Diary of a Survivor (Book 1): Apocalypse

by Pike, Matt J.

  ****

  Thursday, May 9, 2014

  2.15pm: Feeling a little guilty for my slackness on diary entries, but I seriously haven’t been in the mood. Today I left the house for the first time since Monday. Thank God for the big community meeting, otherwise I think I’d still be moping around. Not that I’m much better mind you, just fresher and slightly more human from the walk.

  Things got pretty heated at meeting today. There are a bunch of people in the community who want to march down to Norwood and start World War III. I thought those in charge did a pretty good job of calming everyone down because it did threaten to get out of control a few times.

  The mood has definitely changed from Monday. The food stocks are noticeably reduced – I think that’s acting as a constant reminder to people we’ve got to think of something fast or else it’s all going to hell.

  The meeting probably went for a couple of hours, in the end it was decided the best approach was to send two representatives down to Norwood to try to get some straight answers out of them. Mia and a guy called Anthony Rossi – a lawyer in his late 50s – drew the short straw. It was decided they were both smart enough to get to the truth of what was going on yet they didn’t appear physically intimidating.

  They’re going to head down on Saturday morning and there’s another meeting at the school later that afternoon to spread the word. If Mia and Anthony don’t get support, help or satisfactory answers we’re going to send down a posse to open a can of whoopass down there. After tonight’s meeting I’m pretty sure there’ll be no shortage of volunteers to be part of that group. I’m still deciding whether or not I’ll go if it comes to that. I think I’ll just play it by ear until Mia and Anthony report back.

  I find myself obsessing over the murders when I’m in larger groups at the community. I spend a lot of time trying to suss everyone out to see if they have certain mannerisms or a look in their eye that could mean they are a killer. Probably not a good day to do that with everyone so fired up… almost all of them could be!

  9.45pm: Feeling pretty lonely at the moment. With everything that’s gone on over the last few weeks, and after what happened on Monday, I’m in a bit of a rut. I’m not really sure how to deal with it either; all the usual things I do to take my mind off life aren’t quite cutting it. I really need to break things up and do something new, but the options are somewhat limited to say the least. So I’m at a bit of a dead-end; I just know moping about it all ain’t doing me any favours.

  The other thing I can’t get out of my head is the murders. I try not to let it get into my head because I feel very exposed on my own – especially when a family of three can be beaten. What if someone walks up to the door with a gun? There’s no one to protect me, no one to hear me scream, nowhere on the streets to go for help. I’m pretty much screwed. I have faith in the security I’ve set-up, just no faith in the people around here.

  ****

  Friday, May 10, 2014

  2.20pm: There was a knock at the door this morning – scared the crap out of me. At first I froze, hoping they’d go away. There was another knock after a few seconds. I yelled out ‘who is it?’ but I knew they couldn’t hear me through the driving wind outside. I scurried about trying to find one of the weapons I have scattered around the house – thank God for the crossbow!

  My heart was racing like crazy when I went through the wardrobe to the front door entrance. I left the safety latch attached and opened the door about 5cm. I was paranoid there’d be a gun pointed at me from the other end so I didn’t stick my head in the gap, just yelled out ‘who is it?’ again. My hands were shaking, with one on the door handle and one on the crossbow. I can’t believe I didn’t launch an arrow into my foot or something. Anyways, it was all for nothing as it was Mr Nichols from next door. Relief is an understatement – I dropped the crossbow, opened the door and invited him in.

  I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about him – I felt very guilty. I was at his door the other day with Mark and Jemma when he told us to ‘go away’ (he can get like that), but it was only seeing him today that reminded me of that. Maybe my subconscious blocked him out or put him in the too-hard basket. Some neighbour I am!

  He’s got to be in his mid-70s and he looked very frail, tired and dirty. He said he didn’t want to come in but needed my help with a few things at his house so I agreed to head over.

  Before I left I made sure to turn all the lights off and got mad at myself for not thinking about doing that before I opened the door. What if it had been a stranger? Then I’d be showing off my access to power. That’s real smart – they’d be like a moth to the flame until they got into my place. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Rookie error. Won’t happen again.

  Mr Nichols is a pretty nice guy, I guess. My parents would pop around once every couple of weeks or invite him over for a cup of tea. To be honest though, I’ve never 100% liked him. I dunno why, maybe it’s because he’s always given me this look that says, ‘you’re a kid and I don’t like kids’. But either way my parents would’ve wanted me to help him, whatever the problem.

  When I got there the smell hit me straight away – it was like your typical old person’s smell but on steroids. I’m not sure what was more toxic – the ash outside or old man reek. I didn’t notice how slow Mr Nichols was moving until I followed him through the house; he was favouring his left side and every step looked painful. And the coughing – he had two fits of it when I first got there and pretty much coughed on and off the entire time. The place was in a state of total squalor. It was hard not to feel sorry for him and what his life had been reduced to.

  Then he told me he was dying. I really didn’t know what to say… I just stuttered and stammered until he told me he has lung cancer. He couldn’t get any of his drugs anymore and he wasn’t sure how long he had left. God, he’d kept that one from my parents… I think.

  Then he cut to the chase – he wanted me to write a letter for him, he spoke between laboured breaths and heavy coughs and I wrote down what he said, as neatly as I could. It was a message to his two daughters and his grandkids, his goodbye. He spoke about how much he loved them and the memories he had raising them and the good times they shared. He then bequeathed (I guess that’s how you spell it) each of them a gift.

  It was really sad, but at the same time I think I was really helping him. I was helping him come to terms with what he faced. He must’ve known he’d never see any of them again and that the chances of the letter getting to them were low, but it didn’t change the meaning.

  I was probably transcribing his words for 20 minutes. Once it was all over I went to get him a drink of water, but realised his only source was the tap – and what came out of there was anything but water. So I quickly nipped back home and got him a drink and a can of soup. He didn’t want anything to eat but had a few sips of the water to wet his whistle.

  I asked him if there was anything else I could do and, once he’d settled from the drink, he said there was. He asked me to bury him when he was gone. He said he didn’t know how long he had left but felt like his time was running out. So I agreed to check on him once a day, and bring some water with me.

  I asked where his family lived in the hope I could deliver their gifts. He told me they were at Port Adelaide and Plympton. I’m not sure if he realised both of those suburbs had been overrun with the tsunami, but I offered to take them their gifts. He told me not to be ridiculous and he expected nothing like that from me – he just expected me to ‘keep everything safe’. That was the bit that brought tears to my eyes, but I tried not to show it.

  After that he all but shooed me out of the house saying he’ had dying to do. He also thanked me on the way out and told me that when he was gone I was welcome to take anything I wanted.

  I sat on the lounge after I got home and thought about this new death experience. After everything I‘d seen recently this was so different. Just seeing the state of him and his place and hearing how sick he was – there was nothing in this world
anymore for Mr Nichols. I don’t usually pray – it’s not my thing – but I did then. I prayed he would have a quick and pain-free death.

  It’s really hard learning to cope with knock after knock after knock. It just goes to show the state of mind that I’m thinking an early end is the best thing for Mr Nichols. I guess that’s the thing I need to get my head around most. Death is gonna be regular. It’s the new normal and the sooner I get my head around that fact the sooner I might have a chance of coping.

  I’ve just spent a few hours going back through the start of this diary. It was a real eye-opener too. Just reading my thoughts on everything that was happening then, my naïve optimism, my plan, what little I knew. I mean, it probably has really helped me (my plan), but back then I would’ve never thought things would end up like this.

  I also really noticed how many details I remembered from events I’d forgotten to record in the diary. So I started adding in notes of everything I missed. It’s amazing how much additional info came to me as I read. I mean, I’m talking a serious amount – it’s like my memory is the razor-sharpest it’s ever been. I think I’m putting that down to the fact I have far fewer distractions in life – less social life, social media, TV, games…everything. It just means more time spent actually concentrating on what I’m doing… and remembering all the details. I think I’m gonna re-write the whole thing when I get some time but that’s a project for another day.

  The other thing that stood out for me were the two encounters with the girls – back when I was a pre-comet stud! Those moments were so hot. Being touched, being intimate, having someone, I miss that.

  ****

  Saturday, May 11, 2014

  11.30am: Fuel’s been getting low in the generators for some time. I haven’t worried about it too much because they run on standard petrol (with a bit of oil) and one of the blessings for me in the massive ash dump is no cars have moved since just after impact day. The street are literally littered with cars, half buried in ash, ready to lighten their load #easyenergywin

  I try to use the generators sparingly. I mean, they’d be on probably 14 hours a day, but I’ll only have a couple of lights on for the bulk of that time. There’s no fridge running anymore, which was a big power-drainer, and I’m not running any heating, despite how cold it gets in here. I’ve had a pretty good run with it and I’ve only just started using my last jerrycan this morning. I’m pretty happy with that as a pace, but it was definitely time to stock up.

  It was a bit of a pain in the arse but I decided my best bet was to head to the car yard on Portrush Rd. For a start, there were plenty of cars there, and I didn’t really want to steal from the neighbours if I didn’t have to.

  The initial plan was to take two jerrycans but that was soon cut back to one as the extra weight was pushing me deeper into the ash and made walking difficult. That’s not to mention how awkward it was struggling to keep balance with a jerrycan in each hand and a hose around my neck – I could only imagine what a struggle it would’ve been on the way back when the cans were full.

  Anyways, the car yard turned out to be the perfect location to get fuel as it had a good dozen cars elevated above the ground. It might not seem like much, but those 30cm were like gold. The cars on the ground were up to their windows in ash and if I was to drain fuel from them I would’ve had to dig down just to access the fuel hole thingy. Then I would’ve had to dig down even further to position the jerrycan so gravity could do its work. So the cars on those ‘show stands’ (or whatever they’re called) were a massive time-saver.

  Siphoning fuel is a little trick I learned from Dad one day when we pulled over to help a car that had run out of petrol in the middle of nowhere. All you have to do is stick a hose in the tank, put your mouth over the other end of the hose and suck like hell. Once the fuel reaches the other end – and that end is lower to the ground than the end on the petrol tank – the fuel will keep on coming until it’s empty.

  I found a 4WD, smashed the driver’s side window, flipped the fuel door, fed in the garden hose and went to work. I wasn’t sure whether there’d be much fuel in a show car, but there was. So much so that I got a mouthful as the fuel ran down the hose quicker than I anticipated. Disgusting.

  Oh yeah, that was a fine moment. There I was, laying on the ash, totally filthy, sucking on a hose pipe and then I got a mouth and faceful of fuel until I could jam the hose into the jerrycan. I’m not sure if it could’ve gotten any more humiliating for me… I’m just glad no dodgy pedo-types were watching.

  It was a big effort lugging the full Jerrycan back to the house, so much so my plans for a three-round trip turned into a two-round trip, as I was exhausted. Still, a good morning’s work and I think I’ll have access to fuel as long as I need it. High-five!

  2.40pm: Mr Nichols was looking very bad today. I took him some clean water and canned peaches and had to help him consume both. It was slow work and Mr Nichols had enough halfway through eating the peaches. I stayed around for a few minutes to offer small talk but he wasn’t in the mood. Eventually I said my goodbyes and saw myself out. It’s really difficult to know what the right thing to do is. Is it best to play bad cop and keep him alive a little longer or let him do what he wants to do – die? I think, for now, I’m just going to follow his wishes. I’m certainly not arrogant enough to think I know what’s good for him more than he does.

  6.15pm: Just got back from the school – Mia and Anthony were telling everyone about their trip to Norwood. They were – surprise, surprise – completely stonewalled. Everyone’s pretty pissed about it and we’re all meeting back at the school tomorrow to discuss what to do about it. Oh, and we’re supposed to come ‘prepared for action’, as was stated by some of the more aggressive types. I hope this doesn’t get too ugly – and I mean before we leave for Norwood.

  9.30pm: I started rewriting the diary this evening. It’s amazing how many bits and pieces I’ve managed to add in and how many things I think I’ve forgotten. Anyways, I’m pretty sure this little side project will keep me going for some time. I can see me getting obsessed over it too. I really think the lack of people to talk to somehow makes me want to do more with the diary. It’s a form of communication after all, even if the person I’m communicating with is me.

  I’m getting a little anxious about tomorrow now. I’m not sure I feel that safe with the group after today’s meeting. Mia and Anthony both seem pretty trustworthy – and stable – but I really felt they were losing control of the group this afternoon. Who knows, maybe it was just talk and emotions running high, but if tomorrow morning starts with the same tone it could get out of control

  ****

  Sunday, May 12, 2014

  4.50pm: I had a feeling today was showdown day, both within the community and with the Norwood hub clan but I didn’t realise how Goddamned crazy it would get or how quickly everything could unravel. It’s not the first time I’ve written in this diary still shaking from things that just happened but this is insane. I can barely write.

  I headed to the school not really knowing whether I’d be going down to Norwood or not. I just wanted to get a vibe for the mentality of the community really, then play it from there. Was the community after answers or blood? There were definitely people in the group who represented both sides; there was no shortage of weapons on display as we all gathered to talk game plan.

  Just like the other day, it got heated – Mia did her best to calm things down but there was no stopping the armed majority. Wow, there were some brutal comments being bandied about and I definitely had to think long and hard about joining the crew to go down there.

  In reflection, I didn’t think long and hard enough. The atmosphere was clearly toxic and people were acting and speaking before thinking too hard about the outcomes. God, I could see all that plain as day, but I still went along. I guess I got caught up in the bravado of it all… and the action… the promise of something interesting happening… and maybe partly because I thought, despite the heat in the con
versation, there could be something positive in terms of food for the community.

  It was also the biggest crowd I’ve seen gathered at the school since the survivor register day. This guy called Brad Thompson seemed to be the voice of the shoot-first brigade. He definitely had the numbers on his side too – people were almost getting fanatical and it was kinda scary. Again, Mia struggled to steer the plan to a more conservative one, but she was fighting a losing battle and I think she did well to at least not get overrun.

  Brad managed to use the numbers in his advantage to get himself in a leadership position on the... mission (for lack of a better word). So it looks like he’s now got the same clout around here as Mia or Anthony Rossi. Brad just screamed bad news to me. I didn’t trust him in the slightest – what he wanted or what he was prepared to do to get it. Why everyone else there couldn’t see he was bad news, I don’t know. Maybe it was just me. Maybe with the safety of my food I was thinking more rationally. Maybe. Plus, he had a gun, some sort of pistol. Not sure what it was but he was more than happy to display it in his belt. Part of me wished the thing would discharge itself and blew his knob off.

  There was a bunch of posturing from all of them. Mia and Anthony used their ‘credibility runs already on the board’ to calm the masses down while Brad was the voice of kicking ass. It was scary watching everyone slowly degenerate into a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs, but as much as Mia, Anthony and a few others tried to call for reason they were fighting a losing battle.