudes outside had just put in my barrier. She said, “It’s some crazy looking old bald guy.” Words of relief.
Fucking A Gilbert. I let him in and told him what was up in the foyer area. He shit himself when he saw me, but he was guardedly excited when I told him more people had shown up. I brought him inside and that was the first time all of us were together. It was weird, but cool.
We cleaned up the kitchen of the wood, glass, and my blood, and Chuck got a trash bag over the busted window for the night. I already swapped out a window from Hall D yesterday, so that’s dealt with. After that we all sat around in silence. Gilbert got the story of their trip here and what had just happened out of us, and the look on his face pretty much summed it up nicely. Sour face.
Chuck, Gilbert and I all decided that based on what we knew, and what had happened, the likelihood of them returning was almost inevitable. Chuck had heard of some pretty rancid stories from these guys, and if the Sean guy got back and told them about what happened, and what he thought we might have for supplies… It seemed like a foregone conclusion they’d make an attempt to either get revenge, or raid us and take everything I’ve worked so hard to gather.
Everyone stayed here Christmas night. Even Gilbert. I crashed in the living room on the recliner, and Gilbert slept sitting near me on the shitty dorm couch here. The entire Williams family crashed in one of the rooms with double bunk beds upstairs. Gilbert and I more or less took shifts keeping watch, but we both blacked out midway through the night. Old soldiers. We can sleep anywhere I think. We woke up and instituted our makeshift defense plan.
After we got rid of the two bodies outside, we made a plan yesterday to stake out the bridge all day and that’s what we did. Chuck took my spare pump shotgun and Gilbert sat in his Buick just around the corner on Prospect so he could see anything coming our way. I set up another sniper position in the woods on a small rise and had full visibility at a hundred yards. Abby and Randy brought hot apple juice and coffee out to us all day to keep us warm. I had a shitty blanket on the ground below me, and another one on top of me, and with the hot juice and coffee, it wasn’t that bad. Kind of a mild day outside yesterday. Although it did start to snow right at dark. And I mean really fucking snow. Blizzard style bullshit.
Patty was a godsend to have in the Dorm. She was a fucking awful cook, but she gladly whipped up food for us all day, trying to keep us fed and warm. By the end of yesterday the whole family had their color coming back, and their cheeks were already filling out. Funny what getting a little food into you does for your demeanor and health. We kept it low key last night. I let Randy fire up the Playstation and the rest of us hung out chit chatting about all the stories of what happened “that day.” More on their stories in another entry.
Last night we took shifts again, but it was Charles and Patty instead of Gilbert and I. Gilbert said he’d camp out in his car as long as I gave him gas to keep it running and warm. I gladly gave him two of the five gallon cans. This morning we set out with the same plan. Gilbert wound up coming back to the campus for breakfast, which was more cereal made with dry milk. He seemed more than elated to mow down some raisin bran with the chalky milk. It’s nice to see so many people smile, especially after just getting done killing people. Sigh. Weird world.
So today we set out with the same plan. Charles and I hidden in the trees waiting for visitors, the kids keeping us in food and fluids, Patty running the Hall like a field general, and Gilbert out on Prospect as our rear guard if it got ugly. So much tension.
It didn’t get ugly though. It was colder today too, and it snowed like a bitch last night and most of today so it was fucking miserable. The hot drinks helped, but the wind was whipping up good, and it just sucked. We got about nine inches of snow overnight, and more during the day so moving around was a bastard. We camped out in our ambush positions until I couldn’t feel my hands anymore. I think we headed back right before the sun went down. We spent the evening here in Hall E eating a dinner Gilbert made for us. He asked to get back into the venison, and I was hungry, and it seemed fitting. We all dug into everything he made pretty hardcore. Most of the evening was us adults sitting around the table wringing our hands. We did it half for warmth, and half because we were all nervous, waiting for the assholes to come back in force.
Gilbert said he had a plan though, and he would look into it early in the morning. He thought they’d come early in the morning though, so we hit the rack ahead of schedule. Abby and Randy are taking watch downstairs with Chuck asleep on the couch. Gilbert went back to his place to work on his master plan. Right now I’m upstairs in my room with all my guns and the laptop. This is the first spare time I’ve gotten really. I ought to be asleep right now, but I’m stoked to finally get all this written down and off my chest.
What a clusterfuck.
I’m happy that people are here. They seem pretty cool too. Appreciative of me, and nice too. Abby’s cool, Patty seems a little anal retentive, but I guess she’s an accountant, and that’s part and parcel with that line of work. Chuck seems… frazzled. He seems really fucking smart though, but I think he’s been so strung out with worry for so long he needs time to get his head back together. He’s almost got that PTSD look and feel to him, so I need to keep an eye on him. I thought there’d be a power struggle between him and I, but honestly, I think he’s relieved to not make decisions. It’s a burden I’m sure he’s borne too long. The teenage brother Randy seems a little shell shocked. I can sense he’s rambunctious though, and teenage boys can be a lot of fun, and a lot of trouble. However, he seems reasonably cool (if a bit awkward and strange) so far, and that’s nice. As I said I like Abby. She was a cool student here before the world deep sixed, and nothing has changed. She’s calm, cool, and I think after some time around me here she’ll become an excellent decision maker.