Wake Up Dead - an Undead Anthology (18 page)

Daddy killed Sheriff Colman and set fire to him out the back. For some reason, Daddy says it is only right to set fire to the bodies. I don't know why; they stink, and even though the windows are all boarded up it burns my nostrils. I don't think I'll ever be able to smell normal things again.

Mommy has calmed down. She even said sorry to Daddy for being a pain in the ass, and Daddy kissed her and told her that she wasn't a pain in the ass. I think they are back together now, which is good because I need a Mommy and a Daddy, especially with what's going on outside.

Daddy says that he is definitely going to get help tomorrow, or at least find us some food and water. I hope so; we've just sat down to a meal of rice and more rice, which is okay for the first few bites but gets very boring very quickly. Daddy says that it was the last of the rice, which I am not too upset about, but I'll probably wish we had more of it come tomorrow night if Daddy comes back empty-handed.

What if he doesn't come back at all? What if, like Robbie, he just goes missing? I can't take the thought of him leaving us all alone in this prison, with those things outside scratching at the doors, trying to clamber through the windows. I think I may go crazy if ever that happens.

Mommy says that she is going to blow out the candle now, so I am going to try to sleep. Please let me have nice dreams tonight, because the days are filled with nightmares.

Goodnight Diary.

God Bless.

Daddy left early this morning. There were only three wanderers outside, and he managed to dodge them pretty easily. I watched until he disappeared over the fence, and then it dawned on me that I might never see him again. I know that is a terrible thing to be thinking, and I told myself, “Of course you will, Florence. He'll be fine, and he'll come back with enough food to last us the year,” but it didn't help much. I am scared; for my Daddy, and for us.

Mommy is getting some clothes together, just like Daddy told her to. I think we are going to move soon, provided Daddy comes home. Mommy said that we had nowhere else to go, and that we would die as soon as we walked out of the door, but Daddy was having none of it. “Woman, I promise that I will keep us alive,” Daddy said, and I believed him, though I'm not sure Mommy did.

I told Mommy that I didn't need many clothes, that I will wear what I have on now for weeks if it lightens the load, and she told me that I would be filthy dirty by the end of the week and would probably die of something called Dissentree. I wished I knew what all of these long words mean, but from the sounds of it, it's not a very nice thing to die of.

I can hear Mommy crying as she's packing, which I don't think is a very good thing. If one of the wanderers hears her, they'll try to get in, and without Daddy here to fight them off, I don't think we'll have much of a chance.

I think Mommy has gone crazy in the head. I want to hug her, to tell her that everything is going to be okay, but she won't let me anywhere near her. Maybe she's scared of catching the infection, and she's not taking any chances, not even with her own daughter.

I don't blame her.

She's stopped crying now, and she's singing the song about stars that she used to sing to me when I was a little girl. I loved that song, but Mommy is not singing it right. She's adding curse words into it, words that I am not going to write down just in case Daddy ever reads this. I don't like being here alone with Mommy at the moment.

Please, Daddy, return home safe.

Mrs Drewery is outside again, and she looks really terrible. Her teeth are sticking out of her face, which seems to have been chewed off on the right hand side. I wonder who did that to her? Maybe she got attacked by more wanderers. Maybe she got into a fight over food. Whatever it was, she looks like something straight from the bowels of Hell.

She's bumbling around by the old barn, now. I can hear her through the windows, even though they are well boarded up; Daddy left a couple of gaps so that we could see what was happening. “We need to know when the coast is clear,” he said, “otherwise we'd just be running out into them like fools.” He was right; we'd be dead in a few minutes if that happened.

Mrs Drewery – how I wish you were normal and still my teacher – has just tripped up over some chicken-wire, and is struggling to get back to her feet. It looks funny, but I feel like crying. I hate what is happening out there, whatever it is, and I know that things are never going to get back to normal.

Daddy is still gone! It's been almost eight hours now, and I'm awful scared for him. Please Lord, if you do one thing for me, please make sure that my Daddy is okay.

Mommy is asleep in the rocker again. I don't know how she can sleep while those things walk around outside, although she has been drinking today; I saw her at the kitchen table with a big bottle of something. She didn't see me, which is good because I think she would have shouted at me for staring.

Mrs Drewery is up again, and I think she is looking straight at me. I might have to move away from the window in a moment; I don't want to draw any of them towards us. I like Mrs Drewery – or at least I did before half of her face was missing and she looked so ghastly – but I'm scared of her now. She's got what they've got, and what they've got is bad.

If I get it, I think I'd rather be dead, and I don't mean dead like the wanderers, I mean dead like the kind that stops you from walking around.

Yes, Mrs Drewery is walking towards the window now. I have to climb down from the chair and hide. At least Mommy won't be screaming this time.

Oh, Daddy, please come home!

Daddy came home, and he had food and water. I was starving so I ate four pieces of bread and two apples. The funny thing is: I hate apples. The skin always gets stuck in my teeth and I spend hours trying to get it out.

Mommy and Daddy are in the kitchen talking about what Daddy saw while he was gone. I heard Daddy tell Mommy that between our farm and town, he only saw two people alive. Peter Carson was one of them; Daddy said that Peter was in a bad state, but would survive, and that he was awfully upset because the wanderers had managed to get into his house and eat his family. That is terrible, and I will say a prayer for Peter Carson before I go to sleep tonight. The other person that Daddy saw was Molly Westacre, but he said that she would be dead by now as she was missing a leg, and it had already “gone green” whatever that means.

Daddy just told Mommy that the only good thing about what was happening was that he didn't have to pay for any of the things that he brought home. Mommy is laughing now; I think they are both getting drunk. I saw Daddy bring two bottles in with him, which were the same as the one Mommy was drinking from earlier.

Maybe Daddy is just trying to make sure that Mommy sleeps again tonight. Things are better when she is asleep.

Daddy said that he didn't see Robbie while he was gone, which makes me think that my bestest friend is dead after all. I'm sad about that, but I promised myself that I wouldn't cry because it would upset Daddy.

I'm just sitting here now, listening to the talking in the kitchen, and I don't know why I am still writing. What good are the ramblings of a nine year-old girl when there might be nobody left to read them? Not that I ever want anybody to read my nonsense. I think I am keeping this diary, though, for myself; for me to look back on in years to come and laugh out loud at how worried I was, and for no good reason, because in that future – the one where I can read my diary and laugh out loud – everything turns out to be okay.

I'll pray for that tonight, and for Robbie, and for Peter Carson and Molly Westacre.

And for us.

Goodnight Diary.

I woke up this morning to find that Daddy is not feeling too good. I think he might have drank too much, but he says that it is just a fever, and that we should continue to prepare because this afternoon we are going to make a run for it.

I think we are trying to get to Redrock, which seems like an awfully long way to run. I've never run that far before; I hope I don't just keel over and die.

Outside the window I can see only two wanderers, and neither of them are Mrs Drewery. The men are in the middle of the field, looking at each other, and then looking at the sky. To me, it looks as if they have only just noticed the sky, which is really strange because it has always been there. Perhaps the infection has made them forget it, the way it made Mrs Drewery forget that she was supposed to be teaching me how to stitch yesterday when she was by the barn. If it is a forgetful disease, then I definitely don't want to catch it, although I would like to forget the last few days if that was possible.

Mommy is stood at the back door, just staring out. I think she's really scared today. Going out of the farm for the first time since the wanderers arrived is a terrifying thought, but we don't have much of a choice, and Mommy will just have to pull herself together.

Daddy has just told me to make sure that I have everything packed that I need, but I don't really need anything other than him and Mommy.

I am ready to go.

Something is wrong with Daddy. I knew it this morning, but he has gotten worse. His face is white, and he is having trouble breathing. I can tell by his eyes that he is scared, and that scares me.

“I'm just tired,” was his excuse, but Daddy never gets tired. He's having a lie down on the bed now, and I am sitting in the chair next to him. He is sweating, and his hands are shaking, but he is fast asleep. He looks like Robbie does when he is having a bad dream.

Poor Robbie.

I don't think we we'll be going off the farm today after all, and Mommy looks a lot calmer now. “If your Daddy is not well, then he is no good to anybody out there,” she told me as she pointed through the wooden boards on the window. “We're safe in here; they can't get in, and if we're really quiet they'll never find us.”