When we approached the border of Stephen's Point, we got out of the cars and walked into town. Driving the vehicles in would have immediately alerted the zombies, and it seemed their numbers have grown these past several days. We plotted a route on the map and pinpointed four buildings of interest that we were going to check out first. There was a warehouse, an office building, a factory and a hangar. I suggested to Thaddeus that we not investigate buildings that didn't have a horde of zombies around them. They'd most likely be protecting the nest.
That's when we saw them all over the hangar. Hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes. You couldn't even see the doors to the hangar because there were so many. I felt the tension in some of the men, which was understandable. Even with our zombie suits on, the thought of walking through so many would have unnerved just about anyone. They were so tightly packed, though, that there didn't seem to be a way through them.
Yosef, a young Jewish man about 19, came forward and said that we should distract them. Thaddeus asked how, and Yosef held up his rifle. I shook my head back and forth, not liking the idea at all but before I could stop him, he ran off to the west side of the building screaming at the zombies. Their heads turned following the noise, but didn't seem to pay Yosef any attention until he started firing on them! Single shots of tracer rounds into the undead crowd caused random zombies to light up like giant match heads, and that caused them to react. They all screamed in unison, and most began giving chase to the zombie they deemed a traitor. Yosef ran off still firing, which opened up a gap in the crowd, I ordered everyone to start slowly walking to the doors, but I paused a few seconds when I thought I heard Yosef scream. That was a very brave thing he did... but stupid. He didn't even let me think of another way. Yet, it told me something important that I needed to know. Once we started firing, our cover would be blown. It now seemed more and more likely that this would be a suicide mission, but we were going to go through with it.
Once we got in the hangar, we were frozen in our tracks. Suspended from the beams of the ceiling were what looked to be cocoons, dozens upon dozens of them. They looked large enough to fit three fully grown people in them, and they were disgusting to look at, like overgrown cysts with veins wrapping around them. The pods were truly alien looking, and I knew instantly what was growing within them. The next thing we noticed was that there was no zombies actually in the hangar. They all appeared to be outside protecting what was inside. This gave us an advantage. Once we started shooting the pods, we could focus our attention on the doors as they would funnel the zombies through. With concentrated fire, we could stand a chance of lasting long enough to make it out.
I took the first shot. I aimed up at one and fired hoping the tracer would ignite them like they did the zombies, and to my gratitude, they burned just as bright. That's when everything went south. Before we even spread out to start destroying them systematically, one of the men Vernon, eager to start shooting, shot one directly above him. As the bullet tore through the leathery membrane of the cocoon, it ignited the fluid inside along with the developing gargoyle and the pod burst spilling its flaming contents on the men below. It splattered on five of them, including Vernon, and they dropped to the ground yelling in agony. It was like napalm, clinging to them like glue burning through their suits and charring their flesh. Dan was in so much pain, he was freaking out and started shooting blindly, hitting three of us with friendly fire!
We all scattered, but Thaddeus kept his head about him and shot and killed Dan to stop him from firing on us. A million thoughts were running through my mind at that point. We now had mere seconds before the zombies outside would start flocking inside after hearing us attack their pods. We're already down to 10 men, so I barked out to Thaddeus to put three on the door and the rest of us would run around destroying as many pods as we could. Zachary, Marcus and Bart already had a late start on the door as those that didn't follow Yosef were already charging through. There was so much screaming going on that it became impossible to issue any more orders to follow. The three men at the door flipped to full auto once the horde returned. So many were trying to get in at once that the zombies were only making it easier to be shot.
I popped so many pods that I ended up going through five clips of ammo when I heard the glass break. The zombies were coming in through the west side of the glass windows, four or five at a time. As I had to turn my attention away from the ceiling to the incoming zombies, I heard the glass breaking from the east side. We were bring flanked. Almost instinctively, men and myself firing on the cocoons backed up into the center of the hangar, covering each others backs in a loose circle. When one man had to change clips, the other to his side would keep him covered. It's amazing how well we started fighting together. But it was a numbers game. I could already feel my trench coat growing lighter as I was burning through the clips. Whenever we had a few seconds in between waves, we would aim around looking for more cocoons and then shoot them.
I don't know how many we killed tonight, but there were so many zombies burning that an acrid haze of smoke began to fill the hangar. The wind outside was doing its best to pull the smoke out, but we started having problems breathing. We were holding out and for a brief moment, we had that feeling we could even make it, until Marcus ran out of ammo. Not able to help Zachary and Bart push the zombies back out of the doors, they soon overpowered them. One lept on Bart and tore his head clean off, while another bit Zachary, but he kept firing. He crawled backwards while Thaddeus ran to his aid, then picked up some clips from the bodies of the ones Dan accidentally killed. He gave Zachary everything he could grab and then helped him shoot more zombies that came through the doors.
The numbers were beginning to thin out, but that meant so too our ammo. More of our men clicked empty, and they did their best to fight off the zombies that ran at them, but they didn't make it. When we killed the last one that came in after us, it was just me, Thaddeus, Zachary and Roger. Zachary was bit, though. We all looked at each other silently thinking to one another about who was going to do it, but Zachary said not to worry. He would do it himself. "Someone just give me a clip." I gave him my last one, and he slammed it home, cocked it back, and then looked around. "Did we do it?" I looked around with everyone else. Every one of them was burst open and burnt. I nodded to Zachary and he nodded back. I turned away and then heard the gunshot.
I expected Zachary to shoot himself, which he did. What I DIDN'T expect was that motherfucker Thaddeus SHOOTING ME! HE SHOT ME IN THE LEG! I fell to the ground looking at him in surprise and it caught Roger off guard as well. Thaddeus started laughing at me, saying I did good, but now it was my time to die. I was going to be remembered as a hero, and then he lowered his breath saying, "A hero who died keeping a secret." He raised his gun at me to finish me off and he pulled the trigger. It clicked. His eyes went wide and he panicked trying to change his clip, but he couldn't find one to put in, and then I raised my gun and shot him square in the chest. I looked at Roger, and he looked back at me. His mouth was open, and I was trying to figure out what he was thinking when he started pointing at his gun at me. I called out to him, "Roger, no!" but he just kept aiming, so I shot him as well, the tracer clearing out the right side of his skull. I fell backward and roared out of pain, both physical and mental.
It was not supposed to go down like this. I don't know if I'm to blame for pushing the attack on Stephen's Point. The men needed training. We weren't supposed to go in all trigger happy! Why didn't I think of a plan to get into the warehouse before Yosef ran off and did what he did? But like I said, mission accomplished I guess. Who knows what would have happened if we waited another day? Those gargoyles would have hatched and infected god knows how many other zombies. I only hope there are no other nests around. I can't handle the thought of everything we've done here being in vain if it turns out things are worse in other parts of the world.
And Thaddeus. I knew he couldn't be trusted, but I had no idea he would have picked that moment of all moments to try to kill me. He tried to kill me right in front of Roger, too! "A hero who died keeping a secret." Roger was going to ask him about that, about what secret? I'm sure Thaddeus would have killed Roger as well. He probably would have loved to leave Stephen's Point and return to Rhinelander as the hero, the only one who survived to make it back. Instead, that title fell to me.
I was shot bad, and was losing a good amount of blood. I had to limp all the way back to one of the cars. It was after dark by the time I finally made it back, and it there was no joy to be had among the people who greeted me. 18 lives lost. Kat was hysterical when she saw me fall out of the car into the snow, blood all down my leg. Anthony had some people bring me to the hospital where he stitched up my leg, and then gave me a blood transfusion with Kat's blood. Heh... Kat saves my life again. I love you so much, Kat. I know you still try to sneak into my journal and read my entries, so if you're doing that now, then I want you to answer me one question the next time you talk to me. Katerina Healy, will you marry me?
Kat's spending the night with me, but Theresa wants a full report of what happened in the morning. She asked what happened to Thaddeus right off the bat, though. Anthony was looking right at me awaiting my response. I put on my best poker face and answered, "He got surprised during the firefight and a zombie bit into him. We managed to survive the attack, but he was bleeding out from the neck. He asked me to shoot him, so I did." I hung my head and even turned on a few tears. Theresa began crying a bit and thanked me for letting her know, and Anthony just left. I don't know if he bought it or not. I'm going to deal with him tomorrow, so....
Until tomorrow.
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