Frontline-Z

The documentation of a teenager conscripted to fight in the ongoing war across Europe; against the hordes of undead.

 

 

FRONTLINE-Z

 

A STORY BY SCOTT SPURLING

 

 

Introduction

“Putting them down isn’t the hard part, I must have shot at least a thousand already. It’s the times when you see the person next to you; a good friend or someone you’ve been fighting alongside for a long period of time… the hard part is seeing them die, watching them get back up and then pulling the trigger, killing them once again. I can see myself slowly losing all emotion, just becoming a machine that kills and repels the undead all day. But what does that make me, when you lose all human emotion and just go with what you know… Your instinct? Although we are fighting zombies, I can’t help but think amid all the chaos, while losing all emotion and saneness, that I am slowly becoming a different kind of zombie myself; going with my instinct and knowing only to kill…” Quote taken from First Lieutenant John Craddock, two weeks after the siege of Paris.

When the pandemic reached England, four months after the first attack, over seventy five percent of the world’s population had been infected. In the Beginning, nobody wanted to accept the fact that what we were facing here were Zombies. Scientists tried to come up with some sort of explanation or justifiable conclusion, but the answer would always be the same, Zombies. Now, there were people like me, who instead of sitting around wondering whether this was some form of Zombie apocalypse, took action on the basis of what I had already seen or heard, and there were the people who spent the last months of their lives ignoring the signs of what was to come. It could be perceived as quite stupid, but I knew what to do because of what I had seen in various zombie movies or games. Of course I knew this wasn’t some game, I knew this was real and I knew that if I were to come into contact with a Zombie I most likely wouldn’t have been able to kill one let alone thousands, I was an unarmed eighteen year old with too much to lose. But many people were expecting this, and had already prepared for the worst. After seeing the first news headlines of what began as small incidents in Russia, I think everyone that were expecting something like this had already came to their own personal conclusion of what was going on. Everyone had their own plans on what they were going to do, some people brought weapons and decided they were going to fight, others left their homes and countries in hope of finding refuge. The truth was that nobody on this planet was safe; the virus had spread to all corners of the globe. I had already made up my mind of course, I was going to stick by my family until the end, protecting them in any way I could. What I didn’t know is that although I carried on protecting my family and country, it would be done overseas across Europe, in a long, bloody war of the remnants of mankind against the Undead. After being conscripted at the age of eighteen by the military, among millions of others, I fought with humanity to retake what we had lost over the previous six months of the Zombie invasion. Over that period, I documented the events of my experience in the war, and eventually gathered all of the documents together to form this book. This is for my family, to those who I thought about every second while in Europe fighting the undead. I want you all to know I never lost hope…

This book is dedicated to the soldiers that I fought alongside against the hordes of undead, who lived and died within a nightmare to see that the last remnants of Humanity were being protected and guarded from the ever increasing chance of extinction.

 

FRONTLINE-Z

Definition of “Zombie”: A corpse that is re-animated by some unknown source, knowing only to feed on fresh human flesh, spreading the disease and stopping only when there is no longer anything left to feed on…

1

Since a young age I’d always wanted to join the army. There was something about it that always fascinated me, the idea of protecting your country and having an impact on the future of the world. Well, when I say having an impact I mean being involved in the changing course of history… doing all of the dirty work for those corrupt government agencies that we so happily rely on to keep the world spinning. These days you don’t know who to trust, living in a society where you can’t even put your faith in the global leaders to protect the interests and affairs of every day civilians. That’s why I never joined the Army; I believed the war we were fighting at the time was for the wrong cause. Our military where out in Afghanistan, fighting Al Qaida or something, but from what I had gathered there would obviously be more to a war than just heading over to the country to kill a few angry men with guns. Or maybe I was wrong? Maybe we were literally just there to kill a few angry men with guns, which was the point… I’d like to have known why I’d be sent to a country armed to the teeth. As you can see, I tended to be quite close minded on certain situations, if I thought the cause wasn’t right, I just wouldn’t accept any other concept or side to anything.

 

So yeah, that’s why I never joined the army, because of my closed mindedness and stubbornness. Those reasons and my ever increasing protective mum. Ever since I was little my mum would always try to distract me from ever getting the idea of joining the army, she would say I could do better or not to waste my natural knowledge. When my dad sent me to the local army cadets she flipped. I carried on going though; I enjoyed the sense of being part of a group and slowly rising up within the ranks, I was a pretty competitive person back then. During that time, I become influenced by a lot of bad stuff, drugs, alcohol, girls and parties, anything a typical popular teenager would be involved in. It was only when I turned Seventeen that I decided to make a change, leaving the gang I was involved in and enrolling at a college studying music. For about 3 years I was a cadet, but then decided I’d had enough and began trying to focus on gaining qualifications to eventually start a career. In the year of 2013 I turned eighteen, and although I was still quite young I had already started to build a life for myself. It felt good to know what I wanted for once; things were looking up for the first time in a while, but in my experience the good times always came to an abrupt, miserable end. The first news of the Outbreak came without warning, several news reports on national television followed by a sudden boost in online traffic. Things were kept quiet at first, it became clear that the public weren’t being told everything about the rising situation over in Russia, but then again, if people had a clue so early on about what was heading our way society would have crumbled. The government needed a way to keep the peace and control, but over the course of the first week the devastating truth unfolded, creating chaos and panic. Unfortunately for me, I got caught up right in the middle of it…

“Morning Scott” A cute, quiet little voice called from the front room. She must have heard me coming down the stairs; I did tend to rush down a little too loud first thing in the morning. Peeking my head around the corner, I saw my little sister sat nicely on the sofa, eating her breakfast while watching one of her favourite programs on her iPad. “Good morning princess!” I replied smiling, buttoning up the last few buttons on my shirt. She smiled back, not taking her eyes off the screen. “You and that IPad! You spend all day on that thing...” I continued, expecting one of her cheeky, cocky replies. Ebony turned around, eyebrows tilted. “I spend all day at school, Scott!” She gave me her cheeky grin, which always put a smile on my face. I enjoyed morning’s the most, Waking up to see my mum and two sisters, hugging Ebony goodbye before she went to school. Most days I’d work from ten in the morning till about nine at night, so whenever I’d get home my little sisters would usually be fast asleep, which sucked. Sometimes Ebony would stay awake just so she’d get to say goodnight to me, which I thought was cute and a nice thing to come back to. It’s what got me through the days, knowing I had two little sisters to come home too, excited to see me and to tell me about their day. Well, my other little sister Kadi, she was still a baby, so she would just jump about in excitement if she were to hear my voice call out upon arriving home. Checking my phone, it read eight thirty. I still had half an hour before I needed to head to the bus stop around the corner, so I decided to go and make myself some breakfast. Heading into the dining room, my mum was in the kitchen pushing a load of clothes in the washing machine. “Alright Darling, how you feeling?” She said, closing the washing machines door and switching it on. “I’m not bad thanks, had a pretty crappy night’s sleep though” I walked on past my mum, grabbing the nearby bread and putting a few pieces into the toaster. “Why’s that though Scott?” She asked grinning, giving me the look she gave if I ever made it seem as if my life were so hard. I laughed, knowing what she meant by it. “I started watching one episode, then another, and just carried on till about three in the morning…” I leaned past my mum, opening the fridge door and grabbing the butter from inside. “Exactly, and you can’t keep doing that with the hours you’re working now! It’s not healthy!” She yelled her voice fading as she left the kitchen and headed into the front room.

 I peered out of the window, it was quite a nice day outside, the sky was blue, hardly any clouds. Which was nice for a change, this part of England barely ever got any decent weather. “Ebony start getting your shoes on!” My mum called, she was about to do the school run. My toast popped up out of the toaster, ready for me to butter. After doing so, I walked on into the front room and switched on the TV, I usually did this every morning while eating breakfast. Straight away the news came onto screen, and at first I was tempted to change the channel but I caught a glimpse of the headline: RAPID DESEASE SPREADING ACROSS RUSSIA. Turning the volume up, I watched as a news reporter spoke, stood in front of what seemed soldiers setting up sand bags and fortifications. “-As you can see, the military forces of Russia are taking this sudden outbreak very seriously and are setting up defences around the designated contaminated area. Thousands are feared dead and all communications have been lost within the red zone, the zone itself containing several towns and two large cities. The zone spans for about three hundred miles and is slowly expanding…” As he said this I put my toast down and gazed up, amazed but also shook up at what was unfolding. Straight away this seemed exactly how a global pandemic would begin in the movies, a sudden outbreak and quarantine of an area, military blockades.

“We’ve got to go Scott! See you later!” My mum yelled into the front room, startling me. I quickly jumped up and rushed to the front door to see Ebony stood at the ready to leave with her book bag looking smart, and my mum carrying Kadi in her chair. “Let me help carry Kadi” I said while taking the chair from my mum, peering inside to see Kadi fast asleep inside. Her beautiful soft lips and gentle breathing, she always managed to melt my heart every time I took a look at her. Ducking my head and kissing her on the cheek; she let out a little grin but was still asleep. Heading outside, a strong, cold breeze blew against my face, which I wasn’t expecting because of how nice the weather looked. “Hope you have a nice day at school Ebony! Don’t miss me to much!” I called out to her as she climbed into the car. “Ok love you lots!” She yelled back before disappearing into the car. “So you’ll be back around nine tonight?” My mum asked, taking Kadi out of my hands. “Yeah around about then. I might get to leave a little earlier tonight but I’m not too sure, I might pop in and see dad for a while…” I replied, trying to get close to her so that I could speak without Ebony hearing. “Mum, I know this might sound strange but make sure you ring me if anything worrying happens ok? I know you will think this sounds crazy but something’s happening in Russia, that I’m worried will eventually reach here in time.” My mum looked back at me confused, but then slowly let out a smile. “Are you talking about what’s on the news? Don’t worry about it; I knew you’d say something about it. You’re always coming up with strange theories! There’s nothing to worry about. It’s probably a gas leak from a power plant or something!”

I waved to the car from my porch till my family drove out of sight, then shut the front door. Checking my phone, it read ten past nine, so I slipped my shoes on, swung my bag around my back and headed on outside. Locking the front door behind me, I began walking to the bus stop just up the road from my house. I lived in a small village called Locking, mainly full of elderly people, looking to settle down and live the rest of their lives peacefully. I didn’t have any friends there, there weren’t many people my age that lived around that area, and all of my friends lived in the centre of the town of Weston-Super-Mare. Since I started working full time, I never really socialised, just focused on work and my family, but I had a few friends that I knew I could always count on. Thinking back at the news report on television, I knew exactly who to call. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I scrolled through my contacts until I found my good friend Jimmy’s name. Pressing dial, I held my phone towards my ear. As it rang, I took the time to admire my surroundings; parents walking their kids to school, people walking their dogs in the nearby field and songbirds peacefully singing. This part of Weston wasn’t so bad after all. “Dude are you watching the f*****g news!?” I voice yelled into my ear, almost bursting one of my eardrums. “Good to hear from you too Jim!” I laughed, smiling to myself. “Yeah that’s why I’m calling mate, do you have any idea of what it could be?” I continued. There was a little delay; I could hear gunfire in the background of the sound coming from the phone, most likely a video game Jimmy was playing. “You don’t even need to ask me man; we both know what it is! Zombies!” I held the phone closer to my ear; the bus stop was in sight. “That’s what it seems like, but it just can’t be.. I think that’s what everyone’s presuming it to be, it could be anything right?” I asked, spotting the bus stop girl. Ahh, the bus stop girl. Every day she’d be there, waiting, looking so beautiful, and everyday I’d also fail at introducing myself to her, or even getting to know her name. “You still there Scott?” Jim’s voice popped out of nowhere, snapping me out of my day dreaming. “I’ve got to shoot off mate, text me if you hear anything!” I yelled, hanging up and sliding my phone back into my pocket.

 Reaching the bus stop, the bench was full of elderly people sat down, so I stayed standing. Not that I minded… the bus stop girl was also standing. Ahh f**k, I had to find out her name. “Good morning to you…” A croaky voice came from behind. I turned around with a massive grin on my face, hoping that the bus stop girl had just tried engaging in conversation, but it turned out to be Dorothy, the elderly bus stop pensioner. “Oh! Morning Dorothy, sorry… I didn’t see you there!” I replied smiling, seeing the frail old woman sat down on the bench gazing up at me, smiling. She slowly tried to get up, and then began approaching me. “Here you go dear, take a seat” Dorothy said, using her walking stick to help her. “No of course not, sit back down please… for me” I pointed towards the seat and guided her back down, grinning. She sat back down and smiled up at me, her red knitted hat covering those old wrinkled eyes. “Aww, bless her…” A soothing voice came from behind. I stopped, still looking at Dorothy. I’d better turn around now I thought to myself, slowly turning around smiling, hoping not to look too creepy. She was looking at me smiling, her mousy brown hair swaying in the breeze. Those baby blue eyes peering deep into mine, trying to explore me as if I were some sort of exhibit. I liked the way she looked at me; it was as if she wasn’t afraid of me, as if she could see right through me, but in a good way. “I know right, she’s always giving up her seat to me! And I always beg her to sit back down!” I laughed, trying to read this beautiful girl, watching her reactions. “He’s a good boy, Scott.” Dorothy said from behind, I didn’t take my eyes away from the bus stop girl though. I watched as she let out her smile, her red lipstick outlining her gleaming white teeth, everything about her was perfect. “Scott, Oh so that’s your name…” She said, her blue eyes tearing away at my soul every time I gazed at them. That voice again, I could listen to her speak all day. “Well I’m glad I know your name, that’s one thing off of my list of what to get to know about you. My names Daisy, if you’ve been wondering…” She asked, blushing. She’d wanted to get to know me all this time, just as much as I had, and the fact that I now knew that made me so much more attracted to her.

Stepping onto the bus, I waved my pass at the driver and carried on walking up until I found an empty seat. Daisy followed from behind and then sat beside me, her sweet perfume filling my nostrils. “You don’t talk much do you…?” She looked at me with a sigh, dropping her bag to the floor. “I do talk quite a lot actually, I just get quite nervous and never know what to say,” I replied, hoping that she’d appreciate my honesty. Daisy laughed, flicking her hair away from her eyes. “You shouldn’t be nervous; it just gets in the way of things.” The bus jolted forward, driving onward. “Well it’s quite strange actually. My job requires me to be confident, getting up in business meetings and making pitches, engaging with young people from all different backgrounds and areas. I have no problem with any of that, I think I just get nervous when…” I paused, not knowing whether I should carry on. Daisy looked at me, her curious eyes watching mine, trying to read what I was thinking. But while looking into her eyes, A calmness suddenly fell over me, one that I’d never felt before. I felt so relaxed, so comfortable, as if I’d known her for so long. “Go ahead, say it…” She replied, still gazing towards me. I looked around the bus, to try and measure within my head on how loud or quite I should speak. The bus wasn’t as busy as usual, so I looked back at Daisy and continued, this time a lot more relaxed. “Look, I think you’re beautiful. I have never seen someone so beautiful, and every time I’ve seen you I’ve wanted to start conversation, but my nerves always get the better of me. The fact that you’re sitting next here talking to me shows you must like me a little…” Daisy put her head down, grinning. “I know you like me Scott, I’ve always known. I also know you’ve wanted to speak to me for some time; I can just tell by the way you look at me.” She said. “I feel like an idiot.” I replied, knowing I shouldn’t have told her. “Well I think it’s cute! You shouldn’t feel like an idiot, I’ve wanted to start talking to you for a long time too…” I exhaled, relieved. Daisy reached down for her bag without taking her eyes away from me. “So how about I take your number, I work till late but If you’re up for it we should do something some time? There’s a place I like going near where we live, up on the hill. It’s nice to go up there while it’s getting late and to overlook Weston, we should head up there when we aren’t both busy.” As I said this she reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and paper. “Yeah I’d like that, how about tonight?” She asked, while writing her number down. “Tonight sounds good; I finish at eight, so I’ll give you a call around nine?” I asked, taking the paper from her. “Sounds great, I’ll see you later” Daisy replied smiling, standing up and walking towards the front of the bus. The sweet scent of her perfume slowly faded, the bus came to a halt and as she left, she looked back and smiled at me, not caring who saw.

Walking through the town centre, it was a usual day in Weston-Super-Mare. The high street was packed, full of people on their way to work or just strolling through. For me to get to work I had to stop off in the town and get on a second bus, so every morning I’d walk through the central street and often see old friends on their way to college or work. Weston wasn’t anything special, in fact everyone I knew were trying to find any possible way of getting out, including me; it was just a rundown town full of people that had no sense of direction or anything in place to guide them. Of course there were the ones that were in college studying, hoping to advance to university or find a stable job, but they were usually the ones that came from a well off family. I wasn’t particularly sure what I wanted, I just had an idea in my head to get as many qualifications as possible and to become a good role model to the rest of my family, which meant finding a way of getting a decent job so that I could provide for them, and eventually being able to provide for a family of my own. I was 18, a lot of the things I was worrying about back then I didn’t need to… I had grown up to fast and become too serious. I just needed to live a little, before it was too late and I’d be tied down and bombarded with responsibilities. Brushing against a passer-by, I snapped out of my day dreaming and put my hand up to apologise. As I Approached the second bus stop, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my headphones. Knowing how dull the journey would be to work, I’d always listen to some music to calm myself down, also enabling me to not have to hear the pointless conversations of other people on the bus; I had my own problems to worry about….

2

“So, you still want to visit France?” John asked, leaning forward on the railing. I gazed forward from the side of the boat, scanning the approaching landscape ahead, distant clouds of smoke and fire rising. “I hoped under better circumstances…” I replied while inserting a fresh magazine into my assault rifle. As I looked around the transport boat, the engine jolted and the waves crashed against the side of the vehicle, water splashing and showering into the interior. The boat contained twelve men; we were Bravo squad. Little did I know, within the following three weeks eight of these twelve men would be killed. Getting closer to the isles of France, the booms and cracks of distant explosions and artillery bombardments and gunfire grew louder, echoing across the spacious and vast surrounding sea. We weren’t the only approaching squad, we were one of five different squads to make up delta company; each of these squads were in separate boats attacking various parts of the beachhead. We were invading Europe and retaking what had been lost to the outbreak, it wasn’t going to be easy. “Listen up lads! This is it, the moment you’ve been training for!” Our sergeant climbed onto the hull of the transport boat, overlooking his squad. “Up ahead is the beach of Calais! Air strikes have cleared the majority of enemies but satellite imaging have confirmed that there are still a large number of infected in the area, our mission is to kill them all and establish a forward operating base just north of the beachhead!” A sudden, wet barrage of water hit across my face, knocking my helmet to the floor. Reaching down to grab the helmet, so did John, picking it up and handing it over to me; a grin on his face. “Getting off the boat in one piece would be a good start mate.” He laughed, but the humour faded as another fighter jet swooped past, opening fire on the land ahead. Although I was scared, I had been preparing for this day for over nine months; I was ready to take the fight to the infected.

“Reaching the beach of Calais in just under one minute! Prepare yourselves for combat!” The driver of the boat yelled, his voice being cut out by a passing fighter jet preparing for a bombing run. “Equipment check!” Reaching into my small packs on my webbing, I made sure I had enough spare magazines and grenades. My canteen had enough water to last me a week, my ammo was low but we were made aware that ammunition would be dropped down by parachutes once we’d taken the beach. Feeling the grip of my pistol in its holster, I knew I was good to go. “Scott, remember the plan; stick by each other at all times…” John put his hand on my shoulder, I could sense his fear; we were all scared. I think the only thing that kept me going was the adrenaline rushing through my body, seeing the battlefield ahead was intimidating but exciting at the same time. How foolish I was, I had no idea what was about to happen. “Don’t worry John, we’re in this together; we all have each other’s back, the whole squad…” I replied, looking at the men beside us. I trusted these men; I would have taken a bullet for these men, as they would have done for me. I should say, they would take a bite for me; the infected we were fighting used their teeth and nothing else, they were too stupid to use tactics or any form of strategy. So it seemed, anyway…

“Excuse me young sir, isn’t this your stop?” A voice came from the left, snapping me to reality. I looked across to see an old man looking at me peculiarly, not sure whether he was correct or not. Looking outside of the bus, I recognised that it was in fact my stop; I had been day dreaming for the majority of the bus journey. “Ahh, thanks for that!” I replied smiling, standing from my seat and approaching the front of the bus. Coming to a stop, the bus jolted as the driver pulled over. Thanking the driver, I stepped out onto the street and began the last ten minute walk to work. Oh how I loved walking through the bournville estate. This was the area I grew up on, where I was part of a gang that would drink every night and go out fighting and stealing… I was the youngest of them, making me the most stupid and naive. I was involved in many gangs across Weston, but my experience with the bournville lads was the worst. Eventually, all that time of me being the bad guy caught up on me in the near future; while I was out with a group of friends. The one time I decide to become the good one and start improving myself, I got jumped by a group of men, resulting in having a metal plate put in my face, purely for the fact that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After that, it knocked my confidence and I began staying in more often and avoiding those groups, spending more time with my family and friends from school. Things got better from there, and I eventually found my way; but none the less, the memories are still with me. Walking through these estates bring those memories back the most, but my job was a good way of helping me realise how far I’d come, working with the young people from the estates as a youth worker. It’s what kept me going, knowing I was being a good influence to the younger people; not only was it having a positive effect on them, but also on myself. It felt good to know I was achieving something in my life, but I always had that feeling, expecting something bad to happen, which was a scary thing when everything was going so well. But as usual, I was correct and things went from fine to fucked up in a matter of days.

“Morning everyone!” Walking into the office, I unzipped my coat and placed it on my desk.