At the junction, Brian emerged onto a busier road. For the first time he could see the extent of the problem. Cars stood abandoned in the road. Bodies littered the street. The echo of emergency service sirens hung in the air like a music score. Slowly, his focus returned. He saw people – living people – being pulled down and torn apart by the undead. Tears streamed from his eyes as he ran through a cloud of pain. A family sat trapped in their car, while a child lunged from the backseat and removed the passenger’s throats with the brutality of a wild animal.
A car sped down the street, and ploughed through the group that was chasing Brian. Their bodies fell like Skittles in an alley. Their skin split from the impact and peppered the air with thick, semi-congealed blood globules. Bodies and assorted loose parts rained down with wet smacks as Brian pushed himself onward. The car, having pushed through the crowd sped around the corner and out of view. It too was headed in the direction of the hospital.
Half a mile further up the road, a few hundred meters before the hospital driveway began, Brian came across the car. Its front end had been crumpled, the roof flattened. He found the radiator first, and was shocked to see the shift in structure of the vehicle. The driver lay on the hood, having been thrown through the window upon impact. His shirt had been torn, and the glass had raked deep gouges into his flesh. The rear of his skull was also missing, exposing what remained of the man’s brain. In the passenger seat, and doubtlessly the cause of the crash, sat a young woman, whose face was the very picture of pestilence: gaunt and pasty, with a decidedly green hue. Her eyes had sunken into deep pits while her body emitted a stench that was overpowering. Part of the meaty aroma came from her sizzling lap, as it roasted beneath the hot motor that had landed there. Had it not been for the way she still snarled and growled at Brian, her arms reaching for him, oblivious to the way the flesh on her legs bubbled and melted beneath the engine, he would have felt sorry for her at having met such a grizzly end. Ultimately all he felt was relief; relief that she was pinned down and that her seatbelt was also still intact to hold her in place. He slammed the door of the car, and ran onward toward the hospital, his heart sinking further every second as more and more of the undead appeared around him. They came across the grass fields that stood before the famous old building, and through the wooded thicket that acted as the right side boundary of the grounds. On the other side was the old college building, which was now used exclusively by medical students. The zombies came in droves, and forced Brian to abandon his plans to find shelter in the hospital. Instead, he turned around and headed back toward the residential area.
The zombie pack that had been chasing him had dispersed. The litter of emptied out corpses, their freshly opened torso’s still steaming, told of the distraction that had ultimately saved him.
The houses that ran along the main street were old, but sturdy. Many of them were abandoned; their doors left open, the occupants scattered to the wind. It was one of these empty looking houses that Brian fled to. He slammed the front door closed and collapsed to the floor. His legs became jelly and his lungs burned. He took in deep gulps of air, closing his eyes as a series of tremors shook his body.
There was no time to relax however as his undead groupies collided with the door and sent Brian spilling into the hallway. The door splintered from the frame and the dead spilled into the house.
“Come on, give me a break!” Brian cried as they crashed to the floor. The bottleneck created by the narrow door opening gave him the second lucky break of the afternoon. He turned and ran through the house, into the kitchen and into the garden. Being terraced houses, it was easy for Brian to jump over the fence, and the three that followed, until he landed in an overgrown garden filled with weeds and all manner of oversized vegetation. The For Sale board that had been attached to the rear wall of the property told Brian all he needed to know. He sprinted through the garden, moving so fast that he collided with the rear door of the property. To his relief it was unlocked. Brian slipped inside, pulled the door closed: and sunk into the darkness.
All of the curtains in the property had been not just closed, but pinned together, cutting off all light from the outside world.
The air in the house was stale. It had been empty for some time. A thick layer of dust covered everything. It tickled Brian’s throat and irritated his eyes. He fought against the desire to sneeze. He did not want to attract any of those creatures to him.
Moving slowly, he crept through the dark house and peered through the front window, rubbing a small viewing space for himself on the grimy glass.
The street was no longer teeming with the undead. The ones that Brian did see appeared to be moving; constantly roaming the streets, rather than hunting for anything they couldn’t see. Brian breathed a sigh of relief. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he saw that the house still contained a few meager furnishings. A small table, two chairs, and a camping bed. It actually looked as though somebody had been living there. Fast food wrappers and beer cans covered the floor. In the kitchen, the debris that Brian found in the sink confirmed his suspicion. The water in the property had been turned off, and there was no light for the bulbs had all been removed.
There was an upstairs portion of the house, but Brian didn’t have the energy to go and explore. The stairs were guarded top and bottom by an old baby gate. Brian decided to sit down for a few minutes first, and then plan his next move. The camping bed creaked beneath his weight as he sank onto it. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. The sounds of the undead shuffling through the street, the cries of the living as they were discovered and eaten alive seeped into the house in a macabre lullaby. Brian felt the world around him begin to blur. The edges of reality softened, and the dream world broke through. Before he knew it, Brian was asleep.
He woke with a jolt; one of those inexplicable jolts that jerked him into the conscious world with such speed, that he didn’t realize he was awake. The streets had darkened. The shadows lengthened. The flames engulfing a house a few streets away gave the night a surreal, orange glow. A handful of zombies roamed the street, but their numbers seemed to be thinning. In the distance, Brian thought he heard the echo of gunfire.
We’re winning, Brian thought to himself as he sat back on the bed. The darkness of the house, coupled with the lack of anything to keep him occupied, soon lulled him back into an uneasy sleep. It seemed only seconds before the heavy footsteps of the house’s other occupant punctured his doze.
Brian opened his eyes to a new day. Confusion at his unfamiliar surroundings enveloped him until the reality of the previous night broke through. He sprang out of the camping bead, hoping to see that the military had reclaimed the streets and stopped the zombies before the problem grew out of control. Brian thrust the curtains aside ready to greet the day, but froze when he saw the street filled with the undead. Their numbers had increased over night, and they moved through the street in a procession of death, spreading their message to every living soul they found.
It was then that Brian heard the shuffling footsteps coming from the hallway of the house. He jumped. His blood froze in his veins. He felt vulnerable and exposed. He had no means of self-defense, and there was nothing to stop the dead from forcing their way into the house to take him.
Brian eyed the door, waiting for the end to come. After five minutes, nothing had emerged through the door, his nerves settled. The creature was upstairs. He heard that now, in the way the boarding above his head creaked. Has it been there all along? Brian thought to himself. He then remembered the stair gates that had been put in place, he presumed by the previous owners, in an attempt to keep their child away from harm. Who knew it would also one day protect a stranger from the hungry gullet of a reanimated corpse.
Brian moved carefully, slowly, into the hallway. Every nerve ending in his body tingled. Every muscle screamed at him to flee. He knew he could not stay there. He needed to find a new place to shelter down – to fortify. Still, something inside him had to
see. His presence in the hallway excited the creature on the first floor. It appeared behind the bars, dragging itself on all fours. Its head appeared a few inches above the ground, and caused Brian to stagger backward. The zombie could not have been more than six months old. Its body propelled forward with uncoordinated grasps. Not even a crawl. The small blood stained mouth showed it had just two freshly sprouted teeth. The infant gave a growl, which reminded Brian of a Jack Russell terrier, in the way it sounded much meaner than it appeared.
Unable to help himself, Brian opened the gate and ventured upstairs. The baby was clearly not the one the gate was intended for, but its presence did account for the camping bed and rickety dining table.
The infant began to bang its head against the bars as Brian drew ever closer.
“Easy, kid, I’m not dinner,” he spoke to it as he reached the top step. A small arm found its way through the bars; the tiny hands grasping in the air.
With a quick movement, Brian opened the gate and the infant zombie was swept to one side. Stepping over the dazed form, Brian moved onto the landing. Behind him the creature began to turn, but it did not get far. Feeling confident, Brian turned to look at the rest of the property. A scream erupted from him as the mother and father zombies appeared out of the master bedroom, a few meters from where he stood. Their movements were not only more forceful, but more successful. The mother was first. She was shirtless, and missing her left breast. Brian didn’t need a second look at her decaying tit to understand she had been breastfeeding at the time of the child’s death. Her husband had no visible injuries, though he had the same sickly pallor as some of the other zombies Brian had encountered the day before. Whipping around, Brian sprinted down the stairs, remembering to lock the lower gate.
He ran out of the house through the back door, remembering at the last moment the dangers that lay beyond the front door.
Leaping over the fence into the neighboring garden, Brian was greeted by a dog which charged at him with salivating; jowls and evil eyes. He didn’t spend enough time there to ponder the question as to whether the dog was alive or not.
Jumping the fence once more, Brian found himself on the street, having reached the end terrace property without realizing it. In a lull of activity, the street was next to empty. By the time the air was flavored with his scent, he was out of sight; vanished into the shadows. Brian moved quickly, entering the first decent looking house he could fine. His mind was reeling, but he made sure that he moved quietly, locking the front door behind him. He didn’t stop to rest until he had searched the entire house, and double-checked that all of the doors were locked.
Once assured of his security, Brian moved a heavy dresser unit to block off the door, sealing himself inside. The window was a deep bay, and could not be blocked easily. Brian reasoned that if he stayed quiet and remained upstairs as much as possible, he could keep himself hidden well enough until he figured out a way to block the windows and further secure the property.
The first night was the worst. Not long after midnight, gunfire erupted in the neighborhood, wrenching him from sleep. The noise was deafening. While it raged for but a few minutes, the impact lasted for days. The military unit that had initiated the skirmish was overrun by the undead, whose bullet ridden bodies advanced on them with no regard to the assault they came under. The sounds of their screams chilled Brian more than the sound of their weapons. The noise of the attack attracted even more creatures searching for another meal. It only worsened when the freshly risen military troops made their appearance. Three of them still clutched their rifles. As they walked, their decaying fingers would twitch and fire off an occasional shot. One even blew out the back of a passing zombie’s head.
It took two full days for the zombie herd to thin out enough for Brian to even consider moving from the top floor of the house. He was weak with hunger and dehydrated, but had not been discovered; a fact that encouraged him.
The perishable food had spoiled, but there were tinned vegetables and soups aplenty. While he couldn’t bring himself to heat them, the cold food perked him up and improved his spirits.
The boost he got from the food was eliminated, however, when he looked out of the window in the kitchen, located at the rear of the property. At some point, he presumed in the period between the first zombie waking up and his arrival, the fence at the rear of the property had been smashed through by a car, which sat abandoned in the middle of the small garden.
Zombies wandered through the grass, not in search of him, but rather funneled that way as they tried to find a way around the road block, which had been the reason for the car to swerve from the road in the first place. A quick count put four zombies in the small back yard. While they did not make any direct moves, they all showed signs of a heightened alertness the moment Brian appeared before the window.
He retreated back into the shadows, his options limited. He was surrounded on all sides, and running had already proven to be a pointless exercise. He was exhausted, and wouldn’t make it far even if he tried. So he stood and watched them. They stumbled back and forth; some in an endless loop around the car, while others came and went. A few returned, but most were replaced by others. Men, women, even children. There was no difference between them all. They had become one and the same.
Time sped by him unnoticed as he watched them. It was like staring at a fish tank. With his presence removed from the window, the undead paid no attention to the house, and once again resumed their pacing.
The close proximity to the house made it a risk, and Brian knew that he could not stay there indefinitely. He raided the cupboards and gathered all of the supplies he could find. He split the pile into the things he would take and the things he would leave. There was enough food to last him several days –maybe even a week if he was careful. So he allowed himself the luxury second large meal before he prepared to leave the house.
As he packed, Brian heard another crashing sound. Running up to the master bedroom Brian looked out and saw a group of fifteen zombies trying to force their way into a house at the end of the street. A fresh body, the head roughly wrenched from the shoulders lay in the street, while a raggedy looking zombie, with wild hair crouched beside it, scooping the fresh contents out of the inverted skull. At that moment Brian understood. He would not be able to stay in one place. He would need to keep mobile, and be prepared. Luck would not keep him alive for long.
With the food packed, Brian added a rack of kitchen knives to the backpack he had found, as well as a cricket bat from one of the upstairs bedrooms. The roads around the house were as empty as could be expected, so once more Brian left a home behind him and scurried out into the night.
He only made it two streets before he needed to find shelter. Jumping into an open garage; he crawled beneath the car parked there. He watched as a group of zombies passed along the street, pausing to sniff the air as they neared the open door.
Brian held his breath and waited. The group moved on. As Brian hauled himself out from beneath the car he realized that no matter where he went they would always be there. The military could not stop them. It was up to him to survive, and without a place to call home he would be useless. He needed to find a place out of the way. A property separated from the roads and out of the city. In the few seconds it took him to crawl from under the car his mind conjured up the image of a house in the country, walled off and secure. He saw himself, and others. They all stood gathered around him, looking up to him. He was their leader, and they listened to his every word. He was important. He was somebody. A smile stretched across his face as he left the garage and hit the streets at a brisk pace. On the other side of the hospital grounds was the countryside. Fields and farmland for the most part, peppered with houses, barns, and plenty of open space.
It took the better part of two days for Brian to reach the farm house, with zombies forcing him to find shelter in three different homes in one day. The very first farm house he found seemed perfect right off the bat. It was empty of
zombies, but in the kitchen he found the sad remains of two more souls that had opted for suicide. During his trek into the countryside he had seen plenty of suicides; the majority from within the secured walls of the hospital. Doctors and nurses had hung themselves on whatever they could find that projected from the building. Three hung from the flagpole, which raised the question of how three people made it that far in order to hang themselves without wrenching the pole from its fixtures. As Brian watched, the pole bent and tumbled to the ground and a horde of hungry monsters descended on the meat. Even though it was not the freshest of cuts, the juicy center was still damp enough to satiate their hunger for a few moments.
The hospital had been secured from the inside, and had trapped a large majority of the zombies within the walls. As Brain came close to the mesh fence that ran around a section of the perimeter, they charged at him, pushing against the fence with their combined weight. They would escape. It was only a matter of time.
This is what kept Brian walking another day; choosing to head as far away from the hospital as possible.
With a callousness that accompanied the rising of the dead, Brian collected the bodies and moved them into the fields. He would find a shovel and bury them, but first, he needed to make sure the perimeter was secure.
The farmhouse and the surrounding fields had three security measures in place. There was a fence that ran past the outer edge of the property. From the looks of the barns behind the house, and the lack of any large vehicles, it had been a livestock farm.
Having started to secure the house, Brian ensured that he was alone and that it would stay that way. He installed a trip wire made from rope. It was hardly sophisticated, but good enough to stop the walking dead. He secured it at waist height on every door. Next he checked the fence that separated the farm house and personal land from the business section. The fence was intact and a large gate secured the driveway. During his check of the surrounding fields, Brian found six zombies, all moving alone. Had they been in a group he would have been dead. By the time he had dispatched the fifth body, he had learned that headshots killed them. Anything else just pissed them off. It took the best part of the day to check the outer hedge, with the farm being in the center of five large fields. Four surrounded the property and another lay to the south of the house. A rolling hill hid the field from view. There were several lone zombies in the field, but Brian’s first goal was to find any weaknesses in the fence. Where were they coming from? He found the gap in the third field. A gate had been opened, knocked open by a speeding pickup truck. The truck sat in the field, the occupants nowhere to be seen, its interior was covered with blood. Brian didn’t need to look any closer. Closing the gate sapped what little strength he still had. He was about to head back to the house, eager to see if there was a meal that he could rustle up, when a strange, deep groan rang out. Something about the cry drew Brian to it, even though the light was fast fading. The air changed and the sound grew as he drew closer to its source. It became heavy, meaty. As Brian crested the hill, an image formulated in his mind of what he expected to see. The reality however, was far more chilling.
Diaries of the Damned Page 22
