Adrian's Undead Diary Enter the World of AUD

Thanks! We're nearing the final part of the story now, but there's still plenty more to come.

First, Pete has a busy day...

Friday 25^th May

Things are moving pretty quickly here. Last night after dinner I stayed up late playing cards with the squad, and after I played the confused lad from the country card they gave me a little history lesson.

When the outbreak hit Lintin the survivors quickly aggregated into three main groups. The surviving police and army set up camp in the town college and took in lots of people, trying to keep society going. On the other side of town a local street gang took control of their tower block and began expanding, forcing survivors to join them or give up their supplies. These are the buggers in the red bandannas who tried to take my car. And then there was Section 9, who built their blockhouses and started eliminating the dead. Many survivors in their zone moved to their central compound, taking menial jobs in exchange for protection by their forces.

Everything was pleasant until supplies started to run out and the groups started encroaching on each other’s territory. Then they fought over what was left, each side battling the other two for anything of value. Section 9 had trained personnel and a huge stockpile of weapons; the two civilian groups didn’t stand a chance. When the soldiers from the stately home arrived in town they found less than a third of the college people left alive and promptly evacuated the starving refugees out to the countryside. The gangs formed an uneasy and very one-sided alliance with Section 9, choosing getting bullied and exploited over being shot in the streets.

Then at the start of April Section 9 vanished. A regular patrol found the blockhouses empty and the central compound deserted. The civilians who lived with them had vanished too, the few witnesses they could find said a convoy of trucks had left in the middle of the night. With them went all their military equipment, food and medical supplies, as well as any clue about what they were doing and why they left. It’s a blow for my search, though a bittersweet one. If they were still here I can’t imagine me sticking my nose in would go down well, at least with their building empty I can have a look around.

I told the squad about my house full of gear and a bit of an argument kicked up. Smithy was having none of it, saying my cockups were none of their business. Ash was on my side, he wanted to help me get my things back and put me back on my feet. Meg just kept quiet and chewed gum, I get the feeling she’s sat though this a fair few times. Davis watched the two men squabble for a few minutes before speaking, his voice was quiet and millpond calm but silence fell as soon as he opened his lips.

“When we survived we took an oath to preserve and protect human society. We do not pick and choose to whom that oath applies.”

And that was that, we rolled out this morning.

It felt good, riding through the town all tooled up and ready for action. After so long I was in control and projecting my will instead of bending to fate, with four veteran warriors and heavy hardware on my side there was no fear, only anticipation. Much to the chagrin of Smithy, Davis had given me ammo for my MP5 and a spare Kevlar vest and I took up position in the truck bed with Meg. She gave me a lesson in basic unit tactics and took pot-shots at the dead was we drove past, her aim was incredible.

When we arrived at the house we hit heavy undead resistance. When the swarm moved on a fair few had been left stuck in the house and garden and they came out to welcome us in force. We backed up down the drive, formed a firing line, and got stuck in. They went down in waves, our accurate fire filling the air with brown mist. We finished them off with bayonets, less than five minutes after we arrived we were walking through the door. Me and Ash cleared the house of stuff as the rest of the squad kept up a perimeter, and ten minutes later we bundled back into the Land Rover to head for home. Meg nicely informed me that my trusty old car was a pile of shite and she’d hotwire me something much nicer back at base, so I bid it a fond farewell.

Just as we were heading for home when it went south. Out of nowhere a round ricocheted off the bonnet and took out the door mirror, Davis swerved hard and we hit the deck as Smithy opened up with wild suppressing fire. We pulled into a cut-though between two roads and bailed out. On the other side of the alley was an abandoned car that blocked our exit, we took cover behind it as Meg searched for our shooter. A mini periscope was produced and she scanned the street, the guys had their guns up and ready as they covered our flanks. Tense minutes passed before Meg called it; a man in a trashed shop 100 yards away. She grabbed her rifle and swung around the corner, as she crouched a round whistled past and threw up cloud of plaster but she stayed rock steady and fired a single shot. Quiet returned as she announced a hit, then all hell broke loose.

Davis and Ash were covering opposite ends of the alley and both opened up at once as figures came out of cover in the houses on both sides. Smithy was screaming blue murder at me as he fired his sidearm, the crossfire keeping him from reaching the gun turret. I was on Davis’ side and joined in, firing bursts as bullets slammed into the car we were hiding behind. If the alley had been empty... I wouldn’t be sat here writing this. I could see three of them, flashes of red on their clothing told me all I needed about their motives and I sent a swift burst into the chest of a man as he jumped from behind a car. For a moment his scream was audible over the gunfire, then his lungs breathed their last and he was silent. Davis snapped off a round into a second, blowing him backwards. Number three realised which way the wind was blowing and dashed back through the house to safety, with our bullets tearing past him as he ran.

With one side clear Smithy went for the MG. Thankfully the roar of the automatic weapon cut off him streams of profanity against me for getting them into his mess. As I looked round I realised with a horrible jolt Ash had been hit, his entire thigh red with blood. Davis screamed at me to cover the back as he ran over and grabbed the med bag, pulling a tourniquet out as the bald man writhed in agony. Revenge was swift; Smithy sent a wave of metal rain roaring across the street and tore the houses apart. I felt a hand on my arm, Meg pulled me into the truck bed as the squad piled into the Land Rover and Davis floored it. We radioed ahead and the base were ready, their medic rushed Ash into a makeshift surgery as soon as we got through the gate.

I was an outsider to their worry and went and sat in my little room with my head in my hands. Two days I had known these people and my actions had almost got us all killed. Thank goodness the bullet missed the artery - Ash should make a full recovery. After a few hours Davis came up to me and sat down opposite, his uniform still splattered with Ash’s blood. I made to speak but he cut me off with a single raised finger.

“What happened today was not your fault. If not today, an attack would have come tomorrow, or next week, but it would still have come. Ash will recover and our enemy is weakened. You’re a good man, Pete, and you fought well today.”

The Sergeant stood up to leave and I blurted out a hasty “but Smithy...” For the first time I saw a soft sadness amongst in the strength in his eyes as he replied.

“Smithy has lost too many friends and found too many enemies. We all have, but he feels it more than he should. The world is a harsh enough place without the enemies in our own heads.”

And with that he went, and left me to my thoughts.

Enjoying your fine story very much. Thank you

 

Tuesday 29^th May, Day 44.

Funny how quickly you fall back into a routine. A few weeks ago I could have told you exactly how many days it had been since I woke up in the hotel, and today I had to go back through my old diary entries with a calendar to find it out.

The squad is leaving tomorrow to go back to the estate, but I won’t be going with them. Since the big swarm was destroyed undead levels are very low and our battle with the gang took out a lot of their combat capability, so there’s no real reason for them to stay. Davis gave me the chance to go with them and join their community, but that’s not an option right now. Al and the girls are still waiting for me and I don’t want to turn my back on them. And besides, I need to do what I set out to do - tomorrow at long last I’m going to the Section 9 complex. The squad think I’m going back to Montford, but as much as I hate lying to them I think that’s for the best.

Over the weekend Meg and I went to get me a car. Just down the road from the base is an abandoned showroom, most of the cars have been taken by other survivors but there were a few left in workable condition. The two of us and a bloke called Dale from a different squad went shopping, I found a slightly battered Nissan 4x4 tucked away at the back of the lot and we spent the day getting it roadworthy. At first we took turns posting guard but in the end we just kept a weather eye out, the town is lifeless and we only saw a handful of undead all day. The sun was shining and we stripped to our shirts as we changed the battery, cleaned the rust off and pumped up the tyres. The fuel tank was already empty so I’ve swapped the cans of petrol from my old car for a tank of diesel, which the estate guys have loads of. There’s enough to get me around for a few days and then home, provided I’m sensible. We got it started mid-afternoon and did a lap of the block to get the feel of it, potholes and debris are no longer an issue and I can cruise in (relative) luxury.

I had a nice long chat with Ash too. He’s doing well, hobbling around the warehouse on a crutch whenever he can persuade the medic to let him. He brushed off my apologies without a second thought, saying combat was combat and I shouldn’t beat myself up about it. We talked about who we’d left behind, I told him about my friends in Montford and he showed me photos of his girlfriend at the estate. He tried to persuade me to come with them, the estate has plenty of room and they’ve managed to attract dozens of skilled people who’ve really improved things. They have running water, electricity, doctors and enough farmland to feed hundreds, all under the watchful guard of a large army platoon with heavy weapons. A little island of civilisation, if you will. One day I’m sure I’ll go there, or their reach will extend to my little farmhouse in the valley, but for now it can wait.

And so the days have flown past, helping with chores and packing up the base, basking on the sunny roof, playing poker with the squad by candlelight. I’ll miss these people, my saviours who have become my friends. And now tomorrow morning they’ll go their way and I’ll go mine, wherever it may lead.

It's the beginning of the end! Very excited to share this last part of the story with you all, I've been waiting to write this for a long time.

 

Thursday 31^st May

Now more than ever I need to write in my diary. Now above all other times I need the catharsis of pen on paper, my confused mind falling into orderly lines on a crisp white page.

It’s 1am, and I’m sat on a mattress in Al’s front room. I arrived back here a few hours ago, tearful and breathless, longing for the familiarity and comfort of friends. After two weeks they probably thought I was dead, Sophie almost shot me when she saw a raving wreck fall out the car. They’ve calmed me somewhat, but now I need to make sense of today for myself.

At 10am I arrived at the Section 9 complex, Mason Park. Several small buildings in a large grassy area surround a long, low glass and sandstone building that gleamed in the morning sun. It was a fortress; a wall of shipping containers surrounded the entire site with a scaffolding sentry tower every few hundred yards. I drove through an open gate, empty sandbag gun emplacements loomed over me from atop the containers. The gate itself was huge, built out of thick steel beams with barbed wire and spikes bristling on the top. It sat ajar, the towers were empty and the park was silent apart from my rumbling engine. I parked out of sight in a garage and made straight for the main entrance, guns out and ready for action.

The reception area was a wide, airy space, all glass and polished stone. It was deserted but neat, magazines nobody will ever read still sat on the coffee tables. Above the main desk was a large emblem of a snake wrapped around a sword, spraypainted across it in huge letters was a single word that sent a chill down my spine.

Murder.

I flicked off the safety, swallowed the lump in my throat and headed inside. A set of glass gates had been shattered and I passed through into an atrium where a wide staircase climbed to two other floors, above it the sun shone through a glass roof. I climbed up to the top, my footsteps echoing in the eerie silence, and was met with two long corridors that ran the length of the building. On either side were empty laboratories, much like the ones at Blue Star but more medical. I searched them for hours but the scientific codes and names were another language to me, the dusty bottles and tubes were meaningless. Cupboards and fridges stood open, their contents presumably left in the trucks with their owners. The lab offices were the same, the filing cabinets were empty and here and there was a bin filled with ash. It took a moment to sink in, that there was no magic pill waiting for me here, if there was a way to return my memory it was long gone or turned to ashes. I was in the last office at the end of the building when it finally hit me and I flopped down in the plush chair, head in my hands.

It was then I noticed a sheet of paper, dropped down the side of the desk, and picked it up. It was a printed email.

Sample Pa749h – administered to Caucasian male (age 38, blood group  A+, no underlying conditions) 5 min after infection (a.i.). Brain activity ceased 67 min a.i., restarted 81 min a.i. Reanimated specimen exhibited normal locomotion and cognitive function, exterminated by gunshot 204 min a.i.

Paula - No improvement on baseline in any of our 16 tests. In my opinion palliative series seems to be a dead end in, resources better used on vaccine development. Can you run it past Moseby?

Terry

Section 9 had tried to find a treatment for the virus and failed, which is probably why they left. I left the labs and headed down a floor to the offices, which like the labs had been thoroughly cleared. Dejection was beginning to set in and I rummaged listlessly through empty drawers and piles of shredded paper. But in this world your brain never fully switches off, and when floor creaked behind me I heard it like a foghorn. I spun around, shotgun rising to my cheek, and managed to stop my trigger finger just in time.

It was a man, but barely. Torn and bloodstained rags hung off his thin frame, his hair and beard were long and matted with mud. Two deepset eyes stared at me from a face that was little more than skin stretched over bare bone, he was twenty yards away but there was no mistaking the look of pure desperation and fear in his eyes. The thinnest arm I’ve ever seen held a meat cleaver the size of my thigh, the blade notched and stained. He stood stock still, staring down the barrel as if waiting for death. Whether he wished death on me or not, I could feel nothing but pity for someone who had fallen so low. My finger untensed, slid away from the trigger, and I asked him his name.

He looked startled, dumbfounded even. I told him it was OK, I didn’t want to hurt him. Still nothing. I lowered the gun a little and fished in my pocket, throwing him a chocolate bar. He ran and grabbed it, his eyes never leaving me, and tore into it. When he bit into it his face changed, the lines seemed to vanish and his whole body sagged with relief and bliss. In a few seconds it was gone, the cleaver fell to the floor as he looked back at me with eyes now filled with gratitude. When he spoke his voice was coarse and gravelly from lack of use.

“Thank you. I’m Michael”. I told him my name, and asked why he was here. He said he thought I was ‘one of them’, come back to start again. I started to ask if he meant Section 9, but as soon as the words left my mouth his body seemed to be seized by an instant rage. He grabbed a chair beside him and hurled it bodily into a computer, then beat his fists and forehead on a cabinet as tears poured out. All the while he was screaming in his awful cracked voice.

“Murder! Betrayed! You killed her! Bastards!”

I ran over and grabbed him, pulling him back. He was as light as a child, the thin skin had broken on his forehead and deep crimson blood dripped over his grubby face. He sobbed in my arms, the fight gone out of him as quickly as it had come.

“They took us in, see? When the dead people came we came here and they gave us food and shelter, and we trusted them. We would grow food for them out there all day, we all did, cus’ outside the wall was so dangerous, see? And when they started taking us with them on their raids and they didn’t come back we didn’t think of it cus’ we wasn’t soldiers like them, course we wouldn’t know how to survive. And then... then one day there was so few of us left and old Mr Singh said it wasn’t right and they was up to something... and they shot him...”

He was holding me tightly now, tears he’d held back for so long seeping into my sleeve. How long was it, I wondered, since he’d seen another friendly face?

“... and they locked us all up in the sheds, put us to work. And every day they’d come and take one or two, drag them off to the big building, and we’d never see ‘em again. The soldiers would talk of tests and vaccines and injections but a while after they took ‘em we’d hear the gunshot.”

Horror was seeping through my bones now too. The civilians who lived with them had vanished too, Meg had said to me. In my pocket my hand closed around the cold and clinical test report, a death sentence by another name. Now Michael had slumped to the floor, curled into a ball.

“They took my wife! Jan... Oh my beautiful Jan... I ran off in the night before they could get me but I couldn’t stop them taking her... Jan...”

I tried to console him but it was no good. I offered him a lift out of town, to the estate or to Montford, but he balked at it. Alone, he said, he must be alone. Then he dropped back to his sorrow, repeating his wife’s name over and over. I left a few cans of food and some water and left him to his grief, when I came back later both him and the food were gone.

I felt revulsion for this place now, the murder hidden under the clean stone. Just being here made me feel dirty, I made for the exit but when I reached the ground floor I saw a discrete door off to the side, labelled ‘Security Group 2’. Maybe there were weapons or supplies, I thought, and went through. There was a recreation room, with worn books and smutty pinups on the wall, a locker room, and at the back a dormitory of bunk beds. The place had been mostly cleared but I spied a small box of ammo on a table and went over to grab it. The wall behind it was covered in photographs, men in irregular black uniforms stood together in a desert, in a nightclub, in the atrium I’d just come through. Then, as my eyes innocently scanned the pictures, my heart stopped. The box of bullets fell from my immobile hands and danced across the floor as my stomach dropped to my boots and the blood froze in my veins.

My own smiling face was staring down at me.

My trembling hand plucked the photograph from the wall. It was me, the face that looked back at me from the mirror, but stood in one of the scaffolding towers that surrounded the park, rifle in hand. Snow covered the landscape and there I was, smiling at the camera without a care in the world. There was another, then another, I ripped them down in disbelief. I was sitting on a jeep in a desert, in a suit with a shining medal on my chest, lying in a hospital bed with my left knee in bandages. I pulled up my trouser leg and there were the scars, same as I’ve seen them every day for weeks.

A cold sweat was running down my back now, I felt the trickling sensation as it ran across the metal chain around my neck. I ran to the locker room, pulling out the key that’s never left my side or my thoughts. My world broke apart as the waves of realisation crashed over me and pulled me under, I hoped with all my heart for it not to be true. Into the locker room, a wrench in my gut as I saw A, B, C, stretching out before me, and then I was in front of the pale blue door with the letter P. As the key slid in, gently and without resistance, the last drops of hope fell away and guilt filled my soul. A turn, the locker was open, and with it the tears came at last. I beat on the metal until my hands bled, screaming blind profanity and hate at this place, the world, and above all myself.

I lay on the floor for a very long time. Through the steady flow of tears I made out the sole occupant of the locker, gripped so tight it had cut into my palms. An ID card, my face grinning next to the Section 9 logo. A serial number, the title of Group Security Operative. And the one thing I’ve been searching for above everything else, but now wish I’d never found. A name.

Martin Cooper.

I need to find closure on this. So many things remain unanswered, and before I can even begin to come to terms with who I am and what I’ve done I need to clear up mysteries that remain. Tomorrow I’m going back to where this all started – the Woodview Hotel.

Wow.....

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man this is honeslty great, thanks for sharing, keep up the good work.

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Professer Pinderschloss  " the human spirit is hard to kill"
  Grandmama.  " yes even with a chainsaw"

when mimes finally escape the invisible box, Hell will come with them.

http://midnightscorner.wordpress.com/ home of  The Clock runs down, Dark Tide rising, and now A Storm Before Dawn Book III,  and other storys from the Dead lands.

Great entry, thank you.

 

That was really good, really really good.

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Life, Death.....I am the difference

Great curve ball!

 

Matt

Thanks everyone! This took me a while to write and get everything to feel right but here it is, the last entry.

Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading and commenting, it means a lot and I wouldn't have got this far without your encouragement. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much I've enjoyed writing it! 

 

Thursday 31^st May, Day 46

6pm

I have my answers.

I slept in late this morning, glad of some rest after yesterday. The smell of cooking potatoes woke me, and I found Al, Rose and Sophie all geared up and waiting for me. My attempts to dissuade them never made it out of my mouth before Al cut me off; I had saved their lives and they were coming, no buts. Me and Al took my Nissan, with the girls following behind in their old family saloon. We didn’t speak much, this bombshell has been hard on him. Before my mind got wiped I probably knew his brother, who is now either dead or run off with the remnants of Section 9. I think part of him was still hoping he was still just over the hills and would simply stroll in the door one day. That’s bothering him more than what I’ve done, I think. The man him and his family have grown to know wouldn’t be capable of dragging innocents to their death, he told me, and he knew my remorse was genuine. Maybe if the journey had been longer we’d have been able to talk properly, but after 15 minutes we were pulling up in the wooded lane outside the hotel.

It seems like only yesterday I was here, but it feels like a million years have passed. The smashed cottage on the right of the road, and to the left the picturesque two-storey hotel. We all jumped out and took cover behind the vehicles as the undead started shambling out of the buildings towards us. I remember the fear I first felt when this mob had attacked me, but that was a distant memory now. All four of us tore into them with the hunting rifles, within two minutes the air was still again and fifteen bodies lay in the tall grass. We cleared the cottage, which was a total wreck, then the ground floor of the hotel. The larder still had some canned foods, which I handed over to Al, while Rose took utensils from the kitchen. Sophie was taking pictures off the wall to hang in her room and filling her pockets with sachets of ketchup, without the albatross around my neck it would have been fun.

After they were done, I sent them home. The last part of my journey had to be done as it was started, alone, and they understood that. They promised to wait for me, if I wanted to come back. I listened to them drive away, and then climbed the stairs alone.

I stepped around the bodies of the dead I had killed in my escape, all well decayed now. There was the woman who had snuck up on me, the grisly tableau of Room 3, and the two outside Room 4, the jagged hole in the door from my flight. As if pulled by unseen hands I found myself outside the only door I’d never touched, that instinct had told me not to open. My trembling hand found the handle of Room 2, and was met with the click of a locked door. For several minutes I stood there, heart hammering in my chest, until I found courage. Forty six days of confusion, anguish and pain flowed through me as my foot slammed into the wood and the door flew open.

A corpse sat in an armchair, white bones poking from the wrists of a black uniform. The head rested against the brown stained wall, a neat circle punched from the forehead. The badge that hung over his Kevlar vest was dulled but clear – a snake wrapped around a sword. On the bed lay a second, in civilian clothing this time, grinning a bony smile at the ceiling from beneath the hole in his brow. All around the room were packing cases, stamped with the Section 9 logo and medical warning signs. One was open, the vials inside smashed into powder and their contents congealed in the bottom. The rest I ignored, the unseen hand was guiding me again and I reached for the wastepaper bin. A 9mm revolver, two chambers fired. A spent auto injector needle, marked “Formulation Mem9372 – Neurologically Active Material”. And a letter, screwed into a tight ball.

 

 //BEGIN COMMUNICATION//

FROM: GBR/MASONPK/WILLIAMS

TO: SEC_B.JULIAN, SEC_M.COOPER, BIOMED_V.FOULKES

14.4.12  07.14 GMT

As you are aware, research at Mason Park has produced poor results. The base is becoming increasingly hard to resupply and locally available supplies and manpower are dwindling. The local populace has become increasingly hostile and a large military group is amassing territory nearby. HQ has ordered Lintin evacuated, with all remaining personnel transferred to the main bases on Orkney. 

Several samples remain untested but no more subjects remain on base and our research has been ordered to halt. Security Operatives Cooper and Julian, you will accompany Dr Foulkes to continue this testing. More subjects will likely be found to the East, away from urban areas. Your mission is to test all remaining samples and report results to HQ once complete.

Maintain absolute secrecy. Do not allow yourself to be captured alive.

//END COMMUNICATION//

 

And so here I sit, Room 4 of the Woodview Hotel. On the same bed where, forty six days ago, I first put pen to paper to make sense of this new and terrifying world. All this time the answers I was looking for were right here where I started, but I’m glad for having made the journey. The man who came before me was changed completely and forever when he drove that needle into his flesh, he may have looked like me but his deeds and memories are not mine. I realise that at last, now my story has come full circle.

Nothing of his life remains, aside from the men and women huddled on some remote islands who have long forgotten his name. By turning his back on what he was and keeping others forever from harm his life ended here, the guilt and responsibility dying with him. A sacrifice and resurrection, Martin Cooper’s death and my birth. It will take time, I think, to come to terms with that, but finally I can sense a peaceful light at the end of the tunnel.

Perhaps we weren’t so different, me and him. Whether he acted to stop his humanity slipping away or found a conscience after years in the darkness, his final act was one of benevolence and atonement.

In the end, isn’t that what we all want? To erase our mistakes and start over, a blank slate on which to write a new life?

A few miles away my friends are waiting for my safe return, ready to build a future together. Somewhere in the rolling hills the four warriors who took me in are carving out an island of civilization amongst the chaos. And every day the birdsong is louder and more beautiful.

This time, I will live a life I can be proud of.

The End

 

Excellent, loved it.  thanks for sharing this story.  hope you try your hand at it again sometime.

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Professer Pinderschloss  " the human spirit is hard to kill"
  Grandmama.  " yes even with a chainsaw"

when mimes finally escape the invisible box, Hell will come with them.

http://midnightscorner.wordpress.com/ home of  The Clock runs down, Dark Tide rising, and now A Storm Before Dawn Book III,  and other storys from the Dead lands.

Nice. Good finish.

 

 

Matt

Very good story. Thank you. 

I can take a deep breath now.......

That was a great ending, not a "happy" ending, but a "Good" ending. Thanks for the story.

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Life, Death.....I am the difference

Thank-you for a very interesting story.  I enjoyed it, and hope you find time for another!