Last Words

by Jackson Lear

  I didn’t sleep last night.

  Not all of their stories are deemed suitable for television. Mine was. Simon loved it. Perseverance and all that bullshit. I bumped into him today. He looked worse than Lachlen. His hand was also bandaged from punching a hole in the wall. He said it was one of the dumbest things he could’ve done because the hospitals have a queue stretching for miles. Sounds like the perfect place for a zombie ambush. And believe me, the zombies know it as well. There are police and concerned locals protecting hospitals, but if the boy in the pyjamas is anything to go by then it will take an entire clip or magazine to bring down just one zombie. How many gunmen are there protecting a hospital? Maybe four.

  The reason for Simon punching a wall? He had interviewed a twelve year old girl who had the wherewithal to film the demise of her family. Her dad was a cook at an international restaurant. He promised to bring them back some food. He came back alright. He broke into their house. The girl had a crippled nine year old brother. He has … had … an arm missing from birth, his other arm was malformed and tiny, and he couldn’t walk. He needed a wheelchair to move around. His dad went after him first. The boy was screaming and couldn’t fight back. I heard all of this from the girl’s bedroom, through her phone, as she pleaded with her dad to stop. The girl climbed out of her bedroom window to get to safety. I saw a flash of the dad through the curtains. His face was covered in blood. His eyes were white and enraged. He locked onto his daughter and ran straight at her, completely unaware of the window. He broke through the glass and fell over it, slicing his stomach open. He crawled out and shredded most of his abdomen and legs. Guess what eventually did him in? A car and a bat. You could see the driver hesitate. He clipped the dad’s leg on the first pass. It probably broke his knee cap. Then the driver backed up. There’s a certain sound you never want to hear. It’s your dad’s chest breaking from the weight of a car driving over him. Or your friend’s skull hitting the pavement because they’re being crushed by an arsehole driver. Either way.

  It’s the sound I heard today from the girl’s phone. She was hiding behind a neighbour’s tree. Then she bawled her eyes out and kept screaming, “Baba”. I spent enough time with Adalia and Ayman in Ghardaia to know that she was calling for her dad. The neighbours had to hold her back as her dad kept trying to lift his arm up. He reached out for her. One of the neighbours had a baseball bat with him. He edged forward and took a couple of swings. I have to wonder if the neighbour even knew if ‘Baba’ was a zombie or not. It was perfectly obvious before he was hit by a car but after that? Not so much. He could have just been a hit and run victim. This guy might have put him out of his misery without knowing if he was a member of the undead.

  Then her brother crawled out of the house like a worm. Occasionally he rolled along the ground because he only had one half decent arm. The guy with the bat took care of him.

  I can’t even imagine cracking someone’s head open with a bat, even if that someone was a murderer. One day I might have to take a weapon to a disabled kid’s skull because it’s either his life or mine.

  I can still hear his screams from his bedroom rattling through my head.

  Today was not a good day.

  25 October

  I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I’m bored. I have a comfortable bed, a nice room, food at the ready, and I can lounge around in a bath for hours on end. But, seriously, there is nothing to do. I am a master of Freecell on Clint’s former tablet. Considering he’s left all my stuff in my flat, it’s now my tablet. I’ve beaten all of his high scores. Spider Solitaire is still a challenge. Either he was cheating or had an epic bout of good fortune because his high score is almost unbeatable.

  Every country now has a great firewall protecting them, limiting their citizens from the panicked footage that exists only from overseas. Rebels have taken over several countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Central America. Riots are occurring in every country. Governments are cracking down on dissidents and don’t want to encourage their citizens to do anything that jeopardises the smooth implementation of iron fisted control. After all, parliament and congress always do what’s best for their people.

  We’re not allowed to leave the hotel. There are gun shots outside so I’m not willing to leave anyway. There’s a plume of smoke which can be seen out of every window. It’s been like that since we arrived. There’s some fighting between the walking dead and the locals, but rebels are taking care of the problem. One of the American reporters went out yesterday to get some new coverage and never came back. I met with him a few times over coffee. He was a bit of a dick. Simon said he was forever talking about the Arabs taking any opportunity they had to bomb Israel and Israel had every right to protect itself, even if that meant taking pre-emptive measures. That’s not why I found him a dick, though. It’s because he kept talking about the US election as though the fate of the world rests on its decision. They vote in three weeks. The Republicans are going to take it, it’s a given. They’re pro-war and a zombie uprising is just what they needed to reclaim the White House.

  We’ve been in contact with the British government. We’re in a hot spot right now so they won’t fly anyone out, not even to a quarantine facility. We’re on a waiting list. We’ve been here for two weeks and still all they can tell us is that we’re on a waiting list.

  Rachel and Ediz are both bored out of their minds as well. We barely talk to each other. There’s nothing really to talk about. We’ve spent so long in each other’s company that we’re all sick and tired of each other. Ediz accidentally called Rachel ‘Cristina’ the other day.

  My folks didn’t stay for long in Eastbourne. They returned to London and my dad has started working again. They also broke into my flat and moved all of my stuff. Thank god for small mercies.

  I tried to write a book like Simon said, but whenever I think about it I feel as though I’m a neurotic useless git, which is probably true, but it’s not something I want to dwell on. Simon said I should send my diary to a ghost writer and let them embellish for all it’s worth. We’ll see.

  I would almost kill for a burger. There’s a gourmet burger joint just ten minutes from my place in London. They cover it with blue cheese sauce and the curly fries are drenched in cheese. The burger is huge. Served with bacon and caramalised onion. I’m ready to gorge on that stuff and keep on eating until I pass out. It’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last week. Why? Here’s a hint:

  Two cows are standing in a paddock. One says to the other: “Are you afraid of mad cow disease?”

  “Nah,” says the other.

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m a tractor.”

  Thaaaaaaat’s right. There are now fears of mad cow disease all over again. I will not be having a delicious, succulent, juicy burger drenched in blue cheese sauce because England is about to go beef free. They’re also afraid that the beef has been contaminated by zombies.

  Rachel has been trying to teach me some basic salsa dance moves she picked up before I arrived in Spain. Left foot goes here, right foot goes there. Now do it without thinking about it. You’d expect that would be easy, right? It isn’t! I’m not even going to imagine that one day I’ll be able to impress people with my mad cha-cha-cha skills. I’m calling it now: dancing is for other people.

  2 November

  We’re about to die. None of us have slept in days. NATO is bombing Tunis. We evacuated the hotel days ago and we’ve been hiding in a hospital ever since. The rebels were over powered. The zombies came en mass. There are thousands of them in the streets, all chanting “Surrender!” in a mix of languages. I haven’t had time to write until now because this is literally the first moment I’ve had time to sit down with a moment to breathe.

  The gun battles got worse a week ago. There were explosions and grenades and bombs going off everywhere. The zombies were keeping to themselves, quietly populating their numbers. A group of them would go into a building, break the doors down and infect e
veryone, then they would wait. They waited for days. Then, like cockroaches, they flooded the streets and went on the offensive, going door to door and infecting anyone they could find. They moved in hundreds, if not in the thousands.

  There were gunships in the air and helicopters firing into crowds of zombies. We could see them from our hotel, shooting into the streets. Then the Tunisian President came on TV. He was quite clearly a zombie and he was murmuring “Surrender,” over and over again. He gave a speech. It was the Haitian’s voice, the same one we heard in Spain. He sounded weak, but that could be because he’s controlling a vast number of the undead. The NATO bombing run started not long after that. Apparently the strategy by the zombies of hiding, waiting, and racing as one was world wide and happened all at the same time.

  We’re in the actual apocalypse now. There aren’t enough bullets in the world to end this.

  We waited for four days in the hotel listening to the bombs. No one came in to work, meaning we had free access to the kitchen but supplies quickly ran out. We knew we would have to run soon. A bomb went off, rattling the side of the hotel. All of the reporters left at once.

  We went from building to building, trying to hide and scrounge up some food. We could hear the fighting, the cackles from the zombies, and I saw more dead bodies in the street than I could ever care to imagine. Bodies piled up high to create a roadblock. Arms moving about in every pile from the undead who were too injured to be of any more use. There were smashed open skulls, missing limbs, people who were eaten in a frenzy. I saw a man’s stomach and intestines lying on the ground. I saw a zombie throw a baby against a wall.

  We got to the coast and were trying to flag down a British ship. Simon had a Union Flag with him and was waving it around. No one came to get us. When the zombies stormed the beach we retreated back to the streets. They chased us all through the night. We managed to get to a hospital. We’re going to stay here and hope no one bombs us.

  The building keeps rattling. Bombs are going off. I’m about to throw up.

  3 November

  One of the reporters has managed to get a boat to come to us. We’re leaving.

  4 November

  It took longer than we expected. We left at dawn. Ten hours later the boat finally showed up. Someone fucked up their timing. It looks like we’re on a sight-seeing mini cruise, or something people use to go snorkelling. It’s big, though. There are nineteen of us on board. We’re heading north east. If Cristina was here she might be jumping up and down because it’s taking us to Sicily. The problem is there’s no way we’re going to get through. There seems to be an armada of naval ships between us and Italy.

  I saw a zombie suicide bomber blow himself up. It ran straight towards a soldier’s roadblock. The soldiers didn’t fire back, they just ran. The explosion sounded like a balloon bursting. Then there was bits of blood and clothing flying through the air before landing across both sides of the street. I heard a howl of agony from someone who didn’t get far enough away when the bomb went off.

  Fuuuuuuuck there are zombies in the water and they’re all swimming towards us. Some are wearing French naval uniforms. They’re thrashing about, coming at us from all sides.

  5 November

  One zombie got close enough for us to drop an anchor on its head. That slowed it down. We see the rest of them through binoculars swimming in all sorts of directions. It’s daylight now and I’m seeing splotches of colour.

  It’s my mum’s birthday. She’s fifty nine. Happy Birthday Mum. Hope it’s a good one.

  The Italian coast guard is coming towards us.

  Well that didn’t work. We were stopped and boarded by the coast guard. They didn’t want anyone getting to Italy. We explained that we are all European and are escaping a war zone. Tough shit. We could see Sicily from our boat. As soon as the coast guard made it clear that we weren’t going to reach land, people started jumping into the water, trying to swim for the coast. The guard drew his pistol and took aim at us on the boat. He’d lost control. As soon as we saw the gun at us we all jumped into the water. Fuck him. We didn’t believe that he would shoot nineteen of us. And he didn’t. It took them almost an hour to round everyone up and pick us out of the water. We’re now being escorted back to Africa. The people around me say that as soon as we’re far enough away from Sicily, the coast guard will turn around and we will have to try again.

  Do you have any idea what it was like to jump overboard with tins of pineapple and tuna in their bags, like some people did, and then expect to swim? I’m surprised no one drowned.

  It’s night time. We’re trying again. Back in the hospital, as soon as I heard about a boat, I covered everything I had in plastic bags. Whatever it takes to keep my stuff dry.

  I’ve just wished Rachel and Ediz all the best. Again. This one feels like we might actually die, especially if we jump into the water again.

  This is potentially my final entry. We’re in sight of Sicily for the second time today. The owner of the boat says he’ll get us as close as possible to the coast but he can’t risk beaching himself. We’re going to have to swim and avoid the rocks. I can’t swim all that well with a backpack, nor in heavy waves. If anyone finds this diary, floating through the water, please let my parents know that I’m aware that I’m about to do the dumbest thing ever in my life in about half an hour, but I don’t have much choice. I would like to say that I’m not going to stop swimming, but I haven’t eaten today and my legs are shaking from hunger.

  I can hear the dead thrashing about in the water. They’re coming for us.

  6 November

  I didn’t die. Rachel and Ediz didn’t die either. Three of our people never reached the coast. We believe they drowned. We had to jump earlier than we expected because the coast guard started shooting at us. Someone shouted into the dark: “We’re Italians! Don’t shoot!” They shot anyway. We scattered like rats and dove into the water. It was only as I got my first breath of air that I realised I had jumped in the wrong direction. Everyone was calling everyone else’s name to make sure they were still alive. I had stuffed two life jackets into my pack to keep it afloat. It was probably what saved my life. By the time I got to where everyone else had started they were long gone and I was way behind.

  My watch is dead. It got smashed. I liked that fucking watch. I ditched it. Even though it barely weighs a thing, it weighs something. I’ve had it for six years and now it’s lying on a beach in Sicily.

  Incidentally, this is my first time in Italy. It took me almost an hour of lying on the sand before I had the strength to stand up. I think I was swimming for more than an hour. People swam in to help me onto the shore. They say I was moving so slowly they thought I was a zombie.

  Part 2.

  We’ve split up. Most of us didn’t want to but we were too big of a group to walk through Sicily and go unnoticed. There are six of us travelling together. We’ve had to duck a few times to avoid the police. No doubt the coast guard have called us in. People will be actively looking for us.

  7 November

  Motherfucking Italians. So we were caught. Are we in a police station? No. Are we in an internment camp? Yes. Are we segregated by race? Yes.

  We were split up, shoved onto different buses, and Ediz’s went first. We haven’t seen him since. He looks Middle Eastern so that’s likely a draw back. Simon, Rachel, and I were on the second bus. We haven’t seen any Italians in our camp, aside from the authorities. We all have Red Cross style care packages. I ate my biscuits and drank my water. There’s no easy way to say this but we’re … sitting in a death trap, surrounded by fences covered in razor wire, and make no mistake about it, we are all prisoners, caught for being illegal immigrants, and we’re going to be treated with the harshest of penalties.

  We haven’t entered the main facility yet. We still need to be processed by a doctor and have our stories verified. That should be fun, considering I have a massive gap in my recent history from lining up in front of Gibraltar to suddenly arrivin
g in Sicily with a Brit who definitely came from Tunis.

  We’re just sitting around, waiting to see if we succumb to an infection. Maybe we’ll go on a hunger strike. Will that stop the authorities? What would they care? If we starve, we starve. One less person to worry about.

  Some of the people around here were backpackers, travellers, guests, just like us, except most of these people never left Sicily. The camps have been around for six weeks or so. It’s been in all the papers, apparently. How the hell did we not hear about this? Here I am, another illegal immigrant and I’m rounded up in a concentration camp. They keep saying it’s not a concentration camp, but it certainly feels like one. We’re all smooshed in here. English, French, Germans, Australians, even some Spanish people, which makes me feel right at home again. They speak good English here, except the Italian guards remember their English only when it’s convenient.

  8 November

  Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, fucking waiting, nothing to do but waiting. I hate waiting. We’re still not zombies. Waiting.

  9 November

  Wow, we finally got to see a doctor. I am happy to report that I am not a member of the league of undead. Take that asshole doctors! Nor is anyone else who travelled with us. That means we get to go into the bigger internment camp! Yay us.

  What a novelty this is. Waiting in line for food packages, standing around and making small talk. Can’t wait to do this again tomorrow.