Apocalypse Diary of a Survivor [Book 1]

by Matt J. Pike

  The western coast of Australia and the east coast of Africa took the full brunt of tsunami waves estimated at anything up to 500m high. Perth has been utterly destroyed – Darwin is all but gone too.

  The shock waves/tsunami were so powerful they bowled over (or through) south east Asia, across the Pacific Ocean and still delivered a 30-40m wall of water to the west coast of north and south America. This = surprised the experts, whose modelling didn’t predict a big effect that far from the impact site. In fact this all gets a little confusing because another guy just came on the telly and said the tsunami was from the Melbourne impact. I don’t think anyone really knows what’s going on! It was off the scale.

  Most Pacific islands were completely inundated.

  The east coast of Australia also suffered 30m+ tsunami – again different experts saying different things about what caused this tsunami – some say the Bengal impact, some say Melbourne impact.

  Melbourne has been obliterated, as has the north coast of Tasmania.

  There are reports of hundreds of minor strikes in the areas surrounding and between the two large impacts. I saw at least two of those hit Adelaide with my own eyes – they were nasty!

  The ‘fireballs’ I’ve been referring to were created in both of the large impacts and rained down across the globe. Oh, and they’re called ejecta – rocks and stuff that exploded out of the comet’s impact points.

  There have been several reports of earthquake activity around the world and it’s expected to continue.

  There is a global stop on all aircraft as the dust (kicked up into the atmosphere from the impacts) will seize their engines. This doesn’t seem like much compared to everything else but I reckon it is – especially here. It means Australia is all but isolated for the foreseeable future – we are on our own. And it’s even worse for Adelaide – we are as isolated as Perth was (probably two of the most isolated one million+ population cities in the world) and now the only way to get here is by car – if the roads are still together. Besides which, the nearest city was Melbourne! I think it’s safe to say ain’t no one coming to help us out any time soon.

  Electricity, gas and water are out for a large portion of the world’s population – some of the damage may take months to fix, that’s assuming they have the means and expertise to do so.

  Communications are down in most parts of Australia and across the globe.

  There are widely varying estimates on the number of casualties, but with the two biggest countries by population being heavily affected – India and China – they are ‘guestimating’ one-third of the world’s population. That’s well over two billion people dead. Maybe more.

  And that’s just from the initial impact and devastation. It’s gonna get worse…

  The latest threat is the giant dust/ash clouds, emerging from both impacts – but more concerning is the Bengal cloud. The predictions are frightening, with some experts saying the world could be on the verge of a nuclear winter that could last from several months to several years. Most concerning of all is it may trigger an ice age – whether that is global or limited to the northern hemisphere varies on who you hear talk. Acid rain may also be a nasty bi-product of the ash cloud, which could in turn ruin any crops that survive the nuclear winter.

  The other big threat is starvation, as people in severally affected areas will struggle to get anything to eat at all. There is little chance to deliver supplies as most of the rest of the world is suffering in one way or the other and looking to sure-up their own communities first. Plus the global no-fly-zone means no airdrops are possible. It basically looks like they’re gonna have to fend for themselves.

  Just like us in Adelaide

  So, all-in-all, a cheery morning, really.

  Oh there was one bit of good news – Canberra survived intact. Yep, that’s right, the place that has more politicians than anywhere else in the country survives… unharmed. That’s… just… great. One in every 10 people in Australia is probably a politician now!

  It just makes me numb. Everything I saw, everything that was reported – the world has changed and it’s never going to be what it was again. I have so many questions about how that all affects me and my brother and my parents. And where the world is heading – and Adelaide – what is to become of Adelaide? There’s no Melbourne, no Perth and the east coast is dealing with the aftermath of a 30-metre wall of water. And no one can fly here.

  We’re on our own.

  I think the news is better for my brother. From all reports Europe is one of the least affected areas on Earth – that and the east coast of the Americas. Ironic really. If there’s ever a movie about global catastrophe it’s usually these areas that cop it big time – it seems they get their revenge in real life. Although I won’t be seeing my bro any time soon with the global no-fly zone to last as long as the nuclear winter. And this potential ice age will put Europe/Russia/Canada and the northern US right in the firing line. So that’s it – pretty much the last safe havens from this mess will become frozen uninhabitable wastelands. Great.

  Of course it might not turn out that bad – but given everything else has been just about worst-case scenario, I’m gonna assume the worst and take the pleasant surprise if it turns out any better.

  From what I can work out the only place worth living on Earth right now and into the future is Rio. Well, not just Rio but the east coast of South America – and maybe the west coast of Africa – although I can’t say I’ve heard too many reports from there. They’re the places that seem to have missed everything and have the potential to miss the coming ice age. I think I’d choose South America over West Africa (no offense West Africans – if you had the Carnival I would’ve picked you). Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and a few other countries – that’s it – that’s the sweet spot on Earth right now. Buenos Aires sounds nice, and you can’t not want to go to a city named Montevideo, but when it all comes down to it I’ll choose Rio. Rio, I wonder how I get to Rio?

  It’s either that or Canberra and I think I’d rather try to swim to Rio than drive to Canberra!

  5.30pm: I had all these plans about what I was going to do today, to get the place all set up survivalist-style, but I can’t seem to move too far from the TV. It’s totally addictive watching. They seem to do this loop. They start with a report on the local disaster here in Adelaide (I must’ve seen the same report seven or eight times by now), then they talk to an expert, then to one of the politicians who survived, then sum things up. Once they’ve done their little loop they update you nationally and repeat the same pattern – report, expert, politician (or famous person), then they pick a different part of the international scene and repeat the same process again. It’s just the same disaster loop pattern over and over again, like chaos clockwork.

  But I keep watching because I want to see that footage of Adelaide just one more time… again. I’m still in this weird semi-denial phase where part of my mind is refusing to accept any of this has happened. That everything I witnessed last night was some shared delusion on a mass scale. But each time I watch the helicopter shots from above the city, or the dozens of angles of amateur footage, or even the professional shots, a little bit more of me begins to believe – maybe not believe, maybe accept – what is happening and has happened.

  I just find myself staring at it. I don’t even know if I’m really processing it at all. Just looking. It’s like I’ve been lobotomised and some mad scientist is running experiments on my fragmented brain to see if there’s any response. Just flashing up horrible image after horrible image. I have visions of some bad ’80s heavy metal video clip with me sitting in an electric chair with this crazy wired helmet strapped to my head. Wooooo! I’m on the chair baby!

  But do I look away from the images? Hell no.

  I have my chance to break away when they switch to the national scene but I can’t quit there either. I need to know what happened in Perth, in Melbourne –see the utter carnage there. They’ve had helicopter shots over both citie
s now and the vision is devastating. Melbourne… well, I think it’s best summed-up as there is no Melbourne. They can’t even get the chopper in close enough to see anything other than ash, and fires, smoke and dust. It looks like a total wasteland.

  Perth is not too much better off. The only real difference is the weather is fine and relatively clear around Perth (although the ash cloud is getting close apparently) and the helicopters can go in real close. Again it’s total devastation. The difference is the killer in Perth was water. They’re saying the tsunami that swept through was maybe 200-300m high – there wouldn’t be too many buildings taller than that in Perth*!

  They just mentioned Perth had three buildings 200m+.

  Anyways, the water hasn’t fully receded yet, so it makes judging the full extent of the damage impossible. But, given the destruction to what is visible, there is little hope for what has yet to be revealed.

  The CBD is now a series of building skeletons – and there’s not that many of those. The force of that water has pounded everything but the most solid structural elements to another part of Western Australia – or perhaps further. Some of the buildings had no remains whatsoever – nothing – total obliteration.

  Some of suburbia (on the higher vantage points around the city) had revealed itself again as the water receded. The signs were no better there either. Homes were either shredded to their foundations (if they still had foundations) or buried several times over their own height in debris from the Indian Ocean or the rest of Perth.

  Every now and then you’d see bodies floating by. Occasionally you’d get one or two in a certain spot but they’d often appear in large groups. Sometimes the TV crew would comment on them, sometimes they’d ignore them – maybe they didn’t see them.

  They gave the ‘viewer discretion advised’ warning a couple of times after some of the more graphic shots. In a weird way I felt like if I looked away I would be doing an injustice to those who died there. I made myself watch every second. It feels as if the ‘viewer discretion’ warning was for a different time. That was for the era that ended yesterday. That was for the place where you had the choice of whether or not to protect yourself or those around you from the horrors of the world, or face them.

  We don’t have that luxury anymore. Disaster is not random bad luck from the edges. It’s not some earthquake in Turkey that killed 6000, or the plane crash in Sierra Leone that killed all on board or the terrorist attack in Iraq – none of which would make the top of our news reports. Disaster has changed. Disaster is now life. Life is disaster. Pretending anything else is just plain denial and looking away just seemed wrong… even rude.

  In my past life, I liked to bag the TV coverage a bit – it’s a habit I picked up from Dad. But I’ve got to give them a shout-out actually. I mean, what they did last night, and today was huge. And who knows what personal losses these people are going through and what family are missing them; they are just devoting themselves to keeping us informed. I’ll probably continue to bag them – it’s in my DNA – but the information was and is priceless.

  7.30pm: At some point I realised I’ve missed almost the entire daylight segment of the day. Given the circumstances that was mostly acceptable – I mean there’s still so much to learn about what happened – and understanding what’s going on out there may help me deal with life here.

  And then there’s Tasmania. My parents spent last night in the highlands. I need all the news on Tasmania so I can’t afford to miss any updates there. And London.

  But I soon realised daylight might not be a luxury I would be afforded much longer, so I’ve set the small TV up in the courtyard down the side of the house so I can switch between blue sky and broadcast.

  The news seems pretty good from the family front. Well in truth I’m not actually getting much information about central Tasmania or London, but I figure no news is good news. I mean the Tasmanian coastal regions are as battered as anywhere - particularly in the north where they copped the direct fury of the Melbourne blast, but there is little mention of any damage inland, which should’ve been protected from harm by the rugged terrain. As for London – I’ve only seen two reports and they seem to confirm London is unharmed – bracing for what the possible nuclear winter might bring and food shortages – but unharmed.

  So I’m pretty sure my family are still alive. In fact, I know it. I can’t really express this belief into words but I’m sure they’re alive – utterly convinced. It’s just… I know. And it makes me feel a whole lot stronger for everything I’m facing (and about to face) knowing they are.

  8.40pm: Well, the sun has all but gone from the sky but I’ve decided to stay out here for a while. It’s still pretty warm for autumn and I’m set up with the TV, a stack of unhealthy things to eat and a few beers, and I think I well and truly deserve it.

  There’s a stink out here though – a burning stink. Although the evening’s clear, you can see plumes of smoke rising from all around. I don’t think the smell is from anything close or a particular fire, it’s just a general apocalyptic scent. It’s just enough to remind me that, even though I got lost in the TV coverage, I am still in the middle of this disaster.

  The moon tonight is freaky as all hell. Close to full and blood red. Seriously blood red. Usually the moon looks white and light as it passes by, but this thing – this red moon – looks like a hulking, metallic marble that will fall from the sky at any minute. And that red colour staring back me – it looks ominous. To me, it looks like some giant warning sign. It’s like it’s just sliding through the sky, looking at all the damage big brother Earth has taken, and it is saying, you think you’re screwed now, just wait ’til you see what’s next!

  9.45pm: There’s so much information to get my head around I’m struggling to keep up. I’ve decided to get the giant atlas pin-up board from the shed and fill it with a bunch of sticky notes so I don’t forget anything. As soon as I hear a new piece of info about anywhere around the world, I write up a sticky and add to that region of the board. Who knows, it might all add up to nothing, but I just feel that cataloguing info now will be worth the time at some point in the future. I mean, if we’re without Internet or other communications for the long haul, then good ole TV + sticky notes might be the limits of my research options. My Encyclopaedia of New Earth. My Bible.

  The Australian updates are still as useful as before. It looks like the eastern seaboard took an Adelaide-sized hammering from the tsunami gods. As reported, it looks like the entire coast is affected – Sydney and Brisbane both took massive hits. The damage patterns were slightly different though. In Adelaide the tsunami just started beach side and bludgeoned its way inland across the vast plain as far as it could go, In Sydney the damage was dictated by the waterways – the harbour and low-lying areas were inundated before the water took to the smaller waterways and rivers. Pretty much anyone who lived near water didn’t make it – those up on the hills may have got lucky. Brisbane was about halfway between the Adelaide and Sydney experiences.

  It’s funny, I’ve never really had an appreciation for local geography when I’ve travelled through a city or looked across the Adelaide plains. But geography – the literal ‘lay of the land’ as the old people like to say – has been just about the biggest determinate of survival for everyone.

  Anyways, in some strange way, my mind has started to see Brisbane and Sydney as the competition. I really don’t know why that is. I’m not sure if I want to be able to say we in Adelaide have had it tougher than them, or whether I want to rebuild better, or faster – I just don’t know. Why is it I feel the need to be competitive about this? Even my whole survival plan was really a competition to out-do everyone. What the hell is that? Is it weird? Am I weird? Or is it some crazy primal survivalist thing kicking back in? Nah, it’s probably coz I’m wired (weird) like that.

  10.50pm: I’m really starting to hit the wall. I’m attributing it to a combination of pure exhaustion, info overload and post epic event burn-out. Bed beckons –
I’m accepting the beckonising (that’s a word)!

  Oh, there was one last thing I forgot to mention from today. They’re putting together a survivors register to get an idea of numbers and where everyone is etc. So I’m heading there to name myself as an official survivor.

  Survivor. That word has some connotations – ‘lucky’ springs to mind. I realise I’m lucky, big time. All the planning and preparation I did pre-rock didn’t make a lick of difference to getting through impact night. This thing didn’t care that I was prepared. I don’t know what I’m saying here really. I guess I feel guilty when I hear the word survivor because I know I earned the tag through dumb luck. Dumb luck kept me alive but it could’ve killed me just as easily.

  ****

  Sunday, April 14, 2014

  Noon: Massive sleep in. Comaesque. Just about 13 hours of sleep. Wow. That’s gotta be some sort of personal record (oh wait, I just remembered my 14-hour comathon pre-rock). I can’t believe it. Mum always did say sleeping was one of my strengths. I guess the last few days are catching up with me. The funny thing is I’ve woken up feeling more dozy than when I went to bed. I assume that will change at some point after something to eat.

  I’ve got the TV running 24-7 at the moment – and there’s still plenty happening. I’ve decided to take my documentation of unfolding events to the next level, so along with my world map pin-up board I have a map of Australia and an Adelaide map. I’m gonna set them all up permanently somewhere at some point – I might make my brother’s room HQ.

  They keep plugging the survivors register – it’s a nation wide thing and it’s gonna be a bigger deal than I thought. I don’t have to go far to register because they’re doing it at the primary school, which is only a few minutes walk.