Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (24 page)

The couple were tall as I said, and both blonde. They looked Nordic. Swedish or Norwegian or something. Hawkish facial features, long arms and legs, and very clean. They looked like they’d managed to get all this way after the end of the world without missing a single shower. Pretty folk, especially considering the state of the world. Both of them had a blade and a pistol on their belts. They had slate-like faces until they got to about forty yards away from the gate. Once they saw the humvee, the deuce, and the military issue hardware all over us, their expressions changed immediately. They had confidence before, but after that moment, you could feel their unease. I knew immediately that these people were used to being safe, and having the upper hand. Now they looked like they felt the opposite might be the case with us. Some folks are easy to read.

Kevin had his throat mic turned to on, and we could kind of hear them, but the sound was utter garbage. The man spoke first. He introduced himself as Anders, and the woman as Agnes. They politely explained that the Spring Meadow area was their area, under their control, and they were unable to share any of their dwindling supplies, and that they had ample ability to protect themselves should we object with them. They were polite, but insistent. Kevin tried to talk to them in circles, similarly to how we'd talk to English speaking locals in Iraq, asking them the same questions over and over again in different ways to see if we'd get a different answer. I felt like he was losing them though. After about that I had enough and walked up to talk with the two of them myself. Ethan shat an acorn on the spot and thumbed his safety to off. If either of their shooters in the houses did anything funny, they’d be dead.

I introduced myself as Adrian. I watched their eyes judge me. They saw the Mohawk and instantly thought less of me. I feel very… Road Warrior-esque when I meet people. They don’t see the fun and humor in having a Mohawk. They take it sheerly on face value. They only think “likely violent and or flesh eating moron who is immature.” I might need to rethink this haircut if we keep meeting people.

I told them plain and simple that we were from a settlement outside of the city, and we were making runs for supplies into the city, and we saw their community, and thought it would be absolutely perfect as a secondary place to reinforce and stage from. Walled, gated, large houses that were well spaced, and lots of lawn and garden areas that could grow a lot of food. I essentially framed my talk about how it was awesome that they had already secured the place, how happy we were for them, and how much of a shame it was for us that they were already there.
 

Agnes and Anders both agreed with me on all counts, and were civil and pleasant. After asking a few questions about us and our and various locations, they became far more comfortable, and started to ask us about how we able to go into the city. I told them we had military men on our side, and fuel still, as well as ammunition and whatnot. Without sounding threatening, I made it clear that we were armed, able, and willing to do whatever it was that needed to be done to stay alive, and help others around us stay alive. I exuded confidence, and competence. I tried to avoid seeming arrogant.

That’s when they opened the gate, and invited us in. Three of us went inside and headed for the first house to get out of the street. Just about at the same time a few undead had managed to catch up with us, and they needed to be dispatched by one of us with a halligan. It made a lot of sense for us to all move inside the gate, I asked them if that was okay, and they agreed, so we did.

Inside the first neighborhood house Kevin and I sat down with the two who’d met us, as well as a few others. Three more adults all armed with side arms, though not holstered, as well as two younger teenagers. They looked hungry, and a little cold, but they also looked hardened. Like survivors. Like people who’d been through it and were still kicking. I had respect for these people right from the jump.

From what I gathered, there are four families left in the neighborhood. Agnes and Anders are the Jessen family. They have two kids, a 13 year old boy, and a 14 year old girl. Other families include the Winthrops (mom and dad plus two kids and an uncle), the Cartwrights (mom and dad plus two kids), the Whites (mom plus two kids), and the Littrell family (mom and dad plus four teenage kids). That’s a grand total headcount of 22 souls. Most of which are less than 18 years of age.

Luckily, the youngest of the kids is just 10, so even the littlest of them is still somewhat productive.

An hour turned into two, two turned into four, and before you know it, they’re sharing some of their small amounts of freshly made beer with us, and we’re sharing some of our fresh food with them. It was really pleasant. We had brought enough food for days with us, so as a gesture, we gave them lunch out of our stocks. We ate chicken salad made with Melissa’s new homemade mayo, and some potato salad, also made with the mayo. These people absolutely, positively devoured our food. I don’t want to say they were starving, but I think they hadn’t had chicken in a very long time.
 

After the food and the subsequent stomach aches from eating all that food, we asked them about their situation. The four families still here have been here since that day. They happened to be home that day for whatever reason, so they didn’t get caught up in the bullshit in the city. They also managed to miss the large scale bombings late in the summer of 2010. (Which apparently were enormous and loud. From the sounds of it, there were several runs late in the summer on the city, and based on their descriptions of the noise of the bombs, it was probably a huge drop of cluster munitions. They’re pretty unique when they go off.)

Anyhoo, they knew shit was bad, so they got some chains from their sheds, chained the gates shut early on, parked their Escalades and Expeditions against the gate to prevent ramming, and hunkered down. Lucky for them many of the nice homes in the community already had large organic hobby gardens in the back. They had a ripe harvest that first fall, and with careful rationing, they made it through to last spring. They expanded their gardens over the year, and now they’re essentially vegetarians, and self sufficient. Miraculously, they have been able to save rainwater and snow for hydration up to this point. Of course it’s been really dry the last week or two, so they’re starting to redline a bit.

I wonder how you make a pond?

They have had to fend off several groups over the last year and a half. Many more than us, but with such an excellent wall and gate, as well as multiple firearms they’ve managed to do well for themselves.
 

They were still jealous of our chicken, and I think that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for them. As we were winding down into the early evening they made the offer for us to stay in the house inside the community to talk more with them. They needed some technical help fixing things the next day, and we didn’t want to drive back in the dark unless necessary, and frankly, having the bulk of today to spread our people out and bullshit with them was super helpful in coming to the agreement we just came to with them.

They want to join our “network of friends.”

Essentially they wish to become like the Factory is to Bastion. A linked but separate settlement that can offer assistance both ways when needed. An affiliate I think is a good word. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. Plus, they’ve got a solid ten or twelve acres of land that we could easily transform into farmland for them when winter is over. God forbid we have more crops growing, right?

We told them we were preparing to mount a large mission into the city within a week or two, and that we’d love be able to use Spring Meadows as a launching point to help us with timing the operation. We didn’t say what the mission was for, but they were more than willing to assist us. A chicken leg helped seal that deal, I shit you not.

We’re still here tonight, socializing and whatnot. These are nice people. People that had money before the end of the world, but people that worked for it. New money people. Workers. Self made. Not trust fund assholes. They’re still here because they busted ass, and made good decisions that day and every day since.

It’ll be a pleasure slowly bringing them into our fold. If tomorrow goes well, we’ll leave them with one of our walkies. Not our military comms, but just a walkie. We can’t quite reach Bastion from here, but we can contact the Factory, and the Factory can contact us at Bastion. Better than nothing, and it’ll give them some much needed reassurance.

They aren’t alone anymore.

Yesterday while we were moving here a second team of our people moved into the western edge of the city to the parking garages to scout them. Contact was very heavy, and they were forced to stop and engage over a hundred targets on the way in and out. Fortunately they brought a SAW in the turret, and that was the ultimate equalizer. I’m not too happy about the timing on the noise, but I can’t complain. A hundred dead bodies is the idea here.

Mike and Patty (who were in charge of that run with Blake and Quan) said the garage is perfect for the idea we have. It’s only four floors, which means easy in and out for us, but also enough floors to cause some serious fucking damage when that Semtex goes boom. Quan said it’d take him maybe six hours to get the loads in, and he might be able to shave that time down with some assistance on drilling, and some really specialized prep ahead of time.
 

We return home tomorrow.

-Adrian

February 22
^nd

Is this a fucking leap year?

Hm.

I’m sitting here looking at my ghetto style homemade calendar, and I’m pretty sure it might be a leap year this year. Not that it’ll be the end of the world if I fuck it up, but I want to be a proper scribe, or Scribe, if you prefer. I think in the admissions office I can check and see. I don’t trust the calendar on the laptop here. I’m not sure if it updates without the internet properly. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Where was I? Where were we?

Scatter brained tonight something fierce. Otis has been up in my ass like a bike seat all damn evening since I settled in my room. He’s smashing his face into me, and rubbing his little wet nose all over the place. Plus he’s been tossing around this little catnip mouse one of the kids got for him like he’s sky high on Walter White's blue meth or something. Miss my buddy. Seems like he misses me too.

Here’s the good news for the day: Nothing bad is happening here at Bastion. Nothing. Like, nada. Becca, Ollie and Ryan are making serious headway into our food situation on two separate fronts. Ollie has managed to get one of the cows pregnant, which is HUGE. Not sure exactly how pregnant the cow is, but if he can get two more knocked up in a jiffy, we’re going to be buried in milk and meat. Gotta increase our livestock!

Ryan and Becca have managed to get four hydroponics stations fully built with Blake's undivided attention and assistance. He’s fully rehabilitated finally from the sickness that nearly killed a dozen of us (and led to the deaths of more), and he’s being super productive. Each hydro station is about the size of a large freezer, and a half. You know the kind you’d find in a basement? The hydro stations don’t require electricity, operating solely on gravity feed, and they seem awesome. They are quadruple tiered, with tubing linked from level to level in places so they only need to be hydrated in a few different ways, and it's efficient enough that a single person can do it in half the time. He’s got them seeded already, and he’s already working on building more. My sister Becca has split off and is tending the hydro units already up and running, and there’s been no drop off in food production. She’s also organizing planting cycles on this crazy spreadsheet so we’ll have stuff coming into season year round. She’s so organized. Proof that a college education is good for something. I don't think she had this in mind when she started out, but if you're given lemons, squeeze them in the eyes of your enemies, and run as fast as you can away.

School is going well. Syl is really starting to come out of her shell. She’s managed to join the school two days a week, and is working with Blake’s wife Kim one on one. She’s also talking, and is now able to converse more or less as normal, as long as we don’t bring up her past, or her parents. She shuts right the fuck down if we do. If we keep the conversation in the moment, or focused on an acceptable subject, she's fine. Michelle couldn’t be happier. The other kids and the adults surrounding her have taken her in and made her feel welcomed and wanted, and that’s done a lot for her. The amount of compassion that child is receiving is stellar. It’s important that we all learn to be nice to everyone. If anything, she’s teaching us that.

Here’s the bad news of the day: Both the Factory as well as Spring Meadows have been receiving what they classify as “above average” contact from the undead. I think this has very mundane reasons behind it. Both areas have seen additional foot and vehicle traffic the past few days, and we have been making quite a racket as well. We went into the city from the Factory the other day, and we spent several days making noise at Meadows as well. Perfectly legit reasons for increased contact. Both areas are reporting that the contact is manageable with melee weapons, but the higher presence was alarming enough to report to us.
 

All things considered, I believe we are in the calm before the storm. I think because we are heading into the city tomorrow to set up the first parking garage as our major lure site, we are getting a basic reprieve here. It’s my firm belief that we’re going to be absolutely, positively SMASHING shit down the drain tomorrow, and this is the powers-that-be giving us a few days of easy street to get us rested, or to let us get all nerved up so we fuck up royally.

As I just said, we’re leaving bright and early, crack of dawn style tomorrow to roll into the city edge to the parking garage that was scouted the other day. We have an insertion plan and everything. Should be pretty slick if we don’t encounter a mountain of undead there, or living folks with guns that want us gone. If we do, that’s not even the worst thing that could happen. I mean that’d be a distraction, and we’re all about distractions right now.