The airport was not a busy one, with flights scheduled in such a way that it never became over-crowded. However as she drew closer, the number of zombie groups she ran across increased. As did the number of severed limbs that she saw scattered about. The zombies in this part of town it seemed were more aggressive; either that, or had put up more of a fight before finally falling to the endless wave of the undead.
With the airport in sight, Jessica began to get nervous about her chances of making it. The crowds around the car were thick, and several times she had to mow down a few lines of the things. The car had at least two flat tires, and the engine was overheated in the extreme, according to the gauge which tried to push past its maximum level. Suddenly there was a flash of light and the zombies began to fall to the pavement.
Jessica slowed down, shocked by what had happened. It took a moment to realize that it was not that the zombies had succumbed to their inevitable demise, but rather as a result of heavy machine gun fire. The flash of light had been a handful of smoke grenades thrown into the crowd. As it began to clear, the army personnel came into focus. There was one tank and three jeeps with gun turrets mounted on the top, along with a small group of armed soldiers standing on either side. They all fired into the crowd, with the exception of the tank.
As she drove toward them, Jessica was motioned to slow down. She did as they ordered, following their pointed directions to the short stay car park where a host of medical tents had been erected. The kind you would see in disaster zones when a flood or hurricane had hit.
Jessica was ordered out of the car by two soldiers, one male and one female. Both waved automatic weapons at her and had their faces covered by masks which distorted their voices enough to cause them to give their orders repeatedly. Something that seemed to annoy them, for ultimately, the female soldier grabbed Jessica by the arm and pushed her over to the tents. Here, Jessica was met by a team of doctors who wore a similar collection of protective masks. They worked quickly and without too many commands. Jessica was stripped naked and inspected for wounds and other injuries. She was sprayed with a liquid that caused the cuts and grazes she had acquired during her struggles to catch fire. With the tests seemingly passed, she was given her old clothes, which felt far too dirty to put back on, but there was no other option. She was swiftly ushered into the terminal building, passing several large groups of survivors who looked equally, if not more shell-shocked than she felt.
“Jessica…oh thank fuck, you’re alive. I knew it was you, I just knew it!” a familiar voice sang out, breaking through the background noise.
Jessica turned, her mind and body still not under her full control, and saw a pair of arms waving at her. Her mind focused and she smiled; an automatic reaction. She only returned the wave once the full recognition process was complete. “Rita, oh God, Rita.” Jessica felt the tears start to flow, and she ran into her friend’s arms. The pair embraced and held each other tight. “I told them it was you. I told them.” Jessica’s colleague and travel partner sobbed into her friend’s neck.
After a while, Jessica broke their grasp and stared at her friend. “Why is this happening?” Jessica half cried, half whispered. “Look at us… me.” She stared at her blood encrusted clothes and noticed for the first time since it all started, she was barefoot; that, and there was a large piece of grey, gelatinous brain stuck to the top of her foot. “I’m gonna be sick,” she whispered.
“Don’t Jessie, if they see you so much as look sick, they’ll kick you out there…with them.” Rita pointed to the horde of survivors that were huddled together in various states of shock. They seemed to be split into three definitive groups: injured, blood covered, but otherwise fit, and those that seemed unscathed.
“What’s going to happen to them?” Jessica asked as the steady drum beat of machine gun fire started up again.
“They’re being checked out and evacuated,” Rita answered. She still wore her airline uniform, and seemed to be anything but disheveled.
“How come you look so good, Rita? Where were you when this happened?” Jessica asked, embarrassed by her appearance.
“I was in the air. We landed and as we walked into terminal they…they just attacked us. We never stood a chance,” Rita began to tear up, she looked at the floor. “They got James, ripped him apart in front of me. It’s the only reason I got away. I hid in the baggage area.” Rita pointed toward the key card operated security door. “It was still open, so I ducked inside with a couple of others, and hid. The army came not too long after that and cleared them out. They rescued us and immediately started planning the evacuations. I guess it was all true, those newspaper reports.” Rita changed the subject suddenly, eager to be done with talk of their attack.
“What do you mean?”
“What they said about the zombies… that the government always had a plan in place for something like this.” Rita looked around. “It’s all too organized for it to not to have been rehearsed,” she whispered.
At that moment two army officers approach the women. Jessica knew they were officers from their clothes, and the fact that they were nestled safely inside, away from the action. They stopped before the pair and one of the men asked, “Are you Jessica Bough?” Military through and through.
“Yes…” Jessica stammered, as her mind spun out of control.
“Ma’am, I must request that you to come with me. You need to get changed right now. We need you to start showing passengers to the planes.” The other man, the younger of the two spoke. “We have two planes fuelled and ready to leave. You arrived just in time,” he continued, flashing a smile.
“OK, I um... I have some spare clothes in my locker,” Jessica stammered. She was suddenly exhausted, as the true consequences of everything filtered through. She thought of her parents and her baby brother. The zombies were in her home town. Rachel had been eaten by one - her boyfriend. Jessica felt an officer place a hand on her shoulder and gently lead her in the direction she needed to go.
“Remember Miss Bough…”The older man called after Jessica, who turned to look his way. “You’re in the army now.”
Chapter 3 – Something, Anything
“That is pretty much it, Paul. For the past two weeks I have been flying trips to and from the airport, dropping people off in safe zones; evacuating them,” Jessica finished her story and sat back down. During its telling, several people had stirred and sat, listening intently to every word she uttered.
Paul said nothing. He wrote feverishly, scribbling as many of the details as he could remember. Even as he listened to Jessica’s story, the verbal narration of her history, he began to pose questions – forever the journalist, it would seem – which he scribbled in the margins. Everything he wrote was in his own form of shorthand; utter nonsense to anybody but himself.
“There’s nothing else?” he asked. “You’ve been flying these evacuation flights for the past two weeks. Have you not heard something, anything about what has happened since? What started it, why did it spread so quickly?” Paul flicked through his notes. He was certain that Jessica was hiding something from him. They had only scratched the surface of her tale, but clearly, she had finished speaking…for now.
When she looked up at him, Paul saw her in a different light. Sure, she hadn’t been out there, fighting the undead, putting them down where they belonged, but she had been doing something far worse; something far more damaging to the human psyche: She had been escaping, and then returning to the heart of the action, time after time. Paul knew that, unlike the others, Jessica had experienced the outbreak from a unique perspective, and that fact alone told him that she knew more.
Jessica shook her head. She was still pale from the loss of blood, and even though she was awake and talking, the danger was still present; not just from side effects, but from a repeat performance. “No…I don’t know. We never really leave the plane. We fly out, never to the same location twice in a row; we unload the passengers, refuel and then come back. We load the pl
ane, most of the time the people are already lined up in the concourse. I run a head count, report it to the pilot and we take off again. The only time I get off the plane is to sleep, and even then it isn’t always that simple.”
Paul thought a moment longer. “So where are you taking us? It has to be an airfield right? Is it still in England? Britain? You said that you fuel when you unload, so it can’t be that far,” Paul mused; the questions were meant more for himself than for Jessica.
“It is Europe. The virus spread all over the UK, but they shut everything down quickly. They have five bases that I have seen so far, all military operated now. Only the pilot knows where we are going, and even that is only after takeoff. I’m sorry, Paul I wish I could tell you something else. I really do.” She had started to cry once again.
“It’s okay, you did great. I am sure people will be just as fascinated by it as I am.” Paul smiled as he put his pen and paper to one side. He scooted closer, and put his arm around Jessica. “It’s a noble thing you are doing,” he whispered, giving her a friendly squeeze. “This will be the best damned survivor story anybody has ever read,” he joked. It was odd, the effect writing but a few pages of notes had on him.
“Maybe someone else will know something,” Jessica whispered as she wiped her eyes on the back of her bandages.
At that moment, the paramedic who had truly saved Jessica’s life spoke up. He sat three rows before them. His daughter was asleep - stretched out on the chairs before him. He had been listening to the entire conversation.
“You want to know more about what caused this thing?” he asked rhetorically. “I think I can help a little,” he added as he slipped into the chair on the opposite side of the aisle to Paul.
“I’m all ears,” Paul replied with a smile, and a wink aimed at Jessica. He bent down collected his things, and turned to a fresh page in his book.
Chapter 4– I Can Help You There
Leon sat back in his chair and looked carefully at Paul, and then to the suicidal flight attendant behind him. Both stared at him as if he held the secret to the Holy Grail in his head.
“I don’t want you getting your hopes up now.” Leon smiled at them. “I just heard a few things is all.” He was a tall man, and shuffled himself into a more comfortable seating position. He eyed the pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I bum one of those?” he asked.
“Sure, anything for a good scoop,” Paul joked as he handed the pack across to the man.
The plane bounced around, as the turbulent winter sky buffeted them this way and that.
Leon stalled, a tactic Paul knew well. His hand shook slightly as he lit the cigarette and took a shallow drag. The resulting cough said enough.
“You weren’t a smoker before, were you?” Paul tried to get the conversation going. He had learned during his years of interviewing people that a conversation was like pulling a truck. Hard to start things rolling, but once momentum was there, keeping it going was simple.
“No, I used to be a complete health nut. Strange, it all feels like so long ago now. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a couple of weeks.” The sadness in his words hung heavy in the air. Nobody said anything, for nothing needed to be said.
“If you’re not ready for this Leon, just say so and we can stop. I’m sure someone else…” Paul tried a different tact, his failsafe technique.
“No, I want to…I need to,” Leon interrupted. “Like I said, I couldn’t help but overhear your story, young lady, and well, you’re questions there, at the end. I think I can help you answer a few of them, or at least add a little bit of something,” he answered.
“Ok, well, I’d love to hear it, Leon. Why don't we start with something simple? Where were you when it all started?”
Chapter 5 – Leon De Guzman
“Hand me some more bandages! Jesus Christ. I cannot stop the bleeding. Hurry up with those bandages!” Leon De Guzman called as he clamped his down on the woman’s injured shoulder. They had received a call from the local Morrison’s supermarket about a young woman who had been attacked in the middle of the store.
Leon and his partner Danny Knowles had been in the area and had gotten there within three minutes of the call coming through. Blood was everywhere. The patrons of the busy supermarket had formed a cloying ring around the area and watched with a mix of horror and fascination as the two paramedics got to work.
“Miss? Miss, can you open your eyes for me? Miss, I need you to stay awake for me now,” Leon almost shouted. Adrenaline surged through his veins. Something hung in the air; and it had Leon on edge.
The girl on the floor gave no answer. She had lost too much blood, Leon knew, but with so many people around it would be unprofessional to lob her body onto the gurney and drive away. Sometimes real life was about the show, or so Leon had learned over the years.
“She’s gone man,” his partner Danny whispered to him when he returned with a thick pile of bandages.
“I know that, and you know that, but they don’t,” Leon whispered, swapping the sodden bandages for the fresh stack. In doing so, he chanced a look at the wound. The bleeding had begun to stop, more as a result of the body being empty, than any reasons pertaining to clotting. There was a strange shape to the wound; a series of small crescents that in turn formed a rather distinct larger crescent. While not a perfect outline – the edges jutted outward in two places, the tool used to inflict the wound was unmistakable.
“Danny, take a look at this shit,” Leon whispered, nudging his partner with his elbow.
“What is that? It looks like a …”
“Teeth! That is a fucking bite mark.” Leon stood up from the body, the setting suddenly forgotten. He could no longer stand the cold chill that caressed his spine like a lover. “Where did the guy that attacked her go?” Leon asked, looking around the crowd. Their faces had paled considerably. The blood had spread, almost filling the circle that had formed.
“Is she dead?” someone asked.
“Yes, but we really need to see the person that attacked her. He could be ill,” Leon lied. He was not sure why he wanted to see the attacker. He just knew he needed to.
“He ran off, into the store room,” another faceless voice answered.
Leon turned to move away, when he was startled by a sharp cry. The body of the girl was moving, not the twitches of the recently deceased, but moving. The legs kicked out at the air while the arms flapped, but not in seizure. The fingers had hooked and scratched at the ground. She was trying to get up.
“What the hell…Danny, Danny, grab the Medikit,” Leon called as he ran back to the young woman, who strained and groaned on the floor. “Miss, Miss, calm down, I’m going to need you to keep clam.” He reached out and placed his hand on the woman’s shoulders in an attempt to get to her lie back. Leon recoiled from the touch, the woman’s flesh was hot, hotter than any fever could cause.
Danny returned with the medical bag, and immediately began reaching for the morphine pen they all carried. He grabbed it and handed it to Leon. Working quickly, he pulled off the cap and pushed the needle through the skin of the woman’s upper arm. Rather than calm her, the morphine seemed to agitate her further. She thrashed on the floor, splashing her spilt blood over everything. By this point, the shoppers had all turned to leave, only to find their path blocked by the very same man that had started it all.
Blood streaked his face, and soaked the front of his shirt. He stood, not still, but stiff and took deep rasping inhalations. He stared at the shoppers, his head tilted slightly to one side, and smiled. He lunged for them. He was slow, but their panic allowed him the time needed to claim another victim. Blood lust descended and the man buried his face into the face of a middle-aged shopper who had been out with his daughter buying the final decorations for the birthday cake they had planned to make that afternoon. The man fell to the floor in seconds, his aorta severed by hungry teeth.
The cries and commotion startled Leon, who continued to try and restrain his patient. Danny was f
rozen, his eyes bulging as he watched the scenes unfold. He was a lot younger than Leon; still green, and despite repeated calls for help, Danny lent none.
“Hold still,” Leon growled, his patience wearing thin. As if only hearing his voice for the first time, the women raised her head and looked at him. Leon gasped and jumped back, slipping in the thick layer of congealing blood that he knelt in the center of. He careened backward, arms flailing, falling into the fully stocked shelving unit, knocking its contents to the floor. Jars of vegetables fell to the floor, shattering on impact. Crawling, unable to fully right herself, the woman dragged herself over to Leon, who quickly found his footing and beat a hasty retreat. He knew the woman was dead; the grey pallor to her skin, the blue tint to her lips, but most of all, it was her eyes; they were cold, dead. “Get back, stop right there!” Leon ordered, but the woman kept coming. She dragged her body over broken glass, slicing open her skin without so much as a hint of recognition. Turning, Leon ran, assuming his friend and partner was behind him. The commotion in the store had turned into the full-fledged panic by the time Leon reached the door. Several people had the same idea he did, to escape. Most simply ran blindly. Bodies littered the floor, and the heady aroma of blood filled the air like an abattoir drainage pipe.
Leon sprinted to the door, but before he made it, something grabbed hold of his leg. The grip was strong, and Leon fell to the floor. His head slammed to the ground hard enough to make him see stars. He must have blacked out for a few seconds because when he opened his eyes the man who had tripped him was upon him, pinning him to the floor. The man was dead; Leon knew it just as easily as he had seen it with the woman. When you dealt with death as often as Leon did, it was just a case of ’You knew it when you saw it’.
Leon pushed and struggled to slowly work his way free. He was a strong man; in great shape, but the strength of the freshly risen dead shocked him. The dead man fought back, changing tactic. It tried to take a bite out of Leon’s leg. Its maw began to close, and just as Leon felt the teeth make contact with his skin he struck out. Leon threw a flurry of punches and knocked the dead man off balance and eventually, off him entirely. Leon sprang back to his feet. Running on adrenaline he looked around, unable to fully process what had happened… All around him people fell; their bodies ripped apart, only to stand back up and come after those still alive.
Diaries of the Damned Page 4
