Apocalypse [Book 1]

by Matt J. Pike

  Everything is caked in dark brown/grey ash. There is no colour on the streets at all, just poorly defined brown shapes – cars, houses, trees. It was kinda like that old Cadbury’s ad when I was a kid, the one where the world was made of chocolate. However I’m willing to bet this world wouldn’t taste as good. It’s interesting walking along and spotting all the houses where there are signs of human activity. You can see them from a mile away (OK then, 20-30m away)… the tell-tale giveaway is a cleared front door. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or not that I’ve decided not to clean the front door at home. Do I want people to know my place is occupied or not?

  6.30pm: Just spent the last 20 minutes coughing my guts up. Disgusting. Kinda hoping I don’t get sick right now because the timing would be far from awesome. I’ve got a feeling the coughing is more to do with the ash I’ve ingested during my time outside over the last two days than with any kind of illness.

  8pm: Just had a much-needed shower. Something I noticed with the bath at the Hardigans’ and again with the shower here is the water quality ain’t what it used to be. There’s a definite colour change and maybe it was my imagination, but I did detect a subtle ‘off’ smell. I’m not sure what that all means apart from that it isn’t good news. I do know I won’t be drinking tap water anytime soon.

  I gave myself a mental high five for thinking about getting water containers and filling them up pre-rock.

  ****

  Wednesday, April 24, 2014

  5pm: Totally unmotivated today. I have done sweet FA. The closest I’ve come to an actual achievement of any note is opening and devouring my first canned meal. Spaghetti bolognese for those playing at home. The result: highly average – only a short step from meh. Thank heavens for my friend parmesan cheese is all I’ll say. But it’s short term gain for long-term pain, I’m afraid - I’ve probably only got enough for one fleck per can. #tastefail

  ****

  Thursday, April 25, 2014

  11am: Felt a strange thing called motivation today. I decided to deal with the issue of light emitting from the front door. I was pretty happy with my solution – I stripped bare the wardrobe from Jase’s room (AKA HQ, The War Room, Command Centre) and knocked out its back wall. I then positioned it in front of the entry door – far enough so the door can fully open. I’ve then used the remaining wood from the back of the wardrobe to extend a ‘tunnel’ from the cupboard to the doorframe, nailed it into place, then blacked-out the remaining gaps with a combination of gaffer tape and black garbage bags.

  OK, it does look slightly weird in the middle of the entry hall – this giant The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe homage, daring me to climb inside and face some strange fantasy world, Bad Cadbury World, maybe. I’m gonna get some odd looks if anyone comes to visit, that’s for sure.

  1.30pm: I’m trying my best not to project forward at the moment, but it’s proving difficult. I’m spending so much time cooped up in the house with so little to keep me distracted for long that my mind inevitably wanders back to where everything is going. But it’s not a good place to go to. I mean, if I’m honest, really honest, about where things are at here in Adelaide and where they are headed, well... it’s not good. Everything so far has pretty much been a worst-case scenario result, and all the experts’ (pre-impact) worst-case predictions pointed to decades-long ice-ages and humans on the verge of extinction. I don’t want to think about it because when I do I come to the conclusion that’s where we’re heading.

  I spend most of my waking hours keeping busy looking for distractions really. The problem is the distractions fall into two categories…

  1 – Distractions involving my survival. These are things I can keep busy with that I believe will help prolong my life. Things like continuing to adapt the house to deal with the conditions, sorting out all the things I printed off the ‘net pre-rock, and clearing the ash from the house.

  2 – Distractions from all things apocalypse. Things like playing Xbox, watching DVDs, reading, playing cards, playing darts.

  All of this is great, but the Type 1 distractions are so closely tied to my fate I can’t help but project forward to where this is all going. And the Type 2 distractions are so meaningless I feel guilty I’m not doing Type 1 distractions I start to think of why I’m not doing Type 1 distractions and think of why I need to do Type 1 distractions which reminds me of how dire things are.

  Screwed, isn’t it? It basically means whatever I’m doing I’m thinking, at least at some level, about how futile anything and everything I’m doing is. And that I’m probably gonna die in this stupid house, in the dark, with very few people left to give a toss that I came and went.

  This is why I need distractions. I’m telling myself to not plan too far ahead, not at least until I know what the survivor register people say next Monday.

  3pm: Ohhh. Exciting (but frustrating)! I’m getting a hint of the ABC TV signal again. This is the first time in days and I’m sure it’s no coincidence it’s timed with the better weather. The problem is the signal is so bad I’ll only see a few frames of picture and a snippet of audio before the signal will freeze and make that irritating electronic ‘crunching’ sound.

  It was like trying to watch TV from my Auntie and Uncle’s shack at Normanville when the weather’s bad. The only difference is here I need to know what’s going on. Goddamn you, dodgy digital signal! Why did they cut off the analogue signal a few years back? At least with analogue you’d still have an uninterrupted signal even if it was ‘snowy’. I would’ve been able to pick-up so much more than I did.

  Anyways, I reckon I had this semi-decipherable signal for about four hours. I soon gave up on trying to understand the audio – just too inconsistent. Instead I just concentrated on those moments the screen froze with a headline on there and wrote down everything I could.

  Anyways here’s the best of what I got (paraphrased, to get as much down as possible)…

  The cloud that has engulfed Adelaide now stretches around the globe. It looks like everyone is facing the same conditions.

  Once again experts disagree on what the effect on global temperatures will be, but the general consensus is a whole lot colder (that’s technical I know). Some are saying a 5-10 degree drop, some are saying far, far more.

  If you believe the ‘far, far more’ experts that means imminent global ice-age. Wow.

  Europe and the US are in crisis. They survived the initial impact but the ash and darkness have brought panic and instability to their populations. The power is not the problem over there, but it soon will be as temperature start to fall. Food is in short supply already, particularly in the cities.

  Looks like it’s been getting particularly crazy in the US. There were riots on the streets in a number of cities for days as people wanted food. Things were getting out of hand with violence and guns etc and they’ve brought in martial law. Apparently you cannot gather on the streets in groups larger than five, otherwise the army will open fire on you! Wow!

  Things aren’t too much better in Europe, where martial law has also been declared in a number of countries.

  Basically, people living in the big cities are being encouraged to leave. The population density is too high to be sustainable. God knows where they think they’ll go.

  The ash cloud is causing issues well beyond the darkness and impending temperature changes. Obviously the global no-fly zone is still in place and will be for months, maybe years (probably years), but coupled with that is the almost complete breakdown of the transport system. Road systems are in complete chaos as the ash sludge keeps dumping inches on to the roadways. It can’t be cleaned up as quickly as it falls. And it’s not like snow, which melts, the ash just keeps accumulating, so finding places to store what’s already been dumped is also a problem.

  Rail system are down too as it is proving impossible to keeps tracks safe and ash-free.

  Right now the only viable mode of transport on Earth is the boating system. Sure, it sounds like a glimmer of good news
but then you have to take into account at least 80% of the world’s sea ports have been utterly destroyed by tsunami and miles of debris now stand between the nearest surviving human and the coast. Well it’s not that much hope really, is it?

  The Atlantic Ocean got the easiest ride and sea transport may be an option along the east coast of the Americas and the west coast of Europe/Africa.

  In addition to blocking roads, the sludge is getting into everything. Everything! It’s getting into the engines of the vehicles designed to clear the streets of the sludge. Engines seize/clog/die. Nothing is designed to survive operating in these conditions.

  The sludge is getting indoors too. Nowhere or nothing is immune. Computers are dying, electronic circuits are frying, food is getting corrupted and clean drinking water tainted. Every single element of life is becoming harder. The ash is unstoppable at the moment and there’s no slow-down in sight.

  Not one system of life anywhere in the world is coping. It’s simply spiralling out of control, rapidly. Even in the ‘lucky countries’ like those in North America and Europe, where there is still electricity and little in terms of property and population loss. It now looks like they stand in line for an equally devious fate as the rest of us. People there are going to be competing against each other for the simplest of resources like food.

  There weren’t any local updates in the time I watched. That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence! Something – anything – would’ve been good but I’m no wiser now than when I started watching.

  There was a report out of Sydney recommending people stay off the streets. They should either bunker down at home or find their way to one of the ‘survivor hubs’ – large shopping centres or hospitals – if they need supplies or medical attention.

  Worst of all, they didn’t even finish their news segment with a cute animal story! They’re supposed to do that to make us feel better – it’s their rule and they’re not sticking to it! What happened to the good old days – news intro, murder in the suburbs, triple fatality car-crash, boring politics, earthquake in foreign land, actor so-and-so died aged blah blah, your footy team lost again on the weekend, some report on some other sport no-one cares about, it’s gonna be cold tomorrow.... but here’s some footage of a panda falling over so everything’s OK? I miss the panda.

  6pm: I’ve just been pouring through everything I transcribed from the news reports and trying to work out what it all means. My first thoughts are of Jason. London sounds like one of the last places where you’d want to try and survive this thing. In fact, the UK would have to be one of the most overcrowded countries on Earth – I just hope he finds a way to get out. Even then, where would he go? I’ve spent way too much time worrying about what might happen to him and it’s not doing me any good. There’s no way I could cope with losing him too. The fact is, circumstances don’t look good, but he’s a resourceful guy in a place unharmed from the initial damage... with electricity. I think it’s best for me to leave my thoughts at – just thoughts. He has a far better chance of survival than me, and I’m gonna make it, so he’ll be fine.

  It’s amazing how quick the unaffected parts of the world have plunged into crisis. It’s amazing – and scary. In some really weird way I think I’m pretty lucky. I’m not competing with a super-large population for the rapidly-disappearing resources. I’ve got enough to see me through for some time and when the time comes that I run out, I might be able to scavenge more from parts of the city that didn’t make it.

  Overseas though, they are going to burn through resources at a rate they wont be able to maintain. How long will electricity last? And food? Even though their crops probably survived the initial impact, surely they’re not going to produce this season. Will they survive to the next? How many days worth of food does the US have in storage for example? They’ve got to feed nearly 300 million people. What happens when the stocks run low? And what happens when they’re empty? And what happens a week after that? A month? A year?

  One thing I do know about Americans is they like guns, lots and lots of guns. They’re gonna be hungry, desperate and armed. The chaos reported now is probably as good as it’s gonna get for some time. I mean, how many people can actually survive in America when little food can be produced – sustainably? Ten million? Five million? One million? Any?

  To me, unless something radically changes with our luck, there’s going to be a massive population shift in a short amount of time – a few months maybe? And with life at stake it’s not going to be a pretty transition.

  To be honest, I think I’d choose my dire, crap-hole of a situation over that one any day. It’s gonna turn nasty over there. Dog-eat-dog nasty. Survival of the most heavily armed.

  Before I sign off here’s my random thought of the day:

  It just occurred to me that if I take the word DEAD and the word ALIVE and smash them together I’m left with the word ADELAIDE and a V for victory. Just sayin’.

  ****

  Friday, April 26, 2014

  8pm: The weather picked up again today. To be honest I couldn’t be bothered doing anything constructive at all, so I spent the entire day playing games, watching movies and reading. It was awesome. I finished the Call of Duty: Black Ops campaign I started the other day on the old 360. It was really good, and the good news is my brother has all the CoD games in his collection so I’ve got a few more day’s entertainment lined up. Movies wise I watched Reality Bites. Itwas pretty funny I’m not entirely sure why I picked it but I think it says something about where I’m at mentally. Normally, if I had the pick of our movie collection, I’d go straight for the sci-fi options, but today I just wanted the fantasy of seeing the world as it used to be. I’m not sure if it did me any good though. I found it hard to fully concentrate on the film, because I kept fixating on things that used to be normal. Just daily lives, really, nothing special. Even blue sky was confronting – it’s been 10 days since I’ve seen blue sky, or even natural light.

  As for my book choice, well I decided that the movie was too much reality for one day so I started reading Dad’s first Red Dwarf book – Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers. Very funny and a great distraction.

  ****

  Saturday, April 27, 2014

  11am: Yesterday was just what I needed, so much so I’m doing it all again today… and tomorrow. That’s right; I’m giving myself a long weekend. Hell, I deserve it :D

  I did finish one minor task for the house before I indulged – I’ve turned off the fridge. There was no point having it on really; I’ve used everything but a few of the sauces and the freezer will be empty after I use the last of the puff-pastry tonight. All it’s doing is draining power from the generator, so I figure I should store the last odds and ends in the esky and leave it in the laundry. It’s pretty cold in there anyways.

  Speaking of cold, it’s currently 7 degrees. Judging by how the temperature tends to peak just after lunch, but doesn’t really stray too far in any day, I’d be surprised if it hit 10 today. That’ll be the first time it hasn’t reached double figures since this thing began. I’ve never been much of a weather person, but I can’t remember a day pre-rock that we didn’t hit double figures, not even in the heart of July. Given we’re still in autumn that doesn’t bode well for what we’re heading towards.

  But today it’s all about forgetting such pesky things as the death of a planet and probably my demise with it. Instead the focus is on hard-core slobbery. I’ll report back in tomorrow night when I’ve recharged batteries and be ready to face the survivor register people once more

  ****

  Sunday April 28, 2014

  10pm: Wow… I indulged so much I ended up on the verge of getting bored… now that’s saying something! BioShock campaign completed, halfway though Borderlands – both top-shelf – Red Dwarf novel one finished, now reading the sequel Better Than Life, and I went on a Monty Python marathon last night and this morning watching all three movies. I’m gonna give the points to Life of Brian in a close win ov
er The Holy Grail, although the Mr Cresote scene in The Meaning of Life was absolute gold!

  Nine degrees today... again. I reckon we were still getting 40+ about six weeks ago. I’d hate to think what the middle of winter is going to bring… or if it gets better on the other side… if there is another side :S

  Random though of the day:

  I sometimes wonder if I’m like one of the last dinosaurs. Sixty five million years ago a massive asteroid buried itself in the Yucatan Peninsula. It left an impact crater 180km wide and showered the Earth with fiery debris. After the fire came the dust cloud and the years of cold. Dinosaurs didn’t survive. Sounds familiar.

  But some would’ve survived the initial impact. There would’ve been pockets of bliss – little oasis’ from the initial catastrophic chaos. But eventually the change in weather, the loss of food – it was too much for them. The little mammals survived though – it was the start of the human age, I guess.

  So maybe this is the end of our age. Maybe I’m like one of those dinosaurs stuck in an oasis that is doomed to be my downfall. Maybe I’m delaying the inevitable. Maybe it’s the little guys I share this house with – the millipedes, cockroaches, spiders and ants – that are the future of the Earth. Maybe one day my preserved bones will be discovered by the ancestors of these millipedes and I’ll be put in a museum for all to see. I wonder what they will imagine about our lifestyle. They will probably be fascinated, pitying, but mostly it’ll be a sideshow to their cosmopolitan millipedian existence.

  Don’t snigger too much millipedes, the next rock has your name on it.