Free Diaries of the Damned by Alex Laybourne Page A

adult, but outside, surrounded by the undead she was a child.”
    “Listen, um…”
    “Cindy.”
    “Listen, Cindy, those things down there will escape. It might not be today or tomorrow, but one day they will, and they will come for you. Who knows how many more there will be out there waiting for us then. Besides, I am here looking for my daughter, but I won’t leave any of you behind…even you.” He stared at the boy he had struck. “Now, you said there was another group in the science building. How can we get there? What is the easiest way?”
    Nobody spoke, not at first. The idea of leaving the safety of the school did not sit well with them. “You really don’t think those things are going to die?” Cindy asked; her voice changed. If was filled with a vulnerability that could no longer be held beneath the surface.
    “They are already dead. This is all new to me too, but, from everything I have seen, these things are hungry. They don’t care what happens, they just keep going, crawling if they have to. The only way to stop them is by destroying the head, but there are too many of them. We need to leave, and it is not up for discussion. Now how do we get to the science building?”
    Nobody had a chance to answer before the crashing sound of wood splintering came thundering up the stairs. Everybody froze…it did not take long for the screams to start.
    “We’re moving… now, ” Leon ordered. He removed the bonds from the abused girl’s limbs and handed her back her clothes. She was not yet fully dressed, but there was no time to wait.
    “There has to be a back door right?” Leon asked as they swiftly moved down the corridor. The sound of grunts and hungry growls became louder as they reached the stairwell that was on the opposite side to the one Leon and Cindy had used to reach the second floor.
    “Yes, if you go down here and just keep going straight, follow the corridor to the end. Turn…left, yes left, you will come to the side door. You will have to run to the science building though. It’s all outside,” Cindy spoke, her strength slowly beginning to return.
    “Ok ay. Everybody move quickly, stay with me, and be fucking careful!” Leon stopped a few steps short of the first floor. The doors there still held, although the crowd was more agitated than they had been.
    They quickly made their way down the stairs, not listening to the trapped crowd as the scent of blood reached their hunger driven minds. “Don’t look back,” Leon called as the doors began to rattle in their frames.
    “What about the others?” Cindy asked as they reached the first floor.
    “They’re already dead,” Leon stated bluntly.
    Cindy did not need to ask how Leon knew this because their bodies littered the main hallway. A crowd of zombies that had been trapped in one of the ground floor rooms were gathered around a few of them, hands buried deep inside, yanking handfuls of squishy human goodness from the bodies and shoveling it into their hungry maws.
    They moved quietly, even when the sounded of breaking glass echoed down from the floor above. However when the young girl they had rescued from the second floor gave a scream upon seeing what Leon thought to be a liver discarded, and slide along the floor like a bloated slug, they were forced to increase their pace.
    The entire crowd, seven in all, dropped their feast and turned their heads; their minds in overloaded rapture at the prospect of another live meal.
    “Run,” Leon ordered as he took off down the hall.
    The zombies gave chase , but the group was too fast for them. Leon crashed through the door, and out into the fresh winter air. Once everybody was out he closed it, and looked around for something that he could use to halt its continued use.
    ”Right, we need to move. Which way to the science building?” Leon asked.
    Cindy pointed down the correct path and they started off. All but one boy who stood motionless, held in place by a zombie that had come from