Diaries of the Damned

by Laybourne, Alex

  “It can’t be,” Leon spoke to nobody in particular.

  At his feet, the man he had just escaped from attempted to claw his way back toward Leon. He reacted with aggression and kicked out at the man, who’s snarling lips and gnashing teeth were anything but positive signs. The man’s nose shattered and the skin surrounding his left eye split open like a piece of over ripened fruit. Yet still he came, hauling himself to his feet. Leon struck out again, this time with his fist. Though knocked to the floor, the zombie immediately began to struggle again, giving Leon the time he needed to escape.

  He reached the door when a scream rang out that stopped Leon in his tracks. “Danny,” he called as he spun back to face the store.

  A second scream followed the first, and Leon set off without hesitation in search of his friend. He found him just one aisle over from where he had left him. The young woman they had tried so hard to save had straddled Danny’s chest. She began to slam his head into the floor, creating a second, less substantial pool of blood on the floor. Leon was too late. Before he could reach his partner, the undead woman had opened up a hole in the back of Danny’s head and had slipped her fingers inside it. With a powerful yank she ripped the skull open, the bone breaking with a strangely delicate snapping sound. She threw the top of the skull over her shoulder as if it were nothing; where it spun on its neatly trimmed, overly gelled top like an empty cereal bowl.

  With a triumphant growl, the woman buried her face in the open cranium, greedily stuffing her face with the juicy brains that lay within. She ate with a noisy fervor, which caused Leon to spew his breakfast, and half-eaten lunch all over the floor. Not that anybody paid attention.

  Run Leon, he ordered himself, but his legs would not respond. They were frozen.

  “Daddy, no, stop it!” A young girl screamed, and snapped Leon out of the shocked trance that enveloped him in a dark nightmare. He turned to run just as the women finished licking the inside of Danny’s head clean.

  He ran through the aisle, toward the sound of the scream, where he saw a young girl. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, standing with her back pressed against the wall facing her father - the same man Leon had already encountered. He was on his hands and knees, pulling on the hem of the girl’s dress.

  “Hey, hey, leave her alone!” Leon called out. Suddenly the store fell silent. Leon stopped. He and the girl were the only ones left alive.

  Every zombie in the store stopped and turned to face Leon. For a heart stopping second he thought there was a chance for escape. They moved in a swarm, bearing down on Leon; separating him from the girl who had ripped her dress away from her ravenous father and retreated further into the corner. She moved the wrong way, away from the doors. Leon wanted to call out but a hand clamped down on his shoulder. He spun around, lashing out as he did. He struck the zombie - an old woman - on the top of her head, knocking her backward where she fell to the floor. As the elderly woman fell, three more sets of hungry hands tried to take her place. They grasped only air as Leon had jumped back, putting some distance between himself and the mob. He knew that there was no way he would be able to get to the girl. As if fate had read his mind, Leon’s blood ran cold as he heard her young voice call out in agony. He turned and saw her standing in the corner, her dress torn apart and her intestines slowly pulled from their cavity, sucked into the hungry mouth of the cashier who devoured them as if they were spaghetti.

  “I’m sorry,” Leon mouthed to the girl, whose eyes bored into him with a pain that would haunt him forever.

  Growls began to close in on him, and Leon found himself with his back pressed against the door. It would not open. The automatic sensor no longer worked. Panic fueling his every move. He frantically waved his arms and stamped his feet to no avail. A pair of hands suddenly descended on his shoulders. Leon feared the worst, but as he turned, his legs tangled with themselves and he fell, pulling the zombie with him. Lifting his legs, Leon managed to flip the heavyset man over shattering the glass and pelting him with a rain of razor sharp shards. Ignoring the lacerations in lieu of much larger issues, Leon scrambled to his feet and left the supermarket. The ensuing rush of the walking dead clogged the hole he had created.

  Leon knew it would not keep them contained forever. Right on cue a large crack spread across the glass, branching out further and further. Not wanting to be around when it broke, Leon broke into a run.

  The wintry wind whipped around him, and Leon realized he had taken his jacket off when he was inside the store. His short sleeve shirt, however, was the least of his problems because the keys to the ambulance were in his jacket. The spare key, a recent standard issue for all teams, was of course in Danny’s pocket. Cursing himself, Leon ran for the ambulance, determined to find a way in. The car park was not that full, and the majority of the shoppers were still trapped in the store. It shocked Leon how many shoppers there were, given the warning that played on a looped broadcast on all radio and television frequencies urging people to stay in their homes. A few lone zombies wandered the car park, but they had yet to notice Leon as he sprinted across to the ambulance parked to the immediate left of the main entrance.

  The dead in the car park did not take long to turn and start moving toward Leon, who had walked around the ambulance trying every door in vain. The sound of the plate glass shattering imbued Leon with a renewed vigor. He could hear the growl of the zombies closing in on him. A quick glance over his shoulder told Leon that his problem was even more grave. Behind the charging tide of ravenous cannibals a thick plume of black smoke rose into the sky.

  Some held the lead; others fell behind, absorbed into the group. With nowhere left to turn, Leon hauled himself onto the ambulance’s rear bumper, and ultimately the roof. The higher ground made Leon feel somewhat more secure. They didn’t seem capable of jumping, and even climbing after him seemed to be quite the task. However, what they lacked in smarts, they made up with power - a raw and unrestricted power - which they used to good effect. What began as a few pounding fists, soon become a steady hammering, and the ambulance began to rock. The more it rocked, the more agitated the crowd became. They redoubled their frenzied attempts to overturn the vehicle.

  Leon struggled to maintain his balance, spurred on by the knowledge that if he fell he was dead. He crouched down and took a firm hold on the light fixed atop the vehicle. The crowd grew thicker and thicker, and in the distance Leon saw them all, the dead, wandering in search of their next meal, and the living fleeing in terror.

  The reality of his situation hit Leon hard. He became oblivious to the pack of growling monsters that surrounded him five rows deep, their dirty red teeth gnashing in anticipation of his sweet, adrenaline ripened flesh.

  Lord Jesus, help me. Leon thought to himself as he rose to his feet. The sound of the growls broke through the mental barrier. Trembling, Leon held his arms out, sweat dripped from his body, yet he shivered with cold. His heart thundered so fast it felt as if it vibrated rather than beat. He swallowed; his throat was dry and rough, his tongue a sticky mass that sat useless in the base of his lower jaw. One shaky shuffle and he was on the edge. Ok Leon, just one more, he tried to prepare himself, when out of nowhere, a police car with lights and sirens blazing came careening into view. It came in a straight line down Upper Queen Street, the main road that led into the supermarket complex. The car mounted the curb, and crashed clumsily into one of the non-shopper, pay and display ticket machines. The sound of the crash caused the entire group to turn. Without so much as a moment’s hesitation to ponder the quandary, they set off toward the car. As Leon watched, his head swimming against a black current that threatened to pull him out to sea, he thought for a moment that the zombies moved quicker; that they ran from the supermarket, eager to integrate themselves in outside world.

  During the scuffle, the creatures had broken both the driver and passenger side windows. Slipping from the roof, Leon lowered himself to the passenger side, keeping himself hidden behind the truck. Leon heard
a couple of growls behind him. When he looked, the two walking corpses were some way off; he had time. Sliding his arm through the broken window, he opened the door and climbed inside. Fumbling beneath the steering wheel, Leon ripped open the covering that hid the electronics from view. He struggled to pull a knife from the bag that rested on the floor between the seats. Their emergency kit ensured they were ready for any situation, even the rise of the dead it would seem. With the ignition wire cut through and the ends exposed, Leon closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. He had not hotwired a car since he was a young rebellious teenager. The wires came together and the engine jumped into life.

  Leon exhaled, sat up in the seat, and gasped as his eyes met those of the recently deceased girl from the shop. She had crawled up the front the vehicle and held on via the wipers. Throwing the ambulance into reverse, Leon sped back and screeched to a halt. The monstrous parody of the girl lost its grip and slid to the pavement. Without hesitation, Leon put the ambulance into drive and floored the gas pedal. He felt the bump as he drove over the zombie, and in the rear view mirror saw the flattened torso, while the head seemed to burst like a balloon. Leon knew that it had been a child, but also knew that it was a new world which had begun to bloom. One that embodied the kill or be killed sentiment. He gave a chuckle at the thought; he laughed until he cried, then he just cried. Leon drove through a torrent of tears, afraid to stop the vehicle, unable to stop the anguish inside his head.

  The real craziness started the moment he left the retail park. Zombies moved in all directions, the pack instinct of the supermarket mob - who had pulled the unconscious police officer from his car, and ripped him apart - was gone. Zombies ambled along their own shuffling course, in search of the scent of living flesh. Of course, they all turned to look at the speeding ambulance, but Leon did not plan to stop for anybody. He mowed down any creature that got in his way. All around him people were screaming, the echoes of terror creeping through the broken windows and echoed around the ambulance like a cold wind through an old house.

  Leon came to a junction of the main road; a crossroads in his journey - in his life. He could see how quickly the dead had spread and how the law and order of civilization crumbled. Every small shop he passed was looted, or in the process thereof. Leon witnessed the small Pakistani owner of a corner shop burst through the door after a pair of fleeing youths. His turban had unraveled and dragged behind him sodden with blood.

  Leon knew that he would not be able to rescue both his daughter who was at school, and his wife, who was home for the day, preparing their house for a showing. They harbored hopes of completing that sale before the summer, having already bought a newly built home on the outskirts of the city. He had told his wife to keep their daughter home from school, but she had stayed the night with a friend, and they had been unable to contact the parents to discuss it. The school later confirmed that both girls had arrived that morning, and that the quarantine order was in full effect within campus boundaries. Classes had been relocated to the main building wherever possible. There had been a general air of overreaction with regards to the warning. Even Leon had found it somewhat unbelievable…until now.

  Leon looked both left and right, debating which way to go. With a heavy heart, he took a deep breath, and turned in the direction of the school.

  Leon’s daughter Keisha went to a private school in a small satellite town. She received a full scholarship to attend; they would never have been able to afford it otherwise. Maybe it has not reached them, Leon thought as he sped through the back roads.

  The school was a large old family estate, with the main house being home to the main teaching area. Three other buildings had been added, or in the case of the sports hall, converted. Two square structures, the science building and the computer lab stood side by side along the main drive, directly before the main house, and the car park.

  Leon felt his heart sink as he turned into the driveway and immediately ran down a young boy; he could not have been more than twelve, a little older than his daughter, who stood in the middle of the road holding a human arm, munching on the raw flesh without a care in the world.

  Leon feared the worst, but continued his drive anyway. The long entrance road that led to the school took him past the two sports fields; one was set as a rugby pitch, the other as a football field. The rugby pitch, which was at the bottom of the drive was empty, the football pitch however showed something interesting. The net nearest the road had three zombies trapped in it. The arms and legs caught and twisted into the netting.

  They could not have done that to themselves, Leon thought. A small ray of hope broke through the cold, suffocating cloud of hopelessness that had enveloped him.

  The main school building was a mess. The windows had been smashed, and it looked as though there had been a small fire in one of the classrooms on the second floor of the building. The car park was full, and the large playing field opposite the main building was filled with the undead. At least a hundred students wandered aimlessly in search of their next juicy meal. There were teachers there too, but when Leon caught sight of Abigail, his daughter’s best friend, he slammed his foot on the brakes and brought the ambulance to a sudden stop. The noise attracted some attention, and Leon was not about to wait for another supermarket situation to happen. Leon said a silent prayer for Abigail, and started moving again. Rolling along slowly, he tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. There was no way he could turn around; he needed to drive the long looping road, which would take him to the front of the school, into the car park. There was no other choice.

  The crowd drew closer, following him like groupies. By the time Leon pulled up in front of the school, the entire populations of the playing field had noticed him and had turned his way. Leon was about to drive away when he saw movement coming from inside the school; from one of the windows on the upper level. He slowed, leaning forward to gaze up at the building. It is probably just one of them, Leon thought. He had scanned the group, looking for his daughter, but out of all of the zombies he had seen, she did not appear to be among them.

  The movement came again, from the window. It was a man, and he was very much alive. Upon seeing the ambulance, the window opened and a white linen sheet appeared.

  “Help us,” the plea was weak, for fear of attracting even more of the undead, but Leon heard it loud and clear.

  For the second time that day, Leon took a dangerous chance. He jumped out of the ambulance and sprinted into the main building, leaving the ambulance running. He closed the door, but doubted the creatures would have the intelligence or the will power to turn away from the prospect of a fresh meal long enough to even try to steal it.

  The heavy front door opened with a struggle, and Leon ran in, tripping into the pile of desks and chairs and that been stacked before the door in a crude attempt at a barricade. There were three dead bodies on the floor; zombies, their heads lined against the opposite wall. Their blood was a thick black jelly that cooled on the heavy natural stone floor. There was a growl at the door, and Leon reacted just in time to slam the door shut, trapping the left hand of the young, newly dead student that was trying to climb through, severing her hand at the base of the finger. What made Leon’s stomach churn most of all was that the fingers continued to squirm on the floor like fat maggots.

  The school building was quiet. The pounding of hungry fists was a constant beat, but Leon already found himself growing numb to it. He walked over and looked through the window. The ambulance was still there. None of the zombies even paid it any mind. There was a group of about five of them by the front door. One girl, who must have been in her final year peered through the window, her nose pressed against the glass. Leon recoiled; tripping backward, falling to the floor.

  “It’s ok, she can’t see you,” a voice whispered, eliciting an even greater start from Leon. “It’s kind of like one way glass. It has a special coat of some sort of paint. You can only see through if you peer hard. Those things just aren’
t that smart,” the voice continued.

  Leon spun around, and saw an elderly man standing in what had, until a few moments earlier, been a closed doorway.

  “Who are you?” Leon asked, picking himself up from the floor.

  “Please, not so loud. If they hear you we are all dead,” the man whispered nervously. He glanced around, as if uncertain whether the coast was clear. Once he was satisfied, he scurried from the hall and quickly led Leon into the darkness of the room, and quietly shut the door behind them.

  The gloom was overwhelming, and Leon began to fear he had made a mistake following the man, when suddenly, the lights went on revealing the full extent of the situation.

  The room was a small classroom, probably one of the private study areas that the older kids used in the build up toward exams. There were three desks, and at a quick count eleven chairs in the room. Leon deduced that they had not all originated from the same place. A student, several of whom were dirty and bruised, occupied each stool. Only one girl was spotless; she had in fact been the girl who saved the teacher, who, in turn saved the students. She had been using the room, as was rightly so, for a study area. When she had heard the screams she went to investigate only to be just in time to see the headmistress eaten alive.

  While she had been both directly and indirectly responsible for rescuing the students, she had quickly shut down. She raised her head to study Leon. He saw all of the fear she worked so hard to keep bottled up. As if recognizing this fact, the girl nodded at Leon, and returned her gaze to the book, which she clasped to as if it were a life preserver.