Journal of the Living

by John Moralee

  Tamsin nodded in understanding. “Say you do get your friend out of the hospital, how do you intend to escape Oxford?”

  “Truthfully? I haven’t worked that out yet, but I will.”

  “I hate being a Pure Blood. I’ll help you – but you can’t leave me here. They’d kill me. I want to come with you.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Will you meet me somewhere so we can talk about a plan?”

  “I have a break at two. I’ll meet you then. The cafeteria okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hey - you’d better return Blake’s ID before he notices it’s missing.”

  “I will,” I said. “Tamsin, I owe you.”

  “Just get us all out of here,” she said.

  ENTRY THIRTY-FOUR

  I returned to the cafeteria and slipped the ID back onto the real Dr Blake’s white coat. Luckily he had not noticed it was missing. I had thirty minutes to wait for Tamsin so I joined the queue for lunch and selected some dishes from the self-service counters. My tray was laden with free food when I chose a discreet table for my rendezvous with Tamsin, the nurse from E4. As I filled my stomach with hot chicken pie and chips, I worried Tamsin would change her mind and betray me to the Pure Bloods. I was hugely relieved when she sat down at my table. She stared at the mountain of desserts on my tray.

  “Sweet tooth?”

  “Just taking advantage of the situation,” I said. “Don’t know when I’ll have time for another meal like this. Got to fill myself up now. Thanks for showing up.”

  “Ben, I’ve been thinking.”

  Uh-oh. No good conversation started with those words. In my past life as a selfish banker they had usually been followed by “we need to break up” or “I want to a ring on my finger” - words that had equally disturbed me. “Thinking about what?”

  “The patients in E4. We have to help them all – not just your friend Angela. Every single one of my patients must be saved. It’d be wrong to leave anyone behind to be turned into a zombie. You agree, don’t you?”

  I had been so blinded by thoughts of rescuing Angela that I had not given the other patients a second thought. “You’re right. We should save them all – but getting a whole ward of ill people out of Oxford is a far bigger challenge. We’d need transportation, lots of it. I haven’t planned for that.”

  “I’m not leaving them behind. It’s all of them – or forget it.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll get them all out. How many are we talking, anyway?”

  “There’s twenty-six patients in E4.”

  “How many would be able to walk?”

  “About half, I think.”

  “And the rest?”

  Tamsin shook her head. “The others are too weak from their operations. They would have to be moved in wheelchairs or on gurneys.”

  “I suppose the ones capable of walking could move the others if they were dressed up as doctors. I’d need clothes for them all. I suppose I can get them from the laundry - but we’d still need to get off their handcuffs. Who keeps the keys?”

  “Whoever’s in charge of the ward’s security on the shift,” she said. “It’s always a Pure Blood loyalist. One of the guards keeps the keys on him at all times. He would never give them up voluntarily.”

  “He won’t need to,” I said. “I have a gun.”

  “He has one, too.”

  “I’ll shoot first.”

  “Wait. I don’t want you to kill him. I … I could drug him. Slip something into his coffee when it’s time to escape. I can get something to knock him out for hours.”

  “Sounds good.”

  We discussed how we could get the patients out of the hospital without them being caught. There were several unguarded exits through the abandoned wards. We’d have to move everyone quickly, though, because guards would eventually find out about the missing people. Once we started the plan, there would be no turning back. Tamsin drew a map of the hospital and explained the shift patterns. It was best to get everyone out after dark between ten and four – but there was no point in doing that if everyone got caught inside the base. “Okay, we’ve got a plan for the initial escape from the hospital. We’ll need some trucks to transport people.”

  “I can’t help with that,” Tamsin said.

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “It might take a day or two. I’ll contact you with the details after arranging things. Where do you go when you’re not on duty?”

  “I live in flat with some of my colleagues.” She told me the address and I memorised it. “You can visit me there. I’ll just say your my boyfriend if anyone sees us together.”

  “I need another ID so I can walk around the town. Got any ideas where I can get one nobody will notice is missing?”

  Tamsin frowned – but then she grinned. “Yeah. I do! We have some badly injured soldiers on Ward A6. They came in wearing their uniforms. Their IDs will still be in their rooms. I could probably steal an ID from one of them. It won’t be missed for a week.”

  Tamsin was a godsend. She had another ID for me ten minutes later, belonging to a Pure Blood major called Steve Kerrigan.

  “This guy isn’t going to wake up and notice his ID’s gone, is he?”

  “Unlikely. He’s got a serious head injury. He won’t be recovered for at least a week. That ID will get you into any building up to Level 3 security. Ben, use it cautiously. Don’t let them catch you. Do you know about the zombie pit?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I heard what they do. They lower people into it as a punishment. Nasty.”

  “Hearing about it is one thing. Seeing someone being fed alive to a hungry horde of zombies is another. Kill yourself before you let them do that to you.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I said. “You be careful too.”

  ENTRY THIRTY-FIVE

  I left the hospital as Pure Blood Major Steven Kerrigan, at least according to my stolen ID. I used his pass to scout around Oxford, looking for weak points in their defences, paying particular attention to the prison compound where I hoped to find Neal. The compound consisted of a high barbed-wire fence surrounding a college building and the grounds around it. Well over a hundred people were locked up in steel cages on the grounds. They were guarded by Pure Bloods. The prisoners were crowded like chickens inside the cages – at least a twenty people in each cage. Everyone looked miserable and frightened. I couldn’t see Neal. He could have been taken for ‘processing’ - which involved the Pure Bloods deliberately infecting prisoners with the necrovitalis virus as a test of purity. A lottery of life and death. None of them deserved that fate. I couldn’t leave any of them behind. I had to rescue them all – but how? It would be difficult. There was a gate leading into the compound. You needed to have the right security pass. You also needed to be expected by the guards. They would not let ‘Major Steve Kerrigan’ enter without asking some tough questions – so I loitered near the perimeter fence and waited for the right time to catch the attention of a prisoner inside the nearest cage.

  The man was bearded and dressed like a roadie for Metallica. He stood beside two scrawny kids and a sunken-eyed woman. They were staying close to each other like a family. I beckoned to him, putting my finger to my lips to tell him to stay quiet. The man shuffled over to find out what I wanted. He was about ten feet away from me when I spoke in a whisper.

  “Here,” I said. “Take this.”

  I tossed a ham-and-cheese sandwich through the bars. I’d intended to snack on it later – but the man and his family needed it more. He caught it and broke the sandwich into three pieces, giving the parts to the kids and the woman, taking none for himself.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Got another, pal?”

  I did. I tossed it to him. He shared it again with his family. This time he did eat a quarter of it himself. “Hmm. Good. Haven’t eaten anything nice for weeks. Got more?”

  “No – sorry.”

  “You’ve got to help us. These people are treating us like we’re animals. Please tell me you’re not wit
h them.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “So keep your voice down. If they hear us talking -”

  “Right, right.” He lowered his voice, pressing his face between the bars. “This is a nightmare. Last week we were living in the woods and starving because we ran out of canned dog food. We thought we’d die out there. That’s why we came here. Looking for help. But they just locked us up and things got worse. They keep telling us they’re going to process us in a few days – but they don’t tell us what that means. Some people think they intend to eat us like they did in that Charlton Heston movie with the green food. Hey – that’s not why you’ve fed us, is it? Fattening us up for eating?”

  “No. The good news is the Pure Bloods aren’t cannibals.”

  “I suppose that’s good news. Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Yes – but keep quiet. I don’t want them noticing us talking.” The guards were walking on the other side of the grounds – but they would return. “I want to help you get out of there – but I need some information first. I’m looking for someone. A friend. His name’s Neal. He’s tall, in his sixties, silver hair, probably wearing a brown jacket and tweed trousers. Seen him?”

  “Yeah, I saw him. He was here in another cage. They took him out with some others yesterday before they refilled the cage with new people. They put your friend in the big old building behind us. I haven’t seen him since then. What do they mean by ‘processing’, anyway? What are they doing to people here?”

  He was probably better off remaining ignorant – but I didn’t want to lie. “They test you to see if your immune to the zombie virus by injecting you with infected blood.”

  “That’s mental. What happens if we’re not immune?”

  “They kill you.”

  “Jeez! You have to get us out!” He mouthed the next sentence. “Please don’t let them kill my wife and kids.”

  “I won’t,” I mouthed back. “What’s your name?”

  “Terry.”

  “Terry, I’m Ben. I’m going to get you out – but I can’t do it unless you’re ready to go when I come back. You’ll have to tell everyone here what happens to them if they’re processed. Make them understand most of them will die. You’ll all have to be ready when I have a plan worked out. I need information about the security. Do they keep you locked in the cages at night?”

  “Yes – night and day. Don’t even give us blankets if it’s cold. I thought the ones getting processed we’re the lucky ones. You’ve got to save us before that happens. How many people are with you?”

  “You’re better off not knowing,” I said.

  A guard was coming over.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “But I’ll be back. I swear it.”

  Terry’s gripped the bars tightly. “Swear you’ll come back. Don’t let us die.”

  I moved away before I was noticed.

  Neal was inside the processing area.

  I knew what that meant.

  He was probably dead already.

  Or, worse, a zombie.

  I was too late to save him.

  But I could try to save Terry and his family and everyone else.

  *

  Oxford was a dangerous place for me, but I liked one thing about it under the control of the Pure Bloods. Because they were always prepared for fighting, there was no shortage of weapons and tools easily available for my thieving hands. That afternoon I nicked a new-looking crossbow from a barracks and loaded a holdall with breaking-and-entering tools including a bolt cutter.

  Luckily, nobody questioned me as I collected everything necessary for the plan formulating in my head. Any guards catching me in places where I should not have been saw my rank and assumed I was carrying out my duties. I was fortunate nobody realised I wasn’t the real Steve Kerrigan.

  During my scouting, I noticed the Pure Bloods parked a large number of their vehicles in one supermarket car park to the east of the colleges. The supermarket had its own petrol station, which the Pure Bloods kept operational by filling the storage tanks from petrol tankers loaded with fuel from a depot somewhere else. I counted six huge petrol tankers parked side-by-side, all full of petrol waiting to be emptied. That meant a load of highly flammable fuel was all in one place like a massive unexploded bomb. I was happy to note the security wasn’t tight around the tankers. In fact, there were no guards patrolling the car park. It was a vulnerability waiting to be exploited. If I could move one of those tankers nearer to the helicopter’s landing zone and exploded the fuel, it would take out the helicopter, solving that little problem. How I would achieve a prison break wasn’t crystal clear yet. I would have to discuss ideas with Maggie, since she knew the base better than I did.

  Another surprising security vulnerability was at the main security checkpoint where you’d think security would be tightest. The soldiers routinely stopped and searched vehicles coming in – but ones leaving were lazily waved through the checkpoint without anyone bothering to look inside. They were just assumed to be empty. A stolen lorry filled with rescued people would not be searched on its way out. That was great news. I could get everyone on E4 into the back of just one lorry with room to spare. I’d probably need one or two other vehicles for the prisoners – but a convoy of lorries could drive straight out of the base in a few minutes. If I timed it so we were escaping as the petrol tanker went boom, the Pure Blood would never catch us and they’d suffer a huge setback to their evil plans for world domination or whatever they intended. My escape plan would take some organising with Maggie and Tamsin – but I felt confident it could work with some luck.

  I carried my stolen gear back to the library for my pre-arranged rendezvous with Maggie. Maggie was already waiting for me. “Did you find your friends, Ben?”

  “I found Angela in the hospital,” I said. “And I know where they’re keeping Neal. He’s in the internment camp. He’s being ‘processed’ right now.”

  “Then he’s as good as dead already,” Maggie said. “Forget him.”

  Maggie was quite a diplomat. I didn’t let her attitude bother me.

  “There is some good news,” I said. “I met a nurse willing to help us break out some patients locked up in the same ward as Angela. They will die if we don’t get them out of here – so they have to be rescued. We also have to save all the people in the internment camp. I contacted one and promised to rescue them. We have to move fast. I figure we should break them out tonight, while there’s still a chance to save Neal.”

  “Jeez. He’s just one man. We’re not here to save individuals. We’re fighting the Pure Bloods.”

  “Maggie, you’re here to save your sister Vicki.”

  “Yes – but not at the expense of the mission, which is to destroy the Pure Blood’s helicopter and their general ability to attack The Family. I’ve done some serious recon. I can’t see a way to destroy the helicopter without it becoming a suicide mission. Not just the two of us.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve an idea about that. It’ll be risky – but if it works out we’ll save hundreds of lives and destroy the helicopter and leave the Pure Bloods wishing they’d never been born.”

  I could see Maggie was sceptical – but I told her my plan to use the petrol tankers as weapons.

  Maggie shook her head, laughing. “Using the petrol tankers as bombs … that’s genius.”

  Wow. A compliment from Maggie? I felt like I’d won an Olympic gold medal.

  “We should also be able to move a few empty lorries tonight without anyone noticing. I’ll take one and park it behind the hospital. You take another to near the prison. I’ll have the patients sneak out of the hospital into the back of the lorry. Then we’ll break out the prisoners and get them into the other vehicles. Then we’ll move a tanker and set it to explode after we’ve driven the lorries out of here through the main gates, leaving behind total chaos. What do you think?”

  Maggie pulled an ugly face typical of a passport photo – but then she nodded. “It’s workable. With mo
re planning. It think it’s best if we move the lorries during the day when it is less suspicious. After dark I’ll get my sister and bring her back to my lorry while you get the people out of the hospital. Then -”

  “Just a second. Your sister’s loyal to the Pure Bloods. What makes you think she’ll come with you willingly?”

  “My sister would never turn me in to them because she knows they’d kill me. She’ll have to come with me.”

  “You told me to forget about Neal because he’s just one man – but you could jeopardise the mission by trusting your sister, who definitely can’t be trusted. She doesn’t know me. I could knock her out and -”

  “No. Look, I know what I’m doing. I’m not stupid. I’m not going to trust my sister. I’ll bring Vicki back bound and gagged if necessary – but she’s leaving with me. Once I have her safe, I’ll contact you on the radio for the final stage. We’ll break into the prison together, free the prisoners, then escape before the petrol tankers go boom-boom-boom.”

  We worked out the details of the prison break, then we made our way to the car park for the theft of the lorries. I found an empty lorry with a full tank of petrol and moved it behind the hospital, parking it discreetly where nobody would look at it twice. Maggie contacted me via radio when she had her lorry in position on a street near to the prison.

  “Stage two,” she said. “Good luck, Ben.”

  “You, too.”

  I visited Tamsin’s flat and informed her we had to do everything that night. Tamsin looked scared – but she was ready. We were leaving her flat together when something happened.

  Our luck ran out.

  I’d just stepped outside when a dozen soldiers dashed around the corner of Tamsin’s building. They were armed and running towards me. What had happened? Had someone spotted me acting suspiciously? Had Tamsin betrayed me? I looked at her. She looked as surprised as I was. We were caught in the street with no chance of escaping. I didn’t even have time to take out my gun and shoot myself to avoid capture because they were already too close. It was over. They rushed at me.