10-03-05

I had to flee the hospital this morning. I awoke to the sound of nearly a dozen undead tearing through the barricaded front door. I ran to the other side of the building, and threw my fire axe into the bushes before jumping out the second story window. Having just woken up, and considering the fact that my legs were still stiff and sore from all the running these past few days, I hit the ground hard. I managed to make it to another hospital, only a few blocks away, but to get here I had to dodge a few shufflers, and passed by nearly a score of corpses that hadn?t stood up yet. I hope they never do.

I?ve taken up temporary residence in one of the outpatient wards on the second floor. I managed to find another pen, and some more loose leaf paper amid the destruction and garbage that litters nearly every room.

There are at least two dozen other survivors here, scattered across the different floors and each staking claim to a different room. I take only small comfort in the knowledge that there are other survivors here. This morning taught me how quickly large groups dissipate when zombies turn up. I woke up to an almost fully deserted hospital, when the night before I had slept soundly knowing I was not alone. People abandon buildings like rats from a sinking ship. And like true rats they don?t even have the courtesy to wake and warn those still sleeping.

Well, I can?t really resent them. That would be hypocritical. I froze up and then fled that first night. I also left the hospital this morning without searching for other survivors.

Survival of the fittest has come into play again it seems. I guess at the end of all this, if there is an end, only the biggest and the strongest rats will be around.

Now that I have a quiet moment to write I may as well continue my account where I left off.

So, I lay there, propped up against a gravestone in the middle of a cemetery on the outskirts of the commercial district. I didn?t have a watch on me but judging by the temperature of the air and the darkness of the sky, it was yet early into the morning hours, and I faced the daunting prospect of trying to survive my first night alone. I didn?t know where I could go. Unless my sense of direction had failed me when I was running, I was somewhere on the northern outskirts of Malton, possibly in Chancelwood. My apartment was way the hell across Malton, in the Burdett Building next to Woollacott Park. I figured it would take me at least two days to walk there, if I hid out during the nighttime. But what would be the point of going back? I didn?t have any guns in my apartment, and the fire axe I had was likely to be the best weapon I could scrounge. I had no family in Malton to look out for, and I had no idea where Scotty was. My thoughts briefly arced back towards my parents and younger sister, who lived about a 4 hours drive south of Malton, but I was roused back to the present by the sounds of movement in the darkness to my left.

I lay there, trying to keep my ragged breathing under control. The long grass of the ill-tended cemetery muffled the sounds of what I deduced must be footsteps. As the rustling of the grass grew louder, I could tell that the walker was moving slowly and clumsily, almost aimlessly. I wasn?t sure I could slip away unnoticed, and something inside me decided I would not run this time. Maybe it was a manifestation of the guilt I felt for fleeing from the massacre at the Ducat building. Maybe I was simply sick of running and slinking through the shadows. Whatever the reason, I struggled to my feet with the cold wooden handle of the axe tightly pressed in the palms of both my hands. I still couldn?t see the figure for the darkness, but I faced the noise of its approach. I called out. I think I said something stupid like ?hello,? or ?who goes there.? Whatever was said, the figure?s shuffling immediately acquired a purposefulness that spread a cold fear through my guts. The wind shifted at the exact moment, and I caught the scent of death. I still couldn?t see the approaching figure but I could hear its resolute movements perhaps six feet away. My stomach turned twice before jumping into my throat. My heart beat furiously against my ribcage, like a bird struggling to take flight. At that point I could finally see the outline of what must have been a man. He was about my height, but he was limping and his right shoulder sagged down, giving his silhouette a gross asymmetry. I couldn?t see his face or even his clothing, but I could see his hands outstretched. And then, in one of the most peculiar moments of my life, time seemed to slow to a halt. I froze and perhaps the man in front of me did as well. I stared at his hands now inches from my face. I couldn?t see his features, but I had the ludicrous notion that if I could, it would have been like looking into a mirror. I felt like I was standing before another version of myself. I felt a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie tinged by pity for this soulless doppelganger. As I stood there lost in dumfounded contemplation, time snapped back. The figure lurched forward with the deadly inability to resist a temptation so close. It was then that I remembered that I represented food to this grotesque perversion of a man. I stumbled backwards out its grasp. And then without thinking, as if something primal inside of me had stepped forward to save itself, the axe rose above my head and swept downwards with tremendous force.

The man?s head cleaved in two like a rotten cantaloupe. The smell of rot burst forth and a fine mist of brain matter and flecks of bone covered my arms. As the body toppled backwards, the axe, stubbornly buried deep in the torso, slipped from my hands.

I vomited twice before managing to pull the axe from the body and clean myself off in the wet grass.

My limbs felt like jelly. The fear had twice pumped adrenaline through my veins, and now my muscles seemed beyond weak. Unresponsive and acid burned. I managed to stumble to a small house nearby. I vaguely remember finding the door open, and having the presence of mind to close it before slumping against the wall of the foyer. For the second time that night I was struck by this peculiar feeling: an out of body sensation during which the strangest notions entered my head. I remember thinking that it wasn?t an undead monster I had cleaved in two in the cemetery. I remember this feeling that it had been a real person, it had been me. Obviously it wasn?t, but maybe my chemical raddled brain had been onto something that night. Thinking about it now, perhaps I realized that that first killing had represented the death of something personal. It marked the death of my former life, my former self, my worldly innocence.

I didn?t even think to check the house for any more shambling dead before I gave myself to sleep.

That?s enough for now. I?ll need my strength for tomorrow. Who knows what horror the daylight will bring.

T. Boardman

i was just about to get off my shift when the worst of it came, around about six in the evening. throughout the day we had had a huge influx of people, injured with all kinds of strange ailments: bites, which slowly lead to skin necrosis; serious infections, real quick ones too ive never seen anything like them and paralysis in people that spread throughout the body until they died.
each hour more and more came in demanding help. the emergency room waiting antechamber was full, the sick were piled up against eachother. those we did get into the wards had to be put on blankets in the corridors. extra doctors had been called back in off-shift. we were desperately calling other hospitals for help but they all had the same problem.
i think it was about seven-thirty when we had to start piling dead up outside of the morgue. it was around then when it first happened as well.
i was running through the main corridor, jumping over doctors and nurses helping the ill on the floor, going to the EM on a desperate page. i got there and the first i saw was one paramedic pushing a stretcher half-dragging his partner who had blood all down his uniform. he was moaning and gripping what looked to be multiple wounds all over his body. i started to move closer and noticed the flesh hanging off the woman on the stretcher. the ambulance outside was smoking in an over heat. suddenly there were screams from my right. i turned and saw a hideous sight. some guy was biting this poor person. he was actually pulling off bits of flesh. people rushed around in panic. i looked around some more and saw several more people doing the same thing. three security officers rushed in diving on one of the guys. i watched as they desperately tried to wrestle the guy. one of the officers withdrew in pain, a bite in his neck. i was about to rush forward and help when all these other psychos rushed forward and attacked the rest of the security officers. one of the officers managed to crush one of these insane people's heads with a baton but was quickly over powered. what i noticed is that all these psychotics seemed so lifeless in their movements. only when they went to bite did they move properly. i screamed at the receptionist to call more security but she replied that the phones were down. immediately i took off towards the main reception to get help. the huge rush of people from the ER had crushed almost everyone in the corridors. i leaped through them in horror and reached the reception quickly. but someone had already gotten help - shotgun armed police, at least twenty, were rushing around and sometimes disappearing to the distant screams to help. people were screaming about the dead rising again and attacking. i did not believe this until i looked over into a semi-closed curtained bed area where i saw a nurse desperately trying patch up an obviously dead body. i was walking over to tell her when this body rose up and grabbed the nurse. i froze. that was not possible. that body had been clearly dead, after my ten years experience i knew what a dead body looked like. this thing bit deep into the nurses face, her screams smothered in the hungry kiss. i shouted for help and ran to help her. i stopped before i reached her after see i police man raise his shotgun to the thing. there was a deafing bang and the things head exploded. the nurse was hit too, but i reminded myself it was probably for the best. the busy buzz of scared people and panic silenced for a minute before erupting again ten fold.
there were suddenly more gunfire down the corridor where the morgue was and three bloodstained police officers appeared from at the junction at the end of that corridor. they fired a few shots down at something before running up to the reception shouting "Run!". i looked over to the several receptions who were screaming about being cut off from calls all around the hospital. the police men were desperately shouting orders or demanding a response into their radios. that is when i knew i had to run and thats what i did, i ran out of the hospital into the street, which was in a similar state of distress. there were more of these things everything. alot of them were concentrated on attacking a bus. the whole thing was shaking and windows were shattering. but i was disturbed from my stare. the sound of a helicopter, coming fast. i saw it fly over the rooftops and come crashing down towards the street. it crashed at an angle scraping along the ground, its rotor blades still spinning. tens were caught in the spinning blades. the helicopter crashed into the bus, flipping over. the rotorblades sliced into the street itself finally stopping.
i was terrified. tears were streaming down my face and just started to run. what was happening?

Dr. Derek Thompson

We moved our base of operations into Havercroft. ?Closer to the action? they said. I couldn?t stop thinking of the man in the house who got eaten by the zombie by the woman and the kid. He must have been that poor girls dad? I had been a dad once, but my boy got killed in an accident. That girl must feel the same way as I did?

It took about a day to make preparations and move off. The streets seemed to be too quite when we made our move, I didn?t spot a single zombie despite the fact that the new base was quite far from our last one.
I rested at the police station during the night and searched for more equipment during half the day. Then I felt ready, ready for revenge.

I grabbed my gear, reloaded my shotgun and went out on the streets, all by myself. This was personal I thought, I couldn?t rescue that man in the house, but I could avenge him.
At first I ran around sporadically looking for zombies. The streets had been cleared and almost every building was barricaded and had people inside.
I stopped by an arms dealer to get some ammo, but with no luck. The shop had already been stripped out of everything.
I continued to the east since the centre of the town was in that direction and it proved to be a wise decision. After only a couple of blocks I stumbled across a single zombie standing outside a barricaded building trying to get inside.

Payback time I thought, raised the shotgun. This time I aimed for the head, looking straight into its eyes, or what was left of them as I shot.
The shot cleaned the head from its bloody shoulders. My first zombie kill, I didn?t feel bad for it at all.

I noticed a smoke pillar aiming for the skies a few blocks north and continued towards it. When I got there, I saw something terrible, the smoke came from a big fire outside Bryan Place Fire Station, the barricades where in flames and a big bunch of zombies where outside trying to get in. I estimated that there where ten of them. I got too scared to make a proper judge of the situation and just ran back to our headquarters, Moseley Plaza Police Dept, and reported to the other guys in there. Hopefully we could try to kill them together.

Filip Coulianos