Journal of the Living

by John Moralee

  “Sadie, wake up.”

  She snored.

  “SADIE.”

  Her eyes jerked open and her hand gripped the handle of a hunting knife in her belt. “Neal …?”

  “No – it me, Ben. Something is wrong.”

  She was full awake in a second. “What?”

  “I don’t know – but I feel it. Wake the kids. I’ll put out the fire.”

  I hurried over to the fire and kicked dirt over it, plunging the camp into virtual darkness only illuminated by the stars overhead. I turned in a circle, looking hard into the night, not seeing anything strange … until there – between the trees – down below us – I saw a pinprick of light. It grew larger and brighter as it moved closer. There were two white lights close together. The headlights of a vehicle.

  Sadie had woken Hayley and her brother. Jason looked like a zombie with his eyes half-closed with sleep. He rubbed his eyes and mumbled. “What’s … going on, Ben?”

  “We’ve got company.”

  “Is it Neal and Angela?” Jason’s younger sister Hayley said. She was standing on her tip-toes to get a better look at the lights. “Are they coming back, Ben?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Was Neal driving back to us?

  We stared at the lights. More lights appeared behind the first vehicle. I counted at least four separate pairs of lights. Four vehicles. Coming into the estate on the only road in or out. That was no coincidence. Nobody travelled at night voluntarily if they didn’t have to. They had a purpose. I knew what that was. They were searching for us. Hunting us.

  “That’s not Neal,” Jason said. “Is it the Pure Bloods or Billy’s gang?”

  I doubted Neal would have given up our location so quickly. “I’m afraid Billy must have sneaked a look around when he was here. It’s the likeliest explanation.” I could see more lights – single beams – confirming my fear. There were at least a dozen bikes coming up the main road. It had to be the gang hunting us down in revenge for getting them attacked by the zombies. The vehicles were approaching the burnt-down mansion and the circular road that led up to our location. If they all went in one direction, we could take our van in the other direction and hopefully drive around them … but they must have already figured out that because the vehicles split into two groups. They were approaching us from both directions. We couldn’t escape in the van.

  “Grab what you can from the van,” I said. “We need to hide in the woods before they get here. Quickly!”

  Hayley and Jason dashed off to their tent. Sadie grabbed and loaded her crossbow and grabbed her backpack while I filled my own backpack with as much as I could reasonably carry. I hated abandoning the camp – but we could never defend it from two directions at once. I estimated we had less than five minutes before the gang showed up. It wasn’t enough time. Everyone had to leave valuable things behind.

  When we hurried into the woods to the south, I could hear the bikes approaching on the road. They would be at the camp in a minute.

  Around me the woods were pitch black. We would have been helpless in the darkness – but we all had night-vision goggles taken from an Army and Navy store. The darkness turned to sinister green daylight when I switched my pair on. We headed directly away from the camp, moving quickly and stealthily, resisting the temptation just to run as fast as possible. With time on our side, I would have hidden our footprints in the soft earth, but we were in a desperate rush. We were moving too fast to hide our route from tracking. We had gone about 200 metres when the gang arrived at the camp and drove through the barriers. Someone fired a gun into the air. Others shouted. They were angry because we were not there.

  “I KNOW YOU’RE HIDING! YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE US? WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!”

  It was then I heard the barking.

  It sounded like there were a dozen dogs with the gang – barking furiously into the night. They had to be hunting dogs. At that moment the dogs were probably getting our scent off the things we had been forced to leave behind. As soon as the dogs had our scent, they’d give chase and we’d get caught in minutes, since there was no hiding places in the woods where the dogs would not find us.

  A cold dread filled me. We were in trouble. We had to get off the private estate to our alpha site – but the shortest route was blocked by the hunting parties. We’d have to sneak around them.

  I knew the gang would soon find out which direction we had headed and try to get ahead of us on their bikes – so we hiked another quarter of a mile as fast as we could straight north – making no effort to hide our path because I wanted them to think that was our true destination. We crossed a stream to confuse the dogs and made sure we stayed downwind of them when we emerged from the water upstream heading south. Torches lit the trees not far away, beams sweeping left and right through the darkness. The barking was getting louder and I could hear the men shouting to each other because they did not have to keep quiet as they moved through the woods. “They’re this way!”

  They continued north – just as I’d hoped. But what would happen when they got to the stream? Would the dogs find our scent again?

  Sadie knew the woods better than the rest of us because she had spent time more hunting for food there. “We can go up here – but it’s a steep climb. We’ll save a lot of time climbing up – but it won’t be easy in the dark.”

  The hill was steep and rocky and almost vertical in places, but that meant the dogs would not be able to follow if we climbed straight up the cliff. Sadie went first. Then Hayley. Then Jason. I was last. Our progress was painfully slow – but we reached the top. I could see flickering torches among the woods below. Hah! The gang were searching in the wrong places – so our trick had fooled them.

  Through a gap in the trees, I peered down into the clearing where the burnt-out remains of the mansion were lit up by the lights of a parked van. Someone was standing on the roof looking through a sniper rifle. Looking for us. I recognised Billy even from a long distance. So – I knew for sure he had led his mates to us. I ducked down before he saw me.

  After twenty minutes, we emerged from the woods and climbed over the perimeter wall. I relaxed knowing the gang would be searching on the other side – but it was no time to stop for rest. The alpha site was not far. We just had to hike another half mile through the public woods bordering the private estate.

  We continued to sneak away - but then something happened. Ahead of me, Hayley stumbled and muffled her own cry of pain as she fell. She tried to stand up straight away – but she could not put any weight on her left leg. “Ow! Sadie! My ankle! It hurts sooo much!”

  Sadie rushed to her. “Don’t put any weight on it. Let me see.”

  “There was a stupid rabbit hole,” Hayley said. “And I stepped right into it. Is my ankle broken?”

  “No – it’s a bad sprain, though. You mustn’t walk on it.”

  “I have to!”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll carry you.”

  I removed my backpack and handed it to Jason. Hayley climbed on my back, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my chest. She didn’t weigh as much as my backpack, but she was harder to keep on my back. Jason added my backpack to his burden without complaining, though he was noticeably slower when we continued. Sadie led the way through the thinning woods. The alpha site was an electricity substation where we’d hidden some emergency supplies. We had gone half of the distance when I could hear dogs barking on the other side of the perimeter wall.

  “This way!” someone shouted.

  The dogs were now heading straight for us. Stopping briefly, I sprayed some pepper on the trail to discourage them from following our path. I could hear the hunters getting closer and closer as I hurried away. A minute later I heard yelping and almost felt pity for the dogs. The pepper would not harm them – but it would stop them hunting for a few precious minutes.

  Unfortunately I could hear bikes approaching. They’d have us surrounded very soon. I had an idea. “Jason – carry your sister. Sad
ie, get everyone to the alpha site. I’ll make some noise and lead them away. I’ll catch up with you guys when it’s safe. Just hide until they’ve gone away, okay?”

  “What about you?” Jason said.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure out something. Just go, Jason. Get your sister out of here.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Sadie looked at me. “Don’t get yourself killed, Ben.”

  “It isn’t in my plan,” I said, though in truth I did not really have much of a plan except to stay alive, somehow.

  I swapped Hayley for my backpack. Sadie, Jason and Hayley continued in the direction of the electricity substation while I set up an obvious trail for the hunters to follow. I led them away from the alpha site. With the dogs and men getting closer and closer, I abandoned my backpack under a tree after taking out some weapons. I hid in some bushes until I saw the dogs and hunters. There were five men in the group. I hadn’t seen any of them before. They were moving quickly, following the dogs. I aimed my crossbow at the nearest man and released a bolt aimed at his heart. I hit him in the chest a little low, knocking him off his feet. He screamed and tugged at the bolt sticking in his abdomen, his cries so loud they could be heard in space. His friends dived for cover behind the trees as I reloaded and fired again. My arrow slammed into a tree just inches from a man’s surprised face. He started shooting back. And so did the others. They didn’t know my exact location – luckily – so I didn’t get shot as I raced away. Yelling like madmen, they chased me through the trees as more of them arrived on bikes, circling the area, trying to fence me in.

  Now I had their attention I had to figure out a way of escaping.

  I stopped behind a tree – reloaded my crossbow – then waited for a bike to drive by. I didn’t have to wait long. One appeared a few seconds later, ridden by a man with a goatee beard. Another man with a spider tattoo was riding pillion armed with a gun.

  I aimed at the rider. My arrow took him in the throat. He lost control of his bike as he was dying, crashing hard into a tree. Spider Tattoo was thrown off and landed on the rough ground, losing his grip on his gun. He groaned and looked for his weapon as I ran over to him before he got his wits back. I kicked him in the head, then finished him with a knife.

  I couldn’t believe I had cold-bloodedly killed so easily – but I didn’t feel any guilt. He would have killed me.

  His bike was a smouldering wreck – ruining my getaway plan - but I had a gun now, which was an improvement. When I saw a bike’s headlight beaming through the darkness, lighting up the woods to my right, I hurried in that direction and encountered another man on a bike. He was armed with a crossbow – but he didn’t see me until I’d already shot him. I ran over to the bike, which was on its side with the wheels spinning. I lifted it up and jumped on it and rode it through the woods parallel to the road, praying I could get a few miles away before the gang figured out what I’d done. But I’d not gone far when another two bikes appeared behind me, catching me in their headlights. The riders shot at me, forcing me to switch directions and accelerate into the deeper woodland, desperately veering right and left to avoid slamming into trees. It was weirdly exhilarating being chased and riding at dangerous velocity in the woods – like re-enacting the speeder bike scene in Return of the Jedi – but then I struck a rock or something that sent me flying over the handlebars. Then it was no longer exciting because I was landing on hard earth covered with fallen twigs and sharp branches. My momentum sent me rolling thirty feet into the base of an oak tree, where I banged my head so hard it felt like a lightning bolt had exploded inside my skull. I lay there stunned, blood in my eyes, staring up at the night sky, where I could see two identical red moons. In my addled state I wondered if I’d been transported to another planet by the force of my crash. Only slowly did the moons merge into one as my eyes refocussed. I realised I was still on Earth and laughed to myself for being so stupid. I remembered where I was just before a bright light shone in my face, blinding me. “I got him! I got him! Over here!”

  No. Where was my gun? It had to be near me. I had to get it – but my head and body were not responding to my call to action. Everything was fuzzy and confusing. Did I have a concussion? Sadie would know. Sadie! Where was Sadie? At the alpha site? I couldn’t let the men get Sadie. I had to keep fighting and drawing them away. I had to find my gun before the man was joined by the others. Where was it? I’d had it in my jacket when I’d been riding. That meant it was still on me, right?

  I didn’t find out the answer.

  I passed out first.

  ENTRY SEVENTEEN

  “Sir, I think he’s awake.”

  “Make sure.”

  A hard slap jolted me into full consciousness and splashed blood on the stone floor between my bare feet. Stone? Where was I? A dungeon? My head throbbed with pain as I looked up. The walls were made of stone, too. The only light was from a narrow window with stained glass. Was it a church? Wherever I was, I was naked from the waist up with my hands tied over my head. I was hanging from a steel chain connected to a hook high above, facing a teenage skinhead in a grimy black T-shirt with a skull on it. Not exactly the best way of waking up. My blood dripped off his hand as he stepped back, grinning, his foul smoky breath reminding me of dirty bus shelters and public toilets.

  “He’s awake now, sir.”

  “Leave us,” the other man ordered. He was standing near a doorway in the shadows, smoking a cigarette that lit his face in a red glow. He was wearing a black suit. I knew him. He was the gang leader, the one who looked liked Tim Roth in Reservoir Dogs. Dragging on the cigarette, he walked over to me. “You and your friends have caused me some serious trouble. I’m going to make you pay for that. Slowly.”

  To prove it, he put out his cigarette on my chest. I smelled my flesh sizzling as the pain pulsed through me. I was reeling from that when he slapped my face – not too hard, but it stung and knocked my head sideways. He slapped me again, drawing blood. Then he stopped because my blood was on his shirt. He paused to wipe it off with some spit. “This is going to get messy. Billy!”

  Billy walked in immediately. He must have been waiting to be called in. He was not the Billy I had encountered in the zombie-infested town, the one I had believed had wanted to leave the biker gang. This was another man – the real one – revealed like the beetle under a rock. Billy swaggered towards me, smirking. He was standing straighter and seemed taller, more confident.

  “Hello, Ben. Bet you didn’t expect to see me again, huh?”

  “Billy, you could have been free. You didn’t have to go back to them.”

  “You know that story I told you about my brother Luke? It was all made up. I don’t have a brother. I just have my uncle Quinn. I’d never betray him. He’s saved my life more times that I can count.”

  Quinn patted him on the back. “You did good, Billy. I’m going to let you have some fun with our guest. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Quinn left the room. Billy cracked his knuckles and studied me. “Ben, you’re my prisoner now. How does it feel to have the tables turned?”

  “I’d give it only one star on Trip Advisor. The accommodation could do with some improvements.”

  “Funny. I don’t think you’ll be laughing when I’m done with you.” He gut-punched me – then he glared into my eyes. “Funny Man, you’re going to beg me to kill you. But I won’t let you die until you tell us everything I want to know.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Where are the others?”

  “What others?”

  He punched me again. “Do you want to be a human punch bag?”

  I spat blood. “No. It isn’t my dream job, Billy.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who! The kids. The old guy. The nurse. And the crazy women with the shotgun! My uncle wants them all. If you tell me where they are, I promise I’ll make your death quick and painless, Ben. You won’t have to suffer if
you just tell me where they’ve gone. I’m not a psychopath. I will have mercy. Just tell me where they are hiding.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “They’re my family, Billy. I’m not going to let you hurt them.”

  “I’m going to torture you, Ben. Save yourself from the pain. Give them up. Tell me where they are.”

  “Never.”

  “Never is a long time,” he said.

  And he proved it.

  ENTRY EIGHTEEN

  Billy tortured me for hours while I hung helpless from the ceiling like a carcass in a slaughterhouse. I lived in a world of pain, but I didn’t tell him where to find my friends. No – that secret was not going to pass my lips. Hayley, Jason and Sadie needed time to get away. Time I could give them if I stayed silent. Defying Billy was something I could do to help them. My last act on Earth. My stubborn refusal to betray them angered Billy. He beat me until I was pouring blood. After slipping on my blood, he lashed out with his fists, pummelling my back and chest until I pass out, ending the pain for a short time.

  I was still dangling from the hook above when I regained consciousness. Billy was gone.

  Another man was there, treating my cuts and bruises. He was a frail older man aged about sixty, a Sikh wearing a turban and a long white beard. His legs were in irons so he was a prisoner, too. I was puzzled why he was tending to my wounds. “Who are you?”