Free Diaries of the Damned by Alex Laybourne

startling nonchalance.
    “The flu…” Leon began, pausing to think.
    “Haven’t you seen the news today? They have as good as confirmed that it is the flu. Anybody who dies from the flu, which is everybody, comes back as one of them… a zombie,” the girl explained, mistaking Leon pause in confusion.
    “I heard. I was already at work,” Leon said. “Besides I’m a paramedic; our orders were ‘business as usual’. The only thing was that we had to try and patch people up at home, to not take them to the local hospitals.”
    The second floor of the school was much like the first: shut off at either end by heavy glass doors. The main difference was that the upper level was void of zombies, and looked for some reason or the other as if it had escaped all of the carnage. It looked utterly deserted, but Leon remembered the flag that had had seen come out of the window on the upper floor, so they pushed on.
    “I don’t know where they are, but we heard them calling for help.” The girl, whose name Leon had yet to obtain, spoke as they opened the heavy glass door. There were three doors on either side of the whitewashed corridor, and the scuff marks on the standard school issue vinyl floor showed that central doors were the most often used.
    “I saw something from this room here.” Leon walked to the central door that overlooked the front driveway, and knocked.
    There were sounds of a scuffle inside, followed by a muffled cry. Without waiting, Leon pulled the door open, ready for anything.
    What he found were five boys, all standing in one corner, huddled together. Their faces were etched with an expression of shock; shock at interruption. They stood in the corner, hiding something.
    “What’s going on here?”  Leon asked, looking around the room with suspicion. He saw the white sheet that had been held out of the window, and he saw the bloodstains that dotted it; they were red… fresh. He looked back at the boys; none of them appeared injured. The largest of the group fiddled with the zipper of his trousers. It was a small motion, one that Leon saw out of the corner of his eye, but everything then fell into place.
    Leon strode into the room and pushed the five boys aside. Behind them, cowered in the corner was a girl, a classmate of theirs. She was naked, and had two ties binding her hands and feet. Tears streaked her dirty face, while blood decorated the inside of her thighs.
    Leon turned his face into an expression of pure rage. “There are no words,” he began, his mind consumed by an anger he knew he could not, or rather he would not allow himself, to unleash on children. “Those creatures turned up today, and you are already torturing, abusing… raping.” His voice grew louder with each word, until his words were a bellow.
    “We… we figured, if we are going to die, might as well…” the largest of the group began the smirk on his face still evident. His words were cut short as the fist that Leon could no longer keep from throwing collided with his face.
    Beneath them, they could hear the zombies become agitated once again. “Please, Mr. De Guzman, you need to keep quiet. Those things will rip us apart if we don’t keep quiet,” the girl begged.
    “It’s Leon. Call me Leon,” he told her as he reached out and let the terrified young girl take hold of his hand. “As for you five, you are coming with us, and the first place you will be free of me, is at the police station, or so help me God, I’ll feed your dicks to one of those…things downstairs!” Leon gritted his teeth and spat his words, somehow managing to keep his voice just above a whisper.
    The boys said nothing, not even the leader of the pack, whose bloody face stared at Leon with a fiery contempt.
    “Leon, we can’t get everybody out, that’s not possible,” the girl spoke. “There’s so many of them. We will all die.” The girl had begun to look scared. Within the school, with the zombies locked away she was strong, an