Journal of the Living

by John Moralee

  “Keep your heads down!” I ordered, moments before a bullet zinged through the rear window and blasted the flame-retardant stuffing out of the passenger seat where Angela had been sitting two minutes earlier. She was lucky to be in the back with the kids.

  One of the men was running down the slope firing at us. He was a skinny rat-like man in a leather jacket. He was grinning and aiming a gun.

  Angela poked the shotgun out of the side door and fired at him, catching him in the left leg. He fell down with blood pouring from his knee – looking more surprised than hurt. He fired his gun again – but his aim was off. The bullet went straight into the blue sky. His injury made the other men stay back, dodging behind the trees, firing off shots that missed. Angela fired back, taking chunks out of the trunk of an innocent oak tree. She was wasting shells – but she was keeping them back. The sound of the shotgun made my ears ring.

  I drove into the shallow river and up the embankment on the other side, hearing our van’s engine groaning and straining. The van had never been designed for this abuse. I begged it to keep moving. It crawled up the bank. We got to the top with everything not tied down sliding on top of Angela, Jason and Hayley so they were buried in tins and packets and bottles and toilet rolls. The men fired a couple of wild shots before we were out of their range – then appeared to give up.

  I drove about a mile through woodland until we reached another road – a dirt road through a forest. I increased speed then, eager to just get out away from our ambushers. I thought we had escaped fairly unscathed – but a red light was on the dash telling me we were running out of fuel. I couldn’t understand it. I’d filled the petrol tank that morning from the cans we kept in reserve. We should have had enough to get back to the camp with no problems – but we were registering nearly empty.

  I looked back and noticed the van was leaving a dark line of petrol on the road behind us.

  “We’re going to have to stop,” I told the others. “We’ve got a petrol leak.”

  “We can’t stop here,” Angela said. “Those men will be hunting us.”

  “We can’t drive on leaking fuel. We won’t get another mile at the rate we’re losing it. I’ve got no choice, Angela. We’re stopping.” I pulled off the road and stopped. “Okay – I’m getting out to check the damage. Angela – cover me. Hayley and Jason – keep watch for the ambushers. Jason – get in the driver’s seat. Honk if you see trouble.”

  I took off my jacket before jumping out to crawl under the van, looking for the source of the leak. It was much worse than I feared. A bullet had ripped a fist-sized hole through it too big for a quick repair. The petrol was pouring out. It had already covered my T-shirt so I stripped it off and stuffed it into the hole until the petrol wasn’t leaking out too fast – then I rolled out from underneath. I went back to the van to get a clean shirt on. I pretended I didn’t notice Angela checking out my muscles – but a shallow part of my liked her interest in my body. When she realised she was staring, she looked away, embarrassed.

  “So ...” she said. “How bad is it under there?”

  “It’s bad. We can’t make it back to the camp – but I’ve patched it temporarily so it won’t leak if we add some more petrol just to get us a few extra miles. Ideally, we need to hide the van somewhere until we get it repaired. Somewhere with fuel.”

  “I’ll look at the map,” Angela said, opening the glove compartment. “Maybe I can find some place nearby.”

  I grabbed our last can of petrol from the rear and topped up the tank with a couple of litres. That left the can empty. It’d get us a little bit further – but one bump in the road would dislodge the rag. I hurried back to the driver’s seat. Jason hopped back into the back. I drove on. My patch job had stopped the petrol leaking onto the ground – but I doubted it would last long. We desperately had to find somewhere before it leaked again.

  Angela was studying an Ordnance Survey map unfolded on her lap. “There’s a small town coming up. Turn left ahead at the next fork, then right at the next one. It’s about three miles. Can we make that?”

  “Yeah,” I said confidently, though I wasn’t feeling it. The van was making disturbing noises. There must have been more damage done to it than just what I had been able to see. We were probably lucky the petrol tank hadn’t exploded. Somehow my T-shirt stayed stuffed in the hole until we reached the town.

  It was always potentially dangerous driving into a strange place without scouting the area from a good distance – but I didn’t see anything worrying as we approached in on a road winding down into a green valley. We checked it out with binoculars. There were several rows of houses built around a High Street. No zombies were visible on the main street. The town looked deserted. There were many places like it. Ghost towns. The living had just abandoned their homes to head north to the refugee camps in the highlands of Scotland. They had fled north hoping to find safety and civilisation, but I had heard the Scottish refugee camps had been turned into hellish prisons by the new regime up there.

  I cruised into the town slowly, looking around nervously. The noise of our vehicle would disturb any zombies in the buildings. They would be coming out of their hibernation state, listening, moving, feeling hungry. The hairs on the back of my hands were standing up. I always hated the crawly feeling inside my chest when I was venturing into unknown territory. So far we were good – but I didn’t like the quiet streets. I couldn’t even hear a bird. There was a boarded-up house on my right with the words GONE NORTH written on the front door. There were also some empty shops with broken windows and abandoned cars. A dead dog was rotting on the pavement – but since nothing was snacking on it that was actually a good sign. It made it less likely there were any zombies around. They would have picked that corpse clean if they had smelled it. I passed a pub called The Red Queen. I idly wondered if there was any beer left inside.

  Ah! There was a petrol station ahead with a large auto-repair garage. Just what I needed to find. I pulled into the empty forecourt, noticing weeds growing on the petrol pumps. The little shop looked like it had been looted because all of the windows were broken. Evidently the petrol station had been closed for several months once it ran out of petrol. The garage was around the side, where I could hopefully find the tools for making the repairs. The grey metal doors were closed. Somebody had sprayed a message on them in huge letters:

  WARNING! ZOMBIES!!!

  The three exclamation marks seemed a little excessive – but I appreciated the warning.

  I looked at the fuel gauge. Empty. I couldn’t drive the van on much further on the fumes in the tank. I swore. The garage would probably have everything inside needed to fix the leak, including a pit for getting under it. It could even have some full fuel cans. What if the message was just a bluff to make people afraid of breaking in? I’d seen that before. Writing ‘zombies’ on anything kept people away better than a BEWARE OF THE DOG sign.

  It was worth checking out. I got out and approached the garage doors. They were secured with a strong lock – but I could break it with my bolt cutters. I banged on the door just to see if there really were zombies inside.

  I heard moans and groans.

  It was no bluff.

  It sounded like about a dozen flesh-eaters were locked in, maybe more. They started pounding their hands and feet against the doors, shaking and rattling them, attempting to break out.

  “Grrrrrr!”

  “Grrrr!”

  “Grrrrrrrrhhh!”

  They sounded angry. I was lucky the door was made of solid metal. There were not going anywhere – unless I unlocked the garage. No way was I doing that.

  I walked back to the van, sighing. “Okay – we got a problem. There are zombies inside – so we either have to take them on or leave the van here and look for alternative transport. We might find a car and some fuel somewhere in this freakishly quiet town – but it might not be as good as the van. Either way, we’re stuck here for some time unless we get some petrol.”

 
Jason was looking back up the road. “Uh – we have a bigger problem, Ben. The black car. It’s on its way.”

  We all looked. The car was on the road leading down into the town. It was about a half mile away – but it was moving fast. My heart did some dancing in my chest that hurt. “Okay – grab what you can. We’ve got to hide somewhere.”

  “We can’t leave the supplies,” Hayley whined. “We can’t!”

  “Hayley, we have to,” I said. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  I grabbed my bag of weapons and the shotgun. Angela and the kids grabbed their own backpacks filled with their essentials. That left a lot of food and other things left in the back that I was very reluctant to leave – but we didn’t have the time to move everything. The ambushers were getting closer.

  We dashed across the road into a side street of small shops. We turned a corner into a back street filled with green and blue recycling bins that had been left full of uncollected rubbish. It smelled like an open sewer. I could hear the car coming. We hid behind a disgusting pile of black bags and bins just as the black car drove past on the high street. It was moving more cautiously – at about twenty miles an hour. We peered around the corner, watching it. It moved on. I hoped it would keep going without spotting our van. But then I heard the car stop. I could see two armed men jumping out. They fanned out, looking around. One looked inside the van, seeing we’d abandoned it. “They’re not here!”

  “They must be nearby!” another shouted from the car. “Find them! They shot me!”

  The man injured by Angela stayed in the car, pointing a gun out of a window. The driver also had a gun.

  Our weapons were not a match.

  We were better off hiding among the rubbish. The smell was likely to keep them men from exploring the back streets.

  Just then something black moved between two bin bags. I feared it was a zombie – until it ran across my feet, revealing itself to be a black rat the size of a cat. The rat frightened Hayley. She saw it and opened her mouth to scream – but her brother clamped his hand over her mouth just in time. He held onto her until she calmed down – but the rat made a noise as it scampered under another bin, knocking something over. In the silent town, the clattering noise felt as louder as a gunshot.

  The nearest man heard that. He turned and headed our way, keeping in contact with the others on a radio. We couldn’t hide there any longer. I pointed towards the boarded window of a building. Everyone understood. I got out my claw hammer and ripped the nails out as quietly and quickly as possible. Once the board was loose, we crawled through the broken window into a dark room that smelled just as bad as the street outside. I put the board back after getting inside, hoping the man would not notice it wasn’t secured.

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness. We were in the stock room of a butcher’s shop where all of the frozen meat had defrosted. We stayed quiet as the man passed the boarded window and tested the exit door, which was locked, fortunately. He sniffed the air and muttered something. He kicked something. The rat squeaked.

  “Jeez. There are huge rats here, guys. No sign of them. I’m coming back.”

  *

  That was a few hours ago.

  Now it’s dark and we’re hiding in the top floor of an old furniture store opposite the pub. The black car is still parked in the middle of the street. There’s also another one parked next to the pub that belongs to some other members of their group. It’s a white van. There are also five motorbikes. I’ve seen at least fifteen men out there. All tooled up with guns, knives and baseball bats. The men have stopped looking for us now it is dark – but they might start again in the morning. Earlier they unloaded our van into their van. Then they took some crates of beer that I’d included in our shopping haul into the pub where it looks like they are having a party eating and drinking our supplies. A few men have been left on guard at their cars – but they don’t look too vigilant. I’ve got some ideas about what we could do – but my ideas could make things worse.

  We could do nothing and hide until morning, hoping the gang will leave after having an all-night feast on our hard-earned supplies.

  Or I could sneak back to the garage and release the zombies. The zombies would then attack anyone on the street. Including me if I didn’t get away fast. But they could make the gang panic and flee the town.

  Alternatively, we could sneak up on the men guarding the cars. Angela and I could take them out with crossbows and air rifles – but we’d have to be fast and accurate. Then we could steal their van.

  None of my options make me really happy.

  Does anyone out there know what I should do?

  (Ben received no answer to his question.)

  ENTRY SIX

  It’s been a week since my last entry. A lot of really bad things happened in that time – and it’s all my fault. Nobody helped me make a decision – so I made no decision at all, which created a worse situation ... Maybe if someone had answered my last blog we’d all be at our camp now, happy and alive, but no-one helped me choose what to do. I feel sick about what happened next – but I can’t blame anyone else. Ultimately, it was my indecisiveness that caused the trouble and cost my family so much.

  It’s hard writing about that – but I will because you need to know everything.

  *

  Last week we were on the top floor of an old furniture store, watching a gang across the street. There were about fifteen of them – but only four of us. The gang were enjoying themselves in a pub with some of the supplies we had taken from an Asda inside the M25 danger zone. The rest of our stuff was in a van parked on the street guarded by a couple of armed thugs. I’d had various ideas for taking them on – but I couldn’t decide what to do. Instead we all started arguing about it. Jason and Hayley wanted to strike back immediately – but I was reluctant to get them involved.

  “It’s one thing to kill zombies,” I said. “But it’s another thing killing living, breathing, thinking humans. It isn’t something to be done lightly, guys. Those guys are scum – but they’re not zombies. If we start killing other people, we aren’t much better than they are. Have either of you killed a living human?”

  They shook their heads. Hayley was close to tears. “No – but they stole everything off us, Ben. They deserve to be killed.”

  “Yeah!” her brother agreed. “They shot at us. They need to die.”

  Angela was standing in the darkness, peering down at the street, saying nothing.

  “What do you think?” I asked her.

  “I think we could take out those two at the van with no problems. Then we could steal the van and get out of here.”

  “That sounds good to me,” Jason said. “Let’s do it!”

  “Hold on,” I said. I didn’t want to make a hasty decision. “If we kill them, the rest will want revenge. Are you prepared to fight a whole gang?”

  “Yes!” Jason said. “We could release the zombies and -”

  “No,” I said. “I need more time to think. Maybe someone out there on the internet will help.”

  I wished someone had given me some advice – but I had received no messages on my laptop.

  Angela sighed. “The people out there aren’t going to help, Ben. There is probably nobody left out there alive, anyway. The decision is down to us. To you. You are our leader. What do you want to do now?”

  I didn’t know. I walked over to the window where I could see the men down below. I imagined sneaking up on them and shooting them with a crossbow. Could I kill in cold blood? I had never killed a living person that hadn’t been trying to kill me. Could I do it? What if I lost my nerve? “Let’s wait a little longer. We’re going to wait while I think about this, okay? We can’t rush the decision. Guys, get some rest.”

  The kids grumbled – but they settled down on some dusty beds that were so comfortable I heard them snoring within minutes. That was one of the benefits of being in a furniture store – lots of comfy beds. Angela and I moved some soft-cushioned chairs to near the windows
so we could watch the street in luxurious comfort. The men outside looked bored. They also looked cold. One was shivering as he smoked a cigarette. He walked up and down the street, muttering to himself. Maybe he would go into the pub, leaving just the one man guarding the van.

  For an hour I stared at my laptop – hoping someone would give me advice. But nobody did. Eventually I turned it off to save the battery charge.

  The two men were still guarding the street.

  “Ben?” Angela whispered in the dark.

  “Yeah?”

  “I never thanked you for rescuing me.” She paused. “Whatever happens, I want you to know I’ll always be grateful that you found me. You saved my life, Ben. Thank you.”

  “You never talk about what happened. Do you want to tell me?”

  Angela was quiet for a minute – but then she answered, keeping her voice low. “I was kidnapped by a gang of men just like the ones out there. They did bad things to me. They kept me locked up with a group of other women they were using as ...” She breathed deeply. “It was a living hell. Once we tried to escape – but they caught us. They killed two teenage girls in front of me – but they locked me in that shed as punishment. They thought they could make me more compliant if they left me to starve for a week. I’m glad you found me before they returned, Ben. I’d rather die than be captured by a group of men like them.” Her glistening eyes reflected the moonlight. “Those men out there remind me of the others. They’re parasites, not people. We could kill them all while the kids are sleeping, Ben. Just you and me. We don’t have to involve the kids. We could come back for the kids after it’s done, after we’ve done what needs to be done.”