Diaries of the Damned (15 page)

Monique searched the Internet until the early hours of the morning. Fighting sleep she made her way from site-to-site, doing all of the things she should have done before. She created a Facebook account, and tried to find her friends, sobbing at the thought of each old acquaintance she came across, wondering if they were dead, or stuck walking away as a reanimated corpse. She cried at the years she had lost, hiding from the world, and the relationships that she had never allowed to develop.

Monique felt her grip begin to slip. The cracks that had surrounded her sanity had spread further, and now threatened to break her completely. The only thing that saved her was the return of the shuffled footsteps from the other side of her door. Monique quickly turned her computer screen off and jumped up from behind the desk. She went to reach for the letter opener, but it wasn’t there. She had left it on the sofa. The shuffling figure on the other side of the door drew closer, and stopped outside of Monique’s door. The handle jiggled again, but stopped. A thump from the stairwell side of the main door caused Monique to scream, and sent the figure scurrying away. Within a few seconds, all of the lights on the floor came on. At the same moment, a growl spread through the crowd outside, who woke from their quasi-slumber the instant the light appeared.

Monique ran out of her office and straight into Danny, who stood before her door, reaching for the handle. Monique shoved him away with as much force as she could, “You stay away from me,” she spat, her mind caught between fear and anger. The overwhelming sadness that had consumed her moments before was gone, pushed back deep inside, behind the crumbling walls.

“What?” Danny asked as she sprinted past him. The door to the floor was ajar, but the zombie on the other side was stuck on the barricade. Its arms reached through the gap, clawing frantically at the air the moment the group came close.

Rebecca started to cry. “Get rid of it,” she squealed as the creature’s head appeared through the gap.

Thinking fast, Danny kicked out and the door slammed against the arm, splitting the soft skin that ran along the length of the forearm. The zombie however, didn’t notice. Thick dark blood spurted from the wound and covered the walls.

“Do something else!” Rebecca screamed, slapping Danny on the back, pushing h
im closer to the door. “Stab it,” Rebecca called as the head appeared again. The lips pulled back into a snarl and the bloodshot eyes stared at the group. Danny struck, stabbing with Monique’s letter opener. The knife pierced the skull just above the left eye. The creature gave a gargled groan and fell backward into the barricade.

“Help me close the door,” Danny called, looking around at Monique who stood closest to him.

Monique stared at him. The image of her letter opener in his hand, the creeping figure by the door, the hateful look in his eye, combined with his lust for power made her shiver. Monique offered no answer. Instead, she turned around and walked away.

Danny and Walter remained standing by the door, waiting for any others that may happen upon them. They had closed the door, but the lock was broken from the recent, sudden impact.

“We can’t stay here,” Scott whispered his first words in three days, as he sat on the sofa with the two women. He turned to face them, but his eyes refused to focus.

“I know. We’re not safe here,” Monique answered, although neither Scott nor Rebecca understood what she was talking about, or saw the way she stared at Danny, watching his every move.

Monique got up from the sofa and walked away, moving past the reception desk, into the office that overlooked the main high-street. It was one street over. Their office overlooked both a Starbucks and Pizza Hut. The Surrey House – every building in the street had a similar name – employees were responsible for a large portion of the daily trade in both establishments. They had even managed to talk their way into a specialty corporate rate. Monique stared at the two premises, their smashed front windows looked like ravenous mouths, with shards of glass for teeth, ready to tear into the flesh of whoever dared enter. A zombie appeared in the Pizza Hut window, its uniform ripped apart, but still identifiable. Half of its face was missing, as was an arm. Injuries serious enough to prevent it from climbing through the blood streaked glass, but not enough to kill it for good.

“I don’t want to become one of them,” Scott spoke up from behind Monique, who jumped at the sound of his voice.

“Scott,” she said, her breath robbed from her lungs. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry. It’s sad isn’t it? That this is what we have all become? I mean look at them.” He pointed to the street where a crowd of close to fifty milled around the street. It was then that Monique saw the two busses, stranded in the street. With the doors locked, the dead found themselves trapped inside, much like the Pizza Hut employee Monique had seen.

“I try not to think about it,” Monique said. “It is what it is, Scott. I am sure that one day, this will all be over. It will become another part of history, like the Black Death in London, SARS, or that Mexican Flu. It isn’t the first time mankind has been killed off, and it won’t be the last.” Monique tried hard to keep her words uplifting, while the entire time her eyes were focused on the bus, wondering if they would just sit there forever, trapped like her and the others; a stalemate between two clueless sides.

“What if it isn’t?” Scott asked as he turned and walked away.

Monique’s mind whirred, overloaded with thoughts and images. She was certain, now more than ever, that they would have to move on; to escape the office somehow.

A scream brought her thoughts to a sudden halt, and as the mental ball dropped, it shattered into tiny pieces, which scattered through Monique’s mind. She
was hungry, tired, and a little disoriented. Her body moved through the office before her brain had recognized the movement. Rebecca was ahead of her, staring into what used to be Danny’s office. From the opposite side of the floor, Danny and Walter also rushed to see the source of the commotion.

“I won’t become one of them,
” Scott’s scream somehow found a way through the haze, burning a path into Monique’s brain.

The group came together at the same moment, but too late to stop Scott from plunging from the open office wi
ndow. The windows opened inward with the hinge in the base. They didn’t normally open more than a few inches, but Scott had somehow managed to pull the entire window from its frame. The rush of winter air and the hungry drone of those below overpowered them. Monique and Danny ran to the window, an instinctive reaction rather than anything with purpose. Scott’s plummeting body hit the ground with a dull thud and his head cracked open. Blood and brain spread out beneath him like an egg dropped on the kitchen tile. The crowd descended on him in a rush, hiding him from view. The noise of their greedy champing covered Monique in goose bumps.

“We need to move out of here,” Monique whispered, more to herself than anyone else.

“I know. We’ll think of something,” Danny answered. Until then, she hadn’t noticed he was there, and upon seeing him, Monique quickly turned and strode away.

“What’s your problem?” Danny called, but Monique offered no answer.

Danny did his best to fix the window back into its frame. He stood his desk – which they had not needed for the door barricade – on end, resting against the glass.

“I thin
k the best thing for us to do is to try going down one floor at a time,” Danny began as they sat to have their first discussion about leaving the office. “I think we should head down one level, look around and then come back here. There will certainly be something to drink down there that we can bring back. If the coast is clear, we regroup here, and then head down again.

“What if we see any of those…
things?”  Rebecca asked.

“We kill them,”
Walter spoke up.

“We take care of them,
” Danny overruled. “Let’s hope we don’t meet any more, but if we do, we should try and leave. We can trap them on the floor and then move onto the next one. Killing them is a last resort.” Danny looked at Walter, but couldn’t shake Monique’s accusing gaze. Her eyes bored holes through his chest, and threw his mind off track.

“When do we go?” Monique asked. Her eyes refused to blink while they locked onto Danny.

“You don’t. Walter and I will do it. We will check the floor, and then we all move down together. I don’t want to hear any feminist bollocks here either. We have the only two real weapons, and we’re stronger. It´s that simple.” He rose from his chair and ended their meeting before another word could be spoken.

The men readied themselves with lightning speed and were out of the door within thirty minutes of their meeting. They did not exchange goodbyes with one another.

The sun soon began to set. This was something their plan had failed to take into account. The darkness of the building would only act as a hindrance to their progress should they be delayed at all. This would mean either a midnight relocation, or a second scouting trip the next morning ahead of an afternoon move. “Fools,” Monique uttered beneath her breath.

“Do you think they will come back?” Rebecca asked as she turned off the large reception area television.  The emergency broadcasts still played, although several channels had shut down completely. They tried the TV three times a day, hoping for something else.

“I don’t care. I don’t trust Danny,” Monique let it slip. It was just her and Rebecca, who was younger, and much more attractive than she was. “You need to watch out for him.”

“Why?” Rebecca turned to face Monique.

Monique explained all about the two previous evenings and how she had thought it was a zombie. She watched Rebecca’s eyes widen when she told her about her letter opener and how Danny had been right by her door that morning.

“But he was always so nice,” Rebecca began.

“He’s ambitious, and in this new world, he sees power there for the taking.” Monique was quick to point out the difference between being nice or evil as opposed to powerful.

They sat in silence, listening for the sounds of either retreat or return. Nothing was forthcoming, and after a while, they both found themselves staring out of the window, across the city. Smoke rose in several places, as invisible fires raged.

“I’m so hungry.”  Rebecca steadied herself against the glass as a fresh wave of lightheadedness washed over her.

“I’m sure they will be back soon, with some supplies.” Monique placed a hand on the young girls shoulder.

“But then what? Where are we going to go? Those things are everywhere.” Rebecca shook, and Monique pulled her close to her. It was an unnatural act for her, but it felt good.

“Let’s just take it one step at a time. There are people out there, and they are fighting back. If it is the army or whatever, then we just need to get to them,” Monique soothed the young woman.

An awkward but not all together unwelcome silence fell over the floor, as the women waited for the others to return. When the door finally opened, only Walter crossed the threshold. Bruises dominated his face, and his left eye swollen shut. He walked with a limp and had the bloody letter opener tucked into his belt.

“What happened to Danny?” Rebecca asked when, after a few moments, he didn’t come through door.

“We…um…there were zombies. He got bit,” Walter answered his demeanor different to the laid-back style he had in the office. His eyes had turned cold, like those of a shark.

“How many were there?” Monique asked.

“Just the one. It got him and almost took me down too.” Walter pointed to his face, which struck Monique as strange, as from what she had seen of the creatures, hand-to-hand melees were not their style. They ripped and devoured.

Walter removed the letter opener from his belt; it was dripping bright red blood as opposed to the blackened syrup the previous zombie had ejected from its body. Walter saw Monique looking at the blade. “Danny fought back, he got away from the zombie and I killed it. But he’d been bitten. He begged me to end it before he turned. I had to do it.” Walter’s voice never faltered; his tone was flat, devoid of all emotion.

“Did you find any supplies?’  Rebecca asked, looking around for the bag the men had taken with them.

Walter shook his head and looked at the floor. “No, there was nothing like that. We found two bodies; both suicides, but that was it. The flu wiped out the floor I guess. It looked as though they were the only people working today. Good news is: I had a quick look around the stairwell, and it looks like the building is empty. It doesn’t smell too fresh, but hey, none of us do.” He flashed a smile, but it felt strange, as if the atmosphere on the floor had darkened in some way.

“When do we leave?” Monique asked, the closeness of the walls suddenly something she longed to be rid of.

“Not until morning,
” Walter spoke, the same slimy smirk on his face. Moving in the dark won’t help us. We’ll stay here tonight, and then look to make a move. I figure we can stay on the ground floor a day, and then head out, up the street toward the council building.

“Then what?” Rebecca asked with a deflated tone.

“I don’t know,” Walter snapped; his temperament changing in a heartbeat.

“Come with me Rebecca,” Monique said. ”We’ll stay in my office, sleep there. Walter if you take first watch then later we can swap and I’ll take over. With the door and window broken I don’t trust not having someone awake out here.”  Monique replaced her arm around Rebecca’s shoulder and led her away.