by Carl Meadows
I reckon in another couple of days I’ll be fully healed, then I can do this little experiment of my own. I want to set Operation Birthday into motion, and there is some risk in it, considering where we have to go, but I need that risk to fully test the undead reaction.
You’ll notice, Freya, that I am being deliberately vague about the details of Operation Birthday. Where’s the fun if it’s not a surprise, even to you, wherever you may be?
Okay, I’ve done my musing on this weird shit. I’ll take a break. I think next time, as I’m still healing, I’ll finally lay out how I ended up at my old high school on the day the world shat razor blades in its pants. I think that should be recorded in here as it was that day, after all.
Wherever you are right now, Freya, I hope it’s bright, peaceful, and smells of summer flowers. I miss you, so does Particles, and Nate misses you more than he lets on. I think he kind of adopted us both as foster-daughters in that little time where it was just the three of us and our little puggy dude. Maria and Norah are amazing, but they’re like mother and grandmother figures to me. Alicia, understandably, is all laser focus in becoming a Valkyrie and lacks a bit of warmth, so she’s not really the girly type.
I miss having my girly BFF to hang with. There’s a big Freya-shaped hole in my life that I can’t seem to fill.
Shit, Nate was right. Grief does creep up on you when you least expect it. My lip’s getting all quivery and there’s a familiar tightness in my throat again, so I’m going to save this here, grab my emotional support pug, and go cry in my room for half an hour.
Miss you.
OCTOBER 15th, 2010
THE DAY THE WORLD SHIT THE BED
It’s that time, I feel. My back is almost better and I’m likely to start getting super busy again all too soon. So, before things get wild again Freya, I present to you the day the world shit the bed, and how I ended up at my old high school, where I first started scribbling this journal in shitty school notebooks.
This is a two-fold story, in that it also contains a little personal history. I’ve recorded that I went to university and got myself a creative writing degree, thus preparing my bardic magnificence for these apocalyptic tales, but such a diploma is treated with more than a little scorn by prospective employers.
I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Do you know, I actually considered taking a shot at being a stand-up comedian? Let’s face it, I am hilarious.
Yes, I am! No, you shut up!
Twenty-one years old, fresh out of university with a half-assed degree, I was not a particularly desirable employee. I didn’t have any employable skills, seeing as brutal and sarcastic honesty is not considered a core competency for many vocations. Who knew?
I ended up in the first of many dead-end jobs, with no prospects, and endless days of monotonous routine. Data entry clerk, office junior, admin clerk, receptionist; jobs that just didn’t suit me. I’m sure they were fine for many people, but I need more mental stimulation. I get bored easily, and if I don’t love what I do, then I hate what I do, it’s that simple. Working was a necessary evil required by society so I could pay my way.
I also hated nine-to-five, never more so than summertime, when I’d sit in a stuffy office, wearing a smart blouse, grey skirt, black tights, and comfortable shoes, looking like a clone of every other person in the building as I stared out at the blazing sunshine. I wanted to be out in that weather in a park, or on an abandoned site where I could run free and get the parkour buzz from testing myself. I am not a high heels kind of girl, unless it was on a night out. My preferred uniform consists of running shoes, loose athletic or cargo pants, vest top, and hoodie.
By the way, the hoodie is the most underrated of all clothing items. Not quite warm enough to go bare-armed while jumping ledges and climbing? Throw on a hoodie. Feeling cold? Throw on a hoodie. Feeling like shit about yourself? Throw on a hoodie. Can’t be bothered wearing a bra today? On with the hoodie. Just want to lounge all day and make no effort while you eat ice cream? Yep. Hoodie.
The hoodie is the Swiss army knife of comfort clothing.
After three years of shitty office jobs slowly destroying my soul, I moved into more blue-collar roles. I worked in factories, which I hated because it was just a different monotonous routine and fucking loud, and as we know, I am something of a social animal. Being unable to shoot the shit to help pass the grind of a working day was even more soul-destroying than staring at a spreadsheet containing data I just didn’t give a shit about.
Eventually I ended up working in a warehouse, and I found my place a bit more there. I started working shifts, and that gave me better freedom in the summer months. Working four days on, four days off, followed by four nights on, and four nights off, suited me way better. I had time in daylight to run free or go the fight gym and work out my angst on the bags and sparring in the ring. If I needed extra shifts for money to buy or replace stuff, they were there. It didn’t stimulate me mentally, but the banter in the warehouse was more fun and filled with hours of piss-taking, which was way better than dealing with petty office politics.
Of course, you still had to deal with irritating supervisors who went mental with a tiny sliver of power over other human beings and delighted in making your life miserable, but that’s par for the course in any job. Some of the heat I got was my own doing, in fairness. I was forever shortening my supervisor’s name to Dick, which he didn’t seem to like.
Mind you, that’s probably because his name was Robert.
It wasn’t great money, but for where I was in my life at this point, it suited me far more than the daily drudge I’d been enduring.
I finally managed to save up enough for a deposit on a rented flat of my own. I’d been living in a shared house with three freaks up to this point, so when I moved in, it was the greatest feeling in the world.
When you’ve been bounced between foster and group homes all your life, and then resided in shared dormitories in university, followed by shared housing with strangers, I cannot express how amazing that first night in my own flat was. It was a single bedroom, with a tiny bathroom, and a singular open living room-kitchen area, but it was mine. I wasn’t wondering if one of the freaks was trying to pick the lock to my door so they could rummage through my underwear while I was at work, trying to sneak a creepy look at me in the shower, or stealing my shit out of the fridge that clearly had my bloody name written on it in permanent marker. I was three months away from my twenty-sixth birthday (which is May, in case you were wondering, Freya) and I had my first true taste of real freedom.
Four months after moving into my own little private slice of heaven, the world went and shat itself, and here we are.
On that day, I was on my first day off after a stretch of four nights in. It’s hard to get your body clock in any kind of circadian rhythm, as you’re always fucking about with it, so I was still asleep when a commotion in the building woke me up around 11am.
I live on the top floor of a three-storey building. There are four flats on each floor, much like that apartment block Nate and I discovered untold horrors in, but the residences were on a much smaller scale. There were no balconies either, though the flats above ground level had large patio-door style windows with a little guard rail just above waist-height, so you could open it wide in the summer and let the breeze in. The walls were like paper as well, so if someone banged the front door of the building, or their own apartment door, the whole god damn building would hear it. Still, it was a small price to pay and for the most part, I was lucky that the people in my building were mostly conscientious about not being arseholes.
I was used to a banging door now and again, or the dull thump of hip-hop bass from the stoner bell end living below me in number eight.
I was not, however, prepared for the screaming I heard both outside the building, and within it on the ground floor. It was heart-stopping, being woken like that. In nothing but my pants and a tee, I flicked open my bedroom window blinds, swung the window wid
e, and stuck my head out, peering down into the bright morning with sleep-bleary eyes.
It took only a second for them to snap wide.
A paramedic, in his green uniform, was sat on the small patch of grass just outside the building, being tended by his frantic female colleague. His right arm was a mess, a blood-covered ruin with a ragged chunk torn clean out of his bicep. I think an artery must have torn because the blood was everywhere, pumping out in gouts as his friend desperately applied a tourniquet to slow the bleed. He did not look well, I could see that much, even from my elevation.
There were a few other people hanging out their own windows, asking what was happening, getting irate with the clearly distressed paramedics as one of them was trying to save the life of the other.
People can be such fucking assholes, Freya.
Here was a first responder with an obvious life-threatening injury, his colleague – and probably friend – was desperately trying to save his life, and people were hanging out their windows demanding to know what was occurring, then getting angry at the paramedics because they were too busy to answer any queries.
Well, being the hero of the common people that I am, I let those assholes know exactly what I thought of their dick-like antics, told them all to leave the medics the fuck alone, and then laughed as all the bell ends turned their ire towards me. I will have a verbal slap fight with anyone, at any time of the day. I get a kick out of it, because… well… I’m really good at it. Other people will lose their shit way faster than I will. Poking idiots with a proverbial stick is just one more thing I can’t put on my CV for prospective employers. It’s very frustrating.
It appeared the paramedic had lost too much blood, because he soon expired, despite his mate’s efforts. Obviously, now I know a bite is fatal in itself, so there was nothing that poor woman could have done to save her friend.
She sat there for a moment, head bowed and openly crying at her friend’s demise, which shut the gawking residents up. As we all watched on, wondering how this particular situation had arisen, the dead paramedic twitched and the woman sucked in a surprised breath, immediately resuming her medical treatment.
Fatal mistake.
Even as the man twitched, someone in a window below shouted out a warning.
“No!” he cried. “It’s on the news!”
I thought that was a weird thing to say at the time. Her face was so close to her reanimating colleague, and she had no time to react as his eyes snapped open. His arms encircled her, crushing her down towards his waiting jaws. Her screams soon died as her undead friend gnawed his way through her neck, gouts of blood erupting from the awful wounds, panic exploding in every window as they quickly slammed shut.
I stared down in mute horror, watching as the newly raised undead ceased the wet grind through his colleague’s throat, releasing her before climbing awkwardly to its feet. Seconds later, the woman gave that violent twitch, and within a minute, we went from two live paramedics to a pair of undead monsters now hungry for flesh.
I knew what I was seeing. I’m a big pop culture fan, love a good horror movie or book, and it took me a minute for my brain to accept that what I had just seen was indeed a zombie rising from the dead. Closing the window, I remembered the neighbour’s attempt at caution and sat on my couch, switching on the TV.
I watched for a good twenty minutes, flicking over every channel, seeing the same thing over and over again. Pictures and video from across the globe, the haunted, disbelieving stares of news anchors trying to deal with this live situation, their minds clearly on their own loved ones. One newsreader, during a live broadcast, just stopped talking, shook her head and declared, “I’m done.” Just walked off in the middle of it.
That’s when I really knew shit was real, despite what I’d just witnessed outside. There was something more jarring about that news anchor, a consummate professional I’d seen on TV for more than ten years, just up sticks and fuck off during the most momentous global news event in human history. Her exit was like a slap to my face, but what I did next was really weird and detached.
I went and took a shower, as normal, like any other day.
I know, weird right? I think this is where the start of my hyperactivity began. Looking back at my very first entries, it reads like I was on drugs. After watching that news anchor just clear out mid-broadcast, a shower seemed like the only sensible thing to do. How long would the water be available? When would I get clean again?
There were two fucking zombies outside the front door of my building, and I was taking a shower and washing my hair like I was getting ready for a normal day.
There was bedlam erupting in the building below me. Lots of shouting and swearing, screaming and panic, and I was luxuriating in the shower like I was in a shampoo commercial, lathering my hair, then calmly running a comb through it after conditioning.
I came back into my little living space, one towel around my body, the other around my head, and sat on the couch staring at the TV some more while I ate a breakfast of granola and yoghurt. It was close to midday by this time. Finishing my breakfast, I dropped the bowl and spoon in the sink and put the kettle on for a brew, turning the TV off.
That’s when I noticed how quiet the building had gone.
Getting myself dressed, I didn’t bother with the hair dryer, instead combing my locks back into a tight ponytail. Looking back with clearer vision, I think I was in some kind of daze, my brain in hyperdrive, as I absently loaded some snacks and bottled water into a backpack and – weirdly – a comb. A few spare hair bobbles, box of tampons, other random shit, and then thought to check my phone. Just as I turned the screen on to look, I saw I had about fifteen missed calls from Maria, noticed the power said one percent, then the bastard little thing powered down for the last time.
Almost seconds later, the power went off in the building, so any chance of pumping charge into the device was gone. I tossed the phone and charger in my backpack anyway, and don’t ask me why as I have no idea. Throwing in a few spare bits of clothing, I then zipped it up, strapped it to my back, and ventured out my front door.
Well, I didn’t get far. Remember, this wasn’t a large building. On each floor, there’s just a small entry door from the stairwell then you’re faced with two doors on the wall facing you, and one either side, with just a tiny space before them all. My flat was an end one, number twelve, so I came out and went through the door into the stairwell and was immediately punched in the face by the smell wafting up from below. Yes Freya, you know what that smell was, but it was the first time I’d ever experienced it and I involuntarily dry-retched.
I peered down between the handrails and my eyes were immediately drawn to the fucking sea of crimson in the ground floor hallway, before a shambling figure shuffled through the ocean of blood, unmindful their fluffy purple slippers were sloshing through all that vileness.
I recognised the figure as Sylvie, an old woman in her late seventies who lived on the ground floor. I always liked Sylvie. She was of Jamaican descent, and I always loved hearing her talk. There’s something rhythmic about those Caribbean accents that captures the imagination, like funky street music that just draws your attention when you hear it.
Sylvie, or at least the thing that used to be her, must have heard my dry retching, as her face snapped straight up, white eyes fixing to me with blood and gore crusting around her mouth. I don’t know for sure what happened, but I’m theorising that Sylvie must have had a stroke, or a heart attack, or something to that effect. I remember her once telling me she was on heart medication and the doctor was forever telling her to take it easy, but if you’d ever met Sylvie, that woman took orders from no man. She was a bright ball of Caribbean sunshine, with a deliciously wicked laugh to accompany her equally improper sense of humour, and always struck me as someone that grabbed life by the balls and dared it to make its move.
Everyone’s met one of those old ladies that you just know has stories that would put even the lewdest of contempora
ry tomboys to absolute shame. I reckon Sylvie had a litany of spicy indiscretions that would make their antics look like an episode of children’s TV in comparison. And that belly laugh was just so full of joy, a bit like TV chef Rustie Lee, but with an added dash of wickedness. She was ace.
I’ve surmised that the paramedics were there to treat her, she died and bit the first guy, both of them scarpering outside to slam the front door shut on her. We know what happened from there.
Other undead shuffled into sight through that gap, eyes turned upwards towards me, and I recognised a few other faces from the building. Some must have tried to make it past the seemingly harmless dazed old lady, and instead got a fatal lesson in the predatory lunge of the undead.
Basically, the ground floor was now an impassible barrier of shambling zombies, and two more undead first responders were bumping against the other side of the front door anyway. Anyone left in our building was trapped.
Everyone except me.
I went back into my flat, locked myself in and moved to my patio-style door in the living room. It opens inwards, so I did that, hopped over the other side and gripping the thin railings, I inched myself down until I was hanging from my fingertips, my toes just inches from the top of the same window guard of the flat below. That was when my stoner neighbour, Rodney, opened his own window-door.