User: LegendLuigi91
Date: 09/09/2011
Subject: On the Road Again

I woke up at the end of my watch, just in time to see a nunchuck fly towards me. I deflected it with my face and then promised Mo that I wasn't dozing off. He looked a bit skeptical when I informed him that I was actually practicing my slow motion blinking, but then he shrugged and let me climb into the trucks cockpit. And with three guys, it really was a cockpit.

What followed was a truly terrible night's sleep. Not because of the zombie nightmares but because Tom kept leaning on me and drooling down my shoulder. I was pretty glad when Mo dragged him out of the truck to take over on watch, until he began sleep-mumbling about how his tool box was full of potatoes.

The sun was barely peeping over the horizon when I stepped out into the frosty outdoors to empty my bladder against an unfortunate shrubbery. It couldn't be nice to be pissed on, but you know what else isn't nice? Getting shot. It sucks. Sure, the bullet only grazed me, but that's an 800 mile-per-hour piece of metal searing the skin right off of my arm. Fresh bandages and high dosages of various medicines seemed to be working their magic though. My fingers are recovering pretty well from the barbed wire incident and the blood from my knife wound has managed to seal the wound into an itchy, red scab. It's not pretty, but neither are zombies.

Tom snapped me out of my mid-pee thoughts with a sharp whistle which I assumed meant he wanted my undivided attention. Usually I'd nod along whilst he pondered the future of our race or carefully planned our next steps and then begged me not to fuck it all up with a minibus. This time though he managed to catch my eye with a scattering of maps, most of which centered around the southern coast of England. They were well-used, lots of scribbles and coordinates left behind by the team of pilots that we had met, all of whom were now dead. I shuffled the maps around and started to notice some more recent markings. There was a large black cross over 'Southampton', a port city on the south coast. I didn't know what that meant but I figured it wasn't anything nice.

Tom nudged me and poked at a different map, this one was further to the west. There was a question mark drawn next to 'Exmouth', an answer would have been nice too, but it wasn't to be found. Next to Exmouth was Tom's finger, still pointing at something. I moved it out of the way and finally saw what the fuss was about. There was a large, red circle around a small village, up the river from Exmouth.

Starcross. I'd never heard of it but it sounded like it belonged in Game of Thrones. So I instantly approved.

It didn't look like much, but that can probably be blamed on the satellite imagery support team's budget being cut when the guys at UK Space Agency turned into zombies. There was a train station and a ferry landing marked on the map, I was expecting a few more sniper towers and helicopter landing pads. I was a little disappointed, but if the Military were interested in this little seaside shanty, then so were we. Well, me and Tom at least. When I asked Mo to take a look he just gave me the finger and walked over to the farmhouse to see who was home.

Tom figured one of us should go help him and I told him to feel free. If Mo was going to be swinging his nunchucks around in close quarters then I didn't want to be anywhere near him. Tom grimaced for no reason. Or was there a reason? Was little Tommy intimidated by the mysterious easterner known only as Mo? At first it seemed positively absurd. Then I forced myself to look at Mo from someone else's point of view and realized he was no longer the gentle souled anime loving, Jet-Li worshipping provider of succulent fried chicken and frequent compadre on many a video game that I had spent my college years with. He was in fact a cold-hearted nunchuck swinging, roundhouse kicking ball of destruction that was mostly aimed at zombies but would occasionally jab me in the ribs to remind me whose company I was in.

I guess the end of the world changes some people. Who knew?

I pulled my attention back to the maps and noticed two things. Firstly, my fingernails were filthy. Secondly, someone had taken the precious time to scribble down a list of dates next to the circled Starcross. My immediate thought was re-supply dates. I had a feeling the pilots were scavenging for whatever remained of their military base in the south. I recalled a certain couple of helicopters flying over my flat to ruin my day and whipped out my phone for a bit of early morning cross referencing. According to my blog (you should totally read that, by the way), we witnessed the flyover on September 2nd - seven days ago.

I checked the map again and bingo, the last date penciled in was September 1st. The pilots had been gone eight days. Would they send reinforcements? Did they even have any reinforcements? Tom pointed out that they could be deserters and given the current situation I didn't blame them if they were.

I had to hold that thought, because at that moment a body was thrown through the farmhouse's top floor window, showering the driveway in shards of glass.

It was pointless destruction of property. Mo's favorite kind. He stood where the window had been a few seconds before and even though he wasn't smiling, I could tell he was proud of himself.

I diverted my attention to the struggling stranger who had just plummeted into the ground as Tom muttered something about a reckless idiot getting us all killed. The poor bugger was still dressed in his farmers garb, ready for a morning of weed whacking and cow milking. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his cows were all zombie fodder. Or that there was a psychopath raiding his house for anything useful. Or that we were considering stealing his car as soon as we figured out where he kept the keys.

I wanted to check his pockets, but he wasn't entirely dead yet, so I figured I'd better fix that first. Mo strolled out of the house carrying a cricket bat in one hand and a packet of crisps in the other. He tossed me the bat and kept the crisps.

I'm no doctor. I haven't even watched ER. Ever. But it was unlike a zombie to lie so passively still - falling out of a window must be bad for the spine. His neck stuck out at an odd angle so I got a good look into his eyes. Hunger. Not hate, not hostility. He looked at me just as I would look at a bacon-double-cheeseburger. And I couldn't blame him at all, because I fucking love cheeseburgers.

I did my duty and cracked open his skull on the second try, I was never good at cricket. The bat was a poor substitute to Mr. Stabby the disgruntled pool cue, but it would have to make do for now. Tom once questioned why a pool cue would be disgruntled, but wouldn't you be disgruntled if you were thrusted in and out of partially decayed bodies?

Mo rewarded me with a nod for my zombie disposal. I was hoping for a crisp or two but he's a greedy bastard. I inquired about the houses population and he sent a small chill down my spine when he informed me that the other resident had been effectively terminated.

I ventured into the house on my lonesome. Accident prone or not, I wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to plunder someone else's belongings. I fought down my gag reflex when the death smell hit me; it was something I had to get used too. I tried to avoid looking at the corpse of the farmer's loyal wife in the corner of the room, but Mo's handiwork always impressed me, no matter how brutal. A nunchuck didn't seem the ideal weapon during a zombie apocalypse, but the kid managed to pull it off. He has this weird knack of shattering the soft part of a Z's temple with one hit.

Hoping to spice up my military rations, I picked up some salt and pepper in the kitchen and then got out of there promptly. Someone had left the fridge door open so the whole room smelt of crotch rot.

I was part way through examining an antique compass when an engine coughed and spluttered to life somewhere outside. A peek through the window told me that Thomas had found the farmers car keys and was assuming direct control of his vehicle. A tired looking Suzuki jeep rolled into view. It didn't look very inspiring, but it was small and compact with more than two seats. Just what we needed to get to Starcross without attracting too much unwanted zombie attention.

We were back on the road in under an hour. Bumping along the countryside at a steady pace and avoiding potholes and occasional dead farm animal. We saw a lot of post-outbreak carnage that day. Abandoned cars, burnt down buildings and one poor attempt at a police blockade which let Tom show off his sick maneuvering skills. I deducted him 10 points for running over a fireman's corpse, that's just disrespectful. We spotted the occasional Z, on the road and scattered over the surrounding landscape.

We were heading south following an antique compass that I may or may not have stolen from the farmhouse. It's not like they were going to be using it any time soon. The bearing took us scarily close to a few of the little hamlets tucked away between the fields and forests. Each time we avoided it, food and water wasn't an issue for now and the places were indubitably infested with infected. Yeah that's right, I'm using alliterations now. We had a potential petrol problem which could have culminated in a colossal car crash (Okay, I'll stop now). But what with the majority of the country losing the ability to drive, petrol prices were at an all time low.

The sun was starting to dip down into the early hours of the afternoon when we rolled into a neglected looking garage. Someone had definitely been here before, I knew that because the petrol pumps were all hanging from their hooks, swaying in the September breeze like an artistic (but useless) wind chime. Apart from that, the place was seemingly empty.

We all took a minute to have a little stretch, we'd been cramped into our little jeep for hours. Once we had limbered up, we sprung into action. Mo climbed onto the jeep to keep look-out whilst Tom fiddled with the petrol pump. I had the most important job of all: Mars bar duty.

You can't blame us. We're three young gents in a part-abandoned and part-zombified country, it's only natural we take advantage once in a while and get loaded on chocolate bars. So on that thought, I headed into the store. This new world was full of nasty surprises, so I had a good, long look through the window before I ventured into the unknown.

There were bodies. A lot of them. This had to be the closest petrol station to a lot of the little villages dotted around close by. I won't go through the trouble of describing them, it's getting tiresome. They were dead and that's all you need to know.

On a lighter note: SCORE! I grabbed me some mars bars and a peanut butter Kit Kat for Tom (He's weird like that). I waved the Kit Kat at Tom to let him know I was thinking of him. In return he pointed at the store front and shook the pump in the air. I got the drift; some stations used a failsafe to prevent spillage. I vaulted the counter and had a quick look around whilst the devil on my shoulder told me to empty to the cash register. I informed him that we were having a slight economy crisis and that money was no longer relevant.

I giggled a little when I switched the failsafe and caused a spurt of petrol to spray Tom's shoes. It was nice to know the simple things in life still tickled me. It was a little nostalgic, stood in a shop, eating a mars bar, watching two friends fill up a car ready for a road trip. It was a nice throwback to a simpler time. Things never stay simple.

Maybe it smelt us, or heard us. Maybe it was just blind luck. The Z stumbled round the corner and into plain sight, if you happened to be looking - which Mo wasn't. He was more interested in his pack of cards, shuffling them for the thousandth time today. I hammered on the window and caught their attention, then I pointed as hard as I could at the zombie behind them, pretty much stabbing the window with my index finger. They seemed a little surprised, then Mo stood up abruptly and pointed back at me, equally as hard. I didn't get what kind of game he was playing so I took matters into my own hands and bounced back over the counter.

Directly into the arms of the sales clerk.

That's an overstatement. She didn't actually have arms. Just two meaty stumps where they should have been. I was kind of thankful for that, because it made it easy for me to throw her off balance. I stole a look out of the window to see how Tom and Mo were doing, they'd finally noticed their visitor and were taking it in turns clubbing him around the head with various blunt objects.

I dived on top of the clerk and became the unwelcome receiver of a slap to the face from her left stump. I suddenly felt a lot less apologetic for stealing her mars bars and a bit more concerned at keeping that stump away from my orifices. Out of instinct I found myself straddling her with my hands around her neck, I'd left my bat in the car so I only had my strength to rely on.

My moral code was having a bit of a tough time processing what was happening. Never before had I considered forcing myself onto a women and then attempting to choke the life out of her. Times have changed, so I threw any honor and gallantry that I possessed out of the window and squeezed harder.

Tom and Mo found me about two minutes later, still choking the clerk whilst being repeatedly bashed in the shoulders by her bloody stumps. For some reason the cheeky lass refused to die. Tom knelt down next to me and patted me on the back.

'You're choking a zombie.'

Yeah, and a little help wouldn't t go a miss. Dickhole.

'It's a zombie.'

If he had a point, I would've appreciated him making it.

'A zombie.'

Then I realized. I was choking a zombie. I loosened my grip. Zombies don't have operating lungs, they don't breath. It was kind of embarrassing. Mo shook his head at me and snatched the bag of Mars bars; I didn't deserve any chocolate today.

Tom was still chuckling to himself when he mashed the Z's brains into the floor with my bat.

Whilst I'd rather end this entry with a story of me being super awesome as opposed to being an absolute twit, this is getting a little long. I'll crack on with the next entry after dinner, I've drawn first watch and there's been a moral development I want to put into words. Just wait and see.

With that, I'll leave you to it. Just remember; Don't abuse women. Unless they're zombies.

Luigi out.