A heads up for the followers: I have a busy schedule ahead of me, so I may not be able to update very regularly. Living in Britain, I have only a 6 week summer, which will be reduced to 2 if Gove gets his foul way, and the teachers just love to load up their academic trebuchets and launch everything they've got at us.

Oh look I can see a little disclaimer over there in the distance.

8:25 a.m.

It's still Thursday. Miraculously, we're all alive and unbitten.

When we opened the doors the hall was empty, straight back to the end of the hall and the two corridors branching off of it. No population aside from us. I think I came out expecting to see Mo and the squabbling additions waiting for us in the next room with pipes of their own. Of course they weren't there. The other rooms were empty of living people. I could see smears of gore attached to hands and feet without shoes. I didn't know the human body contained so much blood. Gallons of red stuff and I didn't know red could be so…red. The reddest red in crusts dried on the floor.

What I saw were only flashes through the windows (most of those were red too) and the open doors as I ran past, but it was enough to make bile climb up the back of my throat. It's a wonder no one threw up. And it's a wonder no zombies had hung around to pick the last scraps of flesh off the bones.

A ruckus of groans and growls and the occasional scream echoed from the upper and lower floors. The six of us needed to be up one floor. I was the quietest I have ever been. Quieter than sleep (easy to do since I talk in my sleep).

We were all quiet. Our footsteps made noises too soft to be heard in all the noise around us, or they made no noise at all. Like ghosts. We were like ghosts darting past the corpses of our friends; a flicker of reflection in the shattered windows, the heel of a shoe disappearing around a corner, a sharp intake of breath, the taker of which was gone when someone looked. What was that word Golding loves so much in 'Lord of the Flies'? Furtive. We were very furtive. A lion sneaking away from his cage because he had tired of pacing.

We found the first body we were able to identify belonged to a girl Antonio used to sit next to in French. She was named Rosie Mackintosh. She was a pretty girl until you reached her waist, where her body ended abruptly. I couldn't see her lower half and I didn't look for it. The blood must have come out of her fast. It had flowed down the stairs like a brook. A sock lay alone in the blood, red all the way through. Impossible to tell if it was hers.

Her eyes were the worst part. They were open and frozen in terror that matched the gape her mouth was set at. It looked like she died trying to scream, but never finished. They were no longer pretty. They weren't even blue anymore. They were just glassy and dead.

I had the idea that someone should shut her eyes.

It's done all the time in films and books. It's a beautiful moment. The hero leans down to shut the eyes of someone they love who has just died tragically, romantically, violently, selflessly, willingly, without regrets blah blah blah…they'll be sobbing over the dead guy's last words, words that are going to echo in their head later and motivate them to finally defeat the villain and achieve a happy ending. But in real life it's just…just…no.

There was no beauty. Rosie never passed on any last wisdom except for the scream that died on her lips. She wasn't pretty or tragic or romantic and I'm never going to know if she died selflessly or without regrets, but I can sure as hell say it was violent, unwillingly and she regretted being caught and halved. She wasn't Rosie. She wasn't a she, she was a chunk of meat on the stairs that was beginning to smell. I thought about closing her eyes for a second then hurried quietly past.

We've paused on the landing to take a breath and steel ourselves for the violence we can clearly hear on the other side of the door. Rosie is two staircases below. Through the gaps in the banister, I can see she is still staring.

Have to go now. Time to go over the top. Again.

Sorry for the short entry. I'll try to write a longer one next time. Reviews appreciated! *head hits desk*
*goes to sleep*