Read Online Diaries of the Damned by Alex Laybourne - Free Book Online

situation to happen. Leon said a silent prayer for Abigail, and started moving again. Rolling along slowly, he tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. There was no way he could turn around; he needed to drive the long looping road, which would take him to the front of the school, into the car park. There was no other choice.
    The crowd drew closer, following him like groupies. By the time Leon pulled up in front of the school, the entire populations of the playing field had noticed him and had turned his way. Leon was about to drive away when he saw movement coming from inside the school; from one of the windows on the upper level. He slowed, leaning forward to gaze up at the building. It is probably just one of them, Leon thought. He had scanned the group, looking for his daughter, but out of all of the zombies he had seen, she did not appear to be among them.
    The movement came again, from the window. It was a man, and he was very much alive. Upon seeing the ambulance, the window opened and a white linen sheet appeared.
    “Help us,” the plea was weak, for fear of attracting even more of the undead, but Leon heard it loud and clear.
    For the second time that day, Leon took a dangerous chance. He jumped out of the ambulance and sprinted into the main building, leaving the ambulance running. He closed the door, but doubted the creatures would have the intelligence or the will power to turn away from the prospect of a fresh meal long enough to even try to steal it.
    The heavy front door opened with a struggle, and Leon ran in, tripping into the pile of desks and chairs and that been stacked before the door in a crude attempt at a barricade. There were three dead bodies on the floor; zombies, their heads lined against the opposite wall. Their blood was a thick black jelly that cooled on the heavy natural stone floor. There was a growl at the door, and Leon reacted just in time to slam the door shut, trapping the left hand of the young, newly dead student that was trying to climb through, severing her hand at the base of the finger. What made Leon’s stomach churn most of all was that the fingers continued to squirm on the floor like fat maggots.
    The school building was quiet. The pounding of hungry fists was a constant beat, but Leon already found himself growing numb to it. He walked over and looked through the window. The ambulance was still there. None of the zombies even paid it any mind. There was a group of about five of them by the front door. One girl, who must have been in her final year peered through the window, her nose pressed against the glass. L eon recoiled; tripping backward, falling to the floor.
    “It’s ok, she can’t see you,” a voice whispered, eliciting an even greater start from Leon. “It’s kind of like one way glass. It has a special coat of some sort of paint. You can only see through if you peer hard. Those things just aren ’t that smart,” the voice continued.
    Leon spun around, and saw an elderly man standing in what had, until a few moments earlier, been a closed doorway.
    “Who are you?” Leon asked, picking himself up from the floor.
    “Please, not so loud. If they hear you we are all dead,” the man whispered nervously. He glanced around, as if uncertain whether the coast was clear. Once he was satisfied, he scurried from the hall and quickly led Leon into the darkness of the room, and quietly shut the door behind them.
    The gloom was overwhelming, and Leon began to fear he had made a mistake following the man, when suddenly, the lights went on revealing the full extent of the situation.
    The room was a small classroom, probably one of the private study areas that the older kids used in the build up toward exams. There were three desks, and at a quick count eleven chairs in the room. Leon deduced that they had not all originated from the same place.  A student, several of whom were dirty and bruised, occupied each stool. Only one girl was spotless; she had in fact