Journal:Rooney
Private Rooney, Commando, Harlow Anti Zombie Squad.
10th October, 23:21.
Beaver Towers, Havercroft Suburb, Malton.
Well, still here, and still not dead again. The rest of the Squad that were here with me have moved on to the new base, a few miles north-east of here. I've volunteered to stay behind for a few days, send on any stragglers, perhaps see if I can pick up a few more recruits. But the people in here with me are what we've come to expect. Terrified, looking out for number one, and ready to plant an axe in your back the moment they think you're a threat. Even the other soldiers here are like that. I don't know what Maltons Barracks was like at training them, but it's all gone to hell. They're as twitchy as the civs, and twice as capable of killing you. You've gotta wonder who's killing the most: the undead, or fucked-up humans.
Sometimes I think we're the only ones that haven't lost our heads. And we aren't even supposed to be here!
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
13th October, 20:30
Crofts Arms, Shore Hills Suburb, Malton.
Made it to our new base, dropping one unlucky Z on the way. Smithatron5000 did a damn good job of barricading this place. Took me some effort to get in, and i'm fit and able, so the Z's should have no chance. If only he'd been this damn hard-working before we took this li'l trip to Hell, he'd have made Officer long ago. Guess it takes some real shit to make some people shine. Looks liked we picked a good place to move out to. The Z's seem much more thinly spread here in Shore Hills, and there's something vaguely reassuring about sheltering in a pub, however stupid that sounds. Reminds me of home. Shame the pumps aren't working. Still a few beers knocking 'round the place though.
I think we may have lost Loius. He's been gone for a while, didn't show up at Beaver Towers before I left, and hasn't been seen here yet. If we can find him, dead or alive, there's a chance to save him. The Necrotech girl we picked up has some weird needle filled with green liquid, and apparently it can bring these Z's back to life. Hell, it worked on me, so it must be good. She's been showing Smithatron5000 how to use them. I should probably get her to show me. After all, if we lose a member of the Squad, i'd rather pump 'em full of green stuff than lead.
Oh well, here's to another day, down among the dead-men.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
19th October, 23:56
Ellison Cinema, Brooksville Suburb, Malton.
Things got messy in the Crofts Arms. According to the Doc, the crazy guy that kept wandering in and out was leading the Z's to us. Shame none of us just shot the guy, put him out of his misery. And out of mine too! Kept going on about 'hamburgers', and I haven't had a decent meal since we arrived here! If I saw him again, I wouldn't hesitate in blasting him. Thanks to him, i've got some nice teeth-shaped scars on my damn arm from having to fight my way through his undead pals to get out of the pub. Still, at least I got some more target practice in.
Had to traipse across the City again to catch up with Smithy and the Doc. They went ahead and secured the new base, here in this cinema. It's not too bad a place to be holed up, I suppose. Although it'd be better if there was more than just this one silent movie left in the whole place.
I think morale's starting to run low with us. We've lost over half the Squad, no-one even knows we're in this hell-hole, there doesn't seem to be any way out, and every time we think we've found somewhere safe, those damn monsters burst in. Smithy and the Doc seem to have taken over leadership, since the Major got smeared in the crash, but they're too busy trying to keep us all alive to really do to much about it. Last thing we need is one of the civvies blowing their brains out in the night, and coming back to eat us...
Although, on the plus side, if we ever make it out of this place, we'll be the meanest bastards around. Living in this dump forces you to hone your skills, or become zombie food. Hell, they could drop us into Iraq, and in a week we'd have Bin Laden begging for the US to ship him off to Camp X-Ray!
Well, my watch is over. Time for some rest.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
22th October, 13:25.
Ellison Cinema, Brooksville Suburb, Malton.
Well this is a first; two journal entries from the same location! Looks like the Doc really came up trumps when he decided to head here. The building to the north of us is a church, and just like all the churches we've seen, all of its doors are gone, torn from the frames, leaving them wide open. Can't quite understand it. Maybe the Z's in the initial outbreak were anti-religious, as well as anti-life! Whatever the reason, it means we can seal up this cinema as tight as we want. All we have to do to get out is take a short jump from the roof across to the church. Something the Z's can't do, as they don't have the agility or co-ordination, or even the brain power to figure out how we're getting in and out.
The local PD seems to have a pretty good supply of ammo left in it, and there's a hospital not too far away, so we're pretty much set-up as far as bullets and bandages are concerned.
I finally talked the NecroTech girl, Katii, into giving me some basic training. She hasn't shown me how to use her Revivification Syringe yet, but she has shown me how to identify concealed Necrotech facilities. Apparently, they're dotted throughout the city, disguised as office blocks, factories - pretty much anything. And now I can spot the little markers they left, for their employees to spot. She's also shown me how to operate a Necrotech DNA Extractor.. i'm a little hazy on what it does, but it's a step in the right direction!
We've got a couple of survivors in here with us now, must've crawled in last night. One's a wet-behind-the-ears soldier from the Malton Barracks, and the other's a Scientist of some sort. The Scientist's been talking about a friend that's in need of being revived, and Smithy seems keen to help... Maybe he's looking to recruit them. God knows, we could do with the help.
Well, i'm off to try and find some food.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
14th November, 22:56.
Ellison Cinema, Brooksville Suburb, Malton.
It's been a while, but there's not been much to write about. We're still trapped in Hell, and still watching the same damn film looping over and bloody over! It wouldn't be so bad, but Smithy seems to be totally loosing his grip on reality... he seems to think this damn silent movie is the best thing in movie history, and is as excited about making runs out for supplies as a kid at Christmas. And as for shooting the Z's... He's hooked, I swear. The Doc hasn't said anything yet, but I see the way he looks at Smithy sometimes. Maybe he's scared to say anything. Hell, sometimes Smithy's behaviour frightens even me. He's really excelled in here, getting tougher, faster, better. Now he's cooked up some crack-brained scheme about becoming a Z, and learning all about them from the other side. As if you can even think straight when you're one of them!
I remember what it was like when I was one of Them. It's just vague memories of hunger, and the taste of blood... It wakes me in the middle of the night sometimes. It's often all I can do not to scream as I wake. I'm not a religious man, but every time I lay down, I pray i'll never be one of them again...
Anyway, before she vanished, I got the NecroTech girl to show me how to finally use that syringe her company makes. I managed to loot two of them from an NT building nearby, and tested one on a slumbering Z. Sure enough, it fell to the floor, and awoke as a human! It's unbelievable! I've held on to the other syringe, just in case.
Kati may have vanished, which doesn't bode well, but we have had some good news. We've picked up a fragmented transmission using our units frequency and Callsign. I've given our location in reply, but as yet, we've had no word that they've understood, or even recieved it. Christ knows what's going on with the radios in this city. We should be able to comfortably contact outside the City limits, even with our inter-squad radios, but all we get is garbled transmissions and static. Almost like the damn Z's are blocking our transmissions.
Well, I think i've scared myself enough for the night, so i'm signing off.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
21st December, 13:20.
A disused Warehouse, Tapton Suburb, Malton.
Things are really starting to get strange in here. Well, stranger than the living dead eating the flesh of their victims in a quarantined city. Smithy just keeps going from strength to strength, and seems almost maniacal in his killing sprees. Sometimes, he'll vanish for days at a time, just wandering the city, blasting anything that moves. More worryingly, he's taken to wearing a Crucifix that he picked up on one of his recent excursions. He's been talking about assembling an army, wiping out the Z's with some huge armed force, and from the way he's talking, it sounds like he'd be leading this army. And that scares me more than all the Z's in this damned city.
Richi seems to have relinquished all claim to command of the unit, not that anything's ever really been formalised regarding who's in charge, but it just fell to the Doc and Smithy, 'cause they took the lead when we were all starting to panic. But now, with Richi taking the back seat, the Squad's being led by a madman, bent of creating some grand army and sweeping the Z's from the streets...
In other news, there's further reason to think that it's all over for this little Private - There've been military choppers sighted over the city. At first we thought they were evac'ing people, but there's been nothing on the radios about any rescues, and all anyone's seen these choppers do is drop supply crates, seemingly at random. Smithy found one a few days back, and it held ammo and armour. I've tried radioing the choppers as they pass ovrehead, but if they're recieving, they're just not listening.
Looks like the people on the outside know we're here - they just don't want to get us out.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
23rd March, 21:52.
Marshment Place PD, Peppardville Suburb, Malton.
Y'know, there was a little while when it looked like things might just turn our alright, in spite of the flesh-eating monsters that are roaming the streets. The 'Squad moved in with a civilian vigilante group call the 'Bellhop Boppers'. Basically, a bunch of hotel staff that got really pissed of at the idea of the Z's mesing up their place. Between us and them, we pretty much cleared up that suburb; Human looters were dealt with, and the place was clear of Z's, except fo the odd few that hadn't caught on yet. We actually spent a reasonably pleasant month or so there. The Boppers kept the Hotel in good shape, and we all slept in real beds, something I know we'd all been missing.
Well, like some wise-fellow once said 'All good things, must come to an end'. And he was right. we all sat down, and it was decided that we'd done all we could here, and we should move to another suburb, leaving the Boppers to look after what we'd achieved. And where were we headed? Fort Creedy.
I don't know if it was a surge of military pride, or just some mis-guided notion that the Fort could be held by a handful of us when an entire garrison couldn't, but whatever, we headed there. We held it for a day or two, with a hundred or so others, that had headed there looking for some kind of sanctuary. We held it, and we killed a bloody lot of Z's. But then it fell. They over-ran us. Most of us were pulled down. The whole damn Fort seemed washed with blood, in a day and night of brutal fighting. The Squad was fragmented, pulled apart in that last desperate fight to defend the Fort.
Since then, i've been on the run. I've had a few scattered contacts on the radio with what I think are some of the other guys, but I don't know who's still alive. If any of 'em. But i'll tell you one thing: If they are alive, I'll find 'em, and if they've been turned, I'll tear apart every Necrotech lab in this damned city to revive them!
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
7th July, 23:09. 2010
Yeriod Bank, East Boundwood Suburb, Malton
Gotta write something down. Gotta remind myself that I'm a Human Being, with a life outside of this place. Got to drive it into my head that there's more to life than this. Otherwise I think I'll loose it in this Hell-hole. Shit, I WILL lose it.
It's been a long time since I wrote anything here. Not that hasn't been plenty to write - I've just been in no state to do it. Reading back through previous entries is like looking at someone else's life. Thinking about my life before the crash is the same. Like something dreamed-up, as if it never happened... no. Focus. Why haven't I written? Been dead, that's why. Yep, those bastard Z's got me again. More than once in fact. After things went bad at Fort Creedy, I eventually found myself in Challenger Crescent Police Department. A group of survivors there patched me up, made me feel at home. I spent months trying to reach the rest of the Squad, but aside from a few brief messages and confused radio chatter, I never heard anything from them. I ended up as part of the "CCPD Family". That's what we called ourselves, the group of twenty or so survivors that called that place home.
We held it, for a long damn time, we held it. We jabbed Z's that waited in the nearby cemetery, raided the hospital for med supplies, and helped out any and all who needed it. Shit, I'd recommend every damn one of those people for medals and solid gold mansions back in the real world! We even stopped the Z's first big unified attack, what they're now calling the "Mall Tour 06". They'd been moving en masse, targeting the malls. They'd all fallen 'til they reached Caiger. At Caiger Mall us survivors rallied. Hundreds of us, against a wave of Z's. It seemed hopeless. But we held 'em. We stopped 'em. Some bright spark even made up badges for those of us that survived. Got one on my armour right now.
Seemed like we'd be alright. But once again, I was wrong. Not more than a few months after we stopped the Tour at Caiger, CCPD fell. They came from nowhere, and started clawing at the doors, the walls, day and night. Again we fought. We called out for assistance, but what little came was to late or not enough. That was the start of me being dead.
Can't recall much until a few weeks ago. Hazy memories. Hunger, pain, confusion. But always fighting Z's, even when I was one of 'em. I never stopped. Probably never will now, until they put me in the ground for good. Far as I can tell, last time I got infected I made it to a cemetery that was marked up as a revive point. Someone stabbed me up with one of wonderful green-filled syringes, and I collapsed. A must have laid there amongst the headstones for months. Possibly years. I was half buried in leaves and corpses when I finally came to. Don't seem to have aged, or suffered any ill effects, physically at least. But the city's changed. It's more feral now. More vicious, if that's possible.
I don't want to be here any more. I've considered... I've considered ending it myself. I've seen others leap from windows. Blow their own brains out. But there's no guarantee I'd stay dead. A day, a week, a month later, I could be back up and shuffling around. And maybe next time I won't care who I bite, who I kill. Maybe next time I won't want to be brought back. And that terrifies me more than any horde of undead.
I don't want to be here any more.
Rooney, Commando, H.A.Z Squad.
