26th January 2016
Day nine. No news, no developments in the story it seems. It’s all starting to feel a bit surreal now, as if it wasn’t already. It’s like none of this is really happening, like we’re in this big bubble with the hatches battened down and all huddled up in our duvets, waiting for someone to tell us to get up and get back to reality.
On the other hand, the isolation feels so real it could really make you crack. When we all one day look back on this –I hope – through countless blogs and accounts like mine, I hope that everyone realises how crap we were at dealing with this disaster and how it was allowed to take hold, how we failed to keep it all together.
We’re all in hiding, as far as I know at least, and that’s no way to fight a war. After all of the wars that have been waged against terrorism, dictators and tyrants, this is the biggest war that mankind has faced – and what did we do when faced with it? We ran, that’s what we did. We ran, and those that didn’t hide quick enough were consumed – literally consumed. Then the hunted became the hunters, and the war got even tougher.
There are pockets of us here in Porthreth alone, and there must be pockets of survivors everywhere up and down the country, but what’s going on? Who’s in charge? And what’s the plan? No-one seems to know, not around here at least. I guess that’s nothing new for Cornwall; it’s all about London, of course. But there’s been so little coming out of government that we really are in the dark on this one.
The groaning outside has stopped, for the most part. Most of the undead ‘trudgers’ either left or seemed to get tired waiting and have gone back into some kind of hibernation. I didn’t think that happened with them, but it must have. There are still a couple of them that scrape at the front window and groan longingly, but they’re mostly gone.
It’s difficult to know what to do. We’re surrounded by walkers at the window, there are smashed skulls on the drive, bodies strewn in the street, and walkers still within earshot of a pin drop. It’s quiet out there but we know we’re far from safe – and that’s making it pretty quiet in here too.
27th January 2016
The last of the news networks went down tonight; the domestic news channels went off air right at the start, but we’ve been able to see one or two international stations over the last couple of days.
To be fair there hasn’t been a lot of news, the infection seems to have hit most of Europe if the lack of reporting is anything to go by. The same headlines and reports were on a loop for nearly two days, with little other news from the remaining media broadcasts coming out of the Middle East and North America. But now even that has gone off air, one way or another. It’s lonely.
It’s funny how lonely it is without the surroundings of 24/7 media – it’s amazing how much you miss the smallest of things like that. We’re all essentially in hiding, that’s what this is for anyone still surviving – we’re running and hiding. We’re cut-off, cut adrift from our friends, families, neighbours, colleagues, everyone and everything we’ve ever known. It’s all gone. It makes it so lonely. Now the last of the news channels has gone, it’s lonelier than ever. And yet we’re only 10 days into this ordeal, this apocalypse.
How much worse can this get? What do we run out of next: water, power, food? I don’t know, maybe I’m just overtired. I know Jenny is. It’s been a long day, an even longer night since we lost that contact with the wider world at large, and I’m finally getting sleepy – as sleepy as you can when you know there are corpses outside baying for your every drop of blood and flesh. I’m going to turn this off and save the battery. Good night.
28th January 2016
It’s been 11 days since the ‘outbreak’ as we’re calling it, and three full days since most of the moaning, groaning and bloodshed stopped – three lonely, difficult days.
Only the incessant rain has really broken the silence, pounding the windows and pavements outside, and breaking up our dark, quiet ‘life’.
What happened 11 days ago? We still don’t know. We don’t know where this problem came from or how it came to be. All we know is, on 17th January 2016 ordinary people began to attack and bite each other. It was everywhere, on every news channel, in all the next-day newspapers, and flooding across websites the world over. The message on the radio and TV was to stay at home, stay indoors and keep yourself as safe and secure as possible. No-one knew how long this might last, so keep yourselves safe for as long as you can, they said. That was it.
We’ve heard nothing official since the evening of 21st January. I think the Government must have gone into hiding. There was talk of an emergency COBRA meeting on the news, then rumours began to surface that all of the key members of Government had been seconded to safety in the emergency bunkers of power below ground. So we’ve just been following their advice ever since, reinforcing the flat and keeping ourselves safe until we hear something new. But when will that be?
We’re cooped up within our own home and yet, we have no freedom. No freedom of expression, no noise, no freedom to actually do what you want to do, nothing. What’s that term they use these days? Staycation, that’s it. Well, it’s certainly no ‘staycation’ that’s for sure. We’re pensive, rigid almost, walking on eggshells for fear of making the slightest sound and breaking cover to the walkers outside. That’s what we’ve come to know them as, walkers.
We’ve seen quite a few of them dragging their heels as they walk through the village, but not as many in the last few days. They’re slow, really slow. But I don’t want to find out how quick they can be, so I’ll happily keep quite in here and let them pass by. I’m sure there’s more of them taking the unconventional routes through the wooded sides of the valley, we heard word of the bike trail being overrun when they first reached the village and apparently they have little sense of direction, so there’s probably loads of them stuck in the woods.
We’re stuck here at the moment, making do. There’s lots of quiet hours spent wrapped up in duvets and each of us huddled close by, passing the time with near-silent DVD’s, word-searches and whispered conversation. It was almost fun at first, all a bit backs-to-the-wall and survivalist, but the novelty firmly wore off. This is where I have to do brutally honest with you, reader, it’s horrible. It’s terrifying.
I know that each of us is shitting ourselves that someone is going to drop a clanger and draw attention to the flat. Even if it isn’t one of us in here, it might be someone else in the flat above or just some idiot that has decided to take their chances outside on the street. I just want to cry. I hate being on edge; I hate having to whisper everything I say; I hate living without sunlight; I hate not having my freedom, our freedom. It’s been less than a fortnight and this already doesn’t feel like survival, it feels like something else, something more. It’s draining, seriously draining. But if it isn’t survival, then what the hell is this?
29th January 2016
Day 12. Today was a good day. Well, a better day, anyway. Jenny and I wiled away a good few hours by checking through all of our reinforcements and finding new ways to make the apartment safe and soundproof.
It’s amazing how inventive you can be when it’s a matter of necessity. Every possible effort has been made to reinforce the apartment, to maximise noise reduction and mask any presence within the building. The doors are not just locked and the windows closed tight, they are all sealed over around the edges with masking tape, a hurried improvisation to limit the possibility of light seeping out. The blinds are fully closed, the curtains are pulled tight, and any lighting is subdued by modified fixtures and fittings.
Potential openings or weak spots have been barricaded by relocated furnishings; wardrobes now sit firm and unyielding in front of the patio doors, doubled up as both a storage unit and a defence mechanism. A solid dining table – its legs removed – is now propped up in hope against the double window of the spare bedroom to the front of the building.
In our bedroom, so often a bolthole when the paranoia gets too much, detached doors fr
om the kitchen cupboards make a patchwork buttress over the windows. The double bedstead has been ably dismantled and all components placed in an empty corner of the room; a mattress on the floor makes for a quieter night’s sleep than any potentially squeaking and shrilling metal structure. Comfort is a luxury we no longer have – survival is the necessity.
Spare blankets, cotton sheets and light fabrics now sit atop the often creaking laminate flooring to limit the resonance of footsteps. Alarm clocks are disabled; smartphones are permanently in silent mode, if on at all. A heavy, solid wood bookcase that once sat long and sturdy along the length of a lounge wall, now stands vertical and tall up against the front door, itself reinforced by an ageing wooden bureau.
Emergency vessels of tap water are kept to one side in the same spare bedroom, while spare torches and makeshift weapons are placed in every room, just in case.
Never has an occupied household lived such a quiet, almost lifeless existence. Drawing attention to any presence would only invite the feral footfall to the building’s every nook and cranny. A legion of infected, wild and bloodthirsty beings would lay siege on every nuance of this retreat at the merest suggestion of fresh meat. Any movement might alert the undead and they would, eventually, penetrate the fortress. We know that. Our sanctuary – or prison as it sometimes feels – could so easily become a tomb if we aren’t careful. We’ve never been more aware that the finest of margins could be key to keeping us alive.
And we were given another reminder this afternoon. A corpse outside somewhere let out a piercing howl of a noise this afternoon and any moment of brief satisfaction really was gone. We’ve come to associate such shrieks with a gruesome loss of life; now we’re in a paranoid state over which of our neighbours or friends may have succumbed. In many ways, we hope we’ll never know.
30th January 2016
It's getting harder to remember who or what we were, despite it only being a matter of days. I've been trying to keep some semblance of normality to date; as long as we could keep it quiet, we've been showering as normal, looking after our appearance as normal, and generally attempting to maintain as much normality in the things we do as possible.
But it's getting harder to keep it up. A sense of 'why bother?' is creeping into our mindset. Why bother showering today? Why not wear your scruffs for a day? Why get up at all? If it wasn't for checking our defences yesterday out of sheer fear and paranoia, we probably wouldn’t have got up at all.
But that isn't healthy. You've got to keep some sanity and keep busy – if that's possible when you're stuck in a small two-bed apartment unable to make any noise or even put any lights on.
The dead of the night is the worst. It feels so haunting, so unpredictable. While the daylight hours come with their own torture at being stuck indoors in the same stale air and tired four walls, the nights are fraught with fear. There’s an edginess, a complex, almost. When the light truly fades and only the stars and street lamps light the sky, there really is no knowing what lurks around the corner, no matter how fortified your haven is.
Evenings become long and drawn-out, a combination of boredom and uncertainty. No Saturday night television, beers or takeaway. No friends round for dinner, love or laughter. Even sleep is at a premium. Now, evenings revolve around keeping lights dim, noise at low levels, and movements furtive. Snuggling up in duvets, throws, pillows and pyjamas was no longer the novel comfort that it might once have been; everything is now laced with fear and anxiety, every motion outside is a reason for paranoia. Every sound or shadow you see through tactical vantage points only brings shakiness and suspense. Even the once heaviest of sleepers, like Jenny, now struggle to break 40 winks, such is the fear that the cold, dark nights instil.
To dare to dream is to suspend reality during the pestilence, there’s simply no room for dreaming. This is the grim truth that encapsulates each night. There’s a collective blanket of anxiety and not just in our own home; it’s as though you can somehow feel it emanating throughout the entire village, the only thing capable of getting past all of the barricaded doors and thick granite walls. That and the groaning, of course.
The infected travel the streets of towns and cities, suburbs and countryside, in search of their next victim. The hours of darkness are a fertile hunting ground for the biters as they stalk the living and chase them into submission, lurking – not hiding – in the black of the night. Dusk till dawn feels like a death defying curfew for us, let alone anyone stuck out there in the streets.
As the dark of night gradually gives way to the bright beginnings of morning, those who have slept awake to a feeling of relief and quiet confidence that they’re still alive, that the undead have not yet pillaged them of their juicy innards and tore them from limb to limb. For that, I have been thankful 13 times already.
31st January 2016
Our safety may now be compromised. Swarms of zombies are circling around the building with bloodlust. The groans are deafening and the fear is crippling. This is scariest shit we’ve dealt with since we barricaded the last door of the apartment.
We woke up just after midnight to some serious banging to the front of the house. Momentarily paralysed, it struck fear down our spines. Any knock at the door at that hour would induce some sense of trepidation during pre-apocalypse times, let alone now – when even the slightest sound or movement instantly puts you on edge. This was more than just a few knocks at the door; this sounded like someone or something laying siege to the apartment.
Within minutes, the night air exploded from a punctuated silence to a cacophony of dull moans, groans and murmurs. From a strategic gap in one of the front windows, I came face-to-face with what appeared to be Jake ‘Dog’ Penberthy, a neighbour from just across the road. He had always been so keen to please almost everyone he met like an excited dog, hence the nickname, but the only thing Dog was pleasing in those moments was the hordes of zombies he had just stirred from their dazed state.
Dog hammered at the window as they bore down on him from all corners of the street. He must have been bitten or attacked or something; he barely looked human anymore and seemed to be on the verge of becoming one of them, as he thumped the glass and pleaded for us to help him. I think we got our answer to whoever succumbed to that howling zombie a few days ago.
I saw it all happen, close up. Not yet fully turned, trickles of thick, bloody puss visibly began to travel up his throat from his infected insides and spill out of his mouth before him. Drops oozed from his ears and nose, and he started to quiver and shake like the onset of a fever taking hold. Pressed up against the window, I could almost feel the transformation eating him up as his eyes grew so weary and faint. With the last mouthfuls of frothy puss emerging from the corners of his mouth, Dog passed out and drew his last breaths as a normal man.
Before he could even fall to the ground, the hungered pack of undead predators tore into his bloody body and began to tear him from limb to limb. As I recoiled, veins and sinews were being savagely ripped from Dog’s neck and a mauled major artery sprayed crimson blood across the sheet of glass between us. Within seconds, what fleshy core of his body remained had collapsed to the ground with all of the corpses.
Though I leapt back from my vantage point and, with shaking hands, replaced the furnishing reinforcement around the window, it was too late. The entire moment could only have lasted a few minutes at most, but it had drawn an army of walkers to our door. Several hours later, we can still hear them groaning and scratching at the surfaces of our apartment. They know we are here, and they are insatiable in the pursuit of their fleshy feast.
1st February 2016
I’m not sure I can take this much longer. They say that in space, no-one can hear you scream. Well out there today, it seems all anyone can hear is screams and groans. Since the outbreak 15 days ago, it’s been one extreme or the other – screams or silence. Since ‘Dog banged at our window seeking refuge around 30 hours ago, and was mutilated before my eyes, all we can hear are the cadavers baying f
or blood outside.
I thought I was stronger than this, but it’s enough to make you scream when you’re not being bitten. First it was the paranoia, the lack of sleep, and the nerves. Now it’s the banging and clattering at every window, every wall, for hours upon hours. There’s no let up. We’re in our own personal hell, we’re well and truly prisoners in our own home.
I cannot get the sight of Dog and his mutilated flesh and bone out of my mind, either. It’s eating me up almost like those zombies ruthlessly devoured his carcass yesterday. The puss, the blood, the gore and those pained eyes – all playing out in front of me with just a pane of glass between us. I have to live with the shame too, reconciling the guilt of not even wanting to help him, let alone actually attempting to help him. It was all over so fast that there’s nothing I could do anyway, but I know deep down my feelings in that moment; I know I didn’t want to let him in or help him, even if I could have.
The undead outside show no sign of abating. They’re desperate to get hold of us and they show no sign of tiring. At one point I counted about 35 outside on the drive, lord knows where they assembled from or how many are there now. I went back to the same window not long after it first happened, and was greeted with all of these hungered, yellow eyes were staring back at me, ripping the flesh of my face with their gaunt gazes. It was a haunting experience. I don’t know if many of us survivors have been that up close and personal with a walker without getting bitten.
The Pestilence: The Diary of the Trapped Page 2
