Isaac's Entry #4: On Call

...Jack's phone was ringing. It was now twelve forty-five, and the two boys had been discussing the likelihood of there being an actual attack from the living dead, much to Emily's annoyance. She went into the kitchen of the two boys' bedroom, preparing a cup of tea.

"So, basically we're dealing with the early stages of a type two outbreak here?" Isaac asked, pacing backwards and forwards. "And if we don't prepare ourselves in time, we'd be dealing with an outbreak here in the school?"
Jack nodded. He was flicking through the pages of his notebook, circling out certain areas with a red marker pen. He seemed excited, yet simultaneously worried. 

"We've got te' warn the others. T'e ones t'at are left, I mean." Jack said, his voice firm.
"The ones that are left? But I thought everyone was still here?"
"Several o' the other children 'ave - after t'e funeral t'is morning - been picked up by their parents. They came up wit' excuses like going t' t'e Bahamas and visiting old family relations and whatnot. They're just trying t' get out o' Tunbridge."

"If you two gents are done talking about the living dead, would you care to take a break and actually pick up the bloody phone?" Emily interrupted, her hands on her hips. "It's been ringing for a quite a few minutes now!"

Jack and Isaac looked at each other with confused expressions. Then grinned.

"Oh, right!" Jack snatched up the phone, pressed the little green icon and set it on loudspeaker. "Hello?"
"Hey man, it's me, Matt."
"What's up, mate? You arrived yet?"

"Ayep, I'm here. Look, remember how you told me about the weird things going on at yer school? Yeah, I think the same's goin' on right here in town."
"Wait, are ye' surrounded by the walking dead? Burnt out cars? Something out o' a monster film?"
"Nah, everythin' is just empty. We've only met one woman on the street, tellin' us not to go to the shoppin' centre. Apparently, it's mass chaos there. But the train station was completely deserted. We're kinda hopin' you could tell us what to do?"
"Tunbridge Station is where you're at, yeah?" Isaac asked. He was trying to come up with an idea as to where they could go without encountering too many looters or... worse.
"Yeah, that's right."
"Okay, our school is about thirty minutes from there to here, on foot. You'll want to avoid as much traffic and people in panic. Just follow the main road, without actually going onto it. Do you think you can handle that?"
There was a brief silence at the other end of the phone. Matt's voice then returned.
"Sure, no problem. See y'all around!"
The phone bleeped. Isaac turned to face his friends, his eyes determined. He had a plan.

"We've got to make the correct preparations for this. Emily, see if you can get some of the kids together; we'll make it if we work together. Jack, you stay here and set up some plans for our defence and keep your phone near you in case something happens with Matt. I'll take my walkie-talkie with me and go have a look for the teachers. Something must've happened since they haven't come back for us."
Isaac reached for his personal drawer, bringing out a torch, a walkie-talkie, a chocolate bar and his cadet force tomahawk. Engraved on the side was the marking of a fox's head, a sign of a hunter. Isaac smiled.
"This is too good to be true."

Dawn's Entry #4: Some Kind of a Virus

The street leading up to the station was dead quiet. So dead quiet, Dawn and Matt could hear their own foot steps echo when they came around the corner. They simultaneously turned their heads and shared a look of confusion. Of the three of them, Sage was the first to begin walking. He stuck his snout straight up in the air and followed the sidewalk in a steady pace.The others followed. The streets didn't as so seem abandoned, there were still cars and flashy advertisements and traffic lights; there were just no people. 

"So, Matt, what do you do when you're not, y'know... sleeping on trains?" Dawn giggled and hinted towards the oddly shaped sports bag Matt was carrying. Matt hesitated, squinting his eyes and staring straight ahead. 

"If I tell ya, d'ya promise not to laugh?" Dawn nodded.

"Horses. It's a family thing. We breed 'em an' ride 'em. Well, me and my sisters ride 'em back in Colorado." Matt unzipped his bag and pulled out a meter long, brown leather cat o' nine tails and handed it to Dawn. 

"It's the best thing I got. I brought it along t' show it off, I guess." Dawn turned the whip in her hands, feeling a mix of being both fascinated and intimidated. Matt snatched out of her hands swiftly and put his precious back into its bag. Dawn noticed a faint blush on his face, that kind of blush that revealed that he was a tad embarrassed to be proud of it.

"So you're like a proper cowboy then?" she teased and stuffed her hands in her pockets. 

"Yea, I mean, no!" he muttered, not able to hold back a snicker. All of a sudden, Sage began barking. They both looked up quick as they could to noticed that Sage had spotted a stranger. A middle aged woman carrying a child came walking towards them. She had the look of panic all over her face. 

"Hey, you, excuse me!" Dawn approached her. The woman looked relieved as they came towards her. "Excuse me, do you know what's going on here? Why's everything so quiet? Where did everyone go?" Dawn grabbed onto Sage's collar, making sure he didn't scare the woman or her child. The woman tugged on the child's shoulder to check if he was okay. She then stared at the two with her eyes wide open, her gaze shifting between them. 

"You mean you don't know?" Matt and Dawn looked at each other shortly, Matt shrugged and they looked back at the woman. 

"They're evacuating the entire town. They've already begun driving everyone at the hospital somewhere North, some kind of a virus or an outbreak. They've tried to cover it up in the papers and on the news, I'm not sure what it is but it's turning people into some kind of monsters! The evacuation was announced two hours ago and almost everyone swarmed to the mart to hoard supplies. It's complete chaos! Some just got in their cars and got out of here as fast as they even could. And we're not taking any chances either but I don't have a car, so I was hoping the trains were still running." The woman was rocking back and forth to calm down her child that just woke up. 

"We jus' gon' and come from the station, there ain't nobody up there. We need to be gettin' to to my friend's school. He did tell me somethin' was up too." Matt scratched the back of his head and looked back over his shoulder towards the station. The woman's expression changed to disappointment.

"I think the schools are locking all students up till they are told what to do. If I were you, I wouldn't head towards the mart, anyway. Everything has been torn off the shelves, everyone is just panicking. You'd be lucky if you didn't get torn apart too." She looked into the ground and shuffled and bit back and forth. Sage tugged at Dawn's arm, wanting to carry on walking.

"Thanks for the advise" Dawn smiled at the woman and corrected her heavy bag. "We won't be heading that way then, that's for sure." 

"Take care of yourselves" the woman nodded and walked between the two in the direction they came from. They watched her walk away, both feeling the worry grow in their stomachs. 

"I guess the mart is out of question then. Shouldn't you try and get hold of your friend so we'll know where to go?" Dawn slid the bag off her shoulder and put it on the ground. Sage sat down next to it and stared up at Dawn with a whimper. Matt nodded in agreement. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, dialed Jack's number and put it to his ear. 

"C'mon, Jack, pick it up."

Isaac's Entry #3: Things That Go "Bump"

"W-who in their right mind would do something like this?!" Emily asked, taking a couple of steps closer to the entrance. The sight of the younger girl's mutilated body was repulsive, and it took all of Isaac's courage to  examine the body of the girl.

"The question is not who, but what." Isaac responded, stepping back from the corpse. He then turned to face Emily, his face turning from intrigue to severe.

"We can't have anyone seeing this. " he began, pacing backwards and forwards. "It would be better that the others carry on unknowing of this event until we can figure out what is going on and what to do."

"Agreed." Emily said. Then, turning to face the door, she added: "We should head back. I can hear people outside."

Isaac nodded. He walked towards the dead girl's bed and pulled the upper blanket off, gently laying it over the girl's body.

"Do you know who she is?" he asked, trying hard not to reveal the sadness in his voice.

"Yeah, she's Sarah Jones' sister... Cassie? No, Cassandra... Jones, yeah, that's her name." Emily replied.
"If or when we get the chance, we'll tell Sarah about her sister."

They quietly slipped out of the room, closing the door firmly shut.

Something began moving under the blanket.

***

They reached Isaac and Jack's room a few minutes later. They had noticed the other students getting out of their rooms and into the hallway, tired of having to wait around. People were whispering, sharing gossip or talking about the latest football match between the big teams. Jack's voice was at full volume when Isaac and Emily stepped into the room.

"... that's what I'm telling you, mate! Rumours have been spreading like wildfire! Oh man, this is like something out of a zomb-flick... Yes, call Freddy, 'e'll be sure to do exactly that. I can't believe this, we've been stuck in our rooms all day, and none of the teachers 'ave come up to our dorms to bring us down to supper. Yeah. Yup. Just give me a call when you're 'ere. Cheers, mate." Jack turned around to face Isaac. "So, what did you find?"

"Cassandra, you know, Sarah Jones' sister from the year below us." Isaac said, a hint of sadness in his voice."She's dead."

"Dead? Could that..."

"She had a bite on her neck, does that mean anything to you?" Emily cut in. Jack's eyes widened, a mixture of excitement and horror. He stood up from his chair and began rummaging in his drawers. He pulled out a red notebook, flicked through a few pages and put it on his desk.

"Look." he said simply, signalling to Isaac and Emily to step closer. The notebook displayed numerous drawings, small notes and recent newspaper articles. "I've been keeping up to date the latest news. There have been several cases of missing people all around South England, and occasional reports of dead people being found with bite marks and mutilated organs spilled. The gov' has told the public that most of those people were mauled by rabid dogs, which is strange since we haven't had a case of rabies in the UK for years!" Jack was pacing back and forth now, Isaac listening carefully to his best friend's rambling.
"And there have been no signs of scientific discoveries of cures for chronic diseases and no reports of new influenzas entering the country, therefore I can think of only one conclusion to this..." Jack looked at his friend and gave a confident smile.

"Zombies." 

Dawn's Entry #3: First Encounter

DING. "The train has reached its final destination. Travelers are advised not to leave any luggage unattended." The mechanic voice coming from the outdated speakers echoed in the cart and made Dawn realize that she and the sleeping boy across the mid-aisle were the only passengers left. There were usually a lot of people traveling the same route as her. She pushed Sage off her lap, making him wake up just in time not to fall on the floor, and stood up to look down the aisle and through the windows to the next cart which also seemed oddly empty. Dawn pulled her bagpack out from under the seat, flung it onto her back and approached the door. Looking back over her shoulder, she realized that the announcement hadn't woken up her only fellow passenger. Dawn cleared her throat.
"Ex.. excuse me..." She tugged on the boys shoulder "The train's not gonna go any further." With a snort, he woke up with a slightly confused look in his eyes. "The uhm... it's the end station" Dawn mumbled.
"Right. Uhm. Yeah." The boy took a second to actually wake up and remember where he was and where he was going. He got up from his seat and swung his red sports bag over his shoulder. "Thanks for waking me up. Wouldn't have wanted to go all the way back again, right?" he laughed. For some reason Dawn couldn't initially figure out, the boy seemed quite out of place. They both got off the train to step out on a completely deserted train station. Not even the train contuctor was in sight. In slight confusion the two kids simply stood and stared for a moment. The silence seemed so loud, Dawn thought.
"Where the hell is everyone? I knew England wasn't going to be a massive kick but this is just retarded," the boy suddenly broke the silence, when Dawn realized what made him seem out of place - he was American.
"My brother is supposed to be here to pick my up. But he hasn't picked up any of my calls," Dawn contributed. The boy turned the shade of his cap backwards and pondered for a bit. Dawn was unsure if he had even heard what she had said.
 "Well..." he said "this is ridiculous. I'm only here visiting. Do you know where there's a mart or a store or somethin'?" Dawn had to think for a bit.
"It's been some time since I've been here too. I'll remember when I get a little closer to downtown. You can tag along if you want to," she suggested, hoping to at least have some company while trying to get to the bottom of what seemed the the sudden disappearence of the most of the population.
"Sure thing," the boy replied and reached out his hand for her to shake "Matt." She grabbed his hand firmly.
"Dawn. And this is Sage."

Isaac's Entry #2: Blood On The Ceiling

"Hey, watch where you're throwing that ordnance." Isaac said, barely avoiding the Molotov thrown by Jack. They had both spent the rest of the day in their dormitory, playing the latest edition of the popular survival and horror game, Survivors 2. Isaac's character was running through the ruined streets of Moscow, shooting every super mutant on sight. There was a sudden explosion. There was a flash on his Heads Up Display, and Isaac noticed that his Vito-Meter was a sea of red lights. He would need several health packs, and possibly some sort of support for his leg. His character was suddenly yanked by the collar and dragged into cover.

"Come on mate," Jack said, putting on a large grin. "You can't have me saving your arse every time you're caught by a Mutie."

"Says the one who always runs out of  ammunition and health packs!" Isaac retorted, laughing.
The door knocked. Before Isaac could get up and answer, it swung wide open. It was Emily, her hair in a large, curly mess, panting heavily and looking distressed. She grabbed Isaac by the hand, tugging him out of the door.
"Isaac! Please! You have to come! Now!" Tears were rolling down her cheeks, quickly drying out and leaving salty marks. Without hesitating, Isaac grabbed his coat and followed her down the school's long corridors. Without the usual bustling of students, the whole school seemed as if it were completely deserted.

The room reeked of an odour that made Isaac want to throw up, right then and there. There was blood on the floor, on the walls, turning the otherwise white and blue room into a dark red colour. In the corner lay the body of one of Isaac's classmates, her intestines spilling out and her face frozen in a never-ending scream.
"S-so when d-did you f-find her?" Isaac asked, his voice trembling. He accidentally placed his hand on some stained blood, and felt a little more nauseous.
"About five m-minutes ago." Emily said, leaning against Isaac to keep herself upright.
"Did you get hold of any of the teachers?"
"I tried, but I didn't find anyone in the teacher's lounge."
Isaac examined the body of his classmate. From his many lessons in human anatomy in biology, he could see that the blood on the corpse was no less than a few hours old.
"She has a bite. Right there, on the neck."

Dawn's Entry #2: Connections

Hills covered in fields were passing by and she hadn't seen anything else for the last hour and a half. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Green. Sage's head was resting in her lap, heavy as a rock. Dawn had been close to dozing off when a loud voice distorted her half-sleep. A boy across the mid-aisle was talking loudly on his phone, yet not many people seemed to mind his obnoxiousness.
"Gone? What do you mean 'gone', like it just wasn't in the coffin or what? ... Dude ... Bet there's complete bloody mayhem at the school or what? ... But what if-- yeah, exactly! But do you really think that's possi-- ... I know! I wonder if it's happened other places too. I'll call Fr-- yeah, I'll call Freddy and let him know too, he'll go nuts for sure. ... Yeah ... Really? ... Okay ... Well, call me if you find out something more, I don't know when I'll be there, the train was r-- yeah, it was really late. ... All right ... Bye!" The boy hung up the phone returned to whatever was going on on his laptop. Very carefully, in order to avoid waking up Sage, Dawn pulled out her phone from her pocket to check the time. The train ride offered a max of 15 minutes left before arriving in Tonbridge for the first time in ages. Suddenly Dawn realized that she had not yet called her brother to inform him about the train's delay. She looked at the time again. The train was supposed to have arrived half an hour ago. Why hadn't he called her? She dialed his number and put the phone to her ear. One boop. Two boops. Three boops. Four boops. Five boops. And then a mechanic sounding female voice spoke:
"You have reached the phone of" - followed by a scratchy recording - "... Asbjørn..." - "The recipient is currently unavailable.  Please leave a message after the tone. BLEEP." Dawn cleared her throat. She wasn't used to leaving him messages as he would usually pick up.
"Hey B. I, uhm... The train is late. So I won't be at the station before, like, y'know. I'll be there in 15 minutes, I think. Just... in case you were wondering why I wasn't there yet. Anyways, uhm, yeah. See you in a bit. Bye." Dawn hung up. She was making up several different scenarios in her head as to why her brother was not picking up the phone. Trying to shake it off, she stuffed the phone back in her pocket, accidentally waking up Sage. He let out a little whining sound and stared up at her with a concerned look on his face.

Isaac's Entry #1: An Early Mourning

It was raining outside. As always. Isaac was wearing a black uniform, a special school uniform that was only to be worn whenever a fellow student or teacher had passed away. Isaac felt uncomfortable wearing the uniform. It clung to his neck like a noose, forcing him to loosen his tie to get some of the "fresh" air from the men's bathroom. He faced the mirror, staring into his own brown eyes, his smart, short hair and slightly pale look. His scar that went across his left cheek. He sighed. The sudden death of his history teacher, Mr. Allistair, wasn't a big surprise, but the fact that the other teachers described Mr. Allistair's death as being attacked by a pack of ravenous dogs brought suspicious thoughts to Isaac's mind. Most of the dogs in Tunbridge were domesticated, and the area around Tunbridge wasn't notorious for it's wildlife either.

"You a'right mate?" said Jack. Jack had always been there for Isaac. During Isaac's first years at Tunbridge School for Educated Youngsters, Isaac got into many fights with the older and much stronger boys who bullied Isaac's classmates. Among these classmates was Jack.

"Yeah," Isaac said, straightening his tie. "I just feel like I'm being strangled. It might as well be me in that bloody casket today."

Jack laughed. So maybe this Friday wasn't going to be so awful as they had thought. He had his mate with him, and the rest of the day's lessons were cancelled. And today was the day that he was going to ask Emily out to the School Ball.

An hour later both of them were standing in the school church, surrounded by seven hundred other students of all ages. Isaac spotted Emily from where he was standing. Her gorgeous blue eyes caught his, a small smile on her lips. Isaac was about to give his most charming smile back, when the church doors opened with a boom and a yell from one of the teachers:
"The body! The body's gone!" the teacher shouted frantically, waving her arms about. "Mr. Allistair's body has vanished!"

Voices sprang up like wildfire. All over the room students were talking amongst each other. Isaac stared at Jack. There could only be two reasons why the body was gone, and the first one was more likely than the other. Mr. Allistair had returned from the dead. Question was, where was Mr. Allistair now?

"SILENCE! ALL OF YOU, SILENCE!" the Headmaster shouted. "Go back to your dormitories, immediately!"

Isaac tried to look for Emily, but was whisked away by the stream of students and teachers leaving the church before he could find her.