Journal of the Living

by John Moralee

  And they ran straight around me on their way somewhere else.

  What just happened?

  I turned around and watched them running down the street, where they were joined by another group of soldiers, also running. They all jogged down the road, joining a larger mob of soldiers.

  More soldiers were joining them from other buildings, heading in the same direction. A young soldier, half-dressed and pulling on a jacket, almost collided with me.

  “Sorry, sir!” he said.

  “What’s going on?”

  The breathless soldier stopped to answer me – but he looked excited and eager to run on. “Sir, an intruder’s in sector four. A woman. We’ve got her surrounded – but she’s got a rifle. I’m supposed to join my squad, sir. The Colonel ordered us to prevent her escape, sir. I must go, sir. My orders -”

  “Go,” I said.

  The soldier ran off.

  I swore to myself.

  I heard the crack of a gunshot echoing off the walls of the ancient colleges. That made the civilians run indoors.

  The banshee wail of a siren started.

  “ARMED INTRUDER IN SECTOR 4! CLEAR THE AREA! CIVILIANS RETURN TO YOUR HOMES IMMEDIATELY!”

  “I have to save her,” I said, but Tamsin grabbed my arm.

  “What can you do? There are hundreds of soldiers. You have to get back inside my flat.”

  “No. Maggie needs my help.”

  “Ben, it’s a curfew. They’ll check your ID if they catch you on the street. We have to get inside. Hurry.”

  I returned to Tamsin’s flat, where I looked out at the street as it cleared of non-military members of the Pure Bloods. The siren continued wailing for five minutes as I heard gunfire in the distance. Then the gunfire stopped and the siren was switched off. Another message came over the Tannoy system.

  “INTRUDER CAPTURED! All trained medical staff must report to their stations. Wounded soldiers require medical treatment.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Tamsin said. “Stay here. I’ll come back when it’s safe. I’ll find out what’s going on.”

  I stayed in her flat for an hour. The sun was going down when Tamsin returned. It was strange seeing electricity-powered lights coming on to illuminate the darkness. Oxford was lit by spotlights and streetlights that made the city look beautiful. The presence of soldiers ruined the view. Tamsin locked the door behind her.

  “Your friend injured a few soldiers. But they stunned her and caught her. I heard her own sister betrayed her. She’s been hailed as a hero for alerting the guards.”

  “Hell. I warned her,” I said. I wished Maggie had listened to me. “Where’s Maggie now?”

  “You won’t want to hear this. They’ve taken your friend to the zombie pit.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “Not yet,” Tamsin said. “At the moment she’s suspended over the pit so the zombies can get hungry. They’ll slowly lower her into the pit at dawn tomorrow with a big crowd watching.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “It’s what passes for entertainment among the hardcore Pures. They love to watch people being eaten alive. The good news – if you can think of it as good news – is they think she came back alone to save her sister – so they aren’t looking for you.”

  I supposed that was good news – but not for Maggie. The Pure Bloods would feed her to the zombies if I didn’t do something to save her – but saving her would make it harder to rescue Angela, Neal and the others, like Terry and his family.

  ENTRY THIRTY-SIX

  I had to save Maggie from the zombie pit – even if that meant killing her myself to save her the pain and suffering of being eaten alive. I didn’t want it to come to that – so I scouted out the area in my Pure Blood disguise. The zombie pit was in the quad of an Oxford college, where Maggie was suspended by her hands over the pit on a rope attached to a crane. Her legs were just above the heads of the zombies, which meant they could reach up and grab hold of her feet if she didn’t kick them away. They were hungry for her flesh. She was like a pendulum swinging over the undead. Their moans were an unholy chorus every time Maggie swung over their outstretched arms.

  The only way of getting Maggie down required taking control of the crane. There was nobody in the cab – but a dozen soldiers guarded the quad, keeping a group of civilians away from the zombie pit’s edge. The civilians had gathered to watch Maggie’s punishment like ghouls at a public execution.

  Rescuing Maggie required taking care of the guards and civilians long enough to get access to the crane. I got an idea about what would move them – a crazy idea born of desperation that I told Tamsin.

  “That’s insane,” she said in response.

  It was a natural reaction to what I had said.

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “No – but how will you make it work?”

  “I’ll need you to get something from the hospital.”

  “What?”

  “Body parts,” I said. “Lots of fresh, juicy body parts.”

  ENTRY THIRTY-SEVEN

  Tamsin met me at a side entrance to the hospital, holding a large plastic bag of human body parts meant to be destroyed in the incinerator. “You’re really going to use these, Ben?”

  “Uh-huh. I’ll see you later.”

  “Good luck,” she said, going back inside. It was her job to rescue the patients, including Angela, locked in E4, while I saved the prisoners and rescued Maggie. My plan was insane – but I had little choice under the dire circumstances.

  I put the bag into a larger sports bag, which I carried across Oxford hoping no patrols would stop me. I got to my destination without any trouble, probably with the help of my stolen Pure Blood uniform, ranking me as a major. There was an area on the perimeter of the camp where no guards were watching because there was no real need. There was a trench filled with zombies around Oxford, a sort of defensive moat against attack by other living humans. The zombies couldn’t get out of it because the walls were high and covered with spikes – but I’d already collected some long planks of wood, taken from the floor of an abandoned building. I lowered them into the trench, making a six-foot-wide ramp for the undead. They were too dumb to use it without a little bit of encouragement, though. That was why I had the bag of fresh human organs. I laid a trail of fresh meat from the ramp down the street leading in the direction of the zombie pit. As soon as they zombies smelled the blood, they swarmed towards the ramp and began crawling their way out of the trench. There would soon be a hundred or more zombies inside the base. I figured it would take them thirty minutes before they were noticed by the guards. By then I intended to be working on the second part of my insane plan – breaking out the prisoners.

  ENTRY THIRTY-EIGHT

  Aware that every second saved mattered if my escape plan was to work, I sneaked up to the barbed-wire fence around the prison compound. Daylight was waning. Long shadows hid me from view as I cut through the wire and made a flap big enough to crawl through. I waited until one guard passed my position – then moved quickly, slipping under the wire into the compound. I came up behind the guard with a sap consisting of a sock filled with coins, knocking him out with one hard blow. As he fell down, I saw some people in the nearest cage watching me wide-eyed. I dragged him over to the cage, stripping him of his uniform while everyone inside watched. They included Terry and his family.

  “You came back,” Terry said. “How are you going to get us out?”

  “I have a plan. Put these on,” I said, passing him the guard’s clothes.

  The unconscious soldier was out of sight from the armed guards on the roof – but I could not leave him there for long. Other guards were still roaming the compound. I had hoped the first guard would have possessed keys to the cages – but he didn’t. It was a good job I had some bolt cutters. I snapped the lock while Terry dressed. I opened the cage. “Terry, you’ll have to act as a guard and help me take out the other guards without the ones on the roof noticing. Everyone else will h
ave to stay in the cage for the moment so they guards don’t spot anything amiss.”

  Terry and I ambushed each guard and replaced them with our freed people right under the noses of the other guards. It took about five minutes. We were just in time because then the electric lights were switched on, lighting up the whole area in stark light. Luckily, the guards on the roof had no idea we had taken over the outside of the prison. Everything looked normal to them. I told the prisoners how to escape through the fence when the time was right. Next, I gave Terry the key to the lorry parked down the street. So far, my plan was working perfectly, but before they could leave the prison compound, someone would have to go into the college to deal with the Pure Bloods on the roof. Several people volunteered to go with me, all glad to help out. Terry and other ex-prisoners wearing Pure Blood uniforms would pretend to guard the cages while I led my volunteers into the college. We knew we had to be careful. We had replaced the guards at the entrance – but there were more enemy soldiers inside who would offer resistance.

  I’d already learnt the college’s layout from reading an old student guide to Oxford – but it didn’t tell me what changes the Pure Bloods had made to the interior while turning the building into a processing centre. Somewhere inside Neal and dozens of prisoners were being held against their will. I wanted to find Neal – but taking out the roof guards was my priority. In my major’s uniform, I went ahead of the escapees, heading up a staircase to the first floor. I encountered a Pure Blood who wasn’t expecting any trouble. I strode up to him and knocked him out before he knew what had happened. He was tied up and gagged while I continued up to the next floor. We had the roof under our control in a couple of minutes. (Two Pure Bloods died in the attack – but there were no other casualties.) Securing control of the rest of the building didn’t take long because the Pure Bloods were unprepared for a prison revolt. We had control over the whole compound in twenty minutes. No alarms were triggered – which was a miracle. After the building was secure, I entered a large lecture room turned into a processing centre filled with eighty steel cages. Each cage contained one person deliberately infected with the necrovitalis virus.

  It was obvious ten had already turned into zombies and several were very sick and dying – but over two thirds were currently asymptomatic. Some had not been injected with the virus yet – which was great news. They begged us to free them. One ex-prisoner had found the keys on a guard. His name was Slater. He wasted no time unlocking the cages holding the uninjected – but he left the sick in their cages.

  “Hey,” I said. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”

  “They’re turning into zombies,” he said. “It’s too late to save them.”

  “Maybe, but we’re not leaving them here to be experimented on. Let them all out except the ones that have already turned.”

  “No way. They’ll kill us.”

  “Listen to me. We’re surrounded by enemy soldiers. We need every person we can to fight our way out of this place. Would you want to be left behind?”

  Slater shook his head – but he didn’t open the cages. He tossed them at my chest. “You unlock them of you like - but don’t complain to me when they turn against us.”

  I unlocked the cages, freeing over forty prisoners.

  My friend Neal was among them. He grinned when he saw me. “Is this a prison break?”

  “Yeah. You okay?”

  “I’ve had better days. The Pure Bloods don’t exactly run a five-star hotel. Are they all dead?”

  “No. We have control over the prison – but the rest of Oxford is still under their control. Neal, tell me something. Did they inject you yet?”

  “Yeah. Couple of days ago.”

  “Damn. Any symptoms?”

  “I’m okay for now,” he said. “What about Angela? Did they keep their word and treat her injuries?”

  “They did. Sort of. They treated her – but they intend to inject her with the virus when she is recovered. They only wanted her healthy so they could process her.”

  “They are insane,” Neal said. “Where is she now?”

  “A friend’s rescuing her from their hospital. I’ve made a plan to get us out of here – but things are going to get messy and bloody. We have to destroy their ability to come after us – which means blowing up a helicopter and a whole load of petrol. There’s also a woman called Maggie I have to save from a zombie pit – so I released some zombies to cause a distraction. It will be like in the town when I opened the garage – but about a hundred times worse because we’ll be fighting humans too. Are you fit enough to put on a Pure Blood uniform and act like one of them?”

  “You bet,” Neal said. “Let’s do it. Let’s rescue Angela and burn this place down.”

  ENTRY THIRTY-NINE

  Zombies love fresh meat from living victims – but they will stop eating once their victims are dead. Nobody knows why that is – but some people think it is because the transforming necrovitalis virus in dead tissue makes the victim’s flesh unpalatable. I don’t know if that’s true – I can’t imagine zombies caring about the flavour of their food - but I do know zombies will not eat their own kind. I wish they would. They are picky eaters. Luckily for me, I knew they would enjoy the human leftovers that I’d put out for them to snack on while I was busy freeing everyone from the prison. When I came out of the prison with Neal and a group of escapees – all disguised as Pure Blood soldiers – I was thrilled to see hundreds of zombies had taken the bait, forming a shuffling crowd exactly where I had wanted.

  “You did that?” Neal said. “Are you mental?”

  “A necessary distraction,” I said. “The Pure Bloods are bound to notice them soon once they spread out looking for more fresh meat. I’m surprised they haven’t spotted them already, to be honest.”

  We were heading for the zombie pit when I heard the first gunshot. It was followed by a high-pitched whistle and shouting and more gunshots and a screaming siren. A voice boomed over the Tannoy system across Oxford.

  “Zombie incursion in sector three! This is not a drill. Zombie incursion in sector three! Alpha unit engage enemy -”

  While the Pure Bloods responded to my distraction, my group raced to the zombie pit. Maggie was hanging over the pit, mercifully alive, struggling to keep her feet from being bitten by the hungry zombies moaning and groaning like rock fans in a mosh pit. Civilian gawkers and Pure Blood soldiers saw us arrive. A captain was in charge. That was good news for me. In my stolen major’s uniform, I outranked him. I strode up to the captain and dead-eyed him.

  “The Colonel gave out new orders for the woman. I will take her for interrogation. You are required at the incursion point. The barricades need repositioning immediately in sector three.”

  The captain hesitated. “I haven’t received new orders, sir.”

  “You’re got them from me, Captain. You are needed to protect the base from the zombie threat. Do it – before it’s too late.”

  My glare was frosty. The Pure Blood nodded to his soldiers. They raced off, leaving my people with the civilians. I had to move them on too. “Everyone must clear the area! We’ve got zombies attacking. Return to your homes and barricade yourselves in.”

  The civilians scattered. I grinned at Neal. “That was easier than expected.”

  “I’d hate to think what you expected,” he said. “So … how do we get her down? Know how to operate a crane?”

  “No – but I’ll figure it out.”

  I climbed onto the crane and into the cab. I studied the controls and carefully moved a joystick to see what it would do. I accidentally lowered Maggie into the pit. She yelled at me as the zombies tried to bite her. I hastily reversed what I was doing. She moved upwards. After that little error, I got the hang of it quickly. I lifted Maggie higher, rotated the arm, then lowered Maggie to the safe ground where Neal cut her free. The zombies in the pit sounded furious I’d taken away their meal. They piled against the pit’s walls, trying to climb out. Maggie muttered a thanks and sag
ged against Neal, who held her.

  “It’s okay now,” he said. “We’ve got you.”

  “My own sister betrayed me,” she said. She sobbed briefly before getting her emotions under control. She faced me. “The mission?”

  “It’s still on,” I said. “But I still have to rescue some people, like Angela. They’re in the hospital.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Maggie said, but she could barely stand.

  “No – go with these people. They’ll get you to the lorry near the prison. They need you to get them to The Family.”

  The Family were the complete opposite of the Pure Bloods. They welcomed anyone. Not just the immune. Maggie could get everyone to them, even if Neal and I didn’t make it. We said our goodbyes and wished each other luck.

  Maggie gripped my hand firmly, shaking it. “Don’t get killed, idiot. Who’s taking care of the helicopter?”

  “Me – once I’ve rescued Angela. I’ll blow it up. That will be your cue to drive the lorry out of the main gates as fast as humanly possible.”

  We split up then. Neal stayed with me, while everyone else headed for the prison camp to meet up with the others. They’d move to the lorry when it was nearer the time to go. I hoped I’d see them again. The plan required my lorry to be ready to go at the same time. To add to the general chaos, distracting the Pure Bloods even more, I drove the crane over the edge of the zombie pit, jumping out of the cab just before it toppled. The crane crushed a dozen zombies – but it also provided a platform for the rest. They crawled over it like beetles. The strongest ones climbed over the others, gnashing their teeth at me. They were ravenous. They always were.

  “That’s right. Come and get me.”

  Neal rolled his eyes. “This area will be zombie hell in two minutes.”