The Failed Coward (23 page)

“Uh, hey, hi! I’m uh, sorry! I’m Blake.”

Much better. I hollered back, “I’m Adrian. Nice to meet you sir!” I saw him smile through the scope in a really odd way. Almost… manic. Not in a scary way, but like a happy way. I think he started to hitch his breath, like he was about to cry. I guess it’s possible he had asthma too. I think he had been alone a very long time.

“Yeah it’s nice to meet you too! Were you the people shooting here yesterday and the day before? I heard you from my hiding spot and came over to see what happened! I haven’t heard guns in a long time!” He looked behind him again. Good survival instincts. Always checking his periphery.

“Yeah that was us. We are clearing houses of the dead, and collecting supplies and stuff.” I hollered back.

“Wow, wait, we? There’s more than one of you? How many people are you?” He looked ecstatic, but also worried at the same time. 

I played the honesty card. “Seven of us. We live on the outskirts of town in a secure facility. We’re making the town as safe as we can now that spring is coming.”

Again, the look on his face was one of excitement and fear. He looked like he had no idea how to react to that news. Enthusiastic confusion.

I radioed Gilbert. I told him this Blake guy’s description, and that I felt he was alone, and I was gonna try and take it to the next level. Gilbert said he had my back, and do this smart. Right before I stood up, I hot keyed the radio so everyone could hear our conversation.

“Blake, we’ve got a truck nearby, you mind if we drive it to the cul de sac here? I hate to have our people split up for too long.”

Petrified. “You guys have a working truck still? How are you getting fuel? Most of the gas in town is total shit already.”

Interesting eh? I wonder what the exact shelf life of gasoline is? Diesel for that matter? I wonder if all those barrels of fuel we just brought back to campus were worth a piss hole in the snow. “You having trouble with the gas in town Blake?”

“Yeah, it’s all gummed up and has water in it. You need to filter it a bunch to get it to work right again, and there’s no safe place to do that here in town. Not since that massive explosion in the industrial park.”

Apparently news had traveled fast about that. I bet it made a fucking mushroom cloud when it went down.

“You okay with us bringing up the truck?” I hollered again.

“Hell yeah!” He looked excited about the truck. Genuinely so.

I radioed to Gilbert to pull the truck up near the street, and as soon as he did, I stood up, and tried the same slow wave. Blake matched my wave with one of his own, and I slowly walked towards him as Gilbert powered down the window of the truck and readied his AK for fire if it needed to happen. That’s an assumption. I couldn’t actually SEE Gilbert doing that, but I was betting my life on the fact that he was. After awhile, you just KNOW some folks have your back.

Blake and I met in the middle of the street. We stopped about 10 feet apart and hung our weapons low. If something went bad, we could raise them in a hurry, but we weren’t threatening each other. I kept a smile on my face the walk up to him, and as we exchanged hellos. Here is the basic gist of what was said:

“Hi, I’m Adrian. Nice to meet you.”

“You’re all wet man. You fall in the snow?” He pointed his nose at the giant wet spot I had from neck to knees where I face planted in the slush. About then I caught a whiff of his body odor. He smelled sour and funky. He probably hadn’t had a real shower or bath in who knows how long.

“Yeah we hit the deck when we heard you shooting. Didn’t think you were shooting at us, but we couldn’t risk it. Some folks are bad shots.” I smiled again at him.

He nodded. “Yeah some folks are. I watched quite a few try and shoot the dead people and miss a lot. Waste of ammo.”

“Well, shooting can be nerve wracking, and I’m sure there are a lot of folks using guns lately that have no business doing so. Looks like you’ve got some time with your weapon. What’re you carrying?”

He lifted his rifle out to the side and immediately the pit of my stomach dropped. He had an Enfield .303, almost exactly the same as the one I’d gotten out of Walt’s place. “I’ve got my uncle’s Enfield. It’s a beast, but it’s accurate as all hell and I’ve been shooting it for years now. Running low on ammo though. Tough being alone out here.” Blake looked at his rifle lovingly. I could see he had a history with it just based on his eyes.

I thought it was odd that he had the same gun as the one we’d just found. I thought it was odd he was almost out of ammo, and we’d just found some. I thought it was odd that Gilbert’s truck died just far enough away that we weren’t threatened by him, but could still hear him. I thought it was odd that had it not died this morning, we’d have driven right up on him. I thought it was odd that of all of us, just Gilbert and I were the first to meet him.

We might’ve been shot, shot him, or gotten him bitten if we scared him.

Mysterious ways. 

Jus' saying.

“You’ve been alone all this time?” I was sincerely concerned. The more I observed him up close, the younger he appeared. With the gaunt features and long, scraggly hair, I initially placed him at 30, or even 35, but the more I watched, the more I thought he was 25 or so.

“Yeah.” He looked down at the ground and shuffled his feet. He wasn’t embarrassed, like Gavin was when he talked to Patty and I. Blake was… I dunno. Almost regretful. Guilty. 

I identified.

“Wow. How old are you man? 25?” I cradled the M4 as we settled into the conversation.

“I’m 23. Been alone for awhile. My parent died when I was 17, and I lived with my uncle for a year, but he died too. I used to live in his trailer over in Douglas Park off Route 18. I stay on the move now though. Can’t fortify anything. Takes too long, and makes too much noise.” He put his chin up slightly when he said all that. He was proud he made it this far. Proud that he was a survivor. Rightfully so in my book. 

“That’s smart. We’re pretty remote, and we’ve taken down all the undead nearby. We can make a fair amount of noise now so there’s no worry about that. Where are you living now?”

He frowned. “I’d rather not say. I don’t know you.”

I smirked. “That’s also smart.”

Awkward silence.

“So we had planned on taking the stuff out of that beige cape right there today. It was the last house on this street for us to empty of stuff. Do you need anything? You’re welcome to anything inside.” I gestured at the house as I talked about it.

Blake turned and looked at it. He started to say something then hesitated. Finally he said, “is there food? All I need is food and ammunition.” He looked back vaguely hopeful.

“I’m sure there’s some food in there. You want to go ahead in and check it out yourself? Take whatever you need and check in with us after?” I shrugged at him. I wanted to show him we were generous. Peaceful. Altruistic even.

He turned and looked at the place again, thought about it, and took a few steps directly at the house without saying anything. I started to turn away to walk back to the truck, but I stopped when I heard him stop walking.

“Adrian?” He asked.

“Yeah Blake?” I stopped, half facing him.

“You don’t mind? You guys did all the work inside to make it safe right? I feel like I’m stealing if I just walk in and take stuff. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

I waited and thought good and plenty about how to answer that, then came up with this; “Blake we have food. We have water, we have soap, and we have guns and ammo. Judging by your general disheveled appearance, your rail thin body, and your stink, you need whatever is in there a lot more than us today. I’d rather you ate, and we made friends. I’m sure you can think of something you can do for us later to square it away.”

Blake lit up when I said the part about how he could do something for us. I don’t think he’s been in a position to do anything for anyone else in a long time, and the thought of being useful to someone definitely appealed to him. He nodded with a slow smile, and trudged off in the thin layer of melting snow.

I listened to the sound of his boots crunching in the slush as I made my way to Gilbert. I killed the hotkey on the walkie and climbed up the gas tank to get to the window of the HRT where he sat. Gilbert nodded slowly, and told me that was, “well played.”

We went over what to do next, and we both agreed that this kid was shaky. Unsocialized in a big, bad way, and he needed to be brought in slow. We went over a few different conversational tactics for when he came out, and just as we wrapped up our last idea, he came walking out of the house. His beat up black backpack was noticeably fuller than when he’d gone in.

I hopped off the gas tank and hot keyed the walkie again. We met at almost the exact same spot in the middle of the street. He had a look on his face of almost joy. Nearly glee I’d say. He started talking at me before I reached him, and I waved for him to stop. When I got closer, he started again.

“Wow man they had a lot of food in there. There was a whole box of dry spaghetti, a jar of sauce, two cans of sauerkraut, whatever that is, and three cans of fruit cocktail. Gonna eat damn good this week.” Blake looked stoked.

“You’re gonna make that last all week?” I lifted one eyebrow skeptically.

“Hells yes. That’s a haul man. I owe you guys big time.”

“Nonsense Blake. Mind if I ask you what you did for work before all this shit went down? We’re trying to figure out what everyone can do. I was a… A bouncer, and a soldier.” I didn’t want to tell him right off I worked at the school. He might put two and two together and figure out where our “secure facility” was.

“I worked at Mark’s Garage doing auto body and mechanic work. Mostly auto body. Welding, buffing, painting you know. I liked it. That crazy motherfucker Walter stopped in there sometime in like September and took all the barrels we had. Dude he was loony. He shot so many people here I didn’t dare to come this way. Things went quiet here about two weeks ago, and when I heard you all shooting it up the other day, I decided I’d finally investigate. I’m glad he’s gone. He was fucking dangerous.” Blake looked appreciative.

“Yeah he injured his leg bad and it killed him from the looks of it. We put him down again when we breached his house. He was crazier than you can imagine man. Had his house wired to blow with hotdogs and Twizzlers.” I laughed.

Blake didn’t. “You know he had real dynamite right? He drove around town a couple times tossing sticks out the window of his truck late in the summer. I heard them go off at least twenty times. He drew so many of those… those things over here it was impossible to move around on foot for a long time.”

That was humbling to hear. We kinda knew Walt had explosives, but hearing it confirmed from someone was a different matter entirely. I nodded at him.

“What’re your plans now Blake? Do you need a place to live? Are you safe?” I wanted to extend a gentle offer of assistance.

“I move around. Only way to stay safe and find food reliably. I’ve been moving around more and more after dark since the snow levels came down. They have a hard time seeing me, but I also have a hard time seeing them. I might start laying low more often though. They’re getting around a lot easier, and I think the rest of us still around are getting nervous.”

“The rest of us? I thought you said you were alone?” I was confused.

“I am alone. But when I move around, I sometimes see other people moving around, or I can see lights at night or smell the smoke coming from their fires. If I can, I watch them with the scope on the Enfield. I kinda know some of the pockets of survivors now.” Blake seemed unfazed by how amazing this information was in the big scope of things.

“Blake that’s outstanding. We can save lives with all that. How many people are still here in town?” I was giddy.

Blake thought hard about it for a minute or two before replying. “I can’t say for sure. I haven’t done a real loop in some time. I know there are two or three houses with folks in them. Maybe two or three people in each house. Plus right near the high school there’s a small apartment building that got secured down early on, and I think there might be five or six folks there. Maybe 25 survivors across town all in all? That I know of at least.” 

Mr. Journal, I am not sure how to respond to that. 25 seems absurdly low for a town our size. I guess if you factor in us as well as the people who died at STIG, we might be approaching what I thought was a correct amount. 25 seems like such a small number.

“Well Blake I’m sure that information will be useful later on. Is there any chance you can show me where those houses are? On a map maybe?” Knowing where we might encounter survivors might make things a lot safer for both us and them.

“I would like to get to know you better man. I don’t know you from a hole in the wall, and if I point out where those folks are and you raid them or something, I’d be pretty damn sore about it.” He looked defiant, serious.

I nodded at him in agreement. “Well, can we agree to meet again somewhere and maybe trade for it? After we learn more about each other maybe?”

“Trade for what?” He licked his lips. A little creepy, but I think he just had chapped lips.

“Well you said you need food. And you said you needed ammo right? .303 British if my memory still works in my advanced age?” 

“Yeah wow. You have some? I snagged four boxes of shells from Moore’s when everything went to hell last summer. Apparently I was the only person who used it around here. I’d love more. That and .38 shells. I’m getting slim on that too.”

“Blake you’re slim everywhere. Need to fatten you up so the girls will like you.” I winked and grinned.

The joke was entirely lost on him. He looked utterly lost when I said “girls.”

“Anyway man, I’ve got some .303 British I can trade you, as well as some canned food, and if you want, I think I can spare some milk, and a few cans of food.”

I shit you not Mr. Journal, but his mouth slowly opened, and his jaw drifted downward until he looked like he was going into shock. He had no reply for a solid minute. Finally I waved my hands in front of his face and he snapped back to reality.