Dark Recollections (18 page)

Low, loping run with the sword drawn. I crossed the distance pretty quickly, and didn’t draw attention. I checked the car through the driver’s window, and stayed low so a few other cars obscured me from the house and the zombies in front of it. I took the sword and using the handle, cracked my car’s driver side window. I stopped cold and waited, watching the zombies to see if they heard it, but apparently Lady Gaga fucking fascinates them. I really should do some kind of testing to see if they are attracted to different music. Might pass the time.

I popped the door lock and swung the car door open. Immediately Otis started meowing and purring desperately from the back seat. I got the chunk of turkey out of my pocket and tossed it into his carryall and grabbed the rifle, which was on the seat. I checked to make sure it was loaded, grabbed the spare clip for it, and snagged a box of 9mm and a box of .22 cal. I did another check around me, saw it was clear, and reloaded the spare clip for the Sig. Otis needed a safer place for the moment, so I hit the trunk release, picked his thing up and set him down in the back amongst all the stuff I’d grabbed earlier. Right on top of the crap in the trunk I saw the grocery bag that had the energy bars I got at the store the day prior and snagged a few of those as well. I clicked the trunk closed as quietly as I could.

Armed and dangerous right? When you learn how to kill people in the military one of the most important things is a good view of your battlefield. High vantage points give you a clearer view of targets, shows you avenues of approach, and gives you more time to make your shots. I knew with the .22 I had range across most of campus, but I needed a good spot to set up that was safe to shoot from, had a good view of what I was shooting at, and yet was still easy to escape from.

The tallest building on campus was the school house. Three floors. I immediately thought of Dr. Potter’s classroom across from Mrs. Goodell’s on the third floor. It was empty yesterday, was probably still empty, and had the fire escape should the room get assaulted and I was overwhelmed. Hopefully the way up to the classroom was more or less clear.

I was off. Otis was safe in the trunk, I had the rifle, my pistol, the spare clips for each, and hopefully enough ammo to last. That’s such a vague term right? Long enough to last for?.... The day? Enough to last until they were all dead? I dunno. I scampered across the campus towards the school house staying as low as I could, and made my way through the same glass doors I had the night earlier.

I shouldered the .22 and cleared the first floor again. I should point this out now so folks can visualize it better. The rifle I got off of Phil was a very fine weapon. It’s a Mossberg rifle called the Tactical .22
 
It looks an awful lot like the M4 rifle that’s standard issue to US troops. The clip is a lot smaller, just 10 rounds, but you get the idea. I felt good using it, it felt familiar.
 

The second floor was squeaky clean as well. There were a lot of blood smears on the stairs, and in the foot path where people would go up and down the stairs, but it was clear. I didn’t run into anything until I started up the stairs to the third floor. I saw Dale first, and didn’t hesitate. He was covered in blood, and his entire face was smeared red from gorging on someone. He was about six steps above me in the stairwell, and I leveled the iron sights on his forehead, and popped him once. The crack of the .22 was damn near deafening in the stairwell. The bullet hit him low, going in under the jaw. His head whipped back, then he tilted face first and tumbled full force down the steps. His head split open on the steps and I had to juke sideways to dodge his body.

Time was a factor now. I was making noise that could be heard over the music. I ascended the stairs as fast as I could while keeping the rifle aimed steadily at head level. As if on cue, students started rounded the corner at the top of the steps, coming right at me. I stayed calm, remembered my training. Fire, evaluate. Fire, evaluate.

I am a good shot.

I waded through the handful of zombie corpses and moved down the hallway towards Mrs. Goodell’s room again. Hall was clear, but I found one more zombie in her room. It was the girl who had been tied up with Dale the day before. She was clearly dead, but I still recognized her as Dale’s girlfriend. One of the new underclassman this year. Pretty, impressionable. She was struggling meekly against the bonds the teacher and kids had put her in. I can remember exactly the blank stare her whitish eyes gave me when we locked gazes. There was nothing there. Dead eyes. The moment someone dies and their life fades away, you can actually watch the life go. There’s no way to describe it really. A lot of veterans know what I’m talking about here. Not a fun look at all, and she had it.

I drew the sword and finished her. Couldn’t afford to waste any more of the .22 ammo. When I turned around I saw my shotgun on the floor under a desk, and my keys right next to it. I snagged them both and slipped into the hall. It was still clear so I let myself into Dr. Potter’s room, and shut the door behind me.
 

It was time to clean house.

Talk to you soon Mr. Journal.

-Adrian

November 8
^th

Hello and good day Mr. Journal. Today is a reasonably good day. I find myself feeling a little chilly, but my spirits are pretty good all things considered. I have decided to make another supplies run down to the gas station.
 
My fuel stores are doing well but I’ve consumed enough to warrant another trip. I also found a giant heavy duty plastic barrel which is rated to hold gasoline during one of my patrols of campus. It was stuck behind one of the athletics sheds down near the football field.

Ironically, this school did not have a football team. We didn’t have enough students to field a team. We did have a pretty good basketball and soccer team though. Our girl’s athletics was excellent as well. It was one of the reasons why we drew so many female students here. Great prep school for college sports.

So anyway I got the barrel back to the center of campus and I’ve got it cleaned out. The maintenance area had one of the rotary style oil pumps that fit on top of it so when I fill it, I can crank out as much fuel as needed. Sad thing is that once filled, I will not be able to move the damn thing. I’ll have to fill it one batch of gas cans at a time. I think I will siphon off all the fuel in the cars around campus into it first. It’s a 55 gallon barrel, and I figure I can completely fill it with just the fuel tanks in the cars.
 

Now I once had a mechanic tell me gas taken out of a car’s fuel tank was dirty and unusable. I don’t know enough about fuel or cars to know if that’s true or not, but I’m going to filter the fuel before I put it in the big barrel. Fyi the barrel is blue, so I’ve taken to calling it “my boy Blue.” Heh. I’ll start the siphoning and filtration tomorrow, and once I have a better idea of when I need to hit the gas station I’ll get a plan together. I also need to look into getting that wood stove asap to more adequately solve the heating issue.

So much to do. I guess that’s another reason to try and gather some other people up here. They could be doing some of this shit too. The case continues to build for looking out to find others. No decisions yet though. I’ve got it pretty good and I want to make damn sure I don’t fuck myself over.

Otis is well. I think he’s enjoying this thoroughly. He gets to crawl up into my ass to stay warm at night, there is a steady procession of mice to for him to play with while I’m busy, and he gets my undivided attention. He’d always get jealous when Cassie and I were affectionate. Man I miss her. I dream about her a lot. I can’t remember most of the specifics in the dreams, I just remember she was in them, and that they were good dreams. Sigh. More guilt. Time may heal all wounds, but this guilt may kill me first. It’s a slow bleed.

But today is not a day to vent. I have my emotions under control for a change, and I’m feeling like recanting some history. I need to speed this up too, as the longer and longer I wait to document everything that’s happened to me, the harder it is for me to remember what the hell has happened. On good nights when I write in here it all comes back in a flood. On the senility nights I sit here wondering what the hell I did in certain situations. I backtrack and change things when I get them out of order all the time. Good thing I have nothing but time to edit my own stories right? Forgive me Mr. Journal, I am far from perfect.

Day after “that day.” According to where I left off in the last journal entry I had just reached the top floor of the main school building, and had shut myself into Dr. Potter’s classroom. It smelled funny in there, that much I recall pretty easily. There was a musty odor of sweat and old books that was just kind of gross. Dr. Potter was our English department head, as well as the instructor for Mythology, Greek history, and all that jazz. He had a ton of old books on shelves in there. All the classics.

The room was still clear, as was his staff closet in the corner. That turned out to be a goldmine as well. Dr. Potter was…. a fairly round person, and that’s being generous. He had a thing for snacking and his closet was full of cups of soup, fruit bars, granola bars, and bottled water. If anything, I was thankful for that.
 

Dr. Potter’s desk was a heavy oak number, and I pushed it against the door the longer way so the length of the desk stuck out into the room. More effort required to move it inwards that way should the door get collapsed in. I needed a good sniping position. That classroom is a corner room, and it had a great view of the portion of campus that admissions was. Out one side it could clearly see Hall A as well as one of the school office houses. The windows on the other side of the room had visibility to the lake, and could see two maintenance buildings. The small brick industrial buildings where I got the ladder the prior night from in fact.

I pushed the desks out of the way and left one desk, and one chair cornered and set back about 5 feet from the window. One of the cardinal laws of sniping is you never let the barrel show. Always recess yourself into your hide so there is no glare, and no muzzle flash visible. Zombies didn’t strike me as being able to look for either of those intelligently, but setting myself back put me mostly out of sight, which was useful. I pulled another desk over and set up my ammo, and spare clips so I could quickly reload, which I also did right then. I had 10 shots, then a clip change, then 10 shots, then reload both. I wouldn’t touch the Sig until I was desperate.

Right then was when I realized that I was missing something. Phil (my man at Moore’s Sporting Goods that hooked me up with my guns and ammo) had sold me TWO spare clips for both of these guns. I currently only had one spare clip. I remember laughing at myself because sitting in a plastic bag somewhere in my car were the two extra clips that I flat out forgot to load in my hurries earlier that day and the day before. Sad… just sad. Oh well, at least I had one spare clip.

So I set myself up in the chair, leaning over the first desk as a stand, wished I had bought a scope for the .22, and started shooting zombies. Sniping is both an intensely personal act, and at the same time, one of complete remoteness. I am not near my targets, but because I aim so intently to kill, and I observe the target prior to, and after the shot, it is very intense. This wasn’t. I think my emotions had just switched off by that point that day. I was exhausted, tired, and frankly sort of thrilled to have the upper hand finally. I put the front sights on the head of the first zombie, lined up the rear sights, exhaled slowly, and gently squeezed the trigger. I did this slowly and methodically for some time. Within a few minutes I had shot all of the zombies outside admissions easily. It was only perhaps 75 yards, which isn’t a tough shot in calm winds. Only a few misses, and only a few penetration failures.

While I was reloading, I saw perhaps another dozen zombies moving about in the general campus area by looking out other windows. I remember seeing quite a few zombies banging on the back door of the staff office house, which raised my suspicion that there were still people alive in there. I didn’t see anyone in there over the night, but that didn’t mean anything. I resolved to check that building first.

Once I had killed every visible zombie outside on the campus, I was in a bit of a pickle. Inside admissions there was a solid 20 to 30 zombies if not more still trying desperately to get into the office where the Lady Gaga CD was blaring. I could still hear it faintly all the way in the classroom. I couldn’t get them to leave, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to go down there and start shooting them up close.
 

I had plenty of daylight to work with, was solidly holed up, had food and water, and when I checked the hall, there were no zombies coming at the door. My immediate hope was that when the CD ended, the zombies would shuffle back outside, giving me more clear shots. It had been about 45 minutes anyway, so I would know shortly. I gobbled down a granola bar and just a few minutes later heard Gaga go silent. I waited in the shooter’s pose, leaning over the desk for several minutes more before they started coming out the door. I got so excited I missed my first few shots down at them.
 

So the pros of the situation I already listed. The cons were a short list, but they were motherfuckers. Now that Gaga was done doing her thing, they could clearly hear me. Even if they couldn’t see me they were coming towards me. I remember hoping the glass doors downstairs would hold up if I couldn’t shoot them all in time.

As I said before though, I am good shot. And, despite being moving targets, they are not elusive targets. In sniping talk you are never “outnumbered.” Instead we used to call that a “target-rich environment.” I calmed myself down, and started aiming and shooting like a professional.

I had to stop though when I saw the woman from the night prior. MILFy. She looked really ragged in the daylight. I’m not talking beer-goggles here, I mean the nerdy zombie that killed her the night before had done some work on her. Her face was all bitten up, her nose mostly gone, and some of her hair had been ripped out, leaving huge swathes of bloody scalp showing. I think she’d been bitten a bunch on her arms and legs too, as she was just covered in blood. I think I apologized to her, and then I put one through the hole in her nose. She crumpled down to the ground, and I moved on to the zombie behind her.