Free Dark Recollections by Chris Philbrook

names.

    -Adrian

October 18 th

    It bothers me a great deal that I had to watch a wife kill her husband so I could get a fucking candy bar. The state of affairs of this shitty ass world now has my head in shambles.
    It’s Monday. The weather blows. It’s cold, rainy, and raw. Typical fall weather for around here. I am still “recovering” from my jaunt to the gas station on Wednesday. Physically I was unharmed, despite running into three full on zombies, one lunatic wife, and one freshly attempting to reanimate body. I went maybe 6 miles roundtrip and I ran into all that. What the fuck is downtown like? Baghdad of the Living Dead?
    Christ’s sake. I got back Wednesday at like 1 in the afternoon I think. I didn’t check my watch exactly. Got the Tundra to the dorm, backed it right up to the door as close as I could, and got the groceries inside. I took the gas cans down to the basement where the generator is and left most of them in an adjacent room. Outside chance the generator blows up I didn’t want gas cans nearby. I also took one of the gas cans down to the maintenance shed so that just in case all the gasoline wasn’t in one place. Always have a Plan B, right?
    The rest of that day I basically vegetated. Damn near grew roots. I was so fucking pissed I could barely see straight. I had this awesome habit when I was younger of punching things when I lost my temper. I couldn’t even tell you how many times my older brother and my Dad had to patch the drywall in our house growing up. Fist holes in walls were available wholesale when I was going through puberty. I was almost that mad that day.
    I found solace in candy. Don’t judge me. I have a hardcore sweet tooth and this was the first chocolate I’d had in months. I didn’t think to grab any on any of my trips out or on “that day” so I was pretty stoked to have some finally. I gorged and ate three candy bars. Sugar joy alleviated my tension. Otis too, he always knows when I’m down.
    The days leading up to today have been pretty quiet. Thursday when I woke up I was kind of sore, which is pretty normal for a day after the one I just had. Despite not getting hurt really when you’re all adrenalized you can sometimes hurt yourself a little just being in a fight. I think I swung the sword so powerfully I actually strained my shoulders. So I took four ibuprofen and a break and read a few books out of the library all weekend. Our library here is the majority of the second floor of the main school house. There’s about 16 classrooms in it, 8 on the first floor and 8 more on the third. Second floor is all library though.
    I need to be really practical right now though, so my readings are more or less limited to trying to pick up usable skills. I stuck to gardening and agricultural texts this weekend. I know I need to plant the seeds I got, but frankly I don’t know shit about farming. After this weekend’s reading, I now know shit about farming. Not much about it, but some. I did read this neat book about growing stuff in your apartment so you could have fresh produce in the city, and I desperately want to put that into action. If I can score a few bags of potting soil and the pots to go with it I think I can get some stuff growing here in the dorm over the winter.
    But, it’s been five days since I last touched this journal, Mr. Journal, and I think I still have a lot of story left to put down in the annals of history, such as it is. The last part I remember I had talked about was when I was at my mother’s place, and my gun clicked dry.
    I had walked up behind the younger Zombie that was face down but getting up, leaving his entrails on the floor as he did so. I was close enough that I was really almost at his feet when the gun clicked empty. I can totally remember that sharp pang of fear hitting me square in the pit of my stomach. What. The. Fuck.
    I backpedalled a few feet and watched in horror as the kid kind of rolled over and started to come at me. I