Diaries of the Damned

by Laybourne, Alex

  There was no time for Paul to stop and feel the temperatures, for Tracey appeared through the skylight the instant that he stood on his feet. Their ascent had not gone unnoticed however, and the zombies were rattling the shack, causing the entire structure to creak and groan. The plan was working, to a degree. Robert and Monique had both moved their group in different directions. Over half a dozen shacks had people standing on them, and gradually, the crowd around his own shack began to disperse as the scent of the fleeing meat wafted through the air and enticed the undead to follow.

  “Tracey, give me your hands,” Paul cried. Tracey, a slender thing by all accounts, had already had some difficulty in getting her engorged bosom through the skylight, and found herself wedged into the gap moments later. The swollen stomach that housed her unborn child was too large. She held her breath and tried to make herself as thin as possible sucking in a stomach that was no longer really responsive to such demands made no difference.

  “I can’t, Paul! Help me, I’m stuck… help!” she screamed, thrashing about.

  “Calm down, calm down, Tracey, and listen to me. Give me your hands. I’m going to gently pull on your arms.” Paul crouched down and spoke softly, as an almighty crash beneath them confirmed that the bed blockade had finally been overcome.

  Tracey’s panic increased further when Alan’s screams tore through the roof below Paul’s feet. There were sounds of a struggle; a heavy struggle. Adrenaline took over, and Paul heaved on Tracey’s arms. She cried out in pain as the wooden frame of the skylight dug into her tender flesh. Her baby kicked, and struggled within its water home, displeased with the activity going on around it.

  Paul lost himself to the struggle. All around him death filled the air. The exhausted survivors, who had run out of energy before the plane even left England, were moving slower and slower. Several had misguided their jumps and had fallen to the ground. Their screams echoed in the background of Paul’s consciousness. He would only notice the true impact of the loss once he too had made it to safety. In his hands, Tracey’s grip slipped; both of their palms greased with sweat. A small trickle of blood stained Tracey’s shirt. Paul noticed it and inside his head, he paused for a few moments. He started up soon after however… what else was there to do? With another great pull, he felt movement. Tracey gave a scream, but slipped higher through the window. The progress fuelled Paul’s efforts, and with a concerted effort, he tugged with every remaining ounce of strength he could muster. Tracey came free with a scream that caught the attention of every zombie in the complex. The shower of blood and entrails that came with her also added to the appeal.

  Paul landed on his back, Tracey on top of him. The first thing he felt was the warm wetness that spread between them, and while Tracey shook and shuddered, she never made a sound. The coppery aroma of blood filled their air, and when Paul sat up, he saw the reason. Zombies had killed Alan, and it had been the undead attached to the other end of the pregnant tug of war. Their hands and teeth had torn Tracey apart, and in pulling her free, Paul had neatly severed her body. The sounds of ravenous chomping that came from within the shack told Paul all he needed to know.

  “Paul, jump, quickly! That place is going to collapse!” Monique screamed, as she quickly bounded over the buildings in his direction.

  Shock gripped him tightly, threatening to shut his body down altogether. Paul looked over the roof. On all sides, undead hands scrambled at the edge of the shack, reaching for whatever morsel they could find. The shack wobbled and creaked. Paul looked down at Tracey. She was dead, he knew it, yet he could not turn and walk away. He saw her, what remained of her swollen stomach and then… just before he vomited, Paul saw her baby. It lay on the roof of the shack, encapsulated inside a blood smeared sac. Its large eyes were open, and seemed to stare at him. You failed. You killed me! It screamed at him. You killed me like you killed your own children. You’re a monster!

  Paul jumped backward, his legs buckled beneath him and he came close to falling from the edge of the shack. The blood was spreading, thick and black even in the cold light of a cloudless day. There, as he hovered over the abyss of his own existence, Paul saw Monique. She was three buildings away, waving at him frantically. Paul realized then that he had become deaf to the world around him. The noise came back: the grunting and snarling of the undead, the pleas from Monique; something about the shack falling.

  As if prompted, the building gave a great tremor, and the sound of cracking wood ripped through the air. Running, Paul leapt from the shack to the roof of the neighboring building. It was in a not much better state of repair and the undead were soon upon it also, but Paul had no plans to stop. He had jumped three more buildings, and caught up with Monique, who had turned to leave the moment she saw Paul was moving, when he heard it. The shack they had been sheltering in, and then upon, was gone. Eaten by a cloud of dust. Hidden by an army of the undead.

  I’m sorry Paul thought to himself. He felt no better for it. He had no time to further indulge his growing self-loathing, as there was already a crowd gathered around his new position. Leaping, he made his way across the rooftops toward Monique.

  The camp was enormous, larger than he had ever dreamed. In the rear, was a large, concrete structure, which looked as cold in its appearance as the winter weather that slowly worked its way into their bones. The shacks were arranged in three rows, and were three rows wide and at least twenty-five rows deep. He could see the first of the group – those that escaped with Robert – making their way along the far side of the camp, they had separated into two smaller groups, one took the central lane and another took the far side. Both kept relatively good pace with one another. Robert could be easily identified. He would not leave the shack they were upon until the last of the group, in either lane, had moved past him. Ahead, Paul saw Monique, and ahead of her the people she had led to safety.

  A cry went up in the group ahead. Someone hadn’t made the jump. They had fallen to the ground. Their cries called to the zombies, summoning them like a dinner bell.

  “Keep moving,” Paul and Monique cried in unison. They knew that stopping to help was just a waste of valuable time.

  After what felt like an age, the last of the group reached the officers’ area. They knew what it was, for besides the shacks it was the only building on the site. Well, besides the tall circular building that stood in the far corner of the site, and nobody needed to ask twice what its purpose was. The large pit and tractor that stood the other side of the fence showed where the Russians had planned on hiding the bodies. Paul wondered for a second just how the UK thought they would get away with such a crazy plan.

  “How do we get inside?” Monique asked as they stood on the roof of the final shack. The group, whose numbers had dropped to twelve, following a few more stumbled jumps, and one man who freely leapt after his wife, when he had been unable to save her, pondered her question.

  “There is a broken window on the first floor,” Robert pointed out. They stood spread across the three shacks, with Paul, Robert and Monique alone on the central building.

  “It’s a big jump,” Paul said as he studied the window. “What do you think, Monique?”

  The zombies had kept pace with them, and the crowd around their shack was gathering.

  “What other options do we have?” The three looked at one another and none of them uttered another word. They were covered in sweat, dirt and blood. None had slept in days, and all knew that making the jump would further reduce their numbers.

  Paul looked to his left. He saw – against all odds – the small frail old woman who had first sat beside him on the plane. She stared at him, her old face kind, yet weathered. He wanted her to say something, to call to him, and tell him it was okay. That she understood. Yet all he saw in her eyes was hope. In that one fleeting glance she had begged Paul to save her, to let her live on.

  “They won’t all make it,” he said finally, his voice broken.

  “Nope,” Monique agreed, “but we could save
most of them. These shacks won’t last forever, Sugar. We need to make a decision,” she pushed, even though they all knew what the answer would be.

  “What if there are Russian soldiers in there?” Robert asked. The question came at them like a firm punch to the gut.

  “I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it. These things have kind of unified the playing field a little, don’t you think?” Paul pointed to the gathered crowd; a sea of unresponsive faces, their features twisted into something horrific beyond adequate description. “Unless…” he paused, staring at the other two.

  “Paul, come on, Sugar, they need you.” Monique looked at him with wide, worried eyes.

  “Robert, you’re the youngest, quick on your feet. You jump first. If the coast is clear, we will send the others across,” Paul announced, his voice quivering as he spoke. He knew he had become an every bit the executioner to balance out his part as savior.

  Robert made the leap through the open window with relative ease. His arms strong, even in their weary state, and he hauled himself up and through the gash in what appeared to be an otherwise locked tight exterior. The moment he disappeared, Paul felt his heart freeze. What if it is crawling with zombies; locked up to keep them in? What if the Russians are there? I killed Robert… I killed another kid. Paul wobbled on his feet, his legs disappearing from under him. He caught himself before he fell, and blamed the unsteady shack they stood upon.

  A few moments later, a period of time that felt like hours to Paul, Robert appeared in the window and announced that the room was empty.

  It was a start.

  Chapter 26 – Base of Operations

  It didn’t take long for the first person to fall, and while two more jumped across before the zombies had finished their first fistful of fresh human innards, there was an extra weight added to the air. As if even gravity had turned against them.

  “I won’t make that jump,” the old woman told Paul. It was just the two of them left. He had purposefully hung back until the end.

  “Maybe you can. See, Robert there will catch you,” Paul lied.

  “Young man, I may look good for my age, but I was not born yesterday.” The old woman, who still held a strange and repugnant odor, which Paul had first noticed when she sat beside him on the plane, complaining that he was in her allotted seat.

  Beneath them, the shack began to tremble, as the growing weight of the undead increased on all sides. A cold wind whipped through the compound, generating a howling cackle of a laugh as it danced between the other wooden buildings, frolicking like a nymph, much to the chagrin of those that stood by, unable to enjoy the freedom.

  “Come on, I’m not jumping until we have you in that building.” Paul was not sure why he wanted to help this woman above the rest. Their entire interaction had happened at the start of their flight, and lasted maybe thirty seconds at most. Yet there was something in him that refused to give up. Maybe because of her age. She had been through so much in her life, that to have her die at the hands of the undead, on the frozen ground of a Russian concentration camp just felt wrong. She should die in a warm bed, surrounded by fat grandchildren.

  “Then I shall make it easy for you.” She gave another smile, one that highlighted the creases in her flesh, the dried blood flakes that sat between them, and the dignity that she insisted on holding onto as she entered her final moments. Without saying another word she walked backward, and fell from the rear of the shack and into the crowd. She never cried out as the zombies ripped her apart at the joints. Paul saw her blood spurt into the air, a thick red; a healthy red.

  “Paul, come on, jump,” Monique called. Paul turned and saw both her and Robert in the window of the building. He paused, looked around and saw how the world had changed. In the matter of a few weeks, the world had become twisted into a wilderness that would see only the strong survive. I killed my babies. I saw my wife change. I killed…people. I killed them because I needed to survive. I am strong. We are strong, and we will survive this. Paul found his strength. Then he wiped the tears from his eyes, and whispered a goodbye to the weight that he had been carrying since the first day of the outbreak; releasing his wife and children to enjoy their forever together, he stood taller, and felt stronger that he ever had. He leaped through the window, lifting himself through and into the arms of the two people he now considered his closest friends.

  The room they found themselves in was a simple, military grade sleeping quarters. One bunk bed, complete with itchy blanket and khaki colorings, along with a table, two chairs and a bottle of vodka completed the look. Clothes were folded and neatly secured within the two chests that stood on the floor at the foot of the bed; one against the frame, the other against the wall. There was no sign of a TV, or even a radio. A small collection of books stood on the floor behind the chests, and what looked to be a Russian porn magazine poked from beneath the pillow on the bottom bunk.

  “Cozy.” Monique nodded to herself as she looked around the room. The rest of the group stood in silence. They numbered nine in total. Yet, while the zombies could be heard scratching at the walls, each would admit to having never felt safer in all of their lives.

  “What do we do now?” a young voice, that of Keisha, Leon’s daughter spoke up. It was the first time she had really spoken out since her father’s death. It was clear within seconds that she had the same spirit as her father.

  “We stick together. We make our way through this place. We have shelter. Our next concerns are arming ourselves for protection, and food. Whichever we find first, we take first. If we find anybody else in here…well, that we will deal with as we come to it.” Paul took charge, stepping into the role willingly now.

  As a group, they walked along the upper corridor of the building. It was laid out in a brutally stark and simple fashion. One corridor. The walls bare and unpainted. The floor was concrete, although there were signs that something had been laid upon it in the past. Every room was the same, in terms of size, layout and contents. There were seven rooms in all on the first floor, and with one floor above them, along with the rear of the building, Paul guessed that there would have been up to forty people residing in the complex at any one time.

  There were other rooms in the side wings of the building, but they were locked. The rear of the building was much the same as where they entered. Bedrooms, as far as they could tell, but the dust and cobwebs that covered the windows made it clear that this half of the building was no longer in use.

  “I guess they only moved in recently,” Robert spoke as he swatted at a thick cobweb that dangled before his face.

  “Yeah, well, it gives me the creeps,” Monique answered. She looked around like a girl in a museum; surrounded by wonder, yet aware of the history that each item told.

  “We should keep moving. I want to make sure there are no zombies around before we let our guard down,” Paul spoke. His eagerness to leave the cold shadows was well hidden, yet easy to see if one knew what they were looking for.

  The first floor was quickly cleared, the window they had used to enter the building was the only visible entry, and by moving the bunk beds in the room – an afterthought that Robert had raised – they managed to create enough of a barricade to ensure that nobody would be able to fit through; at least, not without a struggle.

  There were two flights of stairs in the building, and it was quickly decided that if no zombies were found on the first floor, the second would be equally empty, and so the decision was made to head to the ground floor.

  Paul’s stomach ached. It felt as if it had been tied into a knot as he dismounted the final step. The air on the ground floor was cold. Their breath fogged before their eyes. A low wattage bulb hung naked and alone in the center of the ground floor. The wooden floor told a tale of grand elegance back in the days when the death factory was in full swing. Paul could almost feel the nostalgia: the high powered military officials’ milling around, drinking vodka and telling stories of how their latest batch of victims ha
d all turned blue in the face, choking on their own swollen tongues during the more recent gassings. Oh, the folly!

  “Whoever reopened this place didn’t do much in the way of decorating,” Paul commented as they walked further into the large hallway. The impressions left by the previous fixtures and fittings could still be seen. Discoloration from where great paintings, statues and mirrors hung told of lonely times at the end of the wars. A forgotten warrior, consigned to serve the Russian regime for eternity.

  “Quiet down, everybody. Keep quiet,” Paul whispered his command, as a nervous murmur went through the group at the very same moment that a noise echoed through the darkness. “Quiet,” he barked once more, doing his best to keep his voice as low as possible, to avoid starling the other occupants of the building.

  “What is it, Sugar?” Monique asked, whispering in Paul’s ear.

  “We’re not alone,” he answered, and the short sentence was enough to make Monique turn rigid with fear. Paul felt her body stiffen against his, but had no time to concern himself with her condition. Before they knew it, they were bathed in light, and screaming Russian voices deafened them. Paul collapsed to his knees, hoping that the others would do the same. He had seen enough bloodshed for one day.

  “Do you have the bite? Do you have the bite?” A strong, yet scared sounding voice demanded from within the light that blinded them all.

  Paul, who had his arms raised into the air, looked in the direction that he thought the voice came from and began to speak. Doing so with a raised voice to ensure he was heard above the screams of his people, and the nervous chatter of the Russian soldiers. He knew the other group was Russian because of the heavy accent on the words they spoke.

  “No, we have no bites. We are clean.” Paul had no idea what he was saying, but he hoped it worked.

  “Let us see. All of you, on your feet.” The same voice, calmer now it would seem, as a result of Paul’s answer, demanded.