The Pestilence: The Diary of the Trapped

by Rob Cockerill

  29th April 2016

  A fortnight on and we’re still tying up the loose ends from the storm damage. As far as my limited understanding can tell, we are back on the mains power and on that note, the power is still on, the water is still running and we are ever thankful for those small mercies.

  We feel like we may have been lulled into a false sense of security for the last month or so where those two fundamental commodities are concerned, such has been the level of preparedness up here compared to our situation at the start of this crisis. So we’ve reverted back to some old practices that we used to routinely do in our apartment during the first weeks of the apocalypse – charging every electronic device in sight and keeping them charged where possible, and filling every possible bottle, pan and vessel with drinking water.

  We’ve even made up some improvised water butts around the site to catch as much rainwater as possible, primarily for watering our crops but also for potential drinking water should any kind of worst case scenario become reality. Speaking of which, there’s no sign of any life emerging from the raised beds as yet, but we've still got every finger and toe crossed for the most random, eclectic batch of crops that we sowed recently.

  There’s no evidence of the surveillance system making an appearance yet either. It’s been down since the storms but unlike the showers, hot water, lighting and electrical appliances that were restored with the return to power, it shows no sign of rebooting just yet. We’re still anxious to get a perspective on the scene down in the village right now, but unless we head down there we’re unlikely to have any handle on that.

  One of the potentially warped ideas we had in the last few days was to work out a way to get back to our apartment for some much-needed supplies. I’d have to do this alone to avoid putting Jenny and our little bump in any risky situations, but the reward could be huge. We know there are stacks of medical supplies, foodstuffs, frozen meals, long-life foods and rations, clothes and all sorts down there that we could do with right now, and we did of course leave ourselves a swift exit/re-entry route into the building when we left which is good to know – but it’s a case of how I would get down there in the first place.

  Is there a clear path to our apartment these days? How’s it looking on the streets? Is there storm damage? Has corpse activity spiked in the last fortnight? We really need to get the surveillance system up and running again so that we can get a hold on the situation back down in the village, and establish where I could make it or if it’s a risk too far this time. If it was a matter of sheer speed and agility alone, then I’m confident – and especially so after all of the light running sessions I’ve been doing recently. But if it comes to combat and the village is swamped, I just don’t know that I could manage that again. Though some kind of scary primordial fighter may have come out in me the last time we were truly face-to-face with clusters of the savage undead, I am no warrior. And if there’s one thing that pounding the laps of the asphalt gives you, then it’s some extra clarity of thought; and I am in no doubt about my survival limitations in the field.

  I have been pushing my limitations in strength over the last few days, though. Under Jenny’s watchful eye from the security of the other side of the fence, I’ve ventured briefly out of the compound to attempt to manoeuvre some of those trees that came down in the storms into a more strategic position. It’s taken hours, but some of the more manageable, lighter weight trunks that were felled have been propped up firmly against corner posts in the perimeter fence to add some fortification. The storm winds whipped and rippled the fencing and I’m hopeful that this added buttress will prevent that from happening again. It could just prove to be the warped thinking of the heady sunshine, however. Mad dogs and Englishman, and all that…

  Some definitely warped thinking was my idea to use some of the heavier, more robust trees as natural defences against the corpses. Jenny told me it was ridiculous to even think I could achieve it, but my hope was to use them as chest-height barricades in the woodland, to act as natural blockades that would stop meandering cadavers from leaving the woodland and reaching the base itself. So far, Jenny was right – I can barely move some of the heavier trunks, while the occasional onrushing biter gets a little too close for comfort and I have to either retreat for an indeterminable break until it loses interest, or engage in another bloody-spattered splaying. There never seems to be a clean kill.

  But I’m determined to make this work, so as soon as I have summoned enough energy and there's a clearing in cadaver activity, I will get those woodland blockades in place.

  30th April 2016

  Back-breaking, tireless work continues with those fallen trees. I’m determined to get them in place as some kind of natural defences, but my presence beyond the fence is capturing more and more unwanted attention from our undead menaces, and efforts are being persistently punctuated by their advances. We’ve had a few too many close calls for our liking and this one task has dominated the whole day today.

  As I write this at 6pm and wait for a hot bath to run so that I can have a deep soak for my weary muscles, the sun is just showing signs of weakening and I am still not much nearer to having those barricades in position. I’m wondering whether Jenny was right and I should just let this one go, but I’m not usually in any mood to give up and admit defeat. Especially where our long-term security in the relentless bloodshed of the zombie apocalypse is concerned.

  Part of me still thinks I can get it done, with a fair wind and some of the corpse heat taken off. I need to have a soak and think it through…

  In the meantime, we have a few other things to get to grips with – like some creative meal ideas, trying to come up with any new ideas to get the surveillance system up and running again, working out why we still have that unsettling feeling of being watched, and some smart thinking on how we see our long-term future unfolding here. That’s a deep one indeed, and poses many questions about how we choose to go about our survival and raise a child.

  Tomorrow’s itinerary is to tend some more to the raised beds and encourage those crops to grow, a little light running, and some other less intensive tasks to not only pass the time, but make this place work for us as best we can. I need 24 hours away from the woodland.

  1st May 2016

  I must have been recounting too many ‘kills’ or close encounters recently. It’s almost all I’ve been thinking about, subconsciously, as we’ve worked to shore up our means of resistance. But constantly reminding yourself of what you’re doing it all for isn’t working for me anymore. I've been waking up in cold sweats throughout the night, wrestling with vicious, violent nightmares over all the dead I have 'killed' or slain.

  When you're already tired, drained from the recent over-exertions of shifting woodland, and living in fear every minute of every day, losing even more sleep to trepidation and paranoia is the last thing you need. It's really not good for Jenny either, she needs every bit of sleep and rest she can get, especially with a second wind of morning sickness extending into what must now be her second trimester. We don't know a lot about pregnancy and there's clearly no-one to talk to about it, in fact we don’t even know if she is in her second trimester, but from our limited knowledge we thought the whole morning sickness thing was supposed to ease off in the second phase. If anything it's gotten worse over the last week. The generally dwindling food supply and crazy conceptions of meals due to depleting resources is probably not helping. What we wouldn’t do right now for a good square meal.

  The nightmares began last night with my most recent slaughters – in the woods, en route to the military base that we’ve called home for a couple of months now. It was like a montage or mash-up of every brandishing of the kitchen knife into their corpse faces, every struggle and punch and kick, every second of lost footing and near falls in the muddy coppices; every moment of blood-flinging mutilation and held breath. Cue cold sweat one.

  Then it was right back to the start, the harrowing day that Jake ‘Dog’ Penberthy was to
rn from limb to limb right before my self-preserved eyes. I tossed and turned as I was subjected to every frothy mouthful of bloody puss that spilled out of his mouth, every last breath he drew, and each aggressive bite of veins and sinews that was stripped from his body all over again. Cold sweat two.

  Cold sweat three came courtesy of our former parish councillor Jane, recollecting in slow motion the moments she succumbed feebly, helplessly, to an advancing pack of hungered cadavers who would proceed to shred her submissive body right in front of us. They may not have been my kills, but in many ways the cowering dismemberment of both ‘Dog’ and Jane is on me; I was there, I couldn’t save them and in some way, I was willing to save them. Their bloody, withering faces taunted me as I shivered and shook in the early hours.

  But the worst of my mind’s gruesome games of the night was the remembrance of our neighbour Andrew White; my first zombie kill. It must have started around 4am. I had already been through hours of wrangling and emotional writhing, and my sleep deprived body couldn’t take much more. Then it hit me, the slow build up of our anxious wait on the outside of his apartment door on that day in February, the nerves trembling, and then fast-forwarding into every frantic, frenzied moment of struggle – every spewing of rusting red blood up into the air and flaking flesh showering down on me. I jolted and contorted with each renewed snarl of the battle, beads of clammy sweat emanating from my body with every montaged memory of Andrew’s undeterred being snapping at my face. Despite my slumber, I re-enacted each clumsy, ultimately decisive blow to the corpse’s carcass until the final puncture of its disfigured head woke me with a startle. Cold sweat four.

  Being up all night reliving the memories that I had hoped were banished to the back of my mind, and having countless flashbacks this morning, did have some purpose though – I realised we need to get serious with our weaponry. It took several daylight hours to get there, but it suddenly dawned on me that so much of the messiness, the ungainliness of those bloodbaths may have been averted if we had been better equipped in the first place.

  The timing of it all was apt. Jenny's also been kicking my ass a little for a few days or more about the amount of effort being put into securing the base rather than defending it. She's rightly concerned that if our makeshift barricades are compromised – and possibly quite easily if we come up against the kind of cadaver numbers we saw here not too long ago – then we have little in the way of personal defence. We may have firearms now, which are invaluable for complete novice citizens such as ourselves (it's been about 20 years since we even fired super-soakers), but we have no effective weapons for when things get up close and personal.

  So we've put the tree barricades on hold for another day, which is probably for the best, and we've been doing our own 'weapons testing'. It's all about finding the right balance between defence and attack, for want of a better word; we need to fortify the base as much as possible, but we also need to have the weapons ready for when we are under attack.

  It's not a question of if, but when we confront that situation. We've all got it coming some day, that's just how it is now – and it’s better that we face up to that.

  2nd May 2016

  So we have established that our weapons of choice as we continue to take the fight to 2016.

  I had a few near misses that might have otherwise left me with a punctured shoulder or two, but we got there in the end. We spent the afternoon yesterday carrying out all manner of tests for robustness, strength and load-bearing, and ratings in terms of efficacy and penetration. We even allowed one cadaver into the base per weapon, kept at a safe distance from Jenny but allowed to come at me for a real-world test of its mettle. Looking back, that was perhaps a risky game to play, but it did test the improvised armaments and kept my hand in when it comes to corpse combat too.

  We were left with a top five chosen weapons. The humble broom handle squeezed

  Into our top five, crazy as that may sound, though as a bit of a last-resort spear or staff. When your options are largely limited to kitchen knives, utensils and any other inanimate objects, it gets tricky to keep inventing new punishers. The broom handle was both long and strong, capable of keeping the undead at arm’s length and yet also with the potential to deliver the final blow if used effectively. Similar could be said of the pickaxe handle that we found discarded atop the granite wall bordering the base and the old farm to the rear.

  One of my favourites was the axe, taken from the 'Break Glass' fire alarm within the building – but I do have concerns about the relatively short handle and how close you would have to get to your savage assailant to make your it stick. I also have a slight apprehension about the ability for it to get lodged into a carcass and compromise your life in the throes of an onslaught, but you can’t argue with its sheer brutality and otherwise effectiveness.

  Neither could be said of the heavy steel chain, arguably the most savage and unforgiving of weapons that we have adopted. It provides merciless attack from a comfortable distance, and is highly unlikely to get caught up in a zombie’s head such is its force and very nature. A huge disadvantage of the chain is its weight; it would be heavy enough to slow down Jenny for sure, and it weighs on me to an extent. It doesn’t have the inherent trait of sharpness or piercing that one might look for in apocalyptic weaponry. But it is bloody effective, wiping out the test cadaver in one barbaric swing and sending shrapnel of bloodied brain and skull bone hurtling through the air. It literally pounded the corpse’s skull and smashed it into pieces, severing all fleshy membranes in the process and sending it crashing to the floor in a crumpled heap.

  As you can probably tell, it’s the weapon that I will be carrying with me if and when we do ever have to venture from the security of these four walls. I’ve spent the morning wearing it and have already done some light sprints up and down the asphalt to get a feel for the load I might be carrying. It was intense, but felt good all the same.

  Rounding out our top five was the predictable kitchen knife; the biggest damn knife Jenny could find in the building, an uncompromising beast of a blade resembling the stereotypical meat cleaver that we’ve all seen on the TV at some point. Jenny’s early preference is for that very knife and though I’d rather she packed something a little more brutal and assuring, it’s largely about what you’re comfortable with wielding in the heat of the moment. If that’s where she’s at, then that’s fine by me – and hopefully it’s not even going to come to that anyway.

  Our weapons debrief was later cut short by some ominous sounds emanating from the bowels of the base, from an as yet unknown location. Naturally, it freaked us out as soon as we even realised there was a sound there to panic about. As with so many occurrences during this pestilence, it was like those first raw moments when you’re startled by a noise in the dead of the night. Pre-apocalypse, it would so often be the fridge murmuring, or the cat flap fluttering or a dislodged dish on the drainer, but you can’t help believing it’s something either sinister or supernatural. It’s instinct, it’s fear, it’s terror – and it’s all in the mind, usually. But during these deadly days and weeks, it isn’t just mind games, the threat is as real and fatal as it gets, and it could overcome you any second now.

  We thought we had cleared out any of those threats up here months ago, and we may well have. We were certain, and the evidence is that we have made it this far, so we must have, Rational thinking reaffirms that. But we need to work out where the hell those noises are coming from, and fast. That’s why we won’t be getting a lot of sleep tonight. We’re just about to begin a fresh sweep of the building from the inside out. With chain and blades at the ready, we’re heading into another very long night.

  3rd May 2016

  What a night. Though I think we both knew deep down where we thought the clambering, murmuring noises were coming from, after several hours of checking out every crack and crevice, every nuance of the building, we confirmed the potential threat loomed large behind one or both of those mystery locked doors that we fa
iled to open when we first arrived here a couple of months ago.

  They just won’t budge, and it was with that knowledge that we finally convinced ourselves it was safe to call it a night at about 4:30am. We just couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer, particularly Jenny. Up until that point, we were in agreement that we couldn’t let our guard down, we couldn’t give in to the fatigue. But when the time comes, the time comes – rational thinking told us we were as safe as we could be and more to the point, as safe as we had been for the last 60+ days. Last night was no different.

  Still I checked the door again and with that assurance, we barricaded ourselves in the sleeping quarters and let the dark of the slumber take hold, which it did pretty quickly. The draining sensation of paranoia and fear had long since taken its toll and rendered us ineffectual mentally, fit only for quiet rest.

  By the time we awoke, in the hazy morning light of around 8:45am, it was time to try again and then move on. With no change in our ability to access those corridors, we had to do just that – move on and hope we’re not caught off-guard anytime soon with a situation beyond our control.