28 Days Later: The Aftermath

28 DAYS LATER: THE AFTERMATH - A writer's survival journal. Day 3

(Tue 04/17/2007 08:58pm)

Tuesday April 17th 2007

My God, it's late. It's dark out and the Infected are at the windows pounding and making that disgusting sound they make. It's like high-powered expectorating or something, all mucus and rasp.

GHAAAAGH!

Fucking gross.

As if the Infected weren't enough, I also had Lieb on me, calling constantly with threats and new deadlines. If I was going to get through this, escape the virus and Lieb, I would have to get the job done faster.

I tried to get some news from the outside world, but all I could get on TV was The Hills Have Eyes parts 1 & 2. That bastard Lieb had high-jacked my cable.
 
I had completed the first chapter, the one about what happened inside the lab with Warren, Clive and the monkeys and how the animal rights activists assisted releasing the virus. Way to go animal activists!

Now it was time to tell how the virus spread from the lab in Cambridge to London and across the UK. It was no easy task.

There were holes in what we were being told happened and what actually happened so I had to reach out to a friend, Dave who lived in the UK. Dave Allcock helped me with some horrific tales of his country and how the Infected had and still were overrunning it.

He told me what he could but the phone line went dead in the middle of our chat and I'm afraid I haven't heard from Dave since. Granted, Dave is an artist so disappearing is part of the job, but it's been months and I fear Dave is one of THEM now.

The second story picked up literally hours after the first one stops. This time instead of the lab and the scientists it was time to tell the story of some of the citizens and the horrors they experienced (and continue to experience I hear).

I constructed a story about a family plucked from bits of fact. I had heard about some of the lab apes attacking a small child and thought that would be the perfect, although agonizing, way to depict the horrors of the virus.

I mean, can you imagine watching your family die? Or even worse can you imagine your mom, dad, sister or brother becoming one of the Infected and coming after you.

Some say most people died (became infected) at the hands of loved ones because they couldn't believe they had changed.
 
Well, believe it people. The World is ending and if you see your mom coming at you and her eyes are bleeding red, kill her. Kill her right away. You have no choice. It's the only way we will survive this time in history.

And that in a nutshell was what I attempted to capture in the second chapter; the spread of the infection and the loss of family.

The boards are coming loose again.

I think I'll go up on the roof and throw down some Molotov cocktails to clear my head.

More soon...