Captain's Log 22/3/2012: First entry

I have to admit, I'm not entirely sure what this diary is supposed to achieve. I don't intend to die, so I don't particularly want to start by saying "If you ever find this diary..." This diary I think is more for me than for someone else to read.

I always found back in school and university that, even though I could read a book and understand what it was talking about well enough (e.g. accounting, economics etc) I never really made it stick in my head or make real sense of any undertones or inter-relationships with other points until I wrote it down.

I could read it as many times as I wanted, but it wasn't until I wrote it down that really understood.

It's been years since I finished school and it funnily feels like I'm back again. Some past life, but then this is a zombie apocalypse so it's a mixture of old and new I suppose.

I'm rambling, better get down to business and document what's been happening. Maybe this will be an "If you ever find this diary..." diary after all. One for the archives.

I'm currently sitting in an office chair at my work in the Melbourne CBD (Central Business District for any tourists). Australia if I need to be any more obvious. Level 32, corner of Lonsdale and Exhibition Streets. I'm a tax consultant. I work(ed) in a team of 9 and all of them (excluding myself obviously) are dead or at least I presume they are dead.

The movies never really definitively said what turned people into zombies, but it looks like in real life it was some sort of flu virus. In the past week, everyone came down with bad flu. On any given day, half the team were claiming sick days and the other half that was here were sick as well, but powering through. I was sick and stayed home at first, got better and came in to work, and then all hell broke loose.

I'm really puzzled because it seems that everyone seemed to die from this super flu so suddenly and within such a short window of almost co-ordinated time. I was lucky it seems, but my wife and two daughters were very sick last I saw them this morning and I'm presuming they didn't make it. My wife's face was a pale grey, but she was at least up on her feet. Aya (3) and Milly (5) were bed ridden. The news on the TV said to only bring them into the hospital if they were coughing up blood or convulsing. Otherwise it was likely just bad flu. Hospitals were overwhelmed as it was, so we decided to keep them in bed. My wife (Lalie) was adamant I should go to work. "I'm alright." She said. "I'll let you know how the kids are doing."

I called numerous times when things got bad. People were panicking in the streets and I tried my phone. I had to call over 15 times before I finally got a ring on Lalie's phone and she didn't pick up. I tried again about another 15 times and got through once more with again no answer.

I'm not going to pretend they are alright. All the reports on TV and the internet are showing complete chaos. End of the world scenario.

I know they are dead.

Nevertheless, I'm obviously not happy about it. You quietly decide within yourself when your first baby (Milly) is born "I'll die for you if it means you'll be safe." This promise was re-affirmed when Aya was born two-ish years after. I try not to, but I can't help picturing my little angels being ripped apart by those monsters.

Aya was once at the beach on a windy day and sand got in her eye. She was about 20 metres away from me and she panicked and screamed her guts out.

Even just on that beach, scared and her eyes stinging, her scream tugged at me and I ran to her. I comforted her, cuddled her to me and got her out of the wind. She eventually calmed down and insisted on hugging me the entire car trip home.

I can hear that ear-splitting scream again, but this time I'm not there and she's being devoured and ripped to shreds.

Goddamn fucking... bastards!

But that's the rub. For all I know, Aya and Milly were killed by Lalie. Maybe she turned and killed them. My poor little defenceless babies torn apart by their own mother...

I have to change the subject or I'll go mad.

As I said, my current situation is that I'm in my work building. Usually there's about 50 or 60 people working on the floor. When I came in this morning, there were probably only about 10 people in. After starting work at 9, we all huddled round the kitchen TV watching the reports. Chaos. Riots. Death. We were all in shock.

All of a sudden, a guy charges us and bowls us over like its ten pin bowling. He bit down on Rita's face and she screamed. Someone jumped on him, but I'm ashamed to say my immediately instinct was to run away and that's what I did along with 5 others. We ran around to the other side of the floor panicking. The whole time I could hear screaming. Really desperate, horrified and pleading screams. Then they stopped and the five of us huddled behind someone's desk like little children.

I regain my composure as best I could, whilst the others cried and tried to make sense of what just happened. Given the news I could see what was going on and looked for a weapon. The best I could find was a metal ball point pen and that was when the zombie appeared around the corner and saw us. It charged and I knew what I had to do.

I charged him, kicked him down with a foot to the chest and stabbed him in the eye without hesitating. The pen went all the way in up to my fingers, right up to the clip thing on the pen through the soft and gooey tissue and he went limp. There was blood everywhere. All over him and all up my arm.

I've never done something like that before and didn't really know what to expect, but I guess I was just so psyched up on adrenaline.

The others screamed at me that I was a murderer, but I ignored them and pulled the pen out again and went for the kitchen. The zombie had bitten out Rita's throat and ripped the face off the other guy. Again blood was everywhere. It smelled warm and foreign. I'd never been anywhere like a morgue or an abattoir before and I felt sick. The others had followed me and were still calling me a murderer when Rita suddenly sat up and moved for us. I swear it was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. She wasn't moving like a stunted robot. Rigour mortis was a fair way away yet I suppose. She didn't move like a person either. No minor adjustments for balance or comfort. She just rose up. Just moved and had eyes for me, being the closest target. The other dead guy also did the same, and Rita charged me. I think the others behind me ran away, but all my adrenaline charged attention was focused on my attacker. I desperately wanted to run away like my co-workers, but I knew we'd all die if I didn't stand my ground and do something.

Rita ran at me, grunted weirdly and I led into her with a gut kick causing her to fly across the room and slide towards the linoleum floor to the floor to ceiling windows. The other guy charged as well and I managed to grab his shirt collar and swing him around me in Rita's direction. He crashed into her, bumped against the window with a dull thump and that gave me an idea. A barstool was next to me. I sat on them all the time to eat my lunch at lunch hour and I remembered they had steel legs. I picked it up and charged them like a battering ram.

Whilst I connected squarely with the guy's head, it wasn't enough. I didn't crack inward, but did appear to stun it. Rita however was scrambling for my legs and I had to semi dance my way out of her desperate arms to back off.

I needed to get that window broken and push them out. I grabbed another barstool and charged again. This time I must have charged with everything I had because the stool smashed into the guy's head again and carried through breaking the window.

Luckily I think the amount of force I applied was only just enough to break the window because I didn't simply sail through the threshold and start tumbling out into the air. The zombie guy fell through and disappeared and I tripped off to the side into the window frame, a steel pillar. I managed to keep my footing though and caught Rita as she lunged for me. She was wearing some sort of jacket, which was fortunate as the lapels were fairly easy to grab and swing her around me and keep her off balance. As with the dead guy, she was soon flung out the window as well. I'm not sure how I didn't slip up during the whole dance as the floor was smeared with blood.

I was strangely elated and disgusted at the same time then and there. I had just killed three zombies. I had never done anything particularly heroic in my life and it seems so unlikely. I was an accountant. A TAX accountant. A computer nerd. Never exercised. Mild mannered family man.

Nevertheless I had done it and wasn't sure what to make of it.

I went back to find the other guys and found them huddled around the same desk as before.

I told them what I'd done and that it was safe, but they recoiled from me. To be fair I was dirty with blood so didn't look the part of a reassuring angel.

I had told them it was safe, but I had no basis to say that. I grabbed another pen and walked around the floor looking for others. The floor was deserted apart from the now 6 of us. I found two corpses, horribly mutilated. I dragged the bodies by the feet, trying my best to both keep an eye on them in case they woke up as well as avoiding looking at so much disgusting blood and gore. I dragged them both one at a time to the kitchen and pushed them out the window.

It was improvised, but it had to do. A quick plan.

With a kitchen knife in hand I systematically checked the toilets and lift foyer. I found no one. Normally these areas required a security pass to get through, but it looked like they were unlocked. I had my pass on me anyway. The lights were working it seemed as well.

The stairwell was unlocked and a brief peek into the threshold showed it was empty. I couldn't hear anything. The lifts were not working. The stairwell appeared to be the only access point to our floor.

I returned to my scared co-workers again. I didn't know them well at all. They worked in Risk Management, whom I had nothing to do with.

This time they had a little more composure and asked me what happened. I told them what I had done and that we were momentarily safe.

They asked what we should do and I tried my best to think of a plan just there and then, but the adrenaline must have worn off and I crashed. I started crying. That was when I thought of Lalie and the kids and I couldn't function after that.

I then vomited in the corner. Twice.

An announcement came on over the building's PA system helpfully telling us that we were in an emergency situation and to stay put. We were to report in any incidents on the red warden phone in the lift well, which I tried to do, but the phone didn't seem to work. I couldn't hear anything on the other line and heard no dial tone. I couldn't tell if they could hear me.

It's been 2 hours since then and the TV is still working. We're all sitting in the kitchen again watching the chaos unfold. The news reports are really scary.

It's all so strange and unlikely.

Unlikely? Of course it is.

Who the hell expects the end of the world to happen? To actually happen?

I'm sitting at a table writing this down now, trying to make sense of what's going and trying to come up with a plan. I'm the impromptu leader of our little bunch. I've posted someone to stay by the doorway to the lifts and watch for anyone coming through the stairwell doorway.

We've tried the phones, but they're down. The email and intranet system is also down. Computer's still have power though. I can't think of any way to contact someone without going to another floor. Too risky at the stage. Maybe someone will come to us.

The view out the window is surreal. We're 32 floors up and the chaos below is there, but we're so removed from it. Like watching ants. I can't tell who's human and who's turned turned down there until I see someone being chased.

What are we gonna do?