WalkerZ - A Zombie Apocalypse Story

Bonus Chapter - Mal's Story

"For the record, this is Doctor Habirah, Calstone Barracks medical lead. Continuing the August 2024 staff health and wellbeing reviews, and also documenting staff history. Today's interviewee is Malcolm Burnett, better known as 'Mal', barracks Operations and Technical Lead. Mal, the floor is yours, please talk about whatever you want to talk about and I'll ask questions if I need to."

"Thanks, Doc. It's kinda weird to be talking about this now, it's been a long time since I've really thought about my life before the Outbreak. But it's probably long overdue, and I appreciate you taking the time to include me in this.

"Okay, so I guess I should go back to life just before the Outbreak and go from there?"

"Sounds like a plan, Mal, all yours."

"Well, at the time of the Outbreak, I was a computer and communications engineer which probably doesn't come as much of a surprise given what I do now. It was interesting work, I was good at what I did, and the company I worked for had recently secured a very valuable Ministry of Defence contract so my job was secure, something that was kinda uncertain at the time. It did mean that I had to go through a load of training and checks to get security cleared, but once I got clearance I got to access all sorts of interesting places all over the country, including places like Calstone Barracks which wasn't far from where I lived at the time.

"A few years before everyone started trying to eat each other's brains, my life had pretty much gone to hell in a handbag. I lost my parents within a few months of each other to cancer, we had the covid pandemic, and then my partner was killed in a motorbike crash just after we came out of the first lockdown. I didn't know he'd gone until I woke up from the coma. I'd been riding pillion: I survived, he didn't. It left me pretty banged up; shattered my left arm which still doesn't work very well even now, broken pelvis, cracked a couple of vertebrae, and a broken leg, what the medical people call 'life-changing injuries'. The nurses told me I was lucky to be alive, but I didn't feel lucky. Taylor was my soul mate: he was the one who had been there when my parents finally passed, he was the one who meant I wasn't alone in the world.

"Until I was.

"My parents were both single children, as was I, so when they went, all I had was Taylor, and then he was gone too. His family didn't approve of me, had never comes to terms with Taylor being gay, so when he died they quietly buried him and moved on, seemingly happy to bury the family 'shame' under a small copper beech tree in the local cemetary. Only one of his cousins had the decency to contact me and let me know where he'd been buried, she was a nice lady, but she was the exception in that family.

"It took months for me to be able to walk again, and many many more months of painful rehabilitation to be able to get back to being functional to the point where I could work again. The National Health Service as ever were amazing, but there were some things they couldn't fix. Eventually, they released me, gave me a clean bill of health, and released the new version of my body back into the world with me still broken and screaming inside it.

"For some time after that, I functioned in a daze; got up, went to work, came home, ate, drank, played computer games, went to bed, rinse and repeat.

"And then the world broke too.

"At the time, I didn't watch the news. I didn't care about reality. The only friends I had were online, and even they were just voices, empty people who cared only about their gaming and their online characters.

"I credit Captain Summers with saving me, with giving me a chance to prove I was still human. He was kind, still is, but on the morning everything changed he was the one who reached out. Sometimes it doesn't take much, but Summers is special as we all know, and I'd not realised how much I needed someone like him until I met him.

"On the day, I'd woken up with a bit of a hangover, sleeping in the remnants of the previous night's takeaway, my phone buzzing constantly at me until I woke up from my dream about giant bee-shaped iPhones and answered it. My boss wasn't too happy with me but told me to hotfoot it over to Calstone which was thankfully only a few miles down the road.

"I did the normal 'shower in a can' start to the day, brushed my teeth, and drove my battered old van over to the barracks. I'd only been there a couple of times before but the guards recognised my van and waved me in once they'd checked my ID. Things seemed busier for some reason, but I'd not had enough coffee to register what was going on.

"As I was struggling with my one good hand to unload my toolbox - the stupid thing got stuck in a strap - a quiet voice offered me help and I turned to find Summers standing there in full uniform. He picked up my toolbox, I grabbed my other box of 'handy stuff', and he took me to the control room and made sure I had a coffee and a bacon sandwich from the canteen.

"All I had to do was a general system check, but while I was there Summers talked to me, and he listened. To this day I don't know why, he was obviously a busy man, but he seemed to sense that I needed a little company that day.

"As I plugged in the final cable and the systems roared back into life, the phone went on the desk next to me and Summers picked it up. His face went white as he listened, and the only things he said were "With immediate effect?" and "Yes ma'am." And then he put down the phone and sat down with a bit of a bump.

"After a few moments of silence, I asked him if everything was okay, and his reply was 'No, they absolutely aren't. But we can either fall apart, or we can hold firm. I prefer the latter.' Then he kinda drew himself up, asked me politely to stay where I was, and then proceeded to secure the base, put everyone on Red Alert, and ensure everyone in his care was safe.

"From that day on, that included me. After he'd taken care of his people, he told me what was going on outside the fence and offered me the choice of whether I wanted to stay or leave. He did stress very strongly that he wanted me to stay though as he considered me useful and noted I would be safe in the base. So I stayed and helped him maintain the communications systems, and all the computer gear, something I still do to this day.

"And a day later Merryn arrived. She was lost too, and as the first two 'non-army' people we just kinda gravitated towards each other. We were the first, but we certainly weren't the last.

"I still remember her walking into the canteen, whey-faced and shaking, clutching a very sweet mug of tea. She spotted me, dropped herself into the seat, and complimented me on my Red Dwarf T-shirt, then threw up out of the window all over Captain Summers as he walked past. Not a particularly auspicious start, but I absolutely cried with laughter, then got her a fresh cup of tea and did my best to help her get through the next few days. And she in turn did the same for me.

"Merryn's special, she's my sister now, and I love her with all my heart. That deep, unconditional love, is something I never thought I would have again and hadn't realised how much I'd missed, how hollow a man I'd become prior to the Outbreak. Merryn and Summers, between them, through love and trust, gave me a family again, and I know many folks in here who will say similar things about the people they now find themselves with. The Outbreak took so much from so many people, but for a few of us, it probably saved us."