Diaries of the Damned (11 page)

“Nothing,” he answered quickly, dropping the curtain back into place. After everything that had happened the previous day, there were still some things that were best left unseen. “Just a boat load of nothing,” he lied, and Nathalie knew it, but she let him have it. He did it to be nice.

“So, what is the plan?” Nathalie asked, sitting on the bed as if the pending discussion was a trite affair, like what to eat for dinner or where to hold a birthday party.

“Don’t die,” Robert answered as he sat beside her on the bed. The simplicity of the answer, and the way it was delivered, caused them both to giggle; a fit which spread through their bodies like a warm drink on a cold day, and soon had them lying on the bed in a fit of hysterics. Both had tears in their eyes by the time the laughter passed and the reality of it all sank in. “No more drinking. We can’t drink and expect to survive. I’ve seen enough of these movies to know how quickly it spreads, and how important it is to be prepared.” Robert tried to sound as authoritative as he could.

“Agreed. I don’
t want to be…eaten by one of those things,” Nathalie confirmed.

“In any meaning of the word,” Robert added without thinking, referencing the seemingly horny mindset of some of the zombies. Nathalie looked at Robert, and when she realized he had meant it in jest, she smiled and another bout of laughter ensued.

“If someone could train them, I wouldn’t need a vibrator anymore,” she joked.

“True, and you wo
uld save a fortune on batteries,” Robert continued to joke and both laughed so hard that at first they did not hear the calls coming from the first floor.  They both dressed still shaking with laughter.

When they did hear the calls, however, both fled the room at a run, their jovial-in-the-face-of-adversity mood shattered, and their game faces set.

The cries came from Glenn’s room, which was on the opposite side of the house. The room looked out over the residential area in front of the house. In the background the main office blocks of the City center could be seen on a clear day.

“What’s wrong?” Robert called as they burst through the door. Nathalie was close on his heels, and behind them, clearly the worse for wear came Dan, Mark and Rebecca – each in various stages of undress.

“You’ve got to see this.” Glenn stood by the window, while Danielle lay in the bed, with the covers pulled up to her chin, seemingly unfazed by the crowd in the room.

Robert, Mark and Dan quickly headed to the window, eager to see what had gotten Glenn so worked up. The girls hung back at the door. Danielle jumped out of bed and pulled on some clothes, while the boys had their attention diverted. She was unsteady on her feet from the alcohol that still coursed through her body.

“Sweet Crap on a cracker,” Mark whistled. The sky was a beautiful blue, the sun had already risen high, which told them all they had slept until well on toward the middle of the day. The only clouds in the sky were the plumes of black smoke that rose at a distance. It looked as if the city were burning. For the source of the smoke was a wide strip that encompassed the area where the tall buildings of the business sector once dominated the skyline. “What caused it?” Mark asked once the initial impression faded.

“I would guess an explosion or a fire, but who would do something like that?” Glenn asked, unable to take his eyes away from the scene.

“It’s panic, man,” Robert answered. “People are fucking scared. Just look down there.” He pointed to the far right of their field of view. The large cross-road, was the scourge of intercity commuters. It was a mass of cars, but not neatly queued and waiting for the lights to change, but rather piled up and broken. A handful of zombies stood around the mess, the majority searching for the flesh of the dead that lay trapped inside. While a few, having been found before the release of death could hit, re-emerged into the world.

“Shit… I kind of hoped it ha
d all been a dream or something,” Dan spoke under his breath. He didn’t want the girls to hear.

The others gave no answer, but nodded their heads and cleared their throats in agreement.

The front of the house was more active than the rear. Zombies filled the street. They wandered up and down, no focus to their movements, yet when they reached the end of the road, most simply turned around and ambled back again.

“Do you recognize anybody?” Robert whispered as he saw the faces of the three people he had been playing darts with in the campus bar just a few nights before.

“Yeah, it seems like most of the ones out there are students.” Dan answered, while Glenn offered a similar response. Mark was quiet, his face pale.

“It’s unreal, man,” he whispered, his voice breaking.

The sound of an approaching car reached their ears, and a few moments later an old Volvo Estate came crashing into view. It careered straight through three zombies, sending two over the top of the car to land on the pavement behind. The first landed head first, its skull popping like an overinflated balloon. The second landed softer, its legs broken. The bones protruded just below the kneecap on each leg. Immediately, the creature began to writhe on the ground, twisting itself over onto its belly, whereupon it resumed its back and forth pacing; inching its way along the road, a thick smear of fecal matter tailed behind it, from where its exposed bowel had ruptured as a result of the impact.

The car, having survived the initial impact of the bodies, swerved at the wrong moment, mounted the pavement and crashed into a tree. Blood covered the windshield, and while the wipers worked at full speed, the last round of collisions had bent them to an angle that rendered them useless.

The zombies descended en masse. Seeing how quickly they transitioned from aimless stumbling to intentional stalking at the first scent of a new meal chilled them each to the bone.

The car doors opened and three men tumbled to the ground. Each was armed, and fired several rounds into the approaching zombies. Several fell.
A star shaped wound appeared on in each of their foreheads, as the bullets found their mark. These, at least, would not rise again. Most were merely winged, so continued their advance. Rather than running away, the three men backed themselves up against the car.

“Oh god, they’re going to…” Rebecca began. The sound of gunshots had brought the three women to the second window in the room, where they stood with slack-jawed horror as the three men were overrun by the sheer numbers of the group.

The sound of the gunshots was a dinner bell to the undead ears. All within sight had turned and readjusted their trajectory to bring them over to the car.

“Shit! They´ve just attracted half the fucking city to this street. Idiots,” Glenn growled.

As a fellow zombie enthusiast, Robert nodded his agreement, but did not give voice to them.

“There are still people in the car,” Danielle called, as the zombies fell into three squirming piles. Fresh rivulets of blood flowed into the street, and through the single glazed windows, the squishy sounds of human organs being snacked upon didn’t fail to turn the stomachs of all seven onlookers.

“She’s right, look.” Robert pointed to the car, where a woman and two children were trapped in the car. Their attempts to escape from the rear door without attracting any unwanted attention had proved to be a labored affair.

“We have to help them.” Robert and Dan both took off, running down the stairs without a thought as to what they would do.

They freed the door from its reinforcements – a little too easily – they reasoned as an afterthought. Robert ran into the street, waving his arms in a frantic attempt to get the attention of the women.

A growl from behind him made Robert jump and fall. The naked woman from the kitchen was once again behind him, her fingers still buried deep within herself. The blood encrusted pubic hair had dried to resemble a giant scab, which flaked away with each cold thrust her fingers made. She reached forward for Robert with the other hand, but stopped when Dan stepped in from the side and blindsided her with a shot to the face with what looked like the leg of a bar stool.

“Thanks,” Robert nodded to his friend as he scrambled to his feet. He turned back to the woman just as the first child was ripped from her arms. Two zombies argued over the small body, which tore apart under the pressure. Each undead monster ended up holding a severed arm, while blood fountained into the street. The child’s cry was overpowered by the mother’s agonized wail.

“Come on lady,” Robert and Dan screamed, as she ran down the steps, and into the descending crowd of the undead.

“My baby,” the woman had turned white, and could barely support herself. The other child, who must have been about nine, stood frozen with fear between the convulsing body of his brutalized younger sister and his mother.

“Mummy,” the small boy cried as the monsters encircled him. They closed in on the kid just as the mother looked around in answer to her child’s call.

“No,” the mother shrieked as she changed direction, to charge after her son. Dan reached out and grabbed the woman, pulling her back toward the house. Robert, knew he should have turned back, but he had to at least try to rescue the child.

Robert grabbed the nearest zombie to him by the back of the shirt. He pulled with as much strength as he could find, and the creature flew free. Robert stopped and howled in horror when he saw the face that stared back at him. The skin of the boy´s face peeled away in one thick
strip; including his eyebrows, lids and lips.  Tears dripped from the exposed white eyeballs, as three zombies continued to feast on the tender flesh.

“Leave him man, leave him. It’s too late,
” Dan called as he continued dragging the mother inside. Robert pivoted and ran, leaping up the steps and slamming the door shut behind him.

Robert turned and leaned against the door, but did not have the chance to breathe before the mother was upon him, beating him with a flurry of slaps and scratches. Her wails so loud they made his ears ring. As quickly as they could, Dan and Mark pulled the mother away, while Nathalie appeared at Robert’s side, eager to help him to his feet. He shrugged her away, tears stinging his eyes as his mind overloaded. He could not hold it back any more; the child’s mutilated face was burned into his mind.

“Let me go, I want to go outside to my babies. My babies need me. Please.” The mother collapsed to her knees on the floor, her torment writ upon her face. Her pleading sobs echoed in Robert’s head.

“I’m sorry, but they’ll kill you.” Glenn tried to reason with the woman, who was in her mid-thirties, a few strands of grey beginning to mar the thick raven – colored locks.

“I don’t care,” she growled. The knife came from nowhere, pulled from the waistband of her trousers before anybody could even register it. The women swiped out at Glenn, plunging the knife into his chest. She pulled it out and held the weapon before her, a wild and crazy look in her eyes. The last spark of her sanity was extinguished; it had died with the agonized screams of her children. “Now open the door, and let me walk away,” she spoke through clenched teeth; the act of violence she had committed had yet to register with her.

None of the group paid her further mind as they rushed to aid their stricken friend. The woman opened the door and ran wailing into the street, swallowed by a host of the undead.

It was only as the first zombie crossed the threshold that the group realized two things: One - Glenn was dead; his blood no longer flowed from the wound in his chest; Two the door had been left open, and the dead had queued up for their turn at the buffet.

Everybody moved in an instant, by impulse rather than actual decision. Rebecca and Danielle began flailing away with whatever they could find, screaming with exertion as the first of the assailants approached. He was an older, heavyset man, who used his bulk to walk through whatever stood in his way.

Robert and Dan grappled with a pair of zombies, trying to force them out of the open door and back into the masses.

A cry rang out as Rebecca pulled her arm away from the man, the floor already crimson from both the wound and the gaping mouth lunching on her flesh. The zombie, with one arm free, struck out at Rebecca, punching her in the face hard enough to cause her to lose her grip.

The menacing creature growled as it stood to full height, ready to claim its conquest.

“Die bitch!” Nathalie screamed, appearing from the kitchen with a canister of hair spray and a cigarette lighter. Without a moment’s hesitation, she flicked the wheel. On the third attempt the lighter sprang into action with a tall flame. The zombie showed no signs of stopping. Nathalie sent a jet of hairspray through the flame and watched with amazement at the speed with which the man caught fire.

Flames savaged the flesh as if it were a pile of dried out twigs. The zombie screamed, or rather, gave a high pitch groan. Robert never knew if they could feel pain, but that sound the creature made as he burned made him certain they could…on some level.

Thinking quickly, Mark jumped up from beside Glenn and grabbed a large sofa cushion from the floor. Using it as a shield
, he shoved the zombie backward, guiding him through the open door and into the crowd. The flames spread, and within seconds of closing the door, seven of them were consumed in the blaze.

“Fuck me! That was too close,” Mark breathed a heavy sigh of relief as he slid down the door, coming to rest
within his knees pulled toward his chest, and his head resting in the groove between them.