06:25

It's been one hell of a night/morning. Me and four others from the group are in a farm house two miles north of the complex which, James tells me, is very close to Carlisle Airport. I am now officially in England. We passed Gretna on our way here, didn't have time to stop off and visit the famous Gretna Green, but that's fine, I'm not the sentimental type anyway. I'd heard of it from a few people, I even know a couple who got married there, but other than that I'm not really too bothered about missing out. It's just, you know, when you hear about something or somewhere and everyone else you know has either been there or close to it, you kind-of feel left out. I know I can be a bit of a loner but sometimes being left out of a conversation is like being ignored, and no-one likes being ignored. I might see it on the way back if it's not totally overrun by zombies exchanging their vows.

I don't know if it's anything to do with the complex being near, but the amount of zombies in this area is frightening. James didn't tell me it was going to be this bad. I don't think it would have made a difference to my decision to tag along, but it might have prepared me a little bit better for the situation and I probably wouldn't have looked like such a big girl's blouse. If you've been following my journal then you'll already know that I'm not one too shy away from a zombie presence, but at the same time I don't embrace the thought of a zombie horde against seven running bags of fresh meat....us. I suppose I could have got out of there and disappeared from the group if I wanted but, well, it wasn't that easy.

James drove us down the M6 Motorway and it was quite clear for the first twenty miles or so, we only encountered ten, maybe eleven zombies on the road, and the Mitsubishi made quick work of them, mowing them down or pushing them out the way. It wasn't until we got closer to the complex that it became more difficult to navigate the 4x4 along the road. The shogun is fine with handfuls of bodies bumping off it but when there is a constant stream of corpses bashing on the bonnet/hood then falling under the wheels, it gets messy, even though it's a tough girl, the broken bones eventually get into places they shouldn't and start to play havoc with the machinery, or the workings of the wheels.

The team consisted of James, Stephen, Tom, Tess, myself and I can say without an ounce of shame that I was most definitely the worse performer out of the group. I'm trying not to be sexist but even Tess was better then me. She sliced through the zombies with a machete as though they were columns of butter that she was preparing to spread on her toast. I wonder how long she's being doing this for, it must be a whole lot more than me, that's for sure. You don't get to that level of slicing and dicing without climbing up some sort of antisocial ladder, and that worries me a bit. Is Tess as straight forward as she looks, with a natural talent for cutting down zombies, or is she harbouring a shaded background that'll put me right off her? I'm hoping it's the former, because she's really pretty and easy to talk to.

At one point there was 20+ zombies around us, and some of them were managing to hold on to either the door handles or the bull-bars of the Shogun. I don't think it's a calculated move by the zombies, it's probably more of an instinct or automatic action to grab whatever comes to hand. Grab it and hold on tight. Tess kicked the passenger's door open, knocking one zombie back, then leapt out and took down three lame brains with one fast swipe of her machete. She sliced them enough from the top so the blade didn't get stuck in the skull but also low enough to make sure they wouldn't get up. She kept shouting to me The Brain! Always the brain! I didn't think that was the case, but she seems to know what she's doing, so who am I to question her authority on the subject. Stephen jumped out of Tess' door and shouted on me to follow him. He had a different approach to downing the walking dead, preferring to come in hard from the right side with one knife, into the temple, then follow up with another knife, ramming the blade in between the eyes. He done this seven time in quick succession before Tom arrived in this temporary hell. I slashed with my knives at anything that moved and almost sliced Tom. He called me something like a Fucking imbecilic twat and told me to concentrate on the ones that are already dead. Tom is big and strong and is lucky enough to own a chainsaw. He winked at me, pulled on the chord to start up the chainsaw and got on with the cutting. If it was in slow motion he would have looked beautiful, in a non homosexual way. His movements were controlled, not just a maniac waving a dangerous tool around, hoping to hit something, anything that got in his way.

It was great! I actually felt part of something, something special and good, something important that could actually make a difference to this horrible situation.

In a matter of seconds or minutes, I'm not too sure, the dead crowd was levelled, corpses on the ground. I smiled and was about to walk back to the Shogun when something grabbed the left leg of my jeans. I looked down and saw the top half of a zombie hanging on with a vice-like grip. I kicked at it but it still held on and almost bit my sneakers. It pulled itself closer to my leg and opened its mouth ready to bite. I panicked and let out a yelp. The zombie half was almost at my left knee when its head exploded over my jeans accompanied by an ear splitting crack in the air.

I looked over to the Shogun and James was hanging out of the driver's window, sprawled over the windscreen, a pistol in his right hand, a frown on his face. He shook his head and called over to me,

Get chilled, or get killed! We don't want anyone losing their head that shouldn't, OK?

I just nodded and thanked him.

Nice philosophy.

No sooner had we taken down a load of zombies, then there were more approaching...a lot more. James shouted to Tom to get the bait-bags from the back of the truck. Tom opened the back door, threw in his chainsaw and pulled out a large black bin bag and heaved it onto the road away from the Shogun. Tess went to the rear and helped Tom take more bags and throw them onto the ground. James called out some more instructions to Tom and Tess and told and Stephen to get back in. I asked him what was in the bags, he said later then told Tess to get back in. Finally, he called over to Tom and told him to use some decoy. Tom nodded, grabbed a 2ltr milk carton from the rear, opened it and poured the contents over as many of the corpses as he could, before throwing the carton away and running back to the Shogun. He jumped in the passenger's door and Tess closed it behind him. A lot of zombies were coming, and I mean a lot. When I heard the footsteps come closer, I got scared and not just a little bit anxious, but almost pissing my pants scared.

After hearing the footsteps, the shuffling and scuffling, I heard the moans and groans of the dead, hungry moans. It got louder and deeper and more worryingly, closer.

James drove forward about one hundred yards and stopped. I wondered what he was doing, so I asked him. He told me he was just stopping to make sure they were taking the bait.

I peered over Tom's large shoulder out of the side window to see a large number of zombies come out of the dark and make their way toward the truck. There were maybe one hundred or two hundred, I'm not too sure, but there were a lot of them, more than I've ever seen in the one place. A few of the ones at the front of the mass stopped and pulled at the bin bags Tom had thrown on the road. A few seconds after the bag was ripped open there was a popping noise like a large balloon bursting, then a thick, dark liquid went everywhere, covering the zombies. This happened with each bag that was opened by the zombies. Each bag exploded, sending its contents over the zombies, covering twenty, thirty, forty of the fuckers at a time. Then they turned on each other, pulling and biting. Zombie against zombie, it was one of the strangest sights I'd ever seen. Some of the zombies broke away from the main crowd or horde, as people care calling the collective, and they made their way to the pile of massacred zombies we made. As soon as they reached the pile of bodies, instinct kicked in and the teeth started chewing...even on dead flesh.

James turned to me and said, ?n case you're wondering, which you are, it's blood. Exploding bags of uncontaminated blood. Any questions? Nope. Good.”

Then he drove us to the farmhouse where we are now. I've got to hand it to him, he's certainly got his head screwed on the right way. If I was a girl I'd probably want to have his babies, but seeing as I'm not, I reckon I'll just worship him from afar. Only joking. He's a pretty cool character though.

08:45

James called a meeting in the kitchen, with minimum lighting, to ensure no zombies crash the party.

I listen to what he has to to say, and concentrate on the plan as hard as my brain will allow. I think I remember most of it, because it's important. A lot of stuff gets filtered out of my brain because it's either boring or not concerning me, sometimes the two are mutual partners. I've been told that we're not doing anything illegal, so I'll continue to document it as long as I'm this side of the prison bars. I was going to say you don't get a good phone signal in prison anyway, but that's not surprising considering some of the inmates hide mobile phones up their arseholes. I think that's what they do, or maybe it's just the visitors that smuggle them in up their arse? I don't know...suffice to say I don't want to end up having to pull a phone out of my anus to make an entry in my journal.

We'll be leaving 9am on the dot, driving for a mile and a half then covering the rest of the distance on foot. I'm not looking forward to this. It's been a few weeks since I last exercised so this is going to be a test of my strength and stamina.

It's almost 9 now, so I'll see you later. Let you know how it goes....if I make it back.

Keep your fingers crossed.

10:15

We're back at the main farmhouse. Things went a bit mental at the complex, not how we James that is expected but he managed to keep it together.

Before we went in, he paused, rather dramatically and reminded us all to Get Chilled, or Get Killed. I think he's putting that forward as some sort of hero catchphrase of his. I'm sure he made the sign of the cross on his chest too, a catholic maybe?

He ducked through a hole in the wire fence, followed by Tess, then Stephen and me and finally Tom picking up the rear. I was a bit worried about going through the electric fence, even though Tom the spark told me not to worry, it was suitably disabled at the part we were crawling through, just as long as I didn't touch anywhere above the red material he had wrapped round the wire to form an archway, otherwise I might become Johnny Flame. I don't remember a lot about going through the tunnel, under the wall, other than Tess was wearing a nice pair of khaki coloured combat pants.

It took us five minutes to get through the fence and under the wall, pretty quick I thought, then James led the way to the rear of the building. I was starting to panic, I hadn't been told about the security cameras and there was enough of them to spot any movement we made. What was I thinking, that we were just going to stroll right up to the building and calmly walk in, waving to the guards, shading their hands and winking cheeky little gestures to them. Obviously it wasn't going to be easy, and of course there was going to be cameras, why would they put up a thirty foot wall and and a twenty foot fence if there wasn't something worth protecting inside? I asked how we would get past the cameras, Stephen told me, very carefully.

James waved Stephen forward, and the young boy ran, keeping low, over 100 yards of grass until he reached the nearest camera. The camera was attached to the wall, slowly turning through its circle/arc/angle/field of vision. Tom was next to run to the wall, he was a bit slower than Stephen, but he was still quick for his size. When he reached the wall, he put his back against it and gave Stephen a punt up to the camera then passed him up a mobile phone. The phone was in a cradle Tom had created that held it in front of the security camera. Stephen positioned the cradle and phone in front of the camera and gave James the thumbs up, well, one thumb up, he was still using his other hand for balance against the wall. Tess explained it how they had been here plenty of times before and on one occasion filmed the course of the camera. That was the video Stephen played on a loop on his phone, giving the illusion of an empty yard. They have footage of various times during the day and they use whatever one carries the appropriate light for the time they need.

James, Tess and my-good-self ran to Tom and Stephen. There was a door under and to the right of the camera. It had a numeric keypad and a slot to slide an id card. Tom pulled out a card from his pocket and swiped it along the slot. A red light on the keypad turned from red to green and the door clicked open. He turned to me, winked and said, ?ou won't believe the places I've worked as an electrician”

With that, he turned, opened the door and let us into the building.

We stood in a corridor, poorly lit by one strip light on the ceiling. James removed a rucksack he was wearing, pulled out four smaller rucksacks, and divided them between me, Tess, Stephen and himself. He handed Tom the bigger rucksack, as he was the biggest. James asked if we all knew what we had to do? Although, he was mostly looking at me when he said it. That's confidence for you. I gave him my best, OF COURSE I DO! nod, partnered with serious furrowed brows for authenticity. I guess he believed me. Off we all went, Stephen with Tom, me with Tess, and James away to wherever he went, straight along the corridor and through the door at the end. He never really explained his roll in the madness.

There were doors along the corridor, two on each side. Tom and Stephen opened the first on the right and went through. Tess and I, went through the second on the left.

When we went through the door we saw metal stairs leading up a level. Tess moved up and round the stairs with the agility and grace of a cat, whereas I trudged up each step as though my feet were too heavy for me. Tess gave me a heads-up nod then pressed a finger to her pouting lips instruction me to keep quiet. I might be words that imply actions of a more salacious nature, but I'm afraid that' just my libido pushing its way forward again. As I've mentioned before, it's how I feel or felt at the time, and I think it's important to the overall story here. No? If you don't think so, well, you haven't seen Tess, she'd turn a woman's head. I imagine that she's not very well liked by women that don't know her, jealousy is an ugly trait, something I don't think Tess has.

All was quiet on the other side of the door, as far as I could hear, but my ears do have a fair bit of wax built up in them. Tess looked at her watch, (she's one of the very few remaining people I've seen actually wearing a piece of traditional time keeping, what with the advent of the mobile phone) counted twenty seconds then pulled the door open and guided me in through the door by pulling on my t-shirt, quite roughly I may add, and I think she broke a bit of my skin when she nipped me with her nails. She directed me - or pushed me to the right and down another corridor. I looked back briefly at her and noticed another camera, up on the wall, outside an office, turning away from us. It stopped and started its rotation back our way, but by the time Tess got us into the appropriate room, the camera would have missed us...I hope.

Tess felt for the light switch and clicked it on. The strip lights pinged into life, one by one, lighting up the room. The eerie humming noise of the lights was unsettling, it reminded me of the last time I heard that noise in amongst all the apparent quiet of a room. Robert, or that bastard Robert as he'll forever be known to me. Luckily there was no sign of dead bodies in the room we were in. Tess pointed to one of the cupboards on the wall and told me to put everything from it into my bag while she went into the next room and got what she needed.

I opened the door to the cupboard, there were white medicine bottles on the shelves. I grabbed two and three at a time and put them in the rucksack, quickly but quietly as I was instructed earlier. Tess had disappeared into the next room and was very quiet at whatever she was doing. I don't think I would have heard Tess even if she was making a noise because all I could hear was the blood soaring through my ears. BWAP! BWAP! BWAP! This is the sound my blood made, if you think it didn't then you're wrong. The next time you're in a situation anything like the one I was in, then just you pause for a second, listen to the blood being pumped through your ears and let me know what you come up with. Email me or something. I'm telling you, it's a BWAP, BWAP, BWAP sound. At best it's maybe a MWAP! MWAP! MWAP! Sound but anything outside that is just ludicrous.

I just hope we do all survive this. Who am I kidding, I don't really give two fucks about anyone else! I'm in this for me, Connie and, yes, Steph.

The bag was half full with white plastic bottles and I was getting faster and more proficient and grabbing three and sometimes four bottles at a time when I heard footsteps coming along the corridor outside the room. I froze on the spot and listened for the footsteps again. The BWAPS got louder and made it more difficult listening. There was definitely footsteps outside the door. I looked over to the door and it was, thankfully, closed over. Someone stopped outside the door and turned the handle. I panicked, then my stomach panicked and let out some gas. I waved my hand about trying to disperse the odour then I heard another faint Pfft. It was Tess. I turned to see her standing at the other door. She waved me over and pointed to the cupboard. I grabbed the bag, closed the cupboard door and made my way, quickly but quietly (I don't know how many times James said that to us before went to the complex) to Tess. She pulled me in through the doorway. She is very rough. Tess closed the door behind me. I heard it click closed pretty much the same time the other door opened. Someone came into the room and walked around. Sounded like they were wearing heavy boots. Even though it was dark in the room, Tess took me by the arm and guided me to the far end and pulled me in behind a row of metal shelves, where there was a small space, barely enough for two people. We stood face to face, very close. I could feel her breasts press against my chest. I tried not to think about them, I really did. You've got to understand, that yes it was a dangerous position to be in with the possibility of a guard finding us, and yes it could have led to us being arrested or killed or God knows what, but you what, I couldn't keep my mind on the job and off Tess.

I'm ashamed to say that, even with the threat of death looming, I felt a stirring in my trousers. I pulled my arse back and pressed it against the wall that my back was already touching. In a few seconds I counted sheep, I pictured Tess as a zombie (but she just looked like a lovely zombie), I tried to picture Connie coming in and finding me and Tess in an awkward position, but my ?hingjust kept growing, albeit very slowly.

Next thing, I could feel Tess' knee pressing between my legs, she put her hand over my mouth. This made it grow even more, that was until Tess pressed her knee so hard against my thing it almost went between my legs and touched the wall and held my mouth shut. I let out a little squeak of pain but it was stifled by Tess' hand. It was sore and my brain got the message. So did the other brain in my trousers. The excitement subsided very quickly.

I could hear the handle being turned at the end of the room, it opened slightly, letting in a little light, a foot came in through the door and I was ready to shit myself or scream or something totally uncharacteristic, but then a klaxon sounded somewhere in the building. The person removed his or her foot from the doorway, pulled the door shut and ran off out the room. I breathed a sigh of relief, Tess blew in my face and said, ?our breath stinks. Smells like you ate a dead rat for dinner, which indecently, we have not shared (dinner not the rat) as a couple, so I suggest you keep that thing in your pants where it belongs, otherwise I'll be serving it up to you for breakfast. Understand!?”

I told her I understood, completely, and that I was sorry, and that I have a condition that makes it react like that in some situations.

She said, yeah. I know the condition....you're a man.”

Fair point.

Tess said it was time to go, so we took out bags and left the storage cupboard, then the main room itself, pausing briefly at the door for the camera, then back down the stairs towards the exit.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. You would have thought we were out of it, easy, down the stairs, out the door, under the wall and out through the fence, home free. But no, it's wasn't to be.

Tess and I got the bottom of the stairs and out the door into the corridor with one more door to go before we were out, but Tom and Stephen came running up the corridor towards us. They both ran past us up to a door at the end of the corridor, Tom pulled out a gun (which I swear I did not know he had) and pointed it at the door handle. Whilst still running he fired two shots, the first missed the handle, the second hit the target, sending metal shards outward. He ran full speed and drove his right shoulder hand into the door, almost taking it off its hinges. Stephen called on us and we followed him through the door. As soon as we were through, Tom closed the door, told us to stand well back. He dropped his bag to the floor and pulled out a weird looking contraption, like a cross between a vice and something else with a chisel in the middle. He placed one side of the vice on the door and the other on the wall, with the chisel in the door gap. Stephen took a hammer out of the bag and handed it to Tom swung the hammer and struck the chisel dead on the head, driving it into the gap between the door and the frame and embedded the teeth into the door and the wall, sealing it, holding it shut. Nice instrument. I've never seen one of those before, not in the shop, not anywhere online, ever. I'm starting to think Tom is Batman. I could hear people shouting on the other side of the door, men, angry men, kicking and shooting at the door.

“Let's get the fuck outta here, this thing's gone tits up!Was Tom's exact words to the group. I don't remember every single thing that happened in the complex, but I remember Tom's words of encouragement to us all.

I paused for a second to get my bearings, I didn't know exactly where we were in the complex, James hadn't explained the whole layout, but I guessed it wasn't somewhere nice.

I saw nine surgical beds, three rows of three, everything looked immaculate. Each bed had a patient, or body, or whatever lying on it. Tom led the way passed the beds to a door at the other side of the room (why can't there be a door at the side of the room or just next to the one I've came through, it's always over the other side of the fucking room! It's starting to piss me off.). I got a good look at the bodies, even running passed them. It's amazing what your eyes take in when the heart is pumping blood through your system, carrying enough oxygen to start a little fire in your body should your temperature get just that little bit too hot. I wonder if that's how spontaneous combustion happens? Nah, that's just a fallacy.

Each of the bodies I passed had its eyes closed. A drip feed filled with green luminescent substance was suspended from by a chain attached to the ceiling. The hands and legs were bound to the bed with silver metal clamps, not leather or some fibrous material, but metal. This worried me. They all wore white bed gowns, which had a stamp or logo or something on it, I couldn't quite make it out, but I did recognise the two serpents entwined round a dagger and wings at the top. You don't need to be Einstein to know that, I'm sure, though, that the words round it were U.S. Army Medical Department. As I say, we were hurrying through the area at the time so it could have been anything and I have an over-active imagination.

The faces of the patients appeared to be quite dark, mottled, and emaciated. I can still see them now describing them to you. To say that place was eerie wouldn't even scratch the surface.

We finally reached the door at the other end of the room. Tom was first to reach it and as he stretched out his right hand to grab the handle, it opened. I panicked and let out a little shriek that I'm not proud of and I'm sure the others will not let me forget, but when I saw James' face when the door was opened I could have kissed him. He pulled us all in through the door, one by one he didn't nip my skin then closed the door behind us. He was out of breath but still managed to gasp out to us something went wrong. We need to get out of here now!”

I'm not very good under pressure, I admit that, forgetting things on a mental shopping list gets me concerned, negotiating my car onto busy, unfamiliar roundabout does not fill me with confidence, so imagine how I feel when I'm in a building I shouldn't be anywhere near, stealing drugs, being chased by angry men, soldiers or whatever. Even with James shouting instructions and leading the way, I only had room for two words in my head CARDIAC ARREST.

As it happens, I survived, obviously, thanks to James and his quick thinking. I don't know where he went, he didn't really explain his role in the whole event, but I don't suppose he really needed to and I don't think it would have made much difference anyway.

Tess, Tom, Stephen and I followed James' lead as he ran down yet another corridor, this one had offices either side, with windows allowing the workers inside to see out and to see us. They weren't very big offices and there didn't seem to many workers in ploughing through admin or some other paperwork that just doesn't seem relevant anymore in this day and age of zombie infestation. I hope the workers are on a good rate of pay. Some of them pointed at us as we passed the windows but most of them just got on with their work, typing away, inputting boring statistics or other, something that makes their sedentary job even more monotonous and mind numbing. I suppose we were the little bit of excitement that stops them from slitting their throats at night. Is that too much? I've been in a boring job you see, sitting at a computer typing shite after shite into a keyboard, that, with every keystroke removed a minute from my already pointless life. Office people, I empathise with you. Office jobs are quite often captained by middle management arseholes. This is why I believe it is no coincidence that Office sounds so similar to Orifice.

Anyway, we followed James right along the corridor and through the door at the end, into a drop off point for supply trucks. I asked James if we were going to use one of the trucks parked in the depot to smash through the front gates. He looked at me like I was a twelve year old boy who knew nothing and brought the reality of the situation home by reminding me we weren't in a world war 2 movie trying to escape the Nazis. If we we're to take a truck, if the keys were left in it, which they wouldn't be, we wouldn't actually be travelling that far away from the complex making it a quick and easy task for them to find us. Duh!

We, the group, negotiated our way round the parked truck and out of the building, then Tom took over, he pointed us in the direction of a different part of the wall, with another tunnel. We ran to it like Olympic sprinters, I was last, even after Stephen. It was a slightly smaller tunnel than the first one we used on the way in, Tom explained it wasn't completely finished but the chances of it caving in on us were minimal. I took longer going through this tunnel but it was better in the long run as it took us right out under the electric fence too. That's something I didn't relish crawling through again. Once we were out and clear of the complex, we ran into the neighbouring woodlands and headed back to the Mitsubishi. It felt like we ran and jogged and ran some more for about half and hour, all the time I heard voices shouting back at the complex. The sound of a klaxon is an unpleasant one, but it's ten times worse knowing that the hollow sounding howl is for your benefit, you're the one that caused it. It's a sound calling everyone available to find you, catch you and bring you back so people can hurt you. That's what kept me going. I fell over a couple of times in the woods but the sinew coursing through my body picked me up and pushed me on.

So here we are, back at the farmhouse, everyone is celebrating another haul of goodies from the complex but I'm not. I'm very scared. I feel like a marked man now. I don't know if any of the cameras picked up my image, I didn't see them all, I don't think; there must have been more electronic eyes keeping watch on that place. James still hasn't told me what went wrong yet, and I'm not looking forward to going back, but I may have to. I didn't get a chance to find where they are holding Connie or Steph. I still haven't told anyone why I'm in the area, and to be honest, I don't know if I should. It's a hard decision to make, on the one hand they obviously know what they're doing but on the other hand I don't want to get involved. I don't know what to do!!