Diaries of the Damned (33 page)

Neil jumped across the room. Adrenaline fueling his actions, he leapt with the knife raised above his head and stabbed downward, through the back of the creature’s neck. The spine snapped with an audible and brittle sounding crack. The creature – for Neil no longer associated any of the names his brain threw at him, with the creatures he saw – fell to the floor, the knife still protruding from its back. Reaching out, Neil grabbed the blade and watched in horror as the creature, whose arms and legs had been rendered useless, continued to snap at the ground, snarling like a cornered dog.

Neil watched fascinated by the creature and the change that had come over it. He took the knife, and paused, why would be the purpose of killing it? Surely it would die of its own accord. He withdrew, and turned away.

“I guess we don’t have any reason to stay now,” he spoke to Jack as he walked away.

Neil flinched when he heard the sound of the zombies head exploding as Jack stamped it to bloody pulp, roaring with savage triumph was globs of grey brain jelly splattered the floor. He did jump however, when he turned around after a hundred meters and saw that Jack had not left the lab. He had taken a seat, with his back to Neil, and leaned on a countertop, with his head in his hands.

“Jack, come on man. What are you waiting for?” Neil called. He was overly aware of the way his voice echoed through the passageway.

“No, I can’t leave,
” Jack called back, his words muffled by his hands.

Neil stood, looked in all directions, and with
a heavy sigh moved back toward the lab.

“Fuck the cure, man. I am not leaving you behind. You found the secret. Great. Tell that to the
boys topside and they will give you everything you need. Do you really think this is the only facility like this?” Neil urged. He paused at the entrance to the lab.

“It’s not about the cure, Neil. Go, get to the top and seal it off.” Jack stood clumsily, knocking his stool to the floor. He turned around, his balance already failing.

“Jack, quit playing, there’s bound to be more of those things down here…” Neil’s words caught in his throat when he saw the blood. Jack was missing three fingers on his left hand. They had been bitten off just above the palm.

“Neil, leave, now!” Jack ordered. The power of his statement was clear even though the strength of his voice was failing him.

Even as Jack spoke, the color drained from his face. His eyes sunk and he found himself fighting a consuming rage that had developed within him. He saw Neil, he knew his name, but hardly recognized him.

Neil was saying something, but he couldn’t hear. The words were foreign to his ears, like static.

Neil reached out to grab the scientist, determined to pull him to safety. He had read plenty of zombie books to know that sometimes, people were immune. As someone who had worked on the cure, Jack had surely been exposed to more than enough to help him fight it off.

Jack growled as Neil touched him, his head thrust forward, and his jaw clamped shut, nearly trapping its prize. Neil gave a surprised yell and pulled his arm away. Jack had narrowly missed his skin, instead biting into the sleeve of his shirt.

“Jack, come on, it’s me. You can beat this thing. Nobody else knows the cure. Otherwise, tell me – show me your notes.” Neil looked over the fresh zombie’s shoulder at the pile of notebooks and scribbled upon loose sheets of paper.

Jack lunged forward
again, his stumbled steps creating an illusion of lost balance. Neil was forced to jump backward once more. He jumped into the glass refrigerator unit – which had already been knocked off balance by the previous wave of the undead – and he sent it crashing to the floor with a cacophonous crash that surely alerted any remaining zombies to his presence. Jack continued to move, and while Neil pushed him out of the way, the message was not received, and he strode forward once more.

Back pedaling, Neil knew what he had to do. With a drop of his shoulder, he threw his weight in one direction, pushed back again with the other foot, and with a second dip ducked underneath Zombie Jack’s outstretched arms. Neil planted his feet, twisted his body and forced the knife through the back of Jack’s skull. Having only just turned, the skin and bone had yet to soften, and so the blade refused to withdraw. Neil left it behind, quickly filling his arms with as many books and pieces of paper as he could find before running out of the lab and up to the surface.

He dropped three books as he ran, but refused to stop, for his mind made him believe that he was being followed. Neil burst from the underground facility, bolted from the barn and into the fields that surrounded them, knocking over three army personnel before finally losing his balance… and almost his head. The rifle that was fired adjusted its aim the same time the trigger was depressed and as a result the bullet merely clipped Neil’s shoulder.

Chapter 24 – Is
it Ever Too Late for Redemption?

Neil stopped talking. His chest was tight to the point of being painful. He felt the weight of their collective gaze, and the heavy air that had fallen over the cabin. For a while, nobody spoke and Neil found himself beginning to tremble.

“Do you really expect us to believe you? To believe that our own government planned to attack us, just to start a war with another country? I mean who? North Korea, Iraq… China?”  Jessica spoke, her voice stronger than at any point in the flight thus far.

“Really, that’s rich coming from you,” Neil spat.

“Shut up, soldier,
” Jessica snapped, her façade slipping.

“Paul, you wrote down everything that people have told you. So tell me, what was her reason for slicing her wrists?” Neil turned away from Jessica, who stared at him with her jaw clenched.

Paul flipped through his notes, reading and re-reading his coded scribbles.

“Save it, because whatever she told you was a lie. She slit her wrists because she wanted the easy way out. She couldn’t cope with the knowled
ge of where we are really going,” Neil had started to shout. His face darkened as anger took over his emotions.

The plane continued its descent, a steeped event that most had previously experienced. “I should pr
obably go check with the pilots,” Jessica had regained her mild natured tone of voice.

“Save it, Captain,
” Neil spat. “Or whatever rank it is you managed to fuck your way into. You forget I know where this goddamned plane is going. I’ve got nothing left to loose. That’s why you cut your wrists. I tell you what. Give me a knife and I’ll finish the job for you.” Neil had lost all control. His emotions came in a rush.

“Hey, hey, Neil, calm things down. Leave Jessica alone. You’ve been through something shitty. We all have, but there is no reason to turn on each other. Now Jessica told us about the army, how they conscripted her to fly these planes. She is bringing us to safety, and has been flying back into Hell every night for weeks. So why don’t you sit down and start telling us the truth.” Paul, usually cool and in control of himself, could no longer hold his tongue. After the crazy story spun by Brian, he had had enough of being lied to, and played for the fool.

“I am telling you the truth. She’s no stewardess. She was born into the army. Her father, probably even her grandfather. She was an officer before she even fucking signed her papers.”

“Shut up,” Jessica snapped.

“Make me!” Neil roared. “Go ahead, kill me now, save them the satisfaction,” Neil roared as spittle flew from his lips.

Paul sprang to his feet, followed by L
eon. Everybody else shrank away.

“Okay, everybody calm down. Jessica, what the hell is he talking about?” Paul looked from Jessica to Neil.

“I don’t know. He must have seen me at the airport. That General followed us around; me and the team that put these flights together. I was there when they brought him in. I heard what he had been through. Don’t blame him. He’s been through enough. He was trapped under the ground for a week or more without food. Waiting for a court martial, that’s what I heard. He’s lucky to be getting a second chance.” Jessica rose, smiling at Paul, scowling at Neil. “Now, we’re coming in to land. I need to talk to the pilot.” She stepped over Paul, and placed a hand on Leon’s shoulder, easing him back into his seat. “You should all sit down. I have no idea how bumpy this is going to be.”

“Wait just one second,” Paul spoke up. “Look at me, Jessica. Look at me.
Tell me the truth.” Paul urged.

“Yeah, tell him, Jessica,
” Neil jabbed, much to Paul’s annoyance.

“I don’t have time for this, Paul. I told you my story. Now we are almost there, free from all of
this. You can put it behind you,” she began.

“Put it behind us?” Alan called out, “How can w
e just put it this behind us?” he asked.

The plane leaned to the left, a sudden lurch that caught them all off guard. “I really need to go. Argue it amongst yourselves. What’s done is done, whether it was the government or someone else, or even an act of God. We are away from it now.” She turned and walked away, a scurry in her step.

“Paul, you have to believe me,” Neil began, “You had it all put together. You had already figured out the flu and everything. I just told you who did it. Please,” Neil begged.

“I do believe,
” Paul answered to the shock of the group.

“Really… just like that you change your mind on her?”  Leon jumped in. “I mean, I don’t know who to believe. Maybe everybody is lying. Hell, I could see our government doing that. They don’t care about us, anyway. If a
nything it makes perfect sense…Orwellian you could even say.”

Paul looked at them all, thinking how to tell them about the distrust that had formed in his mind over Jessica’s story. “I never fully trusted her. No flight attendant goes to the pilots that often, not on a flight like this. Every time she goes in, she looked around, as if checking nobody is standing behind her. She doesn’t a
ct like a stewardess, and well…she’s wearing dog tags, small ones; on a bracelet. They might only be symbolic, but when you put it all together…”

“So she lied to us. What the hell is going on? Where are we going?” Tracey asked, as she hugged her stomach.

“We are going to Eastern Europe – I mean
deep
into the East,” Neil emphasized the location for them.

“Why?” Paul, Leon and Monique all asked in unplanned unison.

“Why do you think? We were all exposed to the virus, had close contact to the diseased,” Neil began but was cut off by the sound of the remaining passengers turning around to pay attention. News that their proposed fresh start was not quite the thing it had been made out to be had them all riled.

“We were the good group.” Robert took his chance to speak. The others were injured or beaten. We were the ones that got out.” For the first time since they had met, Robert sounded young, frightened.

“You think that because you were less damaged than the others, you were immune. We all breathed in their blood, we consumed their bodies the moment we killed them. We are more damned than any of them.” Neil paused. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Jessica returning from the cockpit. “Just ask her about the other group, the ones being flown out of a secondary airport, a military base at…” Neil’s words stopped a split second before a dark red hole appeared above his left eye. The sound of the gunshot was muffled by the silencer, and it took a few moments for people to realize what had happened. Only when the blood blinded him and the hole in the back of his head dribbled the first few globs of brain matter did Neil fall.

A scream rang from a
round the aircraft, although it was more from surprise than horror. Death had numbed them all.

Fittingly, it was Paul that reacted first, even as the plane’s angle of descent continued to steepen. “Where are we really going?” he asked, unafraid of the weapon aimed at his chest.

“Does it matter?” Jessica asked, her voice unrecognizable. The accent she had worked hard to keep hidden burst through, capturing her every word.

“You tell
us. Are we heading toward our deaths?” It was Alan who spoke, and rose out of his seat.

Jessica looked at them all, not just at Paul and those that surrounded him, like disciples, but at the entire aircraft. She smiled; a strained expression. “It’s too late to change anything now. The plane is approaching the landing zone. The Russian military are waiting. They will escort you
to the camp, where you will be…processed. 

“That’s very clever
,” Paul said, the pieces falling together before his eyes. He looked at his notes. He heard the echoes of everybody’s tale of survival reverberating inside his skull, and for the first time, he felt not only hopeless, but sad; sad that he had fought so hard to survive.

“Why save us at all?” Leon asked. His own image had formed just moments after Paul’s.

“With every nation in the world watching, zombies walking the streets…it was unforeseen but played into our hands. Everybody is clambering over themselves to help, to prove it wasn’t them. We even have a few planes being taken into North Korea. The world is uniting. It’s remarkable.” Jessica smiled at them. “We could realistically be thinking about world peace, and all for the price of a few bodies and an abandoned island.”

Paul stood and stepped into the aisle of the descending plane. His ears popped, with that eye watering annoyance that seemed unavoidable. “So we are all to be executed. This is all just a show. Let other nations kill us, which gives you something to hang over their heads should things ever turn sour. That’s not world peace. That’s blackmail. It’s a fucking dictatorship in the making. Ruling by fear… retribution is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal.” Paul walked down the aisle, taking each step slowly.

“But you know that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have cut your wrists. You started this. You wanted Paul to write everything down, even though you knew we were going to die. It’s too late for you to cleanse your soul so cheaply,” Leon spat, his mild manner replaced with a hatred of his own. “We had a better chance out there, on the streets,” he spat, looking at his daughter who had woken up and stared at them all with wide, terror filled eyes.

“It’s too late now. It’s too late for all of us. You see,
you’re right, Paul. I did know…I do know one hell of a lot. The world is going to change. This is just the start. Our day ends with the start of a new world.” Beneath them all, the plane gave a gentle shudder as the wheel hatches opened and the landing gears stretched their links in anticipation of the landing. All around them, for those that took the time to look through the windows, snowcapped mountains stretched into a bleak oblivion.

“And you? You just go back
tonight, rest up and deliver another package to some other helpful nation tomorrow? Do you really think they won’t see the scars, Jessica? You said it yourself, the world is changing. There is no place for weakness.” Paul took another step forward. She held the pistol in her hands. Paul didn’t know what he hoped to accomplish, but to simply walk toward his own death like some passive fool was not going to be his way out.

“I know, and Paul,” Jessica adjusted her grip on the pistol, her finger wrapping around the trigger, as she adjusted her aim, causing Paul to stop his approach. “You don’t have to believe me, but I really am sorry.” Tears welled in her reddened eyes. The rest happened in an instant. The gun fired, a fine bloody mist filled the cabin, and Jessica dropped the gun, her face an expression of slack-jawed disbelief. The same expression one wears moments after performing a task they always knew was better left undone. A few second
s later, she fell to the floor…dead.

From the moment Jessica’s body hit the floor, an intoxicating cloud of black panic descended over them. It seeped through their pores and sickened their minds. Even Tracy began to babble frantically to herself under her breath. Robert began to hyperventilate. Seeing what was going on, Leon, who prided himself on remaining calm throughout everything he had faced thus far in his life, went over to her. He crouched down in the aisle, so he could make eye contact.

Paul heard him start to speak, but was more aware of the ground that was approaching so rapidly. They were only a few hundred meters from the ground; there was no time to do anything. Then Paul remembered the gun. It wasn’t much, but he was certain that they wouldn’t fly into such inhospitable areas without more weapons on board. Moving as fast as the cramped cabin allowed, he sprinted toward Jessica’s body, where the gun was still clutched in her hand. Bending down to gather it, he felt a shadow fall behind him.

“It’s too late,” said Robert, the young boy whose tale of sexual depravity was told without a trace of the bragging tones one would normally expect from a fraternity boy.

“No, but I won’t go without a fight. There has to be weapons on board this thing. They have to be in the cockpit, it’s the only place. Bending down, Paul pulled the gun out of Jessica’s hand. He rose and saw the airport stretch out before the plane, the grey tarmac of the runway filling more and more of the window. He could see the military vehicles standing by, their arrival long since expected.

“I’m with you. Let’s go.” Robert nudged Paul in the small of his back as a sign of his intent.

Paul couldn’t say if it was accidental, or if Robert had seen the freezing wave of panic begin to settle over his body, but in any case, Paul was thankful to have him there, even if they only had one weapon between them.

Storming into the cockpit, Paul began to bark his orders, hoping the surprise wo
uld catch them off guard. Only…there was nobody there. The pilot and co-pilot were gone.

“What the fuck…” Robert asked.

“Drones…we’ve been sitting in a fucking drone all this time.” Paul’s voice was empty, the words as hollow to the ears as they were to his tongue the moment he uttered them. The pistol fell from his hand and the entire plane gave a violent lurch as the wheels touched down. Everybody was caught off balance, the speed and angle of descent far from ideal. Paul fell to the floor, Robert fell on top of him, and the last thing Paul remembered hearing were the screams of the passengers, as their fate was sealed.