Luke's Diary: An unlucky man in a zombie apocalypse. Days 601 - 756

Day 675: Monday 2nd July 2018

https://www.facebook.com/150585268715788/posts/462271717547140/

Day 675
Monday 2nd July 2018

Oh my God! I'm a Dad. I'm an actual, real life, proper Dad.

You'd think having a comfortable king size and a hot shower look forward to would have helped to give me a good night's sleep, but no. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, thinking about the others, worrying about Auntie Meryl and creating all sorts of catastrophic scenarios on my head.

When I woke up and walked downstairs into the dining room Mia, Esther and Parrissa were sat around the table eating tinned fruit and canned meat laughing and joking like everything was fine. "What are you doing?" I asked in dismay. "Well we're not waiting for a number 32 bus," said a chipper Parrissa. "We're eating breakfast Luke," said Esther, "Why what's wrong?" "What's wrong!?" I exclaimed in annoyance, "Our friends and loved ones are back at the other house going through God only knows what and you three are sat around here, laughing and joking like everything's OK and eating breakfast like the bl**dy Golden Girls." "Oh my Nan used to love the Golden," said Mia, "Sophia was her favourite." "Sophia?" said Parrissa, "Is that something you sit on?" "No, Sophia was an old woman," said Mia, "She used to call her daughter Dorothy, Pussy Cat," "Pussy cat?" said Parrissa, "I thought Dorothy had a dog called Tonto." "You're thinking of the Lone Ranger," said Esther. "On no," said Parrissa, "The Lone Ranger didn't have a dog, he had a horse." "Oh will you all shut up!?" I shouted, "Jesus Christ. All this pointless b*llocks. Gets on my nerves. Don't you care about the others?" "Oh Luke, don't start all that again," said Esther, "Of course we care about the others but we went through this yesterday. We can't do anything about it, just like we can't do anything about the kids." "The difference is that we KNOW where the others are. The kids could be anywhere." "Luke, if you want to start walking from here back to the other house then go for it," said Esther, "But personally I think it's a bad idea." I gave a defeated sigh. Esther was right. "I know you're worried and frustrated," I said, "But sitting around here moping was the faces like slapped arses isn't going to help anything," says Esther, "All we can do - all any of us can do, is live our lives day by day, hour by hour. If we manage to get a vehicle or find some way of getting the bike working I promise we'll go back for the others." I wasn't happy but I could see Esther's point. I just hate feeling so powerless and waiting like this.

In the afternoon I was outside on the front drive just wandering around and looking at the exterior of the house. It was a nice so I was rather enjoying the peace and quiet and the sun on my face. All of a sudden I heard a full murdering. I became cautiously alert, telling myself that it was probably the wind or something. The wind! What was I thinking!? I grabbed hold of my steak knife and got ready, just in case I needed to pounce. I quickly turned 360 degrees on the spot, looking up and down trying to locate the source of the eerie sound. I heard a shuffling sound. I liked towards the electric gates and saw an infected. He was on the other side of the rural road, alone and slowly walking along the curb, dragging his feet along the tarmac. He looked like he used to be some sort of security guard. He hadn't noticed me and I obviously didn't want to draw attention to myself but as I glanced over at the infected loner, I noticed he had a couple of walkie talkies hanging off a string that was tied to his belt. My eyes lit up. I knew these would come in really useful. I waited for the infected to walk past the house and then typed the code into the panel and opened the gates. They aren't very noisy so the infected didn't hear them.

I exited the drive and quietly crept out into the road. "Oi ugly!" I shouted the departing inflected. He quickly turned round to reveal a gaunt looking complexion, old cuts on his face, constricted pupils and blood stained clothes. He gave me a blank, but at the same time sinister stare, followed by a loud ear piercing and blood curdling screech. He then started running towards, waving his arms around like a mad man. I rightly gripped my steak knife, braced myself and prepared to plunge the blade into the infected's skull, but as I took a step back, I stumbled on a large stone, lost my footing and fell to the floor. I gasped in terror, my heart rate increased and the next thing I knew the infected man was lying on top of me trying to take chunks out of my neck. Realising that my steak knife was balancing on the curb out of arm's reach I used both of my hands and did the best I could to push against the infected man's shoulders and keep him as far away from my face as possible. My heart was beating ten to the dozen as I looked up at the undead monstrosity, desperately trying to keep him at arm's length. He was moaning and screeching and rapidly snapping at me face in a rather erratic and vicious way. I grabbed hold of the infected bloke's neck with my right hand and tried to keep him at bay as I desperately tried to reach for the steak knife with my left hand. Sadly, the much needed kitchen utensil was out of reach and I was seriously struggling to stop the infected from tearing chunks of flesh from my neck. As I eagerly pushed against his neck, he was slowly leaning in to take his first bite. I could feel his breath on my face as the edges of his teeth skimmed my skin. "HEEEEELP!!!!" I loudly said. This was it, I thought to myself. This is how I die; mauled to death on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere by an infected security guard. Everything suddenly started going in slow motion. The infected man tilted his head back and opened his mouth wide preparing to give me the lethal bite that would ultimately end my life. I knew there was no use screaming if shouting. Even if the others in the house heard me they wouldn't get to me in time and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't the infected at bay indefinitely. The infected fella had tilted his head back as far as he could and his mouth was open as wide as it could be, preparing him to launch his teeth into my neck  and rip out the flesh. I scrunched up my face, closed my eyes tightly and as I prepared to receive the fatal bite -THUD. With my eyes still closed I felt the infected collapse on top of me. Dazed and slightly confused I realised I was still alive. I slowly opened my eyes, looked at the dead infected's head before and saw a long blade being retrieved from the top of the spinal cord. "I've got a big chopper," a voice cheerfully said. I peered over the infected man's shoulder to see my mysterious saviour. It was Mike. I quickly pushed the undead security guard off me, jumped to my feet and saw Mike before me; covered in blood spatter and with a cheery grin on his face he had large chopper blade in his right hand and a blood covered shovel in the other. There was a young sixteen year old guy behind him who looked a bit nervous, but most importantly and I really mean MOST importantly, he had a baby papouse on his chest with a baby in it. I gasped and froze to the spot as my entire body was consumed in goosebumps. "Well don't just stand there," said Mike, "Come and say hello to your son." My goosebumps intensified and a tear ran down my cheek as I uttered some strange unfathomable sound from my mouth. The younger guy behind Mike had a papouse with Primark and Aldi in them and whilst it was good to know they're OK I was completely focused on Mike and Leo. I walked over to Mike and put my hand on his shoulder. "This is Leo?" I gently said, "This is my son?" Mike smiled and nodded. "I found this small underground power station," said Mike, "That's where I found the kids. They were with Dom." The guy behind Mike gave me a little wave. "That's where Richard was holed up," said Mike. I was completely mesmerised by Leo I know I've seen him before but this felt different. It WAS different. I was now looking at someone who I knew was my son. This was amazing. I'm still on a high right now. I've never had a feeling like this. I'm a Dad. A proper Dad with a baby and everything. "You found him," I said, with a huge smile on my face, "I can't believe you found him." I gently took Leo from Mike and held him with hands. The problem was I wasn't sure how to hold him properly so I ended up holding him at arm's length as if he was a bomb that was about to explode. "What you doing?" said Nike, "Don't hold him like that, hold him properly."  I felt like a baby bird that was learning to fly. "I don't know what to do," I said. Mike showed me how to hold Leo properly. I was a bit nervous and rather useless at first but I got the hang of it. "Can we go inside?" said Dom, "There could be more of those things out here."