Chapter 7
I turned the computer off as John broke down into tears. Sam was sitting in front of him and, sensing his sadness, was looking worried.
Suzy and I tried to comfort him but he didn't want it, he just pushed us away, and with a rattling breath picked up the diary. He flicked it open as his tears fell onto the first page.
I picked up the shotgun from ground where it had been thrown, behind the couch next to the computer. John put the diary into his pack and, with another rattling breath, said, "Let's go."
We walked outside with John drying his tears behind us. Suddenly I felt a drop on my arm, quickly followed by one on my face as I looked up. It started to rain again. Sam jumped up biting joyfully at the rain, twisting around every time a drop fell on his back.
I laughed at this sign of joy by the dog; obviously he wasn't discouraged by the world being taken over by zombies. Suzy laughed with me and John even cracked a smile.
"Where do we go from here?" Suzy asked.
"Well, my father's workplace is on the other side of town, so-" I started but was cut off by a long, inhuman cry from at the other end of the street.
That's when I remembered what happened in Ellen Clover's video. The zombies smelt life, and came straight away. They had smelt Ellen, and now they smelt us.
I swung around and saw what I had thought was there, a large group of zombies huddled at the end of the street. One walked out in front, a thin man in a black singlet who was missing an arm.
The man suddenly growled and ran towards us snarling. Unlike the other zombies we had seen this one actually ran, and to our horror so did the others behind him. And it seems the dead run fast.
"RUN!" I screamed and we sprinted sown the other end of the street, the way we came.
Sam was running wildly next to us, feeling our distress. Dogs can feel human's emotions very well.
We sprinted around the corner back into the main street, the pub was my aim. I heard the rush of the wind around me, the heavy beating of my heart and the pounding of my feet on the cement, but mostly I felt fear and confusion. The zombies went from lumbering along; limping with every step to sprinting full out towards us, faster than some of them could have run before.
We finally reached the pub and I slammed the door after we had all gotten in.
"Barricade the place!" John yelled.
I hurled a table onto its side and shoved it in front of a window. And then I pushed as much as I could to support that and block the window. We barricaded each of the windows and every door but one, the front door. I don't know how we even got that many done, those zombies were running faster than you could imagine! Maybe it was because there were only 2 big windows, one back door and one front door.
The one-armed man slammed face first into the door shattering the window. I grabbed my rifle off of my shoulder and shot a big hole through the zombie's brain, splattering gore around the door. I pushed a table in front of the window and threw a few heavy chairs in front of it, securing the door just as more zombies crashed into it. I could hear their fingernails scraping against the windows and walls.
"Crap that was close!" I panted in relief.
"Yeah, now that the zombies are running I don't think we would have stood a chance!" John agreed.
I walked away from the doorway and around the bar. I opened the fridge which was still running somehow and grabbed an orange Fanta.
"How's it still running?" I asked John and Suzy.
"This is a pub right? So wouldn't it have a generator?" Suzy asked John.
"Yep, that's right, so we picked the ideal spot!" John said cheerfully, the first time he talked cheerfully since viewing the video.
As I drunk the bottle of Fanta a nearly overpowering feeling of tiredness flowed into me.
"I'm tired, who's gonna keep watch while the others sleep?" I asked with a yawn.
"I'll keep first watch, then I'll wake up one of you and you'll take the second watch" John replied.
I nodded and put the Fanta on the bar. I lay down on the ground with my pack as a pillow. I pulled and apple out of John's bag which lay discarded next to me. I munched on it to cure my small hunger pangs and then sleep overcame me.
When I opened my eyes I knew I was dreaming, as I was in the middle of a desert. I got to my feet and looked around. There was nothing around me except for sand and a few small shrubs scattered around.
I looked back ahead and a man was standing there. The man wasn't standing on the ground though; he was floating at least a foot from the ground. This man was painted up like a clown.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"I am your every nightmare, I am called the Eater of Worlds, and I'm coming for you…" the strange clown said, his mouth curving up into a sickening smile.
"You, you wrote that letter?" I said questioningly.
The clown nodded and said, "This whole thing is my handiwork, I threw the world into chaos, I raised the dead, I ruined your life…"
Suddenly I came out of my dream and I felt someone shaking me awake.
"Wake up! They're getting in!" Suzy screamed in my ear.
I leapt to my feet and grabbed my handguns out of my pockets, not feeling the slightest bit tired anymore. Sam lay curled up in front of the bar, John stood holding a rifle pointed at the door and Suzy had her handguns in her hands. It was early in the morning.
The things we had shoved up against the windows and doors were now collapsing letting in the rain from outside. Bloody hands reached inside trying to grab us.
I shot into the crowd hitting as many as possible.
"How are we gonna get out? We can't exactly shoot our way through thousands of zombies!" I yelled towards Suzy and John over the sound of the moans and thumps of the dead outside.
"There's a tunnel in the back, it was used when the pub used to get raided by the police. Use it, get away from here!" John yelled at us.
"What about you?" Suzy yelled at him.
"I'm going to stay, I'll distract them long enough for you guys to get out, and I'll take as many of them as I can with me!" John yelled back, shooting a zombie who had fallen in through the window.
"NO!" Suzy and I screamed at him.
He just shook his head and yelled, "Go!"
We looked at him for a moment longer, and then we sprinted into the back room pulling Sam along with us.
"I'm coming Ellen…" John whispered when we had left.
John sprinted into the crowd of zombies shooting everyone he could, letting loose a massive war cry. Once he was tangled in the crowd of zombies he smashed the rifle over the closest zombies' heads. He than threw the rifle away and tried to pull out his handguns from his pockets. A zombie suddenly tackled him to the ground, trying to bit John's nose off. John kept him away but only an inch from his face. He put the handgun he had in his hand, the other he had dropped, up to the back of the zombies head and fired. The bullet went right through the zombie's head, out through the zombie's mouth, and through his own head. The zombies descended upon the dead man, feeding.
I heard the shots from down the corridor. Suzy and I both had tears rolling from our eyes, but we didn't stop.
We reached the back of the corridor and I shone a torch on the ground, where a trap-door lay.
"Where'd you get the torch?" Suzy asked, pointing at the torch in my hand.
"I found 3 of them on a shelf, here" I replied sadly, throwing her a torch.
We opened the heavy trap-door and walked down worn stone steps into a dark tunnel. It smelt of alcohol and of sewerage.
We walked through the foul-smelling tunnel and at the end we found another trap-door on the ceiling of the tunnel. We opened the door and were greeted by the sunlight.
