Zombie Diary

Epilogue

6 years later-

It's been years since the dead woke up and started to devour everyone and everything in their path. More than 90% of the world died. At least 45% died within the first 8 months, all who were not immunized for the seasonal Flu virus caught the mutated airborne virus and died. And those immunized became immune to the airborne disease. The virus mutated though becoming infectious through bodily fluid transfusion. Someone infected with the airborne virus would unknowingly infect someone who was immune to the airborne with the bodily fluid infection. A bite, a scratch, a kiss. Anything that involves blood or saliva as well as any other bodily fluid was a carrier for the new mutated virus, which was able to spread throughout all people. So those who did not die from the airborne would more than likely catch the mutation. The mutation from the airborne for some unknown reason caused some sort of chemical imbalance to the brain, shutting down and deteriorating the most important pieces. The pieces that make us human. No cure has been found yet. And although the dead from 6 years ago have deteriorated and rotted, becoming slower or immobile. The ones created over those 6 years are still moving around. Still hunting for food. The human race is slowly working towards extinction. So all who are left are coming together to fight the dead that linger; to take back what we own. Our lives.

"Men move out!" The commander ordered us.

"Yes sir, come on boys let's get ourselves some fried zombie" Gerald snickered as the boys and I got off the truck.

"Look at this place, it nothing but ruble" Syd called over as we moved further into the remains of the small town. He was right, the place was nothing but broken and rotted wood and dead corpses.

"Hey sir I found some body's under here!" Turning around I found Kennedy and Hogkens lifting up some wood. Letting their guns hang by their straps around their shoulders and down by their wastes.

"Dead? Or undead?" I called over as I headed towards them.

"Dead, gotta be years dead too" the wooden beams although broken and withered from age, weather and stress of probably hundreds of hoards walking over it time and time again, were long. The perimeter of this one area would have been large enough to be a small barn or something? There was metal on the ground with broken almost unseeable glass. Maybe an old wear-house of some sort.

"Help me clear the area would ya?" Kennedy called as he started moving things out of the road.

"Our job is to find survivors and supply's we aren't going to get either from here" I called about to walk away.

"You'd be surprised what you'd find here, in small towns like this wear-house were gold minds when this shit started to get bad"

"Either way your gold mind is trampled to dust" I commented lowering the gun barrel, to the ground.

"Come on humor me" Kennedy murmured as he moved through the broken piles of shit. Huffing out a sigh I moved over to the destroyed building and started moving old barrels out of the way. Some were in pretty good condition other then rusting in the rain. Somewhere filled with water, some were on their sides and flattened, somewhere on their side with lids still attached to them. So Gerald helped me with moving all that were useless from rusting out of the way and helped me open a few of the others that still had lids. We were at it for maybe an hour before the good for nothing commander came over to us.

"What are you mate's doing! Get your asses in gear where leaving soon, there's nothing left here but destruction" the commander said after 'supervising in the distance for a few hours, entitled prick he is.

All the boys groaned out as they started to drop wooden beams and Kennedy had been somewhat right. There was an old radio in a locked box. There was some water in the box but shouldn't have been enough to damage it too much. Some old cans of beans in one of the barrels.

"Hey Gerald help me open this last one!" I called over to him and he gave me a grin before gripping the other side of the lid and helped me yank it out while I used my knife to brake the rust off. Within a few good pulls its lid came flying off. The rust had stopped the rain from coming through the roof of the barrel so it was dry inside. And at the bottom of the barrel was a small old bag.

"What is it?" Gerald looked at it as I pulled it out.

"It's an old school bag I think?" I pulled on the zip to have a look inside it, with any luck it would still be of some use to us.

"Well what's in it?" Gerald asked as we both started walking towards the truck.

"It's a book, and a pen?"  I looked at it confused.

"A book?  What the fuck? Who would want to have that out here in the fucking apocalypse bloody dipstick" Gerald jumped on the back of the truck with the others putting out his arm to help me up. After I had gotten up and sat down I started to go through the old book.

"Looks like it belonged to girl" I murmured out.

"Of course it bloody is, some diary I bet. Probably cared more about it then her own life. Girls. Bet it was some kid"

"Well you're not wrong, first entry is 2017 on her 16th birthday looks like" I closed the book and put it back in the bag.

"Fucking girls mate. Teenage girls I tell ya, their life is their diaries" Kennedy laughed out.

"Oh? And how many teenage girls you know now days? Hu Kennedy?" I laughed. Everyone was cracking up before the commander screamed at us to stop being so loud, that we were on enemy territory.

"It's a shame though" I said after everyone had, had their laughs. "She was 16 when it all started"

"Lots of kids where young when it started, you wouldn't of been much older yourself right mate?" Hodgkens piped up.

"Right mate, but I was in the RAAF by then"

"True blue mate; but still. Nothing unordinary about this diary girl. In truth she's probably dead already by now right? Or she'd have that with'er" he pointed and nodded at the bag.

"Yeah man" I sat back and looked at the back of the truck as the remains of the small village became nothing on the horizon.
'Can't hurt to know what sort of experience she went through with this though. Right? I'll have a flip through of it later' I thought to myself as we headed back towards base.

Akela Sutten. Akela is suppose to mean lucky isn't it?