Days With The Undead (Book 1) (2 page)

It was a dangerous move to stop for the night especially when we know that there are members of the Undead army shambling in our general direction. It was a direction that we had guided them into taking as well; they had the understanding that there were uninfected people somewhere in front of them.

I may be giving them a little more understanding than they actually have but it’s the simplest way to describe it. But we had to stop; all of us were exhausted from our flight out of the city and all of the encounters with the Undead that we had endured. Combat takes a lot out of you; both physically and psychologically. We needed a few moments to stop and recharge. If we didn’t we might make a mistake that we would never get the chance to correct.

I guess at some point I should let you all know who
we
are. We’re just a small group of five that came together a few years ago. At one point we had more members but the passage of time has pared us down a bit; time and current events, to be more honest.

We tend to think of ourselves as like-minded individuals - yet having typed that I can’t help but smile. If you knew us outside of these moments you might wonder how in the world we ever came together…

Of course there are some similarities and connections between us. Bob and Max served together in Afghanistan as part of the Canadian military, Ben and I both have medical degrees and Barbara and Bob know each from University. That’s pretty much where it ends though.

Ben is a doctor in the Emergency Room of St. Michael’s Hospital where all of this started and I work as a pathologist for the Center for Forensic Sciences.

Even-though Bob and Max served together they each had different roles. Max was trained as a sniper so he did a lot of work that is classified and can’t really be discussed. Bob, on the other hand became an Intelligence Officer after basic training, mainly because of the education and the penchant for languages that he has. His work is most definitely classified but sometimes he talks about things in bits and pieces from the need to get them out.

Barbara is an Environment Scientist and she works at an Outdoor Education Centre for school children to the northeast of Toronto.

So how did we all come to meet you might wonder? Well, Bob and Max already knew each other; that part is fairly simple to infer. Max’s wife, Miranda is - well was - my husband’s sister. Barbara and Bob used to date in university but managed to stay in touch after they split (they say amicably, but there’s still tension so I think there are unresolved issues). Ben treated Steve, my husband, when he came into the Emergency Room about three years ago after getting shot in the line of duty. Oh, I may have forgotten to mention that my husband was an officer with the Toronto Police Service.

Through the wonder of absent conversations in an otherwise ordinary world, we discovered that we shared something fairly special in common; a love for Zombie media and the willingness and desire to “prepare” ourselves just in case.

I think we all felt a little silly at the time; I’m sure none of us actually believed that we would come to experience a veritable hell on earth. But our discussions and time spent training has gotten us this far so we have to believe that we’re better off somehow.

We can all handle different kinds of firearms; Max and Bob having more experience and better aim. Barbara has schooled us all in edible plants and the types of materials that can be found in the woods with which to make the most durable melee weapons if our ammo runs dry before we can stock up. It’s amazing, actually, the types of woods that are hard enough to actually skewer someone in a pinch! Ben, a child of the foster care system, grew up trying to find ways to escape his life and as a result, he has collected a wealth of maps; maps you probably didn’t even know existed. Heck, I didn’t know they existed but they are a godsend to us now.

As for me - I’m a mechanical and technological junkie. I’ve spent years learning how things work and I can thank my brothers for that. Those skills may be the difference between life and death for us out here. So that’s us in a nutshell, just a group of people trying to stay alive.

Tonight we’ve decided not to light a fire or use any of our camping lights. We don’t understand everything about the Undead at this point and we are all tired enough not to want to draw any unwanted attention. The only light we have is from my laptop screen but that’s turned as low as I can get it and still see what I am typing to you.

Our hope is that we will be safe tonight and many more nights to come. Some of you out there - those untouched by the reality that we are living first hand - might think this is a joke, a prank or some sick and twisted hoax. I can certainly attest that it is not. What’s happening is real and this is our record of it. I do hope that my frantic typing isn’t garbled and that I don’t repeat myself too often. PLEASE forgive me if I do. My intent is only to give the world a glimpse into our survival until the very last possible moment.

I hope this communication finds you in a safe place where the Undead have yet to proliferate. Pray for Us. Pray for life. Just pray… Please.

Day 4:

For those of you out there that have no idea what is going on or those dealing with minimal information, I’m going to fill you in with what we know so far. Ben managed to survive being at the epicenter when Patient Zero transformed from being medically dead to Undead. Forgive me if the language I use is technical or scientific, being a pathologist, it’s how my brain is programmed to work and right now it’s on autopilot.

Four days ago my world - our world - went to hell and I don’t think it’s coming back. From what I’ve been able to gather from Ben, Brooks VanReit, whom I will refer to as Patient Zero from this point, came into the Emergency Room of St. Michael’s Hospital with practically non-existent vital signs. The staff assigned to treat him tried to resuscitate him but their efforts failed. Sometime between 7:30AM and 7:45AM, he was pronounced dead and as quickly as he died, he came back to life. From what I understand, the doctors and nurses first thought they were witnessing a miracle. They immediately found out how wrong they were.

Ben had tucked himself away in the nearby nurse’s station while completing a few charts before going home and he said he had a fairly good view of what transpired. His description of the carnage left in the wake of the reawakening is brutal.

As a doctor, you get used to the sight of blood but even Ben tried to impress upon us the sheer volumes that covered the Emergency Room that day. It was all over the floors making any means of escape difficult if you were in the direct vicinity of the attacks. Arterial spray marked the walls in long sweeping arcs of crimson.

It didn’t take long for the nurses and doctors who had been working on Patient Zero and thus been attacked in the chaos that erupted to reawaken and start to attack other people. It was like a wave; attack, death and then reawakening. The more that were attacked, the more that came back.

In one of the busiest Emergency Rooms in Toronto, it was absolute pandemonium. With blood everywhere and many of his colleagues succumbing to death and then entering a second life of sorts, Ben knew it was only going worse.

He said the worst moment he witnessed was an attack on an elderly invalid woman left in the hallway on a gurney. She had nowhere to go when it all started and the fear present on her face and in her frail body made Ben wish he could go to her rescue. Since she wasn’t mobile Ben said that it seemed to take them a little longer to find her.

There was a moment that he thought he could have gotten to her but he hesitated. With the moment lost, all he could do was watch from his vantage point as they homed in her fragile frame.

As he retold how they tore her apart, leaving only the bloody mass of a skeleton behind, his eyes welled with tears and his voice caught in his throat. Ben thought that maybe she would escape the same fate as the others given the fact that her small body was very literally shredded.

He was stunned, however, when the bloody pulp of a skeleton started to move. It tried to get up but in its less than whole state, it couldn’t quite manage and instead fell to the floor with an audible wet slap. It started to move across the floor powered by what Ben described as sheer will and determination.

It had aimed itself in the direction of a small boy that had taken refuge under the bank of chairs along the wall of the waiting room. Ben could see the whole thing play out from where he was and it just made his heart ache when she caught up to him. The young boy was frozen in place like a deer in headlights. She kept slowly but determinedly slithering across the floor toward him and with each inch it gained, the boy’s face grew more scared yet vacant at the same time. Ben described it as such; like there was recognition in the young boy that he would die and instead of fighting, his mind gave over into acceptance.

Realizing that most people were beyond help, he knew he had to leave. What good was he dead - or worse? His best bet was to escape the hospital and prepare to leave the city as soon as possible.

He said getting out was difficult by that point but that he was lucky enough to find a way. Before leaving though he did manage to call 911 and notify them of the situation. He’s not entirely sure that the operator took him completely seriously, who would have when the caller is stating emphatically that the dead are coming back to life? In the end, we know that the police responded and became fast believers.

I was a few blocks away working at the CFS (Centre for Forensic Sciences) and I was just beginning to hear the grumblings of some sort of strange occurrence at the hospital. Steve, my husband and thirteen year veteran of the Toronto Police Service called to let me know that some sort of riot (as it had been reported at first) had erupted at St. Mike’s and to stay inside until further notice.

Realizing that something serious was going down, I called Ben. I knew he worked at St. Mike’s and any information I could obtain from him to pass along to Steve, the better in my books. When I didn’t get a hold of him, I hoped for the best, thinking he was probably just busy treating anyone hurt in the riot. I didn’t want to think that anything terribly serious had happened to Ben; no one wants to lose a friend, especially under violent circumstances.

At around midday - they started bringing the bodies to us.

But - they weren’t really even bodies. I mean they were clinically dead - certainly, but not acting like it. It was readily apparent from the faces and demeanor of the officers bringing in the highly restrained individuals that they just needed to get as many of them off the streets as possible.

The official consensus was that it was an absolute mess out there and even though they had been authorized to use lethal force, it was a battle that they weren’t winning. No one in the lab wanted to touch them but my clinical curiosity got the better of me. What I was looking at seemed so utterly impossible; corpses of all races, ages, and gender were in front of me acting as if they were having a psychotic break of some kind.

The blood on them was horrific - and I’m used to blood. Some were missing limbs or parts of limbs where they had been ripped or chewed off. One woman, and the only way I could tell that was from the tattered and bloody clothing she still had hanging from her body, was missing her face. I literally mean the skin and underlying tissue was gone; gnawed off.

You could still see the teeth marks along her hairline. All that was left was the crimson stained surface of bone.

It was at that point that I realized I had to leave. It was hard to believe then and is still just as hard to believe now; the Undead were fighting to assimilate the living in a battle that I wasn’t sure we could win.

Not after seeing the after-effects firsthand.

One might ask when the first person realized that the “rioters” were really and truly the “Undead”. I’m not sure myself but it must have been fairly quickly that morning or else why would they have brought them to me? I know all of it seems so strange, so unbelievable that the police were even able to restrain any of them. Yet the state of the bodies that I saw that day could make even the most skeptical believe in life after death. Okay, maybe that’s not an entirely accurate statement since they aren’t technically alive, but it’s the closest explanation I’ve got.

In my heart I would love to believe that the situation in Toronto and the surrounding areas will be brought under control. However, I’m not going to stick around in the thick of it waiting complacently to see if that’s the case. I’m a realist and right now I’m choosing to fight for survival.

I don’t know how long any of the technological infrastructures will remain intact or if anybody out there is even able to read this. All I know is that I will keep posting as long as I am able to. I think people in the world need to know what is going on.

We’re afraid that even if the situation is brought under control that the amount of information (read: truth) that will accurately surface and be reported may be slim to none. For the sake of everyone left alive in the world, we need to collectively band together in order to keep our humanity alive.

After our night in the cabin in the woods we’re starting to encounter more people travelling out of the urban sprawl and the smaller towns in Southwestern Ontario. There are some that want to join up with us but we’ve already decided as a group that we would try to stay small. Stay mobile. Besides we figured it would be easier to survive knowing the particular strengths of each of the persons in our group.

So far we’ve been moving mainly on foot because the roads have been partially gridlocked with cars making them the ideal feeding grounds for the Undead.

It’s sickening really; you can sometimes hear the honking from trapped vehicles. Their horns like the Siren’s call just leading more of the Undead to them…

The day has been pretty uneventful by comparison to recent events. We managed to make good time and put a little more distance between us and them. We did encounter the odd walking corpse but thankfully the Undead have been less prevalent today than yesterday.