Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) (5 page)

There are so many variables that go into shooting long distances. Wind at the barrel, wind halfway there, wind at the target… Then there’s the heat of the barrel itself, because a cold barrel fires differently than a hot barrel. Let’s not forget estimating the range accurately, the relative elevation of the target to you, as well as little things like the actual rotation of the earth. Because if you didn’t know Mr. Journal, when you fire a bullet a really long distance, the earth is still rotating during the bullet’s flight, and when the bullet gets to where you wanted it to go, they might have moved. BECAUSE THE EARTH MOVED UNDER THE BULLET.

Crazy shit huh?

I don’t pretend to be a sniper. Actually, I have talked some shit like I was a serious sniper, even though I'm not. (My apologies for talking shit.) That’s Ethan’s job, and he is motherfucking good at it. Watching him on the roof and balcony working his rifle the past few days has been a real eye opener. I’m a good shot. Shit, I’m a great natural shot, but he is a professional with natural skill to boot, and training out the fucking ass. He can get the dope on a shot in seconds, adjust, fire accurately, and move to the next target without even thinking. He can easily kill someone from a thousand meters away if he wanted to. Easily. And the sonofabitch keeps a shot log for every shot he takes. It's a little green notebook with all the information relevant to the shot. He's detail oriented in a murderous way.

I am so frigging glad he is on my side.

We arrived very early at MGR yesterday driving a humvee. We managed to fit the small cabin stove into the back hatch, as well as the chimney pipes. It felt a little strange going anywhere in a single vehicle group, but the roads were pretty safe, and with the camera feeds we can actually see a LOT of the trip before we even make it now. I’d say maybe 40% of the way to downtown is visible on cameras for us.

We arrived and found the area around the base of the tower largely empty of undead which was a pleasant surprise. We fully expected a prolonged pain in the ass engagement to clear (see: Jinx fairy), but there was only two or three and we were able to smash their heads in safely. I put the last one down myself, which was a nice confidence booster. The folks at MGR helped us get the stove inside and up the stairs to the top floor where it sits waiting for Martin and Blake to make sweet, sexy love to it. The two of them are coming tomorrow morning to install the stove somewhere, and when they are done, we’ll road trip back to Bastion with them. Incidentally, it is cold as a bastard in this building at night. Well hell, it’s cold during the day too. The people who live here were not exaggerating at all. There just isn’t enough heat to keep all the spaces they’re using warm. They need this stove, and at least one more and I think that's the barest of kindnesses we can offer them. Of course that raises the issue of stocking them with frigging wood too… Sigh.

That statement about going home with Martin and Blake should tell you we are largely done here with the thinning of the undead herd. Ethan and I immediately got to work yesterday on the shooting once we went over emergency planning with the folks here. Essentially we were going to start firing on distant undead, and as they approached, continue to engage them until we’d shot everything wandering our way.
 

I brought the Savage and a hundred rounds of .30-06 as well as my M4A1 and a full combat load. Ethan brought his issued M24 and about a hundred rounds for that, as well as his own M4A1 and a full combat load. The rest of the crew here had their guns and such, so if things were to get out of hand we’d be able to hold our own for some time until the QRF from Bastion arrived. It felt good to be so over prepared for a fight.

It was cold as fuck yesterday. Blustery winds made being on the top of a five story building much worse and did not help our situation at all. Not only were our fingers and toes miserable, but gauging the wind while it was moving was a bitch. My face was freezing off as well. Luckily as the day went on the wind calmed down, and we only wasted a total of maybe fifteen rounds on windage issues. I’ll go on record and say at least ten of those misses were mine. Ethan’s a far better shot, as I’ve already said.

Ethan saw my first rounds go downrange to no effect. I was shooting at about 500 meters or so, and with the wind it just wasn’t happening. He stopped firing, and started spotting for me until I got back into the swing of things. The info on a shot is called dope. The wind, the range, the elevation, all that. It’s called dope. I never really used the phrase but working with a guy that graduated sniper school he said it a lot, and now it’s in my head like the lyrics to some catchy pop song. Anyway, he kept feeding me the dope and within three or four rounds I was firing accurately, and blowing skulls up at the range I was aiming for. The whole time Ethan kept writing in that incredibly detailed log about every shot he took, and most of mine as well. He noted ranges based on physical details, swirls of wind, cloud cover, target descriptions, you name it. So much information is in that little green notebook.

I’ll go on record and say that shooting like this was a very cathartic event. I’ve been scared and worried I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger when I had to, and being in such a safe place, shooting at such distant targets, with a confident and incredibly skilled buddy right beside me really helped me settle back in. It was like a video game, and with someone else right there, it was awesome support. He’s a funny guy, that Ethan. Originally from Colorado.

We talked about his family (1 sister, Heather, older), and how he enlisted to get out of the small town he was in. He always wanted to work in or around planes, and when he took his ASVAB and enlisted, the recruiter asked him if he wanted to be a hero instead.

Well fuck right? What red blooded 18 year old American says no to that? Our culture revolves around hero worship. Basic training completed, he rolled straight into the Pararescue qualification course. He said it was hard, but worth it. He planned on returning to Denver most likely after his next enlistment to work at a hospital. With his medical training (18D, if that means anything to you), he’s basically a fully qualified physician’s assistant, with a huge edge in trauma medicine. The fucking guy has done amputations in the field, as well as tracheotomy's under fire, extreme damage stabilization, and more shit in Latin that I didn't even understand.

Broken eggs and spilled milk now though. He said at some point he’d like to try and make it back to his hometown eventually to see if his family is still alive, but we both knew that was a bit of a pipe dream. The fuel required for that trip would be epic, and let’s not even go into how dangerous it would be to drive that frigging far. I can’t even imagine trying to navigate the drive from here to say, DC, or Chicago, let alone fucking Denver.

So he has questions unanswered, as we all do. I hope he and the rest of the guys aren’t tormented by their questions like I am by mine.

Anyway, sitting up there on the roof and then later the balconies with him was nice. I hadn’t gotten a lot of time with Ethan, and I definitely hadn’t properly thanked the man for helping remove the bullet from my neck. He and Roger did the surgery, and if it weren’t for them, more than likely I’d be dead or at the very least still in a coma.

Ethan said it was, “No bother brother,” and that I should, “Do what Michelle and Kevin think you’re here for.”

Yeah, no pressure there. Those two think I’m the savior of the world. I’m barely keeping my own shit in check and I’m supposed to be the guy that fixes the joint to boot? It makes me uncomfortable when people say these things. I don’t even like thinking about it, and when it’s brought to my attention that others know that I’m supposedly this super important person, and that so much rides on me, it puts this giant magnifying glass over my head. I feel super critical about myself already, I don’t need the scrutiny of others too.

Bitch bitch bitch right?

I’m just another turd circling the drain, waiting for the cosmic toe to push me down.

I digress. Our shooting started fairly slow, taking down the small gathering of walkers off in the distance. Within ten minutes of our first shots, more walkers were coming in from all directions, on all surface streets. I’d say we had two or three coming towards us consistently for about four hours before it turned into a trickle. We stayed set up on the south facing of the building for an hour, then switched to the east, and so on until we’d taken out pretty much everything we saw.
 

I’d forgotten what a high caliber round does to the head of a person. Explosive is a good word. There’s just tattered head bits, and pick or grey flesh spatters left when the round impacts. The bodies keep moving forward for a small moment too, like they don’t quite realize their head is gone. Then the body goes down like a sack of bricks, completely dead. It’s horrifying, and satisfying at the same time.

Of course a few of the zombies had gotten to the base of the tower, and we had to take them out with our M4s. Luckily leaning over a balcony edge with the AimPoint sight made head shots remarkably easy. Ethan grabbed my belt and I would lean over. We’re fortunate zombies don’t move much, and when they do, it’s painfully slow and easy to adjust to.

Ethan’s little green log at the end of the day today said we’d put down 76 walkers. That’s good stuff. Not as many as I’d hoped, but that’s still a really large number of dead off the streets. I’m not sure what we’re going to do about the bodies. Most of them are far enough away from the building that they aren’t a health concern, and with the cold weather here, the bodies should freeze and hopefully rot by spring. I suppose the humane thing would be to bring them back to campus to burn, or try and bury them in a park nearby. I’ll think on it.

Staggering thought of the day: how long would it take for all the survivors in the world right now to bury or burn the bodies of all the dead?

Oh. Yeah. I almost forgot the biggest thing of them all. Last night as well as tonight just as the sun started to set, Ethan and I both noticed tiny pillars of smoke curling up into the sky in the distance. Maybe three or four miles out, possibly less. I counted four fires in four different, distinct locations, and Ethan the same.
 

It seems unlikely that there would be four random small fires in four random places all popping up at about the exact same time. If it were house fires, they’d be raging infernos, enveloping entire structures. These were small, controlled fires, barely putting smoke in the sky. If it weren’t for our good eyes, we might have even missed them.

More survivors.

I wonder if they’re the friendly kind of people? I’m starting to think getting my confidence back is a real priority. I might need to be on point in short order, and I can’t risk making a mistake that will cost anyone their life.

Tomorrow, Blake and Martin make love to the stove. Should be a good time for the stove.

-Adrian

January 8
^th

When Blake, Martin and crew arrived at MGR the other day we were in trouble. Our shooting spree the previous couple of days had drawn in a fair amount of undead over the night, and when we woke up, we were greeted by radio traffic from Bastion letting us know we had a long morning ahead of us.

Abby said that she saw something along the lines of 30 undead move into the vicinity of the tower over the night. She didn’t bother to wake us because shooting at night would’ve been more difficult (but not impossible, thank you night vision optics courtesy of the United States Air Force and USSOCOM). Instead, we were woken up at the ass crack of dawn with her telling me they were sending a small crew with Blake and Martin to assist us in clearing the entrance.

Ethan and I saw that as a challenge. We didn’t need anyone’s help. Granted, arrogant and stupid as fuck on our part, but realizing that I had the balls to step up and drop the hammer on short notice gave me a hard-on that lasted an hour. Nice to feel like I have balls again.

Ethan and I kitted up as fast as we could after hearing the radio transmission from Bastion. It was just like the days back in Iraq with Kevin when he and I were part of a QRF force. You get the call, and you get your shit and move immediately. No time to “get ready” if you get my drift.

Ethan and I went to the second floor balcony that overlooked the door that Martin built. We used that spot to set up a shooting position to thin out the crowd of undead that had gathered there. Ethan did a quick count and said we had forty one to drop.

Easy peasy.

Because we were only maybe twenty feet from the heads of the dead folks we were shooting at I went with the M4A1 on semi, with the suppressor attached. The AimPoint sight is perfect for short range fast shooting, and I was happy to see that the rifle performed excellently. If you’ve never shot with an AimPoint, it’s a clear round sight that projects a small holographic red dot in space where the bullet will go. They’re fantastic for firing accurately, and quickly. You lift the weapon, shoulder it, and as soon as you see the red dot inside the square on your target, you fire. It also cuts down on the pesky projected laser dot that the old beam style sights made.

When I started to shoot I actually asked Ethan to give me the floor for a bit so I could get some rounds out of my gun to get it broken in. He said that was fine, and I went to town.

I took the time to line up my first few shots very carefully. I picked zombies that were extra sedentary, and put that red dot right on their face, or forehead, or even the top of their head and took the proper deep breath and slow finger squeeze. No trigger slapping thank you very much.

The first few rounds popped skulls like I’d hoped. I intentionally started firing deep into the crowd to avoid us making large piles of dead bodies to push out of the way. The bodies crumpled to the ground one after the other. I’ve said this before, but the nice thing about having the first few bodies drop, is the other undead start to trip over them. They are too stupid to look down and adjust where they are stepping to stay upright. You should watch the fuckers navigate a set of steps. Hilarious shit.