Zombie Outbreak Zone

Teri

2011-02-09T21:25:00.001Z

Teri, the final character in Food for the Dead.

The fantastic work from Britt Coxon, Chris Hately and Andrew Arrowsmith

Gabriel Fosco - Food for the Dead

2010-12-21T20:50:00.004Z

A Reflected Portrait of Gabriel Fosco - A great story about urbane and unhinged Gabriel Fosco and his unlucky band of survivors. Created by Paul Thompson and Ian Mayor.

Marcus - Food for the Dead

2010-12-15T21:10:00.007Z

This is page 1 of Michael Thompson and Andrew Waugh's story about Marcus a sinister loner. Includes St Jame's Park Zombies, the Tyne and Wear Metro system and a well stock rucksack. Great art by Simon Cavanagh and lettering by Daniel Clifford.

Miss Turner - Food for the Dead

2010-12-06T20:27:00.003Z

One of the four characters in Food for the Dead, Miss Turner. Page 1 of her journey through the ruins of Tyneside to Segedunum.

A dark and haunting little tale from the wonderful team of Daniel Clifford, Iain Milne and Faye Stacey.

Food for the Dead - Page 1

2010-11-30T21:54:00.006Z

Intro Page for Food for the Dead.

First page of Food for the Dead, a small press Zombie outbreak Comic set on Tyneside. Now available in the Travelling Man Comic Shop in Newcastle.

This page Script & Art Cuttlefish, Lettering Daniel Clifford.

The Project Z Survivor Colony

2010-10-23T23:03:00.002+01:00

The Dene

2010-04-24T07:23:00.002+01:00

The Zs were getting more and more. If I dont go now I'll get swamped. So I run. Through a gap and sprint like hell.

I can feel them tearing at my clothes, scratching at my face. Stinking, moaning, but they didn't manage to bite. Rotten flesh. Lost my bag, just got the scaffolding pole.

I run along the first path I see. This is madness, the trees and bushes are close on either side. Too easy to get trapped. Out off the leaves ahead comes a zombie head. Smack it straight and hard while I'm still running. Head bursts.

The path is leading up. Cant see anything behind, but I can hear them. Can't stop. Gotta find shelter and security.

2010-03-17T21:38:00.002Z

Waiting, waiting. This is getting mad. There are more turning up. They can sense me but they cant make out where I am.

Need to move, which way. Everywhere looks equally bad. No idea of knowing how many I'll run into. If I go south I'll run into the insane Jesmond transvesite death-mongers. So north seems like the best bet.

My plan is run like hell, don't get biten and find somewhere to hide.

Go.

2010-03-15T20:00:00.003Z

I've been iding here for an hour. In a laurel bush. But the zombies are gathering. It's as if they can sense me. There must be about 30 around me now. There look like they're sniffing or listening, which is pretty puzzling as lots don't seem to have either ears or noses.

Gotta move soon. Otherwise they find me.

Hiding

2010-03-05T21:00:00.007Z

Hiding. They've decided to chase me. I heard them coming so I kept my head down.

Freaks, five of them. Some naked, one in a dress and a gimp mask. Combats and camo gear. Each had a gun or an axe, apart from gimp-fella who had a sledgehammer. They were hooting and screeching. All seemed pissed or tripping.

They caught up with a couple of zombies, an old woman and bloke in a suit. Went beserk with them hacked and shot them to pieces. Went mental, then picked up the pieces, heads and hands and legs, and went running back to the bridge.

Not friendly.

Jeez, those morons with their guns seem to attracted every zombie for miles. It's starting to get busy here.

Run

2010-03-01T20:47:00.003Z

Christ! They're shooting at me. From the barricade. Firing at me. Had to dive to the bushes. Rolled through the heads and legs and guts beside a wall.

Kept firing, got close, bullets smashing around me. This is serious. Scamble over the wall into the Dene and run like hell. Eventually they stop firing, but I keep running. Like hell.

I'm covered in stinking entrails and filth. Only stop when my chest is bursting. Dive into a holly bush and hide.

Madmen and murderers. That's what happens when you give guns to the Jesmond liberal elite; corpse art and tribalism. Those morons will be running the country soon.

Bird Food

2010-02-14T17:11:00.012Z

All quiet up to the Corner House. Place smashed, looted. Looks like all the booze is gone. Don't fancy going in, can see plenty of bodies. Stinks.

Carry on past the theatre then under the bridge. What I see stops me dead.

Looks like a made orgy of death and mutilation. Bodies hanging from Armstrong Bridge, about a hundred. Some still wriggling. Others rotting, crows surrounding them like giant birdfeeders. Body parts hanging from trees. One tree full of arms, another legs. Torsos on stakes. Entrails hanging from the walls. Heads in the gutters lining the road. Arranged neatly like yellow lines. Can't tell if they were living, dead or undead. They're all bird food now.

Huge barracade at the top of the bank. 30 foot high pile of cars, smashed furniture, wood, branches. Corpses woven into it. A giant red flag above.

Painted on the road infront of the barracade: "The Town is Ours. Leave or Die."

Cant see anyone living. Just staring. Not hanging around here. This mob don't seem very welcoming.

Moving

2010-02-06T20:50:00.004Z

Morning. I'm moving now. Foods gone, just water left. Going to head into town, I'll get whatever I need there. Follow the Coast Road, over the Dene then past Jesmond Cemetary.

Been watching the undead for weeks. Looking at how to avoid them. Keep moving, fast and quiet. Then hide well and keep quiet.

They move slowly, but they can surround you and overwhelm you. They're easy to pick off in ones or twos. But anymore is trouble.

Luckily the Coast Road is deserted, just a couple of shufflers. Hid behind cars, got round them, then cracked them with the scaffolding. Clinical. Then off quickly before more start to gather.

Lots of bodies and burnt houses. Smell is bad. Rot, filth and ashes. Going well.

Gotta Move

2010-01-31T08:02:00.007Z

Food's running low. Can only last a few more days.

Been doing a lot of thinking about what I need. Got to find other people, it's the only way to survive long term. Need to contact them somehow. Best way is with a radio. Anything too loud will attract undead too. Can find out if there are bands of survivors anywhere or government safe havens.

Need a rucksack or pack. Only have a bin bag which is no good for more than a few minutes use. Will have to get one if I want to travel. Also want a med kit. Even a small injury could be fatal now.

Want a better weapon than my scaffolding pole, possibly a shotgun or maybe an axe. Want to avoid the zombies totally rather than fight them. A gun might just attact them.

Gotta move soon. Couple more days

Can't Survive Alone

2010-01-20T21:11:00.007Z

A weeks gone by. I just sleep, eat and watch them. Shuffling around.

Couple of days ago heard someone else screaming, but again I did nothing to save them. I can't carry on like this. The food will run out one day. Then what? Starvation.

Where's the government, police, army? Why is no one trying to sort things out. Am I the only person left alive? Are there others?

Pathetic life, pathetic death. Got to do something, got to have a plan. Dont know what to do. Need to find other people, need someone to watch my back. Can't survive alone.

Will Robinson

2010-01-08T20:51:00.009Z

Searched the flat, no sign of John. No note, nothing. He's got no insulin so he's got to come back soon. I hope. Outside the zombies have started to gather. They must of followed me. I watched them all day. Shambling randomly around. Groaning, bumping into things, falling over. Standing, staring, decaying.

They've got no sense, they don't communicate, they can't reason or solve the simplest problem. Can't open doors or climb or dress themselves. They don't notice or even care that their arms are missing or guts are dragging alone the ground. They only walk and kill.

Late afternoon saw a living guy come stumbling down the street. He was exhausted unable to carry on, he must of been running for hours. Stumbled and fell against a skip on the road. The zombies surrounded him, slowly and just engulfed him. About ten of them just dragged him down and tore out his insides. Slowly eating him as he wriggled and twitched and stilled. I knew him, Will Robinson, was a plasterer, I often spoke to him in the Club. Had a couple of greyhounds, wonder where they are?

Later he got up and started shuffled around, he'd become one of them. I had just stood and watched him get killed and eaten. I was hypnotised by what I'd seen. I'd made no effort to try to help or save him. Felt numb, empty, what sort of man am I?

The Return Home

2009-12-28T18:20:00.012Z

After a couple of minutes when my heart had stopped racing. Stepped over the zombie and went to get the insulin. Found some and filled my pockets. Realised that I needed food and water. I was not far from the supermarket so decided to chance a raid. Crept out the back way and over the flat roof to the goods entrance and then easied myself inside through an open window. Seached quickly but carefully and surprisingly there were no undead anywhere.

The supermarket had been picked almost clean. It had been ransacked by a mob, looked more like a hurricane had hit. Nothing left on the shelves. But in the back I found some bottles of squash, packets of dehydrated potato and some christmas puddings. I jammed the lot into an old black bin bag. I decided to make my way back home. Went out the front which was quiet. Started picking my way through the wreckage.

Suddendly I heard a noise behind me. A moan. Then another. Then hundreds, combining into a terrible empty wail. Looked behind me. There were hundreds of zombies, diseased, blood-stained and rotting shuffling towards me. Suddenly realised I had no weapon, nothing to defend myself with. Left my knife in the chest of the undead in the chemists. Heart pounding, sweating, shaking I scrambled through the cars and bodies. The living dead were yards behind. As a stinking, drooling, grasping mass pouring over the wreckage, grasping at me. Dead eyes. I was hauling myself through and onto the road beyond. I sprinted away, only stopping to pick up a scaffolding pole that had been smashed through a car windscreen. I was getting away.

Slowing down now, could still hear them, but they were a hundred yards off now, held up by the wreckage. Breathing hard, lungs bursting, bag and pole weighing me down. Then in the road infront was another. Zombie charver lad in a base ball cap and bloody white tracksuit. Stumbling toward me. I dropped the bin bag, and swung the pole at him double handled, overhead like an axe. The pole is good, steel, hollow, about 4 feet long. Caught him right on the top of the head. Crunch. Split it open like a boiled egg. Finished him. Kept running.

Got home soon after with the bag. Barricaded myself in. Lay on the floor for an hour lungs bursting, recovering, slowly regaining my breath. Then I drank. John's gone.

Medicine 2

2009-12-21T21:36:00.015Z

Went out the back door and over the back wall in no time. The back lane was quiet, no different to normal. So I kept low and kept moving, hiding behind the wheelie bins. Was going well, not even any bodies. A few cars abandoned. I heard a banging noise like someone knowing on a front door. So I hit the deck & crawled round the corner to see what was going on. There was a bloke in a uniform and clipboard stood outside a house. He didn't look diseased & he looked like a policeman in a hi-vis jacket so I ran up to him, thought he might be rounding us up to get to a safe place.

Bugger! He wasn't a cop or the army or the bloody cavalry, he was a bloody meter reader. His mind was gone, kept saying he had to hit his quota of gas meters read today or he wouldn't get his bonus. But nobody was answering their doors. I shouted at him to get inside and save himself. He looked at me as if I was mad and said he had an identity card and had a job to do. Bollocks to him, he didn't want my help, he'll be eaten soon if he's not careful. So I kept going & he kept knocking on doors.

It was going so easily, until I got to Chilly Road. Nightmare. It looked like every car in Newcastle had driven into every shop and then overturned and caught fire. There were bodies, furniture, bikes, paper, chairs, tables, clothes, money, limbs, clothes, stones, pizza boxes, glass and blood everywhere. Chaos and death. Pain and silence. Nothing alive. I've never been so scared.

Started picking my way through. Knife in one had, dart in the other. Glass crunching, blood squelching. Tried not to look at the bodies, some had been shot, others just torn apart. In the head mainly. Everything smells of oil, blood and smoke. Cars ontop of bikes ontop of body parts. Money laying everywhere. Going slow, taking care, dont want to come across the diseased. A bus had run into a bank. It's front end was jammed in. Could see movement inside, crept up to it keeping low. Not good, full of the diseased. These must be what Rob calls zombies Blank eyes, blood soaked but just shambling about inside. They cant get out, door was jammed. Saw me and started moaning and trying to bite me throught the window. Left quick, before they manage to get out.

Close to the Medi-centre now. I'm sweating, shaking, wet, cold, hungry, tired and scared. But the shop not damaged. Looked in the window, can see a zombie. Old man, probably a lollypop man. He's seen me. Need to get it out so I can get in. I opened the door shouted in, he came for me. Followed me out the shop moaning and stumbling. Got him to follow me up the road, managed to double back and get into the shop. Shut the door and jammed a display stand against it. It was solid. Lolllipop was now outside, snarling and banging his green, bloody face against the window. I'd outsmarted a dribbing moron. I was so happy I threw up on the floor, but I just couldn't stop laughing. I've never felt this good.

Until I saw the other one. Behind the pharmacy counter. Nose missing and coming at me. I'd managed to barricade myself inside with a zombie. And another one outside. Things could be better. I just stood and watched while he lurched towards me. Pissed myself. Couldnt breath. This is it. He got to three feet away and I lashed out. Stuck him with the knife right up to the handle, straight between the ribs. Never phased him. Kept coming, brown sludge dripping from the wound. He went to bite my face. I lashed out again. With the dart. Got him smack in the temple. He collapsed. His knees went and he just pitched sideways. He didn't move. I stared at him for a minute. Then screamed for joy. I was crying with joy. I'd killed one, killed a zombie, one of the living dead. Got other darts and stuck his other temple and the other between the eyes just to make sure. I'd survived.

Medicine

2009-12-21T21:06:00.004Z

It's just started to rain and John's suddenly beginning to look bad. Shivering & sweating. Tells me he needs his medication, he's got diabetes. So he needs to inject himself regularly. Aparently he's almost run out of his medicine. Needs to inject himself again within the next few hours otherwise he'll peg out. He needs it now but he can hardly walk, the pillock. I wasn't going to go. But he did time for me a couple of years ago so if I do this we're quits, or so he says. Anyway I could get some food at the same time, that sounds like a plan.

First I'll go to the Medi-centre on Chilly Road then look for food on the way back. I need a weapon just incase I see any of the diseased but there's not much here apart from a carving knife and some darts. So I take them both. I'm bricking it, but I gotta do it. Going to go out the back way, just in case Danny Tank is still hanging about.

Front Door

2009-12-20T21:42:00.003Z

Well they've gone from the front door. They got distracted by a bloke flying round the corner on a motorbike and started to follow him. He skidded on the ice down the road though and smacked into a lamp-post. Must of broke a leg coz he couldn't get up. They all shuffled over to him. He was freaking out, crying, screaming, begging them to let him go. They just dropped on him and tore him apart, ate strips of him. After 10 minutes they just shuffled off. Left him there. After another half hour he just got up and started shuffling around like them. Most of him from the chest down was half eaten.

Later on they heard someone screaming from Chillingham Road way, and all shuffled off. I'm getting hungry.

Danny the Tank 3

2009-12-20T07:50:00.003Z

They're still there outside the door. Now there's about 15 of them. Moaning, looking grey or green. Covered in blood. Missing body parts. Clothes torn. Eyes blank. Scrapping at the door. They must be The Diseased. Rob said something about zombies, but don't know what that is.

Almost no food left. Am eating Shredded Wheet in LCL. Nearly run out of LCL too.

Danny the Tank 2

2009-12-19T22:13:00.005Z

Danny's still at the door, still moaning through the letterbox. Now he's been joined by Mrs Khan from the Fruit & Veg shop and a bloke with rigger boots on. They're all trying to get in. Mrs Khan always used to be really fit, for an older woman. Now she looks really ropey, I think she's only got one ear. It's hard to see as the window is smeared with blood now. I think she might be diseased like Paul said. Might steer stay upstairs for a while, see if they lose interest and push off.

Danny the Tank

2009-12-18T21:40:00.005Z

Things have taken an odd turn this morning. Looked out the window and saw a bloke lying in the road, he'd been run over. Right over his stomach, burst him in the middle. Looked like he had been hit by a giant red paintball. John & I went outside to look. It was Danny the Tank, big fat tosser who worked on the door in a club in Town. Totally radgy,

He was still moving, as soon as he saw us he rolled over and started pulling himself towards with his arms. But his legs and his hips stayed were they were. He came totally apart in the middle. He was dragging himself along with his guts & intenstines dragging along behind. Skin the colour or porridge. He has mental. Just growling and groaning at us and pulling himself along. He should have been dead. John said he saw a lung fall out. That's not good.

We'd had enough and legged it indoors. Locked the front door. But Dan kept coming. He's now banging against the door (at the bottom), we've put the chain on. John's trying to speak to Dan through the letter box, but he's just moaning. Can't get any sense. Tried phoning for an ambulance but the line's dead. Phoned NHS Direct, but they told me to take Dan to his GP on Monday morning.

Shields Road

2009-12-17T21:11:00.004Z

Went to Shields Road a takeaway. Disaster. Was waiting for the pizza when I heard screaming. Over the road outside the baths there was a gang of people attacking a bloke. They surrounded him and dragged him down, then they just all went for him. It was dark but I could there was claret everywhere, they looked like they were ripping him apart. Saw a police car pull up & the coppers started shooting at them from inside the car. Kept blasting them, but didn't seem to have much effect. They were shooting lumps out of them.

Pizza shop man was watching too. He told me to get out, pushed me out & pulled down the shutters. Tosser, I paid but never got the pizza.

The gang were walking towards the cop car. But they bottled it & drove off. I was left there staring at them. Ugly bastards, covered in blood. I ran. Over the fence & across the metro line. Looks like they didn't follow. I was wrecked when I got home. This place is going to the dogs.

Ambulance

2009-12-14T20:38:00.002Z

Just spoken to my mate John. He'd just come over from Howden. Said the whole place was a mess. Houses burning but the fire brigade not responding. Cars all over the place, some crashed, some burning. People running and screaming. Some are just shuffling around, moaning. He said he saw a bloke with an arm missing, wandering around groaning. A police van drove straight into him. Knocked him through a fence. They didn't stop, probably the end of the shift (lol).

John doesnt want to go back home so he's kipping on the sofa. I've got some cans, might get a pizza.

Roadblock

2009-12-13T11:33:00.005Z

Christ I've just been out this morning. Roads were deserted. Tried to get down Benfield Road, but there was a roadblock. Police all over the place, ever one had a gun. Half were in riot gear. I knew there was something going on, some looked injured. They wouldn't let me any further. There was an ambulance as well, smashed windscreen, looked like in had hit something. Asked them what was going on, they kept saying Go Home & Stay Indoors. That's all they would say.

Power still out, smells of burning. All quiet. Might go to the Northumberland Hussar for Sunday dinner.

Bloke

2009-12-12T22:36:00.003Z

Just seen a bloke run past my house. He was covered in blood, his Tshirt was ripped to bits. He was heading towards the coast road. He wasn't being chased. Just sprinting away. I went outside to see where he ran, but he's gone. There's blood on the path.

I tried to phone the police but it's engagedt everytime. They must know what's happening coz they've got plenty of helicopters there still.

What's Happening 2

2009-12-12T22:32:00.002Z

Just seen a couple of ambulances going past in a hurry. Must be getting serious. Heard some fireworks, bangers probably. There's 4 helicopters now. Still no power.

What's Happening?

2009-12-12T22:14:00.000Z

Hey Guys. Whats happening? The power's been out for 3 hours now. I'm running on battery power for this. I've been hearing police sirens & shouting from towards Wallsend. Saw a couple of police helicopters overhead. Tried online news but can't find anything. The sky looks like there's some fires burning towards Swan hunters.

If anyone knows whats going on, let me know. Sounds like a riot. Hope the power's back on soon.

Cheers M