Jack's Diary - You've Been Warned - Day 64

(I know the next entry is going to sound crazy and I wouldn’t blame you for not believing me, but I’m telling you this happened. Read at your own risk.)

            I spent most of the next day lying on my bed in a dreamless solitude. I wasn’t tired or even hungry for that matter; I just didn’t feel like living. It was safe to say that I wasn’t getting over my depression so easily. It was more than the arm though. There was something more to my life that was bringing this sadness to the surface, something I’d been avoiding. I didn’t know what the problem was yet.

            With a knock on my door, I opened my eyes to see someone at my door. Ann came into the room. I hadn’t seen her since we returned to the base. She was carry a box filled with stuff. I quickly straighten up when she placed the box next to me on the bed and sat down.

            “I thought you could use some cheering up,” she said with a smile. She dumped out a portion of the box onto the bed. They were children’s toys: paddle balls, slinklies, small cars and trucks, Barbie dolls (wasn’t interested), and little plastic mazes with tiny silver balls in them among other stuff. They were objects I hadn’t seen or touched in years (I guess she stole them off the kids).

            “Do you like paddle ball?” she asked picking it and successfully hit the ball against the paddle 80 times without missing. I tried as well, making it to 20 before the ball smacked me in the face. Ann laughed and I guess I did as well. We went through nearly all the toys, laughing and taunting each other when one of us was better than the other. We were both acting like kids. I’ve never had the luxury or freedom to do so up until this point where I was both safe and didn’t care at all if I died. After we were done, she asked me if I was a good writer. She pulled out a story she’d been writing; 142 pages (I have no idea when she wrote this. Either she wrote it when she got back to base or she’s more private and secretive about her writing than I am). She read me parts of it, stopping to ask about her choice of descriptive adjectives. From what I could tell, the story was about a traveller in a dangerous world where there is an unbalance in everything. Mountains jut out suddenly from flat plains, large trees grow from larger trees like branches, dogs and cats dig their way from underground to the upper world, where they are either worshipped or despised. Both reason and reality were twisted yet it all made sense when seen as a whole. The traveller had a duality about him or her (it doesn’t indicate gender. Only the name traveller); the traveller has the power to bring life or to cause death, but he or she does not see this. The traveller is blind and therefore is unaware of the powers that are being unleashed on the world. We were near the end of the story when we both fell asleep. The traveller had decided to stop his journey for a time and had to decide whether he wanted to keep moving forward or turn around. Ann fell asleep, lying on the bed next to me with her back on my left shoulder. I didn’t care; I couldn’t feel a thing. I thought it was nice of her to try and make me feel better. She’d always been kind and understanding (if not a little stupid sometimes). There weren’t many people in the world like her anymore.

            The next thing I remember, an extremely loud sound of cracking wood came from outside. Both Ann and I jumped up in fright. I looked out the window and saw that part of the front wall had been broken in and soulless were rushing through the opening like bees out of a beehive. The nearby men killed a few, but there were too many and the men were quickly overpowered. These soulless seemed even faster and more vicious than usual. I saw this place as a sanctuary, that’s why I wanted to get back to this base so bad. I should’ve known better than to let my guard down or to place faith in anything, but myself after the first time this happened; when enemies sneak in, walls don’t try and stop them. Walls break or get built to break and age again. I am fool for accepting this peaceful illusion.

            I waste no time when I realized what was happening. I looked away and went to grab my equipment when I realized Ann wasn’t in the room anymore. I thought she might have run to warn anyone still sleeping. I didn’t know if we could save the base, but I had to try. I gathered my equipment and headed outside (one arm was better than nothing). I was instantly greeted by three soulless, which I dodged and shot at point blank range (my aim and coordination was decent compared to how bad it was before). Around me, chaos rushed and moved just as fast as the soulless. A number of survivors were using guns (some of them using heavy machine guns, which were power, but forced them to stay in one place) Those who weren’t lucky enough to have a gun or to be near one rushed to the artillery shed, ran and hid in buildings and behind people or used whatever was nearby to defend themselves. The sound of bullets mixed with the screams and yells of the men and women either screaming in terror or slowly dying. The ground was already littered with bodies, both friend and foe and the air smelled of a thin smoke. I saw men and women get tackled to the ground and reach out their hands in vain as the soulless surrounded them and began frantically feasting on their still-living bodies. I even saw a man running away who had part of his face missing.

            One thing that should be noted about the situation; I didn’t see anyone trying to get away. Although people ran away in terror, they’d often grab a weapon and turn around to face the danger. No one tried to jump the fence or leave. This is how I felt it should have been. Everyone defending their home. At least, that’s how I thought I should have been before. I saw Moses in the distance manning his own gun turret on the back of a armored truck while someone else drove it. They were running over and gunning down enemies in large numbers until three large soulless with blade arms jumped in front of the truck. The truck crashed into them, crushing two out of three. The last one broke through the window shield and pulled the driver out, slicing clean through him at the waist and began eating his entrails. Moses continued to gun afterward even as soulless were mere inches away from his face. For as much effort and bravery as he put up, the gunfire still stopped; I could no longer see or hear him under the pile of soulless.

            I ran around the base looking for Mike and the others. I couldn’t do much in the way of combat right now so trying to help out the others would be near useless. I felt it was my duty to protect Mike and his friends (my friends), even if it meant me losing my life. Getting around turned out to be easier than I expected. For some odd reason, the soulless weren’t interested in me. A few would attack me and I’d take care of them, but many were running passed me, like they didn’t even see me. Even the men and women who were still fighting were too busy to notice me. Every wounded and suffering man and woman noticed me though as they begged for me to save them or to end their suffering. It was ironic; the same guns and the same screams that everyone was using to save the base or themselves was drawing the attention of more and more soulless. It was then that I started to question my resolve about fighting for the base and it was one in the multitude of screams that I heard since I had woken up that I heard Jess’ voice. I frantically looked around, looking at the faces, clean and ugly, and the bodies laying on the ground until I found her; she was trying to crawl out from a pile of soulless that were eating her. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she clawed at the Earth, yelling out to me in desperation, “Please help me!” I saw old memories, memories of Jane as they dragged her back into the gathering of soulless, but now Jess firmly took Jane’s place as her face of terror overpowered the old memory, bringing tears to my eyes as well. All I could do was look away; had I stared any longer, I don’t think I could’ve moved on.

            Not long after, I saw two men on top of a building; it was Victor and Brian. They both had grenade launchers and were using them wisely, taking out large gatherings of soulless. I began to make my way over to them when the door to the roof broke open and soulless ran at them. The soulless came at the men in such a rush, they ended up pushing themselves along with Victor and Brian off the roof before Victor and Brian had a chance to react. The impact of the fall killed them. I still wanted to check on them; at the time, I thought they could’ve survived the fall. I made my way over and knelt down to check on Victor to find his skull broken open, grey matter and blood leaking out onto the bone fragments. I proceeded to check Brian when some soulless were running toward me, probably to feast on their bodies. I raised my gun to shoot them, but my left arm began intensely hurting again, making the ability to aim a gun nearly impossible. The gun fell out of my hand with the soulless only a few yards away. I did the only thing I could think to do with the now limited mobility I had because of the pain; I’d seen them pounce at their victims when they ran as soon as they were within jumping range so as soon as their feet left the ground, I dove and rolled under them. They missed and quickly turned back (I guess, at the time, I really didn’t think about what to do next). It was then that they were gunned down from behind in a mere matter of seconds. Walking overtop the bodies came Mike and Julie.

            “Come on! We have to go!” he yelled. Julie helped me up and Mike led the way with his large machine gun to what I could only assume was a way out. We were getting closer and closer to the base wall and more and more soulless just kept coming. Mike gunned all of them down, sometimes having to kick a few away while reloading. The sound of gunfire decreased with every passing moment. Man after man fell to the surge of soulless and the number of soulless just kept increasing.

The base was doomed. It was now about surviving.

            We reached the wall and Mike told Julie to stand on his hands so he could boost her up over the wall. She did so when suddenly, a sword burst through the wall where Julie was, ripping through her chest and protruding out her back before she could make it over. Mike reeled backwards in shock staring at Julie’s body hanging on the large grotesque sword, dropping the machine gun. She gasped for breath violently while the rest of her body was completely motionless (probably due to shock). The sword retracted and Julie’s body fell to the ground. Mike ran over to her. I knew we were going to get attacked by more soulless so I picked up the machine gun, positioned it between my right leg and one good arm, and started shooting at the soulless approaching us. I didn’t look back to see what was happening, but I heard coughing as well as a faint whispering of some kind, like “this can’t be real. This can’t be real…”

            “Mike! Get up now! Come on!”

            Within a few moments, he came back to my side and drew the rifle on his back, and began shooting as well. We were keeping them at bay at the moment though I knew we’d run out of ammo soon. The soulless numbers never decreased; they just kept growing, growing to the point where the place looked like an audience for a death metal band. It wouldn’t be long before the base was completely packed with soulless. Suddenly, I heard the now familiar sound of cracking again. I looked back to see the base wall falling forward. I jumped out of the way, dodging it, but Mike didn’t. The wall was at least a half-foot thick so it was extremely heavy.  The soulless that had killed Julie had broken the wall down as well. In an instant, I fired on the soulless and it fell over, but the situation was the same. Mike was stuck under the wall, extremely injured. I can’t stop to try and lift the wall up or else the soulless would kill me. I continued to shoot the oncoming soulless until I realized that the soulless were now coming through the new opening. One nearly got me.

            Mike struggled the whole time to get out. He was coughing up blood. It even looked like he tried to get ahold of his rifle to help out, but it was jammed underneath him. “Help… me…” he said faintly just as the clip in the machine gun was going to run out. Even among the snarls, stomping, and gunfire, I heard the words so clearly and I still do. I wanted to save him. I at least wanted to put him out of his misery, but the machinegun ran out of bullets. I ran away, following the base wall, hoping to find a door or maybe an escape hatch. I never looked back. My athletic skills were good, but I was barely staying ahead of the soulless. That’s when I saw Ann. Far off, I could see her standing by the base wall, looking at me curiously. She jumped up and climbed over the wall. I didn’t know where she thought she was going. I thought the outside was probably crawling with soulless as well. Still, she was the last one of my friends left so I followed, barely being able to grab the top of the fence and pull myself over (with one arm).

            The impact of the fall over the fence was nothing compared to the guilt I felt. I could’ve saved them had I been better. I could’ve saved Mike if I’d stay. I’m a hypocrite and coward. I expected a group of soulless to approach me at any moment. After a minute of nothing happening, I realized there was silence. No gunshots, no chewing sounds, nothing at all; not even a faint chirping of birds or a light breeze. Everything was silent. I looked up, expected a much different picture than what I was greeted with; in the forest around me hung bodies. Tree branches pierced through some bodies while others hung by rope like piñatas. The bodies were rotten and decomposing. It was one of the weirdest sights I’d ever seen. There was no movement at all. No soulless coming to attack me and no survivors or Ann. I couldn’t even tell if the bodies were soulless or human at one point in their lives; they were all grey, green, brown, and white. What shocked me even more was the vast number of them. Every tree I could see for yards and yards had bodies hanging from them. It was a disturbing sight that would definitely work well for Halloween. Strangely, although I couldn’t tell who they were, they seemed familiar. I wandered around when I suddenly saw Ann run passed a tree. I called to her, but there was no response. I ran after her, but found myself unable to catch her. This went on for a few minutes before my pursuit took me out of the forest, down a large hill and into a city. The city was empty as well. At least there weren’t any bodies hanging around. Suddenly, I heard Ann’s voice. It was much louder and firm then I recalled.

            “What are you thinking now?” asked Ann?

            “Where are you?”

            “What are you thinking now?” she asked again.

            “I’m thinking why are you hiding?”

            “Not a bad question, but how about this one: does any of this seem familiar to you?”

            “What do mean? Ann, stop this! Stop hiding!”

            “Really? Nothing? It reminds me of what happened to your old base.”

            “My old base?”

            “Yah, the Hill; the one that was overrun by soulless. I’d say today was just like it, if not a little more ironic.”

            There’s no way Ann could’ve known that. The only person I mentioned the name of my previous base to was Lexi and she died before Ann met her.

            “How… did you know about that?”

            “You are quite a writer at times, Jack. The way you describe your surroundings and express the truth of human nature makes me envious of your writing skills.”

            “You’ve been reading my journal?! Why?”

            “Curiosity. It’s funny. Your life is full of irony really. Anyone you try and protect always ends up dying and when the time comes for you to die for your base, you run with your tail between your legs.”

            “There was nothing I could do. Besides, I was following you.”

            “That’s right. Another irony. To think, the one and only person you personally let into the group was me. You’re usually such a good judge of character. I suppose we all make mistakes.”

            “And what’s so bad about you?”

            Ann laughed playfully.

            “Oh, Jack. You’re so stupid. Do you think all those soulless gathered at the base on their own? I brought them. And your arm, well, that was one of the most delightful of my projects.”

            She sounded devious and insane. If what she’s saying is true, then my suspicions were right before.

            “What did you do to my arm?”

            “Oh, I can’t reveal all my secrets. Instead, let me fix it.”

            Suddenly, an arm wrapped around my waist and another one grabbed below my armpit near where the cut was. There was no time to struggle; I felt a small intense pinch in my arm and within a second, I felt myself being kicked to the ground. Instinctually, I went to grab a knife when I realized I grabbed it with my left arm. It was perfectly fine. I looked back and Ann stood indifferent to me, as if this was an everyday event.

            She wasted no time, “I’ve been watching you for a long time. Long before you met Mike and his stupid friends. I’ve seen you go from a man who killed when it was only necessary to where death is your go to answer. You remind me so much of myself and yet you still cling to an abstract moral code that even you question. You’re capable of so much more than merely surviving and looking after the human mongrels you care so much about.”

            “I don’t have much of a choice now. You killed them all and now I’m going to kill you!”

            “Aren’t you being a little hypocritical? You’ve killed hundreds of people, all of who had families and friends. Just like the ones you protect. Why are they important? What makes them better than those you killed?”

            I came at her with the knife, but she sidestepped me and grabbed my arm. She didn’t even have to bend it; all she did was squeeze extremely hard and I am sure I felt something break (the crack was as loud as the broken walls). I screamed in pain.

            “It was fun to meet you close up. You learn so much about someone through first hand interaction. I could kill you, but like any child with a magnifying glass, I love to watch the weak suffer. The fear on your face when you realized your arm was useless was exciting. There’s a powerful feeling in making others feel powerless. It was almost as exciting as watching your battles. So much blood!” she said with excitement, “But I think I should be going. A show is only good when you get to sit and relax during its performance; being a part of it isn’t as much fun.”

            I quickly threw a knife, only to have her catch it. I stood up, drawing another knife and approached her. I prepared to stab her when she used the knife I threw before to slice open my chest and gab her hand inside. It was such a strange, fearful, and shocking experience that I couldn’t move. She pushed her hand under my rib cage and grabbed my heart and started squeezing it. The fear was 10 times worse than the pain.

            “What… what the hell are you?!” I asked, almost pleading.

            Her skin began to change to a pale color as it developed wrinkles and scars. Her eyes became darker and the air around her changed to a dark mist. Everything else began to look red.

 “I am no one. To you, I’m Ann, but you can call me…,” her voice changed to a sinister, loud tone, “the Devil!”

            Suddenly, I woke up. It was still nighttime. I was back in my room laying onto of my bed and everything was quiet. It was all a dream… or so I thought. Ann wasn’t in bed with me so I figured she went back to her room. When I pulled up the covers, I found blood on the mattress cover. It wasn’t mine. Upon further inspection, the blood reached down the bed for five feet (which was about how tall Ann was). The place where the blood had soaked in was exactly where Ann had been laying (it even had a slight outline of her body). I thought she could’ve been hiding in the room so I looked around. That’s when I noticed the red handprints and footprints on the walls and ceiling, as if some had been crawling across them. They led to the window, which was open. There was no one outside and the base was still intact. Another thing I didn’t notice; I could move my left arm again. It was completely fine.

            At this point, I thought that this might all be a joke or something. My mind couldn’t accept what was going on. It was a dream involving Ann being a traitor (and maybe something even worse). I wake up to find blood places where it shouldn’t be. I thought that Ann may have had her period or something, but it didn’t explain the prints. I even found one on my face when I looked in the mirror (it was as if it was cradling my cheek). You may wonder how I was able to remember that dream so well. Truth is I didn’t have to. Next to my bed on the nightstand was a collection of papers that described every detail. What was stranger, it was written in blood and in my handwriting. My last question was partially answered; my right index fingernail had been cut out in the shape of a fountain pen, meaning that I could’ve written; yet I don’t remember doing so. At this last realization, I rushed to Ann room to find it empty. I searched all around the base and she wasn’t there. Was it a dream or a message? Was it a prediction? It was a frightening thought that I didn’t want think. Not only this, Mike wasn’t here and neither was Julie. Please do not let this be real. I closed the window and I haven’t been to sleep since (not easy to sleep when you think someone’s watching you). I’m waiting until morning and if they don’t return, I’m going to look for them. One thing is for certain. I’m not telling anyone about this. They’ll think I’m crazy! And they might be right!

- Jack's Diary