Free The Failed Coward by Chris Philbrook Page B

onslaught has been priority number one for me. Everyone has been walking on pins and needles because we’ve had so many zombies up Auburn Lake Road and here on campus. We never actually counted the bodies, but there were hundreds and hundreds up here after the 3 rd and my bizarre dream about the white room. Ooooh, sudden urge. I am compelled to capitalize that suddenly into The White Room. That…. Seems more correct to me for some reason. Odd sensation ran up my spine after I wrote that. The weirdness never stops around here.
    Knowing that the ice on the lake became a major liability made me want to break it all as best I could so the zombies couldn’t fucking walk across it again. I knew it’d be tough and possibly dangerous work, but I really felt it needed to be done. If only to let me sleep at night. 
    Yesterday the weather was pretty sweet, and instead of accompanying Patty, Abby, and Gilbert out on their small house clearing project, I decided I’d play “ADRIAN SMASH!” The girls and our elder Green Beret operator went off down Route 18 towards our new gas station to clear three houses they felt safe doing. They were good sized homes spread a fair bit apart, and with proper procedure, they were confident it would go well. I think they felt pretty good about hiding their nervousness to me too, but I could see it in their eyes. It almost made me go with them, but they really needed this for themselves. 
    Breaking the ice turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be. After eating a late breakfast solo, and watching some porn on the big screen with some hand lotion and a tissue (also solo, much to my dismay), I grabbed an eight foot length of 2x4 from our wood supply, and headed to the bridge. 
    The recent drizzle and subsequent fog has unnerved the piss out of me, but it has eaten away at the snow and ice like acid. The snow is half gone from our February high, and the ice around the bridge at the mouth of the stream/river is busted into large chunks that appear to be somewhere around four inches thick. Seeing that it was already broken up somewhat, I simply leaned over the railing of the small bridge and hammered the end of the 2x4 into the edges of the large slabs of frozen lake. Repeated smashes chipped away dinner plate sized bits that floated away from the larger chunks. I did this for about four hours, taking a break every thirty seconds to make sure nothing was creeping up on me.
    I took a lunch break, finished off the last of our milk (and boy did I hear about that when the girls got home last night) and made myself a package of ramen noodles and mushroom soup. Not too shabby all things considered. I put more hickory sticks on the fire in the smokehouse treating the venison we got the other day, and I migrated my tired ass back to the bridge, and smashed apart the rest of the huge icebergs near the bridge. I was happy with the situation there, and made my way up river away from the lake, making sure the ice across the stream couldn’t hold the weight of a person or zombie, as the case may be.
    I worked up the stream for a few hundred yards out past where Hall E was. (worked up the stream? Sounds like I’m having a problem pissing) The majority of the water was open and pretty safe in terms of a potential crossing, but there were a few points where the ice spanned from boulder to boulder and if a zombie had even a stitch of balance, they could make it across. I couldn’t smash all that ice, but a few well aimed Glock shots broke it up enough without me risking my ass falling in the river. Good luck had it that I wrapped up just as Team Vagina + Gilbert returned with the Tundra and the Chevy overflowing with lootage.
    I don’t think I’ve ever seen the women quite that giddy. Positively overwhelmed with joy. Even Gilbert was grinning and laughing, and that shit is just infectious. I laughed the moment they hopped out of the trucks and the entire time we unloaded everything into the cafeteria