|
June 29th.
I visited the grave that Gilbert dug for himself yesterday. It’s unmarked.
I don’t think that’s right.
He dug it about four feet deep from what Abby said, and it sits right against the tree line in the backyard of the house he and his wife bought with the money they made off their restaurant business. That house was meant to be the crowning jewel of their retirement, and instead it was a symbol of desperation, and finality.
Sad really. I’m going to do something about marking Gilbert’s grave. I might make something in our woodshop. Maybe I’ll ask Martin to weld something as a grave marker. I don’t know yet.
We emptied out Gilbert’s place yesterday as well. Abby and I. I was surprised to find that the old bastard was indeed sandbagging me, but not quite to the extent that I’d hoped. He had more food than we’d realized. Lots of large tins of restaurant stuff from his warehouse I’d guess. He also had a few cases of MREs, jugs and jugs of water, and probably thirty flats of canned goods.
Weaponry wise, he was also surprisingly well stocked. Asshole had a thousand rounds of .45 cal, and a thousand rounds of .308. He also had two more AKs packed in grease, and ten spare magazines. In a gun case he had a couple bolt action hunting rifles in .270 and .30-06, as well a couple hundred rounds of ammo for those as well. He had a .38 snub, a Walther ppk, and a Marlin M60 .22, which I got a laugh out of. Would’ve been a good plinker to use during our big sieges.
Gilbert had dozens of bottles of vitamins, advil, water purification tablets, iodine, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, bacitracin tubes, you name it. He had a mess of shit. Just a mess of it. His fucking basement was stacked to the ceiling.
I wonder if he held back on this stuff to save his own bacon, or to do the work of evil?
I might never know. I’m not sure it matters really.
He also had that wood shop in the basement, which was decent, but nothing better than what we had. He had some good skill with the tools he had, as evidenced by the fortifications he built on the house, but really, he was making great stuff with just meh tools. Shouldn’t be surprised I suppose, he had a long history of making the most out of nothing.
Emptying Gilbert’s place of good shit took almost all of yesterday for Abby and I. While we were away everyone else busted ass on the wall, and despite the crap weather off and on, they made some massive progress. Martin’s a fairly big guy, and he was able to get everything manhandled into place as well as keep the crew organized. He reminds me a lot of a lumberjack, despite being a welder. Big, strong, wide. Deep laugh. He’s got almost pitch black hair.
Anyway, they probably put up fifty feet of wall yesterday, which was an astounding gift to return to campus to. At that rate, we’ll be able to finish up pretty frigging quickly. It seems like we’ve been working forever on this goddamn wall. Forever.
Is it weird that I am pissed Gilbert didn’t live to see it finished?
Today we returned to MGR and got all the other folk’s shit out. It was a major fucking process. As I said before the bottom floors were welded shut by Martin early on. They used the rope ladders to exit, so there was no way in from the ground floor without ramming the damn doors down.
Martin said he had the gear inside the building to cut the doors back open, but to do so, we had to insert ourselves using the ladder truck again. When we returned to MGR this morning, there were about fifty undead surrounding the building. Clearly, that was an issue.
From the end of the street near the auto parts store, we pulled up and opened fire. Abby, Patty and I were the primary shooters, and we took down as many of the bastards as we could. I think we’d dropped about three quarters of them by the time the remainder got within “scary close” distance, and we managed to get the others in the group involved to drop the crowd. I was hesitant to ask the noobs to go melee on the undead, but Martin waded in with one of our halligans and went to fucking town. I think he dropped maybe eight of them before I could ask him to be careful, and by then, it was more or less a done deal.
After that, it was just mop-up detail. We brought a huge fucking crew and the spare tractor trailer we got from the industrial complex, and amazingly enough, we got everything moved out in about eight hours.
It was made mostly do-able only because of Martin. He stored a few canisters of acetylene and a cutting torch in the building, as well as his basic welding gear. He also knows where to find more, and honestly, that’s a huge boon to bring to bear. Anyway, he fired up the torch, and after maybe a half hour, he got the bottom floor entrance freed up, and we were able to run the shit right down the stairs and out to the waiting truck.
We had one toe-pusher moment when I was coming down the stairs and walked right into a fucking zombie. It somehow didn’t get dropped during the building clear the other day, and frankly, I blame the women. Noob mistakes. I was carrying some of the hydro gear, and walked right into the fucking thing. The floor was still smelly as hell due to the gore and death, so I didn’t notice any additional smell from a moving undead. Luckily I had just come down the flight of stairs, so I had some good momentum, and blasted the thing right off its feet and onto its ass.
I think I screamed something along the lines of, “fuck a potato!” Then I dropped the hydro gear as softly as I could while keeping my asshole shut, drew the Glock, and bucked a hole in the dead guy’s head. I wish I’d thought about it more before I shot the thing, because the goddamn brains went all over the linoleum floor, and twice after that happened someone slipped and ate shit on the greasy grey stuff. What a shitty way to fall down in a shitty place. Luckily no one got hurt falling, and I don’t think anything was broken.
Zach and Ryan were amazingly helpful during the packing and move. They kept everything remarkably organized, gave astoundingly clear instructions to everyone as far as how to handle shit, and despite all my misgivings, they were professional, and held their shit together. The one thing that did go down that was a little sketchy, was that they really wanted to carry guns during the operation.
I said no. Flat the fuck out no. Until I saw them at a firing line, and could gauge their demeanor and professionalism with a firearm, there was no fucking way they were carrying. They both put up a fit about it, but Abby started yelling at them to; “grow the fuck up” and they clammed up. She scares the beejesus out of them.
So I told them after Abby’s stern ass whupping that I would take them to our impromptu firing range, and get them some trigger time and if they did well, they could earn the right to carry. Now the real irony is, Danny Jr. carries, and he’s about five years younger than them. I guess it pays to have a cop for a dad, and not sell weed out of your small town apartment.
All my bitching aside, Zach and Ryan did great today. Especially after we returned, and they got everything set up in our new hydroponics facility. The gymnasium. It’s going unused, and frankly, we get so much motherfucking exercise just living now the place will never see use except in winter, and even then, it’s more important to turn all that space into food production.
Of course now, we need to get some juice to it. Our new priority is to clear houses, and find some generators, or solar panels to make it happen. The panels on the roof of the MGR can be cut in half. There are quite a few up there, and if we switch it to just a small outpost for three or four people, then the amount of energy needed there will be minimal.
Hooking them up might be an issue, but we’ll figure it out.
It took us several hours once we returned here to get things all set up. I helped the stoners get the hydro setups done, and even though there’s no power running to them, they claim they can be run manually using spray bottles and buckets and stuff, and we have those in spades. We also have cow shit all over campus now, which is a much more appropriate fertilizer than the dude poo they were using, so I’m led to believe.
Ollie is excited. This takes a lot of pressure off him. Now he can focus on finishing his gate, mourning the loss of Gilbert, and tending to his fields without stressing out about failure.
So. I know I’m all over the place here, but we really need to hit that fucking warehouse of Gilbert’s. With any luck, the food will still be there, and the plumbing place will have all its shit, and we can raid it to get the hydro gear expanded so we can crank food out all winter long.
Although.. heat might be an issue. If we’re planning on growing in the gym all winter, we’ll need to heat it all winter. I’m wondering how much heat the plants will generate naturally? Hm. Wish I could ask Gilbert for his opinion. He seemed to know about lots of shit like this.
-Adrian
NEXT ENTRY
Are you enjoying AUD? Want to try something a little different that Chris wrote? Head over to elmoryn.com and experience an entire world's worth of story.
�
|
