E Virus: The Diary of a Modern Day Girl (The Beginning of the End) (17 page)

We fought
our way out the building, when we got out we realised we didn’t have the keys to the car. I was kicking myself when I realised we had left them in the pocket of the former leader Ben.

We had very little ammo left, and the infected were still roaming around the house.
We had no choice, we made our back way to the building, and to the room we had just come from.

We maneuvered our way up the stairs, stepping over the bodies of
both the lost boys and the infected.

As we got back to the room, we saw that the infected had
already descended on the body, using my last few bullets I took them out one by one.

He was already dead. Blood poured out from his wounds. His neck had been ripped off, flesh hung from his body. His stomach had been torn out and his organs were now visible encased in blood. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
His eyes, still wide open showed the pain and suffering he endured in his last few moments.

I leant down next to the boy and
checked his pockets. It didn’t take me long to get a grasp on the keys. I quickly yanked them free, and closed the young boy’s eyes. I put a bullet through his head before I left. Just to make sure he wouldn’t awaken in an altered state.

We all sat there, wide eyed
as the Sergeant revealed the day’s events. It brought a shocking realisation back to us, on how bad things actually were out there.

Much to my surprise, the Sergeant insisted on keeping the communications with the outside world open.
In the Sergeants eyes, the trip (although not quite according to plan) proved successful. They were able to confirm that there were indeed survivors out there, and that they were still alive, no matter how fucked up they might be.

It started to cause a divide within the group. Given the hoax call and the danger the team
were put in, not everyone was overly keen on inviting new people to our safe haven. Duckface was enraged with his decision. The thought of ‘unsavoury guests’ darkening our doorstep had not gone down well with her at all.

She wasn’t the only one to turn her nose up, Leon wasn’t convinced and neither was Josh. Although they didn’t agree with the decision, neither of them dared question the Sergeant. The Corporal also had his doubts, but still remained optimistic.

I didn’t really know what to think. We had the resources to help people, but how on earth would we go about finding them? And how do we know they want to be found? Are they worth putting one of our own at risk?

All these questions kept whizzing through my mind. I didn’t have the answer to any of them. The more I thought about it, the more positive I became.
It’s very easy in a situation like this, to presume the worst. To lock yourself away from the outside world, and even pretend it’s not there.

Duckface was a prime example. She was full of negativity, she was very bitter. She let the negativity
surround her, and was starting to let it spread to the others. Her outlook on life was very bleak. She did only what suited her, she was very self-centred. She didn’t care if the people outside lived or died, they were of no importance to her.

I decided very quickly that I didn’t want to end up like her. I had to put my trust in the Sergeant, and believe that what we were doing was for the greater good. I asked myself, what would I do if I was out there? The answer was clear. I would do what I could to survive, and
hold out hope that I would be rescued.

I knew the Sergeant and the Corporal wanted to rescue others, p
erhaps to make up for the lives lost in the main base. The Sergeant had made that decision for the greater good. To secure what was left of the base, and to provide refuse to future survivors. I understood his reasons perfectly. He sacrificed his family and his men for his beliefs. I would help them both; after all they took us in when we landed on their doorstep. They made sure we had a roof over our head, food, water and even training. For that I was extremely grateful.

The Sergeant didn’t want to waste any time getting back out. He sent the boys out on a daily basis, searching the nearby
areas. They stayed away from town centres, sticking mainly to the country roads and the outskirts. The Sergeant stayed firmly connected to the radio frequencies.

As usual, I stayed on the base. We never saw any of the infected around the base. As far as we were all aware, it was safe. We barely used hangar 3, our ammunition didn’t have the chance to deplete. There was no threat. All was quiet and peaceful on the base.

Day after day they returned empty handed, they occasionally came into contact with the infected, but were yet to find any survivors.

I was apprehensive the first time Nick went out. After the
Sergeant told us what happened that day, I didn’t have much faith in the outside world. I wanted to, but I knew I had to be realistic.

The Sergeant spent most of his time on a new project. He wanted to get the satellites working again. Greg was the communications engineer, without him things were certainly more difficult. The Professor put his research to one side, and helped the Sergeant with his project.

They had set up on the roof. Within a few days the satellite signal started to pick up. Our mobile phone signals were starting to come back. Very slowly we were able to access the internet.

Duckface slowly started to come out of her room.
One morning, during our daily meetings in the dining room, she had handed over her phone, and explained to the Sergeant, the group she had created on Facebook.

“The E Virus Support Group?” He asked.

“Yes, it’s how we found this place, someone put down that they had heard it was safe.” She replied.

“Ok, I’m sorry I don’t quite understand Facebook, I’ve never used it, nor have I had any intention. Please go on” he told her.

She proceeded to tell him all the ins and outs of Facebook. I could see his eyes glazing over, but bless him, he still listened.

When she finished babbling on
he had a look for himself. He looked up in surprise “the last post was 3 days ago.” He told us all.

Wow, I was surprised people still had internet access. It seemed that even in our darkest days, internet was still possible. The post simply read:

Quelqu'un est-il là-bas?

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s French I think hun” Lacey replied.

We soon found out it
was written by a French national called Claude Zidane. After a quick Google Translate it read:

Is anyone out there?

They obviously weren’t here in the UK, but it was a good sign, it meant there were people in other countries still alive, and had access to internet.

It was rather ironic that, even with the world falling apart, Facebook was still the most common communication method throughout the world.

“This is very good Lola,
are you able to continue communications? It seems like the best way for us to locate fellow survivors” The Sergeant asked.

Duckface looked around the room, her expression clearly showed
her reluctance. She still didn’t like the fact that we were inviting strangers into our base. She was worried they wouldn’t be ‘her sort of people’. Her arrogance had no limits.

Despite her feelings towards newcomers, she agreed.
To make sure she wasn’t going to withhold any important information, the Sergeant made a point in checking the page daily as well.

We had all decided collectively, not to give our position away. Given the incident with the lost boys, it was safer keeping ourselves hidden. We didn’t want to attract any
unwanted attention. Duckface seemed a lot happier with this.

Whilst Duckface emerged herself in her new communications role, Andy started to keep more to
himself. He trained harder than ever; we all saw a big change in him.

He went out with every team that ventured into the outside world. He didn’t s
eem to like being stuck inside; he went out at every opportunity.

I never ventured in the outside world. Part of me wanted to, I had been keeping up my fitness regime, but I didn’t know what it would be like out there. If I got into danger, I don’t know if I had quick enough reactions. The infected were things out of nightmares, they terrified me. What terrified me even more was the thought of ending up like that. I didn’t want to put myself, or anyone else for that matter in any danger.

Things were starting to get boring around the base. With no immediate danger, we struggled finding things to do.

After a conversation between Lacey and I, we decided to revisit the tunnel. The curiosity started to get the better of us, and we needed an escape. With Duckface licking the Sergeants arse every time we turned around
, we needed a breather. She was so wrapped up in her new role; she was on a power surge. 

We made our way over to Hangar 3. No one rarely ventured over, there wasn’t much in their apart from the emergency camp beds and supply room.

I entered the supply room, and made my way over to the trap door. Remembering my previous struggles and broken nails we pulled open the door together. Grabbing a few torches from the emergency supplies we pointed them down the dark hole.

The smell was the first thing that hit us. A damp earthy smell made its way to the surface, along with a chilling breeze that ma
de us both shudder.

The wooden ladder looked stable enough, it had been there a while, but it was solid wood. I made my way down the steps first. As soon as my foot hit the concrete floor, Lacey started to make her way down.

The whole tunnel was pitch black, only our torch light illuminated our path. The tunnel was much bigger than I expected. The concrete walls circled their way around, going off in all directions. It was so easy to get lost.

We decided to investigate the main tunnel only. The last thing we wanted was to get lost or trapped down here. We had to sneak off in the first place; George didn’t want anyone to go down there.

“This place is huge” Lacey exclaimed, her voice echoed through the tunnels. She giggled as her voice carried down the tunnel.

I whispered back “
shhh, you’ll cause an avalanche”

She started giggling again “You only get avalanches in snow, I think we’ll be fine” she whispered back.

I started to laugh with her; I was always getting my words wrong. We made our way through the underground passageway shining our torches in all directions. It was deathly silent all around us, the sound of dripping water, somewhere in the distance along with our footsteps were all that could be heard.

I felt like an explorer discovering the winding
passageways of the Pyramids; well I would have done, had it not been so cold.

There was a definite breeze pushing past us. “There must be an opening around here” I told Lacey “That breeze has to be coming from somewhere”

We carried on down the passageway, eager to find the source. It was still pitch black in front of us when Lacey stopped me.

“Did you hear that?” She asked slightly concerned.

I stopped for a minute trying to listen out. “Hear what?” I asked her.

“That rustling over there” She pointed
her torch in front of us. “I swear I just heard something”

I stopped again trying to listen out, but I couldn’t hear anything. Still, I was starting to get a little jittery. We
brought our handguns with us; I slowly pulled mine out its holster.

We carried on, tiptoeing our way forward, more aware of our surroundings. This time it was my turn to stop.

“I just heard it” I whispered. We both stood there, not sure what to do. We switched our lights off as the rustling got louder, it was coming closer.

With our guns raised we quickly turned our lights back
on. We pointed the light ahead. We couldn’t see a thing, nothing was there. We looked at each other both equally perplexed at the strange noises, when the rustling started again.

This time it was coming from beh
ind us. We turned around slowly, guns at the ready. Again we couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

We were starting to get freaked out. We were both hearing the
sounds, but we couldn’t see anyone. We decided to head back, we’d had enough excitement for one day.

We turned to leave as I felt something brush past my feet.

“What the fuck was that?” I jumped back, grabbing onto Lacey’s arm.

We aimed our torches down quickly.

“Oh my god, RATS!” Lacey screamed

There were three of them,
and they were absolutely massive, easily the size of a cat. They were scurrying around our feet, running away from the light. Watching their thick worm like tails following behind them made me jump back. I hate rats.

We both shrieked and ran back to the base, as fast as we could.
We didn’t look back, we just kept running. We were both horrified. When we were nearing the ladder a loud noise stopped us dead in our tracks.

It was a
n ear piercing scream, followed by a gun shot. And it was coming from above.

We
looked at each other, panicked. We darted back upstairs, our guns still in our hands. We had already completely forgotten about the rats. We threw the trapdoor back down and raced back towards the base. 

We didn’t have to get very far. A
s soon as we ran outside, we saw what happened. Duckface and Andy were stood, both of them in shock, looking at the dead body before them. Andy still had his gun aimed at the body, as if he was waiting for the corpse to move.

I couldn’t see very clearly at first. They were both stood over the top half of the body, but I could see clearly the combat trousers and boots belonging to the recently deceased. By
this time the Sergeant and the rest of the group were running out, to see what all the commotion was about.

As I edged closer I gasped. It was Greg. Or rather it used to be. His face was covered in blood, his skin was rotting and puss oozed from the sores and boils forming on his arms and neck.

There was no doubt about it, he was infected. What was more worrying was that he was on the inside of the fence, not the outside. Somehow, he managed to get in.

I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t seeing things after all. I thought back to the night I saw him. His bones were all disfigured. Looking down on this corpse, there were certainly differences. His body wasn’t as out of place as when I first saw it. I could see where he had broken bones, however they were nowhere near as severe as what I saw in my first encounter.