Diaries of the Damned

by Laybourne, Alex

  The large figure holding the Taser had been listening to the story with as much interest as the others, amazed at the level of insanity that could be reached in a short period of time. Paul had seen him, and the weapon he had drawn. Hence his willingness to allow Brian to spin his tale; to play his crazy part in the writing of a new history.

  “It’s ok folks, he’s not dangerous. Just crazy as a loon, that’s all,” the man spoke as he disconnected the Taser cartridge and holstered the weapon.

  “He seemed so normal at the beginning,” Monique spoke with a calm voice. All of them were dulled from the harshness of their new reality.

  None of them could deny the truth in what she had said. Brian had been a little off when he first stood up, but as he talked, he gathered speed and came unwound.

  “He had a bad time of it,” Paul spoke with a wise head, looking not at the man on the floor but at the picture he had painted. “It could have happened to any of us,” he added, looking at each one of them in turn.

  “If you knew he was crazy, why did you let him speak?” Robert asked, his youth and naivety shining through the mature head he wore.

  “Just because he was crazy, didn’t mean he had nothing to contribute. Besides, maybe he is telling the truth. We know jack shit about those creatures, and everybody should be given a chance to explain what they saw. That was the point of starting this in the first place.” Paul hadn’t noticed that his writing had become some political statement for the future, but when he heard the answer he gave, he understood exactly what it was they were doing…all of them.

  “If you knew he was crazy, why is he not restrained?” Tracey called to the man with the gun. He was checking the unconscious Brian, ensuring that nothing serious kept him immobile.

  “He was in the same convoy that I was in. When we found him he was passed out in a field. Mad as a hatter he was. But we didn’t think he was dangerous…not to us at least.” The man stood back up to his full height. He was a large man, in all dimensions.

  “You’re military then?” Paul asked, his interest piqued.

  “No, not exactly. I worked on a military base on the outskirts of the city. We were rescued and met this guy as we travelled back to the airport. His farm house was about to be overrun. That clown shoved a handful of metal poles into the ground and cut up a zombie he had skewered around the back of the house. The military guys I was with took out the zombies, while the three female soldiers grabbed him and brought him back. The whole trip back he kept jabbering on about his women, his girls that were waiting for him back at the farmhouse.” The man stopped speaking as Brian began to stir on the floor. He gave a groan and rolled onto his back. Around them, the plane pitched forward, as it lowered in altitude, in preparation for landing.

  “So was he lying about it all?” Jessica eyed the man with a suspicious glare that Paul could not escape noticing.

  “Someone’s lying, that’s for sure,” the answer was curt and to the point.

  “We can’t trust a damned word he has said,” Leon answered, frustrated at the wasted time.

  “He was talking out of his ass. That farmhouse was broken down. He sure as hell wasn’t staying inside it, because it was all boarded up. He was half dead from exposure and hadn’t slept in weeks.” The man hauled Brian to his feet and strapped him into a window seat a few aisles ahead of them. The plane pitched forward even more as they began their final descent.

  “Maybe so, but let’s be honest. We don’t know anything about these things. But, if we take what he said as being true, at least in some way, and accept that they can learn, or at least become familiar with the same trick after repeat exposure, it would fit with the thinking that this was some biological attack a side effect that means not all of the brain is dead. I mean, who ever heard about randy zombies before…not me. I never saw it in any film,” Paul reasoned with them all. He felt sorry for Brian. The man did not strike him as dangerous, and while he could very well be wrong, he trusted his own instinct more than many other people he had met in his life.

  “Okay, say it’s true. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I mean…we’re clearly coming in to land. Freedom is a few minutes away, and we can start to rebuild our lives. I don’t think we will ever understand what happened,” Alan spoke, his voice was weak and cracked, as if he were suffering from the tail end of a nasty head cold.

  “I don’t know about that. Sure, we are almost at the end of this trip, but it is only the beginning of the journey. We’ve learned a lot, and who knows how many more people are waiting down there for us to talk to,” Paul answered not noticing his use of the group pronoun when referencing their future.

  “Us…” Jessica answered, stealing the response from Leon’s lips.

  Caught off-guard, Paul looked at her and smiled. “Why not? We’ve been through so much. We could stick together, Rebuild. Actually help each other. Maybe we could piece together the rest of the puzzle.”

  “Why? What would be the point?” the new man asked. Brian was fully secured in his chair and sleeping once again.

  “Why not? We survived something horrible. We have a right to know what happened. There might not be many people left to tell us, but we seem to be getting pretty close to it,” Paul shot back, feeling the weight of the eyes of the group upon him.

  “Right, A terrorist attack, that’s it right?” the new man scoffed.

  “Do you know something we don’t? Working on a military base, but not a soldier…you're clearly an educated man, and armed with a weapon like that I doubt you were a cleaner,” Paul prodded, looking for a reaction of some kind.

  “You’re a sharp bastard.” The man paused. He smiled at Paul, showing his comment was not meant as a threat, and then his face cleared of expression. He was caught in a thoughtful dilemma, and it tore him apart to have to choose.

  Beside Paul, Jessica shifted in her seat. “I think we are getting ready to land. Everybody should take their seats,” she interrupted the conversation, and went to stand.

  “You’d like that wouldn’t you. Well, maybe you’re right…”He looked at Paul, trying to remember his name.

  “Paul.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Paul. Maybe I do have a story to tell. But if I do, I want you all to be ready for the consequences.” His tone was serious, his eyes burned with a dark focus.

  Jessica moved to interrupt him again and he silenced her with a fiery glare, moving his hand down to the holster of his Taser. It was an act that many did not notice, for they were looking at Paul, waiting for his answer.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, fathoming his way around the new intriguing moment of their escape.

  “You’re getting pretty close. I’m impressed. Really I am. But I know the truth. I was there. I know the what, when, and why of it all.” He paused and the atmosphere in the plane turned heavy, as if someone had sucked the air out of the room. They all gasped, yet nobody dared speak.

  “Why did you not say anything before now?” Paul pushed, choosing a simple question so as not to lose the man, but also to buy himself some time to think.

  “The same reason I am reluctant to tell you now,” he answered.

  “And that is…”

  “The truth. If you know it, you cannot un-know it. When I say I know the truth, I mean not just about the attacks, but also our destination.” He looked at the ground, fearful for the first time that he may turn the group against him.

  “But by that measure, you are also heading the same way,” Paul continued to find his way.

  “Yes, that was also part of the problem. I didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  “What is your name?” Paul asked, finally turning to the fresh page in his notepad.

  “Neil, Neil Mayberry,” the man answered.

  “I don’t think we have time for this, Paul,” Jessica pushed once more, but Paul looked her in the eyes and she saw the look on his face.

  “This man knows the truth. Aren’t you interested in knowing that? We have
time to hear his story.” Paul would not budge, and the rest of the group voiced a supporting murmur. Jessica sighed, and sat back in the chair. Her face, still pale from the blood loss, Paul reasoned, looked sunken and tired.

  “Neil, take a seat, and please, tell us your story.”

  Chapter 22 – We are all Damned

  Neil Mayberry felt the weight of nine pairs of expectant eyes boring into his soul. His claim to know the truth had roused them. He sat, his heart pounding in his chest. He did know the truth, and he would tell them, but at his tempo. He would not be rushed, for to miss even the smallest of details could end up with him looking like an accomplice rather than a victim.

  “Well, Neil, you certainly have our attention,” Paul started, his pens clamped between two fingers. He gripped them so hard, both digits had turned white from the pressure they exerted. “If you knew the truth all along, why have you not said anything until now?” Paul asked, spitting his first question out before this interviewee had truly settled. He couldn’t help it, he needed to know.

  “I don’t know. Fear, I guess. Not everybody on this flight is who they appear to be,” he stated cryptically.

  “Like you, you mean?” Jessica piped up, a tone of spite flashed in her words.

  “No, not like me. I am innocent in all of this. There are others on this plane that know the truth; that are behind it all.” He stopped talking. His face glistened with a sheen of sweat.

  “Then why stand up now?” Jessica continued. She sat rigid in her stool beside Paul, and never once broke her gaze upon Neil.

  “Well, I’ve listened to everything you have all said, and I must say, you have gotten very close. The final detail however, that one key bit to the puzzle is something you will never guess…not in time at least.” He looked from Paul to Jessica. While the others all listened, it was these two, the ones that had started it all, that received all the true attention.

  “Okay, but I still don’t understand why you chose now to stand up. If you know the truth and are so afraid of their reactions, what has changed?” Paul asked, shaking his pen several times. It was almost empty…typical.

  “Well, I’m on this flight aren’t I? Us, all of us, we’re all damned. I haven’t got anything left to lose. If I am going to end this day queuing up at the gates of heaven, I want to do it with a clean conscience and untroubled soul.”

  Paul nodded. “I understand what you mean. Why are we all damned, what is going on?”

  “More than you know.” There was a clear tone of fear in Neil’s voice.

  A nervous clamor went around the stuffy inside of the now rapidly descending aircraft. One by one the word of their new predicament had spread, and more eyes than ever turned their attention on the group.

  “Then please share it with us, for we are at a loss. You said that we are pretty close, so I take it that it was a biological attack of some kind. We were right about the flu, right? The zombies were unplanned, just like Leon said.” Paul pushed a little harder, aware that their time ran short.

  Neil looked down at his hands, and started to pick at his fingernails. For a while he didn’t speak. When he looked up again, his eyes were burned a pale pink by the tears he fought hard not to shed. “Yes.” It was a small answer, but it meant so much to them.

  “Neil, what did you do for the army? How would a security guard know the truth of something like this? Isn’t it classified or something?” Paul could sense that the tale was close to starting.

  “Exactly. I may have just been a security guard, but I wasn’t sitting behind the front desk checking ID badges and ordering pizza. I joined the military fresh out of school,” Neil began. The talk about his life before the outbreak seemed to come at a more natural pace. “I spent seven years in the military before an injury to my leg during a training exercise forced me to retire.” He placed the final word in air-quotes.

  “Okay, and then you joined a security force?” Leon couldn’t help but jump in. Paul didn’t mind. He liked Leon.

  “No, I was at home, mulling over my options. My wife and I had gotten divorced. After I lost my job I kind of lost myself too. In the seven months it took between me being discharged and taken on again, my life kind of crumbled around me.” Neil paused, focusing his mind, and to wipe away a tear. “They came to my house late one night – my old sergeant and the commander-in-chief at the base I used to be stationed at. They told me they had a job for me. Gave me the details and left. It was all very secretive, and I never saw them again. I turned up for the meeting, and was transferred over to Norwich the very next day.” Paul stopped, feeling his background was not sufficiently told.

  “There are no army bases in Norwich; not like the ones you are referring to,” Robert began, remembering the conversation he had had around the dinner table of his zombie infested frat house.

  “Not the kind you are thinking of, but this base…it was underground. Secretive sort of stuff; experiments and the like. The place was manned by more scientists than soldiers. It was underneath some big farmhouse just outside of the city…not the same one Brian here found himself at, but similar.” Neil paused, hoping that they would fill in the blanks for themselves. He had made peace with what had happened, but still, saying it out loud was a different matter entirely.

  “Are you trying to tell us that this was an accident? That this virus simply escaped or some crap like that?” Robert jumped in again.

  “Are you not breaking some non-disclosure order or whatever? Surely you have to sign something like that to work for the government,” Jessica interrupted the interruption. Her eyes bored into Neil, who held her gaze and smiled.

  “I’m on this flight, aren’t I, love?” Neil reiterated. “My fate is sealed. It doesn’t matter what I say or do anymore.” Neil moved his attention toward Robert, and the others. He took a deep breath before speaking. “It wasn’t an accident. I wish it had been as simple as that. The truth is a far more disturbing tale than any imagination could weave. But let me tell it right, it is important that you all know the truth.”

  Chapter 23 – Neil Mayberry

  Neil Mayberry arrived, walking up the long flight of stairs, humming a jaunty tune, eagerly anticipating his first cigarette of the day. He had tried to quit on numerous occasions, and had managed it twice…for a month at least, but sooner or later the pressure of his job got to him, and the smokes were the first thing he reached for. Alcohol was banned on the base, one small mercy he was thankful for. Had it been permitted, or even possible to bring such contraband inside the perimeter, he would have happily drunk himself into a coma whenever he was off duty.

  The morning was cool. A frost had settled on the fields, coating everything with an icy finish. His breath left his body in dense clouds, and as Neil exhaled after a long drag, he closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander. He had not left the base for more than a week at a time in seven years, and even then he was under close observation. He longed for the day that retirement would come his way…if they ever allowed him to retire, that was. Being the oldest active officer on site (only being surpassed by three of the scientists – one of whom was pushing eighty) the whole retirement process was a great unknown.

  Before he had gotten half way through the first of the two cigarettes he allowed himself before a shift, Neil was distracted by a frantic call coming through his radio. With a sigh he picked it up and headed inside, flicking his cigarette into a bucket of rainwater that stood by the door. It made a small hiss of disapproval and then died.

  Neil was at the end of the long flight of stairs that led to the underground laboratory when another burst of chatter came through. This time, the sound was a scream, and it ended with a burst of gunfire. Neil broke into a run. Only he and the other guards were supposed to be carrying firearms, but the shots that sounded over the radio were not from the automatic rifle they carried. It was a series of single shots, most likely from the pistol that was kept in a locked security box within the laboratory. The scientists were kept separated f
rom the military personnel during work hours; a must, given the materials that they worked with.

  Neil arrived at the laboratory to find the long window of his station was covered with blood. A coating so thick, that all events on the inside of the lab were hidden from him. He stood and hesitated. They were forbidden to enter the laboratory, but there were always extenuating circumstances. Another shot rang out, and Neil moved. He slammed his first through the protective casing and pulled the lever that powered up the high powered air filtration unit and ran around to the laboratory’s main entrance. The carnage inside the lab was obscured by a pink mist, and it was not until Neil crossed the threshold that he came face to face with the cause.

  The scientists worked in three teams of seven, and at a quick count, Neil noted five bodies on the floor, although it was hard to tell who the scientists were. They had been turned inside out and their organs spread around the room.

  From the corner of the room, behind the door he had come in from, Neil heard a strange squishing sound. He turned as a blood-covered figure leaped at him. The body collided with a heavy force and knocked Neil from his feet. They collapsed to the floor, tipping over the one remaining table, sending a shower of instruments and beakers tumbling to the floor. Neil recognized his attacker, but only just. Dr. Deborah Jennings, normally a reserved and mild-mannered woman in her mid-forties was naked and covered in blood. Her grip was like a vice as she crushed Neil’s arms. She growled and spat at him, her snapping teeth inching ever closer to his neck. Neil tried to resist, but he was powerless, pinned to the floor by the woman he had often fantasized about being with.