Luke's Diary: An Unlucky Man In A Zombie Apocalypse. Entries 757 to 956

Entry 810: Saturday 15th December 2018

Entry 810
Saturday 15th December 2018

Well yesterday was certainly a day that I won't forget in hurry, and I'm certain it's day that Mia is never going to forget.

Yesterday started like any other day; Ash fussing over me and making me tea, Mum telling me I always look more wrinklier in the morning and Mia asking me stupid questions like; When truck drivers have to take a tacho break does it mean they actually have to stop and eat tacos.... God!

I got Leo ready and left him with Mum, arranged some cover for work and left the house with Mia who was in good spirits considering she was about to confront her Dad and tell him that she wasn't pregnant. In fact, she seemed rather determined. We both walked to Blade's flat and when he answered Mia and I told him we wanted to go to the prison to see Harold. He wasn't happy. He rolled his eyes; said he was fed up of me "always wanting to see Harold" and that he had a lot to do. I told him that I thought his comment on me "always wanting to see Harold" was a bit of an exaggeration and that in actual fact it was Mia that wanted to see Harold, not me. When Mia told Blade that she wanted to tell Harold that she wasn't really pregnant and that his days of controlling her are over, Blade appeared even more unhappy. "Look," he firmly said, "I'm far too busy to be getting involved in any dramas. I'm not going to give you a lift to the prison just so you can have a pop at your Dad. I'm not a social worker, I'm certainly not a taxi driver and I'm not the sort of person who has time on his hands to be giving people lifts from A to B every five minutes. Anyway, Luke you need to be at the reporting station." "I've sorted cover," I said. "I just thought you'd want to know what was going on," Mia said to Blade, "What with my Dad being who he is and you lot wanting to keep an eye on him. Me and Luke are going to see Harold with or without your help but it would just be easier for all of us if you gave us a lift." Blade rolled his eyes, grabbed his jacket and picked up his cars. "Come on then," he said, "If we're going let's go, but I don't want you making a habit out of this."

Blade reluctantly drove Mia and I to the prison and after he'd driven through all the sturdy barriers and spoken to the armed GRID soldier who was on duty, he parked the car and the three of us alighted the vehicle. Mia still had a determined look on her face but it looked like it was starting to crack. "You OK?" I asked her, "You know you don't need to pretend you're OK in front of me." "I'm fine," said a pumped-up Mia, "I just want to get this over and done with him and tell this b*stard that he's never going to see me again." Mia and I followed Blade up to the large overbearing gates which slowly opened and I once again found I was stood within the grounds of the grim looking facility. The three of us entered the large brick building, walked down the long clinical looking corridors and I eventually found myself once again in the small room with the glass green separating one half of the room from the other. Blade radioed through to one if his soldiers to tell them that we were there and to bring Endo. I started pacing up and down the room. For some reasons I was nervous – certainly more nervous than Mia who looks a little anxious bit overall appeared as cool as a cucumber. I guess there's just something about Harold that really creeps me out. "Stop pacing up and down," Mia firmly said to me. "I can't help it," I said, "I hate this place and your Dad's always freaked me out. I'm nervous for you." "Well don't be," said an assertive Mia, "I've got this. I know what I'm going to do and what I'm going to say. After today Harold's never going to see me again."

A few moments later the door on the other half of the room opened, and Harold entered followed an armed GRID guard. With a determined look on her face, Mia walked right up to the glass. I felt very proud of her but also a bit worried. Harold looked delighted to see Mia. A huge smile appeared on his face and he walked up to the glass. "Mia," he gleefully said, "How lovely to see you. How are you doing? How's the baby? Is everything OK? Oh sweetheart, I've thought about you every day." "Look," said a firm Mia, "I'm not here for a long mushy visit. I just came cos I wanted to say something." "OK," said Harold, "What was it you wanted to say?" "Well..." said Mia, as she tried to catch her breath, "I... Well... I... Err..." "Sweetheart, what is it?" asked Harold. "Err...," stuttered Mia, as she continued to struggle. "Is everything OK?" Harold asked. "Well, I... It's..." said Mia. "Sweetheart, what is it?" asked Harold, "You can tell me. You can tell me anything." "I don't want to see you again!" Mia loudly snapped. Harold looked confused during a short silence. "What do you mean?" he said with a naive smile on his face, "Of course you do." "Listen to me Harold," said a firm Mia, "I..." "Oh don't call me Harold," said Harold, "Call me Dad." "You're not my Dad," said Mia. "What are you talking about?" chuckled Harold, "Of course I'm your Dad. You know that. "You might be my biological Dad," said Mia, "But that's it and biology might mean a lot to you but it means nothing to me. I saw my parents, dead on Wednesday 19th October 2016 after they took their own life and they took their own life because of this virus and you – YOU created this virus. YOU! YOU!" Mia was getting angrier. "Mia," said Harold, with a sorrowful look on his face, "I created the virus to save your life. If it wasn't for me or the old version of the virus, you'd be dead." "GOOD! Mia screamed, "If I was dead, the world wouldn't have ended, people wouldn't have died, my parents would still be alive and I wouldn't have to wake up every day HATING myself because I have a father like you who created this virus and ended the world and who I hate nearly as much as I hate myself!" A tense silence followed. I don't think I've ever seen Mia so angry. "Mia, sweetheart," said Harold, "I know things are complicated but whether you like it or not I am your father. I know my actions haven't been ideal but everything I have done and I mean everything, has been done for you." "I don't want to hear that," said Mia, "You're NOT my Dad and you will NEVER – and I mean, NEVER, see me again." "Mia, we are going to be a family," said Harold, "Once I get out of here..." "You're never getting out of here," Blade said from the back of the room, interrupting Harold. "Ignore him," Harold said to Mia, "I will get out of here one day. You're going to come and let me out." "What!?" exclaimed Mia, "You think I'm going to come and let you out? Even if I wanted to let you out – which I don't, I can't get you out of here." "You don't need to worry about that right now," said Harold, "Just focus on looking after yourself and my unborn grandchild." "You're not listening!" Mia snapped, "I don't ever want to see you again." "Don't you want to know about your Mother?" asked Harold. Mia's facial expression suddenly changed and became rather serious but also emotional. "What?" Mia firmly said. "You know nothing about your Mother," said Harold, "Your REAL Mother. I could tell you all about her, what she was like. Oh, she loved you so much. She never wanted to give you away." "Ignore him Mia," I said, "This is more of his twisted mind games sh*t." "It's not," Harold said to Mia, as she appeared angry and confused, "I can tell you all about your Mother. I have secret locations that GRID know nothing about. I have photos of her." "Right, that's it," Blade, firmly said, stepping forward "This visit is over." "No!" Mia loudly said, "I need to tell him something." Mia gave Harold a firm look. "I am not getting sucked in by you," Mia sternly said, "I have a life and it's pretty good. I don't want you in my life. I don't need you in my life." "But we're going to be a family," said Harold, "Me you and my grandchild." "Oh God, it's all about you isn't it!?" exclaimed Mia, "YOUR grandchild, not MY child." "Oh, that doesn't matter," said Harold, "What matters is that we're going to be a family." "NO, WE'RE NOT!" screamed Mia. "We are, sweetheart," said Harold, "You know when I look at you, I see your Mother. You have her eyes. I hope our baby has her eyes too." "Stop it!" yelled an angry Mia, "God, you think you're so clever; so superior, don't you? Better than anyone else. You just want to control and manipulate everyone in your life, don't you? You want to control and manipulate me. Well do you know what? I'm not going to let you. In fact, it's me that's controlled and manipulated you. You've got no idea, have you? That day we all got into the freezers; you were going to kill yourself. You were going to kill yourself and take me with. Selfish, self-obsessed coward, but I took control, didn't I? I told you I was pregnant with your grandchild and that made you stop your suicide attempt didn't it? Well guess what Harold; I played you. I totally played you. I'm not pregnant. I never was. I lied. I just said that so you'd put the gun down and wouldn't kill us. I manipulated you." Harold looked completely shocked and to be honest he looked rather worried too. Mia saw the look on his face. "Not a nice feeling is it?" said a firm, "Being played; being lied to; being controlled; being manipulated. Not nice at all is it. Now you've got a bit of an idea of what it's like to be now. Now you know what it's like being your daughter." Mia took a step back and gave Harold who looked seriously concerned, a smug grin. "Look at his face," Mia said to me, "God this feels good. He knows I've managed to get one over on him." "Oh Mia, sweetheart," said Harold in a warm tone of concern, "I'm not looking like this because you've got one over on me. I'm looking like this because I'm incredibly worried about you." "What?" said a confused Mia. "Mia," Harold said in an urgent, walking closely up to his side of the glass appearing very worried, "Are you telling me that you are not pregnant?" "Yeah," said Mia, frowning with anger and confusion, "I've just told you. I'm not pregnant." "Why are you worried?" Blade asked. "Mia," Harold said in a rather urgent tone, "You need to listen to me and you need to listen carefully. You must get pregnant." Mia looked really confused, as did Blade and I. "Harold, what are you talking about?" I exclaimed. "I think he's gone mad," Mia said. "I think we should leave," said Blade, "This is clearly more mind games." "No!" Harold loudly and assertively said, "You can't leave! I am deadly serious. My daughter's life is in danger. If you leave without listening to me, she's going to die. Just hear me out." Blade, Mia and I were clearly very intrigued, but also rather suspicious." There was a tense pause. Mia, Blade and I exchanged confusing and cautious looks. "OK," said Mia, walking closer to her side of the glass screen, "What are you talking about?" Harold looked down, gave a deep breath and then gave Mia a serious look right in the eye. "Mia," he assertively said, "If you do not get pregnant there is a very good chance you are going to die." "Oh, for God's sake," said Mia, rolling her eyes and starting to walk off. "No, wait!" Harold loudly said with a tone of panic, "I beg you. Please. You need to listen to this." Mia returned to her side of the glass, looking pretty p*ssed off. "Right now, you are standing in front of me with a version of the E-Virus in front of you." Mia looked worried but also confused. "He's lying," Blade said, "We'd know if you had the E-Virus in you. You went through quarantine and tests before being introduced into the island's population." "I'm not talking to you GRID gorilla," Harold said to Blade, "But for your information I didn't say the E-Virus, I said a version of it and your standard tests and normal quarantine procedures won't pick up this version of the virus." "Oh, this is b*llocks," I exclaimed, "How the Hell has she got any version of the virus in her?" "I did it," Harold bluntly said. A confusing silence followed. "When you were all in the cryogenics, I sneaked back up in the lift," Harold said to Mia, "I waited for when Ash, and those two GRID apes Cynthia and Seth weren't at the front of the monitoring station and I found the freezer that you were in. Whilst you were frozen, I was able to introduce a version of the virus that I created into your bloodstream; The E7-Virus; a very unique version of the virus that bonds to unborn babies; foetuses. The virus itself is isolated within the womb, inside the amniotic sac. It uses your bloodstream to travel to the womb but it doesn't stay in your blood, or if it does, it doesn't infect your blood. You would never become infected because as soon as the virus enters your body it searches for the foetus and attaches to it. Nine months later you give birth to a lovely uninfected baby or an infected baby. If the baby is born infection free then we are a step closer to finding a cure and synthesizing the actual E-Virus. If the baby is born infected, which is unlikely, then that's a shame but at least we've tried. Not only was you being pregnant a good opportunity to test out the virus on an unborn baby but being pregnant AND about to be cryogenically frozen was a rare opportunity that was too good to miss. My tests have shown results that indicate that if a pregnant woman is cryogenically frozen whilst she has the E7-Virus inside her womb and attached to the baby, that the effects of the cryogenics can have a positive impact on the E7-Virus meaning that there's a good chance the baby would be born infection free, subsequently meaning that we are step closer to refining the virus. The effects of cryogenics on an unborn baby whilst cryogenically frozen for a time is something that could contribute to completely changing the structure of the E-Virus making it potentially important to cause infection." I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was absolutely shocked. A cold shiver ran down my spine and my entire body became consumed with goose bumps. Blade looked just as shocked as I did and I saw the utterly traumatise look on Mia's face as a long, tense and sobering silence followed. A tear ran down Mia cheek and without moving a muscle and attempting to compose herself she addressed Harold. "You b*stard," she quietly said to Harold, "You injected me with one of your viruses and tried to infect what you thought was my unborn baby." "Mia," said Harold, "It's OK. You would never have become infected. That's a certainty." "But my baby could have died," snapped Mia. "Yes, but there's only something like a 10% chance of that," said Harold, "You would have never been harmed." "All that cr*p about us being a family," snapped Mia, "It was all lies wasn't it? Just more lies." "No Mia," said Harold, "I meant every word of it. I wouldn't risk the life of you or my grandchild." "Are you f*cking insane?" Mia exclaimed, "You've injected me with a virus that you've just said could infect my baby." "But it's only a 10% chance," said Harold, "That's a 90% chance that my grandchild will be born infection free. I thought that was a risk worth taking." "IT'S NOT YOUR DECISION TO MAKE!" Mia screamed, "You just can't help yourself, can you? You just have to control me, haven't you? Everything you have done is for me!? What a joke!" "Mia, if you'd have given birth to an infection free baby, I'd be able to synthesize the virus and you and I would become famous. Once money was back in circulation, we'd be rich. You and I and the baby would be set up for life." "Your delusional," I snapped at Harold, "First of all, I doubt anyone would forget that your actions and this virus led to the end of the world and second of all... Err... Hello... You're in prison!" "I've told you, Luke," said Harold, Mia is going to come and let me out." "Oh, you have seriously lost the plot," I said, rolling my eyes. "I am trying to look after my daughter!" Harold snapped. "What? By injecting her with a weird version of one of your viruses!?" I exclaimed, "What did you think would happen when she gave birth and saw a f*cking infected baby coming out of her saggy stretched hole. Jesus Christ!" "I would have made sure that she was informed of the situation prior to giving birth," said Harold, "If the baby was born infected then I'd have expected the GRID apes to be hand to take care of matters before the baby tried to eat Mia, but as I say there is only a 10% chance of the baby being born infected." "And you were going to put me through all sh*t!" snapped Mia, "And you expect me to believe that you love me and that you really care about me!?" "Ignore him Mia," I said, "You're not pregnant so none of this matters." "That's where you're wring, Luke," said Harold, "Mia, sweetheart you must get pregnant as soon as possible. The E7-Virus is currently in your body looking for a foetus to attach to but it can't find one. The virus will keep searching but eventually the virus will get bored and will eventually realise that there's no foetus there to attach to." "What will happen then?" I tentatively asked. "The virus will take second best," said Harold, "And attach to Mia's bloodstream and she will then become infected and turn into the undead." Another sobering silence lingered, which was eventually broken when Mia burst into hysterical scream and started banging the glass panel, telling Harold she hated him and that she wanted to kill him. Blade grabbed hold of Mia and handed her to me. I gave her a big hug and she sobbed uncontrollable as I held her. Blade gave Harold a serious dressing down and told him that he was tempted to kill him there and then. "Jon," I said, "Can we please get Mia out of here. I want to take her home." "I'm sorry Luke," said Blade, "But Mia can't go home." "What do you mean?" I asked. Mia looked up and wiped her tears. "Yeah, why can't I go home?" wept Mia. Blade picked up his walkie talkie and radioed through to someone. "This is Commander Jon Blade," he firmly said, "Code Amber in visitor room one. I repeat, Code Amber in visitor room one." Blade returned his walkie talkie to his belt ad looked at Mia and I. "Mia's going into quarantine," said Blade. Mia and I gasped. "What?!" said a frantic Mia. "What are you on about?" I said, "She doesn't need to be put into quarantine." "She's got a version of the virus in her body," said Blade, "Of course we have to put her in quarantine. This is standard procedure." At that moment the door on our side of the room opened, and four, armed muscular looking GRID solders marched in. "It's the girl," Blade said. They four men then proceeded to grab hold of Mia and try moving her from the room. What followed was an emotional commotion; Mia started screaming, Harold was banging on his side of the glass telling the GRID soldiers to leave his daughter alone and I was throwing myself a Blade's mercy begging him not to quarantine Mia. "Luke, you need to clam Mia down," said Blade, "This has to happen but her screaming won't help." I gave a depressing sigh and as the four, armed GRID soldiers had a tight grip of Mia and I slowly approached her and reassuringly put my hand on her shoulder. Mia went from shouting and screaming and throwing herself around like a ragdoll to remaining still, restrained by the soldiers and looking at me with a red face and tears streaming down her cheeks. "Mia," I gently said, "I'm sorry but you need to go with them." "No!" said a frantic Mia. "It's OK," I reassuringly said, "They won't hurt. It's for your own good." "It's OK Mia," Harold said from his side of the room. "F*CK OFF!" Mia screamed at Harold. "Mia," said Harold, calling at Mia, "It'll be OK. I promise. Don't feel sad that you didn't succeed in getting one over on me. You tried. You did well. You convinced me you were pregnant when you weren't. Perhaps you're good at manipulation too. You really are my daughter, aren't you?" Mia tried to compose herself and take control of her breathing but she seemed rather affected by Harold's comment. Blade told his men to take Mia away and as they removed her from the room I called after her, telling her that I loved her and that I would come to see her. I stormed up the glass, filled with fury and looked Harold right in the face. "You're scum," I snapped, "Do you know that? Absolute scum. You're torturing that poor girl." "Oh, Luke, I don't expect you to understand," said Harold. "No one could understand this f*cked up sh*t," I exclaimed, "You are twisted Harold, you know that don't you? Twisted. You just can't help but experimenting on her can you!?" Blade told the armed soldier on the other side f the glass to take Harold back to his cell. "Endo," said Blade, "Don't go thinking you've got one over on me. This is MY island, not yours. You think you're in charge, don't you? Well let me tell you you're not." "Funny," said Harold, "I was just going to say exactly the same thing to you." Harold was escorted out of the room by the armed soldier leaving me to bang on the glass, shouting after Harold and loudly calling him a selfish b*stard. "Mia will be OK, won't she?" I urgently said to Blade. "She'll be fine," said Blade, "Right now I'm more worried that if what Endo says is true there could be versions of the virus that standard GRID test and quarantine procedures can't detect." "Yeah but what about Mia?" I assertively said, "What's going to happen to her?" "Luke," said an aggressive Blade, "Calm down. In a day or so you'll be able to see her. She's going to be put in quarantine, she'll be made very comfortable and a number of in-depth tests will be done on her." "Tests?" I said, sounding worried. "Yes," said Blade, "But don't worry, we will loo after her. Now I need to get you back to Cowes. My workload just doubled thanks to Harold Endo and initiating a code Amber means a lot of paperwork."

Blade gave me a lift back to Cowes and told me he'd let me that he'd be in touch to let me know how Mia was doing and when I could see her. I told Ash and Mum about everything that had happened and they were just as shocked as I was at hearing this revelation. The asked me loads of questions; some I was able to answer but I wasn't. Mum said that this is proof that Harold is off his head and whilst Ash also said that Harold is behaving in a rather concerning manner, he said that Mia being forced to get pregnant may be a small price to pay if it means it can help in synthesizing the virus. I can't believe he said that. I had a go at him, called him a f*cking idiot and told him to think before opening his mouth. Arsehole!

So that was yesterday. I went around to Blade's today to see if I could see Mia and to find out exactly where she was but he wasn't at home. I'm so worried. I don't know where Mia is or what's happening to her and if what Harold says is true Mia needs to get pregnant soon in order to save her life! An unusual situation but also a very stressful, traumatic and distressing one. Poor Mia. I need to see her. I hope that wherever this quarantine place that the GRID lot are looking after her. I really want to see her.