The Failed Coward (42 page)

Gavin stayed outside providing cover. Patty assisted me as we got everything inside, and got the few spots in the house that needed reinforcement fixed up. There were a couple windows in the back of the house we slapped a couple pieces of 2x4 on to make safe, and the large bay window in the living room also had a 2x4 slapped on the front of it. We put it up low in the frame so it would serve almost like a railing might. The dead can’t crawl over it, so it was as good as boarding the whole window up.

Patty ran out to the HRT to grab the final batch of supplies we planned on leaving behind when I heard a noise from the back of the house. The house itself was a sort of, shit, like a split level ranch, but only the back half of the house was on a different level, kind of like you had to take a couple steps down into the living room and kitchen? But the bedrooms in the front of the house were higher? That make any sense at all?

Anyway, the noise I heard came from a rear mudroom where the laundry machines were, and that was right off the kitchen. I instantly figured a zombie had made its way through cover to the back of the home, and was knocking on the door or something. I called out on the radio that I heard contact to the rear of the house, and advised that I was checking it from the inside.

I went around the hall and down the couple steps into the kitchen, and came to a dead stop right in front of the island when I heard keys jingling. I scanned quickly, and in the faint light of the back door’s small window, I saw the outline of a person standing. And I knew as soon I laid eyes on that silhouette, it was a living person, and not a zombie.

I was fucking done. Had. A cooked goose. Flatfooted and fucked. 

“Freeze right there asshole!” I heard a man’s voice call out from the mudroom.

So I did. I was thankful the first thing I heard wasn’t that last loud gunshot that finished my ass. I literally froze solid with my hand on the M4’s grip. Luckily I had thumbed the safety to semi before going into the kitchen, so I was a tenth of a second away from shooting if need be, but if he had a gun on me already, that still wouldn’t have been fast enough.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house? Stealing my shit you asshole? Who the fuck are you?” As he asked, he came closer. When he stepped out of the dark mudroom I saw he indeed had a revolver trained on me. He was middle aged, had long, scraggly hair and a beard to match. He had dirty clothes on, and glasses with one lens cracked. He looked like a hobo. A hobo with a gun on me.

I talked as slowly as I could, “I’m Adrian. We’re checking houses to clear them for the dead. I’m sorry, we thought this home was empty.” 

“Yeah well we’re home now. Drop your gun and all your food and ammo.” He said the last part with a stammer. I could tell he had no fucking clue what was happening. No control over the situation, and he was scared as hell. 

Now I knew that if I put down my gun and ammo, he’d either kill me, or shoo me out and I’d likely never see it again. I could gamble, and see if he’d let me walk out with my handgun and that ammo, but that risked him popping me like a wannabe gangster by accident. I thought all this over and looked at him hard. I think my delayed response made him nervous, because he piped up again.

“DROP THE DAMN GUN!” He cocked the pistol and leveled it straight at me, dead nuts on my Adam’s apple.

I didn’t have to decide about dropping my M4, or my Glock. Right then Patty came back in the front door, arms filled with the shit we’d planned on leaving behind, and that was the end of it.

The homeowner rotated the gun towards Patty, and I saw the look in his eyes, wild and afraid, and I knew as soon he got that front sight on her, she was gonna take one. I brought the muzzle of the M4 up as fast as I could, and nearly simultaneously he and I pulled the trigger.

I misfired.

He didn’t. 

Anyone who has fired a gun in anger will tell you gunfire is loud as a motherfucker, but the louder sound is pulling that fucking trigger, and not hearing that round in the chamber go off. Not feeling that buck against your shoulder, and not seeing that little flash as the gas escapes the barrel… It is the exact opposite of adrenaline. Stops your heart fucking cold. 

Someone didn’t want Patty to die that day, because his shot sailed high and splintered the doorframe about ten inches above her forehead. I can still remember the look of shock on her face. I always will I think. I’m struggling to type right now thinking that would’ve been my last memory of her face had that bullet split her forehead and killed her. I dropped the M4 on the sling, and without missing a beat threw it around my hip and drew the Glock to hip fire.

That fucking guy was fast as hell though, and he leveled back on me just as I drew on him, and this time when we fired, both guns went off. I saw his muzzle flash, and felt his bullet hit me before I registered that my bullet hit him. 

Being shot hurts. A fucking lot. I’d compare it to someone getting a good running start and hitting you at full force with a hammer. Granted, my vest kept the bullet from punching into me, and scrambling my insides, but it did fuck all for saving me from that motherfucking impact. Goddamn it Mr. Journal. 

Seriously.

It hit me just right of center mass, just under the bottom edge of the ribcage. Tossed me two feet back and into the fridge like I’d been tackled by a linebacker. I caught the handle on the fridge door right in my spine too, which was a sharp stab in the asshole that I didn’t need. 

Here’s the reason why a heavier caliber is better for people; my Glock is .45 APC. It’s a heavy, thunderous round with serious impact power. Just getting clipped by the bitch will send most men spinning and tossed to the ground. Hobo took my round to the hip, and he was flung in a circle, losing his revolver in the process, and he crashed to the floor. 

Somehow I stayed on my feet, clutching my side where I was shot, and I came around the island to find him scratching at his shirt, trying to get to the bleeding hole in him. I stood there watching as he ripped open his shirt, exposing the leaking dime sized hole. Once he saw it, he snapped back to reality and looked up at me, almost standing over him. By that point the radio was going off as Gavin began running inside, and Patty as well had leapt into action. She dropped her shit, and was approaching us, AR15 up, ready to kill the guy on the floor. 

I could barely see. I had stars in my eyes, and was leaning heavily on the island, trying to keep my gun on him. It was clear to me that he knew things were bad for him, and he rolled over and started to crawl back into the mudroom to escape. He cried out in pain, screaming really. He scratched and clawed to gain purchase, dragging a long throw run towards him, making no progress forward.

That’s when I saw the .45’s exit wound. They go in small, but sure as shit don’t come out that way. He had a hole in his back coming out near the spine the size of my fist. You could’ve pushed a coffee mug in the gap where his body used to me. I could see his perforated, ragged kidney shake like jelly inside him as he tried to get away.

That’s when I went down. I couldn’t breathe for shit, and I think I was hyperventilating too. Everything went black for a few seconds, and when I came to, Gavin had me propped up against that fridge again, and he was ripping my vest off to check for similar holes in me.

I still don’t know what happened to the guy. I think Patty or Gavin dragged him out back at some point. I think they killed him, which was the only sensible thing to do at that point. There was no fixing what I did to him. 

That makes me sad that he had to die. He shot me because he was scared, not because he wanted to kill me. It’s easy to kill people who you hate. That’s why soldiers demonize their enemy. We can kill who we can hate. Simple as that. Nazi’s, gook’s, nips, Japs, Hajji’s, muj, you name it something bad, and we’ll kill it.

This guy had no bad name. I didn’t hate him, and didn’t deserve to die. 

He was just scared.

I feel rotten tonight, and not just because I took a .357 to the chest. Incidentally, that caliber can go fuck itself sideways with a cactus. I will never forget I got shot with it, and from this point forward, I will probably hold an unreasonable grudge against it, and all those who use it. Fuck it, and fuck you all.

I just took two vicodin. I’m on a coherency clock.

Obviously this changes things for me personally. I can’t move much, especially if it turns out that I’ve got any broken ribs. I think I might have one that’s cracked. The one on the very bottom on the side I was shot on. I need to go see Lisa to have her check me out. No one here can tell for sure. The best thing is I am not coughing up any blood, which means no perforations to the lung.

Anyone want lemonade? Just made some. It’s fresh.

Everyone’s all worried. Me included. I know they’ll be okay with me bedridden for a bit, but I can feel that I am going a little mental when I realize that we will fall behind on our already overloaded schedule. I know I can trust them to get shit done, but it still leaves me itchy thinking that I can’t lend some kind of support.

I did not need this Mr. Journal.

Fuck me.

-Adrian

April 29
^th

I’m gonna go ahead and admit that driving to Westfield yesterday was likely a mistake on my part. I’m in a world of hurt tonight, and last night it was even worse. I could be clever about it, and blame my friends for not stopping me. Which… sort of sounds like fun.

However, I really wanted Lisa to gimme a quick once over to make sure I didn’t have internal bleeding or broken ribs from the shot I took to the chest. Motherfucking .357’s Mr. Journal. It’s on my shit list now. I want to punch that caliber in the face.

I am pretty much about to eat pillow here (yay painkillers), so I need to keep this short.

Yesterday everyone else rolled out to get that frigging safe house set up. They left early, set it up fast, and hit another one of those little town properties with fencing all around it strictly to get the fence up and out for use here. I felt like a freeloading bitch when they left. I wasn’t helping them because I was hurt, and I wanted to go to Westfield.

I took the Tundra and drove there as slowly as I could over the last remnants of the frost heaves. No rush really, so driving fast seemed stupid. Even taking my time I paid the price. I’m in less pain when I am sitting or standing, so you’d think that being behind the wheel would be a good place to be, but NOOOOOOOOO.

Fucking bumps caused my chest to compress. Every single flaw in the road is pretty similar to having a mischievous toddler stab me in the ribs with a sharpened #2 pencil. Big bumps felt like the toddler was kicking the pencil. Really big bumps sent my vision to that wonderful black place where I see stars, and can actually count the seconds off where I can’t see where I am driving, or what I am doing.

It’s a fucking miracle I didn’t wrap my ass around a guardrail or a tree.

You get a freebie on this one God. One. 

Lisa and Mike came out to meet me in the parking lot of the school when I told them over the radio I wasn’t in much shape to walk. In fact, I chewed a vike right there in the driver’s seat while I waited for them. It didn’t take them long to come get me. In fact, they moved me from the Tundra to the back seat of a humvee, and immediately drove me over to their town clinic so Lisa could x-ray me.

I was lucid enough on the trip over to the clinic to see that the supposedly empty town of Westfield was not empty any more. When we were moving about in town over there in the early months of the year we saw almost no undead. Twenty over the whole winter? 

I saw at least forty today on the way over and back to the clinic. For some reason, that really bothers me. To the core even.

I think it’s because I had this preconceived notion that Westfield was “safe” (or at least “safer”) and now it seems it isn’t. My illusion is shattered. Sigh.

Maybe I’m overreacting. It isn’t like the car barrier at the school there is being tipped over by a war host of the dead. Forty zombies isn’t the end of the world.

All it really takes is just one.

Lisa is not a very good x-ray technician. I don’t think she’s given more than a handful based on how long it took her to fire the machine up and get me imaged. They’ve managed to get the backup generators at the clinic working so there’s power if they need it there. Go them. They’re anticipating one of the pregnant women to fart out a baby literally any moment now, so they’re trying to get all their ducks in a row. Looking at it in a positive light, my injury and their response to my arrival was a nice “oh shit” practice run for them.

X-ray came back negative. No cracked ribs. No internal bleeding. She did say that it looked like the bottom rib was detached slightly, or something that effect. She said I would be sore for a week or more, and would have trouble breathing deeply for a long time, maybe even a month. Running and heavy lifting was out of the question.

I should be excited for rest, but I’m not. This feels just like being back in the Army when I sprained my wrist real bad and couldn’t do shit for a few days. The feeling of guilt is unreal over leaving my fellow soldiers behind. It didn’t matter how much they told me they were fine, and that I wasn’t needed, and to get better, I still felt like a fucking bliver.

Ever heard that expression Mr. Journal? Bliver? My dad used to say that all the time, and all us kids do too now. He used to tell us a bliver was the technical word for a “bucket of shit.” For example, you could say, “Wow, that farmer is carrying around a bliver.” Or even, “That girl is so ugly she looks like a bliver.” Or even, “Dinner tasted like a big old bliver.”

Feel free to use that one however you choose.

Mike refused me when I said I wanted to drive myself home. Lol. You know what’s funny? I can’t remember SHIT about the rest of that visit. Yay painkillers. I don’t remember the drive home either, but I do remember coming home with extra people.

Mike and Lisa said because things were shitty over here, we needed labor/help, and they sent me home with an escort. I think this is Mike’s way of setting me up for sympathy pussy. Mike is my herp. Err, hero.