Z Day: Survival of the Fittest

by Newton, Reece

  Z Day

  Survival of the Fittest

  By

  Reece Newton

  Reece Newton

  Copyright © 2015 by Reece Newton

  The author has asserted his moral rights

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book is to be reproduced or sold in any shape or form without prior consent by the copyright owner.

  My name is James Treadmore, I am 42 years old.

  I have no family, no money, no job, no friends and basically no life, I exist purely to kill. I can't help it I just love killing, I love the look of burning red blood oozing from my victim's flesh and the look in their eyes just as the life drains from their puppet like bodies, it gives me power and power is the one thing I crave.

  I have only been caught once, and in a way I'm glad I was.

  Anyway here's the story of how I died............

  It all started when I was sent to a loathsome old prison near Cambridge, two or three years ago for murdering a car salesman, they always used to piss me off I had a car I didn't want or need another one. Anyway, maybe he didn't deserve to be strangled to death but he was bloody annoying.

  I was arrested two weeks after murdering him because somehow they found evidence of him being dead and that it was by my hand. I didn't get how they knew he was dead, let alone them knowing it was me it was ridiculous. The police must have been following me from past murders I guess but how did they know about them I was so careful, I treated it like art work every process had to be completed carefully and in great detail. The police turned up at my house and arrested me like it was nothing, the officers all looked so smug like I was some sort of drug Lord.

  When I got to the police station I was questioned immediately and put into custody for only two days until I had a trail in a court of law. I didn't have a clue what to do I stayed silent for the whole time even when questioned and when they asked if I pleaded guilty I just sat there, the judge's voice was just white noise. I didn't do anything but wonder how the hell they had caught me. I was obviously sentenced to life and put into a prison where everyone there had done crimes that were similar to mine, well probably nowhere near as bad but we can't all be great killers.

  After a year or so in prison I was actually enjoying myself I had a few friends, the cells were skanky but it was a pretty neat place. After two years of pretty easy time I was referred to a mental hospital near Clacton on Sea, just a mile or so away from the beach. I was treated terribly there, I think the patients alone were enough to turn you insane. I'd only seen a few of the patients but the ones I’d seen were very loud and very winey. I’d seen a few people on the way in and heard screams of patients every single night, after a while it just turned into white noise. I guess they were trying to get some attention or trying to escape or something like that, I didn't bother I wasn't going to waste my breath on something I knew would never happen. Every second at the hospital was a living hell, the staff were turning people insane before dying a slow and painful death.

  I used to stare longingly through the metal bars on the door of my cell, I wouldn't usually see anyone or anything except the clock on the wall just across the corridor. When I wasn't looking through the bars, to the clock praying that time would just pass me by I would lie on my bed and listen to the screams of the patients. One of the men in the mental hospital could be heard all day everyday, his screams made the hairs on my arms stand on edge, he had such a deep voice and he sounded like a pretty tough guy and it scared me to think that this place could do something like that to a man like him.

  The cell alone was enough to turn a sane person mad...... those four white walls just closing in on me, every so often I would hear the piercing wail let off by the activation of the emergency cord, I assumed that every room had one, well I knew there was one in mine at least. I had pulled mine a few times just to see if anyone would actually come but nine times out of ten no one would, and even if they did they would stand outside the door and tell me to shut up often I'd hear them threaten to kill the other patients but I imagine that's what most of them would have wanted. I was getting what I deserved and so was everyone else here I gave other people death so the government gave me life, a life that would feel like an eternity.

  I was basically starved in the institution and on the rare occasion that I was fed, what I was given was half-eaten and covered in mould. I was surprised that no one had noticed just how badly they treated us, but why would they? We had all done something terrible or were completely insane or else we wouldn't be here.

  We were given one bottle of water a day and never allowed out of our cell, some of the time they would walk past my cell and I could tell that they thought I was completely insane just from the look they gave me but truthfully I don't think I'm mental, in fact I know I am sane. I just get these uncontrollable urges to kill, I've had them since I was eighteen, in fact it all started on my eighteenth birthday when I got a huge sniper air rifle with the metal caps. I was thrilled with it, I was just like a child until that day. I never really fit in at school, I preferred my own company to the company of the other kids, they were just so irritating. Until I was eighteen the only thing I wanted was an air rifle so I could get closer to my lifelong dream of being in the Army. In some ways I wish I did join the Army now, maybe my whole life would have been different or maybe I wouldn't be alive today, who knows?

  Anyway as you can imagine if you get an air rifle for your birthday, no matter how old you are the first thing you want to do is try it out. That morning after unwrapping all of my other presents I went to the large oak forest about twenty to thirty minutes down the road from my house, well my parents house really and while trying to shoot the targets I had made with paper and pinned to the trees I accidently shot a raven. It fell straight from the tree and landed in front of my feet, it was as though it sparked a flame inside of me.

  Just looking at it lying there completely lifeless with a small pool of blood surrounding it, I couldn't help but smile, just to know that I was the one that killed it, I made it happen and ever since then I've had urges to kill which almost feel as though I'm taken over or possessed.

  I've lost count of the people I've killed since that day, though my first actual kill was a man that barged into me down the street, I couldn't help myself, I followed him into an alleyway and beat him to death with my bare hands. Every punch to his head gave me more pleasure. The only reason I did it was because he gave me a real shitty look, even I regret that kill. The man was about twenty and could have had a wife and kids. In a way I feel like I saved him from dying an even more painful way where he could have hurt the people he loved. After making sure he was dead I put him over my shoulder and went to the river a few minutes away I was lucky, it was dark and no one saw. I chucked the body into the river and didn't look back. After disposing of his body I went to the public toilets to wash the blood of my hands and jacket. Looking back I'm surprised that I hadn't been caught. I kept getting more urges and I carried on killing going from one victim to the next getting more and more pleasure each time. I wasn't caught until I was forty years of age and that was only because of the fact that I made a stupid mistake, it's pretty embarrassing and I'm not even going to begin to tell you about it but as far as the police knew I had only killed one person.

  I tried to only kill bad people, people that deserved it, drug dealers, thieves and murderers. After the first kill I knew I couldn't just kill anyone so I made up a system for killing, like a promise to myself to only kill bad people, I couldn't let it get out of hand.

  I only wish I had stuck to the system but it only lasted for two years and at that point I just killed whoever was there at the time of my urges.
After 56 lifeless days in the insane asylum I woke up to an eerie silence, no screaming, no noise, nothing. I got up and went to the cell door to look at the clock as I did every day, I don't remember the exact time but it was early morning I know that much. There was a man lying on the floor down the hallway, he seemed to be having some kind of fit, he had blood gushing from his mouth and he was as pale as a ghost. He stopped suddenly and then he was completely still, he just lay there. I kept staring at him just waiting for someone to come and find him I didn't really care, all the people that worked there I'd of gladly seen dead. After just looking and grinning for a few moments I went over to the emergency cord and pulled it a few times to get help. When I looked back the man was staggering to his feet and he began to groan. I shouted to see if he was okay and his head flew up, his eyes were scarily white and blood shot. He spat blood before he began staggering towards me. The groans became louder as he got closer to my cell door, At this point I was scared, I tugged at the emergency chord again trying desperately to get someone's attention. I shouted for help then I heard a woman's voice, I could tell she had been crying she shouted out to me

  “The world has gone to shit people are biting each other, literally ripping at each other's skin like they have rabies or some shit.”

  She continued to tell me that she had seen them ripping limbs from people and eating them. I have to admit that at the time I thought she was just crazy along with the rest of the patients but there was a man spitting blood and trying to bite me through the bars so I just went along with it thinking she was completely crazy.

  She told me that there was a tiny rectangular window above her bed and she could see a man walking down the street, the road was littered with abandoned cars and dead bodies. I still didn't really believe her but I just went along with it she said that these rabid people were running towards him but he had a revolver, he shot down two of them I could hear the shots I was beginning to get really freaked out now. She started to bang on the window in an attempt to get help, she said he had seen her after a minute or so and had entered the hospital.

  I don't get why he would walk into a mental institution to try and save us? He must have known we would be dangerous and could probably help I guess, but things must have been bad for him to take that much of a risk.

  We heard a few gunshots and then all of a sudden the man outside my cell fell to the ground, he laid with an axe protruding from the back of his head. Dark red blood was splattered around my cell, I was pretty impressed, it was hard for me to admit it but it was a good kill!

  A few seconds later I saw the man, he was jangling a load of keys around searching for the one for my cell. He finally found the key and unlocked my cell door. I could see he looked about twenty-ish, he had short brown hair and was wearing a black leather jacket with dark blue jeans. He held an immaculate stainless steel revolver firmly with both hands whilst looking me up and down. He was the first person I had seen for a long time apart from the nurses and I didn't class them as people they were more like robots, doing the same thing every day over and over again.

  As he was releasing the girl in the next cell he told me that his name was Martin. The girl came out of her cell sobbing, she told us that her name was Gina. Even with all this going on I couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was, she had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen and her blonde hair sparkled in the sunlight that flickered through the corridor.

  After telling them my name I asked the both of them what the hell was going on? Martin told me that people were just going crazy, they were eating each other alive and spreading the infection. He said they were calling it the zombie virus, he said today was Z Day or Zombie Day, the day the world went to shit.

  He said it had started out as a strain of flu and then someone bit someone else and so it began. It was happening all over the world.

  Suddenly the fire alarm sounded and Martin ran, Gina followed. I grabbed the axe from the back of the zombies head and ran along beside them trying not to slip on the blood that covered the floors of the corridor it's harder than you'd think, it's not like water it's a lot thicker and it's very slippery. As we ran I could hear screeches coming from behind us, when I stopped to look back I saw tens of zombies each one with blood dripping from their lips. One of them had half its face missing, an eye was all that was left on the right side of its face. I was a fucking killer but not even I'd seen anyone look that messed up.

  I kept running until we came to the fire door we all ran through it as fast as we could Martin held the door open for us, we were in an alleyway beside the hospital, the silence was deafening.

  I could hear the groans of the zombies behind us, I was trying to come to terms with the situation. I didn't understand what was happening here but we caught our breath whilst Martin shut the door.

  He grabbed some ammunition from his trouser pocket and we were off again, he led us along the alleyway which seemed as though it would never end. By now the adrenaline was pumping through my body and I was beginning to enjoy the thrill of it all, after all I was finally out of that hell hole of a place. I didn't know what was going on but whatever it was it was better than being in there.

  At the end of the alley we came across a couple of zombies feasting on a woman's body. I couldn't tell if she was alive or not but I hoped for her sake that she wasn't, the zombies were ripping out her intestines like she was a piece of meat. Martin kicked them out of the way and kept on running, I held Gina's hand as tears fell down her face, she was petrified. The world had gone to shit within a matter of hours, it was insane! The screeching noise pierced my ears once more, there were a lot of them following us now, probably around thirty or forty of them. Martin looked back and shot one of them, whilst running he told me that the only way to kill them was a shot to the head or anything that damaged the brain. More and more zombies were joining the crowd by the second, the adrenaline running through my veins was phenomenal, I'd never felt so alive! Maybe I should take up running instead of killing? It'd definitely be a simpler life that's for sure!

  After running down two streets and an alleyway Martin finally led us into a small department store.

  He started to bolt the door behind us when he asked me and Gina to check for zombies. Gina was so scared I didn't know how to comfort her, I never had been any good at comforting people I suppose it's because I'm a killer and us killers aren't exactly known for our emotional capabilities.

  I checked both of the isles to the right of me, there were no zombies. I went to see if Gina had finished checking the left but I found her sitting with her back to one of the shelves and her blood covered hands covering her face, On the floor next to her was a zombie with a knife protruding from its forehead. I wondered where she had gotten the knife from but I didn't really get time to ask her. I went to comfort her but hesitated wondering if she could have been bitten, I didn't know much about these things but I did know one bite was all it took. I asked Gina if she was okay or if she had been injured in any way. Once I knew she wasn't bitten I sat beside her and held her hand trying to be the comforting man I knew I wasn't, I told her everything was going to be alright but we both knew it wasn't. I knew things weren't going to be okay that's just what you say when things are going badly, hell! Humans eating each other alive, I don't think things could get any worse. Gina had more than likely lost her entire family, her friends and everything else that mattered to her. Me, I had never really had any friends and my family died when I was in my early twenties, they died in a plane crash so from then on I had no one, not that it bothered me I didn't tell Gina about anything to do with my life and she didn't ask, I didn't tell anyone, why would I? All I did was kill a few people to control my urges.

  When Gina finally stopped crying I helped her up and we went back over to Martin, he was nailing shelves to the door and any odd bits of wood he could find. At that point the zombies were almost breaking through the door, the moaning coming from outside the door was continuous, we were trapped alright, but for now
that was the last of our worries. They were throwing themselves at the door, Martin couldn't find anything else to secure the door with so he put down his tools.

  We stopped still and just took a minute to listened to the zombies trying to get in for a minute, then Martin grabbed an axe from the shelf, unwrapped the plastic from around the blade and chucked another to me. We decided to look for another way out the shop but it was so small it didn't have another entrance or a fire exit, it only had an upstairs and a back room full of broken trolleys and newly repaired ones. The shop was to small to have more than one trolley go down an Isle at a time.

  Suddenly I heard Martin shouting and a loud thudding noise coming from upstairs. I went upstairs to investigate and found Martin on his knees hacking away at a zombie, there were chunks of the flesh from It's body flying across the room and the carpet was saturated with bright red blood.

  I shouted to Gina to stay downstairs, I didn't want her to witness this, it would have traumatised her. Once I got him to calm down he ran over to the coffee table and picked up a large pile of magazines, he brought them downstairs and grabbed the masking tape from the shelf, he began taping them to his arms and legs, then he threw a few of magazines to me and I followed suit while Gina did the same. It was quite clever actually, if we taped them to us then a zombie bite wouldn't be able to penetrate the skin, though obviously we were nowhere near invincible but it would help.