Last Words

by Jackson Lear

  One of the guys just went off to find water. He said he’ll come back. They always say they’ll come back. What he really means is that he will come back if it suits him and if he can, because we all know these are unusual circumstances. Maybe he can break open a vending machine, if he finds one.

  I packed way too much crap to travel around Europe. Now I’m stuck with all of this. I should have just picked either a jeans and t-shirt climate only, or a wear-as-little-as-possible climate. I should have gone to Mallorca or Ibiza, nice islands in the Mediterranean with lots of girls and less chance of an undead invasion. Then again, if there was an invasion it would probably be difficult getting off a tiny island when everyone’s resources would be focussed on the mainland. Yeah, next time I’ll choose somewhere based on its survivability when facing an apocalypse. Kenya, for example. Zombies can be eaten by lions, assuming that the lions don’t become zombies, otherwise we would all be -

  31 July

  We’re next to a motorway now. We had to move in a hurry. The guy who went for the water was attacked. I didn’t see it, but we all heard it. I don’t know how a slow moving creature could even ambush a full grown man, but it was dark so who the hell knows. It’s about 4am now and I got to hear a guy scream for his life as he was attacked and eaten alive.

  I thought the screams from Atocha were bad. They at least were blurred by the screams of people running and calling out to each other.

  I don’t know if I will ever sleep again.

  Something ripped into him. He called for help and we didn’t go to him. We just grabbed our things and ran.

  Rachel is crying. An emotional outburst, probably. Honestly, I feel like crying as well, but it’s too hot.

  Why the fuck did he just walk off like that? Why would anyone venture out on their own? Fuck him, he deserves it if he’s going to be that stupid!

  We’re just lumbering around and everyone is covered in sweat. It’s all waiting, sitting, walking, waiting … We go from being wired and unable to sleep to being so exhausted we can’t move and then back to being wired. Either way, it’s too hot to sleep.

  He didn’t deserve it. People being mugged don’t deserve it, people being raped don’t deserve it, so people going out to check their bearings and see what’s around don’t deserve to be attacked either. He was just trying to get help. Maybe it was just for himself, maybe it was for the rest of us. I’ve heard too many people scream tonight and I’ve done nothing to help any of them. I should have at least gone to see what was attacking him, but no. Ediz simply started running. Cristina grabbed Rachel and pulled her along. I followed.

  There’s no traffic on the motorway. I’m sure there are road blocks keeping this thing contained, but a zombie is not going to walk along a motorway. It’s going to walk where it can find people to bite.

  I thought the only way to ensure a zombie stays where it is would be thanks to a sniper. So, that led me to imagining a Spanish sniper staring at the lot of us as we’re walking along the underside of a motorway. There are nine of us, giving me reasonable odds that I wouldn’t be the first shot. The idea of being followed by a sniper does not ease my paranoia at all.

  Zombies and snipers. What a great combination. Me in the middle. Bad combination.

  One of the guys here seems to know where to go. I think he’s Moroccan. He’s with a group of friends like me. There’s myself, Rachel, Cristina, Ediz, the Moroccan, his two friends and two more tag-alongs.

  You know what? I’m really done with this shit. Tomorrow I’m going to find the police or the army and just surrender. I don’t want to be hiding next to a motorway at 4am, hiding from people with guns and the legal authority to kill me. I don’t want to be here in the middle of summer without a drink in fourteen hours. I’ll just surrender and they can take me to some camp or to the British embassy and I’ll be treated correctly.

  Part 2.

  Rachel didn’t appreciate my surrendering idea. She said, “You can do what you like but I’m not going to fucking surrender.”

  Rachel, it’s not surrendering. If we stay out here any longer we’ll die from heat exhaustion and dehydration.

  Cristina and Ediz were at least giving me the benefit of the doubt.

  Something’s coming.

  Part 3.

  Fuck this! Seriously, fuck this! Fuck running around, fuck these Spanish motorways, fuck the lack of water, fuck these undead assholes! I’m tired of all of this. The sky is getting brighter, I haven’t slept, I haven’t had a drink, I need to take a dump and I’m backed up worse than a heroin whore in a tag-team gangbang. Fuck all this running!

  Part 4.

  The sun is halfway up the horizon now and my temper-tantrum is over, I guess. Walking off like that was the dumbest thing I could have done. I left a group of people just moments after seeing a zombie attack.

  I wasn’t thinking. The heat and lack of sleep got to me and I cracked. I could have been killed. Something could have grabbed my wrist and yanked me into the dark and no one would have come to help me, because no one can help during a zombie crisis. One bite and you’re gone. I almost died and it was entirely my fault. You know those morons in horror movies who decide to split up and check the haunted house alone? It turns out that I’m one of those morons and, this time, I got lucky.

  The Moroccan had seen something in the darkness. The rest of us got up as well. After a few minutes someone pointed. There was a pair of eyes in the distance looking our way. They were spaced-out, dead eyes, and they were watching us.

  It was the Moroccan’s friend, the one who went to find a vending machine. He was covered in blood while staggering forward. He had followed us all this way.

  We ran. We ran until we collapsed. That’s when I had my tantrum. It was so bad that I actually left the group. I somehow decided that I was going to walk along the highway and flag down the first car I saw so that I could surrender. I didn’t care. I was beyond exhausted and in a rage. But because I had been running for an hour with this backpack I barely got fifty metres before collapsing. My legs shook uncontrollably and my heart thumped so violently that I nearly passed out. After cooling off for a few minutes I realised what a colossal idiot I was and I had to jog back to the group and apologise.

  No one’s talking to me. At least they didn’t kick me out of the group. I introduced myself to the others.

  I broke down before everyone else did. They’ve all gone through exactly the same shit as me and I was the first to crack. I thought I was better than this. I thought I would have to go chasing after someone to convince them to stay, reminding them that wandering off is an epically bad idea.

  And you know what? No one came after me. That was one hell of a sobering reality.

  I have now seen my first zombie. Dead-eyed and covered in blood. How the hell did he even rise that quickly? It took days for the previous lot to stagger around. This guy was down for a few minutes before getting up again.

  Maybe he was able to get away with some open wounds and a concussion. He could have just followed us looking for help. If that’s true then we just ran away from a guy who was dying. I hope I never learn his name. I won’t be able to get it out of my mind.

  Things got worse when we saw him. We heard a helicopter approaching. The spotlight stayed on the injured/dead guy while the rest of us got the hell out of there. For a while I thought I was following Ediz and it turned out that I was following someone else. Ediz, Rachel, and Cristina had run off the other way. Azeem, the Moroccan, was able to pull us all back together. The helicopter found us. We couldn’t just hide, we had to keep moving. After a few seconds the pilot changed his mind from following the injured/dead guy and started following us. We kept running and the spotlight kept following. We ran for what felt like an hour until we were in this remote area near a train line heading into a tunnel. We hurried over the hill, bypassing the fence for the train, and ran into the tunnel to stop the helicopter from following us.

  You know what I remember from 28 Days Later?
Don’t ever go into a tunnel. What did we do? Hide in a tunnel.

  We waited to see what the helicopter would do. The tunnel was only a hundred metres long but there was no light on either end to show us what lay beyond. When we got out Azeem had to take us in a different direction. He wanted us to keep going south. He kept saying the name of some place, ‘tah-fay’, or something like that.

  We had to duck, keep our heads down and follow a different train line as far south as we could. Soon after I had my tantrum and left the group.

  Azeem now says that we are only an hour away from getting to his friends. None of us know where we’re going or if these friends will even be there. If they are there, will they be happy to see eight complete strangers and Azeem arrive on their doorstep, all looking for food and a place to sleep?

  I figured out another reason why I have a splitting headache. Caffeine. I’m used to tea, coffee, coke, chocolate. Anything with a caffeine fix and I’m all over it. That might explain why I sleep erratic hours and never get enough shut-eye. I’ve been without it for at least a day now. The withdrawal symptoms are killing me. I can now add a headache to my list of grievances. Sleep deprivation, dehydration, starvation, and now running-for-your-life-ation.

  Cristina says we’re heading to Getafe. It’s just a suburb, nothing special. There’s a university nearby but that’s all she knows about it.

  Azeem says his friends live ten or fifteen minutes from the train line. With any luck they’re used to having lots of people crash at their place, but it’s a stretch to imagine that they will welcome us with open arms.

  Let’s hope we get there before whatever is following us catches up.

  Part 5.

  We made it. I don’t want to get these people into trouble so I will be as vague as possible. I mean, they are housing potential fugitives, refugees, or whatever the hell we are. They asked us to keep quiet and not to tell anyone that they helped us. I will agree to that. I won’t even be fully honest here because I’m sure if I’m caught someone will go through my diary and if they are so inclined they may want to crack down on the Spanish citizens who helped the foreigners. I’ve been told that old memories run deep, beyond the generations, and that Franco seriously fucked up the psyche of his country when it was a fascist dictatorship not too long ago.

  I will say this, though; these three students are welcome at my place in London any time, for any reason. They saved my life today.

  There is M, not from the south.

  There is J, not from the north east.

  There is A, not from the south either.

  They’re all Spanish guys from different cities speaking with the Spanish lisp. They know Azeem from a few parties that happened to be packed with Italians. Cristina perked up when she heard this and, small world, Cristina knows some of those Italians. They come from Milan and went to the same university as Cristina. She is now desperate to know if they are lost in Madrid, hunted by zombies and soldiers.

  M, J, and A offered us water and sandwiches. They don’t have a lot of food available. There are some small shops nearby that have been ignoring the bans and curfews and have been selling their perishables. M, J, and A stocked up as much as they could, but we run the risk of eating all their food. One thing they have is a tonne of oranges, and I really do mean … well, not a metric tonne, but they have four crates of oranges. They grow them on the roof. At least we won’t die of vitamin-C deficiency.

  There are five bedrooms here. The house is weirdly designed. It’s three storeys. On the ground floor is nothing but the staircase and the garage, which is supposed to be very large and is only accessed by the landlords, not by these guys. On the next floor is the lounge with large windows, a bedroom for a fourth student, a girl, M, not from above Portugal (she’s gone back home). There’s also the main bathroom and the kitchen which is four times bigger than the one in Rachel’s place which was used to feed twelve people. This place is supposed to feed four or five. Upstairs again are four bedrooms and a small bathroom.

  I am currently upstairs in bedroom two. It’s only as big as a double bed. Literally. Not a double bed with space to walk around the edges, but a double bed pressed up against three of the walls. God knows how you would change the linen, your knuckles would scrape against three of the walls.

  Rachel is in here with me. We pulled the single mattress off the bed and she’s sleeping on that, on the floor, while I’m sitting here on the hard surface of the bed base wishing I could fall asleep.

  Cristina and another girl who came with us are in Girl M’s bedroom downstairs. Ediz, Azeem, and the others are asleep in the lounge.

  Holy shit was it a long walk. Azeem assured us he wasn’t lost, but when you’re stumbling through a heavy industrial area for two hours with nothing but aircraft-hanger warehouses in every direction you kinda wonder if your guide actually knows where he’s going. Ediz said we reached the end of one train line and were about to start another that had no connecting track to Madrid at all.

  Then we hit upon the outskirts of Getafe. At that point Azeem really was lost and admitted as much. With all of the twisting streets and not a single straight road it took him ten minutes for him to confess and us another hour to stumble upon a metro station. The train wasn’t running but at least from there we had a point of reference. Before that we had nothing, we were just aimlessly walking around looking for one unremarkable house in front of a tiny park in a town devoid of all street signs and maps.

  I wonder if that’s how the zombies’ vision would be like. Clouded over, dulled, where it could be the brightest of days and yet everything looks dark and overcast through your zombie eyes. You can’t recognise any of the street signs anymore like they’re writing might as well be in some hieroglyphic that your brain can’t process. You can’t hear anyone until they scream when they see you. All you have keeping you company is the tiniest of voices urging you forward, to find food, to find someone who can keep you alive for just a little longer.

  The last half hour of walking was murder. We had to follow the main road from one metro stop to another until we reached the Alonso-something station. At that point Azeem assured us we were ten minutes away. You can tell from the look on everyone’s faces that ‘just ten more minutes’ better be exactly ten minutes and no more, because if it ends up being an hour and you don’t actually know where you’re going then we’ll … glare at you until you apologise. But he was right. Ten minutes.

  It was strange meeting the housemates. Azeem did all of the talking and asked if we could come in for a minute. We all put on our best presentation faces for a good first impression. All of the students here are very nice, very warm and friendly, and understand that we are in a shitty situation. However bad they had it, we’ve had it worse. It’s good to see that kind of perspective. It’s good for me as well to know that not everyone is as miserable as I’ve been.

  We came in, told them our situation and asked if we could spend a few hours here to sleep, then we’ll go. I think it was Guy M who spoke to Azeem. He initially said yes, but he had to check with J and A. A was indifferent. He is clearly the sort of guy who isn’t surprised to find nine people crashing at his place because of a zombie uprising. J didn’t care either. He was supposed to head back home the other day but of course the transport has shut down and he’s stuck here. It’s his last semester so he won’t be coming back to the house. He just hopes the landlady won’t come along to collect an extra month’s rent. He says he’ll tell her to piss off if she tries it. He was very eager to talk to myself and Rachel. He was an exchange student and had spent some time in London. He wanted to practice his English (which is pretty good) and wanted to know if we were from the same area that he lived in. Not quite. He lived in the centre of the city and took advantage of the night life. He’s probably seen more of Downing Street and Big Ben than I have. Isn’t it weird how that works? The tourists often know more about your home town than you do. At least, they know the tour book version of your town better than you.
I, on the other hand, know the best chicken and chips place is within walking distance of my flat.

  We asked if there was any news. There’s some on the local radio but it isn’t good. No flights, no boats, no one is leaving Spain.

  Azeem told the housemates about what we saw yesterday in Atocha. It was weird hearing the events in another language and still following where he was up to in the story. It’s also weird hearing it from someone who was just twenty metres away from us when it was happening. I must have looked over to Azeem a hundred times in Atocha and I don’t remember him being there. There were just too many faces. Or, more likely, he had his back to me the whole time. Someone that close to me would later save my life. He could have just as easily trampled me if I had been in his way.

  The three students heard bits of the story before we even arrived. They knew some people had died in Atocha while trying to push their way onto the trains. When we told them about the zombie on the train tracks they lost all faith in the government reporting. Someone shot someone or something and then no one was willing to go near it.

  They couldn’t believe we walked from Atocha to Getafe. It’s fucking far. And they’re right! It took five hours of solid walking. But what else were we going to do? We had just escaped a human stampede, were being followed by at least one zombie, had to hide from the helicopters, and we were always on the verge of sprinting for our lives. All the while we were weighed down by big ass backpacks.